Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Christmas, New Years, and Beyond.....in Brazil

Merry Christmas from Elder Schwartz

December 15, 2014

 Dear Family!

So we just made the song for the christmas album here in the LAN House. Sorry if the quality isn't that good.  We sang, "O Come All Ye Faithful," which I think no one else in the family did. So, I hope you guys like it.  (Schwartz Family Christmas album, volume 2 was being produced for Christmas 2014, so even Elder Andrew participated -- for the full album, go to the iTunes Store....just kidding).  


I'm also pretty much out of time, because today actually isn't P-day.  We're going to go to the temple tomorrow, which is exciting. It will be Elder Mait's first session in Portuguese. It's good to hear that you guys are doing great, and are getting ready for Christmas. We'll plan to talk/Skype on Christmas Day around noon your time.....

Elder Maits and Elder Schwartz at the Temple
Anyways the week for us was good. We got a visit from Pres. Mazzagardi (Regional Church leader) and it was amazing. I learned so much. Our investigators are doing well. Jefferson went to church! But he won't be able go in the next few weeks because he's going to another state for Christmas. But all in all, things are going great. I miss and love you guys. I'm super excited to talk to you guys next week. Prepare yourselves!!!

Love,
Elder Schwartz

December 23, 2014

Hey Family!

Update. Yes I got the package. THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU.

I'm just writing a quick email to confirm the skype time.

Glad to hear that you all are having a good time in Palm springs. Here, it's raining like crazy.  I'll give you all the latest updates on Christmas Day :)


Christmas Stuff Elder Schwartz got in Brazil

Christmas Package from Home

More from Home....

December 25, 2014

It was a wonderful Christmas Day for the Schwartz family.  A long, thoroughly enjoyable visit with Elder Schwartz.  He looked good and sounded good, and we loved talking to him.  Here are some snapshots and a short video of the our visiting....

Family gathered around the laptop, visiting with long lost brother/son....

Yes, he did look a bit sunburned...

You can see how happy we are...

Mission Christmas Card...hard to spot Elder Schwartz
Mission Christmas Activity

Who knows what is in that Pineapple

Merry Christmas with President and Sister Broadbent

Merry Christmas with fellow missionaries

December 30, 2014

Dear Family!

Sorry, I didn't email you guys yesterday... we went to the mountains to get a view of São Paulo yesterday on P-day. And the train broke basically causing us to lose our whole P-day. So I'm going to just write you guys a quick note to say that I'm okay and I loved talking with you guys this last week. It was soooo good! 

This last week was good for us.  I'm probably only going to be able to send pics next week because we are at a different Lan House today which is being super slow and I have like no time.  Well, the work is going good. We were able to get two investigators to come to
church -- Maxwell and Olavo. It looks like Maxwell is the most firm so
far.  He's already qualified for baptism in almost all respects. 

Anyways, family, my time is almost out, BUT I PROMISE SO MANY PHOTOS FOR YOU GUYS NEXT WEEK. I already filled up the card that was in the camera :) I love you guys and I know that Christ lives and that His Church is here on the Earth and we need to share His Gospel with everyone!

Love,
Elder Schwartz

Overlooking the City

Beautiful City Street Art

Zone Getting Together....
January 5, 2015

My Dear Beloved Family!

WOOWWWWW...... I can't believe that you guys did that (New Years Eve activity) for the missionaries.... I hope they had a good time, haha. This week was good for us here. The end of the year is always pretty difficult, because everyone goes to the beach and goes and visits families in other states and basically only the elect of the elect are at home to receive us. But this week we managed to get some really good work done. 

So for us New Year's was way different than a typical missionary's day. We worked on New Year's Eve and we had to go in a little earlier than normal. So we got in at 8pm. And for New Year's day we had to start the day cleaning everything in our house, literally everything to prepare for future inspections.  We later went to lunch, taught a lesson, and then we had to be in at 6 that day to do our weekly planning session.  SO yeah, it was a little different than for us than for the missionaries at home.  But all in all, it was good. We had really big lunches with the members but we didn't do anything super special to celebrate the new year.

Elder Maits is doing well. I'm really lucky to have missionary who knows what he's doing because he's really been helping me a ton. His Portuguese is getting better and we're making plans to really get this ward on fire about sharing the gospel message. We are getting really close to baptism with a few of our investigators. Maxwel, for example has been going to church and reading the Book of Mormon and is super close to baptism. He has his baptism interview today.

We also did a better job this week contacting on the street. We focused to literally try to talk to everyone and the Lord blessed us. We have this week pretty much filled up with appointments with new investigators. And even cooler is that we are going to have a Ward activity this Friday to help members and investigators get to know each other, and we're pretty excited for that. 

Oh, and in other news, we got the transfer calls on Saturday. Elder Maits and I are going to stay here in Mauá together another transfer. Some missionaries are thinking that I might die (stay until time to go home) here but I'm not sure. If I'm not extending my finish date, then I'll probably finish here, but if I extend, then I'll probably finish off somewhere else. We'll see...

Well that's pretty much the week Family! Thanks for the note and all the love, support and prayers! I that this is truly the Lord's work and we are here to help others to follow our Savior. I know that he loves us and he guides us continually. I know that if we follow His example and keep His commandments we'll be blessed. I love you guys!

Love,
Elder Schwartz

Elder Schwartz's Area Map

Ward Activity

Cutest Ward member ever!

Good Friend from Maua Ward

January 12, 2015

Hey fam!

So this week was really good for us. So I guess the most exciting news is that Maxwel has passed his interview for baptism and has a firm date for this Saturday! He is so firm right now, we have been having some really good lessons with him and ward members. He's making friends with members in the ward and he even went to a ward activity that we had this week. I guess I kinda wanted to start with the most exciting news ahaha. 

Let's see, well, this week we had a lot more member lessons and we did have many new investigators because of our hard work last week. Some of the appointments we marked fell through, which was kind of annoying, especially since this past week I thought I was literally going to be burned alive in the hot sun of Brazil. Seriously, we walked a lot and it was soooo hot. Only just a few moments ago, however, we got a huge downpour on the way to the Lan House, which is nice, because now it's a little cooler.  But anyways, we managed to have sucess and endure the heat, haha. 

For example, one of the people that we went to go visit, wasn't home, but we were greeted by a nice lady named Francielle, and she accepted to hear our message. We shared about the Restoration and there was a sweet spirit in the lesson.  Elder Maits and I noted how she was really paying close attention as we taught her.  She wasn't able to come to church on Sunday, but we are going to be able to follow up with her and most likely have a member go with us.  Lot's of miracles are happening here. 

And like I said a little earlier, this week we had a ward activity. It's a new program that our ward mission leader is putting on to motivate our ward and bring their friends to activities. Our job was to share the spiritual message. And for the spiritual message I was inspired by my dear older brother Nate and we did the activity where we give out candy and each time a piece of candy was given out, I had to do push-ups, and the members liked to see me suffer at first so they all started getting candy until it got to the point where I was really struggling and even they started telling the other elders to stop giving out candy but they kept it up and I kept doing push ups. All to show how Christ suffered for something so sweet. 

I need to end my message right now because I'm out of time, but I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer. I know he lives. I know that His church is on the earth and that after being lost, it was restored by a prophet, by Joseph Smith.  I love you guys and miss you guys. Thanks for all the love and support. I'll be sure to take lot's of pictures for you guys to see my area/investigators/adventures. Thanks for everything. Until next Monday!

Love,
Elder Schwartz 

Go Giants!

Temple Day!


January 19, 2015

Dear Family,

This week was fanatastic, Maxwel was baptized on Saturday and confirmed on Sunday! It was such a good service!  The other elders in the ward, Elder Gillming and my ex-comp Elder Barreto also baptized Carla, who was the daughter of another recent convert that I taught when I was with Elder Beers. There was a lot of ward support at the service and we even had some investigators attend it. 

In other news I got my "trunky" email from the mission office, which has confirmed that I am going to extend but the transfer that I am extending is going to be only a 5 week transfer -- I complete my mission on May 5th.  I already forwarded the email to you guys and I already filled it out with the necessary information, and sent it back.  So start preparing, and let me know when you get the information on the trip. 

This week was good, we taught a lot of good lessons in and some really good finding opportunities. We also are continuing to get member support and we are firing up this ward. We are going to have another activity of integration this friday so we are excited for that. I'm kind of short on time today, so sorry if this email is short, but we went to Paranápiacaba again today with my district, and we got back just in time to shop, clean, write the "fam", and now we're going to be headed off to district meeting. Pray for us and our investigators.  If everything goes right, we are going to have another investigator ready for baptism again this coming Sunday -- it's a man named Olavo that we have been teaching and he has been going to church with us regularly.  I'll be sure to send you guys pics of the baptism and p-day adventure and activity and everything next week. Elder Maits is doing well. We're both really fired up and doing everything we can to have success here. Sorry for the short email. I love you guys and hope that you all have a great week.

Love,
Elder Schwartz
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