Happy Week After T-Giving!

Hey everyone! Glad to hear you had a good Thanksgiving. Ours was pretty incredible too!

This week was kind of a slow one since no one was on campus. Everything was shut down for the break and everyone left for home. We have three other missionaries with us for transfers so everything's pretty hectic today. I should have more time next week to tell you everything that's going on!

We did do a lot of doorknocking and had good contacts for people that answered the door. We picked up Edwin last week, and this week we taught him again and his girlfriend and set baptismal dates with both of them. Otherwise, the only super exciting thing about proselyting this week is the Share the Gift initiative. Have all of you seen it? If you haven't go to christmas.mormon.org. It's incredible! We started using it on Friday and I'm super stoked to see how it goes throughout the world. I anticipate that missionaries throughout the MLM will pick up many new investigators out of it this Christmas season.

Thanksgiving was really fun. The sisters held a Thanksgiving dinner at the KUB and we had a decent turn-out. We ended up helping them cook for a while, I made some super good mashed potatoes (we only had a whisk for a masher so my arms got pretty tired). We had two other meals; one with a part-member family in the Kalamazoo 1 ward, and another with Long Chen (Korean BBQ). I'm still recovering from all the food I ate!

So yesterday was pretty sweet. Our sacrament meeting was based on Gratitude since Thanksgiving was just this week. The first speaker, an RM sister who just came home from Ukraine, reviewed Elder Uchtdorf's talk on how we should be thankful in our circumstances. Right at the end before she bore her testimony in Russian, she passed out. Fainted hard-core. Everyone rushed to her aid and she got a priesthood blessing on the spot. She ended up being okay, thank goodness. It was a tough act to follow; I had to give a talk right after her.

That's about it. Not a lot is changing in the zone, we are staying together another transfer. I'm super happy about that! 

Thank you Amy and Clark for the decorations! I take great pride in my Christmas tree, even though I have no clue who any of the people are (except you). I'm excited to meet the ward members when I return. Mom and Dad, thanks for the package! I got everything.

Love you all!

-Elder Schmutz

#DiscoverTheGift

#EmbraceTheGift

#ShareTheGift

Me and my brother Elder Sauer said goodbye to our mission dad today since he "dies" Wednesday.
The MLM won't be the same without him!

 My Decorations

Me and My Decorations

In the cockpit of a Blue Angel

ALSO

We went to the Kalamazoo air-zoo last P-day after emailing. 

It was incredible! We did flight simulators and saw lots of cool planes.

This is a picture of me and Elder Strong right before the flight simulators. We ignored the other planes and just did barrel rolls the whole time. Elder Strong is also known as Ralphie by the mission president and his wife since he looks like the kid from Christmas Story.