São Caetano: Minha Cidade!

São Caetano: My City!

Dear Family!

WOW! It sure sounds like you guys are staying busy and having a lot of fun on the east coast!  Make sure to give the family my love!  Everything over here in the south side is going fantastic as always. We have a saying here: só alegria.  Which means "just joy" and that's basically what the mission is: só alegria!  But that's good to hear that everyone is doing well and is happy.

Man this past week has been so crazy but it was really good and I learned a lot. Unfortunately, we had a few days where we literally could not get into one house to teach a lesson, but that doesn't get us down.  We just count our blessings, look forward, and keep working hard with a smile on our faces.  Let's me see if I can give some highlights of the week.  Well, this week Elder Fernandes and I had the opportunity to go to a little conference for the new missionaries with President and Sister Tanner, and the assistants giving the training.  The trainings were SO GOOD and I learned so much!  It was really cool too because I got to see Elder Watt again and some sisters from my district in the MTC.  Oh, that's another thing.  So one of the sister companionships in my district had a trial missionary, and she got her mission call, and went back home to prepare, so a sister from my district in the MTC, Sister Duncan, is now in my district.  So that's pretty cool. 

Also this week, I had the opportunity to do a division with Elder Doggett, one of the zone leaders, and do a baptismal interview for him in his area while Elder Iorg stayed with Elder Fernandes to do a baptismal interview for Wesley.  This is where the crazy stuff happens.  So we planned just to do the interviews on Friday and switch back Saturday morning.  But what ended up happening was that Elder Iorg and Elder Fernandes weren't able to get in contact with Wesley because our phone ran out of minutes, and they couldn't get the interview done on Friday.  So what happened was that I used the Zone Leaders phone to call him and his mom picked up and said that he wasn't available until 6:00 p.m. the next day. So we extended the division until they were able to do the interview with him the next day.  They were able to interview him and unfortunately he didn't pass, but Elder Iorg made some goals with him, and is going to follow up with him and he will most likely be baptized this next Sunday. 

So that's pretty much all the crazy stuff that happend this week.  I had a lot of really good experiences with Elder Doggett in their area.  They are working with a lot of really good people.  I was able to do an interview with a woman named Laura whose children got baptized a few weeks ago. It took her a little while longer because she had a problem, but she resolved it and she is really happy that she is finally ready and worthy to be baptized. 

Well that's pretty much my week. It had it's ups and downs but hey, that's part of the mission right? I just want all of you to know that I am super happy to be out here doing the Lord's Work, and helping other people make changes in their lives so they can have more peace and happiness in their lives.  I know this church is truly the Church of Jesus Christ on the earth!  I love you all and I hope everyone has a good week next week. 

With Love,

Elder Schwartz

Elder Fernandes in Sao Caetano