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!