new year brings new fortunes

Hey Family!

 

First I just want to say that 2014 has already been an amazing year so far...it's definitely going to be a good year.  Here's a crazy little tender mercy we were able to experience on saturday that explains why this year has already been so good.  :)  so we just got back from exchanges.  I was up in Amite with Sister Tiller and Sister Brady was here with Sister Paulson.  So I asked Sister Brady what the plans were for the day and she said we were gonna go up to this neighborhood near Lake Ramsey to try some less actives.  Let me just say we've been up there a billion times and no one ever answers their door.  So I was just thinkin to myself...alright if ya say so...no one will answer though.  Low and behold the first less active, Dixie actually answered her door!  We didn't even get the chance to ask her if it was her, the first thing she said was come on in.  And then she straight up told us her concerns and why she's not coming to church.  Plus she said we could come back and visit more often.  Miracle I tell ya, miracle.  Then we go to the second less active, Michele and the exact same thing happened.  She opened her door and the first thing she said was come on in.  She told us her whole life story basically and all her concerns too and said we were welcome to come back.  It was definitely a good day!  Man, haha I couldn't believe we finally met them...I just walked away saying to myself what just happened!

 

Despite the fact that everyone and their dog is sick (literally, we went over to Joy's yesterday and her dog was throwing up all over the place).  I'm not sick yet though!  It's been a great start to the new year.  Family! I'm so happy the missionaries get to come over and teach y'all!  Mom, way to go to just get it scheduled...you can always just get anything done.  It'll be real sweet to have the spirit from the missionaries in the home.  :)

 

Let's see...other than that nothing too new has really happened this week.  We decided to go through the ward directory and meet every single person on it so that's what we've really been working on lately.  There's lots that aren't interested in letting us come in but that's okay, maybe it's just not their time right now.  But hey we're finding tons of sweet less actives that are willing to let us in and we're starting to build good relationships with them!  Plus we're finding more people to teach and visit.  After all, less actives don't hang out with active members...so it's true that we can find tons of people surrounded by our less active members.

 

Hmm I'm not sure what else to really say, sorry this email is so boring!  We were gonna go to New Orleans with Orisia today but she had to cancel yesterday because she has to take care of her patients with the cold weather since everyones getting sick.  Transfers is coming up pretty soon which is kinda crazy.  Time just keeps flying by. 

 

Oh hey here's a scripture I really like from my studies. In Alma 42 it talks alot about justice and mercy which I think isn amazing principle of the gospel.  God is just meaning that when we do something then we have to deal with the consequences.  "according to justice, the plan of redemption could not be brought about, only on conditions of repentance." (Alma 42:13)  If we had just the law of justice by itself it would be physically impossible because we can't repent of all our sins completely by ourselves.  But the key is God is also merciful.  He's merciful because he sent his son, Jesus Christ to the earth to accomplish the atonement so that we can be forgiven of our sins and we don't have to completely suffer alone.  "the plan of mercy could not be brought about except an atonement should be made; therefore God himself atoneth for the sins of the world, to bring about the plan of mercy, to appease the demands of justice." (Alma 42:15)  Justice and mercy work hand in hand and because of each other we are able to have to pay the consequences for our sins, but we also can receive the gift of mercy from the Savior.  It's simply amazing how Heavenly Father has an exact perfect plan for us and how he loves us so unbelievably much.

 

I love y'all oh so very much!  Not to mention I think you're pretty amazing.  :)

 

The computer keeps retyping over all my words and it's driving me crazy!  So I'll write y'all next week.

 

Love Always, Sister Schmutz

2014

Hey Family!

It was so good to see y'all on Christmas too.  Y'all definitely made my day and I loved seeing your bright and shining faces.  :)  thank you for being such an awesome family.  And I'm glad y'all liked the package I sent home.  Haha Mom, I'm glad I only have one Christmas away too.  I'm not gonna lie, I loved the days leading up to Christmas and getting to share so many messages about Christ with everyone but then after Christmas was over I just had no desire to do anything.  It didn't help that it rained practically all weekend and all I wanted to do was go home and crawl back in bed.  But hey the desire to keep going is back and I'm ready to work hard during this year.

Goodness gracious the craziest thing from the past week was yesterday.  During the 3rd hour of church Bishop Elmer had a combined lesson and he talked.  Seriously he's talked the last couple fifth sundays and in sacrament meeting a couple times on missionary work so the members are probably sick of it.  But yesterday he said that for 2014 our ward is gonna have a goal of 25 baptisms.  As far as I know we've only had two baptisms this whole year...but in 2011 they had 23 baptisms.  At first I was just thinkin man this is never gonna happen.  But ya know, when you trust in Heavenly Father he can make anything happen.  He challenged every person to invite someone to listen to the missionaries and he's constantly focusing on inviting others.  Covington Ward is part of the New Orleans Stake so our goal is to make a stake up here so we don't have to drive all the way across the causeway.  I think our bishop is inspired and knows what he's doing so it's pretty sweet to see how he's pushing to hasten the work of the Lord.  Now the members are just gonna have to step up so we have tons of people to teach!

But going along with that I think the true miracle from the week was yesterday we got to share the restoration with our investigator Orisia.  Let's just say we've been visiting her about every single week since I first got here but she talks a ton and we never get a chance to share a lesson before she kicks us out.  It was definitely a sweet experience because she already knew most of the restoration and about the Book of Mormon but we were able to clear up some questions she had and the spirit was definitely there.  We're going down to New Orleans with her next monday to go to some thrift stores...haha she's the one that got us hooked on shopping at the thrift stores.  Goodness I just love her!  She's a chinese medicine doctor and kinda crazy, but hey I love crazy people.  :)

Mom, don't worry I don't need a coat or anything.  Thank you for thinking about me!  Haha and I wish I could've heard your talk yesterday.  I bet ya did great!  I'm sure y'all are glad I didn't call you at 5:30 in the morning like McKenzie did.  I remember she did that last year too and I was really considering doing it to wake y'all up but then decided to opt out.

The week was a pretty good week overall, here's just a couple of the highlights:

Monday- Pulled our couch outside and played Life with the Covington Elders in the driveway of our apartment.  Haha our neighbors thought we were crazy and it was freezing but it was fun!

Tuesday- Made tons of cookies at Joy's house and then went caroling with the Elders and gave them to some people we knew and some random people with wrapped copies of the Book of Mormon.  Plus we found out Dale passed away...his niece said that on the way to the hospital he asked her to grab the peanut butter cookies we made to bring them!  Goodness he was the sweetest guy.  :)  She mentioned how he always talked about us!  Don't know if she was just being nice of if that's really true considering the fact we'd only met him twice and talked on his porch for maybe 5 minutes total.  But hey I know he's probably already found the missionaries in the spirit world and is listening to them right now.  I'm looking forward to the day when I'll get to see him again.  :)

Wednesday- Got to see y'all!!  Other than that we got to play checkers with the Tapia's and make some cookies.  And then helped the Holbrook's with a puzzle they got for Christmas.  Definitely a good Christmas....I'm thinking a puzzle every Christmas should be a new tradition.  Remember when we'd always go to Little Grandma's and she's be working on puzzles?  By the way be sure to tell her thank you so much for the blanket!  It keeps me warm everynight.  :)

Thursday- Here's a funny story for you.  It didn't happen this week but it happened at the Goff's and we visited them on thursday.  Maria asked us if we wanted an altoid but we told her no thank you we were good.  So this is what she says, "You sure?  These are special altoids...see right here it says they're made with real peppermint oil and the dreams of pregnant mermaids."  Haha I thought it really said that!

Friday- We updated our map since everyones names have fallen off...and we didn't know what else to do!

Saturday- All our plans fell through and we didn't know what else to do.  Perfect timing Sister McMullen called and asked if we could come clean up her house so we got to serve her!  That was just a little tender mercy of the Lord for providing us with something useful to do with our time.  Plus she's the sweetest lady.  Plus we met a new less active family that is willing to let us come back and see them!

Sunday- We finally taught Orisia!! 

Oh yeah and here's one scripture for y'all.  Alma 33:23, "your burdens may be light, through the joy of his Son."  Christ has already suffered for each of us, and he wants us to use the atonement so we can be forgiven!  It makes him happy when we turn to him and he can help us.  And what a blessing that is, that he can lift our burdens and take everything away...all because he loves us.    

Well family, I hope y'all have a good rest of the holidays break.  Enjoy the movie y'all are gonna see today and skiing later.  Thank you for all your prayers! 

Guess what?!   I LOVE YOU!  (I hope that makes you think of Jo:)

Love Always, Sister Schmutz    

winter wonderland...christmas party that is!

Hey Family!

 

Are you counting down the hours yet until we get to talk?  Haha I'm so excited to see y'all!! 

 

Alright so here's the plan, sorry it's different than what I told y'all last week.  I hope it's not messing up any plans y'all already had.  The Holbrook's invited us over so we're gonna be there around 4 (that's the time for here).  I hope y'all know someones skype information because they're letting me use their skype account.  So can one of y'all please log on and go add Laurie.holbrook1 before Christmas?  Thank you!  The Holbrook's also invited us for Christmas dinner since we'll already gonna be there so they said we're free to skype until then.  I hope that gives y'all enough time for us to talk!  I'll give y'all a call when we get to their house so you can know when to get on the computer.  I hope that works for y'all...I'm excited to hear and see you!!

 

 

I got all your packages!  Thank you so much for sending all of them.  I must say that the tree was the coolest idea ever!  Also the toothbrush y'all sent is the sweetest toothbrush I've ever seen.  Thank you so much for all you do!  Did y'all get the package I sent home?  If not hopefully it'll get there today...and I forgot to write don't open it until Christmas! If you did already that's okay though.  :)   

 

 

This past week was a really good week.  For the first time since I've been here we taught 20 lessons which was a real success!  All of them were less active/active members though so now we're gonna start working on finding more investigators and really focusing on the investigators that we do have.  The work is kinda slow here right now but that just means that there's more work for us to do. 

 

 

Maybe since there's no snow on the ground, or the fact that it was up in the 80s last week, but it just does not feel like Christmas here!  It's so weird!  Maybe that's why I don't miss home so much right now...  No one invited us over for Christmas eve so during the day we're gonna make cookies and then during the evening we're gonna go caroling and hand out cookies, dvds, and Book of Mormons.  It'll be pretty sweet!  Plus we get to watch Christmas movies!  President Wall said specifically we can watch A Christmas Carol and It's a Wonderful Life but he also said if we're at someone's home and they put on a movie we can use our judgment to watch it.  The Tapia's invited us over Christmas day so hopefully they'll put on Elf or something....that's a good wholesome movie, right?  ;)   

 

 

The highlight of the week was our ward Christmas party.  I took a couple pictures but they really don't do any justice...it was beautiful!  The only down part was we invited tons of people, and I mean tons of people and not one of them showed up.  But hey it was still a good evening.  We had dinner, read the Cajun Night Before Christmas, Santa was there, and then we had a live nativity.  It was a really good night.  :) 

 

 

President Wall has been focusing on helping our mission become a spirit led mission and I found a cool scripture that related to it I wanted to share with y'all.  Aaron was one of the sons of Mosiah and he was a missionary.  But just like every missionary he was going through a little rough patch in his service.  No one would listen to him, he was cast into prison, people rejected him and all sorts of things.  And then it says this, "And they went forth withersoever they were led by the Spirit of the Lord."(Alma 21:16) so they just decided to listen to the spirit and go with it.  Then, "the Lord began to bless them, insomuch that they brought many to the knowledge of the truth." (Alma 21:17) Success doesn't come until we fully trust in the Lord and know that he will guide us to where we need to be.  Pretty cool don't ya think? 

 

Anyways there isn't much more for me to say...since I'll be talking to y'all on Christmas!  I love y'all!

 

Love Always, Sister Schmutz 

 

p.s. if my memory is right it's Whitney's birthday today!  Sarah be sure to wish her warm wishes from me.  :)