“Did she just say I’m crazy?”

We got to go on exchanges this week! I was with Sis Williamson, and Sis Stockdale was with Sis Flitton. I always like exchanges because I get to see a different side to the STLs (Sister Training Leaders) than I normal get to see. They are supposed to be the example to us all the time, and sometimes they come off robot-ish. Exchanges are a good reminder that they’re just normal missionaries like us, but with higher stress levels.

We ate dinner at a wedding reception, which was a party (literally!) and then finished getting our stuff back together to head home. Overall it was a really good day with them.

On Thursday night we went over to a less active member’s house and painted with her. She’s really crafty, and said she knew an easy way to paint, so we got together and just had a blast. We’re going to go back again this week and put quotes on them!

We had a lesson with another less active member Wednesday night (sorry these are totally out of order) and he is just so funny. We tell him all the time he’s our favorite person, and he calls us his “living angels”. He has some health problems, and this week his hearing aid broke so we spent the whole lesson yelling to him. It was a good time. Hopefully his kids in the other room were paying attention and will want to learn more! We would say something, then Moises would say what he thought we had said, then we would say what we had said louder because he totally didn’t hear us right at all. He’s also a huge jokester, so we’re pretty sure he could hear better than he said he could, but he wanted to mess with us a little. The quote in my subject line is from our lesson with him. Sis Stockdale was even drawing pictures for him. We were going to teach the first half of the Plan of Salvation, but we only got through the Fall of Adam and Eve. So this week we’re going to talk about our purpose here on earth and hope his hearing aid is fixed.

That’s all I have to report this week. We have lots of stuff planned for this upcoming week so we’re going to be busy busy busy!

Ciao,
Sister Schroeder

Lego sister missionaries in the STLs apartment:

Our exchange picture (taken with a really bad camera):

Me and my cute comp:

How I created my painting:

I was very proud of my painting:

The lighting isn’t the best so I’ll send a better picture once it has the quote on it:

This week was pretty tame. We were missionaries all day every day, and lived the mission life. We did have one experience that was cool, though.

One night we went to see someone we had been teaching but hadn’t seen in a few weeks. We would text her quotes everyday, but her life has been super crazy so we haven’t been able to actually meet with her. We decided to stop by one night and she was home! And moving the next day! She invited us in for a few minutes and we just talked about what was going on. She had been looking for a place to live ever since we met her, so we were super excited she found a place, but sad that she was leaving our area. We talked her into letting us help her move and then were getting ready to leave because she had somewhere she needed to be. Before we left, she told us how much it had meant to her to have us support her. There was one time we put inspirational quotes all over her door and we learned that that day had been just horrible, until she came home and saw the quotes. We were sending her a quote early in the week and couldn’t think of anything to say with it, so we just sent the quote and felt super lame. She said it was exactly what she needed to hear, and she made the quote the background on her work computer. It was really amazing to get the opportunity to know that the little (to us) things that we had done for her made such an impact and helped her get through one of the hardest times of her life. As we were saying goodbye, she hugged us very tightly and said that she could feel God as she hugged us. She said, “this right here is the closest I have ever felt to God” and thanked us for helping her feel Him in her life.

I think more often than not, we don’t know the impact we make on people’s lives, especially as missionaries. I am so grateful that Heavenly Father let me see that the imperfect, insignificant things I’m doing are changing people’s lives. It’s a testimony to me that letting Christ into our lives can change us and empower us and help us become who we have the potential to become. We have a loving Heavenly Father who wants to help us, not an impassive God who simply watches us struggle.

That’s all I have for this week. I’ll tell you more amazing experiences for this upcoming week next time!

Ciao,
Sister Schroeder

Sisters’ dinner:

The Sister Williams Applebees dinner date:

Sis Williams dropped her chapstick on the floor:

The best missionaries in town:

Our comp unity on point:

On the staircase outside the dentist’s office (it was on the outside of the building):

When Sis Stockdale decided I didn’t need to breathe:

“It’s a good day to be good”

I’m writing on Tuesday this week because our P-Day got switched. We had a special zone conference where a general authority came to speak to us! The zone conference was every missionary from Bakersfield and Ridgecrest, and the general authority was a member of the seventy named Elder Klebingat. If you didn’t understand that sentence, ask your Mormon friends to explain.

Elder Klebingat is from Germany, and right at the beginning of the conference he told us that the American habit of beating around the bush was not one of his habits. That was a very true statement. He was very direct and firm, but it was in a good way. Everything he talked about helped me with things I’ve been struggling with, and it gave me motivation to be the best missionary I can be for the rest of my mission. My subject line is something that he said.

There was some other awesome stuff that happened this week too! The air has been super bad in Bakersfield because of all the fires, so President Layton told us to spend more time in our cars and less time walking from place to place. Problem: we don’t have a car. So we called Sister Layton and asked what we should do about staying out of the bad air (it was making me cough) and she told us that President arranged for us to have a car! 11 areas were closed last transfer and so there were many cars just sitting in the parking lot. Most of the are being sold, but we got one of the 2 that aren’t. We’re not sure how long we will have it, but I’m very thankful that we have it for now! It’s going to be a sad day when they tell us to bring it back though.

I think Sis Stockdale appreciates that we have a car more than I do, because she had an unfortunate incident happen this week with her bike. Since it doesn’t rain very much in Bakersfield, there aren’t many gutters, so when water from sprinklers runs onto the side of the road, it just sits there forever. As it’s sitting there forever, green algae and slime starts to grow in it. It looks nasty! And according to Sis Stockdale, it feels nasty too. We were biking down a street and we had to go through a huge puddle of this disgusting water. I turned and slowed down a lot before going through the puddle so it wouldn’t splash up on me, but Sis Stockdale (who was behind me) didn’t slow down enough. I heard a small yell and scraping sound, and turned around to see her sitting in the giant puddle of water with her bike on the ground next to her. She had biked right over the biggest part of the puddle and the slime took the bike out from under her. We called the sisters to come take us home and Sis Stockdale had bruising all down her leg. It was not a good night for her.

Some other fun stuff that happened was a trio getting put into our district! Sis Williams and Sis Williams are now training Sis Jordan! Sis Jordan had some health issue while in the MTC, so instead of going foreign, she got sent to California. The Williamses didn’t know they would be training until about 5 hours before she arrived. It was quite the scramble for them to get everything ready for her, but they are doing an awesome job. We and the sisters wrote little notes to her and put them on their door. She’s adorable!

I think that’s it for this week. I hope everything it going well at home! If life seems hard and nothing is going your way, this is a really awesome video to watch: https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2012-01-014-the-will-of-god

Ciao,
Sister Schroeder

After Sis Stockdale fell into the lake of death:

A giant branch that tried to decapitate us while we were biking:

Good ol’ tracting in the morning:

Service at the library! (it’s kinda our favorite thing):

We were proud of ourselves for finding all the books:

Cute selfie with my comp:

Sis Stockdale made me a fluffy cocoon:

Ice cream with the Williams duo:

Heart attacking the door for Sis Jordan:

It’s kinda blurry, but the one on the left is the newest addition to our squad:

There are no such things as coincidences…

One day, we decided to go meet a member that was nearby after dinner, and as we biked down the street he was on, we didn’t see his house number anywhere. Rather than turn around and try to find it, we decided to visit some members one street over. We visited with them for a little bit and then left to go to a meeting. The next day at a Relief Society activity the mom came up to us and said we must have been inspired to stop by. After we left, he daughter told her she knew it was us at the door before they even opened it, and as we were talking she had a strong impression to meet with us. She has some things that she’s dealing with that we would have to adjust our teaching for, and so she had been nervous to ask us. This was such a blessing for us, especially because it had been a rough day that day. It’s amazing that we can follow the promptings of the Spirit without even realizing it!

We ate dinner with some members this week who are super awesome. We asked them how they met and it started story time. They’ve had some crazy stuff happen to them, like their son almost getting kidnapped, and having to give CPR to a snake. But the one where they met was awesome: she had a coworker they called “Dr Eye Candy” and there was a murder where they worked. Two of her coworkers were having an affair and they killed the lady’s husband. The guy was from Australia so he ran back there when the investigation started getting intense and can’t be arrested unless he comes back to the US. Crazy! Apparently there was a book written about it.

Then they told this story about going to a movie in Aurora Colorado. They had decided to see the midnight showing of The Dark Knight so they drove to the movie theater and as they pulled up, they saw a guy hiding in the shadows next to the movie theater. They got a weird feeling about him, but shrugged it off. The dad went in to get the tickets and the son asked “is dad going to be ok?” The mom said “of course, he’s just going to buy some tickets.” A few minutes later the dad came back without tickets and told them he just had a feeling that they shouldn’t go to the movie that night. So they went back to their hotel room and got a good night’s sleep. When they woke up the next morning, they saw on the news something that I’m sure a lot of you saw or heard about: there had been a mass shooting in a movie theater in Aurora (the same one they went to) at the midnight showing of The Dark Knight. They had almost been in that movie theater, and if they hadn’t listened to the subtle promptings of the Spirit, they might have been numbered among the people who had died. The Lord definitely protects His children.

That is all I have for this week. Sis Stockdale’s skirt got caught in her bike gears while we were crossing the street and then she ate gluten (which she is allergic to) at a dinner one night and was in lots of pain the rest of the night. So my companion almost died twice this week, but she didn’t so it’s all good. I hope y’all have great week!

Ciao,
Sister Schroeder

We called the Williams duo to help us get Sis Stockdale and her bike detached:

We heart attacked the Williams sisters door last night…

…in the dark (while they were home)

Shakes at Sonic are half price after 8 and it had been a hard day:

At the Relief Society pool party (no swimming for us)

Our mailboxes disappeared on Wednesday and we haven’t seen them since:

Sis Williams and I matched without even meaning to:

Me and my cute companion: