Hola everyone!
    Sorry for not writing the week before! But, this week so many
things happened!!! Our Korean investigator, Shim, was baptized! We had
to go to the church early and start filling up the font at the church,
and while we were waiting we ate bread and chocolate and did the
programs for the baptism. Then, Shim ended up coming to the church an
hour and a half early because he got confused on the time. A ton of
members showed up to the baptism and everything went perfectly. When
Shim was being baptized he sat so low down in the water that he pretty
much dunked himself, and we only waited about three minutes for him to
change clothes. Everyone was super surprised by how fast he was about
everything. That's Shim though.
   I had the opportunity to play cello at the baptism, and of course I
made a face when I messed up a part, but I learned from that
experience and didn't make a face on Sunday when I had to play in
sacrament meeting. I loved it on Sunday, though, because whenever I
was practicing with the relief society president before the meeting
started, all of the primary kids came up to the stage to watch me
play.The primary kids are my favorite! Now that I have the cello the
members are always having me play. My companion now has the music for
"somewhere over the rainbow" to play on her ukulele, and we are going
to be having a Karaoke night at the church and singing that.
   We had a family home evening with some less active members and the
son was playing a song that I recognized and so I just started singing
right along with it. I'm without shame here haha. The mission is
definitely helping me to become less quiet.
   After church, on Sunday, we went to Shim's house to eat paella. It
was paella from Catalunya and had tons for seafood. I've never eaten
shrimp where I had to peel off the shell. That was interesting, and
then when I did get the shell off I noticed that there was some brown
pebbles on the shrimp. I made the mistake of asking what those pebbles
were. I ate it anyways, and kept a cool face about it.
   We are receiving a ton of references from the members now. I'm not
sure what my companion and I did, but the members are always wanting
us to visit their friends and have family home evenings with them and
their friends. I think that ever since our perspective changed about
the way to do missionary work changed, the ward members have changed
as well. As soon as we gave more attention to helping the members feel
the importance of missionary work in their life, they have been more
willing to help and share the gospel with their friends. I love how we
are seeing the members working right alongside the missionaries.
    I was studying this morning in the Book of Mormon and Liahona and
came across a phrase that I liked in a talk given by Linda K. Burton.
It is a proverb that says "Thee lift me and I´ll lift thee, and we´ll
ascend together." I know that as we lift each other up and encourage
each other and our friends to stay on the path that leads to eternal
life, we will all be able to return to live with our Heavenly Father
and our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Isn´t that what we all want? That´s
what I want. I know that it is possible as we keep the commandments of
God and fill our lives in the service of others. I know that as we are
serving others we are serving our God.
   Love you all!
Hermana Schmidt