Bernard

OOOOOLA!!!

How is everybody?!! Eu estou marvilhoso!! (I totally spelled that wrong but oh well! haha) This week has been pretty good! We have become somewhat busy which is totally awesome!! The most exciting thing that happened this week is I have my first investigator with a baptismal date!!! YAY!!! He is set to get baptized on March 16th so as much as I want to get to Brazil I really hope I am able to be here for his baptism because he really is a special guy. He has been meeting with the missionaries for a little while but we are teaching him all the lessons fully so he can really understand for when he is baptized! He is so fun we really love teaching him! He just wants to learn and follow God, which is awesome!

We are also teaching a few other people, they are not as ready but I am super hopeful! They both want to make changes in their lives because they know that’s what they need to do in order to be happy, we are just helping them know how to do that. I've been surprised about how easy it can be to tell others what I know. Although I'm working on being able to explain things more simply so it all just comes natural. Luckily my trainer Sister Anderson is super awesome so she can help if I don't explain something quite right. She's super good at using different analogies that make sense! I will definitely be stealing some of those! :) But teaching is going really well and I am loving every minute of it!

We are doing a lot with less actives by just visiting them and getting to know them. Sister Anderson and I are pretty fun and outgoing, so we just try to let them know how much we love them and help them with whatever they need. It’s kind of difficult catching people at home but we get to see quite a few people and visit with them. We do a lot of sharing spiritual thoughts which is helping me get more familiar with the scriptures, being able to pick something out and relate it to them and really rely on the spirit to help me know what to say that can help them personally. We may not always know what way we may help someone, but we do every day! And it’s an amazing feeling!
Something awesome that we did yesterday was attend a sweet broadcast! They had a statewide stake conference broadcast yesterday and it was awesome! Elder M. Russell Ballard and a few others spoke to the saints of Nevada! They spoke about a couple different things, but one that really impacted me was Elder Ballard talking about how as members we can live the first principles of the gospel more fully that is Faith, Repentance, Baptism, The Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the end. I was thinking about how these things impact my life and what I do to make them a priority. Obviously faith is so important to each and every one of us. That faith and trust in God and his plan for us is what gets me through the day. It also helps us all to overcome trials and hardships. And when we are repentant everyday it makes us able to more fully have the spirit with us, which is especially important as missionaries as we teach the gospel! I'm still thinking about the other ones but this is something I am going to be studying for a while.

So in short this week has been really good! The ward members are all so sweet and I love them so much. One thing I’ve been so impressed with is how easy it is to love others as a missionary. I have this instant love for all the people I come in contact with and it is such a great feeling! In our zone meeting we talked a lot about the pure love of Christ and how we can emulate that in everything we do so that all people we come in contact with feel loved. I hope you all will work on that and even when someone is not nice to you that we think about the Savior and the love he had for every single person, even those who cursed him. I know we are not all perfect but we should constantly be striving to have that love lead our actions!

I love you all so so much and pray for all my friends and family every day! I hope so much that you all are doing well and know how much I love you! I feel so blessed to have the opportunity to be a missionary. It is the best ever! And I just barely got started!! This gospel is so true is makes me amazingly happy to be able to share it will others! May we all continually share what we know to be true to all people around us!!

AMO VOCES!!

Sister Schwitters! :D

 So last Pday we went to a little birthday party for one of the girls in another ward and they made little owl pillows! This is the one I made, his name is bernard :)

Me and my trainer Sister Anderson!

 

A posterity picture. This is me and my sisters with our mom (ask a return missionary how that works if you dont know haha)

 

 

So this is kind of sad... they give you these little binders when you come to the mission and usually they say your name on them, you know all personalized and stuff but mine just said "visa waiter" haha that made me feel loved! haha its funny!

 

Me and Bernard are totally twinners! :)