happy birthday Andrew!

Hey Family!

 

First and formost, Miranda is coming out to Utah this friday and leaves to the MTC the following wednesday!  So please, be sure to text/call her today and figure something out of when y'all can see them.  She's awesome and you'll love her so much.  :)  we're going to lunch with her in a couple hours too so I'll give her y'alls phone numbers as well.  She's excited to meet y'all! 

 

And second of all, HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANDREW!!  Hope you have fun down in Moab.  And hope you have a really good birthday year.  You're awesome!

 

This week has been an awesome week but goodness gracious I've never been so tired before.  We still don't have our car back but the bus was free all week so we took that a lot and just walked lots of places.  It was hard because we hardly saw anybody but hey we did get to meet tons of people on the bus that are really interested in learning more.  I'd say it was definitely a sweet little tender mercy for meeting all those people.  It's super sweet because for the most part they'd just walk up to us and ask us what our name tags were for.  And I kid you not, I've always failed at contacting but we asked the spanish elders what they say because they're always giving us referrals and they said all they do is ask, "have y'all ever talked to missionaries before?"  We tried it this week and for real, it works everytime.  Genius I tell ya, pure genius.  Haha I love riding the bus but at the same time it's annoying too because it take forever.  Multiple times we just barely missed the bus so we had to walk forever, but ya know it was a good thing.  It's funny too because when member hear we're taking the bus they freak out and want to drive us everywhere.   

 

Oh!  Here's a sweet story.  So on wednesday we catch this bus, catch another bus, and catch another bus and walk a ton to see this member but when we get there she said we'll have to come back another time.  So we decided to catch this other bus that would go over by the church and we'll see this other member.  As soon as we get to the corner the bus drives around the other corner and we barely missed it.  We didn't want to wait another hour so we decided to just walk.  We walked for quite a bit and passed a couple people that we should've talked to but we didn't.  While we're walking I'm praying and this is kinda the conversation I was having with God:

 

"Alright Father, I know I shoulda talked to those people we just passed but I didn't.  Hmm..here's the deal, you help me know what to say and I'll talk to the next person.  Ahh just kidding, I can't do it!  Please don't place anyone in my path.  Fine, alright let's do it." 

 

So we're a little ways down and can see the church parking lot.  A car just pulled in and jokingly I turn to Sister Wolf and say, "hey we should talk to that car that just pulled into the parking lot and ask them if we can show them around the church."  but really I didn't really have any intention of doing so.  Right then we turn the corner into the parking lot and the guy rolls down his window and asked if we're going to church.  Haha my first thought was, no we're just cutting through the parking lot to get to the members home.  But then it hit me that it'd be an easy conversation starter so we started talking with him and it was really sweet.  He even called us later in the evening and asked us a question about the church.  Sweet experience! 

 

Chandra came to conference yesterday too.  Haha bless her heart, she was absolutely freezing the entire time.  We had to run across the street and grab some blankets from Sister Easley's house.  I think she liked it though.  We only got a couple more thing we'll need to teach her and she's ready to get baptized.  So happy for her.  :) 

 

The week was filled with tons of little sweet miracles like that.  I tell ya, it was a hard week, but really good.  :)  Man, I just love the people here, it's so easy to get a long with them and talk with everyone. 

 

Before I forget, here's a sweet scripture I found the other day.  (Emily I hope you're nearly done with the Book of Mormon, you only got a month and a half left to finish it, and I just finished it yesterday;) it's in Moroni 9:25-26 this is what it originally said,

 

"My son, be faithful in Christ; and may not the things which I have written grieve thee, to weigh thee down unto death; but may Christ lift thee up, and mayhis sufferings and death, and the showing his body unto our fathers, and his mercy and long-suffering, and the hope of his glory and of eternal life, rest inyour mind forever. And may the grace of God the Father, whose throne is high in the heavens, and our Lord Jesus Christ, who sitteth on the right hand ofhis power, until all things shall become subject unto him, be, and abide with you forever. Amen." 

 

But I like to apply it more to me or you, so here ya go, "My daughter, be faithful in Christ; and may not the trials which you must go through grieve thee, toweigh thee down unto sorrow; but may Christ lift thee up, and may his sufferings and death, and the showing his body unto our fathers, and his mercy andlong-suffering, and the hope of his glory and of eternal life, rest in your mind forever. And may the grace of God the Father, whose throne is high in theheavens, and our Lord Jesus Christ, who sitteth on the right hand of his power, until all things shall become subject unto him, be, and abide with youforever. Amen."  Pretty sweet scripture.  Through Christ anything is possible! 

 

 I love y'all so much.  Keep up the good work.  :)

 

Love, Sister Schmutz

biking, biking, and more biking

Hey Family!

 

I hope y'all have fun on your cruise this week.  Enjoy it for me too!  Don't get too many tan lines.  :)  I already have a pretty good one on my feet and it's not even summer yet, priceless I tell ya. 

 

This week has been quite the interesting one.  Haha nah it's been a really good one!  Well, here's the story.  Monday evening we're driving back to our dinner appointment from across town because we were down at LSU with our district.  Of course it's during rush hour and we're driving on the freeway.  Sister Wolf was driving and the car infront of stopped so she went to switch lanes but didn't see the semi coming up in the other lane.  The first half of the semi drove by and barely missed us because we were barely in their lane but then the second half, well just the tires of the semi clipped the front right side of our car.  There's not very many people that can get in an accident with a semi on the freeway and walk away alright!  It was a sweet experience to say the least.  We aren't lucky, we are blessed.  God was definitely there protecting us, if she would have driven just a tiny bit faster we could've been hurt really bad.  But hey we're all good so don't worry.  :)

 

So our car is in being fixed and we've been biking all week.  Ya know, I just have to say that biking isn't that bad.  Haha I love it!  I wish I could go into more detail about all our biking experiences this past week but that would take way too long.  The only downside is planning is terribly hard, goodness I don't know how to plan when biking.  I used to think that we'd spend all our time driving everywhere but now we just spend all our time biking everywhere.  We took the bus a couple times though and lots of members gave us rides so it was all good.  Plus the bus routes changed all up yesterday and the bus is free all week so we're gonna be taking the bus a lot more this week. 

 

Overall it was a very good week!  We got to go to the temple with Miranda on wednesday.  Holy cow she's gonna make an awesome missionary that's all I gotta say.  I'm so excited for her.  I believe she's flying out to Utah on the 12th so y'all should text her or something today to figure out when you can meet up. 

 

The highlight of the week was yesterday!  Guess who came to church!  Chandra and her family came.  :)  goodness it's about stinkin time.  Whenever they've tried to come before something always comes up.  Saturday night we got a ride for them to come out to the woman's broadcast so they came there and really enjoyed it.  And said they were gonna be coming to church the next day.  They ended up waking up late and missed the bus so they took a taxi and stayed for the last two hours.  They all really like it!  Plus the McCartney's offered them a ride home and even a ride to church in the future.  Such a sweet little tender mercy.  They invited us over for dinner last night too and man I just have to say that I love them so much.  It's awesome to see how the gospel changes their life. 

 

Oh and here's another sweet miracle!  About a month or so ago we were walking down the street in Mall City (same place and day that guy kissed us).  Well when we were walking over there this guy came up to and asked us if we're church people so we said yes and talked a little about the church and got his info and what not.  Turns out he lived in third ward so we gave his info to the sisters there and that was it.  On tuesday they called us up to update us about Alin.  And guess what?  He got baptized on Saturday!  We got to go to his baptism and it was so sweet.  It was a little blessing to see that often times we don't see the results of our efforts, but you'll never know the effects you'll make on someone. 

 

Sarah!  I must say that the picture of you and Nik is one of my favorites.  Haha it's the best.  :) 

 

And Emily congrats on getting the scholarships.  Haha I don't know what adivce to give you for school.  My only advice would be to make a stinkin decision soon!  Goodness, you and your decision making.  Just kidding, you know I love you.  :)   

 

Oh before I forget!  Here's a scripture for y'all.  So in Ether the Jaredites were preparing to cross the waters to the promised land.  They made their way to the shore and, "they dwelt in tents, and dwelt in tents upon the seashore for the space of four years." (Ether 2:13)  They just waited there for four years!  And this is what it says next, "And it came to pass at the end of four years that the Lord came again unto the brother of Jared, and stood in a cloud and talked with him.  And for the space of three hours did the Lord talk with the brother of Jared, and chastened him because he remembered not to call upon the name of the Lord." (Ether 2:14)  They forgot to pray and ask the Lord what to do!  Here's the key though, I don't think they forgot to pray.  I mean, it's pretty hard to just forget God.  I think they weren't being sincere in their prayers.  That's the trick of why they were waiting there for four years.  They either weren't paying attention to answers, weren't acting on answers they were receiving, or just random little things that kept them from praying with real intent.  So the question is, how can y'all say more meaningful prayers?

 

I love y'all so much!  Hey and never forget that you're awesome.  :)

 

Love Always, Sister Schmutz 

 

p.s. if you're offering to send something, some starburst jelly beans would be greatly appreciated.  :)  haha and a water bottle.  I broke the one that y'all gave me for Christmas forever ago, goodness and I don't know what to do without my water bottle.  I'll look for one today at the store though so don't worry about that.

wedding and baptism!

Hey family!

 

Hope y'all are doing well.  :)  thank you for your letter, Sarah!  It made my day!  I'm a slacker and haven't written anyone lately but I'm glad someone will still write letters to me.  I hope your week has treated ya well. 

 

The Torres got married and baptized this week!  It was super sweet.  Man, they are so awesome too.  I'm so excited for them!  Steven and Kayla are both hilarious...I just love it.  They'd be at church every sunday but we never really talked to them until this past week.  Haha here was our conversation with them last sunday....

"When are y'all getting baptized?"

"We don't know!  Do you know?" (terrible planning and communication on the elders part)

"As soon as you're married you can get baptized."

"Could we do it all together the same night?"

"Haha well yeah, but how about we do the baptism later this week?"

"I just wanna get baptized already!"

Bishop Smith married the two of them tuesday night.  And then they got baptized friday night.  They are so sweet and have such strong testimonies, it was a sweet experience!

 

Let's see what else happened this past week..  Bishop Smith got released yesterday!  Man it's hard, I absolutely loved having him as our bishop.  We walked around the corner after church yesterday and he was just sitting in this empty room going through some paperwork and he looked so sad.  Haha we told him he needed to go find someone to get a hug but instead he just got up and asked us for hugs.  He gave a lot into his service and it really meant a lot to him, we'll miss him so much! 

 

Sister Wolf, Sister Seegrist, Sister Stennett and I all sang in church yesterday.  Well, Sister Stennett played the violin, but still.  I think it sounded pretty good!   

 

Hmm, there's not really a whole ton to say.  Our week was kinda lame, everyone kept cancelling but it's alright. 

 

Chandra's doing well.  We had an appointment with her on friday but she wasn't there which is very unusual because she'll always let us know if she has to cancel.  And then her phone just went straight to voicemail and we didn't know what was going on.  We invited her to the baptism but she said she might not be able to make it.  And she was definitely planning on coming to church but she didn't show up sunday morning.  So yesterday we decided to just stop by and see if she's alright.  The timing was perfect because they just got home.  Turns out they were planning on surprising us at the baptism friday night but then Geneva started acting up and they couldn't come.  And the same thing happened sunday morning before church.  The devil is working real hard on her but we're gonna go over today and bring someone to give her a blessing.  She's amazing!  I think the sweetest thing about Chandra is how in tune she already is with the spirit.  She was saying yesterday how they need to make it to church becaue she don't want to get baptized in a church she's hardly been to.  It's awesome because she always brings up what we need to tell her, but she thinks of it herself.  We're super excited for her!  I love how she has a real desire to know the truth for herself.  :)

 

Lately we've been going through the elders old area book and it's so crazy!  Back in 2007 there were tons and tons of people that got baptized.  It's interesting because mostly all those people are less active now.  The records for those people are terrible too.  I don't know, maybe the elders just didn't write down when they taught them.  But for the most part they didn't even teach them everything before they got baptized.  It made me start thinking about the people we teach now.  Although their baptismal number was higher back then I realized that the goal we have now is not just to have people get baptized, but have an enduring conversion process.  It's sweet because that's what a mission is all about.  I mean yes, we serve a mission to help bring others unto Christ.  But the biggest part of that is bringing yourself unto Christ and becoming more converted yerself.  It's just like this scriptures,  "When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren" (Luke 22:32)  I think it's not only needed in todays world, but it's also the only way to make it though...that is by our testimony.  So the question I have for y'all is, how are you becoming more converted everyday?

 

Just wanted to let y'all know that I love you.  I love the gospel and I know that Heavenly Father has a perfect plan for us, and for that I am so grateful. 

 

Love Always, Sister Schmutz