Bonjour ma famille!!
Man today has been such an awesome day!! I woke up today at 5:30 to do laundry cause missionaries have been coming earlier and earlier so I now go earlier and earlier to beat the rush. That is why a few people got an email today super early in the morning. After laundry I went to the rez avec mon collègue and we chilled and I wrote a letter and got ready for the temple. I was so stoked for the temple cause at 9:30 Alex's mom and nana were going to meet me at the front door to say hi cause they are up here for Education Week. It was sooo good to see them! I am so blessed that the Lord blessed me with that opportunity this morning! We got some pictures and then just talked about the MTC and how my french was coming along and about food in Africa. I loved it so much! And then some of my district was able to meet them as well. I basically consider them family so I gave them a big hug. It was great. I can't even explain how happy I was to see them. They are so awesome and I love them so much. Mom, I know that you mentioned that DeAnn wanted to go through a session with me, well my time to go to the temple is at 9:45 and I am in the 10:00 session. Next Tuesday is my last temple trip where I will be able to go through the temple so if she wants to do that, next Tuesday would be the day to do that. Right now I will plan on meeting her at the front at 9:30 like I did with Kristin and Nana so we can have some time to talk and what not. Just email me before next Tuesday and let me know if she is going to do it for sure. I will get onto my email really early again to check to make sure it is final or not. I would love to see her so much! So yeah, the temple was incredible. Every time I go I learn so much and the Lord always blesses me with insight into my life and other special things. I think I felt complete peace today as I was sitting in the Celestial room... It was incredible. I love the feelings I have there so much. I am bummed that I only have one more opportunity to go through and then that will be it for 22 months. I really wish I went a lot more than I did before I came out here on my mission. Oh well, never look back (watch that Mormon message called Look Not Behind Thee, it is such an awesome short video).
So this past week has been pretty great. Last Tuesday we had a devotional and Cecil O. Samuelson, President of BYU & 1st Quorum of Seventy, spoke to us. He mainly focused on being focused on what is important and not being distracted and that as missionaries we HAVE to be an example of the believers. Everyone looks at us and if they see we are goofing off or talking about things that shouldn't be brought up, they could very easily be turned away from the church. After every Tuesday devotional we have a district meeting. Ours was so incredible. If you were sitting in with us you would think that you were in a room with a bunch of old wise men. It is so crazy how much the mission changes an individuals maturity. After our meeting we came up with a goal that we all want to follow... our oath basically. "I will DO and BE my BEST to worthily represent Jesus Christ." We all wrote it down on a note card and signed each others, and Elder Nash is going to draw a picture of Christ on the back of every single one. Elder Nash is an INCREDIBLE artist. He just busts out pictures of Christ and it looks perfect. I asked him to draw the one of Christ holding the African child. I think that is my new favorite picture of Christ :) I am way excited to see how that one turns out. So yeah, that night was awesome. Wednesday was great! It was my last day to chat with everyone, though, on email...:( that was kinda sad but I was so blessed to have had that opportunity in the first place. Always count your many blessings. On Wednesday, I found out about Alex's mom and nana coming up to Provo and wanting to see me at the temple, so that made my day when I found that out. I got a rockin package from the Kettenrings with a French Plan de Salut wooden puzzle thing and they sent me some of the best salsa in the world and chips!!! Awww yeah!! They rock!! I scarfed that down sooo fast! DeAnn if you are reading this, I have almost finished writing everyone in your family a letter so expect something in the mail soon!! You're the best! Thank you so much! Thursday was a good day. Classes were good and I cranked out some letters to family and friends. I got some very sweet letters as well :) Friday was great! Elder Addington and I taught our progressive investigator, Claudie, and we decided to tackle the Word of Wisdom. Holy crap, that is so hard to do in French. We pretty much got our butts kicked. Well mine was beat pretty hard... Elder Addington is a lot better than I am with the language so he carried us through that lesson. He is such a great companion. He is very very smart. Saturday was incredible. Frère Parsons was leaving to go visit his family for two weeks so that was his last day with us. He decided to not have a lesson but instead have someone sit in the "spotlight" and we would all ask that person a serious or goofy question that they would have to answer, then we gave that person a compliment. It was so great. We had some awesome roll on the floor laughing moments and some very powerful spiritual moments. It is incredible how those two things can be tied together in a situation like that, but it happened and it was amazing! I have learned so much from Frère Parsons. He is without a doubt my hero here at the MTC. I have learned so much from him and my testimony has grown so much because of him. I love him so much. He is such an incredible teacher. I owe so much to him. I want to come home from my mission and just go and talk with him and hang out with him. He is so great. At the end of every lesson I would go up to him and give him a hug and tell him how awesome he is. When we were doing the spotlight thing and I was in the spotlight he got emotional when he was giving me my compliment... he said that it meant the world to him that I would make him feel loved. That's who I want to be... I want to be someone who is known for being loving. It was hard seeing him go, but I know that I will see him again. I talk a lot about Frère Parsons and not so much about Sœur Cutler, but she is also such an incredible teacher. She is way fun and outgoing and we all learn so much from her. It is good having a female in the room every once in a while to keep us in line. Sunday was amazing... just like every other Sunday. I blessed the Sacrament in French for the first time! I was sooo nervous! You could totally hear it in my voice but I did just fine! I didn't mess up! Hallelujah! In Priesthood meeting we had an awesome lesson by Bro. Mangum who is in the Branch Presidency. His son married one of my friends best friends.... if that makes sense. So it is fun kinda having that little 'small world' relationship with him. His son and daughter-in-law were the ones that came to my farewell! Small world! I had an accountability interview with him as well. All missionaries have one and because I am learning French I had to do it in French. In the interview, you have to teach a gospel principle and bear your testimony and I did mine on l'amour de Dieu. That night we had an AMAZING fireside with Richard L. Heaton. He spoke a lot about success. As a missionary I need to have a 'perhaps' mentality. If I teach this investigator about the Gospel of Jesus Christ perhaps they might feel the Spirit bear witness of the reality of my message and get baptized. If that does happen, it didn't happen because I am an amazing missionary but because of the Lord. Whenever a baptism happens, it isn't because of me, it's because of the Lord, and the Lord blesses me with a front row seat to the whole experience. It was such an awesome talk. I took so many notes. Another important quote I got from that is "God has given us weakness that we may be humble." So true. During the devotional we sang "We'll Bring the World His Truth" and in the song they changed the lyrics to "and we are now the Lord's missionaries." It was so powerful as I was singing those lyrics. I still can't believe that I am already a missionary. I am so humbled that the Lord is blessing me with this opportunity to teach His children in Africa. I got a picture with Elder Reidhead and Elder Thompson after the fireside!(Boys that grew up with Christiaan in our home ward) That will be on the next memory card coming home! Tanner (Reidhead) is gone! He is in the DR (Dominican Republic) now! Lucky dog... I want to go to Africa so bad! Only 13 more days!! :) We should be getting our travel info this week, so next Tuesday I will let you know what is going down. Monday was a great day. I went to gym and decided to wear a brace instead of my boot and play basketball. It didn't hurt at all... it actually felt good. I then went and ran some laps on the track and then went to ice my ankle to cool it down. The nurse lady pretty much called me out and said I was stupid for doing that and that I should wear my boot for the next two weeks and never take it off... I couldn't argue. So yeah, I won't do that anymore. I just want to start building up my muscle again. I am already skinny and now my left leg looks disgusting cause it is so skinny. I have pictures that I am sending home.. you will know what I am talking about. So yeah that was my week. I am so glad I figured out how to get past this timer here at the MTC. I wouldn't have been able to tell you half of the things I did in this email if I only had 30 minutes.
So I will be looking for your package here at the end of the week! Thank you so much for getting those shirts for me. I'm glad that you were all able to get together for Grandpas birthday. I was playing Onward Christian Soldier yesterday and I couldn't stop thinking about him. I love and miss him so much. I smiled big when you said that majority of the memories that came up involved him cussing. Yup, he's my grandpa!! I want that sign in Grandmas house that says "If you can't dazzle em with brilliance, baffle them with bull" Best sign in the world. I am so proud of Grandpa and for the man that he was. He was full of integrity and love for the gospel and I hope that I can be like him when I am older. He is an all around stud. I am so proud to say that he is my grandpa. So I bet you loved driving the Van De Graaff's Armada around... you feel like the boss on the road when you drive that thing. You should get something similar to that with the lift and sweet exhaust when you get a new car :)
Well that's about it for today. I love you and miss you so much. I know, though, that we are both getting blessed for this. I am so proud to say "Je suis un missionnaire pour l'Église de Jésus-Christ des Saints des Derniers Jours!!" Remember to always thank the Lord for all that we have and all that we have been blessed with! Til next time!
Je t'aime beaucoup,
Elder Schmid
No comments:
Post a Comment