¡Hola Familia y Amigos!

   So this week passed be super fast, and I´m trying to remember what happened. We had a two day Specialized Training with the President of the Barcelona Mission. That was super awesome. We learned a lot about how to be consecrated missionaries. I love the First Presidency´s message from this past month about "having a testimony and being truly converted." I´ve learned that I can have a testimony of something, but as I´ve taught these truths to others I have started to become truly converted, and my knowledge and understanding of these truths has grown. It´s amazing how when we share the Gospel with other´s, our testimonies grow. 

   Sometimes I feel like I have to companions. One is my trainer who I absolutely adore. The other is a girl that was in the MTC with me. One a week the Hermana from the MTC and I are together because our companions are on exchanges with other sisters. It seems that every time that we are together that all of our appointments cancel on us and we do pass by´s and contact. We were knocking doors one time with a member who is about to go on a mission. At one of the doors was a guy who had heard about the church before, but as we were talking to him he was definitely drunk and hitting on the member. I felt awful for her, and got us out of there as quickly as we could. 

  We were also talking with a guy on the street, when his friend came by and distracted us by talking to us, and the next moment they were both running away. We were so confused because of how fast it all happened, and for a moment we just stood there like "what?" Then I just started laughing because that just seemed like something you only see in movies. 

  The members love to feed us, and every time we eat at a members house it is always rice and chicken. I love it though!  Every time we are on our way to a dinner appointment my companion will ask, "what do you think we will eat tonight?" and I will always guess rice. I´m right almost 99% of the time. 

  I love the area that I am in. It´s fun to see how much my testimony has grown, but it´s even better to see the growth of the people we are teaching. Sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ is amazing.

Love you all!

Hermana Schmidt

¡Hola Everyone!

    Being a missionary is such an amazing experience! I see miracles everyday. You definitely don´t have to be a missionary to see these miracles, but being able to be an instrument in the Lord´s hand is amazing thing. 

   So, a couple of weeks ago my companion and I were walking to the metro, and waiting for the light to turn green to walk across the street. There was a lady standing next to me with her twins in a stroller. I love babies, so I started a conversation with her. She was super sweet! Sadly I didn´t give her anything, and I felt awful! Then, a couple days later I saw her again walking the opposite way then my companion and I in the sidewalk. I didn´t stop and say hi to her. Again, I felt awful. I should be able to at least say hi to someone! I don´t know why I felt so bad about it, but to me every person matters. I promised that if I ever saw her again I would talk to her. Well, a couple days later my companion and I were walking and talking when out of the corner of my eye I say this lady and her twins. My companion and I had almost already passed her, but I turned and said "Hola!" I told her how we had met before in the metro. She lives near us, and again was super nice. My companion and I always have little pass along cards with our information on it, so I asked if I could give her one. She said she wasn´t really interested in the church, but she took the card. We ended our conversation as friends though. I think the best thing is that we now have that foundation of friendship with her. Maybe she isn´t ready now, but I believe one day she will be. 

    The members are great! There is one lady who I just adore. Her name is Norma. She is in the other Sister missionaries ward, but we have gotten to know her from different activities. Anytime the Sisters need her for an appointment with an investigator, she is always prepared to go. Even if it is last minute, and she is excited about it! We have people like that in our ward as well, and I absolutely love them! 

   On Valentine´s Day we had an appointment, and the Bishop and his wife came with us. At first our investigator wasn´t there, but her roommate was. We got her roommates number, but she said she was busy at the moment and couldn´t visit us. Then, as we were leaving, we ran into our investigator. Miracle! We ended up teaching both her and her roommate! 

   One time my companion and I were going to the metro, and in order to get through the gates you obviously need to use your card. Well, I guess we were to caught up in conversation because we both almost ran into the gate before we noticed that we hadn´t used our ticket. Blonde moment for us! 

   There were many many miracles this week! It was amazing. I have decided to only study scriptures in Spanish. I´m surprised at how much I´m understanding. The gift of tongues is real! Not that I can speak well, but I´m understanding a lot better. Sometimes I will find myself thinking to myself in Spanish. Weird, but awesome at the same time. 

   Hope all is going well for you all!

Hermana Schmidt :)

¡Hola Everyone!

   This week was amazing! We have some awesome people who are just ready to hear about the Gospel! One of our investigators is a person that we met one night in the street. We were finishing the day and going back to our apartment, but still had a couple of minutes left before we could go in, so we contacted in the street. I went up to a man and said what we usually do ¨desulpe! Podemos regalarle una tarjeta?¨ He was super receptive and we got his number. We had tried calling him the next day, but he said he was sick. Then the following night we saw him in the street, and I recognized him immediatly and went up to him and said hi. He remembered us! We´ve had a couple of lessons with him, and he really wants to follow God and be better. I´m so excited for him. It just testifies to me that if we work until the very last minute, we are going to see miracles.

   We always invite people to be baptized in the first or second lesson. I thought that would be hard, but it just makes sense to do that, because that is what we are here to do. Everyone needs to be baptized in order to enjoy the full blessings of the atonement in their lives. 

  I love to see the little miracles that there are each day. My companion and I are making a tree of miracles out of sticky notes in our study room. There is a scripture in the first couple chapters of Nephi somewhere that Nephi states that he will show us that the tender mercies of the Lord are among all those who keep His commandments. IT IS SO TRUE! As we are obedient to ALL of the Lord´s commandments we will be able to see his tender mercies in our life each day. We just need eyes that see, ears that hear, and a heart that feels. I love this gospel so much! It brings so much happiness into our lives and the lives of those around us through our example. Smiling is also just a great way to turn a not so good day into a great day. The primary song is true!

  One day this week my companion was not feeling well, so returned to piso early and worked on updating our records when all of the sudden we heard loud crash. My companion and I slowly got up and started to search out piso to see what or who could of made that. I grabbed an umbrella that was close by, and that just made my companion laugh. I wanted to be prepared though! Everytime she would open a door I would try not to freak out, and that made her laugh even harder. We turned a corner and I thought I saw someone´s shadow and I may have let out a squeek and then I realized it was mine. My companion was dying from laughter by this time. Everything was good though. It was just some copies of the Book of Mormon that fell. 

   Happy Birthday Cody!

I love you all sooo much!

Hermana Schmidt

Hola Everyone!

   Well this week has been a week of miracles! We have an investigator that has been having the missionary discussions since before I came here. He is awesome, but when the missionaries before me tried to set a baptismal date he said he needed more time, and he wouldn´t come to church because he didn´t know anyone. At our lessons with him this week we made sure to have a member of the ward come with us, and we recommitted him to be baptized. We brought with us a little calendar so that he could set the date and be prepared by then. He chose the 21st of this month, and we are so excited for him! He also came with us to church this week which was a miracle! I believe it had something to do with us having a member with us at our lesson. 

   We also taught a mother and her two daughters. It was our first lesson with them, and of course we invited them to be baptized as well. They didn´t say yes, but guess what! They came to church! In total this week we had 4 investigators with us at church, and they were all people that we had a member with us during the lessons. Members bring miracles in missionary work. Also, you know how fast and testimony meeting can be a bit strange... well thankfully this one wasn´t. People bore testimony of their conversion to the gospel and kept them short and sweet. The little children also bore their testimonies, and there was one kid who had just been baptized the week before and he bore testimony about how he felt afterwards. It was perfect! 

  So, yesterday was February 1st. I wore orange. :) There is a scripture in D&C somewhere that says that angels will be round about you to bear you up. I know that TJ and Porter are working right along side Ricci and I in missionary work. 

   ¡Madre Mia! My español is...well... it´s something, but it´s not español that´s for sure. I have to laugh at myself though because I´m trying my best haha. One day we were going to an appointment and a member was coming with. Our appointment ended up cancelling on us last minute so we were going to contact in the street for a little while on the way back to the member´s apartment. The member was saying something, but I couldn´t understand and I was just contacting and was all happy, but when I looked at my companion she seemed depressed which is weird because she usually has so much energy. I guess the member was being rude and telling us that we don´t plan well and that we need to be doing better. Oh well, maybe we do. But, that night we just laughed about it, and said that there are probably some days where it is better that we don´t really know Spanish because we don´t have to understand the rude things people say to us. 

   I love you all soooooooooo much!!!!!

Hermana Schmidt