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

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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

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

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

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!

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! 

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