Construction Orange is Everywhere!

Hello to Everyone!

Road construction, knocking on drunk college student doors, breathing in smoky air, running into Buster Posey's twin, and being excited then sad in the same minute has been my week.

There is road construction EVERYWHERE! Today they are working right in front of our apartment. We have to park across the street and down a hill for a couple of days which is good exercise. But man, the color orange is flooding the city of Moscow!!!

So we knocked on a potentials door and we should have taken a hint that they were having a party with the amount of trucks that were there... We walked up to the door and they immediately said go away and so we did (because we're smart) and while we were walking away a few guys walked out and they were obviously drunk and they said a few things that a drunk person would say. Sister Gibson gets mad, and I am was just thinking about Acts 5:41-42 and how Peter and John rejoiced in being persecuted for Christ's name! That is how I felt at that moment. Obviously it was not a fun experience but I rejoiced in being persecuted for Christ's name! I love this gospel and I love my Savior!!!!!! 

In the state of Washington, there are a lot of fires going on and we are getting the poor quality air from them. It is definitely not enjoyable! But we aren't really in it a whole lot because Sister Gibson can't ride a bike with her condition. So I unfortunately cannot use my wonderful bike. I will hopefully get to with my new companion ~ in September!

We went on exchanges this week, and I went to Pullman, WA again! I keep jumping the border! haha :)  But while I was there we had a dinner appointment and the man looked exactly like Buster Posey! IT FREAKED ME OUT FOR A SECOND!!!!!!!!!!!! I guess you can say that I enjoyed that dinner appointment because I miss the Giants! Enjoy the baseball game and take pictures for me!!!!!!!

Izzy, is the 16 year old that has made me feel like I am 30 instead of 20. On Thursday she told us that she wants to get baptized which is huge for her and then she called us a little later and told us she got her mom's approval ~ and her mom hates Mormons. The next day she didn't want to get baptized and her mom said she can no longer get baptized! So this week has been crazy! She reminds me of me when I was younger with being insecure and other things. I love Izzy and she has a hard time believing that. So pray for her to feel God's love!

On Sunday we got an assistant ward mission leader and his wife is another ward missionary                        and they are AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I get along with them so well!!                            I am excited for what the future holds!

I love you all and miss you tons!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Toodaloo!

Sister Schmidt

P.S. There are 20 missionaries in the Moscow zone. My apartment is pretty nice. The best one was in West Spokane because it was brand new! But this one is spacious and it works for my needs of hygiene, sleep, food, and studies!

Footloose Drive!

Footloose Drive!

Hello Everyone!

So I forgot to email you about something that happened last week that was awesome!!!!!!!! So, when I was on exchanges with Sister Paget in Pullman, WA we met SO many awesome people! I had no fear in talking to people and those sisters now have a new family to teach and they are from Saudi Arabia. We taught the family how to pray and they asked us for a Book of Mormon in Arabic. 

It was such a neat experience.

Then we ran into a lady who is hard of hearing and I was able to sign to her and it was such a sweet moment. It was my first real experience of signing to someone. We had a good conversation about Jesus and I felt really good afterwards.

We also talked to a young father at a park while he was watching his two sons play. He is from Brazil and he and his wife just moved here a couple of weeks ago. We talked to him about Christ and about the Book of Mormon and we set up a time for the sisters to come over and talk with him and his family.

Then to end the wonderful day we had a lesson with one of their investigators that they have not been able to contact and we had a wonderful lesson about Doctrine and Covenants 121:7-8 and I feel that that lesson was more for me than for anyone else. 

Not a whole lot of things happened this week. We met with a lot of people and we had lessons and we are still alive in Moscow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So this situation with Sister Gibson is still up in the air. She goes home for sure on the 12th of September and I am going to have to sign some stuff ~ as well as her first trainer. Then she will have to wait for a few weeks to see if she is able to come out for the full time mission. I don't know anything else. President is getting back to me on that! 

I love this gospel! It has blessed my life so much and I am so grateful for my mission. I have learned so many new things about how to be a better me and how to be a better member and brother and sister to others.

Love you all and miss you all! Toodaloo!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Sister Schmidt

Sister Gibson and Schmidt

Sister Schmidt

A Challenging Week!

Pullman, WA

Exchanges with Sister Paget

Hello Everyone!

This week was a very challenging week. But I learned a lot. So out of all of the lessons that we had planned this week, we only had 2 happen. It was really frustrating and depressing. But we need to experience these kind of weeks to appreciate those really good ones! 

I definitely don't take those good weeks for granted! HAHA  :) 

I have to discover that life is difficult. I already knew that, but on my mission I have developed a new set of eyes. Before my mission I had various ways to deal with difficulty.  I had my family, movies, music, my room, not talking. Unfortunately, I did not talk to my Heavenly Father like I should have. Now being on my mission, I don't have those things anymore ~ I only have my companion and my relationship with Heavenly Father. I have strengthened my relationship with  Heavenly Father so much! :) I am still working on it ~ don't get me wrong but now I have a thriving relationship and I turn to Him and confide in Him more than I ever have in my entire life. I am grateful for hard times because my Heavenly Father has helped me develop a bond with Him. That is just awesome! He has put me in hard situations so that I can learn to rely on Him and to be blessed. So we go through hard things to be blessed! I love this gospel! I have a confession.... I have rough knees. Before my mission, my knees were smooth and not rough. Now they are worn and sometimes they get caught on my skirts... haha :) I love prayer and the ability that we have to call on our loving Father anytime we want to talk to Him and He is always there and listening and wanting to help us and bless us!

So the info on my new companion Sister Gibson ~ she was an ice skater, she is 19, she is from Tri-Cities, Washington, she has 2 full blood related siblings and 4 half brothers but she only talks to 2 brothers. I don't know what else to say. She is awesome!

Another thing that I learned this week or that stood out to me was that Christ was the perfect example for how we should all live our lives.  I was doing more thinking on this and His sacrifice and the thought process that I had was along the lines of: Christ asked if He didn't have to do it because He knew that it was going to be hard. So His will did not align with Heavenly Father's will ~ like how our will does not always align with God's as well. But, Christ still obeyed. Just like missions are hard, we need to follow Christ's example and let our will dissolve and accept Heavenly Father's plan. We can all do hard things.

Love you and miss you! Toodaloo!

Sister Schmidt

New Area ~ Moscow, ID

"The field is white, already to harvest!"

My new address here in Moscow ~

Sister Monica Schmidt

317 E D St #3

Moscow, Idaho 83843

I think Moscow is okay.  I miss Bonners Ferry so much! It is just super dense! The members here are awesome but they are struggling to get into the missionary spirit. But that is why we missionaries are here to help them! :) We have a few investigators and I will go into depth with them next week since this emailing session is going by so fast. I promise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But something I forgot to tell you. Our mission is doing a Book of Mormon Challenge. We are challenged to read the Book of Mormon for 40 days (a whole transfer) and in return from the Lord we as a mission will get 40 baptisms for the month of September. I am so excited and the reading is going good so far. :) YAY! I for sure don't want to get behind on my reading.  Sister Gibson and I are already seeing the blessings from this challenge. We found 3 new investigators this week! We are hoping that they are solid.

We also had a mini missionary this whole week as well! Her name is Sister Clarissa Richards and she is from Spokane. It was an adventure, let me tell you! I am glad that I had the opportunity to have a mini missionary on my mission. The good news is she still wants to go on a mission after dealing with me.. haha :) JOKE!

Sister Gibson, Sister Richards, Sister Schmidt

All the missionaries in our zone who have mini-missionaries!

My apartment is really nice and there are no bugs compared to the one in Bonners Ferry! haha:) I am learning the area very fast and I am grateful for the gift of learning fast. The ward that I am serving in is the Quail Run ward. It is a family ward. All the wards in Moscow are now family. They combined both the student and family wards here. 

So one of our investigators is a 16 year old girl name Izzy! She is a stubborn girl who has had a rough life! Can you pray for her to soften her heart? Thank you! I will tell you more about her next week!

I almost forgot! So I almost died this week! (I didn't feel like sugar coating it.) So we were going to a members house for dinner and our little car starts rolling backwards on their steep driveway and I immediately put the brake on and then the emergency brake and I put it in park and we had to get the member to pull us out. We first broke their tie downs and then they had to go to their neighbors house and get a metal chain to attach to their truck and then to our car. It worked. But the scary part is that my left back wheel was on rocks and was on the edge of a cliff that goes into a ditch...... I am grateful for diesel engines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The church is so true!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love it and I am grateful to be a member and to be a missionary and to meet such wonderful people who are my spirit brother and sisters. Heavenly Father is such a loving father and I am so happy to know that He loves me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't remember if I already told you this but an elder came up with this cool quote, "Disobedience is easy to get into but hard to go through. Obedience is hard to get into but easy to get through." Obedience is key. In Doctrine and Covenants 82:10 it says, "I the Lord am bound when ye do what I say, but when ye do not what I say ye have no promise." Heavenly father wants to be bound to us. He wants to give us blessings but we have to do what He has asked of us. We are holding Heavenly Father from blessing us and providing miracles to happen in our lives. I am learning a lot more about the importance of obedience and I love it! 

I love you all and I miss you!!!!!!!!!!!! Toodaloo!!

Sister Schmidt

13 Months and Transfer Week!

So am I leaving or staying......

 

IT'S THE FINAL COUNTDOWN.......................

 

LEAVING!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I am being transferred to Moscow and I am second training. I don't know where she is from yet. Sister Lake is staying and her new companion is Sister Sherwood!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love Sister Sherwood!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

President Dymock called me Saturday evening to inform me that I am training and leaving. My new companion is a two transfer sister which means that she is trying out a mission for two transfers and seeing if she can do it. She was an ice skater and she got fibromyalgia and at the end of the transfer I am going to have to fill out some paper work to send to Salt Lake City and give them my feedback.  So I am excited to meet her! 

 

So Cory Ralpho got baptized this weekend!!!!!!!!! He and Korielle are going to go to the temple  in a couple of weeks to do baptisms for the dead! I am so happy for them and that they are on the path of becoming an eternal family! I can't stop beaming.  My cheeks hurt! haha :) But I don't care! Building muscle!

 

My talk on Sunday went really well! I talked on "True Conversion" and the spirit did the rest! It just came all together very smoothly and the delivery was awesome! Kymm Mann came to church with her best friend Kelly and her daughter Caitlin. It was a blessing to see them as our moral support in the audience and they stayed all three hours. I love all of them and I am going to miss them. I keep telling everybody that my family does NOT believe in "goodbyes" but in "see you laters." Everyone likes that motto and are taking it to use. It gives hope and comfort.

Sister Lake and I were talking about how we want the people that we are teaching to know that we love them and are here for them and we decided to heart attack their doors! We heart attacked 19 people! It was so much fun and thrilling to do it sneakily and to get away with it. 

Crystal Anton's Door

 

On Saturday there was a Navajo Powwow in Bonners Ferry and we went with Kymm, Kelly, and Caitlin. We met some members who are from the reservations in Arizona and that was awesome! They are such wonderful people who know how to dance and dress up!!!!!!!!!!! 

Navajo Dancers

Navajo Pow Wow

Native Americans

Navajo Taco and Frybread!

Okay I love all of you and miss you all!   Toodaloo!

Sister Schmidt