Heart attack...disappointments and miracles

11/3/14

Wow, sounds like a fun week over there! It also sounds like a fun couple weeks to come!!

Ideas for a Christmas gift... all I have to say is if you are planning on sending a package don't send candy, we have got too much of that here in Trinidad and it is all dirt cheap. There are a couple souvenirs that would be good.. some of them can be quite pricey though. I do want to buy an Indian style shirt they call it a Kurta (i don't know if I spelled it correctly)  and it comes with pants too. Other than that I don't really know. I am good on pretty much everything.

I have got one interesting story this week for you guys. 

Elder Beck and I just drove up a large hill (very large hill) to go teach a young man and when we parked and got out of the car. An older man was sitting down in the shade he asked us for a ride down the hill into St. James (it's about a 10-15 minute drive from there) We quickly said sorry we can not, he responded short of breath telling us he recently has had two heart attacks and he is experiencing shortness of breath. He said he feels like he is dying and he wants a ride to the hospital. We asked is he has called an ambulance yet? He said, he did but they can't send one because they are all occupied. While we are talking to him I could hear wheezing in his speech and breath he called the ambulance again and they said they will send one as soon as they get one. Since we couldn't take him he said "are you just going to leave me here to die?"  We didn't want to break the rules so we quietly waited with him for a couple minutes and then decided to call President Mehr. President asked a couple questions after we told him the situation and he said go ahead take him, we can't leave him there to die. So we got him in the car and drove him to the hospital... that 's a little different than the regular everyday missionary experience.

I have got another story but I think I will wait to tell you that one until I get home. I wrote it in my journal so don't worry about me forgetting it. 

I told you I would have pictures this week but I didn't take any pictures. Elder Beck took some pictures though I will see if I can get them from him! 

Love,

Elder Schroeder

11/10/14

I am excited for Sidney and Scott and for their baby to come! I better get pictures the moment you see it.. I know I don't have to worry about that though.

This last week has been the best! we have set 9 baptismal dates! Most of them are really solid too. Some may have to be pushed back later on but most will get baptised. 

I am very excited for one family!! They should be getting married and baptized on December 6th! I really hope I will be here for that! They are great! They have two children who are not quite baptism age, but one day they will be right. The parents have been progressing greatly towards baptism.. they do family home evening more often than the average Mormon family they will be a great strength to the Ward!

Another person I am excited for. I believe I wrote about last week is a 13 year old boy. Extremely prepared!!! He has already read almost to the end of 1 Nephi and he understands it super well! This last Sunday he traveled to church but got lost along the way so he obviously didn't make it .... We will be traveling with him to church to show him the way next time.. which should be interesting because we don't even know how to travel to church! (taxis)

We met a guy this week and you should have heard him. We asked him about his view on religion and he went off on a huge tangent about the great apostasy. How none of the churches on the earth are true right now, and that he is waiting for God to call a prophet so the truth can be brought back! Needless to say we shared our message with him... He should be baptised in the coming months...

It has been a great week and I am excited to see the fruits coming up! Sorry, I didn't take any pictures this week... I have been slacking on that...I will carry my camera around this week.

Love,

Elder Schroeder

P.S. we may be moving into a new apartment... and that reminds me you will get some pictures of my current apartment next week! (where i have been living the past 6 months) and possibly pictures of the new apartment.

11/17/14

Sounds like exciting times back home!!

The week went by very fast in a slow way. Tuesday and Wednesday was occupied with meetings. We had MLC - Mission Leadership Conference and all of the Zone leaders in the whole mission were present. We also had to house a few missionaries, that was pretty fun. We got to house a missionary that I was around in St. Lucia. I don't know if you remember me telling you about Elder Larson. He is just about my favorite missionary in the whole mission, so that was fun!

This week we also had to coordinate the logistics of moving apartments. It is much more difficult to move apartments in Trinidad than in St. Lucia... I can only imagine the logistical nightmare of moving houses... I look forward to that day... kinda. We should be moving over the space of tuesday-wednesday. Our new apartment is very nice... And when I say very, I mean very very nice. You guys will get pictures of the move next week. Too bad, I won't be able to benefit from it for to long (probably)

With a combination of those two things this week was a pretty slow teaching week. I do have to say that we did experience one of the greatest miracles of my mission this week! If you can remember a couple weeks ago I spoke of The 13 year old boy, well we went to teach him on Thursday and his parents said that we can no longer teach him... sad day:(  That was a bit depressing and Elder Beck and I expected he would be baptized.  A couple days we really wanted to teach and prepare someone for baptism in November, later we took out a Priest age young man to go teaching and as we were speaking to him we got on the topic of a girl who recently started showing up at church with a member family. I had met her a year and a half ago when I was first in Port of Spain and she used to attend regularly so I thought to myself that she was a member. Elder Beck however asked if she was baptized... Nope was the response. When we heard that you should have seen the look on our faces haha!! We both just looked at each other in awe. With a little more investigation we found out that she has never even been taught by the missionaries! We went by her house that night had a great member lesson and she is going to be baptized on the 29 of November! She already knows everything is true and loves the church. Great stuff! 

That was the miracle for the week, that we found someone prepared for baptism.

Another great thing (not so missionary related) that happened this week is that we got to go to a five star restaurant again. The one owned by the Cofones. Idon't  know if you remember me telling you about that a long time ago. So that was nice! 3 course meal of Calamari appetizer, Some pasta (I don't remember the name) and HagenDaz Ice cream to finish it off. yes ma'am!

It was a great week, and another great one to come.

Love, 

Elder Schroeder

Transfers

Well this transfer has turned out to be great! Elder Beck is from Boise and is a hard worker! He just came from Barbados and has been out for just over 14 months, he was previously stationed in the area adjacent to Port of Spain so he is vaguely familiar with its environs. Elder Babb on the other hand went down south to an area called Point Fortin that is basically the southernmost part of the Island. 

This last transfer was quite the pivotal transfer everyone (or the missionaries anyway are all beginning to tell me that I am dying soon... 6 months goes by so fast... I am not taking them on though I have still got plenty of time left!

This week has proved to be a great week! We have finally been able to get out and find a few more people! I am excited to see which ones of them will act on our message. 

We met a new guy this week named "C" We talked to him for about 5 minutes and had a nice impromptu lesson with him. He comprehended well the truths of the restoration, he did not get to make it to church on Sunday cause he was out of town but he should be there next week! We also set a baptismal date with him lets see is he makes it!

We also have found a good deal of success with two younger girls 17 and13 they are both related to a strong member so they have got great support there. We set a date with one of them for the 15th of Nov but the other girl wasn't there when we extended the date, so she did not end up with one. 

We taught a great kid last night, he is only 15 but this boy understands! He is going to do well...

This week has been a great week and I am looking forward to the transfer to come! I hope I get to stay in Diego for at least one more that would make it a year living in port of spain!!! haha! I do not now how likely that is but hey.. the end of this transfer will make it 10 1/2 months total in Port of Spain. I think I know the people here just about as good as the people in our ward back home! Maybe even better I do not even know the bishop back home.... 

Well, I love you guys .. sorry I have not taken any pictures this week .. you will get some next week of my companion and stuff. 

Love,

Elder Schroeder

Ward Activities...

I am glad grandma got the flowers HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

By the way Mom, that is a terrifying little countdown you have got going there. A very exciting one nonetheless. First grandchild baptized! First baby from Squidly and then me :/ haha!

This week was a pretty great week! Two baptismal dates 32 lessons and an investigator at church.

Before I go on to that, I was on Family Search the other day, showing someone how to do family history and I notice that Magee (my great-great grandfather on dads side) has not been sealed to his wife and that you mom have it reserved. I don't know if you guys know about that or if there are any restrictions on that ordinance but you guys should do it.

Back to what I was saying. Elder Babb and I have specifically been focusing on a young man named "R" We have fasted specifically for him on 3 occasions and we finally set a date with him!!!!!! yay!!! We hope all will go well with that.

We had a family fun activity on Wednesday at the park with the "S" family. You already got some pictures of that but I will send some more along with this email.

There was also an activity at church on Wednesday "family fun day" it was a great activity held at the Chapel on Wednesday. Great attendance!
Elder Babb and I didn't really anticipate playing too many games while there, but sure enough the missionaries were called in for assistance. 5 hours later and about 20 pounds of sweat we missionaries were looking pretty ragged.... haha it was fun though.

I don't remember if I told you this in the past but we play basketball or football every Friday night. It's  a ward activity.

All the activities the ward has are great. It's a missionaries dream! We have so many chances to get our investigators fellow shipped. I hope that these activities continue.

Well, not too much more for this week. I love you all!

Love,
Elder Schroeder


getting some golf in! I got third place...

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

Incredible experience...

8/4/14
Thank you so much for the care package! I haven't gotten it yet but I should be able to pick it up tomorrow or Wednesday. I forgot to tell you I need athletic socks too.. they are definitely missionary socks..... real Holy.....  

The razors are holding up great! No complaints about that, they are super good!!!  
(Helpful Hint: For any of you wanting great quality razors for your missionaries or for yourself at a fraction of what you will pay in the stores, follow this link for 15% off. http://dorcousa.refr.cc/S5CNZVB We sent our missionaries out with a 2 years supply. Best ever!! Robin)  

This week has been great! Here is one stellar highlight for you guys!

You may remember the first week I ever emailed home from the mission field, the very first Saturday I was here, the "M" family was baptized. They returned on Friday night from a temple trip to Santo Domingo! It was incredible to see these people in their infancy in the gospel and now as endowed members!!! Brother 'M' is even the ward clerk! It sure is incredible! I don't think there are too many missionaries who get to see that.

We also have a baptism coming up on Saturday! It is a 9 year old girl - "K" (her parents are recent converts) so we were able to teach her. 

Also, another baptism in a couple weeks! Another 9 year old girl form a recent convert family! Talk about working with members! This 9 year old did not really want to get baptized until just a couple days ago. So now that she wants to it is a thumbs up from the parents. Get this- the parents actually went to the beach with their daughter and played a game --- the game was "lets practice baptizing her. Haha..  and she wants me to baptize her because she is scared that her dad will drown her. ... Not happening... he is definitely going to baptize her!

One more thing from the week .. this was quite interesting... on Thursday morning I woke up just as normal as ever worked out, showered, and ate breakfast (hash browns). As I was tying my tie - I got a strange feeling you get in your throat when you are going to vomit. I did not have a stomach ache or any thing, I finished tying my tie and the feeling became so intense that I knew the expulsion was imminent. I ripped my tie off and proceeded to empty my guts into the toilet. It was not even that violent... I just threw up, blew my nose, brushed my teeth and was done. I did not feel sick at all or anything .. super weird... Well I started to study and about 15 minutes went by and I felt plainly exhausted... I then slept for about an hour and then we had to go cause some conundrum with the car. After that, we came back and I continued to sleep for about 3-4 hours... I was a zombie... I do not even know what it was. I continued to be a zombie for about a day and a half and now I am fine... very strange... 

We got an awesome referral this week, she is the Mother of one of our recent converts. We are now teaching her. She is taking all of it very seriously just because she has seen the great change in her son. Talk about a great example. We are excited to see her get baptized! 

That is it for the week! 

Love,

Elder Schroeder


8/11/14
Thanks for telling me about Sister Marius... Great lady!! We actually used to visit her about twice a week to read to her. I heard that she had passed away already. She is a famous woman throughout the mission.  I actually used to call her Grannie.  She could never pick a favorite missionary but I would like to be able to say that I was her favorite.  She was buried with a picture of all the missionaries that gave her pictures, she had a 10x12 picture of me :) She was also buried with one of my name tags. She really loves the missionaries!

Sounds like you have got some fun things going on back home. We have got some fun things happening down here too.

We had a baptism on Saturday! There is a small picture in the newsletter it is the "B" family it was a part member family... was... good stuff!

On another good note. I'm helping my companion with a diet and workout program and he has already lost 6 pounds! He is looking good! So that is great! Also, it was his birthday on Saturday... gave him a tie.

More about the work .. we have members out with us everyday! It is a little hard not to bring them out, honestly everyone wants to come out with us, all we have to do is give them a time and go pick them up. It is great! We have fellow-shippers for all age groups. Right now we are really focusing on part member families and it has been working out really well. We have baptized a good amount of younger people because of it. The younger ones seem to get lost in the background when the missionaries first come over. We have also had some good success with the older people. Of course older people just have more reservations but it is coming along great!

We should have about 4 more baptisms before the transfer is out. Elder Babb will probably be leaving this transfer or so we think, he has been here 6 months.

Highlights for the week-
We had mission leadership council on Wednesday so we got to hear from President Mehr. He wants to focus on flooding the earth with the Book of Mormon. As we shared that with the missionaries we have seen a great amount of success. Contacting with the Book of Mormon really sorts out the elect. The field really is white down here we are seeing loads of success the mission had 60 baptisms last month and 30 of them happened in one day! So things are looking up we should hit our goal of 600 baptisms for the year!

Anyway, I think that is it for the week. I love you all and thank you for the shoes you sent! They will get used! Great selection.

Love,
Elder Schroeder

Beautiful sunsets
Elder Babb, Mikalai (who is actually on a 3 week mini mission right now), Elder Schroeder

8/18/14
It is great to hear about Courtney and Megan leaving on their missions! How cool!

This week has been great! We got fed a lot... I feel full just thinking about it... and we have a dinner appointment tonight too... wow... it's awesome!

One new thing is I remember the suggestion you had for me on using my drawing ability on my mission. I have decided to do that I am going to draw a little bit every once in a while. I am almost finished laying out a very cool drawing of the tree of life.  I just have so many ideas it seems a waste to let them go undrawn.  It would be cool to publish something in Deseret stores or something one day.

I recently received a blessing from my bishop over here. President asked us a long time ago to get a blessing from your local leader whenever you come into a new area. Something he said that really stood out to me is "You will be the change that you want to see on your mission" I felt the Spirit strongly when he said that. He also proclaimed that, "At times things will not go the way you would like them to" and I don't remember the exact wording thereafter but there were many promises of resoluteness in the face of adversity.
It has felt like that a good deal recently, definitely a very inspired blessing! Great guidance and comfort from an inspired leader. I really admire Bishop Regis.

I have felt the Lords hand amid my life more than ever on my mission, it is truly an incredible experience. In spite of my unworthiness as an unprofitable servant, I know that the Lord loves me and trusts me with this great call. Oh it is so hard at times and the burden heavy. I can only imagine the weight of the other calls to serve in the future. I do slightly relish in the strain of the load though ... it really does allow you to grow and move forward.

This week has felt really slow but we have had so many great lessons and opportunities before us. I really love serving with Elder Babb he is such a strong person. I don't remember if I told you this but he has only been a member for three years, he knows so much about the gospel already. It is incredible!

We went to Maracas falls again today for Pday. I went just about a year ago. So here are some pictures for you guys, so you can still see I am healthy and alive.

Love,
Elder Schroeder

1) Here's a close up for you
2) We were all supposed to be flexing but anyway...
3) I don't know how good you can tell but I am cowering under the rock to shield me from the  waterfall
4) That's us climbing across, getting soaked so we can be behind the waterfall
5) Interesting close up of some moss type stuff on a tree

Healthy and Happy!!

July 21, 2014
Wow! That flood was crazy... actually "Sister C" (she is a member down here) has a son up there at school right now so she showed me videos when we were at church! That is insane! I am glad I am not up there right now...

The baptisms went smoothly and they were both confirmed on Sunday, "J" the 17 year old was even interviewed and ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood on Sunday!! That is a rare occurrence down here, we have got to thank Bishop for that! He is good! We also took him out teaching with us on Sunday. Another young man! We just have to get him on a mission now! I think he will go.

That is scary to think I am the next missionary in the ward to get home... ughh!

This week has been kind of slow ... we did teach many lessons this week but we don't have too many new investigators... We have been relying heavily on the members but it has just not been working the way we would like, we still have plenty to do and it will get better.

The ward has had some great activities recently... we had a movie night on Saturday and watched "The Testaments" it was pretty good and then we played some games after. It was fun and there was some good friend making going on, or as we say down here fellow-shipping.

I still can't drive yet, my permit has not quite come through yet, it will soon!

Love,

Elder Schroeder


July 28,2014
Lots of stuff for the week! Sounds like a great week, thank you so much for letting me know what's going on. It is fun to hear whats happening in your lives.

Some business first... my running shoes are worn through... my left one has got a hole in the bottom. I have been using them a lot so I need some new ones. A good pair down here runs at about $120-140 USD probably more around the 140 dollar range.  I don't know if you want to buy some at home or online and have them sent to me. Or you could just put the money on my card and I could buy them here. I am the same size as Connor so he can be the test dummy. I need those pretty soon. On another note my Dansko shoes are running pretty low... I may need some new shoes pretty soon. What I probably could do is buy a cheap pair here for about 40 US and use those for just a couple months and that would extend the life of the shoes I now have. I think that would get me through my mission. - I will leave this all up to you. P.S. Nike is the best.. Connor would pick good ones :)

Now onto the regular stuff.
I have been doing great, feeling real healthy! No pudge yet, so that's good. I will be staying with Elder Babb for another transfer! Woot Woot. This now means that I have served in the Port of Spain ward for 6 months now! Maybe I can be here for 6 more haha...Whatever the Lord wants for me. I love this area! We have tons of members and they all love the missionaries, they feed us, they go teaching with us! It is the best!

So Elder Babb and I are staying together but the Zone is changing up quite a bit. We had sister missionaries in Port of Spain but they are no more. They have closed that area, we also are getting two new Elders. One is a temp actually from the last ward I was in, from San Grande. Elder Sookoo and the other is an Elder Hopkins. I hear he is post military so he should be good!

As far as the work down here, it is going great! We have so many members in our area we can't even take all of them out. They all want to come out with us! Well I shouldn't say all but most of them do!

"J" is one of the ones that wants to come out with us. In fact, so much so that he has come out with us every day this week! He is learning so fast. He taught the first vision to a couple of our investigators booyah!

One great lesson we had this week was a member referral, you should have seen the way her eyes were glued to me as I shared the restoration with her. I just hope that she acts on what she has learned now... we are seeing a slow increase in member referrals here and it is great!.. It was hard for a while but it is picking up now! Good stuff!

One pretty funny thing that occurs down here revolves around an Elder Evans, he has been out for about a year and he uses all manners of contrivance to get us to go to Dairy Queen! You should see the things he does!

I am pretty sure mostly every sentence ends in an exclamation point. I bet you guys have realized that already but I thought I would point it out.

I think that is all I have for the week. I love you guys, have a great week!

Love,

Elder Schroeder