Jairo

I don't know if any of you reading remember me talking about a  young man named Jairo.. but that's our miracle for the week. I found the page in my journal of the first day we taught him, July 30, 2013, three weeks after we met him on the street. Well... seven months later... he's getting baptized. 

When we first met Jairo he was living a very rough life. The street life, they call it. I even remember in our first lesson he told us he wasn't able to read and write. You should have seen our amazement when he responded to our text message... miracle! Or we just proved his excuse wrong. Well it has been an amazing experience to be able to walk the path with him. To see all of the progress that he has made in the past seven months. I cannot wait to see him in white..  

It's been a weird transfer... and I haven't really had the desire to write a weekly email for the past two weeks and my comp is super speedy at doing emails so I don't wanna make her wait!! I'll repent and do a super good one next week!

Love you all! 

The church is true. 

Onward and Upward.

Hermana Schwendiman 

Windy AND cold!!  Nothing frozen yogurt can't fix!

The Alex Boye Way... @alexboye

Today I'm going to talk a little bit about how we did something the Alex Boye way!!

Wednesday at Zone Meeting I was sitting next to my district leader, Elder Traasdahl, and turned to him suddenly and out flooded the words, "I want a family of six!" "huh?" he responded... "I want to teach of family of six.." He just kind of looked at me, nodded his head and said "Well okay!" 
That night as I knelt down to pray I had a "movie reel" kind of moment and started to replay the talk from Alex Boye at the Christmas devotional. Saying that we have more power than we think. Our expectations and faith in God are too low and he is willing to give us miracles, we just lack the faith the ask for them and we sure don't expect them. So with that, I just said to my Father in Heaven.. Well Father, I know that you can do anything and right now, well, I'm putting this on my "expectations" list, to find and teach a family of 6. 

The next morning we were in an appointment with a potential investigator that we had called from our formers. A woman named Trixi. We walked in the door and there was a three year old boy on the couch and a baby in his carrier. As we started into our "how to begin teaching" she mentioned that she had another 4 year old who was at school at the moment. Then came Alex Boye, and I remember started to pry a little... counting up 4.. and wondering if she was married. That would make 5. It wasn't 6.. but I could settle with a family of 5. So I asked.. she started to talk about the relationship she was in. Not officially married because she had been previously married (the Latino teaching curse). 5. Family of five. Not bad. A few minutes in the lesson as we were talking she mentioned ANOTHER DAUGHTER, from her previous marriage. I remember my eyes getting big and whispering under my breath, "No way..." I almost jumped up with my fist in the air and said, "And that's how we do things the Alex Boye way!!" But instead I said a humble little prayer in my heart... 

Well done Alex, Well done!

By the way, Bryan... the awesome Dominican hipster that came to church last week, now is getting baptized that the end of the month!! 

Onward and Upward

Hermana Schwendiman 

Cake Boss is in our zone and one of our members works there and we got a tour of it.  Yes, that man is half hugging us... Awkward!  but not as awkward as Buddy (the boss man) accidentally touching my butt after the group photo

The 3 Alta Hawks from our zone!!

I'm staying put...

Well it's that time of transfer.. Text came in last night. I'm staying a fifth! I bore my testimony yesterday in church and got up to the pulpit and said,"Well I've been here long enough that I'm basically a member." I've been here since July and will be here till February.. Unless I don't ever leave and spend the rest of my mission here. I couldn't be more grateful to stay with my companion though.

This week was crazy.. 

New Years eve we went over to Veronica's. My first convert here in this area. She invited us over to her brothers house and her mom came, and her cousins. One big Ecuadorian New Years eve party. One thing that I remember when we went to Ecuador was that every New Years Eve all the men dress up like women and then they stuff some of their old clothes to make a pretend human. They write the last year on it and then at midnight they light them on fire. I remember walking into this apartment and there was a "Weekend at Bernies" type man sitting in the corner. It looked so odd to me and took me a second to realize what it was. Well then i adopted him as my date for the night and we got along just fine. It's a bummer that we weren't in Ecuador and couldn't light him on fire. I guess it wouldn't have mattered because we were home LONG before midnight anyway! 

Little spiritual fun note.. Street contact came to church yesterday and it was testimony meeting. Young 19 year old very spiritual boy. I sat next to him in sacrament meeting and I went up and bore a quick testimony and as I was closing he came up to the stand and bore his. I was in awe. First time at church. Way to go kid! He's was on page ten in the book of mormon and even volunteered to say the prayer in sunday school.. even though he started it off.. Oh God who art in the heavens.. I was pretty impressed. He lives in the Elders area but it was still really fun to see that happen.

One other really fun miracle. I don't think I shared this last week... But it goes to show that even small things can have a huge purpose. When I was up here with Hermana Schaefer one night I had a really odd desire to eat ice cream... she did too! So later that night when we had time set aside we went and found this ice cream shop that everyone had been talking about. Walked in sat down.. and I had a the prompting to talk to the ice cream shop owner. As I started to move he came up to us.. Said he grew up with his uncle who was a patriarch and his cousin told him that NY had really fun young single adult activities so he wondered if we could get him information on that... well he was baptized yesterday!! A sweet little reward.

One other fun note.. has to do with the weather. This weekend it snowed.. HARD. and then Saturday night.. it rained. And then all froze. We didn't walk to church yesterday.. we ice skated!! We were dying laughing and poor sister Acosta has never seen the snow let alone dealt with ice before. We were all over the place!! The best part wast the there is a slant in the sidewalk going up to the church door and we couldn't get up. I had to get a fast walking start and slide up to the door to get there!! 

Well onward and upward just like it was like getting into the church!! Love you all!

Hermana Schwendiman

Diego turned 21 this week and kept saying he was OLD.  So since I am already 21, we took an old people picture

My Ecuadorian date for New Years Eve!

Christmas week

This week I thought I would maybe talk about the demands of missionary life that really came out this week for me:

Spiritual: Well, something that comes to mind with a spiritual demand is church. This week in church (fifth week) was "Missionary Work" So this missionaries are in charge of all of the classes, talks, prayers, all. Luckily we have 8 in this ward and I got away with saying one prayer in sacrament meeting. Not quite sure how that worked. But lets just say our members know what missionary work is. The worst part was when the bishop was throwing us the "cut him off" sign to one of the Elders that was talking and the whole congregation saw it! 

Social:Closest thing to social we got to this week was exchanges!! They were awesome though!

Physical: One of the fun experiences that misisonaries face is being locked out of their apartment and having to break in.. Christmas eve, our keys were in the church (25 minutes away from where we were) and Hermana Acosta wasn't feeling well and we needed to go home. Well our neighbors let us use their balcony and lets just say that was the closest thing to rock climbing i've done in about a year and it was awesome!! Made it safe and sound!  

Nutritional: Talk about good food! Hispanics know how to cook for the holidays and us, as missionaries, we sure know how to eat good food!! 

 

Christmas-al: Christmas was incredible! We had an incredible morning opening presents, fun white elephant/breakfast zone activity, and then the night with a few members and talking to our families. Which was the best gift we could have received! (Sister Acosta was able to talk to her mom and her mom said that she is moving in with some members and wanted to go to church this sunday with them!! YES!!) 

 

Espanol: Yup, I still live in latino-ville so we are doing good on that part! 

Well somewhat of a short email this week but sometimes it's just interesting to see a few of the surprises we get thrown.. Nothing like the holidays as a missionary and we are excited for the New Year!! 

Onward and Upward

Hermana Schwendiman 

Christmas morning 

White elephant party zone activity on Christmas day

great missionary Christmas day

our week...

So since Hermana Acosta is a new missionary, she is generally pretty tired when we get home and is passed out before I finish writing in my journal.. I have found myself, for the past couple nights, sitting in front of our little made up Christmas tree, thinking to myself, "Yup... I wanna open em" Which I couldn't do because I have told Hermana Acosta that we had to wait to open our presents till Christmas day. We have to wait till Christmas day to open our own presents... not each others!! So I convinced myself that I could open a couple of Hermana Acostas presents without her knowing and it would satisfy my little desire to open presents!! It was successful.. So I can tell you for a fact that she is going to love it all! There were a few so perfectly and beautifully wrapped that I didn't dare touch them but the rest.. hahaha that's some good stuff! 

We had a bit of a crazy week.. 

MONDAY:

-P-day

-found an investigator family 

TUESDAY:

-New York trip that took a LONG time.. because of miscommunication. We went as a zone.. thats 25 people to keep together. So much fun and I absolutely love the temple and New York! 

WEDNESDAY

-Specialized training for new missionaries in Morristown

-New York Traffic

-Train travels all night to pick up a car so that our zone could all get to the Jingle with the Jeppsons the next morning

THURSDAY:

-Jingle with the Jeppsons (so awesome! Our Zone did receive the "worste bell ringers award)

-District meeting

-New York traffic (I now fully understand why I am in a walking area) but we dropped the car back down south and found our way back to the U.C.

FRIDAY:

-All-Mission Conference in Morristown

     -Alex Boye (enough said)

SATURDAY:

-ward breakfast

-Baptismal interview (Marilyn)

-Ward party

SUNDAY:

--Baptism!!!!-- 

We have been working with Marilyn since I got here basically. She is 14 years old, from Mexico, and now the second member in her family. Her mom was baptized a few years ago and when we went to meet with her (because she was a less-active) she brought Marilyn. I assumed she was a member but at the end of the lesson, out of my mouth pops "you're a member right?" Well that's where it started. She was a little shy with us at first but about a month ago, picked her own baptismal date and has been progressing ever since! 

 I've never met a person this timid.. and it only has to do with pictures and big groups of people. Welcome to our baptismal service. Pictures took some time.. but we did get them! and then the moment she was going to get baptized.. Well lets go a few hours before and pass over the time when the elder asked me if I thought 80 degrees was warm enough for the font. "Yup.. should be fine" It was VERY cold. Especially for Latinos. Oops.. that combined with the group of people watching her turned into a bit of a problem. But luckily we have the best bishop in the world the just stayed in the font and while the group sang we ran the hot water and she got a pep talk from him! She was super nervous she was going to do it wrong.. The bishop was pretty aware and he knew it would destroy her is she had to do it twice so after the prayer he shoved her in the water and then one more of Gods children entered into the straight and narrow! 

It really is the most wonderful time of the year!! 

Hermana Schwendiman 

I love NYC!

Christmas zone party

Me and Sis. Acosta… NY skyline

Marilyn at her baptism

hump day!

HUMP DAY!!!

We (Hilary's parents) sent this to Hils as part of her hump day package and thought you might enjoy it. We bought the camel at Toys R Us and Build a Bear let us record ourselves and they even put it in and sewed it shut for us. Her hump day was December 20th... Woot woot... HUMP DAY!! She'll be home in no time!

short and brief

Well here's for a really short, brief letter.
One of my favorite things in life is to sit back and notice the Lord's hand.  To really open my eyes and realize how much He has done for me and for those around me.
An impression we received that we should call an old referral in the middle of the day, which led to possibly the only time that we could have gotten a hold of her to set up on appointment.
The man on the street that I felt inclined to give a pass-along card too, then the even stronger impression to turn around and chase him down the street to talk to him… then the powerful first lesson we had with him when he accepted the baptismal invite.
The many reasons why I have been called to train Hermana Acosta.  Especially during tis time of year, specifically in Union City where the members know how to love the missionaries (especially Hermana Acosta) as if we were their own.
The countless reasons I have been called to serve in the New Jersey Morristown Mission.  The simple fact that I am here on a mission.
We do not have any time to waste trying to follow our own paths and our own desires.  We know that the only way we will be okay is if we have the spirit with us.  When we are able to follow what the Lord wants us to do.  He knows what He is doing. 

With lots of Christmas love,

Hermanan Schwendiman