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!

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. :)