Love it here! Always busy!!

9/8/14

I don't want some creepy nematode lurking in my stomach or something!

This week has been a pretty slow week compared to others... I was still a little sick, so we took it a little easier and on top of that we had about a million meetings compared to usual. We had one meeting with the stake president and the ward mission leaders, zone leaders, and some bishops about what we need to do, to keep the member work going and how to improve it.  It was super good! We also had a good deal of interviews to do this week so we had to do a few trade offs which threw us off a bit. We did get a lot done this week though so that was good!

For transfers, I am staying with Elder Babb. That means I will probably be here for another 3 months. I am super excited!  I love Port of Spain! Always busy!!

The driving stuff was all figured out just a couple weeks ago, the deal was, I applied for an extension of my permit and while it was in the works I was technically an illegal resident. On top of that, my paperwork was sent in with a batch of missionaries and of all of them, mine was lost in the process (the government lost it) so we had to send in an inquiry for it and after that it took a couple weeks. Fun huh! I am all good now, I got a year extension so I am good for the rest of my mission!

By the way, cutting nappy hair is actually a bit easier,  you can cut any direction up, down, sideways and it will be consistently the same. Can't do that with white hair.

We had another baptism this week!!! "SM" The confirmation was done on Sunday! Sadly, "D" didn't show up at church so she didn't get confirmed... we will get her next week though, she is awesome!

I am super excited for zone conference it will be cool to hear form Elder Zivic. Thank you again for sending the talk, we will listen to it in the car many times.

Right now we are just looking for more people to set dates with... we fasted this week for two people specifically. We hope that we will see a miracle with that. I believe we will. We are also planning on selecting families to fast with each fast Sunday, to keep the member work going. No doubt we will see many miracles from it!

Love,
Elder Schroeder

P.S. basketball Monday morning... I figured you would like pictures of me.

9/15/14

That flashlight hide and go seek story at the Dawson's is the funniest thing I have heard in weeks! Well, maybe not... but it is pretty funny! I am glad he did not get shot!

About being sick often, don't worry about me I am in the best of hands here. The senior couples are practically on their hands and knees ready to assist us. They are great! If they hear one little sniffle they break out the racehorses and chariots to get you taken care of! Our senior couple goes by the Francoms - I bet you could find them on a blog or something, but they are super cool. Real people!

About Elder Zivic and his wife down here. He was here the past couple days and now he is out with President and Sister Mehr touring the mission. He really is an incredible man! The lessons and instruction we received from him was just incredible... He threw out so much information wow! His vision really reflected the vision that President Mehr has, so that was cool to see. President and the area authorities are on the same track.

Speaking about the same track we have had 403 baptisms this year already and we are perfectly on track to get 600 by the end of the year! A 600 baptism year! 600! We get about 50-60 baptisms a month and we have done that consistently as a mission, for the past little while and now guess what?President has got a new vision that of 84 baptisms a month... we have 84 companionship's in the mission. So there it is. That is just over 1000. Hopefully, I can be a great part of that.

Well, I think that is it for the week! Shout out to Casey, I wish you luck with your job and school and stuff. Then again, we do not really believe in luck...

Love,
Elder Schroeder

Great Week!!

8/25/14

Great to hear about those mini missions! Speaking of mini missions "M" (the young man I baptized at the beginning of my mission) just got back from his mini mission. He loved it and it got him super excited for his real mission! It really changed him I am glad for that.

I have had the great opportunity first hand to see lives change! That is the best!!!

Great to hear about life back home thanks for that!

We should have a baptism coming up on Saturday if all goes well her name is "D" we are excited for her. She just soaks up the teachings of Christ! Another person we have planned to be baptized is "S"she should be baptized on the 6th of September.

This weekend down here was stake conference we had a great meeting after the Sunday morning session for new and returning members. It was an open forum, question and answer kind of thing and there was a man who just returned to activity who had about a million questions about tithing... It was interesting... President Mehr was there to answer the questions so that was fun...

We have been waiting for about 3 weeks now to receive Elder Evans companion and he just arrived!! yay!!! He came out from the military about 5 months ago to go on his mission so he is full blown army. He is good! We are excited to have him around.

Recently, I have been learning a great deal about the second coming just reading through the whole book of Mormon highlighting about the second coming. It is a vastly covered subject, its fun to unravel it.

Great week! I love you all and oh yeah I should be sending a small package home in the next couple weeks it shouldn't cost too much .. I guess if If can't afford sending it, I will just keep it in my luggage.

Love,
Elder Schroeder


9/2/14
I am very glad to hear Austin is getting going on those things! I hope I get to see him before he leaves. Also, about Aunt Rachelle I am glad for her!

Sounds like you guys have got a great deal of stuff going on at home! We have got a good deal running down here too! The baptism on Saturday didn't happen... cause it was on Sunday! yay! "D" was successfully baptized! She let us pick who baptized her so we decided on Elder Babb. It was a great baptism we had about 20-30 in attendance and the spirit was very strong. The testimonies at the end were great!!

The baptism for this week is on schedule and we are working on someone to be baptized the week following.. we have a good few who are prepared they are just hesitant about taking the plunge. We will help them... the Lord is ready for them!

This week we taught 30 lessons so it was a nice busy week in spite of me being sick and staying in a bit to recover, we got business done. I just have a little cold .. it seems my health down here is constantly fighting something, some fungus or virus or bacteria, or nematode,(thats actually what causes elephantiasis I found out) you can check me on that I am not 100% or biting fly or something.

I can't remember if I told you this but our zone conference in just a couple weeks, we are having Elder Zivic of the seventy coming. It is going to be a special mission wide conference. Then the Saturday following we are having a mission leadership council with him... it should be awesome!

Well I think that's about it for the week. I am going to try and send some pictures .. Elder Babb has most of them though so I have to get them from him ... so we will see.

Love,
Elder Schroeder




Yes, he successfully did the pushup.. afterwards, I did a pushup with the Elder standing behind me on my back








cutting one of our investigators hair