Pioneer Day

Hey Family!

 

Sounds like y'all had a good time at Lake Powell.  Haha I'm glad y'all missed me too because I wanted to be there so bad.  Maybe we can take a quick trip before school starts.  ;)  that'd be pretty sweet.  

 

Aw man, Penny called you the other day!  Haha maybe they'll hire me back for three weeks before I gotta go up to school.  I miss that place and everyone there.  Do you know if Ryan is still manager at Prestige or did he leave?  And Sikander?  Where's Emily's new job at?

 

The heat and the humidity have definitely settled in this week so it looks like it's gonna be boiling hot from here on out.  Man, it's just my favorite thing to be dripping in sweat all day long.  Just kidding.  Nah, it's bad but the good thing is the bus is always blasting the air conditioning.  So if you're dying of heat you just gotta jump on the closest bus.  Hey..I guess that's one good reason for coming home...no humidity!  Nah, I'm happy to see y'all too.  I just love this place and the people so much.  It's gonna be sad to leave. 

 

We had our annual ward Pioneer Day BBQ on saturday.  I just have to say, the best part of it is there's these little fish ponds and you can catch the fish and then release em.  But I guess since it was a cold winter or something all the fish were too small this year to catch.  Such a bummer I tell ya.  I was really looking forward to it.  Our investigator, Andrea came though and she seemed to really enjoy it!  And she came to church yesterday too.  We're gonna teach her the law of chastity this week so please keep her in all y'alls prayers.  :)  she's awesome though so I ain't worried too much about her.  

 

I can't really remember much else of what we did this past week.  Oh yeah!  The alligator farm last monday.  It was weird but really cool.  I'd send y'all pictures but there's this sign right in front of my computer that says you're only allowed to plug in headphones and flash drives to the computer.  So...I'll try to be obedient.  Haha I'll try to send some next week though.  Alligators are giant though and really lazy.  The tour guide guy went close to them and fed them and what not.  They're just weird creature, that's all I gotta say.  

 

Anyways, I finished reading the Book of Mormon this morning and I wanted to share just a couple scripture I liked with y'all.  First being Moroni 9:25 "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 may his suffering 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 in your mind forever."  Mormon was telling his son, Moroni this because the people were so wicked and there were all these terrible things happening.  But I think it can relate to anybody really.  For example, "My daughter, be faithful in Christ; and may not the things which you are going through grieve thee, to weigh thee down in sorrow; but may Christ lift thee up, and may his suffering and death, and the showing his body unto our father, and his mercy and long-suffering, and the hope of his glory and of eternal life, rest in your mind forever."  I know it's true.  If we are faithful in Christ then everything will be different.  I have to say, while on my mission I've been able to see that.  It's hard to describe but I know that if you're striving to to always remember Christ you will truly be happy and everything will go better.  It's as simple as that.  If you want to be happy, do everything you can to gain a personal relationship with God and Jesus Christ.  

 

Second scripture being Moroni 10:32 "Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God."  Pretty sure it's the youth theme for this year.  I don't know it's just a cool scripture.   

 

The computers being all dumb and keeps kicking me off.  Hope y'all have a good week.  :)  love y'all!

 

Love Always, Sister Schmutz

oh man

Hey Family!

Aw man, y'all are going to Lake Powell this week.  You lucky ducks.  :)  I wish I could be there with y'all. 

Oh my goodness, did Sarah tell you?!  Yesterday Sarah, Nik, and Elise were skyping with Sister Mills and she called me.  Haha I could hear their voices through the phone!  We probably aren't allowed to do that but it was pretty cool nonetheless.  It made Sister Mills day too, so thank y'all for doing that.  Oh hey were you in Rexburg when it got all flooded out the other day?  Elder Steele showed me some videos of all the water everywhere and it was crazy!!   

Haha and here's the story of Elder Rothschild emailing you, Emily.  The elders and us always have this joke going around of who we're going to marry.  So long story short I said, "you should write my sister, Elder Rothschild!  Not my twin sister, she's got a boyfriend.  But my little sister."  and then I showed him some pictures and gave him your email.  And low and behold he actually did email you.  And that's about it.  :)  you should email him back though.  He's a pretty cool guy. 

Anyways, here's the crazy story from this week.  So remember last weeks story about BJ and Melissa?  Oh man, so we text him on Saturday to make sure they're still coming to church on sunday and here's how it goes.  I'll just type out our messages so it will make more sense. 

"Hey BJ are y'all still coming to church tomorrow?"

"yea of course ..."

"Sweet we'll be saving y'all a seat.  It starts at 9am.  May we come and teach y'all more tomorrow evening too?"

"Sure.  Can I tell you something ..."

"hello"

"Yeah what is it?" in the meantime I'm just thinkin aw man, what's he gonna tell us.  And then he says,

"I'm kinda have a crush on you, I think your really really cute"

Aw man, it's the worst when that happens!  Way to ruin everything.  We just texted him back and told him our purpose for being here and what not.  Man, I was so excited for the both of them because they were so sweet.  And he said he was gonna come to church tomorrow but they didn't show up.  We stopped by their place later since sunday is their only off day but they didn't answer.  Maybe we'll just pass them over to the elders to teach.  The thing that bugs me about the whole thing is he has a stinkin girlfriend and they were both really interested in learning more about the gospel.  I mean, things like that happen all the time but not when the people are actually interested.  I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens. 

Oh but there is some exciting news from the week!  Andrea came to church yesterday for the first time and really liked it!  Not the Brazilian Andrea, the Andrea that lives next to the Dixon's.  Aw man, she's so sweet.  We taught her on Thursday too and she really wants to get baptized.  She has a date set for Aug 3 but that ain't gonna happen.  Just minor details, ya know.  The other day we were visiting her and asked her how long she's been married to her husband for.  And she said they actually aren't married yet because if she gets married she won't get any grants or loans to keep going to school.  So basically she said she'll get married to him in four years or so.  But hey we haven't taught her the law of chastity yet so when we do we'll commit her to pray about what to do.  And in the meantime hopefully keep coming to church.  She's awesome though.  Sister Poole was able to bring her because Andrea owes some money on her truck so she can't drive it right now, so that was super nice.  I was freaking out during church too because the lessons weren't all that good and the talks were on the temple and she probably had no clue what anybody was talking about.  But hey the spirit must've touched her heart because she said she's excited to come back next week.

That's about our whole week right there.  Pretty good one to say the least.  Haha wait here's one more weird story.  So we're walking down the street and this guy rides up on his bike.  We wave to him and ask him how he is.  He gets off his bike and pretty sure he's drunk or something.  But he says, "Who?!"  and says it a couple more times.  We were just a tad bit confused so we said, "Who what?"  To which he replies, or at least this is what I heard, but he could've said something different.  "Whose a possessed black nigger?"  I replied, "Um..nobody."  and that happened a couple more times, and then he said, "Whose bullet proof?"  same thing, "Nobody."  In the meantime he was getting up way close.  And he says, "I'm bullet proof!" he said a couple more random things repeatedly and then I said, "Can we give you a picture of Jesus?"  Haha and I think it freaked him out because he started backing away.  Then we said, "Alright.  Have a good day Sir." and walked away.  Really weird.

Hey before I go here's a quick scripture to think about.  4 Nephi 1:38 "And it came to pass that they who rejected the gospelwere called Lamanites, and Lemuelites, and Ishmaelites; and they did not dwindle in unbelief, but they did wilfully rebelagainst the gospel of Christ; and they did teach their children that they should not believe, even as their fathers, from thebeginning, did dwindle."  The key is they didn't dwindle in unbelief, but they chose to rebel.  Everything always turns back to our agency.  So the question to think about is, how are your choices affecting you? 

I just want to say real quick that I love y'all so much.  And I have a testimony that the gospel of Jesus Christ will bless your life more than anything else.  I've seen it countless and countless times.  The secret to it though is you have to live the gospel of Christ everyday the very best you can.  And look back on all your blessings.  After all, your blessings grow when you count them.  Christ lives and God loves us.  I know it's true.  

Love Always, Sister Schmutz

p.s. Missy convinced me the other day to move back out here.  I'll clean out one of her rooms and live at her place for free.  And since I've mastered the bus system I'll ride the bus and go to school at LSU.  Sounds pretty good to me.  What do y'all think?  :)  

p.s.s. or p.p.s?  Anyways, our district is going to an alligator farm over in Hammond today.  So if you never hear from me again it's probably cause I got eaten by a gator.  But know that I love y'all anyway.  :)  I'll send pictures next week!  

blonde hair and blue eyes

Hey Family!

Aw man, I'm so happy y'all got to meet the Walls at their homecoming.  They're awesome people.  :) and I miss them so much!  Y'all could just send a CD with the recordings on it if you want.     

Oh hey and those Book of Mormon notes that I sent home are for Emily.  I didn't have time to write a note in with the package but it was part of our challenge together.  We agreed to read the Book of Mormon by the time school got out and with every chapter write down something we learned.  So that's mine for ya.  Where's your end of the deal, Emily?  ;) 

So yeah, I got a new companion!  Her name is Sister King and she's from Phoenix, Arizona.  She's been on her mission for six months and she's really nice.  Haha I don't know what else to tell y'all about her.  And Sister Wolf got transferred up to Marksville.  I miss her but know she's doing good.  Ya know, at first I really didn't want to get a new companion for my last transfer but now I'm really liking it.  It's weird, new companions help you to grow in different ways.  I actually think I was more trunky last transfer than this one.  Aw man, look at me.  Only trunky people talk about not being trunky.  Haha just kidding I want and need to work real hard the last little bit to help Sister King get to know the area and the people.  Plus I love the people here so much I can't just leave em hanging.  I think my goal this transfer is get members present at as many investigator lessons as possible.  Honestly I just forget to call and invite them so we hardly get any members coming out with us.  But we have so many sweet investigators that sincerely want to learn more and the members could really help. 

Hey!  When are y'all gonna come to Louisiana so you can meet all these cool people?  Here's a great idea!  Let's just all move to Baton Rouge.  Aw man, dream come true.  I've even adopted two children while on my mission so we already got family here!  Haha I'll explain.  At church Heather-Marie and Alasia like to call me mama for some strange random reason and drag me around everywhere with them.  It's hilarious!  I'd tell ya a funny story but you'd have to be there otherwise it'd make no sense.  It's funny, half the people in the ward know I go home pretty soon and the other half think I have a while left.  I love this place so much.       

Anyways, oh my here's the sweetest miracle.  I like to call it our transfer miracle because if we hadn't gone to transfers we wouldn't have ever met this couple.  Here's the background.  So Wednesday we go to transfers and what not and on the way home I think, "Hey we should go to walmart!"  because we haven't been grocery shopping in weeks and I don't want to starve my poor companion.  So fast forward to the end of shopping.  We're using the self check out machine to get our stuff and this couple squeezes past us to get behind us in line. 

They turn to us and say, "Are y'all Mormons?"

So of course we say, "Yeah!" 

"Oh cool!  We saw y'alls name tags and figured you were."

"Have y'all ever talked to missionaries before?"

"No.."

"Can we give y'all a Book of Mormon?"

"Yeah, we'd love one."  And we explain a little about it and how it's another testament of Christ.

"Aw sweet!  We'll go read it tonight!"

"Can we come by and teach you more about it?"

"Yeah.  Can y'all come over tomorrow?"

And then we get their info and what not and that was about it.  We called them the next day but they were at work.  So we went back on Sunday and were able to teach them the restoration.  It was a real good lesson too and I think they understood everything too!  Aw man, they related to Joseph Smith because they've been to so many different churches and have seen how they all teach kinda the same things but they're all different.  They're really interested and want to find out the truth for themselves so it's just really cool.  We didn't even get the chance to invite them to church, Melissa just turned to BJ during the lesson and asked, "You want to go to their church this sunday?"  Aw man, so cool!  I'm so excited for them.  It's so sweet because I've never taught a couple that are both interested.  haha and the funniest part of the lesson.  Melissa says, "In the Baptist church they believe Jesus had blonde hair and blue eyes.  In y'alls pamphlet his hair looks blonde!"  Super random and funny.  We just said, "oooh we've never noticed that before."  And moved on.

Before I got to go I just want to share a quick scripture with y'all.  1 John 3:18 "My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth."  Always remember, actions speak louder than words.  The scripture makes me think about something we were discussing in ward council yesterday.  Our ward has a big problem with transportation issues and getting people to church.  We were talking about how we need to assign certain people to pick up others, and yes it can be frustrating at times because we'll get there and they won't be ready or don't want to come.  But we just have to keep doing it until they do come.  Brother Richardson from the high council was there (he's one of my favorite person in the stake) and he reminded us of the covenants we made to consecrate all we have to the Lord.  I don't know, he went into more detail but it's too much to write.  It's so true though.  Our actions speak volumes more than our words.  We have to quit sitting around and expecting others to do things and go do the things Christ would want us to do.  After all, we already promised Him that we would.  

Love y'all so much!  Enjoy your last soccer tournament.  And good luck with finals, Sarah!

Love Always, Sister Schmutz