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

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! 

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. :)

The Luck of the Irish

Happy late st. patricks day everyone! This holiday is funny here because no one celebrates it here. I just walk around explaining to all the members that in my house we drink green milk on the 17th and they think it´s some weird american tradition. But seriously this week was amazing! I learned soooooo much because God gave us some trials and some serious blessings.

Basically we didn´t find any new investigators for a week, and we were looking to drop everyone that we were teaching because they weren´t progressing. We had an AMAZING zone conference and we left super excited and we found a GOLDEN INVESTIGATOR!!! She´s the greatest. her name is Betty and she´s so prepared to hear the gospel. She told us that she felt really happy and she didn´t know why, and we explained that it was the spirit! I already love her so much.

Then the next day, we went out and everything went so smooth (which literally never happens in the mission) Everyone accepted a baptismal date that we saw! We ended up with 7 new investigators. When we got back to the house, I told my companion that it was the luck of the Irish because 7 is a lucky number. (coincidence.....I think NOT!) haha but seriously it was such a huge blessing.

I know that God hears and answers our prayers! I know that he is preparing people around the world to hear the gospel! We just need to be willing and ready in whatever moment to reach out and help them find it.

President Reynoso came to stake conference this week and it was truly a sight to see. The chapel was packed!! And the poor tourists that showed up were all so confused because it was so full and they didn´t pass the sacrament. It was a beautiful conference and it was really special because our investigator that up until this point hasn´t really progressed CAME to church! Whooo! She takes care of 8 kids under the age of 5 on sundays and she brought all of them. They filled up the bench and it was amazing. She received an answer to her prayers in the conference and is excited for her baptism. (happy tears)

Photos:

4 leaf clovers that I found/made

13 months

baby pancakes 

bouncy chair in walmart (some things never change)

Love you all so much! Have a wonderful week! Look for someone to serve today! 

Hasta luego, 

hermana schwartz

I Spent the Week On the Bus

heyyyy friends and fam!

Okay, so I´m once again very short on time but this week was great! We preached and searched and we found a couple miracles.

One thing I learned this week was about humility and about asking forgiveness. That was the topic in relief society, and it turned out to be exactly what I needed to hear. I know that God answers prayers and many times, he answers them in church!

Another fun experience is called I travelled to Cancun on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. We go in this little mini combi buses because they are super cheap, but dang. I felt like I spent the whole week in that bus.

My companion and I went bargain shopping today and we found some cute shirts and souvenirs. I try to remind myself I´m not a tourist....yet.

The work is going along really well! Our investigator Flora is really awesome. She already knows so much about the commandments. She´s excited to read the book of Mormon because she´s already read the Bible, and it´s more of God´s word! Yeah! And her cute little daughter told us yesterday that she wants to be baptized too!

Oh, I almost forgot! This week we thought we would play a joke on the elders and we left a note on their porch saying to send a pizza to our address. AND THEY DID IT! It was the weirdest thing, a pizza just showed up one night, already payed and everything. It was the best act of service ever. We sent them the scripture in Alma that says that he fell to the ground in shock, because we were so surprised that they actually sent it. Best pizza ever. We also got to try the famous brownies of Hermano Lumbreras. It was soooooo good! Lifechanging.

Well, that´s all the time I have for today. But I love you guys so much! I hope you have a wonderful week! Scripture reading challenge: Open to a random page and look for a promise. It might take some searching but I promise you will find one!

The book of mormon is true and this is God´s work! Thanks for everything!

Until next week, 

hermana Schwartz