Hello Everybody!!

La semana pasada fue muy especial. Tuvemos cuatro investigadores que
assistieron la iglesia ayer y recibimos mucha revelacion por el barrio
tambien (I don't know if that's right, but I'm still learning)! This
week was great and I'm going to try to make this email shorter because
I always send you all novels! But we had transfers last Tuesday and
Hermana Fluckiger is my new companion! She is incredible, I love her
so much! She is from Star Valley, Wyoming and has been on her mission
for 4 months! We're pretty much in the same spot on our missions so
it's been nice. I seriously love her so much. She's such a hard worker
and we have a lot of fun together. We already decided we're going to
be companions forever.

We welcomed her into Paris on Tuesday by doing service! We spent about
4 hours helping a sweet lady move into her new home and helping her
clean it up as well. We had a lot of fun, and the Elders helped us out
too thank goodness! After, we walked the streets and talked to
everyone! I think it was a good way to introduce her to Paris! It was
actually funny we were strolling the streets in our chevy cruze one
night trying to find people to talk to and I saw this guy on the
sidewalk so I pulled over so Hermana Fluckiger could talk to him and
right before she said anything I said, "Be careful, don't get shot."
It freaked her out a little bit and so she had to get me back. We kept
scaring each other the whole night and she finally got me so bad I
screamed at the top of my lungs (Grandma Swapp probably remembers the
sound). After I realized it was a joke and after I got over being mad
we started laughing so hard. I don't think I've ever laughed harder in
my life. (Don't worry mom and dad we are being safe!)

But we had some pretty good lessons this week, I think this transfer
is going to be a little bit of a building transfer. We don't have a
ton of solid investigators so we'll be spending a lot of time finding
and tracting and probably begging people to listen to our message! But
that's okay we're going to have fun doing it! We still have been
teaching Angie a few times a week and she is incredible! She has given
up so much to align her life with God's teachings and it has been
amazing. Hermana Fluckiger and I were studying together this week in
Preach my Gospel and we found, "Bringing our lives in line with God's
will through repentance is a central purpose of our lives." It really
stuck out to both of us and we realized that Angie really understands
her purpose. The only thing that matters to her is that she is living
a life that is pleasing to God. She has been such an amazing example
to me.

We had another lesson with Zaira and Jorge. They're doing great but
they are so scared of baptism, I just pray my little heart out for
them every night. I want them to be an eternal family so bad. We had a
really good lesson about marriage and the Atonement and asked them to
pray about it, we told them we would give them a week and we would
check back. I'm praying that when we go back this week that their
hearts will be softened and they will be ready to make the commitment.

Church was incredible yesterday! Sean was confirmed a member of the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and he was just glowing.
But not only was that amazing but we had like a million people show up
to church. We had four investigators there and three LARCs (Less
actives or recent converts). Amanda's daughter Blair came to church
yesterday and I was so excited when I saw her and David came too!! We
got a text from him before church during ward council and he asked us
for the address and a ride and he came! It was awesome! During the
second hour we had all seven of the people in a class room and we
taught them all the Restoration, it was the best! That was such a
miracle to us!

We've spent a lot of our time this week talking to people on the
streets, knocking on doors, and driving around trying to find former
investigators, less actives, and just anyone. I think that's what a
lot of this transfer will be like but that's okay because even though
nothing super exciting is going on we still witness little miracles
every day.

We've been able to get in a bunch of member's homes this week too and
I think we're really going to push for that this transfer! We're
really trying to help this ward out and trying to get them more
excited about missionary work and excited about making good gospel
habits! I think they are getting a little more excited though because
our meal calendar is almost all the way full for the month (milagro)!!
These people are amazing. But we're also going to really try to help
out some of the less actives in the ward too! Hermana Fluckiger and I
prayed and asked for inspiration with who needs help and who could
help us and so we spent one afternoon making a big map! We made a map
of Paris and picked 20 less actives and 5 active families and put them
on the map. We also put on all of our investigators, potentials, and
part family members up and we've been making plans to help all of
these people (And it's way more organized, it's so nice). It's been
amazing to see how much revelation we have received this week. One of
us will say an idea and then it will lead to another idea and we'll
just bounce off of each other and it's such a testimony to me that
Heavenly Father is so aware of His children and knows exactly what
needs to happen with them.

Hermana Fluckiger and I have really received a lot of inspiration for
this ward but also for ourselves and our companionship and we have set
some really fun goals. We've realized that there's not really any
Hermanas in our mission (besides the natives) who are fluent in the
language and we decided that we really need to step it up and work a
little harder to learn the language. We made a language plan for our
companionship and we have a whole wall in our apartment dedicated to
our language plan with a cute little calendar we made to keep us on
track this transfer! But we're going to try to become fluent by the
end of this transfer (pray for me please). We're going to finish one
of our language study books together this transfer, memorize 30 words
a day together, and read 16 pages a day together out of the Book of
Mormon so we can finish it by the end of the transfer. And we're
speaking the language all the time. We're hoping by the end of the
transfer we can go an entire day all in Spanish. It's been super hard
but it's something we really want and something we know God wants too.
We're waking up pretty early to be able to fit it all in too, but it's
worth it (Vale la Pena)! We're going to do it!

That pretty much sums up my week though. But I really want to
challenge our little family to something... I want to challenge you to
have family scripture study every single day together! No excuses!
I've really seen a difference in the families here who have their
daily family scripture study and who don't and I know it's something
that will really bless our family if you will take the time to do it!
So I'm going to email you all next week and see how it went!

I love you all so very much and I miss you! I am always praying for
you all and thinking of you. I hope you have a very good week. Be
happy, because life is too short to be anything else!

Con amor,
Hermana Swapp

Hermana Fluckiger and me. We broke the ice with some mac n cheese (;

David came to church!!

We started off our P-day with soe nice face masks hahaha!