¡Hola Mi Familia y Amigas!

   Well, I´m in Barcelona now! I live close to La Sagrada Familia. It´s the huge cathedral that they have been building for over 100 years now. We plan on going inside next week. So you all think I look tired?? Well that is probably because I am. The first few days were crazy, and we didn´t get to sleep for the whole 8 hours, and everyone only speaks spanish and my mind wants to turn off. Church was a struggle to stay awake during, but I did! I didn´t understand hardly anything though. I´m sure I look like a zombie half of the time. I think the language exhausts me more then anything, but I´m not to worried about it. I got a little nap today which was very much needed. 

  The members here are so awesome! Last night we had two members come out with us. One was just a young man who came up to us oneSunday and asked us if he could help. It was awesome! He helped to street contacting and we got a new investigator because of it. Whenever the members and the missionaries work together everything is possible. 

  They don´t only speak Spanish here, but they also speak Catalan. So some people instead of saying Adios will say Adeo which sounds really similar to Ateo which means Athiest. I get confused, but I´m learning. My district only speaks spanish as well, so I definitely have to learn by the spirit. Most of the time I´m not really sure what we are doing throughout the day so I just follow my companion around. But, as I´ve been obedient I have been blessed to actually kind of understand what is going on now. I´m glad my companion has patience haha.

   I´m always tired but I´m always happy. The work of God is amazing. It´s amazing to see all of the little miricles that happen everyday. So in my mission we go to bed at 11:30 and wake up at 7:30. There are four Sisters in our very large piso. Two of us are new and our trainers are also Sister training leaders. So on Monday they had a meeting and the other new Hermana and I had to work together. You can imagine how that could go. Neither of us speak spanish very well but we found where our appointments were without getting lost. Our appointments fell through, so we contacted on the street and everyone rejected us. That was disappointing, but we knew that we were being obedient and that the Lord would bless us. We had McDonalds for lunch! Tasted American haha! Our trainers finally returned after a couple of more hours, and that´s whenever we got the members to come with us. See! God did bless us for all of our hard work. 

I hope you all are having fun! Thanks for the prayers!

Te quiero much!

Hermana Schmidt

I loved the pictures! I miss them. How is your week with them going? I´m serving in Barcelona right next to "La Sagrada Familia." My apartment is huge! My companion is Hermana Dorgia, and she is from Italy. Guess what? She doesn´t speak English. So, I now have to speak Spanish all of the time! Except in the piso we try and speak English so that she can learn. She is so sweet. I´m lucky to be with her. Our first day trying to get to our piso took forever because we had to switch metros and carry around our luggage. No lo me gusta. I feel like my spanish is already getting better, and I really believe that we are going to have a lot of success with each other. How is life going for you?

Love you!

Hermana Schmidt 

I made it to Barcelona! We are proselyting tonight, and get our trainers tomorrow afternoon. Mi español es muy mál pero I will get better as I work! I love our mission president and his wife. We got to tour some of Barcelona. It is beautiful here, but it smells weird. Where do you think I will be going? Oh, funny story! So on the way here we had to take the Ave, and there are some ramp escalators that we all had to go up, and the person in front of me got stuck, and that made the person behind her get stuck, and then I got stuck in between my luggage and fell. Now, not only is my foot swollen, but so is my hand... It´s all good though. I´m excited to go to work. Love you!

Hermana Schmidt

Hola Mi Familia y Amigos, 
This week has been interesting. I passed out
my first Book of Mormon at the park. It was to an old gentlemen who is
an atheist...kind of. My companion tried to give it to him twice, and
finally, at the very end of our conversation, I felt impressed to try
one more time. I bore my testiomy about the importance of the book in
my life and if he would just read it to know for himself if it is true
he would receive an answer. I could see a change in him after that. He
took the book, and said ¨For you, I will read this book.¨ It is
amazing how much power a simple testimony can have. I hope that he
does read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. Then all the
missionaries sang in the park, and whenever we were singing ¨I am a
Child of God¨ all these little children came and listened. It was the
cutest thing ever! 
During soccer on Monday I rolled my foot, and
couldn´t walk on it afterwards. I tried to play it off like I was
fine, but eventually stopped playing soccer and just did some
crunches. It´s swollen pretty good now and a nasty green color on one
side, but it doesn´t hurt to walk on it anymore, so I consider that to
be a miracle. Some of the companionships, not mine, in my district
have been having a lot of tension, but it was cool to see whenever I
hurt my foot, how they turned outward and worked together to make sure
I was okay. It´s amazing what we can achieve when we turn outside of
ourselves.  I tried to take a picture of it but you couldn´t really
tell what it looked like in the picture.
Hermana Zimmerman-Lopez was in Spain and gave me some euros. Will you thank her for me! 
We went to the Real Madrid stadium for Pday. BEST PDAY EVER! 
Oh, so you know how I said that there was tension between companionships, and you know how
I hate drama. Well one night when I turned on my music a singles ward
song came on and I could not stop myself from dancing. It was like I
was two again. I literally danced to the whole song by myself and really
got into it while all the other girls laughed at me. I made them get
up and dance with me and restarted the song. I think that helped to
release some tension. Ugh... drama is the worst, but dancing is a
good cure sometime. 
Something I have been learning a lot about this
week is Repentance. I love repenting everday now. Ether 12:27 makes so
much more sense now. Whenever we come to God in prayer he will show us
our weaknesses and through repentance we can be made strong.  There is
a lot more to it, but that is the simplest way that I know how to
explain it right now. Repentance is something that everyone should
gain a strong testimony of.
 I love you all! I will be writing you
again on Monday before I leave to the mission field. I´m super
excited! -Hermana Schmidt

Hola Everyone! This week has been so amazing! My companion and I have
the best discussions, and also the best times. Every moment is fun in
the MTC. We had a dance party with the sister training leaders
listening to singles ward music. We ate less chocolate because we had
started to become addicted to it. We call it El Diablo because we are
starting to see the effects that it is having on us. :) The nutella is
so good though!
 Spain is beautiful, and also very crowded. My
companion and I were at the little German Grocery store called Lidl
and were checking out with some chocolate when an old man started
talking to us in Spanish and we had no idea what he was saying at
first. I understood the main concepts of the conversation, and then he
started to walk towards the temple with us. He was such a sweet old
man, and whenever I started to get used to his speech it was easier
for me to understand. Some Elders from Madrid were walking in our
direction and saw who we were talking to and said, ¨Pompin!¨and gave
the man a big hug. It was so sweet and the man looked so happy.
Apparently he lives in the same building as us. I think that he is a
temple worker. That experience gave me hope for my Spanish though
because I was actually able to understand a lot more than I thought I
could. 
One thing that I have really learned throughout this week is
the power of prayer. Especially the power that parents prayers for
their children have. I´m so grateful for my parents and for everything
that they have taught me, and for their prayers. I know that when we
pray we are being strengthened and can overcome trials. There is so
much I have learned and I will write it in my letter home to you.
How are all the primary children? I miss them. Will you send pictures of
Evert and Wyatt to me? 
Quote of the week: ¨The Lord calls us in our
weakness, but he qualifies us for his work.¨- Joseph Smith. We are all
missionaries and can become qualified for His work through our
obedience. Exact obedience brings miracles. 
Te amo mucho! -Hermana Schmidt