Hermana Schmidt: Hermana Schmidt Week 45 Letter 08/03/15

From: Nicole Schmidt [mailto:nicole.schmidt@myldsmail.net]

Sent: 08/03/2015 12:42 PM
Subject: What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger! (Unless you don't have water, that could kill you!)

Hola a todos!

Happy Happy Happy Birthday to my cute niece JACKI, my brother in law James, my 2nd cousin Sophia, and my grandpa schmidt! I hope you all have AWESOME Birthdays! :)

So we finally get our health together, and the HOUSE FALLS APART. But, I will get to that because I have to tell you all that we saw HUGE miracles this week! Wonderful, wonderful miracles.

We've been teaching Fidel, Jose Miguel's brother (PS Jose Miguel passed the sacrament yesterday for his first time and was just so happy and glowing! That is the best!), and he has been progressing but not really progressing for a while now. We always have powerhouse spiritual lessons with him, and he loves them, but he just wouldn't come to church and wouldn't make any solid committments to progress. Well, we taught him about the Book of Mormon this week and talked about the blessings we receive from reading the Book of Mormon, and how it really is all the evidence that the restoration happened. And how It's a powerful tool to feel God's love for us. It was a super strong lesson and then I felt impressed to invite him to be baptized, and he said, in his words, ''No. I will not be baptized. I was raised catholic and I won't change. But I will gladly come to the Mormon church for the rest of my life, but I can't be baptized.'' And I was Shocked! But those answers always require Heavenly Help which makes them super special moments in life! I started asking him about his own experiences and the potencial he thinks that God has in store for him. We talked about how it all revolves around the Book of Mormon, and how he really can recieve an answer. Once again we invited him saying, ''It's not about being baptized tomorrow, or the next day. It's about you feeling the spirit, and if the spirit tells you this is true and is the Church with god's power and authority, will you follow that answer and be baptized?'' He thought for a moment and said, ''You know what, I will if God helps me to feel that.'' It was AMAZING. It just comes to show we NEED the spirit to guide the lessons in order for us to help these people come to christ! I love being a missionary! Hoozah! And the best part!? HE CAME TO CHURCH YESTERDAY!! I am just so super extremely happy.

Okay here goes to the crazy, dramatic week. You ready?

So on Wednesday we ran out of water in the house, which isn't TOO weird for here. Normally it's not gone for much time, sometimes a couple of hours but normally not more than that. Personally, it's only lasted more than that one time for me when I was in Los Frailes. But we figured, no big deal, and went working with a huge sink of dishes from lunch and no water to wash it. Well, still nothing that night and we were like... blah.... we want to shower. We are gross. But, we couldn't, so we had faith and prayed and in the morning.... No water! What happened!

So thursday passed and still no water happened and we were trying to use random things to be our dishes and to cook with. All while calling the owner of the building to help us, (he didn't), and having a stressful, but hopeful day without water. That night, we run into the house, full of faith and hope and excitement, to find no water. And a big cockroach dead on the floor. And all of you who know me, know that I can not handle bugs. Let alone big cockroaches.

But, my companion served me and threw it away for me. :) --sorry dad, still haven't gotten over that prob. But I did kill a little spider on the wall this week so I am progressing!

So then comes friday. Day 3 with no water. It was smelly. It was ugly. And we couldn't use our bathroom so we had to find random bathrooms to use. One of which being in a small grocery store in our area, in the back area, in the most sketchy bathroom I have literally ever seen in my entire life. I felt that by this point I could definitely last for more than a day on Survivor.

We then went to a colmado to see if they could get a hold of someone to deliver water because no one was doing anything in our building. We bought popsicles while we were asking their help, and the colmado boy (sorry colmados are like gas stations) asked for a bite of my popsicle. It was one of the VERY few moments I wished I wasn't representing the Lord because I had to say yes. And it was weird.

Then our neighbors got mad we called without telling them (we had tried multiple times and couldn't go another day without water!) so they banished us to our apartment and told us we couldn't leave until they figured it out. So we were banished by a lot of dominicans, which I think is pretty cool and rare, and we went up and I made us cherry juice while we just kept asking ourselves, did we really get put in time out by our neighbors? It was great. but finally the WATER CAME. And we were only banished for like an hour!

And then came the Shower.

And then the peace.

Everything was going good after Friday, we were clean, the sun was shining (typical), the birds chirping, and the lessons great. And then Sunday decides to have a HUGE rainstorm. We were working in seriously sheets of rain with a new convert in the ward, Leiri, talking to everyone and anyone about the gospel, and it was fantastic (and actually, cold! Never thought that'd happen here) Well at the end of the day, we saw a big puddle and I said, ''Well! We gotta just run super fast through it because there's no other option!'' In a voice like ''For Narnia!'' I yelled, ''For Israel!!'' And since it was my idea, I ran into the puddle first. Little do I know, there's a big ditch in this puddle and my foot gets caught and I literally fly in the area and land on my face in the street. In the pouring rain. There was a big ''Woah!'' by all the dominicans nereby, and then my companion was so startled she ran in after me and then too fell right after me. It was like watching tackle football for the dominicans and they cheered for us. What a blessing. We were dying laughing and crying from laughter. We were quite a sight. Dirty, completely wet, and scraped up, but happy because it didn´t matter! We were both just so happy for a wonderful day and the lessons we had. We just laughed and talked about how we had to at least have one ´´bear the shame of the world´´ moments on the mission. J

So yes, there were hard moments but there were MIRACLES. And I am willing to fall on my face, panic from lack of water, be put in time out, and really anything, to have this wonderful, truly incredible experience! It really is all worth it to see the Lord touch lives and be able to feel his spirit this strong. I just love it!

Hurrah for Israel ! J

-Hermana Schmidt