Dear Mom,

I will definitely be going to MCC when I get back. So you can sign me up. What you explained in the first paragraph is exactly what I wantto do. As far as my release date, I have no clue when it is. In our mission we don't really know when it is until we have like 12 weeks left. If you want you can email President Jameson, but don't tell me what it is. That trip sounds awesome!! I got goosebumps thinking about it! I love that place so much. As far as other questions... We see the Wheatley's two to three times a week but I have never worked with them. They do work with other companionships, though, that need to go far out. I love the Wheatleys! They are an awesome couple and do so much good for the members here in Congo. Remember the Thompsons in Yaoundé?  I was able to call them yesterday to give them a number. They are in Angola right now basically doing what President and Sister Jameson did in Burundi. It was good to talk to them for a couple of minutes. We have power for two days and one day without power but last week we only had two days of power. We got jipped. Oh well... I'm in the Congo! Food spoils fast so we normally eat everything the day we make it. We eat a lot of cereal and rice. But don't worry Mom you should never worry about me :) The Lord takes care of His missionaries.

This week went by pretty fast and we taught a lot of lessons. Jean Joseph received the Aaronic priesthood on Sunday and was so excited about that. We taught him about the priesthood Wednesday and we were all over the Doctrine and Covenants and he was loving every minute of it. Jean Joseph LOVES to study and every time we show up chez lui (at his place), he has an open Book of Mormon or Liahona. We have gotten permission for President Jameson to teach his 11 year old grandson, Amour. Amour has been to church at least four times. He always comes with his grandpa and little brother. He loves it so much and the other day we asked him if he wanted to get baptized and he looked at us and said "yeah" like he was confused as to why we were asking him such a silly question. We will probably fix his baptism date for Feburary 16th. That will make three for that day that will be getting baptized.

Fugain is doing awesome. We have finished teaching him the first lesson and the word of wisdom and he continues to progress and grow everyday. At church you will see him with his little notepad and he will be taking notes and what not and flipping through the scriptures trying to follow along. I am so proud of him. Elder Davis and I have been so blessed to find amazing investigators... or have them find us.

This week we got a call from one of our amis named Jean and he likes to speak english with us. He said, "Hey, I am keeping you something!!" It wasn't the best english but we understood. This is the ami that always gives us tons of mangoes and pineapple and fruit whenever we go over there. So we just expected to get more fruit. Well, when we got there and finished the lesson he took us to his house and showed us a frying pan and said, "this is what it will look like when you finish cooking it." At this moment I was thinking, "great... fish. I don't want to fry up fish. We don't have time!" and then he pointed to a bucket and said, "Now don't put your finger in it's mouth... it will bite you and could hurt you very bad." I said out loud, "WHAT?! It's still alive?" He then showed us this bucket and inside were two giant salamanders. Heck... I have no clue how to cook those things! So he put them into a sack for us and we got into our taxi and went home and put them in a bucket with water and left them in the bathroom to surprise the other elders when they got home. We ended up giving them to some members that live right next to us because we have no clue how to cook those things. They loved it and were grateful to have it. We just told Jean that they were very good and left it at that. I took pictures of them. They were huge!

Our primary president over here is awesome. Her name is Natacha. She lives a long ways from the church and she walks every Sunday. It takes her about an hour and a half to get to church, AND she walks under the scorching sun but you will never see her without a smile. She is an awesome example to me of someone who is truly converted and loves the gospel. That huge sacrifice in our eyes is nothing to her... that is just her responsibility.. to go to church. She walks with two other kids who were baptized and are her neighbors. These kids are awesome. Their mom used to go to church with them but got into an accident on her way to church one day and has been scared to go back ever since.  But there is nothing stopping those kids from going. Sometimes they won't have enough money for transport, which is basically fifty cents for each kid, and so they will tell their mom to not buy food for them Saturday night and save the money so that they can have money to go to church the next day. How incredible is that? We went and met with their mom a couple of days ago and we are going to try to teach her and get her baptized. Those kids are some of my heroes.

This week was awesome and I am so grateful to be a missionary. I love my mission so much and I love the people that I am with. I love you all as well! Have a great week!

Je t'aime,
Elder Schmid

PS who gets to spank Taco 40 times??

Dear Mom,

I'm glad everyone is doing well back home! I'm excited for Grandma. Both her and Oma and Opa will be in new homes when I get home. Our week was a very good week which ended with an awesome baptism. Jean Joseph got baptized. More on that in a second. As for the man who
called us over last week on the side of the street, we haven't been able to see him because his phone was not working. We talked about it last night in weekly planning and we will be walking by this week to see if he is still there. Working with inactives is always difficult because you could have an awesome week and they'll be at church and then the very next week they disappear again. As of right now there is definite progress, but it is sloooow. As far as the strength of the branch, there are the super strong members and then the members who just come to church because that's what they do on Sundays, they just go to church. Jean Joseph, though, will definitely be a strong member.

So Jean Joseph was baptized by his son on Saturday and it was great.  It took six tries. Imagine me trying to baptize Fezik the Giant on Princess Bride. When he would go under water,  his legs would come up and his whole body would just float and that made things very difficult for Muriel, his son. Finally, we got him kneeling down and even that took two tries. But in the end Jean Joseph received the one true baptism that exists here on earth. Muriel was a little embarrassed, but he was happy. Jean Joseph brought his grandkids and they couldn't stop laughing as their grandpa was floating there in water. Like all problems in Africa it became a public ordeal and soon we had five or six people surrounding the font telling Muriel how to do things. It wasn't the most spiritual moment, but hey, nothing is perfect in life.

I had an incredible experience with him after Sacrament meeting. I wrote about two pages in my journal about it last night. I'm not going to go into details because it was something very special and dear to me. It was nothing crazy or mind blowing... just special. I will tell you this though. He had a dream Saturday night in which Christ came to him and told him that his baptism was accepted and successful. He was really feeling the power of the Holy Ghost this weekend. I will always remember this weekend.

Elder Davis and I have been praying a lot lately for help with finding new investigators, and the Lord, like always, hears and answers are prayers. Three Sundays ago there was a man who showed up for the first time in a shirt and tie and no one knew who he was. We went up and talked to him and got his name and number. His name is Fugain (foo gah) and he works over by the church and one day he walked by and saw the church and was a little curious and walked up and found somebody there and talked to them and they invited him to come. Ever since then he has been to church. We have had a couple of rendez-vous with him and have taught the Restoration and the Book of Mormon. He is a quiet guy but he has a great desire to just know and understand to change his life. I have a lot of faith in him because he is always at church. So we'll see what happens with him.

I was able to go on splits with Elder Addington in his sector because I had to do a couple of baptism interviews. We had a neat experience. We were with a somewhat inactive member named Moise and it started raining so we went under this covered area and continued our lesson. There was a group of young punks who started talking about us in their native dialect throughout the rest of the rendez-vous and it was getting pretty distracting. At the end of the rendez-vous Moise wanted to sing a hymn and he chose "We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet". I was kind of hesitant at first because there were a lot of people around us but I just went with it and in the middle of that song my pride left me and I was really singing with my heart. I am so grateful for Thomas S. Monson and for his example. I am so grateful to know that there is a prophet of God here on earth today who receives revelation directly from God and communicates that to us so that we can understand the will of God.

It has been super hot lately. I wish you all could experience the Congo sun. Temperature wise Mesa is a lot hotter but the sun just doesn't beat on you like it does over here. Everyday I come home and my clothes are super damp. It's pretty gross. I walk around with a water bottle in my backpack all day. I would die without that water. My face and my forearms have a sweet tan...

The other day we were walking down the road and there was this celebration thing and there was a long line of cars driving by and on one of the cars there was a band playing some music... yes, I said ON the car. They were on the hood and on the roof and on the trunk. There were guys playing the huge drums and the trumpets and everything. It was nuts.  That car probably had over 12 people in it and on it. Try finding that in the States. We were also walking deep in the quartier where all the houses are made of scrap wood and tin and what not and where the floors are just sand and dirt and in the distance I heard a familiar voice... Katy Perry. America gets everywhere. Even in the almost-villages of Congo.

I love my life and I love my mission. I am loving every second of what I am doing. I am so grateful that I still have time left. These past 18 and a half months have been incredible. I love you all and I hope you have a great week!

Je t'aime Maman,
Elder Schmid

Dear Mom,

 

I'm going to try my best to quickly answer all those questions you threw in this email. As a zone leader I basically just have to be a good example and do numbers and organize zone conference sous la direction du Président de mission. District Leaders do more in our mission. There is only one zone in Pointe Noire. Each city is one zone with 8 missionaries. Elder Davis hit his 10 month mark on the 7th. I think he is pretty excited to be staying in Congo. We are working really well together and having fun. As far as construction... things take forever... imagine me saying that like squirts on Sandlot. The court should be done this next Monday but I doubt it. It is tiny... we might not play on it. The 3-point line is shorter than the free throw line on a normal court. Beaches are safe. Last time we were there there were some naughty teenagers being affectionate. I have no clue if there are sharks or not. It is beautiful though.

 

K, I think I got them all! This week was great! I love being here in Congo so much. I love to teach, and here in Congo we are super blessed because you are always teaching. Elder Davis and I have been focusing a lot more on inactives and so over 60% of our lessons were directed towards recent converts and inactives. I love working with them so much. It is a lot more difficult, I think, working with inactives, but it is so rewarding when you help them come back, well, through the help of the Spirit and God. Some of my closest friends on the missions are the inactives that I worked with.

 

On Thursday, we had district meeting and it started at 10:00 a.m.. Well, there were 5 people that we needed to see that we could only see before 12 and that is when district meeting was supposed to end so we planned them all before district meeting. So our plan was to leave the apartment at 6:30 and get teaching and be back by 9:45 so we wouldn't be late for the meeting. We were scrambling and going super fast but we were able to do it! Well we got raté'd by one person so we only had four lessons but it was still a fun little race.

 

Here is a cool experience that happened to us the other day. We got raté'd our first rendez-vous so we decided to continue to walk on this road that was being built and go to our other rendez-vous early. When you walk over here in Congo there are always people whistling at you and wanting you to come over. Some just want to mess around and aren't serious at all and others are drunk and just want to yell at us because they think we are the JW's. While walking down that road we got called over and when we presented ourselves we also told them that we aren't JW's and they said, "Oh okay, that's okay then. I like you guys." And that was it. We kept on walking and we got called over again but I just didn't want to turn around and talk to them. Thankfully both Elder Davis and I were propelled by the Spirit and we turned around to see this man in a yellow shirt waving at us telling us to come over and by the time we got there he had already set up chairs and everything for us and greeted us with a big smile and a nice hand shake. We sat down and he basically said, "Please, will you share with me your message." and so we did. As we were teaching he was totally focused and loving everything he was learning and hearing. There were times where he would just smile and you could tell he was feeling the Spirit. I asked him at one moment what he was feeling and he said, "I feel like you are messengers from God and that everything you are saying is true. I know that your message is true." We were able to give him a brochure and we got his number as well. He told us that he wouldn't be able to come to church because he had something he had to do at his church but he said that next Sunday he will be there. I honestly have no clue what will come of this. It could very well be that he will never progress and fade away like so many others but I won't care. That little meeting was incredible and we DEFINITELY planted a seed and THAT is what is important.

 

Transfers took place on Friday and Elder Thibault left to Yaoundé. I will miss that kid. It was fun being with him again. I was able to work with him a couple times and his french has improved so much and he is a great teacher. He will do good things over in Bastos. We now have Elder Christiensen working with Elder McGrath. He started his mission with Thibault and Davis. We are still in that "getting used to things" mode but that will fade away throughout the week.

 

We had a rendez-vous with a member one night and it was really dark because there was no power and his little 4 year old daughter was all over the place and she got a hold of the baby powder stuff and disappeared into her parents room and came out and she had the white powder all over her face and neck. It was so funny! Right when Juste saw her he wanted to laugh but had to be a little stern with her but he couldn't... so he did what every other father would do... he sent her to her mom. Once she left we all busted up laughing. I was able to get some pictures and I'll try to send them to you soon.

 

Things are going well over here. I love my mission so much. I love my life. I love you and I am so grateful for all that you have done for me. I'm a blessed kid :)

 

Je t'aime,

Elder Schmid

Dear Mom,

 

It sounds like you all had a blast over there in La Jolla! That was nice of Paul and John Paul to teach everyone to surf and take them out everyday. Can I get in on that when I get back? Don't worry about the medicine... everything is fine over here. We can find almost everything we need at one of the many pharmacies that are in Pointe Noire. I managed to get Elder Davis and Elder McGrath a little sick too... misery loves company :) Just joking. They don't have it that bad... just a stuffy nose a little headache every once in a while.

 

This week Bonace was baptized! We met with him at church on Saturday and he was just chillin there reading his Book of Mormon in 3 Nephi 11... AWESOME chapter for teaching baptism and the ONE TRUE baptism. He was so excited but he was also very nervous. We had a quick little lesson with him before and let him know that we love him and that we are grateful for his desire to follow the Lord. He asked Daljus to baptize him and Daljus did a good job. In every baptismal service a missionary is asked to give a little talk on the Restoration because there are always non-members who are there and this week it was my turn. I am amazed at how easy it is now to teach the Restoration. I don't even have to think anymore. What I love even more though is that when we teach it it is never the same lesson. I love getting up and teaching people and just following the Spirit. Of course we need to prepare ourselves by studying the scriptures and Preach My Gospel but we have the promise that when the time comes we will know exactly what we need to say.

 

Speaking of the church, the basketball court is not quite finished. It is painted a super bright green color and we are all hoping that it is the primer because it hurts your eyes when you are on the court. The rims are only 9'8 or around there so it is super easy to dunk. So when it is finished and we play it will be a huge dunkfest. I'll see if I can get the 360 down.

 

We got transfer info this week and none of us were expecting what happened. We were almost positive that Elder Davis would be leaving Pointe Noire because he has been here his whole mission so far... well only 6 transfers, but still. He has worked in two sectors but usually you are in a different city by this time. Well, him and I will be doing a third transfer together and I am the new zone leader for Pointe Noire. I look forward to that responsibility because whenever I have a leadership position I tend perform better and become a better person. It helps me focus on being an even better example. I guess I should be doing that everyday, but now I really need to do that. Elder Thibault is going to Yaoundé and the missionary who is working in my old sector in Ekounou 1 will be coming to work with Elder McGrath. It will be fun.

 

I was reading Kurts email and I can't believe that he is already on his last transfer! Le temps passe vite! (Time flies)  I'm glad that he is focused on staying focused. Sometimes there are missionaries here who lose that crucial focus on their last transfer and the sector almost dies. I have promised myself that I will be strong until the end, when I am back with President Toone. Bugs emails always crack me up. It's funny reading his reaction to reality. Tell him to write longer emails! I'm proud to be out here in the mission field with my cousins representing our families and our Lord all across the world. Things are always made easier once you realize that you aren't alone.

 

Love conquers. I have really come to understand that over here on the mission. I have been really praying for the gift of charity lately and it has really been blessing my life. Life is always so much better when love is ongoing and manifested on a regular basis. There is a random thought for you. I love you so much and I am so grateful to be in the family that I am in. I love to read that special paragraph in my patriarchal blessing about our relationship before this life. I know that that is true. Thank you for being angels in my life. I love you :)

 

Je vous aime,

Elder Schmid

December 31, 2012

 

 

Dear Mom,

 

Wow, I can't even begin to tell you how incredible that skype call was. Yeah, the connection was pretty bad but nothing will ever beat being able to see your faces and hear your voices in real time. Yes, I knew that I was making Bronson laugh! I think that was one of my highlights of the call. It's still weird to think that I will have another brother when I get home. I can't wait to actually meet him though. You all looked soo good! I am always blown away by how much Dallin is changing... especially his voice. I hope I didn't offend him when I laughed!

 

Guess what, I am still sick. Just like you it has all moved to the chest. What really blows is that I left all my medicine in Douala because I didn't have enough weight in my suitcases and I thought that that would be okay because normally there are a bunch of medication stuff left from other missionaries, but when I got here there was absolutely nothing. Slowly but surely I'm getting better. I just have a stupid cough right now and there is crud in my lungs but it's getting out. I just played basketball and I felt pretty weak but I was shooting well!

 

I'm glad to hear that Dallin had a good birthday. When I get home he will be driving in a month. Yikes... I'll have the truck right? I miss a good sound system. I wish you could all experience a typical taxi ride over here in Congo.

 

This past week was a little rough because I was a little sick... we stayed home one day because I had gnarly sinus headaches. I never had those before my mission but now it seems like I get them once every month or two. They take me out. I can't think, write, or focus on anything. We have been working with a lot of inactive members and we are slowly finding success. When President Jameson was here last he told us to be bold and direct when we teach the commandments and I love to be bold so we have been really hitting the importance of the sabbath day and making them realize that what they are doing is not guiding them to eternal life with their Heavenly Father. I love being straight forward with people and telling them how it is. It helps now that I don't have to think now when I speak french, it just comes out. That's a blessing and a trial :)

 

We have two people that will hopefully be getting baptized Saturday, Jean Joseph and Bonace. Jean Joseph is the father of a recent convert and he is awesome. He loves to read the scriptures and we can just tell that he is converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jean Joesph is a big fellow with a nice round belly. I got a picture with him and I'll send it home here soon. Bonace is a young man who just turned 19. He is all smiles whenever we see him and he is always with the choir at the church singing. Sometimes it interferes with our lessons that we want to teach him but we feel that it is better that he is with his friends in the branch building those relationships that will help him stay in the church when we go. We have been teaching Bonace since mine arrival here Congo so it will be nice to finally see him enter the waters of baptism.

 

We have been talking a lot with our DMB about the importance of coordonnées (referrals). We can go out and search for people and find tons and tons of people but we want the people we teach to come from members of the church. We want there to be an immediate connection between them and the branch. There is so much more success when there is already a friend in the church. Scherton, our DMB, has really taken his responsibilities seriously and is doing a great job by getting the branch missionaries to get us coordonnées. We have a lot of people now that we are trying to contact so that we can start teaching them. I love this work so much!

 

I am loving my life so much. I am so blessed to be over here in Congo right now preaching the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. What is most amazing about missionary work is seeing people apply the taught principles in their lives and then seeing their lives change. They then recognize those changes and realize that this fruit is a good fruit. It is also difficult sometimes when people receive those life changing teachings and even witness firsthand the reality of our message and then they reject it. I think that's why I love working with inactives so much. I love working with people who have known and have felt the truthfulness of our message and have taken upon them the name of Christ but then have been blinded by the world. I just love missionary work... these past 18 months have changed my life so much and I am so grateful that I still have 6 months left. I miss you all, but just know that I am loving every second of what I am doing. The Church IS true.

 

Je t'aime!

Elder Schmid

December 24, 2012

Bonjour!

 

So you are sick too? I have had a nasty cold the past three days and it is bugging me so much. My nose is raw and I am so congested. Hopefully it will be gone by tomorrow. I haven't been able to sleep well and it is really starting to wear on me. Oh well, life moves on. I hope you get better.

 

I apologize for the short emails... we have been doing one hour lately for email (against my will) and so I barely have anytime to read all my emails and then write some. The internet is super slow too. I understand where they are coming from but they only get 2 emails a week... I get 15-20. And this is my only communication with the outside world... we don't get to really write letters. For now on I will make sure that I get an hour and a half. That's what we have today so things should go a little smoother. Now for people that are reading this... please don't think that you shouldn't send me emails. Send them! I love to hear from everyone!!

 

Be ready to skype tomorrow at 06h00. I will be at the Wheatley's ready to go at 14h00 my time. Keep on praying that there will be power because lately it has been acting up and internet has not been working. Rest assured though... someway or another we will talk to each other.

 

This week was a great week. We got a lot done and we are seeing a lot of progression with our investigators. We are teaching a young man named Bonace, he actually just turned 19 yesterday. He has a baptismal date for September 5th and he is way excited. We have been teaching him ever since I have gotten here and he was kinda dead at the beginning but things are really moving now and he is stoked to progress and join the church. It is fun to teach him because he wants to learn so much. We taught him yesterday after church and he asked Elder Davis and I, "d'ou vient Dieu?" (where does God come from?) I LOVE talking about things like that but I just smiled and said, "Bonace, one day we will talk about that... but not today." He is a good kid.

 

A few days ago we were over at a members house teaching Daljus, a recent convert, and it started to pour. We didn't have an umbrella and we didn't feel like getting soaked so we decided to wait it out. Well about 45 minutes later we looked outside and the whole entire parcel was under water and the road outside was a river. So we rolled up our pants and took off our socks and and went out to see the chaos. Right when we walked out of the parcel there was this tiny toyota that was stuck in a hole. His engine was in the water and barely staying alive and the water level was above the bottom of the door. We told the guy to go backwards and not continue forward because it only got deeper but some stupid guy convinced him to go forward and he just got more stuck... so we went in to push him out. I was wet up to my waste but after some pushing we got the car out. When it was in the deepest spot the driver opened his door and his whole inside got flooded. I have no clue what was going through his head. Elder Thibault got some sweet pictures that I am going to copy over to my memory card and I will send them to you.

 

The end of the world was a pretty nice day over here. Everyone here gives us crud because they all think that "the whites" believe in the end of the world. They all believe that we are Jehovah's Witnesses and they taunt us and tease us and go off in their native language just trying to get under our skin. A few nights ago it was getting dark outside and we were at a members house waiting for him to come home and we just got off the phone with him and he told us that he wasn't going to make it. So we were just standing there trying to figure out what we were going to do and then a group of young punks came walking by talking crap and taunting us and tried to get a reaction. There wasn't anyone around us so I thought I would scare them a little. They were a bunch a young kids around 16 years old. The further they got the more rude they became so I turned to Elder Davis and smiled and said watch and I turned super fast and started walking toward the kids very quickly and I had a pissed off look on my face and when they realized I was coming toward them they all scattered. I was yelling at them to come to me in their native language but they were too scared. They are all brave with their mouths but that's where it ends. It was pretty funny.

 

I am so excited to see you tomorrow! I hope you all have a great Christmas Eve and Christmas tomorrow! Next time I'll be with you all :) I love you so much!

 

Bio,

Elder Schmid