Hermana Schmidt: Hermana Schmidt Week 32 Letter 05/04/15 (sorry no letter last week)

From: Nicole Schmidt [mailto:nicole.schmidt@myldsmail.net]
Sent: 05/04/2015 10:20 AM
Subject: Words can not EXPRESS how much I love my Heavenly Father!!

Hola a todos!!

First of all,

Happy 16th BIRTHDAY TO MY SISTER CALLI THIS WEEK!!!!!!!!! :) Also happy birthdays to my cousins Jonathon, Kristy, Carrie, Karissa, and Christian! I hope they were and are awesome! Also, happy mothers day to everyone! I hope we all remember the importance of mothers. My comp. and I studied important woman in the scriptures today together like ruth, esther, and the mothers of the stripling warriors. I am just so grateful for these great women and mothers in the world that are truly making the world so much better! And especially, my dear wonderful mommy. I sure do love my mom! She's the best. All the rest of you ladies are 2nd... sorry. :)

2nd,

I sent my mission papers in one year ago on May 3rd!! I can't believe that. Words can't describe how grateful I am to be a missionary!!! I'm so grateful I still have plenty of time left out here. :)

3rd,

I am sorry for not writing last week. I did not die. Well, sort of... but we will get to that!! Last week, I just really needed to spend my hour writing my parents so i'm sorry for the lack of update. But I am here! Now, before I start I have to say that this email might have some details that might be a little sad, and I might add too much of my heart-breaking moments. As missionaries, we try to avoid writing such moments because really, the good moments outweigh the hard moments-- seriously. But I truly believe that sometimes we need to talk about the hard moments to prepare those who will serve missions, and those who don't really understand what the mission is or what we go through and yada yada yada. Now, that being said, I hope that none of what I say or describe comes off as dramatic. Simply put, i'm going to talk from my heart and tell everything as how it was and how I felt because I believe that's the only way to truly recognize the good that came out of it and truly recognize the glory of my God.

So, it all started a week and a half ago with a root canal (yay). I started getting horrible pain in my jaw so we went and saw the dentist. We discovered that an old filling was done poorly and in order to fix it, we needed to do a root canal. So we were stuck with this horrible pain to fix. Thankfully, we fixed in on Saturday, but I was still in some pain.

Saturday night, I started feeling horribly alone. Horribly, sickly alone. It's not because my companion or my housemates (because they are the BEST!) but it was because of the pain, going through a root canal without my parents to baby me, and etc.. it was the sick alone that you just feel completely empty. I started praying and praying for support. For something. I felt so alone, stuck on an island, far away from home, in a lot of pain, without someone to really really lean on. I will be honest. I have honestly never, in my entire life, felt that alone before. It was weird. I really feel like Satan must have been working extra hard on me in that moment as if to surround me in completely darkness. I started pouring out my soul to my Heavenly Father and telling him that I needed to feel Him close more than ever, sobbing and pleading for relief. I am not exaggerating this when I say this, but immediately the relief flooded over me and I COULD NOT cry any longer. I've never had a moment in my life when I could not continue crying because I felt so much comfort. It was the coolest, most serene moment ever. That is the goodness of our God everyone. I know He lives. I know He loves us!

Well, things seemed to smooth over after that for sunday but then after working all day sunday I started feeling a little pain in my stomach and feeling extremely tired. After planning, I literally collapsed in my bed, just thinking it was from a long hard-working day, and an exhausting weekend. Well, over the next little bit I started getting really, really cold. My head started pounding, and my legs started to hurt. I realized that this wasn't normal. Soon, all the sisters were in the room helping me and singing to me and trying to help me to feel better. We called a member to give me a blessing, but after the blessing the vomit came (TMI i'm sorry). I went to the hospital early monday morning and It turns out I caught something from something I ate. Just an awful couple of day flu.

Well, now i'm tired of talking about the bad and i'm reading to start talking about the miracles. Because the miracles ALWAYS follow the trials.

On Tuesday, our zone was scheduled for a temple trip. I felt SO strongly I needed to go, even though I had been in the hospital the day before (crazy right?). I was worried because I could barely contain my insides and I didn't know how I could handle a whole temple session. But I just knew. I felt so strongly through prayer and personal feelings that I needed to be inside the temple on Tuesday, and God would help me while I was there. Well before I went inside the temple, I was dying. Seriously dying. but, as soon as I entered, it was if I never got sick. I was so happy, so healthy, and so ready to feel the spirit that the temple brings. In the celestial room I was reading D&C 58 (it's incredible) and I was thinking of something my father had emailed me the day before, and I felt so strongly that the mission was exactly where I needed to be and there were GREAT things up ahead. That God has great things planned for the people here, and he wants me to be his instrument. I am so incredibly grateful for my father and for the temple.

After that, I healed miraculously fast. And we worked our tails off. We had a record number (for me) of investigators at church!! One of our investigators even bore their testimony yesterday! And we had a ton lessons in just a couple of days that we could work. It was incredible. We wanted to reach all of our weekly goals we had set in just the 3 days we could work (so 7 days of goals, in 3 days of work) and we reached all of them and even beat a lot of them!!! Which is normally impossible. I even got attacked by red ants on my feet as well... and bit... and I was okay to still walk and have 9 more lessons yesterday!! What a miracle!!

I absoultely LOVE my ward. They are incredible. They work with us, and they want to leave with us all the time!!! That makes the worlds difference in missionary work. Our area is progressing. We have a lot of people getting ready to get baptized soon, and I am just so excited for all of this!!! I was truly blessed to be transferred to such an amazing, progressing place!!! My companion is great! She is hardworking, funny, and super nice. The Lord is good. I truly do not deserve all of this, but I am very grateful.

On a funny note, my comp Hna. Cabos had McDonalds for her first time this week and loved it for her birthday. I'm such a good influence. Thanks for showing me such a cool ward and area and progressing investigators Hermana Cabos, in return I will show you chicken nuggets with sweet and sour sauce.

I love my Heavenly Father. I love His Work.

Hurrah for Israel!!! :)

Hermana Schmidt :)