Teaching the Kids

Thanks for all your support of Elder Schwartz.  He loves getting letters from you all.  Here is his address:

Elder Nate Schwartz

Pedro De Valdivia 1423

Providencia

29 Santiago, Region Metropolitana

CHILE

Here is his latest letter to us:

Hey Family!

Wow wow wow! My first transfer in Chile is already coming to a close.  We will have our changes meeting on Sunday, but we are all pretty sure that Elder Clyde and Garcia and Miller and I are all staying here in Geronimo.  They seldom change new missionaries half way through the 12 week  program.  Life here and the work here is as great as ever.  I'm going to run through the highlights quickly because, sadly, I don´t have a lot of time to write today.

Pizza in Chile?

 This week I had the opportunity to go on exchanges again, in the same area that I did last time, but this time with a different companion, Elder Bustamante from Peru!  He's a great missionary who is about 5 feet tall (seriously), and has a passion for dancing, but he's super shy!  Missionaries can't be shy, so for the whole time while we were on exchanges, I had to do most of the talking.  That was fine with me because I needed the practice!  We mostly visited families of inactive members, including the house of this super awesome old man who works as a carpenter from his garage/workshop, and he makes the most beautiful chairs that I have ever seen.  After sharing Ether 12:6 with him and discussing with him the challenges we face in this life and how they are a necessity to grow and progress, and about what our real purpose is here, and how sometimes we can forget that purpose, we challenged him to attend church this past Sunday.  I'm not sure if he did attend because its not my ward, but the Spirit was strong in the lesson and I'll bet he did. 

President Wright is putting a strong strong emphasis on working with the members.  He says that's the way that we need to be finding investigators, through references from church members.  Elder Garcia and I have spent a lot more time in members homes recently and less time knocking doors, and the members in my ward are SO AMAZING and SO loving and supportive of the work.  Elder Garcia and I were in the house of a family last night (The husband speaks English, thank heavens), and they ended up giving us 6 references for some of their friends and neighbors.  These people are just waiting for us to ask them for their help and they are ready to give it! 

Walter

We walk EVERYWHERE, all day, every day.  We only take the bus if we are leaving our sector.  Geronimo missionaries sing as they walk and walk and walk and walk and walk and walk and walk.

Two weeks ago Elder Garcia and I were knocking doors and we went to this house and a lady in her 20's answered and she was super interested, but busy, and so we set an appointment for the following week at the same time.  So we went the following week, but when we knocked, that lady's older sister answered, and we talked for a while and she was interested, but busy and told us to come back the following week at the same time.  So we did come by on Saturday, but THIS time their little brother answered and we had the opprotunity to teach him the first lesson and pray with him.  He's 17, super spiritual, and super cool.  We have an appointment to meet them again this week and hopefully THIS TIME we'll be able to teach all three of them at the same time. 

This past Saturday evening we got to play soccer with the ward (missionaries are allowed to play if they bring a progressing investigator).  We brought Pedro, who is 17, very active in the church youth program and we teach him and his mother every week.  Anyways, I'm horrible at soccer, and these guys are amazing.  I was getting shown up by both 50 year olds and 6 year olds alike, but they were kind and supportive about it and taught me a few things.  Maybe I shouldn't have quit soccer when I was 9........

Soccer Stars

 Elder Miller and I were by ourselves this Sunday, as both of our comps are district leaders and they had a meeting with an Area Seventy (regional church leader).  So we had to get by with our "gringo" Spanish on our own for the whole day.  It was quite the experience.  At church this lady from the ward came up to us and told us that she was short a Primary (Sunday School for little kids) teacher and she needed us to fill in.  We were both super nervous, but Elder Miller and I have this motto, YOSO (you only serve once), so we took our motto to heart and decided to fill in.  I am SO HAPPY that we did.  We taught the six year olds, and they were so good!  We taught them about prayer, why we pray, and how to pray.  We talked to them about what they are thankful for and what they ask Heavenly father to help them with; all of the steps.  I had a blast!  I love, love, love teaching.  I attached photos to this email and one is with that primary class.  It really was one of my favorite experiences in Chile thus far.

Primary Class in Local Ward

 Today for p-day we went to the Mall nearby, bought lunch, got groceries, sent our letters off, and then went to the chapel to play basketball.  I'm almost as bad at basketball as I am at soccer.  OH shoot, I got 5 letters this week!  It was so cool!  Getting the love and support from friends back hoime really does brighten my week.  Devin Singh sent me the sweetest letter.  Could you please facebook him thank you for me and tell him that a letter is on its way to him!

I love you all so much.  Thank you so much for your love, support, and examples.  I love hearing about all of the fun and amazing things that you have all been doing.  I know that I am doing the Lord's work, and that He is the head of this church, and that He is watching over each and every one of us.  I'm praying for you all, and I can't wait to hear from you next week!

Love,

Elder Schwartz

Bowling during a previous P-day

House to House.....

Here are some photos from previous preparation days:

The whole zone of missionaries went to the Santiago Zoo

Here is Elder Nate's weekly email home:

Dear Family!

I love getting the weekly updates on how the family is doing.  I never really realized how busy we always are!  That´s just the Schwartz style I guess!  OH MY GOODNESS. THE TIME IS FLYING!  I have been on my mission for 3 months.  What?  3 months?  There is no way that I have been out here for 3 months.  I feel like I just got to the MTC 2 days ago; I can´t beleive that I have been in Chile for a month!  The time is going by too fast!

Well, just like every other week, this week has been equally as busy and equally as fun.  Tuesday was an amazing day for Elder Garcia and I.  It started out with almost all of our scheduled lessons falling through.  We had a huge gap in our day, so we hit the pavement and started knocking doors. (Note:  In Chile, you dont literally knock on doors, because every house has a fence around it, every single house.  The richer families have really fancy elegant fences, and the more poor families have more ghetto fences.  So instead of knocking on the door, you simply yell ´´Aaaaallllllllllllllloo!´´ through the fence and hope that they hear you).  So we were doing that and not really having a lot of success, but later in our second neighborhood, we ended up with 3 new investigators and taught 2 lessons right on the spot.  Elder Garcia and I figured out that the people respond better if I do the initial contacting because I´m a gringo and they enjoy talking to me because I´m different; and its good practice for me too.  So I do most of the initial contacting now and then he talks to them about all of the other stuff that I dont understand yet..... but I´m learning.  After knocking for a couple hours we met up with a sister from our ward who was going door to door to pick up packages from people for some product and it turned out that we went along with her.  When she picked up the packages, she´d introduce us and then we would talk to them for a little while about our beliefs.  We ended up having 2 discussions with 2 different families with her present.  It was awesome.   Having a member with you in the lesson helps out so so so much.  Then we ended that night with a family home evening with members of our ward who invited a non-member friend to come who apparently was going through a really rough time.  We had the opprotunity to give her a blessing of comfort.  Tuesday was a very cool day.  We are meeting with all of our new investigators again this week and I am super excited.

Today for P-Day we went bowling for Elder Clyde´s and Elder Kirk´s birthday.  It was a lot of fun having the whole zone was there, and we had cake; it was a grand time.  Oh!  And Elder Clyde´s teacher from the MTC was Matt Bell!  How crazy is that?

On Thursday we got to have interviews with President Wright, and every time I meet with him I like him more and more.  I wish I could just talk to him about life for hours, but I can´t, as he has 176 other missionaries to tend to.  But he is just so amazing and so inspired and I am so happy to be working with him.  He and his wife and I just clicked really really well for some reason, and I am so happy that it happened.  I have seen them every week since I´ve been here, which is more than I expected, but it has been great.

The language is coming along really well.  I am learning more and more every day, and I can definitely understand so much more than I was able to a couple weeks ago.  My ability to speak I feel is similar, but I can definitely pick up a lot more of what people are saying.  I still get a little frustrated at times, but I am getting more and more comfortable every day.  Chileans speak spanish a little differently than in other places. If a spanish word ends with an ´s´ they don't pronounce it.  So like if you were going to say ´mas o menos,´ they just say ´ma o meno.´ So that makes the words kind of slur together and it was really hard to understand at first, but I'm starting to get it.  They also randomly put ¨´po´´ at the end of their words, so instead of saying "si" they say "sipo" or they say "nopo" for "no".  It's really interesting, but I'm starting to get it down.  First I'm going to try to get comfortable with speaking Spanish, before I get comfortable speaking Chileno.

Yesterday we had almuerzo at the house of a member from the bishopric in our ward.  The father/husband is from Chile and can speak both Spanish and English fluently, the mother/wife is from Japan and can speak Spanish, Japanese, and English fluently and so can their 2 kids.  They lived in the states for 12 years and they met at BYU while they were both learning english.  How cool is that!  The Hermana from the family pulled out her scriptures in Japanese and tried to explain to me how the language works.  I just want to let you all know how incredibly thankful I am to be learing Spanish.  I would be crying myself to sleep every night if I was learning Japanese or Chinese.  I don´t know how Phil was able to do it.

Oh!  Another thing that happenned this week!  I got more letters!  Including one from Cindy!!!!!  I was so excited when I got it, and we are trying to pull strings to see if we can meet up before she leaves!  It sounds to me like she´s having a blast up north, which makes sense because Santiago is the greatest place ever.

I love getting your weekly updates.  I love hearing about all of your triumphs back home.  I know the Lord is watching over our family.  He has blessed us with so much.  I love you all so much, and I cant wait to hear from you all again soon!

Love,

Elder Schwartz

Elder Schwartz and Elder Garcia

Elder Schwartz has sent us a nice email and some great photos from Santiago.  The email starts just below:

Sorry but this one is going to be super short because it took me forever to figure out how to attach emails to pictures from this computer, but now I know so now I should be able to do it faster in the future.

WOW, THIS WAS AN AMAZING WEEK!  Its sad that I don't have enough time to write about everything and hit all of the details, but I will try my best.  The biggest thing that happenned this week was that President and Hermana Wright came to our house in Geronimo and had an hour of companion study with Elder Garcia and I, and an hour of companionship study with Elders Clyde and Miller.  It was an answer to our prayers.  They came to our study on Friday and on Thursday night we taught the law of chastity to one of our unmarried investigators, Carolina.  She lives with her boyfriend and has 3 kids, and she is not able to be baptized until she gets married and her novio isn't very fond of the idea.  Elder Garcia and I had no idea how we were going to get over that barrier, but President and Hermana Wright helped us out big time.  They are so smart and so loving and so cool; I like them more and more with every encounter I have with them.

This Thursday we had a zone meeting in the morning, and for our activity afterwards we had a knee wrestling competition.  I think you all can guess who won ;)  I sent a picture of it (below).  At the zone meeting i got my first letters from people from back home, from Arthur and Marissa, written on July 12th.  Geez, that was a long time ago, but it was awesome to hear from them. 

Elder Garcia and I are doing really well. (Photo of us below).  He is helping me A TON with my Spanish.  I still am having a hard time understanding a lot of it, but I am at the point where I am getting the idea of what they are saying, and I'm able to respond.  The people here talk SO FAST, but I love them nonetheless.  We have Almuerso (lunch, a big lunch) every day in a member family's home and thats been a lot of fun.  Elder Miller and I usually share the spiritual thought at the end.

Its so great to hear that all of the family is doing well, I hope you sent everyone my love!  Thank ou for the pictures; they made me smile.

Everything is great down here, the weather is starting to warm up which I'm really looking forward to.  I honestly can't beleive that I'm on week 4 already!  The time is flying so fast!  I know that this is the only true Church and I am so blessed to have had it in my life for my entire life.  There's a lot of people here that need those blessings and I am so excited to be the one who gets to share it with them.  I know that I am doing the Lord's work and that he is watching over me and protecting me, and is protecting you as well.  I promise a longer letter next week!

I love you all!

xoxo

Elder Schwartz

Click here to see other photos that Elder Schwartz sent along with his email.  Some are from the MTC in Provo and others from Santiago.

Elder Schwartz in La Florida area of Santiago

Here is a photo (sort of) sent by Elder Schwartz of the elders in his apartment taken at a member's casa.  We're not sure which is Elder Garcia and which are the other elders from the U.S.  We guess Elder Garcia is on the right, and Elders Mitchell and Clyde in the middle.

 Elder Schwartz' e-mail arrived late yesterday:

¡Hola Familia!  ¿Que pasa calabasas?

 

I honestly cannot believe that it been a whole week since I last emailed you all!  I feel like I JUST sent my last one, but I´m thinking that it's a good thing that the time is flying.  Like last week, this week was super busy; lots happened.  But first, let me tell you all a little more about my fantastic companion, Elder Garcia. He is from Lima Peru.  He´s a convert of 6 years(amazing), and he lives with his mom, little sister and little brother.  His sister is active and his little brother is too young to be baptized.  His mom is not yet a member but in her last email to him she told him that she wants to be baptized!!!!! This kid is a stud and a half.  He´s been out for a year today; today was his 1 year mark; he´s half way done.  He doesn´t speak a lot of english, and I don´t speak a lot of spanish but we make it work.  I´m learning a lot from him and he´s a ton of fun to be around, very funny and very easy to get along with.  I´m definitely blessed to have him as my "father" out here in the field.

 

A ton of stuff happenned this week.  This Wednesday I went on my first exchanges which was quite the experience.  I got to spend a day and a half in an apartment of only latino missionaries(2 from peru and 1 from argentina). It was a ton of fun.  They loved to talk and sing and dance, but when it was time to work they were working hard.  They live on 14th floor of a high rise with an amazing view of Santiago and the apartment is new and gorgeous.  There was just one problem... they didn´t have warm water!  I had to heat up water with a coffee pot, poor it in 3 liter coke bottles, and then take those into the shower and shower with that- I´m definitely not going to forget that experience anytime soon.  I was very blessed to grow up with a water heater.  The apartment of my exchange was amazing, but the sector was a little more on the flaite side of Santiago (flaite means ghetto).  That being said, the spanish of the people in that sector was way way way way harder to understand.  I could hardly catch anything.  That was kind of frustrating, but I tried not to let it get me down.  The ward in that sector was amazing though; very supportive and very warm.  I´m probably going to go back on exchanges there again this week so I´m excited for a second crack at talking to the people and trying to help them to the best of my ability.

 

This week we had a new missionaries meeting with President Wright and Sister Wright.  That man is amazing!  The meeting really wasn´t for us new missionaries, but more for our trainers and how important of a role they play in our missions.  You could just tell by the way he talked that that man already cares so much about his missionaries and their comfort and their potential and their success.  I know that he´s my mission president for a reason.  At the meeting I was able to reunite with the rest of the district from the MTC and talk to all of them about how amazing/crazy it has been so far living in Santiago; how great the food is, and how fast the people speak -- all of that stuff.  Elder Miller and I are very fortunate to be in the position that we are in right now; the rest of our district are in completely separate parts of the mission, but we have each other in the same barrio and apartment to help each other out.

 

Earlier this week Elder Garcia hurt his heel so we have been limping around for the past few days.  So we spent the day today traveling to the temple and the church office in Santiago, so the misison doctor could check it out.  And it turns out that the doctor is just as new as I am and couldn´t speak any spanish, so I got to help out translating a little bit.  The doctor and his wife were so sweet and we spent a while talking about our lives and our families and Chile and how different it was.  It was really nice to talk to some people in the same boat as me and they were really kind and supportive.  We had the opportunity to have lunch in the Chilean MTC with Elder Garcia´s teacher from the MTC and that was way cool.  He said that I was going to learn really well from a native companion and that Elder Garcia is one of the best (but i already knew that), aha.  Oh and the food from the Chilean MTC is about a million times better than the food from the MTC in Provo.

 

Yes, I use my sleeping bag every night.  Thank heavens that we bought it.  It is so cold here in the mornings with no central heating.  We do all of our studies in the same room huddled around a wall heater, but apparently its supposed to heat up here in Santiago soon.

 

The best moment that I had this week was when Elders Clyde, Miller, Garcia and I all went to the house of this member family where the mother of the family had suffered from a brain tumor, and because of that she is bedridden.  When she speaks, she can really only mumble random syllables, but you can tell what she is trying to say by her voice inflections and her facial expressions. Elder Clyde had the idea to go over to their house and sing hymns for her (in spanish of course).  So, that´s exactly what we did.  We all stood around her bed and sang hymns to her, and it was amazing to see how happy just doing that simple act made her; how excited she got, the light in her eyes.  There was a point where she even started crying, the spirit was so amazingly strong.  I realized two really awesome things through that experience: 1) That just by doing the smallest acts of kindness, people can make huge difference in the lives of others.  All we did was take 30 minutes out of our busy day to sing to this lady and it made her so so happy.  Her husband probably thanked us 12 times, and when we left the house we all felt so good; and 2) Heavenly Father has an amazing love for all of his children, no mattter what position they are in, no matter what they have been through and no matter how far away they are from his Gospel; we are all still his children and he loves us all so so much.

 

The massacre that happenned in Denver is all over the news.  When I first heard about it, it really started to hurt my stomach.  I hope that every one at home is okay. Its so sad that things like that happen.  I´m praying for the families of everyone invloved.

  

Thank you so much for all of your love and support! I miss you all and I´m praying for you all.  Keep being amazing! The church is true!

 

Love,

Elder Schwartz

Here is Elder Schwartz' mailing address:

Elder Nate Schwartz

Pedro De Valdivia 1423

Providencia

29 Santiago, Region Metropolitana

CHILE

Please send him a letter.  He loves mail from home!

Message from Santiago...

Elder Schwartz's first preparation day (or p-day) in Chile has arrived.  He sent the following e-mail:

Hey family!  It's great to hear that you all are keeping busy and staying safe in California!  I loved talking to you on the phone and getting the update on how everyone is doing.

The flight was fantastic.  I slept almost the entire 14 hours, loved it!  We had a short stop in Lima, Peru at about midnight and then we were off to Santiago.  The plane landed in Santiago at about 5:45 or 6:00am, and everyone else was super exhausted, but I was ready to go.  President Wright and Hermana Wright met us at the airport and then we went to the temple grounds to have breakfast, our interviews, and then meet our trainers!  The interview with President Wright was great.  I am really looking forward to getting to know him better.  He and his wife are such amazing people; very sweet, very genuine, and very down to earth.  They should be sending you a picture or an email or something soon so keep your eyes open for that (if you haven´t received it yet).

My trainer´s name is Elder Garcia and I love him.  He´s from Lima, Peru and doesn´t speak a whole lot of English (but before you start worrying, mom...I´M FINE).  I am learning so much from him so fast, and he has such an easy to get along with personality.  He´s very patient with me and supportive with me in helping me pick up the language.  On Thursday I got a DearElder from Dad from May that got sent to Chile for some reason and in the DearElder he talked about how I´m going to have companions from all over the world in the field and that I need to take advantage of those opportunities and learn as much as I can.  He said that some of his favorite times of his mission were when he was with elders from foreign places.  Was it a coincidence that I got that letter here, on my 3rd day in Chile with a foreign companion? ...I don´t think it was.  I am learning Spanish FAST; like super fast, and I am loving every second of it.  I feel like I am comprehending more and more each day.  

The people here are SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO supportive too.  They absolutely love hearing me speak, and helping me out, and making sure that i´m comfortable.  I love it, love it, love it, love it.  I´ve already made some new friends.  There is this kid in the ward named Walter and he is 14, and he´s gone teaching with us 3 days this past week and he loves talking to me.  He teaches me spanish, and I teach him english; it´s a good tradeoff.  Elder Garcia and I visited five less active families this past week and on Sunday, THEY ALL CAME TO CHURCH.  It was so cool walking into the chapel and being greated by so many familiar faces, and I had only been here for 6 days! Also, Elder Garcia and I brought an investigator (and her 5 year old son) to church too, and she loved it!  I got to go up in sacrament meeting and introduce myself to the ward in my broken gringo spanish.  A whole bunch of old ladies from the ward came up afterwards and told me that I did great.  I´m not sure if I actually did a really good job or if they were just being nice; either way it was nice to hear :)  

Oh! And another thing; we live in an apartment of four elders:  Elder Miller (a guy from my district at the MTC) and his trainer, Elder Clyde (an american), are living with me! So don´t worry about your poor little Nathaniel being all alone with someone who doesn´t speak any English.  I am in a REALLY good situation right now.  My area (La Florida) is a relatively wealthy/nice area and the ward is really strong.

I am going to get so fat here.  Chileans eat on a slightly different food schedule than we do in the states.  They typically have a small breakfast in the mornings, a gigantic lunch called ´´Al muerso´´ and by gigantic, I mean GIGANTIC.  Usually, we get a first couurse of salad and pan (bread).  Then we get soup for the second course.  Then we get our main course of rice and some sort of meat and potatoes, and then dessert.  We are fed "Al muerso" by members of the ward EVERY DAY, and they have soda with everything.  Cocacola is served with every meal.  I am going to get huge. The best thing that I have had so far are called ´´completos´´ which are chilean hotdogs, but the meat is way better and the bread is way softer, and they put guacamole on it.  So tasty!

Today is P-Day (Monday), so if you could, write me on Sunday nights :) .  Today we went to the Santiago Zoo as a zone, and, yes, I took a lot of pictures.  It was way way fun.  We actually ran into another zone from the mission there too, which was kind of cool.  Anyways, I don´t have much time left and I still need to wrtite out my letter to the mission president.  I know that Heavenly Father loves all of his children.  He has blessed us so much in every aspect of our lives.  I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and the gateway to revelation and that if we strive to learn from His word, that we will receive answers to our questions and we will be blessed.  I know that we are guided by a prophet of God, Thomas S. Monson, in these latter days, and that if we listen to his counsel and his words, we will be blessed.  I have so much to be thankful for.  Heavenly Father has given me an amazing life.  I am very happy and very comfotable here in Chile and I know that I am just going to get more and more attached with time.  I love you all and I pray for you nightly!  I can´t wait to hear from y'all next week!

Love,

Elder Schwartz

P.S.  I´m using a Spanish keyboard so if there are any huge typos, I´m sorry.

 

Pics of Elder Schwartz and his mission president and wife are in the previous post.  Here is a map of La Florida area on the east side of Santiago:

 

 

Departure from Utah and Arrival in Chile!

Elder Schwartz has arrived!  He is now in Chile.

Here is his address:

Elder Nate Schwartz

Pedro De Valdivia 1423

Providencia

29 Santiago, Region Metropolitana

CHILE

 

Please write him!

 

He departed Utah early Monday morning (July 9th), but someone (or two) were at the airport in espionnage mode several hours earlier...

 

 

As parents, we were glad to see the brothers have one last opportunity to say goodbye and hug -- in Phil's case for 22 months and for Andrew probably closer to three years.  We love this photo!

 

We were able to talk to Elder Schwartz for about a half an hour during his layover in LAX.  It was great to hear his voice.  He had a great stay in the MTC in Provo, but he is so excited to get to Chile and start his real service and work there.  The idea of a 14 hour flight didn't seem to bother him much. 

 

Anyway, all that was Monday.  We hoped to hear something Tuesday....or Wednesday, but nothing.  Finally, on Thursday...an email arrived from the mission with some photos and a pdf of a handwritten letter from our Elder.  Here are the photos of Elder Schwartz with Pres. and Sister Wright and the other with the group that arrived with him.

 

 

We don't yet know where Elder Schwartz's first area is or which elder was assigned to be his trainer.  We don't even know yet when his preparation day will be.  We'll update the blog when we first hear from him.  Thanks for all your love, friendship, and prayers.  You are all greatly appreciated.

Last Few Days in the MTC and some photos

The latest letter from Elder Schwartz and a link to the photos he sent:

 

Buenas Tardes!

 

This is going to be one of my shorter letters because I have so much stuff that I need to do before I depart of CHILE!!!!!!!!  I am so excited!

 

Yesterday I had this all day event called "In-field Orientation" which in all honesty I thought was going to be really boring and redundant, BUT to my pleasant suprise, it was actually really spiritually uplifting.  I learned a ton, and it got me WAY WAY excited to get out in the field.  It was a huge seminar for all of the missionaries leaving and then every so often we would break up into smaller "breakout sessions" and have a more interactive lesson taught by the missionaries from "The District 2" which was super super cool.  I talked with a guy who served in the Santiago West mission and he told my that my mission is the smallest proselyting mission in the world!  I don't know if that's 100% true or not but it's pretty dang small.  Also during In-field orientation a Sister missionary hunted me down and it turns out that her and I and Elder Jones were the 3 that went through the temple together in Oakland, so that was pretty cool.  Her name is sister Laporte and she's serving at Temple Square. 

 

 

  

The 4th of July in the MTC was AMAZING!  We had this special devotional/fireside thing with a bunch of songs and performances, we played games, had ice cream and they even extended our bed-time to 11:30 to watch the stadium of fire fireworks!  My district had an amazing spot in the parking lot where we could hear the Beach Boys singing and see the fireworks perfectly!  A bunch of guys from my district got cool fun party stuff sent to them so we had Martinellis and poppers and glo-sticks; very fun.  My first 4th of July on the mission way surpassed my expectations!  Which is great because i don't think I'll be celebrating it next year in Chile....

 

Flight plan: We leave from SLC at nine thirty to LAX, where we have a 3 hour layover.  From LAX we go straight to Chile Santiago, a 14 hour flight, YIKES!,  but I am so excited!   

I sent home a package yesterday with a memory card full of fun pictures.

 

Sorry that I have to cut this short, but I just have SO MUCH to do before Monday morning! (We leave the MTC at 6am).  I love you all, and I'm praying for you all.  Thank you so much for your love and support!  Please thank granma for the rocky-road, it was a HUGE hit on my floor!  I'm glad to hear that everyrthing is well in Martinez!  Keep on being amazing, the next letter you receive will be from CHILE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

xoxox

Elder Schwartz

 

There are lots more photos from Elder Schwartz's second half of his MTC stay. Click here to see Elder Schwartz's fun pics from the MTC