Fam-fam,
I have met my match. Hna. Falcon and I were talking with some other missionaries and do you know what they told us? The secret to hispanics' hearts is not through carne asada, or bailes, or todo eso. It's through their children. Yeah...we all know how much I love those things. So, I have been trying my very best not to say anything disdainful out loud, but to keep my thoughts to myself. What do I say when Hna Gastelum allows her children to run up and down the pews to their father who sits on the pulpit every Sunday? "Hna Gastelum, your children are so active!" I think this is the one time I'm allowed to lie on my mission, cause goodness knows I need the members to love me. The worst is when we're at lessons with investigators and their children come up and try playing with me. I don't know how to play with kids. Super awkward. I end up just collecting a pile of toys and Play-Dough in my lap while Hna Falcon teaches the parents. This is why I never babysat in my youth. Oh, but the absolute best is when parents drag their 6-7 kids to the VC and expect me to teach a lesson to their "rambunctious" wee ones. Why do people think it's okay to let their children run around and climb on statues of Jesus? Fo real? The best was I was with this one family, and after I played this Christus presentation (people listen for 90 secs to the words of Jesus Christ and look at this marble statue of Him) I asked this little girl what she liked that Jesus said (oh, and I have no clue how to talk to children either btws) and the little girl's eyes get huge in fear and she starts crawling away from me! Literally, I kid you not and we all felt super awkward and her mom said she never acts like that. Yep, leave it to Schwartz to scare a child after listening to the words of Jesus Christ. Bless my soul.
The VC has been an interesting experience, to say the least. In the past week, I have come to face the one thing I knew I was just going to fail at. And that's talking to Anti-Mormons. Hi, my name is Sister Schwartz and no, I don't know what Brigham Young did in 1842. Hi, I actually have no clue what the "correct" Egyptian-Arabic-Hebrew translation of the word Jesus Christ is. No, there is no factual ro specific reason the Church didn't allow blacks to have the priesthood, we believe in modern-day prophecy and it was revelation. How do I prove who a prophet is? ETC. fam. ETC. For me, I personally don't get riled up or upset or anything because let's be honest, I know what I know. Nothing these people say to me is goign to shake the spiritual experiences I've had which have testified of things I know to be true. And the thing is, is that I feel sorry for them. I feel sorry that they are wasting their cell phone minutes (because they call multiple times a week), I feel sorry they are wasting their time, I'm sure there are better things they could be doing with their life than calling the mormon.org hotline and spending hours trying to convince people of a faith that the faith they believe in is incorrect. I hope they figure out their lives or at least start spending their time doing something worthwhile. Besides anti's, the VC brings a lot of interesting individuals. I feel like Dad when he stands in the line at Target and the person in front of us literally tells him their entire life story. I get that multiple times a day. I don't know why, but people just feel the need to confess everything or tell me how they feel impressed to give me certain prophecy for me in the future. But, I love them all, and I'm here to help people, and so if they need a listening ear, then by all means, mine are open. But the thing I love most about the VC (besides that Easter Pageant is coming up this week and I have no idea the craycray that's gonna go on there) is that I honestly feel the presence of Vovo everyday. Literally everyday I walk onto the Mesa Temple grounds I can feel Vovo's presence and I know she's here with me. I feel her and I feel the love she has for the people here and that helps me to love all who walk through our VC doors. She's like my third companion;).
Speaking of Vovo! So major miracle happened last week. We got a call that a man in the Indian Reservation (there's one like 10-15 mins away from where we live, the Pima) was super interested and excited to hear more about the gospel and wanted to meet with missionaries. So we made plans to go up to the Res and meet him when we got a call from this woman on the VC phones that she was bringing this guy from the res to the VC to hear the Joseph Smith movie in Spanish and Hna Falcon asked if it was the same guy who had wanted to meet with us and she said yes! Random! But awesome, so he and his wife came to the VC and we had such bomb spiritual experiences with them. His name is Miguel and he only speaks Spanish, but his wife is Glenda (the Native American) and only speaks English and they've been married for over 30 years and they love each other. It's super presh. But Miguel is so wonderful, so happy and so in-tune with the Spirit and so in love with Glenda and his family and they just want to be together forever and anyhoo I'm obsessed. So we've been teaching them up in their home in the res (which is bomb, btw, super tranquil) and when I entered their home for the first time, my immediate thoughts were, "This is like Vovo's home." She has all of her native Pima stuff everywhere and she's super presh and her home just reminds me of Vovo everytime I enter it, there's a special spirit there for sure. And they love having us over and they want to get sealed in the temple so that they can be together forever and Miguel is on his way to baptism and ugh, LOVE love love them. he said I had a gringa accent and I love him for that honesty.
Alright, the highlight of our week was Santiago's baptism=] He got baptized this past Saturday and it was a dramatic affair. Friday he had his baptismal interview (where basically our missionary zone leader asks him if he's willing to keep all the commandments and if he's repented of things and is willing to take upon him the name of Jesus Christ and be a member in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). We thought he was going to be golden, because Santiago is the most humble man I've ever met. He has SUCH amazing faith, it's unreal. But he was in the interview for an hour, and we were worried and then the missionary zone leader told us that he needed to be interviewed by President Ellsworth for somethings. So Santiago had been in prison like 2 years ago for multiple DUI's but he got out on good behavior early, btu in the 5 months while he was there he read the entire Bible and decided he was going to change his life and that's how he found Jesus Christ and got his testimony in him. So Pres Ellsworth had to ask him about things that happened in prison or something, but he made it out perfecto and the baptism was on! However, throughout the entire day all of our members in the branch started backing out on their responsibilities for his baptism! People who were going to give talks, conduct the meeting, perform the actual baptismal ordinance, everyone could'nt make it. But no worries 10 mins after it was supposed to start a good amount of people showed up and Miguel and Glenda did too, and he was baptized (haha 3 times, because he wasn't completely immersed in the water because the water level was too low,woops) and we had refreshments and then Sunday he was confirmed as a member and given the gift of the Holy Ghost and he wore his jeans with a lo0ng sleeve whtie shirt and tie and it was so presh=] LOVE HIM he is such pure gold, holy mackeral.
Pictures to come hopefully in the next email, but time has flown, I think we're all caught up. Love ya, peace and blessings.
Hna Schwartz
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