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

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

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)