Thanksgiving and thanks for Baptism!

Hello everyone!

 

This week was a good week! We had Thanksgiving, plus a baptism!

 

So our baptism was for Mark Trzcinski. He is a 41 year old man, who is so excited about the gospel. We are so excited for him. The baptism was wonderful. I gave the opening prayer, and then we had a wonderful talk by Sister Hench, one of the senior missionaries in the ward. Then Elder Hench, Sister Hench's husband (of course :) ) baptized Mark. Mark is a tall man, so it was a little hard to get him all the way under, but Elder Hench did it well. :) Then we had some welcomes to the ward. Mark was confirmed a member of the church and received the gift of the Holy Ghost yesterday by Elder Hench. That was an amazing blessing and Mark was crying by the end. It was wonderful to see how happy he was!

 

After Mark's baptism, Savannah, the 10 year old girl, had her baptismal interview! She is ready to go for this Saturday. Sister Robinette sneakily volunteered me to do a talk for that baptism. I will be speaking on baptism for Savannah... It doesn't have to be long, so hopefully it will be okay. :)

 

Miracle of the week: We taught Joyce, Savannah's mother, about Tithing last week and she said that she wasn't sure if she could pay it. We told her that she would be able to and she would be blessed for it. So, the next time we taught her, she was filling out her tithing slip as we were there! It was one of the greatest testimonies of faith that I have seen on my mission thus far. Whenever we tell Joyce about a commandment, she does it. That same day, we taught about the Word of Wisdom. Joyce has been drinking coffee and she didn't even know it was bad. As soon as we explained it to her she said, "Drinking coffee is a sin? I didn't even know." She said she just bought a new package of coffee and she was going to take it back to the store. She said she would start weaning off and that she would stop. There were no questions asked! She just said she would do it!

Then the best part is the next day at the baptism, she leans over to me and says,"I only drank a little bit of coffee this morning, and it didn't even taste good! I didn't even want to drink it." It was amazing. As I type it to you, I feel the spirit. I know that Heavenly Father is blessing her so much as she is coming back to church and trying to live the commandments. She can see the difference. More importantly, she can FEEL the difference. When we were explaining to her and Savannah about the gift of the Holy Ghost, Joyce asked us if the reason she was feeling so much better now and could feel those "good feelings" from the Spirit was because she was doing the right thing now and before she could feel that because she wasn't always doing the right. We told her that was exactly right! The Holy Ghost is coming back into her life and she can feel the difference. She is an amazing woman!

 

So I am going to attach some pictures from the baptism! And maybe a couple of more. :)

 

The baptism one is Sister Robinette, Sister Hench, Mark Trzcinski, Elder Hench, Me, and Sister Jones.

 

The next one is Joyce, Nicholas, Savannah, and the three of us. We helped decorate their home for Christmas! :)

 

Then there is one of us at the mission home when we picked up Sister Jones. :)

 

So Mom asked about Thanksgiving. Not going to lie, but holidays are pretty boring on the mission. We aren't allowed to teach lessons or do anything really except our studies and then have dinner and hang out with our zone. We did play some volleyball with some other sister missionaries, played some games with our zone, and then had a very nice dinner at our Ward mission leaders' home, BrotherMontgomery, but other days are better than holidays. :) It was semi-relaxing, but I like getting out and teaching more! If we aren't busy, I think about home too much. ;)

 

Life is great here is Highland! I miss you all lots though. You are the best part of holidays, so that makes it a little hard, but I am glad I am here! Next holiday I get to talk to all of you (hopefully skype!)!

 

I am most thankful for you all! I love you so much and hope and pray you are all doing well. :)

 

Missionary work is the best! The Church is true! Jesus Christ lives and we are children of God. :)

 

Mom, Thank you for the package! It was wonderful! :)

 

Love you all siempre,

Sister Schillemat 

 

I said a prayer in Spanish today! The prayer consisted of "Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for my family. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen." It was short, but it was in Spanish! :)