November 24, 2014

Hey everyone!

This was a good week. I don't have much time because I have a lot of time because we're going to the Kalamazoo air-zoo later today! I also need to go do my laundry for more trade-offs! We do a total of 6 in the transfer so if we're not busy enough in our own area we're driving around to others.

Last Monday evening we drove to St. Joe for trade-offs in the middle of a severe winter storm, so that was pretty cool. The next day, campus was closed so myself and Elder Giar had to reschedule our day since no one was on campus. We still taught a lot and contacted some sweet people! We also went to Olive Garden since it was Elder Giar's birthday. I think everyone in the restaurant thought we were on a date...

Wednesday was incredible. We had a joint-zone conference with Meridian. Elder Nash unfortunately was called away on an emergency assignment from the brethren so we had a non-G.A. conference. It was super super good, and we were pumped to go out afterwards! We didn't get back to our area until around 7:30 but when we got back to K-zoo we skipped dinner and went out to find. We picked up two new investigators that evening.

Thursday and Friday were also good days. Did a lot of finding in between our appointments. We have seen a big change with our investigator Jeremy. His heart is being softened by the Spirit for sure. He came to the Saturday and Sunday session of stake conference and enjoyed both. He is seriously considering being baptized on December 13 which is just unreal to think about if you had been to our first meetings. At first he seemed to have no real intent, possibly just wanted to investigate to prove LDS doctrine wrong. I don't think that's the case anymore. 

Saturday. Walked everywhere. Talked to everyone. Had some more hilarious contacts. The usual day in the life of Elder Schmutz. Before the Saturday session of conference our mission president put it on myself and Elder Mac to put together a flash-mob. In the middle of his talk we stood up, hummed the tune "Called to Serve" as we made our way to the front, then all burst into singing once all the missionaries were in place. It went over surprisingly well! The humming was totally sketch but the singing was good. 

That's about it for the week! Have a great Thanksgiving. I'm so so grateful for each of you and for the impact you have had on my life. 

-Elder Schmutz

17 November 2014

Hey everyone!

Things are still going well here. It is getting pretty cold though; it makes for a fun challenge to try and stop kids on campus to talk to them about the Gospel. :)

We had a sick finding miracle this week! I told you last week about the new rule change, we don't drive cars anymore on Saturday. Well, the first day we went to campus to do our regular thing not realizing that NO ONE would be there. In the past we've doorknocked on Saturday to mix it up. It seemed campus was dead for finding opportunities. After walking around for a good half-hour, we saw one girl walking somewhat in our direction. We basically stalked her and stopped her to talk. After talking for a couple minutes, she said she was willing to hear our message. We taught her last Friday and she accepted the invitation to church, pray, read, and be baptized. It was pretty sweet. We've only taught her once, but she is already reading the Book of Mormon and enjoys it. Her name is Kya, pray for her that she will stay super solid! She admitted she was super weirded out when we stopped her (we were too), but it was a tender mercy nonetheless. 

Other than finding Kya, this was sort of a rough week. We got dropped by some of our top progressing investigators and we dropped/got dropped by all of our investigators marked for baptism. On the bright side, we set a date with Jeremy Evans even though he is still skeptical of the things we've taught him. We are working hard to help him lean less on physical evidence and more of spiritual evidence. As Elder Anderson said last conference, "Spiritual questions deserve Spiritual answers." 

I think God thought it would be really entertaining to put me on campus because I do some pretty weird stuff just about daily. I was on trade-offs the other day and in two separate instances I ran into people I thought were current investigators. I basically yelled at this girl, "HEY! How've you been?! Don't remind me, I remember your name....." I paused for a solid 4 seconds until she was like, "I've never met you before, I'm Claire". It made for a super good contact (not). We were in the library not 10 minutes later when I thought I saw Connor, a now former investigator. I clapped at him to get his attention since he had headphones on, but when I got closer I saw it was definitely not Connor. I disappointedly said, "Oh, you're not Connor." He replied, "I could pretend to be Connor  if you wanted me to." I walked off full of shame.

Love you all! Keep being great member missionaries as I hear you are and as I know you are!

-Elder Schmutz

November 3, 2014

I can't believe it's November already. The end of the year is just around the corner, and once Halloween was over we brought out the Christmas music. 

This week was good! Some people said I didn't send an email last week, and I don't remember and can't find one from "Sent Mail" so I'll update you on the past two weeks. 

Since the beginning of the transfer, we've been working on building up our teaching pool. We personal contact on campus a lot and hand out questionnaires. We have seen a lot of success and have found many new people to teach. Many have committed to be baptized- we will see who continues to progress as the next weeks go on.

Earlier in the week we did trade-offs with the assistants and I went to MSU again, this time with the new assistant, Elder Green. He's way sweet! If I got a picture I'll send it. We also did trade-offs with Elder Paulson and his trainee (I replaced him here at WMU). He got to come back and we had a great day full of teaching. We also got taken to Coldstone's by Long Chen.

Marquiese and Jim are still doing well, they were set apart in callings last Sunday. Marquiese is a ward missionary and goes out teaching with us just about every day and Jim is the official branch greeter. They'll do a good job. 

Not much time this week, sorry. Things are well here. Love you all! 

-Elder Schmutz

Western and Transfers, etc.

Hey everyone! 

Marquiese and Jim are still doing well, Marquiese has become another recent convert that goes out teaching whenever he can. It's so awesome! I'm excited to go out and find more prepared people. 

Elder Villaneda is being transferred away to Meridian (Lansing area) to be a zone leader there. We've really enjoyed our transfer together and I'm a bit surprised we didn't stay another transfer. My new companion will be Elder McMurtrey. I'm very excited! We got to work together (plus Elder Derricott) before we picked up our first trainees. The zone is getting changed up a lot and I'm way pumped. A lot of experienced leadership is coming to the zone to train again before they go home.

This week for us was way good! We found a super cool dude named Cornelius doorknocking. We taught him once and he accepted a date and is excited to learn more! We also got a hold of Ebony again. We're supposed to see her tonight and I'm praying we do because she was super cool. We have been blessed with a lot of success in the past six weeks. We're seeing more and more miracles as we are in our rebuilding stage for the area.

So remember about the zone goal I told you about last week? As a zone we set a goal to get 20 new baptismal dates set by the end of the transfer. When I emailed you last we were at 4 of 20. It came down to the wire, but we hit our goal of 20 new baptismal dates! It was incredible. On Wednesday alone, 9 new dates were set. We were sending texts to the zone every hour (or more) it seemed. On Saturday evening (last night of the transfer) we were at 18. Elder Villaneda and I sat in our truck marveling at how well the zone had done and even more how much Heavenly Father had blessed us. We were a little sad that we had come so close but wouldn't reach the goal. At 9:18 p.m. we got a call from Sturgis telling us that they had set two more people on date that day! We screamed like little girls when they told us. 

I have seen it time after time on my mission. I know that Heavenly Father answers righteous prayers if we have faith in Him. 

"And whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, which is right, believing that ye shall receive, behold it shall be given unto you." (3 Nephi 18:20)

So yeah, that's mission life! I love you all, I need to close because Elder Villaneda needs to pack and we need to clean! 

-Elder Schmutz

I picked up some West Coast slang in my time with Elder Villaneda. 

"We out here"

Jim and Marquiese's Baptism

Hey everyone! 

This week was incredible. It ended with Jim and Marquiese getting baptized and confirmed. Wow. It was so wonderful. I'm going to send a bunch of pictures so you can finally know who all these people are. I see more and more how God prepares all of His children to accept the Gospel. As I said before, basically the whole branch consists of recent converts, each with amazing conversion stories. This is God's work and I want to teach the Gospel forever.

It's always the people you don't expect that get baptized. I wasn't there, but Jim during his first lesson basically bashed the whole time. He read the Book of Mormon though, and his heart was softened. His fellowshipper Chris Bates did a great job, too. I got here the day we taught his second lesson and he was ready to accept everything. Marquiese was doorknocked into and sort of forgotten for a month or so but he also loved and accepted everything we taught. He has changed a lot during the short time we've taught him. Both of them got up and bore their testimony yesterday and it was powerful. Marquiese said he has come to know the Book of Mormon is true in a way he cannot deny. So solid! I just love them so much!

So, cool thing. As a zone we set a goal to set 20 new baptismal dates by the end of the transfer (this week). The Elders and Sisters are excited and we've already set 4 of 20. We set a date with Adrianna and Eugene. Adrianna is the only non-member of her family and has been taught before but has not accepted a baptismal invitation before. We taught a powerful restoration that clicked with Eugene and both of them accepted baptismal dates. Unfortunately one of their sons puked right as we teaching about the Book of Mormon...Now all of them are sick with the flu...Hopefully they better really quick so we can start teaching them all of the time. :)

As far as other things in our area, it was a slow week. We were driving everywhere so we basically taught whenever we weren't in the car somewhere. We had MLC Tuesday which took all day and on Wednesday I was in Coldwater on trade-offs. Thursday was Jim's interview day and then we had to drive down to Sturgis to do a couple baptismal interviews. Longest drive. Then Friday night we had to drive to South Haven to do another interview. We had 5 baptisms within the zone this weekend! Exciting but means lots of work for us. Our zone is pretty large, there are 34 total (biggest in the mission since Lansing got split last transfer). 

Conference was unbelievable. All of my questions and concerns I wrote down were addressed. In general my favorites (in no specific order) were Elder Lynn G. Robbins, Elder D. Todd Christofferson, Elder Jörg Klebingat...I basically loved all of them.

Alrighty. I love you all! I think that was about it for this week. I love you all! Have a good week!

-Elder Schmutz

Me, Chris Bates, Jim and Elder Villaneda

Men of K.U.B.
Me, Elder Paulson (visited from Lansing for the baptisms), Marquiese,
Adam French, Jim, Elder Villaneda, Chris Bates, and Long Chen. 

Me and Brother Bates. He's ripped and comes teaching with 

us all of the time. He was baptized in January as well and is 

going to be turning in his mission papers really soon.

I'm wearing Elder Villaneda's glasses because they look 

better on me anyway.

Sister Salisbury, myself, Adam French in the back, and Sister Page.

Sister Salisbury has been a member 6 months

Adam was baptized 1.5 years ago

Sister Page was baptized like 5 months ago

Me and Long Chen. Long is from China and was found over
Facebook (we use FB on campus).
He was baptized in January.

Hey

Time is short this week! I love you all and I'll update you more next week.

General conference is amazing. So so good. 

Our zone training went well and was successful. After our training the mission president and assistants came and showed us "Meet the Mormons". It was amazing. I encourage all of you to watch it when it comes to theaters or whenever you have a chance. It was very inspiring, I laughed too much and almost cried a bunch of times.

Marquiese and Jim came to every single session of conference and loved it. They will be baptized this weekend. So excited! Kyle and Sharrae are still doing well, but we're having hold-ups with them getting married. They're ready to be baptized once they're living the law of chastity in full.

Things are still going well here. We are busy teaching investigators and recent converts almost all of the time, but in the time in between that we find, we talk to awesome, prepared college students. 

Added a picture of me by a Western sign. 

Love you all! I'll hopefully have more time next week to write you!

-Elder Schmutz

WMU Continued

Hello to the people I love!

I'm still doing great here in Kalamazoo! The K.U.B. is simply the best. Kyle, Sharrae, Jim, and Marquiese are progressing beautifully towards their baptism in two weeks. 

Ebony is struggling and we haven't seen her for a couple of days. She wants to make friends and come to church but she is so shy!! She has a hard time connecting with people. I appreciate all of the prayers for myself and my investigators but if you could especially send a prayer out for Ebony it would be much appreciated!

So what happened this week...I've forgotten what's gone on. The time just flies by here, it's unbelievable. We found two new investigators from a referral from a family in K-zoo. I didn't teach them because I was on trade-offs, but Adriana and Eugene are way cool. Adriana is just about the only non-member in her immediate family. She's met with Elders and Sisters for a first lesson many times but they never made much of a connection like we have.

I went on trade-offs with Elder Derricott on MSU campus and it was pretty crazy (awesome). There are lots of students there. We found two new investigators and personal contacted on campus most of the day. One of the people we found that day is one of their top investigators. In their second lesson, they basically taught the plan of salvation + exaltation and he loved it. Haha. 

I'm listening to the Women's broadcast while I type. You should all listen to it if you didn't yesterday! It's been very good so far. Hey, it's General Conference Weekend and I'm so excited! I'm equipped with Pop-tarts so I'm ready to go.

Other cool thing coming up this week: zone training. We're training on some really good topics that will help the zone out a lot. I'm way pumped for it. Afterwards, we're going to watch "Meet the Mormons" and that will be way cool. If you haven't heard about that yet you should look it up.

Love you all! Have a sweet week. Choose the right!

-Elder Schmutz

No I didn't take this picture while I was driving. 

Rollin' through downtown K-zoo