ax and ye shall receive

Hey Family!

 

I hope y'all aren't getting too sick back home.  It's crazy that y'all say it's getting so hot and humid there because it's not really all the hot here.  It rains pretty much every afternoon though which is awesome!  I love the rain so much!  Haha and I can believe it that Lucy is getting real big.   

 

This week went by real fast but it was such a good week!  We had interviews with President and I'm pretty sure I know where I'll be serving for the next couple transfers but I'll let y'all know when I know for sure because I don't want to jinx anything, but let's just say I'm super excited!  Seriously time keeps going by so fast it's crazy! 

 

Alright so here's a sweet miracle from this week for y'all.  Well first let me explain the subject for the email, ax and ye shall receive.  Everyone in Louisiana says ax instead of ask.  And exactly that happened this week.  So last sunday we were fasting for Kiwanna because she had a baptismal date set but she hadn't come to church yet.  When we first met with her she said she'd just ask for work off because they were already overstaffed anyways and she thought it would be easy to get off.  But as soon as she asked her manager told her no.  We didn't know what to do because you can't just tell someone you've barely met that they should quit their job so we were working on building her faith first so she'd have enough faith to  quit her job.  Well we went by on Friday to see her and asked how she's been doing and how works been going.  And guess what she said...she quit her job!  She said she quit because she was sick of her manager, but really it was an answer to our prayers!  I'm so excited for Kiwanna and the things that are instore for her future! 

 

Something cool I learned in my studies this past week was related to unity.  In ZTM on friday we were talking about unity and something important I learned was that as a companionship you can be united, but you can also become unity in disobedience.  It relates to the people building the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11.  The people were building the tower to find a shortcut to heaven.  And like it says in verse 6, "And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do."  The people were all united in one purpose and one cause, and there were evident blessings from it.  But then in the next verse the Lord goes and confounds their language.  He confounded their language because they were united in disobedience.  They were trying to find shortcuts when they should've been living the right way and not finding shortcuts.  It's the same way with building unity in companionships, we can't find the shortcuts to be obedient, we must do the right thing together. 

 

I hope y'all have been reading your scriptures lately.  I promise that the blessings that will come from reading daily will be far greater than will come from anything else you could spend your time doing throughout the day. 

 

Hey and before I forget, Sarah, or Mom, or anyone.  Could you please find my ipod and send it to me this week, also send the charger!  President Wall challenged us to read the Book of Mormon before October 14 because the Book of Mormon play is coming to New Orleans then.  He said we could listen to it too and the office elders said they could put it on our ipods so we can listen to it in the car.  Thank you so much!! 

 

Hmm there's not much else to tell y'all but know that I love you!!  Send me any questions you want next week!  Hey and transfers is next week so I'll write y'all on tuesday.   

 

Love Always, Sister Schmutz

    

september

Hey Family!

 

Sorry we didn't get to email yesterday because the library was closed.  It feels like I haven't written to y'all in forever! 

 

Holy cow and I have a crazy story to tell you!!  Saturday we were visiting a referral and Brother Chou from our ward kept calling us over and over again.  So while Shandra was busy for a sec we went outside and decided to call him back because we figured it must be important.  So I get on the phone and he says, "Sister Schmutz, I have someone I want you to talk to."  And here's the crazy part, it was McKenzie Cooper!!  I guess one of the Chou's kids live in Oklahoma in the ward she's serving in and they were there visiting for the weekend.  We only talked for a real short amount of time but she sounds like she's doing great!  I'll have to find out more from the Chou's when they're back in BR. 

 

This past week was an awesome week.  Since it was the end of the month we had extra miles and part of our ward area crosses the Mississippi but no missionaries ever go over there because we don't have enough miles.  I think it was about two years ago when elders were assigned there but there was no progress so they took them out.  And currently there's only two active members over there, I don't blame them though because it takes them an hour to get to church.  So we decided to cross the river on Friday!  It was real pretty over there and we tried contacting a referral but she wasn't home and hasn't answered her phone.  Other than that we tried stopping by a couple less active members, we saw the Dedon's (active members), and then tried some tracting.  Let's just say all the people that live out in the middle of nowhere live there for a reason, because they don't want to be contacted.  But overall I think it was a great experience.  New Roads, the area up by False River was beautiful.  I'll send some pictures home to y'all next week.  Plus we got a brand new car this week so it was fun driving way over there in it. 

 

Another highlight from the week was when we got to watch Mulan for our monthly ward movie night.  Usually we have to watch church sonsored movies because the missionaries are in charge of movie night but President gave us permission to watch Mulan and it was great. 

 

A sweet miracle from this week was a referral we received from mormon.org.  It's kind of a confusing story but I'll try to explain it clearly to y'all.  So the referral was from her friend that lived in South Carolina and it said that she was interested in learning more and had two children.  So we try stopping by the address given and the guy there said that Geneva didn't live there anymore, she lived with her mom.  We were confused so we asked how old she was and he said 13, but the referral said that she had two children.  So we asked for her address here but he didn't know it but he gave us her phone number.  The phone number was the same as the one received but the one we had had a different area code and when we called it didn't work.  We were just about to stop by again to ask him for another phone number when I thought maybe we should try the local area code.  We asked for Geneva Johnathan because that's what her friend said her name was but turns out those are her two childrens names.  Haha so Shandra invited us over and she fed us.  Turns out they went to church in South Carolina with her friend and loved it there and really felt the spirit.  And she's been trying to find that same peace again.  I'm so excited to start knowing them better and bringing the peace and spirit back to them! 

 

us and prairieville down in NOLA.  :)

Something I learned in my scripture study this week was about faith.  Every month we strive to develop a christlike attribute and this last months was faith so I was already studying it a lot getting lots of conference talks to read.  And in Moroni 7 it talks a lot about faith, hope, and charity with how they're related.  In verse 40 it says, "And again, my beloved brethren, I would speak unto you concerning hope.  How is it that ye can attain unto faith, save ye shall have hope?"  In order to have faith we have to first have a belief.  And then we exercise that belief until we do have faith.  The definition of faith is unquestioning belief.  And the key to changing belief into faith is hope.  Hope is the key factor that changes our belief to unquestioning belief because we have enough faith. 

 

Sorry I have to hurry and email President before an appointment we have to be at soon.  I love y'all and hope you have a wonderful week! 

 

Love Always, Sister Schmutz 

Hey Family!!

New Orleans was great!  Way back when, President told Sister Andrade that she needs to go see New Orleans so we decided to ask the office elders to go today and they said yes so we ended up going with our district which includes the office elders and north elders and then we also invited prairieville and tiger bend so it was just our old district that came along.  As always a great time with fellow missionaries.  :)  sorry we're off to a dinner appointment soon so I'll try writing as fast as I can.  

This week we did tons of service.  Let's just say I've never sweated so much before in my life.  For specialized training we had an hour of instruction and then President wanted us out and doing something so we had a zone service project all day for two days.  Hot and humid weather equals a lot of sweat.  And then we were helping lots of people move all week.  Man I love serving though.  :)

Oh hey and there's a new video for the temple and it's awesome!  If y'all haven't seen it yet you should go soon...it's so good.  

Other than that this week was just a weird one because I hardly saw anyone from the ward.  We went on exchanges and I was down in second ward for wednesday.  Then thursday and friday we were doing service all day and saturday we were helping people move all day.  So we hardly got to see anyone.  All I can say is I love our area and the people here.  

I hope y'all have a wonderful week.  I love y'all!

Love Always, Sister Schmutz