Tuesday, July 24, 2018

I Love Sundays!

Hola hola everyone! Que me cuentan? 

Ahhhhh I´ve been so sentimental this week! I had my last zone meeting and it totally caught me by surprise, I thought I had one more left, but nope. At the end all of the missionaries that are "ya para irse" share their testimonies. My heart just started pounding because I didn´t know what to say! I did a tiny prayer in my heart and just felt peace knowing that this definitely wouldn´t be my last testimony---I have a whole lifetime to testify of my Savior Jesus Christ!! It was pretty cool and I felt the spirit really strong, it was also crazy comparing it with my first testimony that I gave when I arrived in the field. The mission changes us so much, but for the better! 

The zone conference taught me so much, it focused about working with all our HEART, MIGHT; MIND; and STRENGTH. And about enduring to the end!! There could not have been a better message for me. I´m amazed by how President always knows exactly what we need to hear. 

Also, this week we FASTED and saw huge results! Sundays are always super stressful because we never know who is going to show up to church and who no, but our investigators arrived and brought their friends! It was amazing. This week was ward conference and there were a lot of prayers answered their in the chapple. 

Aline is amazing and she knows that the church is true! She has had so many little answers to her prayers! Last night we had a family home evening again and she was a little more convinced about her baptismal date, and today we brought in the big guns! President and Hermana Reynoso! She´s definitely a lot more excited now. ;)

I had the best time doing exchanges with Hermana Nelson this week, she is super sweet and we had the best day together! We found a family and taught the Plan of Salvation. I looooove teaching families! It´s just so much better because they support each other. 

It has been so stinking hot but I love it, I will honestly miss the heat of Cancun. And we are super blessed because we have a portable air conditioner. God loves his missionaries :)

Including a few selfies, lots of love and prayers,and wishes for a wonderful week!! Love yall!
Hermana Schwartz

PS. the green stuff on our faces is a guacamole facial #spanight









Monday, July 16, 2018

La Verdad, Cochinita, and 17 month mark!

Hi everyone! How´s it going?

Why do I always forget everything that happened this week when I start to write? Haha let´s see....

This week we ran around like crazy again, we got to go to other areas to help in the search for new investigators! We were in Kohunlich and we got hopelessly lost looking for a comic store, and found it after an hour of searching and talking to people in the streets. But it was cool and we learned a tiny bit more about the local bus system. The one that we took went in the OPPOSITE direction than where we wanted to go, hahahaha. It was an adventure :) 

We had a bit of a let down because Victor went out of town, the day of his baptism. But we are going to work hard and he will be super ready for this coming week. 

A huge miracle was that yesterday we had an amazing FHE last night and a recent convert, Dany planned the lesson. He tailored it exactly to the need of our investigator, Aline! She has everything, she just needs to recognize her answer. He taught with deep questions and the scriptures, and Aline realized that she already knows the Church is true! It was so beatiful and the spirit was so strong. And then we ate tostadas :) We´re super excited to keep working with her, go over the lessons one more time, and have her baptism soon! 

We found a ton of clothes, shoes, even a hammock that misisonaries have left in our house and today we deep cleaned the house. It was like a treasure hunt because there was some cute stuff in there!

This week I completed 17 months in the mission!!! What??? It feels so surreal but my cute companion made me a little banner to celebrate. PS she made it to her year mark! We ate pancakes, like always. 

Gotta work hard in this last month!! I feel so inspired by the great missionaries of the Book of Mormon, Ammon, Alma, Aaron. They never gave up, even after being in prison and passing through all sorts of afflictions. That´s the attitud of a good missionary!!

What else? We ate yellow kiwi, our 84 year old investigator went to church, and I had the yummiest torta de cochinita ever. I asked for seconds, it was perfect. yum! 

Well I am out of time but I love you all so much! Sorry for this scattered email, read your scriptures and pray every day! The little things make the difference! 

Have a great week!
Hermana Schwartz









Monday, July 9, 2018

I Forgot It Was the 4th of July

Wow, what a week!!! We were running around like locas getting some good stuff done! let me see if i remember everything. Sorry for my bad capitalization...this keyboard is a stubborn one! On monday, we had transfers!! Hermana Aguilar left for Playa and Hermana Rios arrived! she is amazing, she likes learning english so she likes it when I call her Sister Rivers. she is very calm like a river as well, haha. She´s from Cuotla Morelos and i am officially convinced that I want to visit her there, it sounds beautiful! This week she completes a year on the mission!

on tuesday, we had a bunch of meetings, I taught her the area a bit. wednesday was crazy because we had a super potente lidership training, and then our mission coordination, 

Thursday we had the cutest ward mission activity! we talked about the armor of god, and formed teams to dress a little mini warrior with cardboard armor! it was adorable and a lot of people went, including our investigadors and converts! It was super last minute but it was a success! 

We really saw miracles this week because we committed to do everything in our power to find a family of 4....and we found one! we are starting to give english classes and that helped us to find an amazing family!! the mom and the kids accepted baptism right off the bat. Now we just need to win over the dad, but I think he´ll say yes. :)

A new american missionary got here and I am her sister training leader! it reminds me so much of my first transfer. Her companion is also from Monterrey, and she even forgot her hammock in a taxi like I did. She is super sweet and i hope I can be a good example to her and help her adjust to mission life. 

in all of the business i completely forgot it was the 4th of july until my companion reminded me. Que pena, lol. 

hope it was wonderful for all of you and that things are going well! thanks for the emails and prayers!! i am doing really well, i am happy to be in Mexico serving the Lord! 

Lots of love from sunny cancun!}
Hermana Schwartz

photos:
the very exotic pb and j (they don´t eat it here and i made it for my comp)
Hna lili kicking her duck out of the picture}
With Hna Hall (she left the zone, now in tizimin)
With Hno Enoc (convert that we visit)














Pidgeon Pile

Hey everybody! How´s it going?

I am doing well, excited to start this next (and my final) transfer!! I´ll be staying in Nichupte ward, and I couldn´t be happier!! I love these people. My new companion will be Hermana Rios, from Morelos, Mexico. She is a sweetheart and I´m very excited to work with her! 

Other than that I don´t really know what else happened.....it all happened so fast (tear...)

Oh yeah! One day I felt the impression to go and visit a little old lady that we had dropped about 2 months ago, Lourdes. We passed by and we found her, as always outside her little house. She was feeding about a million pidgeons which was interesting because they were all tripping over eachother trying to eat the breadcrumbs like a bunch of locos, but she finished feeding them and listened to our message. We talked about the plan of Salvation and what we need to do to return to God´s presence. And guess what? She accepted a date for her baptism!! We had invited her many times before and she never was interested, but this time was different. 

We are trying to truly minister unto her because she has a lot of needs. She is sick, she can barely walk and barely see, but she has a sweet spirit and she prays with real intent. Hopefully all goes well! And if not, she might be ready in the future. 

We also tried to make flour tortillas but they are pretty tricky and turned out rock hard. We will keep practicing. 

I loved reading conference talks this week, We read: Small and Simple Things (Dallin H. Oaks) and I recommend it highly to everyone!! It is so true that the smallest things make the biggest difference. 

Hope that everything goes well this week, that you can enjoy the summer sun. We are definitely enjoying it down here in Cancun! (Aka we are melllllttiiiing but it´s all good!) 

Lots of love, until next week!
Hermana Schwartz

(sorry no pictures this week. I forgot to use my camara, lame, I know)

Monday, June 25, 2018

Santa Clara, Sinai, and AMBER

Heyyyy everyone! Super quick highlights from this week!

1. We bought santa clara. Best. Milk. Ever. and it was on salllleeee!!
2. Sinai was baptized!!! She was honestly so prepared and the Lord just put her in our path. Her baptism was beatiful and she was so happy!! 
3. Mexico won some important game and everyone was cheering in the streets and wearing soccer jerseys. They love the game. 
4. Aaaaaand the best miracle ever!!! I saw one of my first converts from Tizimin, Amber!! she is visiting her aunt that lives in cancun and we just bumped into her in the streets! It was such a joyful reunion. We went to her aunts house, they gave us juice and received us super well, and her AUNT AND COUSIN ACCEPTED A BAPTISMAL DATE!!! Whoooo! We are so pumped and so amazed by the way the Lord works. I love Amber so much and it was so special to be able to see her, and remind her of her baptismal covenants! She hasn´t been going to church lately, but I think this visit will help her so much! I´m so grateful. :) 

We also ate coconut and I have a cool video of my rockstar comp breaking it open. 

Love you all!!! 
Have a wonderful week and remember that miracles DO exist!

Love, 
Hermana Schwartz










Happy Father's Day!

Hola buenos dias, buenas tardes! Como están?

I have very little time but I´m super excited to tell you all about yet another week in the gran misión! Father´s day was super sweet because our investigator Dante was able to be baptized and confirmed by his dad. ❤ He´s been waiting for like, 2 years and he was finally able to be baptized! It was a beautiful service because Dantes mom is super crafty and made a Pinterest worthy table complete with twinkle lights, framed photos, and we had an acoustic guitar musical number (they planned all the details, haha!) But there was a super sweet spirit and the family members were all super united in suppporting Dante. 

The best part is, our investigator Sinaí was doubting if she wanted to keep listening or not. She went to the baptism, and as she left she said, "See you on Sunday." With so much confidence and peace!!!! She is so ready and now she feels ready too. :) She´s such a lovely person and we´re very excited for her progress. 

Aaaaand it was super funny because a member was giving us a ride and Dante´s family went right along next to us. It was like a race and it was funny because we both stopped at the stoplight and all the crazy niños were cracking up. 

What else is new? Oh, my amazing comp is from Honduras and she opened my eyes to the wonders of green bananas! Soooo good! It´s funny because I can barely eat ripe bananas, but the green ones are good stuff. We fried them and ate them with rice. There is another hondureña in our ward and she gave them as a gift to Hna Aguilar.I have never seen anybody so happy do see bananas. (Here in Mexico it´s hard to find platano verde) I also tried another recipe with green bananas, ground beef, pico de gallo, and fry sauce on top! That´s right, utahns aren´t the only ones who know about fry sauce, they use it in Honduras too! Very tasty. 

Unfortunately, it has been raining ALL WEEK and everything is slightly damp. It is so humid! They cereal boxes are floppy, papers are all super soft, the walls are wet, it´s slightly bizarre! But prayers are truly answered because we prayed for sun so that we could at least dry our clothes and it is nice and sunny today. :)

I am learning that miracles aren´t always the big events like a baptism, or a miraculous healing. Even though those things happen on the mission and they are amazing, the miracles are the little things that are important to us, so they are important to God. I am super grateful because we had an amazing district meeting where we learned about the importance of listening and putting ourselves in the investigators "zapatos." It helped us to be able to find and teach Antonia, a sweet lady that was almost baptized but she is deathly afraid of water. (A bit of a challenge, right?) I can feel the saviors love for her and HIs desire that she can overcome this fear and be baptized. We´ll be working with her and all prayers are very appreciated. :)

Sorry that I don´t have time to respond individually! I love you all and I read your emails and I´m super grateful! I hope this week is fabulous and that all of your wildest dreams come true!

Oh also I got a new watch but I´m dying because it´s not digital and I am a lazy person that never learned. It´s now or never!!! My companion always asks me....Hermana Schwartz....what time is it? With an evil look in her eye because she knows I don´t know. I am going to master this analog watch! Yeah! Haha now you all know the secret. Be smart and learn young, kids! :)

Hasta luego!
Love,
Hna Schwartz












Monday, June 11, 2018

Ward Activity!

Hey guys! I don´t have much time but this week was great!!!! We organized a ward activity with different minute to win it games in a relay race and it was hilarious! It included bobbing for apples, popping balloons, answering scripture trivia, and much more! It was to teach that we need to endure to the end, and each game had a meaning and lesson as well. It was quite entertaining. 

Dante is awesome and we had a lesson with him and his parents this week! He is super ready and the best part of the lesson was his little brothers comments. Isak had us cracking up the whole time. He said that he wants to donate 90% to God instead of just 10%. That´s the attitude!

We learned a lot about exact obedience, had exchanges with the hermanas from the other ward and it was a blast, aaaand we ate mole today! Mmmm... love that stuff! 

I read in Mosia 1 today about the value of the scriptures! They truly change lives and make all the difference in our homes! Remember to read something every day, even if it´s just 5 minutes!!! I promise you will have a happier day, a happier week, a happier life! :)

Sorry it´s short this week but whatever questions, stories, jokes, experiences feel free to ask! 
Love you all! Hope you are doing well! 
Con amor, 
Hermana Schwartz













Friday, June 8, 2018

Slug bug what color?

Hola everybody!! ¿Que tal? :)

This week was amaaaazing because we saw even more miracles!! Basically we were super down because all of the potente investigators seemed to be hiding from us. But we had a great conference and hermana Reynoso taught us the importance of exact obedience!! It has truly made a difference to evaluate in what we were failing, repent, and get to work! Even though the people that we tried to bring to church slept in and didn´t want to go, we showed up and the members had invited a ton of non member friends! It was so cool to see how the Lord gave us that mini recompensa (I don´t remember the english word.....sorry!) and blessed us with new investigators! 

It is super fun being with Hermana Aguilar, she is great! She teaches me lots of words from Honduras and you would not believe how different Spanish is in different countries! We also have a diabolical game where everytime we see a slug bug we (gently!) hit eachother. It is for fuuuun. But I have never realized how many slug bugs people drive in Mexico! It´s crazy. 

Oh, another funny story! I almost forgot about the perros!! There is an investigator here that doesn´t want to be baptized, but we thought maybe we could win her over with service (spoiler alert: it didn´t work. But it was fun!) So we volunteered to help her bathe her three little chihuahua mixes. One of them is slightly cute...but they other 2 are pretty weird looking. And they were absolutely FULL of fleas! Ew. It was pretty ridiculous because our district leaders were teaching the lesson while we combed and picked out the little critters. At the end, she said no, but at least those poor perros have less fleas. Haha! We were very careful to wash our hands and shake out our clothes and everything afterwards, as well. don´t worry, I don´t have fleas. ;)

Anyway, another thing I learned this week was the importance of the family!!! I was reading and studying in the Ensign and in Jacob 4, which teaches about the importance of the law of chastity and it was just so clear that living the gospel principles in our homes makes a huge difference. If you want to change the world, it starts in your own home! I´m grateful for a gospel centered family and for the ability to learn correct principles and decide to live a virtuous life! Service in the family also contributes and makes a difference. 

The scriptures are beatiful, they are true, and their teachings make us happy! If you want to experiment true joy, share a scripture with someone about something that will help them! 

I love you all! have a wonderful week, hopefully it is free from slug bugs, fleas, and cancun heat! :) 

Love, 
Hermana Schwartz

Pics. 
Someone that has a scripture about MISSIONARY WORK on their porch!
selfieeee with my compa



Tuesday, May 29, 2018

Me encanta el arcoiris

Heyyyyyy friends and family!! This week was the bomb! We started off transfers with the beautiful baptism of Ariadna, but man, we had to fight for it! She is the oldest of 4 girls we were teaching, and the three of them were baptized last saturday. She got nervous and nothing we said we could convince her. I don´t know what changed from last week to this week, but she decided that she was ready!!! After praying and reading the book of mormon, she felt peace! Her baptism was so special because the day of......it started raining cats and dogs! A tropical storm hit cancun and the bishop prohibited all use of the chapel. -.- And so we changed her date for the next day and prayed for sun. Our prayers were answered and the next day was BEAUTIFUL and sunshiny :) We sang "I like to look for Rainbows" and my comp taught me a little bit of sign language so that was cool. It was definitely the highlight of the week.

I feel so happy and blessed to be part of this great work! 

This week passed by super fast and we are in the searching process now that basically everyone got baptized. It´s good stuff though. We are happy, occasionly soaking wet for the random thunderstorms, and enjoying the work! 

Thanks for all your support and prayers! Love you all so much!!



 Guadalupe, Fernando, Rubi, Hanna, y Monse :) Y ariadna :)







 When your tamarindo water freezes!



Monday, May 21, 2018

Transfers: Staying in Nichupte!

Heelllllooooo everyone!!

Wow, this week passed by SO FAST. The biggest news is that yesterday Arturo was baptized!!! He was such a golden investigator! We were a little worried because after he came out of the water he had a random cramp in his arm and was in a lot of pain.....it was weird. BUT he called us and said that he was so grateful and that even though his arm hurt, he could feel the spirit and he felt so good! He also confessed that he is afraid of water, but not anymore, obviously. Haha. It was funny and we are just grateful his baptism was special for him.

One of my most spiritual experiences this week was when Guadalupe had her baptismal interview. She expressed some concerns and questions that she has, and we each took turns answering her questions. First, the presidents asistants (who are in our ward) answered, with a ton of power but she still wasn´t conviced. Then, my amazing companion answered....and she still seemed unsure. And then I just testified and shared what I had learned in my study in the morning. I could feel the spirit working through me and all of my doubt disappeared. She was quiet for a few seconds, and then she said, okay. You guys are right. And she passed her interview!! Whew! 

We also found a golden treasure, our cute neighbor hermana sebastiana was showing us pictures from her kids missions, and the last photo happened to have a family that is a good friend of my companion! The world is so tiny. 

I don´t have much time, but I know that this church is true! I know that baptism is the only way to be clean and to return with God! Every week we go to church, we are renewing that covenant and we are taking the name of Christ upon us. A mindblowing talk about the sacrament is from D. Todd Christofferson, from October 2017. I recommend it highly!!! 

I love you guys and I hope that you are all doing wonderfully! 










Tuesday, May 15, 2018

Unicorns Rule the World!

Hello everyone!!!

Happy Late Mothers day!! I hope it was wonderful for all of you missionaries and misisonary families. It was such a blessing to be able to see my fam bam in person, and remember that we are a bunch of crazy gringos. :) I love you guys! 

This week was fantastic, we got to see some real progress in our investigators. We are teaching a family of 4 young girls, teens and "tweens" and they are adorable but also OBSESSED with unicorns. And Pandas. I don`t know if this unicorn obsession has swept the united states, but it has hit mexico hard! It was crazy because we played a game to teach apostasy and literally every one used and example with unicorns. The sentences gradually went around changing and we cracked up at the end with the crazy results of our apostasy. 

On another note, I have realized that I have gradually become afraid of dogs. I love dogs, but I have heard one too many stories about missionary dog bites. Every time we see a perro, I kind of just switched sides with my companion and she bullied me about it, haha. But I found a solution! I was reading in Nephi and there is are part where he says Touch me not!! Because I am full of the power of God." And now everytime we pass a dog, I say that and we crack up. But it really does help! That´s the way the scriptures help in every circumstance. 

We are fighting to have a weekend full of baptisms!! Please please please pray that everything turns out well! Our investigators are so prepared and I know that the can do it! 

I just want to thank my Mom for being so amazing, patient, loving, and for always worrying just enough to keep me safe! Moms are the best and there is a reason we celebrate them and skype them! I`m so grateful for her and that she lets me serve. :) Congrats to all the moms out there! We made bracelets for the relief society here and it was crazy trying to get them done on time, but it was worth it. We put a little quote saying that the greatest calling in this life is that of a mother! And I know that is true! 

I love you guys so much and I`m grateful for all the support! My challenge today is to read a scripture, but to just read one verse and pick, it apart. Analize it like crazy and think about what God really wants to tell you! 

Have a wonderful week!
Hasta luego, 
Hermana Schwartz

flower earings
El Libro de Mormon!
cita con la Familia Schwartz



Tuesday, May 8, 2018

I Met Frida Khalo

Hey everyone! This is gonna be short because my computer doesn´t want to cooperate, but this week was great! 

We had a ward activity that was COCO themed to talk about family history! Our investigator is an engineer and he saved the movie from technical difficulties, a member came dresed as Frida Kahlo and we had a skeleton dressed as Hector from the movie. Everyone talked about thir traditions and it was a blast. Someone even brought a bald dog! Good times. 

We also truly saw results from fasting! We prayed to know who we should keep teaching and the people who came to church on sunday truly have potential. we are super excited to be working in this area! 

Happy mother's day this week and I hope that it´s a wondrful day, especially for all you missionaries and misssionary moms! 

Sorry for the typos, I love you all!! Have a wonderful week!

LOTS OF LOVE FROM CANCUN!
Hermana Schwartz


Sunday, May 6, 2018

King Lamoni

Hey everyone!!!

Wow wow wow time is flying by! This week was awesome, we had a conference with 3 zones and I was in shock because I haven´t seen so many missionaries all together in a few months. It was awesome! We learned that one of the greatest sins that we all suffer is.......apathy! Or laziness, basically. It´s so true! We all asked ourselves, "Do I really care about the salvation of our investigators" It as a deep question and I feel so much more motivated to help these people! 

Arturo is an amazing investigator and it is so awesome teaching him! He lives right in front of us, so we dont have to go super far to have his lessons, lol. He came to church on sunday and enjoyed it! Please pray for him por favor! His baptismal date is coming up! :D

The craziest thing that happened this week was that we were just casually visiting people with a member, and we said a prayer to know who to visit. We turned around and tlaked to the first people we saw. It was a nice lady, her son, and another lady that is currently looking for a new apartment. We were talking, we sang a hymn to bring the spirit, and the lady stood up kinda fast and PASSED OUT in the arms of my companion! And casually, there happened to be like, 5 police trucks that passed by in this very moment! It was crazy. But she regained consciousness and we decided to make our escape....and she started asking for the book of mormon we had given her before her faint! She´s reading it and is our future investigator! We called it a King Lamoni experience because she literally fell to the earth dominated by the spirit! Crazy stuff. 

We are working hard, seeing miracles, and enjoying the heat! This week we got some rain, too. I´m so grateful for the good members and for their desires to help in the work! We are sooooo excited for our mission activity this week! It´s gonna be a mexican fiesta with the movie coco! NOT for 5 de Mayo because that isn´t a thing here.....but it´s going to be muy mexicana y muy fun. 

Love you all so much! Have a wonderful week! 

ps this is the forbidden fruit, I¨m pretty sure. It´s so weird looking! 



Monday, April 30, 2018

There's a Mouse About the House!

Hey everyone!

We´ve got some good stories from the mish this week! First of all if you want to hear a funny story, read the following paragraph. If not, feel free to skip. 

We had the heeby jeebies ALL WEEK because last monday I heard rustling in the garbage can and a mouse ran out! I screamed and then my comp screamed, and our cute neighbor that lives below us came upstairs to check on us. But it was too funny, because she tapped on the window and I turned around and saw her cute little old lady face in the window but I freaked out and screamed again!!! hahah she was just like, "Misioneras! Que les pasó!" And we were like.....there´s a mouse!! But we couldnt find the little guy. SOooooo as the week went on we kept finding little evidences of a mouse in the house, but we didn´t see him again. Until last night. We were casually eating leftover pizza when we heard scurrying sounds. We realized that he was in a box of food on top of our fridge, and we trapped him in pot. Then we put the pot in a bag. And then our neighbor came uptsairs again because (obviously) we were screaming a lot. (Hahah!) And she stepped on the box in the bag and put an end to our mouse drama!! It was so crazy. Now the house feels so lonely.....lol 


But apart from the mouse adventure, this week was awesome because our investigators RECOGNIZED THE SPIRIT. Yes!!! We found Vicente this week, and he is so great. He´s in the middle of a messy divorce, but he is so sensitive to the spirit. Even though he doesn´t believe in Heavenly Father, he came to church and he said, "I felt something here today. I don´t know what it is...but I felt it here. I´d like to come back next week."Aww it was so great. He´s just super challenging to teach because he is very logical and he doesn´t have a lot of faith...but we´ll just keep working on it little by little. 

Arturo is our other investigador and he is so golden! We found him because he helped us lift our heavy suitcases the day we had transfers. We finally got around to contacting him, and he accepted a baptismal date! And he read MORE than the chapter in the Book of Mormon we assigned. I´m so proud of him. He said he was super nervous to go to church, but he prayed and the whole time he felt at peace. Even though he normally is really nervous in new situations. I´m so grateful that God answered his prayer! 

We also had a funny experience where the Elders told us that we should go look for a niña that didn´t get baptized a few months back. They couldn´t remember her name, but we dropped everything to go look for her. When we got there, we met her and realized that we had her as the next investigator to search on our list from our area book! It was so cool. And she also went to church. She got all dressed up super cute and hopefully she can be baptized soon! 

I love being with Hermana Baeza, it´s a constant party. We play basketball, we go out to run in the mornings (I am getting fit! Ooh, ahh.) And we pray with real intent to be able to see miracles! It´s been a great week. 

a spiritual thought that I had yesterday was that Jesus Christ loves us so much, individually. If I were the only person on the earth that needed to be saved, he would suffer and die for my sins. We need to repent to be able to apply this priceless gift in our lives. :) 

I know that this church is true! Thanks for all your love and support! Remember that our Savior knows and loves you! Wherever we are, and whoever we´re with, we are there for a reason! 

Love you all! Have a great week!

Love, 
hermana Schwartz

Happy Birthday to My Madre!

Hey everyone! Birthday shoutout to my mami!!! Her birthday is this week whoooo!

I`m back in Cancun in the area of Nichupté, and it is AWESOME. The members are so helpful!! And when I say helpful I mean that some of them have giant Tamale restaurants and they give us free tamales! And they acompany us in lessons, give great references, and are so sweet! I love them already and I am just starting to get to know them. 

I don`t have much time, but highlights from this week were being in Trio for 2 days, a rocking leadership camp, hosting a small army of missionaries in our house as everyone got accomadated in their transfers, seeing a puppy be born! (we had the honor of choosing his name...it was going to be "Elder" but it was weird so we named him "Kiddo"." And I also tried sushi for the first time in my life! It is DELICIOUS. My life has been changed. 

I met the hilarious Hna Davila, who is like our norteña mom. She`s awesome. Our ward mission leader is her 18 year old son, so that`s different. He´s really good though, he helps a lot with the work. 

I love being back in cancun and getting back in the swing of things! The city is very different but it`s fun. We are talking to everyone and we were able to find some new investigadores, Diana and Angel! 

I love you all so much! Hope you have a great week! Think about what the impact of the restauration has been personally for you. :) 

Until next week, 
hermana Schwartz!

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

Easter Egg Hunts and TRANSFERS!

Hola hola everybody!

Wow, this transfer flew by quick! Today our mission president called and gave the exciting news that....I am leaving my beloved Playa! I loved this area but it is time for a change. My next area will be in Cancun with Hermana Baeza! She is amazing, I was already with her once in a trio and it was seriously a blast. I´ll send pictures of her next week. She speaks english and has perfect eyebrows, and is an amazing missionary. :) It should be fun. 

This week we kept busy doing exchanges with the hermanas, and it was so fun to get to know Hermana Garzón and Hermana Rios working with each one of them for a day. They are super sweet. We put together an easter egg hunt, which basically nobody knows what it is here, for the Relief Society and the primary kiddos. It was crazy! We hid 99 eggs in the church and the person that found the most won a prize. The kids ran around like locos, but the winner was a sweet older sister that carefully went around, checking high and low, and found 17 paper eggs. It just goes to show that slow and steady really does win the race. :) 

We then talked about the real reason for Easter, the resurrection, and of course we did a nice plug for missionary work and asked for references. 

Even more fun than the Easter egg hunt was that we found new people to teach this week! Whoohoo! It´s the best feeling ever. We passed by one day with a family that has never let us in before, but we didn´t want to give up on them. The son opened the door and let us in, and we sang I am A Child of God. From there, everything changed and the mom became super receptive! She and her 4 kids are our new investigators and they are pretty great. We just need to help them go to church and progress. 

We also found a sweet lady that is looking for the true church! She offered such a sweet, sincere, prayer at the end of the lesson. Sometimes we find people, we drop them, or we get transfered, but the good news is we are always trying to plant little seeds. 

We are very stoked for the Stake activity that is going to be tonight. "Meet the Book of Mormon Prophets." We are bringing the scripture stories to life and presenting the video of Christ in the Americas. Hopefully it turns out cool! We spent these last few nights making "armor" out of cardboard and tin foil for Helaman. The primary kids are going to be his army of stripling warriors....we´ll see how it turns out and I¨ll send pics next week. 

I´ve been studying lately in the New Testament, reading with the Topical guide to learn about Christ. It´s been really cool and I highly recommend it! It´s a challenge from Russell M. Nelson. Who knows how long it will take me to finish, because there are a ton of pages! But that´s the goal. 

I know that christ lives and that he is our savior! He has the power to forgive our sins. He already paid the price! I know that his Atonment is real and that we can apply it in any circumstance. 

Love you all so much! Hope you have a a great week! 
hasta luego,
Hermana Schwartz

ps the tombstone is for an Elder that finishes his mission this week. We left it on his porch as a nice friendly "surprise" to congratulate him for his "death." And yummy enchildadas. :)