No time and broken feet

Oh hello there!

So jumping right into things, this week has gone by so slowly! We said goodbye to all of the districts this week and it was really sad, I'm afraid this blog isn't going to be very long because I don't have all that much time, but just so everyone knows.... I only have one week and six days left in the MTC! I'm so excited! Being able to attend the Brigham City Temple Dedication was really amazing... even though most of the elders slept through it. Last night I was pretty sick, and since it was Pday today, my kasama and I slept in! We got a full 9 hours of sleep! This is crazy talk!

As far as my foot goes for all of you that were interested in how my beating of the mile was going... it's not. When I would run my foot was hurting really bad and I had to go and get it checked out by the doctor. They took an x-ray and he said there was like a little hunk of calcium in there or something that was grinding against my bone and to not run on it for a while and take a gad load of ibuprofen everyday. I have now been cleared to run a wopping distance of 2 laps around the track... thats 1/5 of a mile.

Our investigators are doing really well, one of them has committed to be baptized just a couple of days before we are supposed to leave, so I am really excited about that!

I was able to give a talk in church on Sunday. So the way that they do it here is that everyone prepares a talk and then a select few are chosen to actually give that talk.... the Stake President made like a full 3 seconds of eye contact with me before that meeting started and I just knew that he was going to pick me. Being the well prepared speaker though... I quickly prepared something and went up and gave the talk!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!

 

The language is going really well. It has been hard for us to learn anything new since kasama ko was made sister coordinator. There is a lot of stuff to do with the younger districts so we haven't got to do much of anything in class anymore,,,, at night is the worst. That's when we go down and have devotional with them every night.... which for us means no writing in your journal and maybe one chapter of wimpy scripture study. They definitely need it though, so that is why we keep going.... we figure we will have about a trillion hours on the plane to catch everything up in our journals and our letters. Well that is pretty much it I guess. Travel plans on Thursday! I'm excited!

Another Elder in my district got hand foot and mouth.... we are just praying that the rest of us don't get it!

yup... that's pretty much it! Mahal ko kayo!

 

_Sister Julia Schultz

 

The Book of Mormon Musical

This week has been really awesome and definitely gone by really fast. On Sunday my companion Sister Woahn was called to be the new coordinating sister! I'm so excited for her! Where does that leave me you might ask? Well since I'm the only other girl in the whole zone, I am now authorized to be a solo Sister, which means that I am a companion to an Elder Companionship. Usually I go with Elder Reber and Elder Wilson, they are my favorite, but I always feel awkward cause if I have to go to the bathroom, they have to take me and wait outside of the door for me to go. It's always nice when I get to see my companion after she's been gone for a while though!

We get our travel plans next week!!! So that's really exciting!

On Sunday we also had a pretty awesome devotional and he spoke about the Book of Mormon Musical (FYI he said in no way does he ever want anyone to see this). The man who wrote it isn't LDS, but his wife is, and in an interview, even the man said that it was the most vile disgusting play that anyone could ever see. He said that it should be rated R, but the church took this as a huge opportunity to get out there and let people know what we were all about. They got a huge jumbo tron and put it in New York Times Square and they were able to get the news out on taxis and everything. Within the first week of it being opened, hotels everywhere were calling Salt Lake to get more Books of Mormon because they had run out! Also since the man's wife was mormon, she still has a lot of respect for the LDS people and so he met with the church and asked if they wanted some free advertising space inside of the program. The LDS church has three pages on the Book of Mormon and where you can go to get one and find out more about the mormons. I just think that that is so amazing! That through what some would call a catastrophy, we have really strived and been able to have a miracle come out of it instead.

Elder Ostler was sick this whole week with hand foot and mouth sickness, he's gotten a lot better though and he should be able to come back to class from now on, so that is really great! Elder Ewell has been sick pretty much his whole time here at the MTC but has been working really hard, so keep him in your prayers!

At Gym we play lightning now, we started it a couple of weeks ago (my kasama and I) and everyone loves it! We pretty much have the whole gym in with us now :)

The older districts left yesterday, so now it's just us :( sad day :( well! Love you all!

Mahal Kita!

Sister Schultz

Baptism!!

So for this week.
Not much happened so I will just tell you something really awesome that happened today instead of a week blog of boring.
So I told you about Elder Atoiguiy's mom (yup... still don't know how to spell that). But today was the day of her baptism. We started out the day going to the temple and then afterwards we were able to go to her baptism. Just being there for it you could already feel the spirit so strong, and I don't know, I guess I haven't been to a baptism in a really long time, and I definitely haven't been to the baptism of someone older than 8, but it was so powerful to be able to watch him baptise her.
Our entire zone got to go and we piled into the room.
I felt like a little kid as I knelt down right by the glass to watch, and I felt the spirit stronger than I have ever felt it before. I am so happy and grateful that his mom was able to share this moment with all of us. After the baptism we had bearing of testimonies, and Elder Antoiguiy got up to bear his testimony. It was really awesome, because his dad has not yet made the decision to join the church, and when this Elder got up to bear his testimony, he basically just pleaded with his father to listen to the message and pray to know that it is true. They have both seen so many blessings come into their lives because of the decision that they made to join the church.
The missionaries have been teaching this family for over two years, and the origional missionary that came to teach them was able to come to the baptism, and also their current two misssionary's parents were able to come. I know that the spirit of the Lord is true and that it blesses people, and I know that no matter what choices that they have made in their lives, that the only one that matters is the decision to come unto Christ and always have his spirit to be with them. whether it is thier first time making that decision, or their fifth, it is still the most important one that you can ever make.

Mahal kita!
Sister Schultz

Pictures

Hugs and the Grinch

We started out the week with TRC which is Teacher Resource Center. We taught two guys that had served their missions in the Philippines and they were both way cool. Sister Woahn of course knew someone that they knew, she always seems to. lol But they were way nice, the conversation went well (we speak  only in Tagalog) and we felt really good about it. For the second half though we were with this girl that iss really sassy when we don't get something right in Tagalog, and when she talks to us, she talks so fast that we can't even tell what she is saying, and the guy that was with her was super awkward too.... needless to say that was not our favorite TRC session.

We asked our investigator Rizalito if he would be baptized,... he said yes but not yet, we've only met a couple of times with him, so it's understandable that he said no... I probably would have said no as well.

Our teacher Brother Lopez started at BYU this week and we don't think that he has gotten much sleep because he has been CRAZY these past couple of days. It's kind of fun because it gives us energy, but at the same time, Sister Woahn and I don't like it that much. I guess that's the "sister missionary" coming out in us.

Our other teacher, Brother Lacenienta is turning into our new favorite, he challenged us all to memorize the ang ng and sa of Tagalog, which is just a part of grammer, and be able to write it in less that two minutes, we totally dominated it! what can I say, our district is just amazing!

As far as the mile goes, I did shave off ten second this last week when we timed it, but I did a little somethin somethin to my foot and was sick this last week, so I don't know how much progress I will have this week when we time it.

There are a couple of sisters in our zone that LOVE to give hugs.... I like to hug people as much as the next person, but these girls are like leeches! We run from them when we see them coming because we know that once we get caught it will take us a good five minutes to get ourselves unlatched from them. Have you seen the cartoon The Grinch who stole Christmas? You know the part where they are going down the hill at the beginning and Max the dog latches himself on to the Grinch's face? Then the Grinch has to do this wiggle pry move to squirm out of Max's grip? Well that is how we feel when those girls are hugging us!!!! Seriously.... it's THAT bad!! .... and we aren't even going down a hill.

We were learning about the different ways that you can use the word "when" the other day in class, and our teacher was throwing out examples and he said, "When I went to the bathroom, I did something terrible..." and then he just kept going and no one even really listened to what he had just said.... But I did! I was laughing so hard that I was crying! and then when I finally was able to tell the rest of the class, they were all laughing just as hard as I had been.

We got 76 more elders in our Zone this last Wednesday, and only 4 new sisters! That's crazy! Sister Woahn or I are going to be called to be the next coordinating sisters, but we aren't exactly sure where that leaves the other one because we have no other sisters that we can go with that are in our group. We found out today that we are two out of three white girls to serve in Laoag, the other girl is already there. We are also the only three girls from North America to be called to Laoag! That is so crazy!!!!

There's an Elder from our zone that found out this week that his mom is going to be baptized! They are flying her out this week and she is going to be his first baptism!

I tried a little experiment this week with the scriptures, where I thought of a question and then just turned to a random chapter in the BOM I actuallly turned to D&C 84.... maybe 86 but i think 84. And it was 120 verses! I was like "heck no am I reading that! but I ended up reading it and it was so great! If you ever want to understand the importance of missionary work to the Lord and Jesus Christ, I recommend that one!

I hope everything is going well out there! feel free to write to me! I have not missed a response yet, so you're pretty sure to get one back! Mahal Kita! Sister Schultz