Hermana Schmidt: Hermana Schmidt Week 54 Letter 10/05/15

From: Nicole Schmidt [mailto:nicole.schmidt@myldsmail.net]
Sent: 10/05/2015 9:57 AM
Subject: Riding Onwards in TRAINING wheels... Into Opening a New Area!!

Hola a todos,

Happy birthdays to my 2nd cousin Garrett, and to my cousins Bella, Tomoko, and Daniel!! :) I hope they are great! :)

So wasn't conference just incredible!?! :) It was for sure what I needed to hear. I am so grateful for modern day prophets and apostles, and if I had the time I would write out all of my favorite talks and quotes. But one that I will be putting into practice NOW that I will write about is the ''Ponderize'' talk. I want to do that with my next companion every week, and I will be excited to see the fruits of this practice. I hope my family will take on the ponderize challenge as well. :)

I have some very exciting news to share with all of you that I am just bursting in my seat to write!!! On saturday night we got a call from President Corbitt. I quickly picked it up and president corbitt asked me to put it on speaker. He told hermana jackson and I that we would both be training BRAND NEW missionaries!!! Hermana Jackson will be staying here with her trainee-- she will just do fabulously and I am so excited for her! :) He then said, ''But now I want to specifically talk to Hermana Schmidt. I was talking to your future trainee at the MTC (he won't tell us who they are early) and she is just SO bubbly and so optimistic that I decided to call you BOTH (my trainee and I um... she must be awesome!!) over the mission english learning program. So you are on the mission leadership counsel now and will be expected to go to all the leadership meetings each month. On top of that, you will be opening a new area in SAN PEDRO!! (which is the CAMPO. A poorer part of the country and where I have always wanted to go!!)

Basically since that call, I have been studying and preparing myself like crazy. I've been so, so nervous but so excited!! I had the thought that this is seriously what having a baby must feel like-- nerve wracking, exciting, anticipating, with lots of chocolate cravings. But I came up with a list of some training goals :

1. Be Creative, Fun, and Happy. :) (That's my top goal)

2. Rejoice in the good times, and find the opportunity that can come from the oppositions

3. Praise first, Correct 2nd.

4. Ponderize scriptures each week.

5. Be balanced in our teaching and unified.

6. Listen and Lift her.

7. Ask HER for help also! :)

8. Be positive and patient.

9. Be humble and prayerful.

10. Line upon line I will learn and she will too, no need to stress. If I stress out, she'll probably pass out.

11. See her through the eyes of my mission president and our Heavenly Father.

12. Be exactly obedient and organized.

13. Train her in a way so that she would be able to train someone after her training.

I don't have a lot of time but I am just SO excited to train!! :) I know that this call truly came from the Lord. I was pondering this morning and reading my scriptures and I felt so, so strongly ''Do not fear. This is completely by inspiration.'' And I just knew. This is right. So i'm not afraid. I'm nervous, but not afraid. I'm excited and I know that the Lord will help my trainee and I through whatever lies ahead- joyfully and miracously-- as he has done for me so many times before. He's never left me before, so I know that he won't now. I truly know that it is nothing that I have done that has ''earned'' the spot of a trainer. I know i'm a trainer to learn, and to come closer to the Lord, and to serve. I'm just so grateful for the opportunity to learn more and have new experiences that I am sure will teach me even more of the Lord and of the gospel!!

Thank you for all of your support!! Here's to the next BIG adventure!! (and I will be finding out who my 'daughter' (mission lingo) is tomorrow) :)

Hurrah for Israel! :)

-Hermana Schmidt