Shaelie's Missionary Adventure!: Fire alarm... again

Minha!!! :) Eu amo voces!!! I'm in a really good mood right now and I don’t really know why! Being a missionary is just so awesome!!

This week has been good and bad! We have been doing a lot of teaching which is good! But then one night one of our teachers, Irmao Rogers, kind of gave us a hard time about not speaking the language more and just made us feel like we weren’t doing well. All the sisters were super depressed because we thought we were doing well, but apparently that wasn’t so... That was Monday, then that night our fire alarm went off AGAIN!! This time at 12:00am we were so angry because we were already in bad moods. We officially HATE our building! The fire alarms are seriously a problem and the basement keeps on getting flooded. They really need to get it fixed before the floor is full of girls! Could you imagine if people actually lived down there! Oh man... Entao, we definitely needed Tuesday to be a good day. Well, Heavenly Father listened to our prayer! For the Tuesday night devotional Elder Holland came to speak to us!!!! :D

His talk was so awesome and exactly what we needed to hear. He talked a lot about what an exciting time it was to be a missionary and how we must have done something special before this life to be able to serve right now. The Lord really is hastening his work and to be a part of it is so amazing! There are so many exciting changes going on and there are so many people coming… it’s awesome! It re ignited in me a desire to be the best missionary I possibly can be and how I would have been called to serve here and go to Brazil if the Lord didn’t know I could learn the Language. I know I can do it with his help as hard as it may be! Something else that was super cool was that he rededicated a couple buildings here at the MTC that got renovated so he said a dedicatory prayer. I have never been in the presence of an apostle of God while they were praying and it was so incredible. Just to hear him address our Heavenly Father brought the spirit so strong. I felt like in that very moment he was looking down on all of us in that auditorium. I know that he IS an apostle of God and that he was here for a purpose. It was totally something that I will never forget and I'm so glad I got to be a part of it!

So I’m going a little out of order here... but on Sunday I had to give a talk in sacrament meeting! In Portuguese!!!! To top it all off one of the members of the MTC presidency, President McIff, was there... The talk was on faith in Jesus Christ and it only had to be like 5 minutes but it was still scary! I felt like I was saying so many things wrong, especially my verb conjugations! But they told me they could understand what I was saying so I was glad! We had a district in our Branch head out to the field on Monday and Tuesday which was sad because they were one of my favorites. It was the one with our zone leaders in it so we had to get new ones. They were all either going to Portugal or Africa. I have some pictures of them. Sometimes I feel like we are just going to be in the MTC forever so when people actually leave it makes me so sad! But I know it’s good and we all need to actually get started doing the Lords work!

On Saturday we got to teach in the TRC which was great! It went a lot better than the first time! ha-ha we taught 2 return missionaries who had gone to the Sao Paulo Norte mission (I think) so it was fun. It feels like so much less pressure teaching them. I think it might be the fact that they aren’t our teachers so we don’t feel like they are judging us as much! haha But we really do love teaching when it goes well! We started teaching each other as progressing investigators and I have taken on the personality of someone I think would be really awesome to have the missionary lessons! I won’t tell you who but it’s actually pretty cool! The whole role playing thing is a little weird sometimes but then when you are the investigators you learn so much! I love seeing how the other missionaries teach. Although, we are getting taught by the trio and a couple of them really struggle with the language… but it is fun and less pressure because none of us are very good so it takes a little of the pressure off! haha

Well I think that’s about all that happened this week! At least all I can remember... haha I love you all so much! Keep sending letters! I want to hear how you are doing! Dear elder is so easy and Free!! And… I WILL write you back! :)

EU AMO VOCES! A IGREJA E VERDIEDERA!!!!

Love, Sister Schwitters!

Clearly my camera got hijacked...haha

This is me and elder Jones. His brother is serving in the oakland mission and he served in the YSA ward while I was there!! Small world right?!!! He's another fun one! :) He plays 4 square too, but again he's really good and gets me out so I always give him a hard time! haha

Me and the sisters! LOVE THEM!

Me and some of the elders I love from one of the districts in my branch. They came in a week before we did and had the classroom right next to us so we hang out with them quite a bit. They are super fun and I think most are going to the forteleza mission. Its Elder Goff, Elder Baker(who is from utah! we could be related! haha) and Elder Wadsworth. And Elder Martineau behind me but hes in my district. But they are way fun.

One of our old ZL's! Elder Tingey! He was so awesome! Such a sweet guy! And tall!! haha

This is me and Elder O'malley! He is from England!!! He was so cool, we rocked the 4 square together all the time. He was way good though so he got me out all the time!