Visa!!!!!!!!!

Elder Andrew Schwartz and Elder Cappelen

Here is this week's email from Elder Andrew Schwartz:

Hey Everyone!

It's good to hear from you guys, and that you had an exciting week!  It's good that Mom is feeling better and I hope that everything goes well and she has a speedy recovery. It sounds like you guys had fun with family, and your trip to Santa Cruz.  It was really nice of the Eborn's to take us out to Kiwi Loco (frozen yogurt) and share some nice memories about good ol MTZ.  This week for us was pretty insane.  I guess the most important news is I GOT MY VISA!!! I AM FINALLY GOING TO BRAZIL!!!! President called us on Thursday first telling us that I got my visa and I was scheduled to leave today.  However, he called us the next day and said that I actually am not leaving until July 15th.  So I still get to be here for two more weeks!!! It's good because I get to finish out the transfer here.  Other big news is that one of my trainers, Elder Aiono, is getting emergency transferred on Friday to become a Zone Leader in a new zone by Bear Lake that our mission just got.  I'm sad that he's gonna be leaving our trio, but he has important work in Bear Lake.  So it will be Elder Cappelen and me for the last while I'm here, and then he's probably going to train someone who's not a "visa waiter" after I leave.  So that's the exciting news from this week.

Ten Thousand Young Men/Scouts

Our investigators are doing well.  We have had a little trouble finding new investigators lately, but this Sunday Elder Cappelen and I taught the third hour of church to the adults about member missionary work, and two members gave us referrals who sound pretty solid.  Another cool thing that happened this week was that about 19 of us missionaries went to the Priesthood Encampment in Shelly celebrating 100 years association between the Church and Boy Scouts, and there were 10,500 people there!  We were able to work at a "visitor center" and help the boys receive the Thomas S. Monson Award.  We had different stations and they had to come to each of us and have a discussion, and we would pass off a requirement for them to get the award.  We were there from about 9 am to about 8:30 pm and it was EXHAUSTING, but it was awesome to work with all the youth and talk to them about the gospel and how they are preparing to serve missions.  The coolest part though was when all the young men were gathered for opening ceremonies, all the missionaries walked right to the front because that was the only place where there was room for all of us to sit down, and EVERYONE started cheering for us.  I don't know of any other place in the world where a missionary can get cheered by over 10,000 people.  It was AMAZING!  The support from them made the work that much more enjoyable!  I love it.  Well, those are pretty much all the highlights from the week, and I'm almost out of time.  I love and miss you all!  Thanks for everything you've done for me.  The church is true!

With Love,

Elder Schwartz

Melanie's Baptism from last week