03/10/10

March 10, 2010

La Famille Schmidt

Well this week has been very interesting. We have had the opportunity to teach a couple of people; it has been great! The work is moving forward here in Martigny but I have really been humbled this week and I kind of had a little break down as far as my strength or diligence. My companion hasn’t been very motivated to work, so I feel like I have been taking the load of everything this week. At first I thought that I could do it, and mind you I was doing a pretty good job….(insert pride).... (take away pride) or so I thought. This week was a hard one, but I sure needed it, to realize that I need to lean on the Lord more. It’s a funny thing, because I think I have learned this same lesson at least 5000+ times, yet I still think that I can do it by myself, and every time I fall right on my face and look up desperate for help, only to see the Lords hand stretched out to pick me up, so I can finish the race.

This week was my last Zone Conference and I had the opportunity to give my last testimony to the Mission. I hadn’t really thought about what I was going to say. So I related it to me learning tennis. I thought to myself, if only I could hit the ball really hard, I would be a good player, and so I would work really hard to attain that goal and after a while I would reach it, only to realize that I still wasn’t good and needed to learn more. That is how I have felt on my mission. I was always learning things to become better but only realizing that I have a million other things to learn and master. Then, I gave my testimony of the Atonement and cried the whole time. I thought I would be able to keep myself together but I failed. Anyway, I ended with a quote by Michael Angelo “I am still learning”. I said that is how I feel, I am still learning. That’s what being a member of the Church is all about.

I love you all and hope that you have a great week.

Love Elder Schmidt

03/02/10 Finishing My Mission in Martigny

SCHMIDT FAMILY

Hey everyone, I just wanted to drop you a line and tell you what happened for transfers. It looks like I will be staying her in Martigny with Elder Tracy to finish my mission. I plan on working really hard and finding someone that will be baptized so you don’t have to worry about me. I will be staying strong until the end. I am pretty sure that the transfer is going to fly right on by, so I decided to make some plans and some goals that I want to accomplish; that way I can accomplish them. Elder Tracy and I are excited for the work.

We had the opportunity to teach the nine year old Rolph. His father was a little bit worried about the whole thing, so I invited him to listen and he said that he would love to listen. He was posing a lot of questions like….We have the Bible, it’s already big, why do we need more, and I think all churches have little bit of good in them. We went through and explained all of this to him and he really seemed to understand. We have fixed a rendezvous tomorrow, so wish us luck. If we can, I will invite Rolph to be baptized.

I am sooooo thankful that I have the opportunity to finish my mission here, I love the members, and we are working with really great people. I know that we are going to see a lot of miracles this transfer. What I am going to try and focus on this transfer is growing my faith; first comes the faith then the miracles right? Sorry this e-mail is so short, we don’t have a whole lot of time because we went and saw a castle in Sion it was so beautiful. I felt like I was in Lord of the Rings.

I love you all; you are always in my prayers

Love Elder Schmidt

2/24/10 Work in Martingny is moving Forward

Family,

This week has been a fun one. The work here in Martingny is moving forward slowly but surely. Transfers are next week and I am really hoping that I have the opportunity to stay here and see some of those seeds that have been planted by past missionaries, and nurtured by others, finally be harvested. I think the more that the mission goes on the more I learn to love it. The reason that I want to stay here is because I would love to finish my mission serving members that I love, and a branch that I want to grow into a ward. The members are fantastic, there aren’t many, but if every ward was as strong as some of these members, I think that the membership would double. They just don’t stop, they all have multiple callings and they fulfill them without complaining. In a very real way they help carry each others burdens, it’s like a big family.

We have been working with Rosa Maria and we should find out if her and her husband will be eligible for marriage, if so it is just a matter of fixing a time and a date for her baptism.Tonight we will be going to teach Rolph Solice (a 9yr old) and that should be great too. I love teaching children they are so teachable, and humble. It should be a great Rendezvous.

Today for preparation day we where thinking " Hey we are like 2 or 3 miles away from the Matter Horn lets try to get close and get a picture of it" so that’s exactly what we are doing today, wish us luck!

I have a funny story about the car. So, we were on our way to a rendezvous and my companion Elder Tracy was driving. The GPS was on economical setting, which means the shortest route. It started to take us on these little country roads on the side of the mountain and there came a point where elder Tracy couldn’t drive any more because it was too steep for him. So, I got out and took the wheel. The roads where so narrow and in the end it took us to this little dirt road that was VERY steep so what do a try to do?!? You know me all to well; I tried to drive up it. It was going great at first but then it started to slide backwards (note:we are really close to a LITTLE cliff). I’m pretty sure when my little guy on my shoulder that’s supposed to tell you to not do that, saw that hill, he took off. So basically I stopped it before anything happened; so don’t worry mom, like I said a LITTLE cliff. Elder Tracy got behind it and I did the rocking motion and got it back out of the place. Long story short, my companion looked completely white due to dust hitting him, and we learned that GPS`s aren’t all they are cracked up to be ha ha. It was a good story though. All that was going through my head was Dad doing something much steeper in my Mazda on a father sons outing. My hat goes off to you DAD.

Well I wish you all a fantastic week!!!
Love Elder Schmidt

02/16/10

Schmidt Family,

Hey everyone, I hope all is well in America!!! We have had a great week here. Elder Tracy and I decided to make a sacrifice and buy a fondue set, so we can have it. Not so sure it was a good idea; we burned the apartment down:0( President isn’t really happy about it, we put it out before anything got too bad! Ha ha Just kidding.

We have had it the past three days and I will just let you imagine what happens when you have 400g of cheese get hard in your stomach; we didn’t really think it through, but it was really good!

So our mission President has told us to find someone that will be baptized, and we have two people in this area that WILL be baptized. It’s not if…but when. We are working with one of them to get them married and the other is a nine year old kid. We are excited to help them get a little bit closer to entering the waters. We are also working with a member from Genève, he wants us to teach a family. I am so excited, I love the members here they are fantastic. I also love the Swiss people they are great as well, and really good drivers might I add.

This weeks biggest break through is la famille Bagnoud; they have been turned off toward missionaries for a long time or rather the father of the family has. He doesn’t like how missionaries shove things down his throat. I can see why, we have some pretty extreme ones here. So Elder Tracy and I d did was make them banana bread and took it over, we just sat down and talked and had a good conversation with the wife. She figured out that we are not that other type of missionaries and she wants to have us over twice this week. We told her that we just want to come have a good time and share a thought that’s all. She was like but lets keep it low key, we were like ok. Our goal is to just get him to be more active in going to church and we want to do this by letting the spirit teach. Their family reminds me of ours, so I am excited to work with them.

I love you all and I hope you all have a great week

Love Elder Schmidt

02/03/10**

Famille Schmidt

Ok so how should i start this off? ... oh well me and my new companion Elder Tracy have been trying to tear it up here in Martigny and from what i can tell we are keeping the confidance of the members that me and Elder Whatcott established so that is good. He is from Georgia and is really cool and has a desire to do the lords work so that is good :)
This week has been pretty stressfull for me, normally how it goes is durring weekly planing we figure out what we are going to do and then i have to find out all the train times so that all of our rendez vous will line up and not overlap. but this week i slacked a little so what ended up happening was i was going off of memory what the train times where and i did ok. and at the same time i am trying to teach elder Tracy how to get around this place it is by far the hardest place in the mission to navigate, instead of one city you have like 20 all spread out up and the mountain sides. it is seriously everything that you every dreamed switzerland would be. cool little villages with a church in the middle, i love it its soooo beautifull.
this week we where able to see a couple investigator and they where really nice but our highest priority is a 9 year old boy of a member. we have to take a train 45 min and then walk 30 min to arrive at there building its crazy!!! but worth it.
Today i have the opportunity to go and play tennis :) i am so excited, i hope that i do good. we are going to be playing with Addie ... you know the sweet californian that does a ton of missionary work. i might have the opportunity to play one of her friends, apparently he is a Pro from india, so if i do ok against him i will feel ok. wish me luck.
Well i hope that you all have a fantastic week i love you.
Elder Schmidt

01/19/10

Schmidt Family

This week was transfer week so we have our preparation day on Tuesday just letting you know why I was writing today instead of tomorrow. As for transfers something was bound to happen this transfer seeing as me and Elder Whatcott have stayed three transfers together which is pretty rare. So Yesterday we received a call from President and Elder Whatcott is going to a city named Jex and I will be staying here in Martigny and receiving Elder Tracy, I am excited to receive him and I hope that we get along. but at the same time I am pretty sad to see Elder Whatcott leave, its like saying goodbye to a best friend but I guess this is the life of a missionary. I will Probably stay here for another six weeks and then head to my last ville to finish my mission.
This last week of the transfer has been fantastic, we have had the opportunity to see a lot of members. and it was especially sad because they knew that one of us would be leaving and they really liked our companionship. I hope me and elder Tracy will be able to pick it right up and keep the work moving forward.
We also spent much time helping the family Rivero move, they are from Colombia and didn’t have too much help. they are the part member family. we have been trying to get them back to church for the past month, maria the mother is one of our investigators and she was having a hard time going. so me and elder whatcott where talking and decided to go and help them as much as possible and the result from this was she promised to come to church from now on. it wasn’t necessarily the help we offered but the fact that we cared about them enough to help them. and that we wouldn’t accept any money. it was great to see them at church again!
We taught one of our investigators this week (Bao) and we had the goal of inviting him to be baptized. so we focused on the importance of the restoration, we watched the film and then after i asked him this question " if Christ was standing in the room at that moment and said this is my church would you want to join it?" he said well of course so then I said well lets find out if it is true. we all knelt down of the floor and we took turns saying the prayer, the spirit was so strong you could not deny that the things that had been shared where true. I asked do you feel anything special in your heart? he replied yes as well as when I was watching the film. he then express that he wants to become a member right now but his parents would not like that. he is 18 years old. then he said maybe when I am 20 or 21 I will be baptized. although we weren’t able to fix a specific date it was a great experience seeing the holy ghost touch the heart of one of his children. we will be working with him and searching for a way that he will be baptized sooner! I know that the lord will provide a way for him, as he has provided the way for us.
Well i love you all and hope that you have the best week ever. I write you next week:)

Love Elder Schmidt

THE DATE IS SET!!!

We have received the letter that tells us when Bronson is coming home!!!!

He will be coming home on April 15th.

I will give you more information when he hear more.

01/14/10

Hey Everyone,

This week has been great! It is the last and final week of the transfer which is pretty sad because President Murdock pretty much told us that we weren’t staying together another one. I’m ok with that because I was just happy that I could stay a third with Elder Whatcott; that in of its self was a miracle!

We have been working pretty hard this week. Right now I am in Lausanne, one of the bigger cities in Switzerland due to exchanges with the elders here. It has been great; last night I was with one of my former companions Elder laws, the one I served with in Geneva. It was so funny the first door that we knocked on was all in Spanish so we did the only thing that we know how to do which was get her number for the Spanish equipe. It was so funny because that was pretty much all we ever did in Geneva; just like old times again.

We also taught this man that was found by the sisters. We went over and it turns out he was raised as a member but was never baptized. So he was "not" a member, so we were just asking him questions and we said "what is the importance of Joseph Smith" and he pretty much explained to us the first lesson, including James 1:5 quoted. Then I went to show him Moroni’s promise. I picked up his tryptique ... (yeah he had one of those too), and as I arrived to the page I was like “Oh you already have it highlighted”. We read it and he said, “I already know that this book is true”. Then I said what is the importance of the restoration and he said " well there is a lot of confusion in the world and many churches that don’t have the whole truth, and its just nice knowing that we have the truth". I thought to my self "lets go find the nearest body of water and baptize you!!!" It was a really cool experience and I’m like 90% positive that he will be baptized. We fixed a rendez-vous for next week; it was a miracle!

I love being a missionary because we see things like this all the time. I remember being back home and just praying to have a missionary experience, but I guess it helps when this is all you do full time; you are bound to see miracles.

I love you all and I hope that you have a fantastic week. Keep working hard and trying to progress a little bit every day!

Love
Elder Schmidt

01/07/10

Schmidt Family

Hey everyone, this week has been a little bit slow to say the least. I started off by being sick, and then I passed it on to my companion Elder Whatcott. Soooooo long story short we stayed in the apartment the whole week and even got kicked out of church and told to go home. We are doing fine right now and ready to go back to work!

It has been hard staying in the apartment and just reading the Bible but I really am gaining a stronger testimony of the new testament. I have loved the example that Paul shows us, and how fearless we should be. How important it is to have the spirit with us at all times so that when we testify to people the spirit can take it to their hearts. I think all though we where sick we where made stronger in spirit so it was great!

Well, I love you all and hope you have a great week, sorry this is sooo short; I will be better at writing.

Love
Elder Schmidt!!!