First one...

Yaateeh everyone!

 

    It was so good to talk to you yesterday! It seems like it went way faster then it should have though!  You all sound like you are doing wonderful.  Thank you for all of the support1 I love you all.

    We do have two baptisims this week, and two maybe three next week.  The lady that is getting baptized this week asked me if I would baptize her. It will be my first one on my mission.  It is so fun to see the excitment and enthuasiam that people get when they pray about the gospel to know that it is true, and have a desire and want to do everything to follow Jesus Christ.  After we got of the phone we went to see some investigators.  The two that are suppose to get baptized next week we found out that they arn't married but we talked to them about it and they said that they have been wanting to do it for a couple years now but for one reason or another they were unable too.  They said that they would call today and find out about getting the paper work so that it can be done. We also talked about them gettingh married and then getting baptized right after on the same day.  So, we will see what happens.

     It is hard to believe that this is the last week of my second transfer. It seems like i just got here to St. Michaels/ Window Rock.  Now it has been 12 weeks. Time has flown by, but i am having a blast and loving every minute of it.  Today we are goiing to Chinle to have a zone activity.  It is one of our zone leaders last p-day. He dies next week so we decided to get everybody together and play some games. It should be fun.

     Well I hope you all have a wonderful week! I love you all!

  

   Love,

    Elder Schmidt

Three Months! (crazy)

Yaateeh everybody!

 

   Mom, I am glad to see that you are keeping such good track of time. It has been three months not two.  That means that I am one toothbrush down. It's hard to believe that I am already 1/8 of the way done. Sure it doesn't seem like much, but when I have been waiting 19 years to do this; time has absolutely flown by.  It seems like just yesterday we went to the temple and the next day got dropped off.  It has been amazing though. I have learned so much and have had so much fun.

    Well this week has been kind of a weird and crazy week.  The other Elder's truck got hit by a quad the other week, so last Monday we had to take it into Gallup to get fixed.  We gave them our truck to use for the time that there's was in the shop, since we live in our area and they cover the branch about 20 miles up the highway.  So, that means that Elder Smith and I were walking for a few days, which ended up being longer then we expected.  Their truck was in the shop until Thursday.  It was fun to get out and walk instead of being in the truck all day.  It was really hard, because we couldn't go and see our investigators that live outside of town though.  We had a really good week of investigators at church this week.  We had five investigators at church, and four of them were for the first time.  We were very excited to have them there.  One of them was a blind young man that we met last week.  He just moved down here from Farmington, and was meeting with the missionaries while he was living there.  He has a baptismal date for the 14th. We are excited, we have two baptisms on the 14. The other is a lady that we have been working with since October.  The other three that were there for the first time was a mom and dad and daughter.  They are very enthusiastic about the gospel and we are excited for them.  Saturday night when we got home we went to ask the senior couple if they could pick up one of our investigators and he was not feeling very well so we got to give him a blessing.  After we got done and got home, we got a call from the relief society president asking if we could go to the hospital and give a blessing. That was some thing I had never done before. You're suppose to get escorted by security, but they just watched us from the cameras and they have to open the door for you.  It's kind of weird because only Navajos can go to the hospital, but all of the doctor's and dentists are white. Pretty much all of the dentists are members, there are three of the dentists that are members.  It's weird they can't even take their own kids and work on them.  But it was really neat to go and give a blessing to a little boy and talk with his mom.  She had some questions so we were able to answer them for her.

    Okay in regards to calling, we just called the AP's and they said to call. They didn't give us any details. So we are planning on calling after church. We get out at 12 so I believe that is 11 your time.  So i was thinking about planning on 2 your time 3 our time if that works? If there is a time that works better for you write me a letter today and send it so I know.

   Well on worldly news we heard that the Royal wedding finally happened and that Osama Bin Laden was killed.

   I hope you all have a wonderful week! I will talk to you soon! Literally!

Pictures from MTC to now!!!

Committ to baptism point!

Elder Jones (Elder Schmidt's MTC compation), Elder Carson, Elder Fry, Elder Clark, Elder Moyers

MTC Zone singing the night before leaving for the field. Elder Schmidt was the first one to leave!

First area, Window Rock, Arizona which is considered the "Capital" of the reservation! That's Elder Schmidt on top of "Window Rock!" Climbed to the top on his first "P-Day" with his companion and an investigator!

First Baptism! March 2011

Elder Sharp, Rodney, Elder Chapple, Josh, Joel, Elder Schmidt

Trainer, Elder Sharp and Elder Schmidt! Window Rock, March 2011

Thank You!!!

Hello everybody!

   Well where to start. How about how lucky I am to have such an amazing family. I received everybody's packages, and all of the Easter eggs with the notes. Thank you very much! I am extremely blessed to have such a wonderful family.

  Well it has been a pretty exciting week! Last Tuesday we had our district meeting with President Jones. It was really amazing and I learned a lot. We were asked to come up  with questions previous to the meeting. So we went around and he answered them and we discussed them. He talked on how we need to "awesomize" the ward. That is something that we struggle with here.  there are very few strong members in the ward.  In my meeting with him after we talked about the parable of the sower and how that can be compared to awesomizing the ward. Something that can be done everywhere. We can all, always be stronger members!

   We had a very good stake conference this weekend.  Elder Kent Richards was presiding to reorganize the presidency.  President Brown, who was the second counselor was called to be the new president.  I went up to talk to him after and he told me to tell Brother Petty ( so forward this to him) they served together.  He will do a very good job. A lot of the people thought before that he could be it, and said that they really liked him. He is a really good man, and he is feeding us steak next Sunday. The old stake president talked and said how he was the second counselor then called to be President and how President Brown was his second counselor. As a sat there and listened it caused me to reflection the weekend before I left. We got to meet with President Jones a lot this week. He and Sister Jones were at stake conference so we got the opportunity to meet with them there as well.

   Have a wonderful week everybody. Less then two weeks until we actually get to talk.  It will most likely be in the afternoon. Take care. I love you all!

 

Love,

Elder Schmidt

YAATEEH!!!

Hello everybody,

      How are things going back home?  It's going pretty good here in Window Rock.  This past week was kind of slow around here but it was good.  We found three new investigators.  We are excited for them they are very enthusiastic and very accepting of the gospel.  One of them was a referral and the other two were formers.  I have seen a part of missionary work that a missionary doesn't ever see.  The two formers are a husband and wife that were meeting with the missionaries about a year ago or so.  The missionaries stoped coming by because they didn't seem interested and just called them formers in the area book.  So Elder Smith and I got in contact with them. The first time we went over they invited us in and fed us dinner.  We talked about the Book of Mormon and then a couple of days later taught the Pan of Salvation.  After we finished they told us that just after the missionaries before stopped coming by their son died, and it left them with lots of questions.  Question's that the Pan of Salvation answered.  Such as where did we come from, and where are we going?  It was really neat to be inspired to share that lesson first and then come to find all of their background out.  They asked a lot of really good questions and we are excited to get back over and teach them.

     Well we have a couple of exciting things happening this week.  Tomorrow we are having a special district meeting.  We usually have it on Friday but tomorrow President and Sister Jones are coming.  Before he is going to study with the district leader for comp. study. Since we live with the district leader we will be studying with him as well. I am excited for it, it will be really neat. However, that means we won't be having much of a P-day because we will be cleaning our trailer all day!  Then we have stake conference this week as well.  We are getting a new stake presidency so everybody is pretty excited and everybody has their guess' as to who they think it is going to be.  But we have a really special opportunity.  On Sunday morning before the meeting they are having a breakfast for all the recent converts and investigators with the general authority that will be there. They will be able to ask any questions and just be able to talk to him. So we are looking forward to it! Well I hope you all are having a good day and have a wonderful week. I love you all.

 

Love,

Elder Schmidt

Good Morning + Pictures!!!

Yaateeh Everybody!

     Well week one of transfer two flew by already.  My new companion Elder Smith and I have a lot of work to do.  He is awesome and I love working with him. The first day we were together we got a copy of our ward list, which is over 29 pages long, and we are going through and trying to see everybody on the list and find the less actives and work with some of them.  We had success our first day.  We picked a random name that stuck out to us and went and knocked on the door.  We went in and had a little lesson with them and then we talked to the dad.  He was an older man and we just sat and listened to him he talked to us for an hour straight. Through our discussion we found out that they are having some family issues and it was good for him to just have some body to talk to.  Then the next day we were trying to find a referral and this lady that wasn't home when we knocked on her door got home and said come in.  We went in and found out that she was a member but hasn't been to church for  over ten years because of something that she had done in the past.  She felt like she couldn't even go into the church building but she new she needed to go and talk to the bishop.  So we are working with her and trying to build her faith in herself to go and do what she knows needs to be done. I feel so inadequate and like i'm not capable of helping people cope with their struggles.  But I have learned and grown so much over this past week.  With me taking over the area I have had to be more responsible and I have become a much better missionary this past week.  We have been doing things that my last companion wouldn't do. We stop and talk to somebody if they are outside, and we will knock on doors until we find a new investigator or somebody to teach a lesson to.

    Thought I would send some pictures. Be careful not to hit the cows/calves crossing.  Yes that is where we live, it's not to bad actually.  A sign in one of the neighbourhoods I thought was funny. That's what happens when one of your recent converts mom gets drunk before his birthday party.

    Well uploading pictures took some time so I better get going.  Have a wonderful week. I love you all!

 

Love,

Elder Schmidt

1 Conference, 1 Transfer and 2 Months!

Yaateeh Everybody!

    How was your week? Mine was pretty awesome! So what was your favorite talk?  My top two were President Uchtdorf's Sunday morning talk on Faith and Elder Gonzalez Saturday morning talk on covenants and blessings.  It was an awesome weekend! This is horrible to say but I have never watched all five sessions of General Conference before.  I was so grateful for the opportunity that I had to do so this past weekend.  I can't wait for the Ensign to come out so that I can read all of them again and better understand them.  To me it seemed like their was a lot of talk on family.  Family s so very important in our lives. They will always be there for us no matter what.  I am so grateful for all of you and the examples you are to me.

     Well we got transfer news on Saturday night.  Elder Sharp is leaving.  He is going to be Zone Leader in Gallup, so he isn't going to far.  Gallup is about twenty minutes away from here.  I am geting a new companion and takeing over the area.  His name is Elder Smith, everybody we have talked to has never heard of him.  I am excited to get a new companion though.  Elder Chapple and Elder Larson are both staying and Elder Chapple is going to be the new District Leader.  I guess President must have some faith in me to take over the area. It's not a huge responsibility but I have only been out for one transfer.  I am looking forward to it though it will be a good transfer.

    Well there wasn't much that went on this week other then Conference.  We picked up six new investigators.  We are excited and grateful for the work that we have found this week.  the Lord has truly blessed us as we continue to work and are patient with him.  But, he has set those in our path that are prepared to listen to and receive his gospel. I am so grateful for the opportunity that I have to be in the service of our Heavenly Father.  I know what I am doing is real.  I am sharing the restored gospel of Jesus Christ to the people of the Window Rock ward. There is nowher else I would rather be in my life then here in the service of Heavenly Father. I am even more in debt to my Father in Heaven for the blessings that I am receiving for serving him. Missionary work is true. It needs to press forward.  You all know somebody who is not a member of this true and living gospel.  When you kneel down tonight to pray, pray for a name of a family or an individual that you can give to the missionaries.  The Lordf is preparing his children everyday to receive his gospel, and you all know somebody that is ready to listen.

    I better get going. Sorry it wasn't a very exciting week. I love you all. Have a wonderful week!

Love,

Elder Schmidt