September 2, 2013. Life is like a box of chocolates

I was not expecting my reaction to Uncle Steve and Aunt Becky coming! It was the oddest thing. I felt bad- I'm sure they had no idea what to do with me in my weepy-mess state. I think the reason I was that way is because you get so focused on NOT thinking of home and on working your hardest and its kind of a shock to be with family again. At least, it was for me. And you know me--sometimes, I just cry and I don't know why! It was probably less Steve and Becky being there and more just a catalyst for stress and stuff that I had let build up in me like a shaken soda bottle. So, I'm just finding new and better ways to let go of stress. As far as what to do with other people who are planning on visiting Oregon, I say as did Theodin, King of old-- "Let them come." 

 

I had to go into the restroom for a minute and (quietly) cry it all out. Sister Priday came in and we just sat and talked. We've both been trying to be super positive and act like every second is awesome, but right then we finally just said, "This is hard."  Then we talked about all the benefits--how we're gaining a vision of who Heavenly Father wants us to be forever and are taking steps to become that, how we're able to fully live the law of consecration at this time in our lives, how our testimonies are being deeply rooted...  We concluded that there is nowhere else we would rather be right now. 

So, this past week we saw miracles! And you know how they came about? Prayer. President Tom Cottle is a legend in the LDS community here. He's mid-80s, has served seven missions, was instrumental in getting the Portland Temple up, and is always the best person to have a spiritual conversation with.  He had some other sisters over for dinner last Wednesday and at one point he asked, "Do you know why we're not baptizing here?" They started mentioning things about affluence and things like that. He said "No, it's because the people have stopped praying." 

As a missionary, we pray all the time---every time we leave the apartment, before and after we study and plan, before we knock a door. All the time. But since we heard about what President Cottle said, we've made our prayers more focused, earnest and specific. We've prayed specifically for miracles with this or that person or with finding people. Here are some miracles (though small) that have happened the past few days:

1) We rarely tract, but often we'll knock doors neighboring houses we've planned to visit. We did this the other night and a young mom answered. I gave our schpiel--"...and we've come to share a message with you about Jesus Christ. Would that be alright?" She invited us in! We were shocked. This was the first time this had ever happened to us, and that's why we were only semi-prepared and very scared. It was perfect and yet we left after our visit feeling like we had sinned, because we had not "opened our mouths" to share the unique things that our Gospel offers. We prayed and repented and the next day went by with flowers and an invite to the Visitor's Center. She came by that night and agreed to read the Book of Mormon! Awesome! Only downside is that it's been a week and we haven't been able to get hold of her.  So... pray for her, will you? I have really had to work on having faith that she can feel the Spirit, can change and be converted and faith that I can help her to do that.

2) We visited a less-active who wasn't home, so we decided to knock on a random neighbor's door before we drove away. A man opened the door and said, "You found me! come on in." We were really confused, but happy. We started getting a little creeped out when he told Sister Priday "You got your hair cut! It looks nice." It took a few moments of awkward chit-chat for us to realize who he was. About a month ago we were driving around and pulled over to ask directions from a man and woman who were walking our dog. This was that man! That time he said that he was familiar with the Mormon church and not interested BUT THIS time, he invited us to come back whenever we were in the area and "we'd talk".

3) Yesterday, we were tracting and Brother Barrett, a man in our ward, rode by on his bike. He stopped to talk with us, and we asked if there was anyone in this area that he thought we should go teach. He pointed a few feet away to a woman across the street and said "Her. She needs to hear your message about Jesus Christ." She heard and said, "Were you pointing at me?" Undeterred, he said to this woman he had never met in his life, "Yes. These are sister missionaries for the LDS Church. They were asking if there was anyone they thought needed to hear their message about Jesus Christ and I said that you did." We started talking with her and, though she initially declined being taught, she expressed genuine interest in meeting us at the visitors center. She gave us her number and we promised to call and invite her to another activity that we had told her about.

4) We went visiting some potentials and less-actives in this one neighborhood and, as we were getting out of the car, Sister Priday said, "The Spirit has been telling me that there is someone here that we are going to teach today who really needs our message." Sure enough, it happened, with a very unlikely person. He had tattoos up and down his arms and was smoking and drinking when we met him. We were talking to his friendly neighbor, when ____ interrupted and said "I've got a few questions for you two." He started asking about our connection to the Masons and handshakes and a lot of shady things. Finally, I told him something like, "How would getting those answers actually impact your life? Would they be of any real benefit to you? You've told us that you've seen a lot of horrible things--that must be a great burden to you. Our message is that through the atonement of Jesus Christ you can be relieved of those burdens. Your soul can be healed and you can live a clean and pure life again. We know that God is your loving Heavenly Father. He knows you. He cares about you. He wants you to live with Him after this life and He's made a way to do that through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which we want to teach you about." His face started to change and he asked more questions about what the atonement was. We gave him our number and invited him to come by and see us. We're praying that he will! He's got a huge mistrust of organized religion. But, it was still a powerful experience for me. I think that when we bear our testimonies, the truth of what we're saying gets re-confirmed to us by the Spirit. 

5) We gave a temple tour to the ___'s cousin who came to the VC twice last week.  He told me to look him up in 15 months when I get home from my mission. That's not a miracle--just kidding!

So, lots of great things happened this week. I'm learning so much every day.

LOVE,

Sister Schmutz III

 

 

 

August 26, 2013

 

As of this past Wednesday, several sisters serving at the Portland Oregon Temple Visitor's Center can now tell their posterity that they talked to Elder Holland there and shook his hand. Not many can say, like Sister Priday and I can, that they were 30 minutes short of talking to Elder Holland and shaking his hand! No one was forewarned of his coming except the VC directors who kept it a secret, and he wasn't coming during our shift.  But Sister Priday and I had to grab something from there, so we came just after he left. We could  still feel a special spirit of an apostle around the visitors center after he left. It made me think that I want to be such a dedicated disciple of Jesus Christ that people feel differently when I'm there.

 

 

 

 I love the visitors center. I haven't been talking about it much because it has been closed for the past three weeks except for temple tours on Sundays. It opened up again this week though!

 

I have had a realization. I wanted to go on a mission largely because I saw in the returned sister missionaries  I knew this confidence in themselves and the Lord that I wanted to have for myself. My realization has been that I'm not automatically entitled to that kind of character by virtue of signing up to leave on a mission for 18 months. No! Missions (and discipleship in general) can be as taxing as you want them to be; it all depends on how far up the path of discipleship you are willing to go. And if you really are committed to following Jesus Christ, it will be an uphill slope.  Missionaries who don't have the spirit or have that dedication don't usually realize it! They just notice less success and less happiness on their mission. Elder Maxwell said that the higher we go on the path, the greater our capacity is to even feel joy. I thought that was neat.

 

Answer to your question: Sister Priday and I have a car and ....yours truly... is the driver. Yes, Mom, I was trying to keep this from you in an effort to protect you, but... there it is. We've gotten in 0 (zero) accidents though!

 

At the visitors center, it's an interesting kind of missionary work, because it's all about starting conversations or tours and moving people into deeper spiritual things, all the while trying to discern their needs and figure out the videos and things that would be good for them. When you're tired and you've gotten "rejected" it's natural to not want to work as hard to engage in those deeper conversations and really help them, so it's a choice to be seeking the Spirit! It's a choice to merely chit-chat with people and just show them the displays versus actively trying to help them through doing those things, though it may appear the same practice to the outside observer.  But the results are drastically different! When you talk to someone, you can rationalize, "They're a member, they look fine, they don't really need my help."  But, when you really work at the conversation, you'll eventually find out their problems (because EVERYONE has them). It has made me look at people differently. Everyone, regardless of what they look like, has problems and needs greater connection with the atonement to cope with those problems.

 

Well, I love you!! I love hearing from you. 

Sister Schmutz

August 19, 2013

We had a member of the Seventy come speak to our stake yesterday for stake conference and he focused it entirely on member missionary work and on the broadcast "Hastening the Work of Salvation." More and more, missionary work is becoming something that members and full-time missionaries need to do together. There is an increasing divide between righteous and wicked. I think that has made tracting an increasingly less-fruitful way of doing things because most people are hardened to it.

When members continue to become better representatives of Jesus Christ and bring the spirit into their home and then people into their lives and homes, that is the beginning of the best kind of missionary work! It has been eye-opening for me to go into so many very different homes and feel and see the dramatic differences between them based upon how righteously they are living their lives. When it is a house like Ravings where your temple covenants are kept and lived and where there is daily family scripture study and prayer and obedience to the commandments, it is a spiritual uplift for me. I go away reboosted. The difference is poignant not just in the way the home feels, but the way the family is. We met with two families this week that showed me a contrast.  One was the _________ family.  We had dinner at their home last night. Brother _____ is a member of the high council. They and their family are about the same age as this other family except that their children are obedient and calmer. The Spirit was in their home and being there and seeing their family was such an uplift. They are a busy couple but they seemed also more in control, worked together in taking care of their kids, and, like their kids, were calmer and happier-- because the Spirit was there and they were living the Gospel! Such a difference.

I love families. I love the Gospel. I love our family! I think about you guys every day--all that I've gained from each of you and especially from growing up in our home. I'm realizing how priceless that is.

We met an 82-year-old Greek Orthodox man named Thor who is half-black and half-Cherokee and teaches salsa dancing on Tuesday. We talked with him, he talked to us and gave us words of wisdom for a while on his doorstep. We weren't getting anywhere and we were about to leave when Sister Priday asked if we could sing him a song. We sang "Nearer My God to Thee." Thor said he sang that as a child and hummed along. When we had finished, his countenance had changed. He asked if he could come to our church! He gave us his number so that we could send him the address. He said "You two are a part of my life now. I want you to know that. If you ever need anything just let me know. I better here from you again!" Ah, the power of song.  (Ended up he couldn't come this week, but next--?)

Hill told me in an email that she hopes I'm not missing my "hammock time" too much and that they're not working me too hard.  Had to laugh about that. Probably the number one thing I have learned on my mission so far is patience. I just want to get going!! Sister Priday is the same. We have morning recitations for our mish and we like marching around and almost shouting them when we say them. Sister Priday told me on Thursday that her dream is to have the Spirit at one point tell her to boldly call someone to repentance like Abinadi would. She's funny. So, we're way fired up still and time is flying by. I love you all! The Church is true!

August 12, 2013

Oh poor Stephen, that would be hard.  He is quite the hero though! Will you tell him from me: Hi, and I hope he's doing well and think he's awesome and that missionaries throughout my mission have been speaking about him? He is quite the legend--the humble one, I am sure.

Speaking of humility, I have learned quite a bit about that this past little while. Appx two weeks ago was the Saturday before transfers. Everyone was panicking because they were all waiting to get calls on whether they would be 1) training 2) leaving their area or 3) both. When President Morby called and told me I was doing #3 and splitting a new area, all of the sisters came and congratulated me. After they had left, Sister Palmer, a Canadian sister who has been out about a year gave me a lingering and intense stare and said quietly "Sister Schmutz. You will be humbled." and left. I uneasily dismissed her thought--she was from Canada after all, right? But, Sister Palmer's prophecy was fulfilled! I have been humbled a lot. To humble yourself and turn towards God is a choice, but I know that we are definitely blessed when we do that.  The golden phrase there is "my grace is sufficient for all those who come unto me." Every morning while exercising, I've started thinking about Jesus Christ--whether it's things He did or said in His life or aspects of the atonement or just my personal relationship with Him. It has made every day better. We will never do anything to hurt anyone if we remember Him.  I love that remembering Him is the covenant we make in baptism. It covers so much.

Missionary work is changing. As shown in the broadcast of about two months ago "Hastening the Work of Salvation" (Have you seen it? WILL YOU if you haven't? T'anks.), it is now crucial to have members and missionaries work together. Sister Priday and I have changed our strategy to an emphasis on Member Referral Lessons--which would be meeting with a member or family of members, sharing a mini-lesson and then (sneakily and slyly) asking for referrals. It is very effective!  And we're making a lot of new friends. I love home wards. I'm starting to really become friends/family with the people in my wards, we're slowly (I hope) becoming a team. Our goal this week is to have every lesson attended by a member and a referral from every lesson. It has been happening so far!

Oregon is awesome. It is sooo beautiful; huge green trees everywhere, everything is green here in the "city." There are little art statues on every corner here. The people are really friendly (even though street contact is pretty useless. People will have a conversation but most (at least here), when you bring up religion, immediately shut off and get out of there. But, that's ok. I probably would too. It's just a cool place.

Our ward mission leader is great. He is this fired up businessman-type whose field is over auntrapraneurship (pretty sure I butchered that.) Systematics? Something like that. Doing things out of the ordinary.  He has a slightly New Yorker accent and is always ready to get things done. He says phrases like "here's the scoop" and "I want you to get the jump on this."

Welp, that's pretty much it! I love the Gospel! I love how much it makes sense.  I love being a disciple of Jesus Christ. I heard a talk from Elder Holland where he says (roughly) "from the moment you joined this church you, like Christ's apostles, have left your nets never to return to them, but to continue a life of discipleship forever!" Obviously, we need to continue to support ourselves and live in the world, but the principle is the same. We are, above all, all followers and disciples of Jesus Christ.

I love you!! I hope you have a good week!

August 5, 2013

Funny thing with Sister Priday. As noted from my last email, we are very similar. So similar that we really started getting on each others nerves this past week after our crazy happy first two-ish days. We both like being leaders where we kind of tell the other person what to do and don't like being told what to do. I'm learning a lot. I have been praying really, really hard every day to be meek and charitable because, obviously, none of this is just her. It's been a really good learning experience. Thursday, we did the dreaded "companionship inventory" and talked about this tangible but unspoken annoyed feelings we have been having and weird sensitive stress moments that I don't catch on to at first and don't understand, so we decided that we need to become more "chill." We sat on the floor in our apartment for almost an hour, just sitting there and trying to figure out how to do it. We made sticky notes in our apartment all over that say stuff like "don't stress." "be chill" "'Ere you left your room this morning, did you think to be chill?" "got chill?" etc. We even got a form of companionship counseling from the other sisters--Sister Brandt (MTC companion) and Sister Palmer, who we get along really well with. They told us we needed to be more humble. So true. Anyway, I've been learning to just tone it down and be relaxed and real. It has been good--always a work in progress, though.

 

Sister Priday and I have been using a great tool to teach--singing. We have sung at the end of all of our appointments and awesome things have happened! We helped a less-active in the ward go visit teach her less-active teachee and sang at the end. Without us having alluded at all to missionary work, the teachee leaned over to her teacher and said "we need to introduce these sisters to ____ and _____," (two of their non-member neighbors!) "but I don't know how to do it." We brainstormed ideas of how with her and then roleplayed with her how she would go about it. Sooo awesome.

Our neighbor, _____, introduced himself to us this week. He looks like a big bull-dog, complete with shaved off head, stocky figure, "arms like tree trunks," and even a New Juhsey accent. From the start, he said "Hey, if you guhls (I mean sistehs) need any help, if you need me to go beat someone up for yuh, you just cawl me. I'm your guy for da job." then he gave this big, crooked-toothed smile. It was great!

 

We've been busy dividing up the area book and having companionship inventory this week, in addition to a couple of training meetings and things, so we haven't done a whole lot of teaching. We helped an older lady clean out her house this past week. She admits to both having ADD and being a compulsive buyer, and, after we had finished cleaning out her home for about an hour we spent the next half hour with her unloading a bunch of stuff to us: blenders, fresh vegetables, cans of probably expired foods, surprisingly really cute youthful new clothes from Forever 21 and a bunch of other stuff. It was so nice! We could use a lot of it.

 

Thanks for keeping in touch!

 

Love, Sister Schmutz

 

July 31, 2013

That was Stephen Ward?????? I was talking about that with my companions two days ago and had no idea! I wasn't able to watch your link because that site isn't mission-approved, but I can imagine it. He's great. 

 

I swear on my honor that I will not put my hair in a ponytail until it looks decently. No nubs. Agreed.

 

Biggest news-- I'M TRAINING! (Even though I've only been through 6 weeks of the 12 week training program.) And white-wash splitting an area! "What does that second part mean?" you ask. Whitewashing happens when a companionship enters an area and neither companion has been in the area before. The other sisters that were in the area before are staying and we are becoming the second set, so we will be working with them to split the area and create a brand-new area book for what is now my companion and my area.   Sister Poulson and I did this same thing. It takes a whole lot of time and coordinating to build up to any teaching time, but it is good!

 

I love love love my trainee, Sister Priday. I will call her a kindred spirit, a bosom friend.  We started calling each other our eternal companion on day one. We just hug and laugh and tell each other we love each other all the time. The other missionaries have been calling us twins and saying that President Morby really was receiving revelation when he set up our companionship. Sister Priday is in love with life, energetic, kind, super spiritual, social, funny, and engaging. One day you will meet her, especially since she attends BYU! She is just great.

 

Me and Sister Priday

 When I saw how pumped she was on transfer day about whitewash splitting an area and being a missionary in general, my motherly heart swelled as I saw those traits in my missionary child that I had exuded in her shoes six weeks ago. We are pumped. We're making a lot of plans on how to get the ward going on missionary work and on dividing up our area.

 

Like with Sister Poulson, we were given a really nice apartment that has never been used by the church before and was brand new. 

 

I WANT PICTURES from you! Do you love me? Do you care? Please, please, please send pictures.  I'm going into virtual hysterics. I really really want pictures from you. It's my dying wish. Hard copy ones that you can hold in your hand. I need. I need.

 

I love you all so much!

 

Love, Sister Schmutz

July 22, 2013

You said you wanted the good the bad and ugly... Well, this week was a little ugly.  ALL of our appointments fell through.  I'm in charge of our area now that Sister Poulson is gone in addition to having to work with my new companions' (who struggle with obedience) area and...it's just been busy.  Definitely been a week of growth. I've grown in patience, especially.

 

Thursday I felt a little stressed and discourged, so I went in to the bathroom of the visitor's center and started praying. A little later, I decided to read my Book of Mormon and got good advice, but nothing really seemed to help. I realized that the only thing that would really help was if I could stop focusing on myself and start focusing on other people. Right after that, I got the chance to talk with and help three women, all members, all coming at different times and with different needs.  (The principles in "How to Win Friends and Influence People" are spot on!)  After starting up a conversation, I hardly said a word to any of these three women. They talked! I realized that it is much better to allow for pauses without interrupting with a question or comment (however relevant). People are thinking and will voice their own thoughts without you guiding them to whatever you think they would or should say. Like I said, I hardly said anything but all three of them (after only about ten minutes) gave me at least one big hug saying their "thank you"s and their desire to come back and see me and left with tears in their eyes. All of them had shared deep and personal spiritual experiences and one when she hugged me said "thank you for letting me share my testimony." That just cheered me up! That was a tender mercy from Heavenly Father.

 

I became friends with the members of the ward council pretty quickly! I wrote down their names the first week and worked to remember them. I really feel part of the ward. Also, the ward mission process is really coming together. Yesterday, no time was wasted--Bishop went right into people they should and have contacted and were making plans for contacting people and helping with those we were contacting with we missionaries having to say hardly a thing.

 

Big news........... After ten long years together, I have parted with ten inches of the lovely locks of hair that you my familia have all known and grown to love. They are now waiting somewhere in the Portland "Great Clips," likely preparing to be given to some little child with cancer (or to be put on one of those hair elastics that's covered in real hair.) I'm sorry Mom! I know you didn't want me to. But, it was time. And it will grow back.

 

Funny thing: I was giving a temple tour yesterday and was expounding on my knowledge on the Southwest corner of the temple, pointing up at different engravings and things while walking, when I turned a bit and smacked right into a concrete bench. It hurt. I buckled a little bit but regained my cool and kept going. No one said anything. Probably because they had massive amounts of respect for me and were very interested in what I had just pointed out, or because they were families with a bunch of crazy little kids. Regardless, I'll try to be more careful next time.

 

Love,

Sister Carly

Outside the Great Clips just before cutting it all off.