Baptism in the Ocean!

Heyyy everyone! How´s life?

Just another week has gone by here. We lost a few investigators because they all moved away, but we have been very blessed and we are finding more! I´m super excited because we are working with families, and it´s the best feeling in the world to teach a whole family. They just help each other out more. 

We had a great conference with our Pres and it feels like it was a long time ago because I honestly don´t remember a ton of it....but it was really cool! It was fun to see the whole zone. 

We worked like crazy with references this week and we managed to get a ton!! And then they were all of other areas....but it was so cool to see how being creative and persistent can help the work move forward! I drew a cute little coloring page to help ask for references. It says "INVITAR 2018" (invite) to make this the year of inviting! I even drew a little grandma inviting her cat. Everyone can do it! 

We got to go to the beach this week!!!! Whaaat? First time in my whole mission that it´s been allowed! It was only because my companions old investigador got baptized in Puerto Morelos and presidente gave us permission. But it was SO BEAUTIFUL! Fun times at the beach, watching one of God´s children be baptized. 

We found a giant iguana and named him Iggy. 

And we went to a really good hamburger place for lunch one day and I couldn´t stop laughing because the guy started playing the bongo drums randomly! This city is crazy. The other funny moment is a little hard to explain in English, but the spanish speakers will get it. 

We told a little girl that we all need to "tomar de un bautismo" and she says, "Está rico?" It was soooo precious!! If you don´t get it I´ll explain next week ;)

Aaaannd that´s about all the time I have today. But I love you all so much! Birthday shoutout to my amazing cousin Kazhia! Love you and hope you have a great day! 

The church is true! Have a wonderful week!

Love, 

hermana schwartz

Peace, Love, and Tree Dolphins

Hello everyone! Saludos de México! 

This week we felt like we entered the twiglight zone, because I´ve already been with Hermana Flores, so we felt like we´ve been together for a loooong time, even though it´s the first week of the transfer. We also found weird places that were strangely reminiscent of our area in Cancún, AND we had a leadership conference where we were reunited our other companion from our trio days. Crazy stuff. 

We truly saw miracles this week, where we dropped two investigators and found two more. These people are so great and the soooo want to be baptized, but they have challenges. One lady, Monse, came here to Playa looking for a church! She loves it and she wants to learn more, but she has several doubts and we need to adapt to her learning pace. But she´s so sweet and I know that she will gain her testimony! She even takes notes in our lessons, I love it. 

And happy day!! Osiris came to church! She is the cutest little girl ever. We were about to drop her, because she wasn´t progressing, and we passed by to give he the news, and we found her choosing her dress that she was going to use on Sunday. cutest thing ever. She comes from a less active family, and our goal is to activate all of them so that she has a support system. But I love her. 

One of our biggest challenges right now is Victor. He literally just needs to stop smoking and he can be baptized. It´s hard to know if he´s really ready or not, but thats to beautiful thing about prayer. All this week we have been praying for him and trying to see how we can support him and help him reach his goal!! 

This area is so great. I love how it has so many little quirks and crazy beach goers. We found the hippiest hippie car of all time, in the middle of a rainstorm. It reminded me to be happy because we have the gospel, which brings eternal happiness! We also found a dolphin statue stuck in a tree...aaaand I have no gospel analogies for that one. If you have any inspiration from it, let me know, I would love to here it, haha! 

The gospel is true, it changes lives! I hope you all have a wonderful week. Thanks for your emails and love.

Hasta luego, 

Hermana Schwartz

Making Sopes!

(Posted out of order since we didn't receive it when Kelsey sent it.  Just got access to it now.  This is from January 8, 2018.)

Hello world! 

Sooo, this week I´ve learned a lot. I´ve learned that God´s plans are way better than our plans. And that we can always trust in him! A few things this week did NOT turn out like we had planned. I told my companion..."our plans are like the little macaroni necklaces that I child gives to their mom. It´s cute, but she has one that is infinitely better." God loves our efforts to follow him. I know that our small effort to please him is enough. And I know that his plan is divinely designed and prefectly created. If we do our part and trust in him, he will always bless us. 

I´ve learned how to make sopes! Yum! My first one didn´t turn out too great, but by the second one Hermana Rita told me that I was mexicana in my heart! Whoo! That´s the goal. I´m going to open a sope business when I get back. 

I´ve learned a little bit more about iniciative. If we don´t see an inmediate solution, we can always look for a different one. If something needs to be done, we can just do it. I am very far from perfect, but I have been trying to devolop my iniciative. :) 

I translated a whole class of young womens for the group of tourists that showed up to church! The teacher gave the class and every other sentence looked at me and said, "translate!!" The funniest part was that I would start to translate....but I was still talking in spanish! It was fun and cool to see how the gift of tongues can help us in many situations. I loved being in YW again because it reminded me of my beehive days! 

I learned that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet of God. I loved our prophet and I feel so blessed that I was able to testify of him here. We have one convert that iniially struggled to accept the idea of modern prophets. But we testified, we taught him, and he accepted Presidente Monson as the living prophet. When we went to tell him that the prophet had passed away, there was just a peaceful moment. And then there was a moment of joy when we explained that God would call an new prophet, and that he never leaves us withought guidance! 

My scripture of the week has been Words of Mormon 1:7-8. This is my purpose as a missionary! 

I also included a picture of some piñatas we saw. They are in the shape of old men and in front they say 2017. It´s so you can "break" your old habits and start the new year! I thought it was very clever. 

My next pday is on Saturday if you want to write me or stay tuned for upcoming transfers!! Thanks for all you do! The gospel is true. Never doubt it, just live it!

Love, 

Hermana Schwartz 

Rosca de Reyes

(Posted out of order, this failed to reach us and we just got access to it.  From December 18, 2017)

Wow, I honestly don´t remember what happened this week! I´m thinking really hard and I know that we worked like crazy. 

We met a crazy hippie guy that was all about going to the beach, saving animals, and finding inner peace. That was exciting. We also sang a bunch of christmas carols. What we do is we get in a combi, we ask if we can sing something, and we try to share a little bit of the christmas spirit. It´s amazing to see the faces of the people light up. Sure we get some weird looks, but it´s part of "not being ashamed of the gospel of Christ."

We put up some christmas lights, helped people with their groceries, gave a little girl a flower, etc. I love the light the world iniciative. Even if we don´t do much, I know that the little things make all the difference. 

Our investigator Alfonso came to church this week! He´s literally so great. He just wants to follow God. He had been working on Sundays, but we explained Sabbath Day observance and he says that now his "only compromiso es con el Señor"

We also found a great new guy named Juan, that only has a week living here in playa. He came here looking to change his life and he asked US where the church is and when we have meetings. That´s the great thing about this area. The people are just really prepared because they come looking to change. 

I´m so excited for Christmas next week! Thank you family for the wonderful package and thanks to all of you for brightening my weeks with your great emails! I hope that this week counting down to Christmas is filled with Joy and happy moments. 

The church is true and Christ directs it! He is our savior! 

Love, 

Hermana Schwartz

Photos:

super yummy pan called rosca de reyes, 

the view from our apartment, 

Package!! Yay!

Be Still, My Soul

(Posted out of order, this is actually from November 27, 2017)

Hellooo queridos amigos y familia!! 

How was Thanksgiving? Is Christmas in full swing? Is there snow yet? 

For Thankgsiving here we searched for all of the ingredients we could and finally settled on just making mashed potatoes. We ate them on the bus on the way to Playa, along with a bunch of junk food. Not quite traditional, but it was fun! I sure was grateful. 

The Conference with Elder Pino was amaaaazing!!! Literally every single one of my questions was answered! We sang a beautiful arrangement of Be Still My Soul in English and Spanish, with Hermana Merrick on the piano. Sadly we didn´t get a video, but it gave me goosebumps. The spirit was so strong. We learned that we need to constantly be searching for people! They used an analogy that if we don´t keep searching, it´s like making tortillas without adding more masa to the machine. One or two tortillas will turn out fine, but eventually we will run out of material. Another kinda weird but super great anology was about fleas, that were in a little case and learned to jump only as high as the lid. Then, when the lid was removed, they still didn´t jump out because they were afraid of hitting the lid. It taught me that we always need to try to reach abouve and beyond,to reach our full potential. 

Aracely was baptized and it was beautiful! The font wasn´t quite filled up high enough, so she had to be baptized kneeling down. #tallgirlprobs But she is super sweet and happy to be "a good girl now." The only problem is that she slept in and didn´t show up to her confirmation on sunday...nooooo! The good news is that we can do it next week so that this chica gets the Holy Ghost. 

Oh, it was so sweet! The sister training leaders were VERY busy this week traveling in Cancun, so we helped them out be visiting their investigators. I have attatched the sweetest photo from my whole mission below. "Las Agostinas" is a mom and a daughter that are both named Agostina. The daughter is 25 but she has down syndrome. And she is my favorite human being. We sing hymns with them and she just starts jamming out and making up words. She also gives amazing hugs and just has a heart full of love. Hermana Gunderson lost her nametag, supposedly in the bus station. But when we went to visit the Agostinas, they had it! They found it in the street, and took care of it. They know that the missionaries are full of light, joy, and representatives of Christ. 

With December coming up, I invite you all to do the church´s christmas iniciative! Light the World!!! It´s so amazing and I know that by doing it we will fill the world with service. What better gift can we give to our savior? 

It was a good week and we´re finishing up the cambio! I´ll be writing next saturday for the end of the transfer.Thanks for all you do! 

Con amor, 

Hermana Schwartz 

PS in my last email I said "assist" and not "attend." It´s because the spanish word is "asistir" ;) I´m forgetting everything...yay! 

Que Pasa Calabaza?

(Posted out of order.  We didn't receive a few emails at the right time, just barely figured out how to access them.  This is from October 30, 2017)

Happy Halloween!!! I am the happiest missionary in all of Cancún because we found baby pumpkins and we carved them! It´s the simple things, haha. They say, "Sea feliz, Sea Mormon!" (Be happy, be Mormon!) My companion indulged in my desire to carve pumpkins and we had a lot of fun. I also love the phrase, "Que pasa calabaza, nada nada limonada!" (What´s up, Pumpkin. Nothing, lemonade.) Spanish is the best. 

We learned a bunch of other random phrases this week, like "con las manos en la masa" or, "The hands in the dough." It means caught red handed, but it actually was very applicable because we were kneading masa with the relief society for a ward activity. We made "pibi pollo." It´s traditional to the Yucatan peninsula and they usually cook it in a hole in the ground. We weren´t that exotic and we just made it in the oven, but it was super fun and we wrote down the crazy complicated recipe. So I will definitely intent to make it for you all someday and hope that it turns out okay. :)

This week we had the suuuuper amazing, spiritually uplifting Stake Conference with our favorite mission President, PRESIDENTE REYNOSO! He came to talk and did an amazing job of explaining the joys of missionary work. It was so great because our investigator Kristel can´t make it to church on sundays for her college, but she could come to the Saturday night session and she loved it! Everyone was so friendly and really gave her the best "bienvenida." At one point she started crying, I think because she felt the spirt? Maybe she was nervous? I´m not actually sure....but I just felt prompted to share the scripture that says "Lean unto God in every thought, doubt not, fear not." After that, she was calm, and full of joy just to be there in the Lord´s house. I´m not sure why she was upset, or exactly how she was feeling, but I know that message was what the Lord wanted her to hear in that moment. She´s amazing. 

Elder Martinez from the Quorum of the Seventy was also there, and he is so powerful!!! He really helped me understand that even after our best efforts, if the people don´t accept our invitation, it isn´t because we didn´t have faith. It´s because God respects their agency. It was a beautiful conference and it was amazing to see the whole stake show up, ready and willing to hear from our leaders. The saints are so good here, it´s unbelievable. 

Elder Martinez made the best joke. He pulled the stake presidente up to the front, and put him next to Presidente Reynoso. He explained how they both have priesthood keys for the missionary work and how the members and missionaries NEED to work together. And then he explained that both of them are dentists. (The stake pres is the talented dentist that fixed my tooth) Sooooo.....OPEN YOUR MOUTH and share the gospel. It was too good. And so true! 

I had the lifechanging experience of eating Elote, which is mexican street corn with cream, cheese, and chili. Hermana Merrick and I were amazed by how good it is and every time the corn guy passes by on his tricicle we´re super tempted to by an elote. We can´t buy street food, but we can accept it if a member offers us something. 

Pictures this week include one of the many random horses that we pass on the streets. There are cowboys here. Also, our cute pumpkins and making pibi pollo. :)

I love you all and I hope everthing is going well! Have a great Halloween, eat lots of candy, and share the gospel!!! 

Love, 

Hermana Schwartz

Trio Equals Three Times the Fun!

Hello, hello! I´m writing on a Saturday because next week we´ve got cambios! I´m staying here in beautiful Playa, close by the beach! Sorry to all of my missionary friends and family that are suffering in the snow. ;)

I´m working in trio until monday, when my new companion Hermana Flores arrives! Who was actually my companion before in Cancun, so I´m super excited. She´s the best. It was a great week, full of change and lots of work which is always good. I got to go on lots of splits with members so that we could take care of the two halves of the area. We found new people to teach and I´m so excited! Osiris is a sweet niña that is honestly so smart! She understood everything we taught super quick and is just adorable. We are also teaching Rogelio, who learned about the church when he lived in the US. He´s the perfect investigator, but he works on Sundays! Noooo! We´re fasting and praying and looking for opportunities to attend church. I´m so grateful that God always puts people in our path when we go out to look for them. 

I´m sending pictures of food. It was a good week for food. Hermana Martinez, one of my comps, is from El Salvador. She taught the relief society how to make Popusas, and they are realllly good. We also bought pies from the Elders Quorum president, because he is a baker and he makes the best pies I have ever had the privelige to try. They are seriously delicious. It´s like a cheesecake with blackberry filling. 

Oh, and the best part of this week!!!! We watched a movie.....in the mission! The area president authorized our mission to watch the Disney movie "COCO" as a zone, because it teaches about family history and mexican culture. And I´m obsessed!!! No me diga, it is so good! My companion and I were cracking up all week about the funny parts and now we now why they don´t normally let missionaries watch movies, because we´re constantly singing the catchy songs or referencing it. But I´m focused, I promise! Haha. But I officially love that movie. If you want to know how it relates to gospel doctrine read D&C 128:15, which explains baptisms for the dead and how amazing family history work is!

I´m really excited for the upcoming transfer and I know that we will be able to see lots of miracles here. Thanks everyone for your love and support! Let me know if I can be of any help for anything. One random tourist guy who served in this mission called us asking us to look up his convert from 20 years ago....so yeah, literally anything you need the misisonaries are there to help! 

I want to share a scripture with you guys. One convert here said that he got baptized so that he could come to know Jesus Christ. I was thinking a lot about that and I read Mosiah 5:13. I invite you all to read it and ponder about how we can come to know Christ. What more can we do to honor our baptismal covenants and truly be called his servants? This church is true! The work of salvation is going forth here in this world and in the other side of the veil. Have a wonderful week and always remember the great love that God has for you! 

Love, 

Hermana Schwartz

Feliz Navidad y Feliz Año Nuevo!

Hello everyone! Happy New Year!

The holidays here were honestly so amazing, mostly because I got to talk to my family!! Skype is the best invention ever, hands down. We also got fed really good food by the members and got to come home early to chill in our tiny apartment. Good times. Mexico likes to celebrate Christmas and New Years with LOTS of fireworks and loud music, so it was a fiesta. 

I`ve been so excited to write all week, just to send my love and thanks to all of you. I love this time of year and even though it was very different to pass it as a missionary, it was unforgettable and I`m so grateful that I can be here. 

Last Wednesday we had a baptism!!! Alfonso Jimenez was truly prepared by the Lord! He amazes me with his humble prayers and his desires to change. He never learned how to read, so after we finished prepping him for his baptism, we started teaching him the alphabet! His first word that he read was FE--faith in Spanish. It was so cool. And the young men went to go help out our other convert, Pedro, in his casita because he has a ton of old cans. They sold them for a ton of money and he is just so grateful for their help. 

We found a really sweet stray dog that my companion went up to pet. (not really super smart, but she did it, not me, Mom! Haha) She looked at the nametag and said, "Oh, her name is Rabies!" It was the license for the rabies vaccines. I cracked up because she kept saying, "Come here, Rabies!" The name stuck. I included a picture of cute rabies. :)

Hermana Betancourt was pretty sick this week, unfortunately, so we stayed inside a bunch and didn`t get to work a ton. And we basically ate chicken noodle soup all week because the members all heard that she was sick. But she also had a birthday and I tried REALLY hard to make it special. I made her favorite breakfast, zuchinni toast,(yes, that`s really her favorite) and we planned a little party with the members. It was a special day for her and it was fun finding little ways to serve throughout the day. 

We also had exchanges with the Sister Training leaders and I got to proselyte with my old companion Hermana Flores! It was fun to be out with her again, and it helped me see that I do know how to navigate the area! We finshed off the day with a giant pizza and a mini Christmas party. 

We basically dropped all of our investigators because they weren`t progressing, but we found new people too! They`ve got a lot of potential. We are pumped to be able to teach and baptize in the month of January! 

Today we went to the beach! But just to pick up another missionary who was coming in from cozumel. But it was still beautiful! It`s the closest I have been to the ocean in my whole mission. 

I know that setting goals is inspired by God. I gave a talk in Sacrament yesterday about how our part is being diligent, and Christ`s part is giving us his grace. With those two key components I know we can reach any goal! God`s goal is to bring to pass the imortality and eternal life of man. I know that by setting and keeping goals, we are helping him bring to pass his plan for our progression. 

Anyway, I love yáll so much! Have a wonderul week and a wonderful year!!! 

Lots of love from Playa,

Hermana Schwartz​

Skype call Christmas Eve!

Oh, the picture that says Betancourt is from when I woke up early to decorate the house for Hna. B´s birthday. I was so sleepy that I didn`t realize the permanent marker bled through onto the wall. But don`t worry, it washed off! 

Also, we made pillows with the baptism symbol so that we dream about BAPTISMS! yay! So cute. The food is strawberry roses and mole enchiladas.....yum!!!