Feliz Cumpleanos......Elder Schwartz!!!!!!

Dear Everyone!

It's so great to hear that everyone is doing so well.  But it is kinda freaking me out how fast the time is going.  Andrew and Mitchell really just had their open house this sunday?!?!?!?!  They grow up so fast!  I honestly cannot believe how fast the time is flying by.  Yes, yes, I am still in Geronimo and still in very good spirits about it.  Elder Sanchez and I are really happy about it, but I am not looking forward to the upcoming changes next month, because I know what my fate will be.  It has been a really good time here in Geronimo, and I know that it's going to come to an end, but i am just trying my best not to think about it and stay focused.  Elder Sanchez is helping me with that; he is a good missionary.

To be dead honest, as far as the lessons go, it was a really rough week. Elder Sanchez and I spent the grand majority of our time in the streets trying to contact old investigators, and pretty much anyone else we could find.  We really didn't have too much success, but 'tis a new week and a new opportunity; things can change.  We met with Rodrigo, and he is doing great -- reading a lot, which is wonderful.  We were able to meet with some leaders this week too, which I think was key.  We really want to get a ward activity going this month, and at this point we are just looking for someone who will support us in the cause.  We have a meeting with Hno Jara tonight and I am really confident that he will help us.

Yes, it was my birthday this week, and that was AWESOME!  To be totally honest, I really was not looking forward to it.  I thought that I was just going to kind of be sad and homesick all day, and it was going to be kind of lame, but it was the OPPOSITE!  Much to my surprise, Elder Garcia and Sanchez and Henderson pulled a lot of strings and did some amazing stuff.  On the night of the 12th and the 13th and the 14th they set up family home evenings with some really close families in the ward and it was amazing! SO MUCH CAKE!  TOO MUCH CAKE!  But it was so, so, so, so good!  

Familia di Hma Paulina

With Familia Julia

Familia Julia

Familia Julia

Cake!

Saturday night, we had a lil' family night with the Gonzalez family and Eduardo, and they bought me this HUGE cake and then tricked me, and shoved my face into it....... I have it on video, but the file is too big to send over email..... Dad how can I make the file smaller, so i can send it to you guys? 

They all sang and it was a great time.  The same with Sunday night in Hna Julia's house, they ALSO sang, and gave me another cake, and it was equally as amazing.  The love here in Geronimo is really strong; it's going to be SO HARD to leave!!  Elder Schwartz had a very fun, very happy birthday, so no need to worry (Mom).

Familia Jara, Familia Gonzalez, Ivon, Eduardo and us

The highlights of the week have nothing to do with my birthday though...... there are just 2 this week.

I am not sure if I included last week the story of the man in our ward who is bedridden and dying of cancer, Hermano Rojas.  Last week, we went to his house with the deacons quorum presidency and they asked me to offer a kneeling prayer with his family around his bed, and it was amazingly spiritual.  Well, this week, we went to his house on Saturday, because it was the celebration of their 60th wedding anniversary.  Basically, what happenned was that a month ago he went to the hospital and they told him that there is nothing they can do to save him, and basically all we can do is wait.  So, he has been fighting over the past month to stay alive to spend his 60th wedding anniversary with his wife, which he was able to do.  On Saturday, his entire family came to their house and they invited Elder Sanchez and me to come also.  I remember walking into their house and just feeling a difference in the atmospehre, like you walked through the door and the love hit you like a brick wall.  We were the only people there that weren't immediate family, but they made us feel like we were.  We took pictures, and we talked, and one of the sons toasted Elder Sanchez and me and it was SO AMAZING!  I remember just sitting there on the couch and looking around and thinking of the life hereafter, and how amazing of an experience that's going to be.  Hno and Hna Rojas and the whole family just looked and seemed so genuinely happy together, and I KNOW that they reason why their family is so strong and united and full of love is because they let the gospel direct their lives.  It is likely that we are going to have to say goodbye to Hno Rojas sometime this month, but I, along with his family are well aware that it is in no way a "Goodbye", it's a "See you later."

The other highlight of the week was last night as we were visiting our High Priest Group Leader to talk to him about our wards home teaching system (but that's a completely different problem).  We stayed and talked with him and his wife for a while, and as we were preparing to leave, I asked the Hna if there was anything that Elder Sanchez and I could do to help her family, and then she broke down and started to cry, and then her husband started to tear up too.  They confessed to us that their family is going through some huge problems right now; their 16 year old daughter ran away from home after a fight that she had with her mother, and that it had been a week and a half since they had seen her.  She found her way to her sister's house on the other side of Santiago, and she is safe, but the separation was causing the mother and father a lot of pain.  And then it just kind of clicked for me.  I think that being a teenager, we really can't see the the perspective of the parents really well.  We argue and get upset about things, but I think that we fail to see that the reason why the parents do what they do is because they love us.  That love is the source of EVERYTHING that a parent does for their child.  The same with our Heavenly Father and us.  They asked us what they should do, and that was one of the MANY times so far in the mission where I felt, "How the HECK am I qualified to give any form of advice to these people?"  But, I assured them that their daughter is going to come back and that they should just try to help her see the reasons WHY they ask so much of her, and why they seem to be so strict with her, and protective of her.  Looking back on my childhood, I think I failed to recognize the reasons why my parents were asking so much of me, and were being so strict with me.  Being here in the mission, I can look back on it, and to be totally honest, im thankful for it.  And our relationship with our Heavenly Father is the EXACT SAME THING.

Whelp everyone, I am out of time, but I love you all and I miss you all.  Thank you so much for your birthday wishes, your thought, letters, prayers....everything.  I can feel your support here in Chile and i LOVE it.  Stay amazing, stay safe!  I love you all.  The church is true.

xoxo,

Elder Schwartz

Celebration in the pensione

Conference Weekend!

Here is Elder Schwartz's latest email home.  He does appreciate all your support.  Send him a short note if you get a chance.

Elder Nathaniel Schwartz

Chile Santiago EAST Mission

Cristobal Colón 6824

Las Condes, Casilla 27.144

Santiago, Región Metropolitana

Chile

Dear Family.

It's so great to hear that you all had such a fun weekend in Southern California.  And it's always great to hear that the Giants beat those dirty Dodgers (sorry mom...).  It's so hard to beleive that Andrew is leaving in just two and a half weeks!  How crazy is that!  Time flies so fast.  Well, I bet that you´re all just dying to hear about what happenned for changes........ drumroll............................. I´M STAYING!!!!!!  I have one change left here in Geronimo.  I am still training Elder Sanchez, which I am really thankful for, and Elder Garcia and Elder Henderson are staying too!  I am pleased as punch.  This is going to be my 8th change here in Geronimo.  I am now the only missionary in the mission who has been in a sector for this long, and I am SO thankful for the opportunity that I have to do so.  The mission is 16 changes long, so I will be spending half of my time in the field here in this sector. Crazy, huh?

GENERAL CONFERENCE WAS AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!  I was able to watch all of the five sessions, in english!  It was sweet as all of us missionaries had a room to ourselves, and we all bought snacks and just watched and watched for hours and hours.  I think that my favorite talk had to have been the one by L. Tom Perry about obedience.  That obedience brings liberty into our lives, what a powerful message!  It was a great spiritual boost to have been able to pass the last two days listening to the voice of the Lord through his chosen prophets.  I know that what they shared with us this past weekend was exactly what Christ wanted us to hear.  And is it just me, or did they talk "A TON" about missionary work?  It was amazing!  Listen to Russel M. Nelson and ´´Catch the Wave´´!  (Links to videos of these talks are below.)

Elder Perry's Talk on Obedience

Elder Nelson's Catch The Wave Talk

This week went by really well, and really fast too!  We had a few realy golden lessons this week that were really fun.  The first was the pass-off of Fernando Cabello to Elder Garcia and Elder Henderson.  It was a really spiritual lesson, and I know that Elder Henderson and Elder Garcia are the right missionaries for him and his family.  I have faith that they are going to do big things with him.  Infact, Fernando Came to General Conference with us, so they are already doing big things with him!  Also, there is a returned sister missionary who just returned to our ward, and she is helping us out a TON!  Elder Sanchez and I were able to have a really good family home evening about prophets with her and her brothers and their girlfriends, and it went really well.  A few of them were able to make it to General Conference too.  

Family Home Evening with Lincos family

Also, I am not sure if you guys remember Rodrigo from a while back?  HE is the guy who found the church through the advertisement on Facebook.  Well, we had a SWEET lesson with him, too, on the plan of salvation.  It just kinda clicked, and he is reading and progressing, and I don't want to count the chickens before they hatch, but I can very well see him being baptized this change.  He´s amazing!  We had a few other lessons too, but Elder Sanchez and I have still been using a lot of our time with the area book, looking through the old investigators and converts and working with them.  We have been having some success, but we are spending as lot more time than usual out in the street.  I know it'll pay off, well, I think it will, at least.

Today Elder Henderson and I woke up bright and early and played some basketball with the missionaries in the zone, and even though I am the worst shooter by far, it was still a really good time.  And now we are here at the mall, and when I get finished here,  am going to send some cards :)  No, i did not get the package...... but my fingers are crossed for Wednesday.  I really cannot beleive that it's my birthday again!  It's just so weird to think that i am going to be 20 soon...... I really liked being a teenager, but oh well, life moves on, and you really cant do anything about it.  I love you all.  I am praying for you, and I can't wait to hear from you all again soon!  The Church is true!

with love,

Elder Schwartz

Whole Zone.  Elder Bahr is next to me 

Whole Zone minus one

Waffle Family Home Evening!!!

We had a fun Family Night making waffles.  Love those waffles!

Elder Schwartz's latest email below:


Dear Family, friends, everyone!

Wow the week flew!  I find out about changes THIS SATURDAY, so maybe my next letter will be from a different location........ I am thinknig that I am going to stay one more change here in Geronimo, but who knows, really anything can happen.  I am just trying my best not to think or worry about it.  TIME FLYS SO FAST!  I feel like I was JUST celebrating my birthday, and here it is again.... I'm getting so old.  Easter was great.  It is way bigger here because everyone is Catholic, so it was a week long event.  But Sunday was great, really peaceful.  Elder Garcia gave a really good talk on the Atonement.  Eduardo blessed the sacrament, but only about 80 people came to church, which is about a little more than half of the usual crowd.  I guess they all went elsewhere to celebrate Pasqua.  But it's all good; we have SO MUCH chocolate in our pension right now, so I am happy.

This week went by really well.  Sadly, I don't have my journal with me so I can't remember all of the details, but I think that the highlight of the week was when we did a temple tour with Eduardo and his girlfriend, and Paulina and her kids.  It was super cool.  The Sister Missionaries did a really good job leading the tour.  I hardly ever get to go to the temple, so it was just nice to walk around on the grounds fo a little while.  Even though I didnt get to go in, it just feels good being there.

A little over a week ago, we had a really cool meeting with President Wright and he talked about Easter a little  He shared this really cool scripture in D&C 138, verses 12-15.  (Here are the verses: 

12 And there were gathered together in one place an innumerable company of the spirits of the just, who had been faithful in the testimony of Jesus while they lived in mortality;

 13 And who had offered sacrifice in the similitude of the great sacrifice of the Son of God, and had suffered tribulation in their Redeemer’s name.

 14 All these had departed the mortal life, firm in the hope of a glorious resurrection, through the grace of God the Father and his Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ.

 15 I beheld that they were filled with joy and gladness, and were rejoicing together because the day of their deliverance was at hand)     He explained that how a lot of times during the Easter season, people get caught up in all of the pain and the misery and the sadness that happenned during the last days of Christ's earthly ministry -- His suffering in Gethsemane and especially his abandonment and suffering on the cross.  But President Wright went on to explain that during this exact same time that all of this tragic stuff was happening in Jerusalem, something else important was happening in a different place.  Those verses in D&C go on to explain that during Christ´s suffering on the cross, the people in the Spirit world were rejoicing, that they were preparing themselves to be freed and to receive the blessings of the gospel and of eternal life.  It was just such an interesting thought for me, that in one perspective, such as the perspective of the people weeping at Christs feet, those last moments of Christs life were absolutly dreadful, unbearable, but the same action, in a different place was being celebrated.  I'm not sure why I included that, but it was just something really cool that I learned.

Well family, I am really really REALLY tired.  We woke up early today and spent the WHOLE DAY in the mountains hiking, and I am beat.  It was a lot of fun though, and I will be sure to include some pictures, but i am going to cut this letter here because i am drrrrrrrrrrrained!  I love you all so much.  Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers.  The Church is true!  

Until next week,

with love,

Elder Schwartz

Waterfall

With Elder Garcia

With Elder Sanchez

Up in the mountains....

Andrew's Mission Call and Getting Ready to Go

December 5, 2012 near Provo, UT

Dear Elder Schwartz, You are hereby called to serve as a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. You are assigned to labor in the Brazil São Paulo South Mission!!!!! You should report to the Brazil Missionary Training Center on Wednesday, April 24, 2013. You will prepare to preach the gospel in the Portuguese language.

Opening the mail....

Andrew's call to serve came on December 5th, 2012, with instructions to report on April 24th, 2013 to the Mission Training Center in Brazil.  He attended first block classes for the winter semester at BYU and then said goodbye to his cousins and headed back to California at the end of February to get ready to go.

Cousins' Dinner!!!!

After getting home, one of the first orders of business was to get those pesky wisdom teeth out.  He saw Dr. Blatter (not Dad) for that bit of fun.  He looked pretty puffy a day or so later. Ouch!

"I don't feel so good...."

Andrew was able to go to the Oakland Temple on March 16th with some friends and family.  It was a beautiful day outside on the temple grounds as well as the time spent in the House of the Lord.

with Aunt Maire and cousin Will

With Grandma

with Mom and Pops

Andrew and his buddy Mitchell Wilson, who is also leaving in April for his mission to Texas, will both be speaking at our ward's sacrament meeting (worship service) this coming Sunday March 31st (Easter) at 12:10 pm (555 Boyd Rd. in Pleasant Hill).  Friends are welcome.

Chile Has Challenges and Really Good Ice Cream

Here is the latest message from Elder Schwartz.  New picture at the end of the post!

Dear Family!

Its great to hear that everone is doing well like always:  Phil with Americorp, Andrew with the mission preparation, and Mom and Dad with the usual routine.  The time is flying so so fast!  I have not received the birthday package yet, but I did get a wonderful email from my adopted older brother Devin and I got a really sweet letter from Jerusalem too!  

Wow, it was such a strange week!  Seriously!  Its had so many ups and downs and twists and turns.  I'll start out with the worst; I was actually upset for a couple of days about this.  Remember that story that I told you guys last week about finding the lost Fernando Cabello.  Well, we had an amazing lesson with him on Tuesday night, like seriously AMAZING.  He shared with us this awesome spiritual experience that he had a little while ago, and how prayer helped him to quit smoking.  It was AWESOME. Awesome, awesome, awesome.  Well, here comes the bad part.  Later in the week we were looking at the ward map, and it turns out that HE IS NOT IN MY SECTOR.  He is just BARELY in Elder Garcias and Elder Hendersons, so we have to stop teaching him, and give him to them.......... It's something that I really don't like talking about because I am still a little bitter about how the sector got divided (Elder Sanchez and I have only about 1/3 of the sector)...... but I am trying by best to just let it go and push forward with faith, and just know that Heavenly Father has it all planned out.  It's really really hard, but I am trying my best.  Ughhhhhhhhhhhh.

So, aside from that happenning, Elder Sanchez and I have spent the grand majority of our time over the last several days in the street, contacting people, looking for old investigators, and that has been kind of really hard too.  Up to this point in my mission, it really hasn't been too hard to find people to teach, or to have lessons, but right now it is quite hard.  So, Elder Sanchez and I spent a good two days this week without entering any houses or teaching any lessons, just finding, contacting, knocking, using the area book, its been very.... tiring.  I know that it's wrong to compare, but it's been especially hard because Elder Garcia and Henderson are having a lot of success.  So, it leads one to think, "What am I doing wrong?", ya know?  So, that was the low point of the week, but things are starting to look up now.

I got to do divisions (splits) with Elder Anderson this week, (Elder Carvajal, my new district leader, stayed in my sector with Elder Sanchez), and it was a really good experience.  I had a really sweet interview with Elder Carvajal after the divisions and he gave me all kinds of really good advice.  I learned all sorts of good stuff, and Elder Carvajal is a really really good District leader, and he´s helping me out a ton with this whole "Now I'm a trainer" thing, because to be dead honest, it's a lot harder than I was expecting.  But he whom the Lord calls, he qualifies!  I´ve been telling myself that on a daily basis, and it helps.

The highs of the week!  I am not sure if you guys know who Hna Paulina is, but when I got here she was super inactive, and now she is going to church every Sunday like since December.  They're probably one of my favorite families to visit because she and her son Marcos have real desires to learn and to grow.  She has been inactive for about 10 years, so we are kind of reteaching them everything.  Well, guess what!  She isn't married, but has a boyfriend that she lives with, and they've been living together for years.  Her boyfriend is atheist, but now he is starting to participate in the lessons!  It is so cool because in all honesty, we didnt expect that it would ever happen.  We always invited him to participate, but he would usually just go outside and smoke.  But now, he is participating!  It is so so so cool!  Elder Sanchez and I are really excited to be able to teach them as a whole family.

Okay, another cool thing that happened.  A few weeks ago, Eduardo got ordained as a priest, right?  Well, sadly, the bishopbric kind of messed up, and they ordained him BEFORE he got sustained in front of the ward, so the ordination needed to be redone.  WELL, this Sunday, he got ordained again, and the bishop made me do it!  I say "made," because I really had no choice in the situation, he just looked me in the eyes, and kinda told me to do it, which was pretty cool.... SO, that was an awesome experience, being able to give someone the priesthood.  I have never done that before!  I love, love, love giving blessings!  Theyre always such powerful experiences!  Also, I had to give a talk on Sunday too.  Well, I wouldn't really call it a talk, it was more of a call to action.  I shared some missionary scriptures with the ward (my favorite being in the 1st chapeter of John where Phillip invites Nathaniel to "come and see" Christ.)  How Phillip invited was simple, it wasn't an obligation, and I tried to explain that how through simple invitations for people to discover their own testimony, like through prayer, or the Book of Mormon, AMAZING things can happen.  Like how Nathaniel was converted and then bacame the best apostle ever! (well thats just my opinion... but still)), and then I shared some ward stats with them and all in all, it was a really good time.  It was funny though, I had a talk all written out and prepared, but the talk that I actually gave, had NOTHING TO DO WITH what I wrote..... aha.

The last cool thing happened last night when Elder Sanchez and I went to visit Claudia, and we ended up teaching her whole family, and they are AWESOME!  It was perfect, we got along really well, and we have a next appointment with them later in the week.  We emphasized that our message is about their relationship with God and Christ, and no one else.  We are super excited to teach them again.  They have a bulldog too.  It reminded me of the good ol´ Alhambra days, GO DOGS!

This morning Elder Henderson and I played basketball at the church and I DESTROYED him.  Well, it was close..... 11-9, but it was the first time I have ever succeeded at basketball in my life, so I'm still excited..... still not sure if he let me win or not though......  

Anyways, that was basically me week in a nutshell; lots of ups, and lots of downs, but the ups are always higher than the downs.  I know that the Church is true, and that if we put our trust in the Lord especially during times of trouble, the storms will eventually pass and everything will be okay.  I love you all so much.  Thank you for your thoughts and prayers and love and support.  Until next week!

your son/friend/neighbor/relative/brother,

Elder Schwartz

P.S. There should be a picture of me eating icecream attached to this, the ice cream here is WAY BETTER than the ice cream in the states, its so so good, but my waistline is furious!

I have an addiction!