happy may :)

Hey Family!

 

Hope y'all are doing well.  :) that's so crazy to hear it was snowing yesterday back home.  It's been pretty cool here lately too which is really nice considering we have to constantly be outside.  Man, I tell ya by the end of summer I'm gonna have some pretty funny tan lines.  Don't worry though, I'm gonna be buying some sunscreen today so I don't get too sunburned. 

 

Haha Emily, all I gotta say is don't worry about failing the calculus test because guess who else failed it..haha yep, yours truly.  I'm pretty sure I should've got a zero on the test, but hey I got a one!  (shh you can ignore the fact that one is the lowest number;)

 

Sarah, such a sweet video you sent!  Sister Mills showed it to me the other day.  :)  dude and of course I'll come to the gym with you.  I've gotta work off some of this chubbiness.  Goodness, I don't know what it is with the food down here but everyone soaks their food in butter no joke so practically everything makes you gain tons of weight.  Man, I always say I need to eat healthy or exercise more.  And then the other part of me just says nah, you can do that when you get home.  It's bad I tell ya.  Congrats to you too Mom and Dad on your healthiness!   

 

This week was pretty lame to say the least.  We had tons and tons of appointments with all these potential investigators and every stinkin one cancelled.  It was frustrating but that's alright.  This week is gonna be a really good one!  Oh my, here's a funny story for y'all though.  I got a boyfriend this week!  Hold up, here's the story behind it:

 

So we're going to see this potential investigator and we ride up to her house.  Lots of people are over and they're all sitting outside drinking and what not.  My first thought was, "hmm, I think we should reschedule...looks like a bad time" 

 

Then her neighbor pulls up and is cursing all up in here while getting out of his car. 

 

One of the ladies yells over to him, "Can't you see these are church ladies over here!  Watch your mouth!" 

 

So of course he walks over.  In the meantime Sister Wolf is talking to our potential investigator.

 

And to me he says, "What's your name?"

 

"Sister Schmutz, we're missionaries for our church."

 

"What do missionaries do?"

 

"We go about teaching others about our beliefs..."

 

"What church you go to?"

 

"The Church of Jesus Christ of Later-day Saints. You ever heard of it?"

 

"No."

 

"You want to learn more?"

 

"No I don't." 

 

And then he walks inside the house.  By this point I was just thinking alright, this is really weird.  Then he walked back out and said a couple other things which I won't write and will spare you the details. 

 

And then he says,  "You want to go on a dinner date with me?"

 

"Sorry, we can't date while we're missionaries."

 

"Well when you be done?"

 

"Oh in about six months"

 

"Honey, I got nothing to do, I'll be right here in six months."

 

"I'll be a couple thousand miles away though."

 

Haha and that's about it.  Quite the experience.  :) It was pretty funny and so ridiculous at the same time. 

 

Anyways, on a side note everything is going great!  We were waiting at a bus stop earlier this week and this guy walked by and then came back holding two waters he just bought for the two of us.  Super sweet, I love moments like that.  I love Baton Rouge so much.  The people are crazy but so awesome too.  :) our ward barely functions sometimes but it's like a giant family that I love so much. 

 

Oh yeah, and here's a sweet scripture I wanted to share with y'all.  At this point in the scriptures Nephi's brothers are complaining about all these things because they don't understand.  So he asked them if they prayed and asked God yet and they said they hadn't.  So this was Nephi's answer, "Do ye not remember the things which the Lord hath said? - If ye will not harden your hearts, and ask me in faith, believing that ye shall receive, with diligence in keeping my commandments, surely these things shall be made known unto you." (1 Nephi 15:11)  I like it because it applies to all of us with our questions.  The key that stand out to me is where it says "with diligence in keeping my commandments"  we have to pray and then go do something.  We can't just wait around for our answers to come because that's not how it works.  I know it to be true because God doesn't start helping us until we start helping ourselves. 

 

I hope y'all have a wonderful week.  Y'all are awesome and I love you so much!!

 

Love Always, Sister Schmutz

happy Easter! :)

Hey Y'all! 

 

Sorry it's taken so long to email y'all today.  I've been throwing up all morning so pray that I don't throw up all over the library computers.  That would be pretty nasty!  Haha nah, I'm feeling a lot better so don't worry.  I must've just eaten something bad this morning. 

 

This past week was so good!  I'm so happy y'all got to see Miranda.  She's awesome, isn't she?  :)  I just love her!  She'll do an awesome job on her mission.  And she said y'all are so nice too.  And thank you so much for sending the water bottle with Sister Brown, it's exactly what I needed.    

 

Remember how I said our car wasn't fixed yet?  Well..the office elders told us earlier this week that our area is officially a bike/bus/walking area now!  Haha I think it's hilarious because right after our first bus day forever ago, Sister Wolf and I were just thinking of how awesome it was and we even talked about giving our car up so we could use the bus system.  Plus there's tons of other areas that need a car more than ours.  We decided to not actually do it though because a car is very useful.  But then reality hit..funny how that works out isn't it.  Our car just got done being fixed today and I'm not sure who they'll be giving it to, but it's all good.  The office elders mentioned that we might get a car back and we'll have to share it with the elders, but we shall see.  Riding the bus isn't that bad though.  It's extremely frustrating at points but I like it. :)

 

This transfer is gonna be such a good one!  The office elders are back in our ward so our district is back to normal now.  The office elders are Elder Watkins and Elder Steele and then the north elders are Elder Navitikula and Elder Gillen.  They're all awesome so I'm really excited!  Plus we got a new roommate..the spanish sisters are in a trio now. 

 

And yes, Chandra did get baptized yesterday!!  Aw man, so good.  :)  we went over for the interview wednesday night and it went great.  Haha we even missed all our buses so we were stranded a couple miles away from home way past curfew.  We had our bikes so we could've easily riden home but the elders were on foot and didn't know where home was so we ended up walking with them until the office elders could come pick us all up.  Haha man, it was quite the way to start off the new transfer.  Chandra and her family met up with Amy's family in Mississippi for a couple days and then they all drove back for church sunday morning.  And the baptism was right after church.  We didn't even get to see the baptism because Geneva was freaked out because she saw her mom in a box full of water and ran outside so we went out to get her.  But otherwise I think it went pretty well.  We're super excited for her!  I think they should call her to be one of the young womens leaders because Chandra would be awesome at that!  It was a super sweet day and Amy is so nice.  We'd been texting Amy practically every week and it's perfect because she's always right there to support Chandra. 

 

We did lots of service this week!  Man I tell ya, there's nothing better than serving.  The young women had a yard sale/bake sale/car wash saturday morning to raise money for girls camp.  So we got to help out with that and it was really fun.  Haha I got really sunburned, but it was a fun day.  And then earlier in the week we broke into Missy's house and started cleaning it up for her.  (no worries, she gave us permission to break in)  her house isn't that bad but it's just overwhelming because there's stuff everywhere.  Her mom used to live there right before she passed away and she's the one that made it so messy.  We started with cleaning lots of random things but the bookshelves looked so good when we were done.  She kept saying how shiny they looked.  :) we should've taken a before an after picture. 

 

Haha oh my and here's the random funny moment from the week.  Yesterday in sacrament meeting the choir was singing He is Risen or one of those easter songs.  We're in the choir too, just so you know.  So anyways it goes really well until the very last line.  Have in mind that we'd only practiced a couple times and the week before we decided to change it and slow down for the last line.  Well, when we get up there to sing lots of others that hadn't been to practice come up.  And the very end Sister Mills leads us to slow down, half of the people singing don't even watch her.  Sister Theriot playing the organ is playing at a different speed then we're supposed to be singing.  And everyone is singing hallelujah completely off.  Oh my goodness it was terrible.  We walked back to our seats and just started cracking up.  Man, it was so bad. 

 

Anyways, the library is about to close.  Just wanted to say that y'all are awesome!  And guess what?  I LOVE you!!

 

Love Always, Sister Schmutz 

transfer 11?

Hey Family!

 

So guess who's getting transferred?!  Haha just kidding.  Sister Wolf and I both get to stay in Baton Rouge together!  We're really excited.  :) man I just love this place.  This coming transfer is gonna be a really good one, I just got a good feeling about it.  Haha and last transfer was the most stressful/weird/good/unexpected transfer yet..it was just a strange transfer.  It was funny because I talked in sacrament meeting on sunday and they mentioned that transfers are this week so tons of people came up thinking I was gonna be leaving and were saying goodbye.  I'm sure they'll be surprised to see both of our faces next sunday.  :) we got tons of sweet potentials to work with this transfer and it's gonna be real good. 

 

Hey and guess who's getting baptized this sunday?  Chandra is!!  She called us earlier last week asking if she could push her baptism forward a week.  She originally wanted to get baptized in South Carolina so her best friend Amy and all her family could be there.  But turns out that some of them wouldn't be there and some of Amy's family is coming down here easter weekend.  So her husband is gonna baptize Chandra and she's super excited!  We have an appointment with her later today haha and we're gonna teach her practically all the commandments, follow the prophet, obedience, honor the law, ten commandments, sabbath day, and about the temple.  Haha and this is gonna be our first lesson we're having with a member present.  It's gonna be quite the interesting lesson.  She'll have her baptism interview wednesday and then they're going out of town until sunday morning.  Kinda a crazy couple of days but we're really excited for her.  Please keep her and her family in y'alls prayers. 

 

Our car still isn't fixed yet!  Haha who knows, maybe they gave our car to someone else because it's taking forever!  We've been taking the bus everywhere.  I must say I really like taking the bus, the only downside is it takes about an hour and a half to get anywhere.  But hey it only costs four dollars for the day so it's not that bad.  The elders don't have a car either so they're in our same boat right now too.  Mom, don't worry about the car crash, we are completely fine.  :)  it's hilarious too because pretty much all the members freak out when they find out we have to ride our bike/walk/take the bus.  They want to drive us everywhere and treat us like little kids, it's so funny. 

 

Well, the Torres moved to Texas on Saturday.  Bummer too because they were really good for our ward.  The week they got baptized Steven's ex wife lost her job so they ended up moving to Texas and took his children with them.  They wanted to be close to them so they had to move along to.  We went to help them pack up friday night and they left so much stuff!  They didn't even start packing until we were there and then they just filled their little van and left the rest there.  Then on saturday we went back and cleaned out their whole apartment for them and took lots of stuff to the church for a yard sale the young women are having this weekend. 

 

I wish I had a funny story to tell y'all from last week but I can't really remember much that happened.  Oh something cool though is Gladys Knight is coming in two weeks with a choir to sing and what not.  So we've been asking to invite lots of people because it should be really good.  If we had a car we'd be going around to all these less active members but unfortunately we don't.  So we decided to call all the ladies on our ward roster.  Most of them don't answer or their phones are disconnected but two less actives we've never met before were really excited about it and are really looking forward to it.  So I'd say that's a pretty sweet little miracle. 

 

Well, sorry for the lame email today.  Oh hey but y'all should check out this awesome video.  Share it on facebook/twitter or something!  Here, I'll make it easy for y'all, just click Because of Him.  I absolutely love it!   I've been thinking about the resurrection of Christ all week, since it's easter and all.  And I found this scripture, 1 Corinthians 15:22 "For as in Adam alldie, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."  I never really thought about it this way before, but if Christ wasn't resurrected none of us could live again.  I used to always just think it's cool that he came back, but didn't think much of it.  But it's essential!  Because Christ lives, we all will live again!

 

Y'all are awesome.  Don't forget to remember Christ this Easter season.  Love y'all so much.  :)

 

Love Always, Sister Schmutz

 

p.s. Sarah good luck with the start of a new semester.  And good luck to the rest of y'all with the end of school.