Maribel's Baptism!

 

Hermana Wilkinson!

 

Aulbrey! Just the cutest girl in the ward!

Hola Familia!

Como esta todo? Yo espero bien! This week has been another great week! Shelbyville is just amazing, I am so blessed to be able to serve here! We've had so many amazing experiences and lessons this week and I am so grateful! 

We were able to see Maribel every single day this week except for Saturday and she is doing great! She and her whole family came to church yesterday and it was so fun to see all of them! We've really been able to develop a good relationship with that family and I love them so very much. And guess what, I'm finally funny in Spanish! I can crack a joke or two in Spanish and I got their family rolling. We had a lot of fun with them this week. 

We had some very powerful lessons with them, the spirit is always so strong every time. We taught her the word of wisdom and we were a little scared to see her reaction but she said, "I'm never drinking coffee ever again! It's not worth it to me!" Haha she is amazing! We also had an amazing lesson about obedience and the spirit was seriously so strong. One day after her lesson she brought up her baptism and how excited she is (it's this Saturday!! The 28th!) and she looked at us and said, "You two are very special to me." (In Spanish of course). "I've never felt so close to two missionaries before and I've never allowed missionaries to come like I do with you two. You're very special to me." It made my whole entire week. Maribel is amazing and I cannot wait for her to enter the waters of baptism this week. Man, she's going to be the best Mormon. 

We had to drop a bunch of our investigators this week because they weren't keeping commitments or making the time to meet with us. But when we went over to Maria's house her granddaughter Natalie was there. We started teaching Natalie English and she asked us to teach her about the gospel as well. She's adorable and I'm excited to teach her more. 

Also, another day Hermana Heil and I were tracting in an apartment complex and we ran into Oscar and Adrian. We started talking to them and we set a return appointment with Adrian. When we went over a couple days later he was actually there! We were so impressed. We started teaching him and we explained how God is his loving Heavenly Father and we told him, "Adrian, your Father in Heaven loves you very much. He is so aware of you and He weeps when you weep and He is happy when you are." And Adrian looked up and said, "You really think so? He really cares for me that much?" And the spirit was so strong in that moment and nobody could deny the love that our Heavenly Father had for Adrian in that moment. That lesson was so special to me and I have been thinking about it a lot this week. I watched the Mormon message "Our True Identity" and realized how much divine worth we all truly have. We are all very loved and we have a potential that is so much greater than we could ever imagine. 

We had another lesson with Wilfred yesterday, we ran into him outside and he let us teach him. We taught him the restoration and he really liked it. He was super excited to learn more and even said he would prepare for baptism. So watch out for some more stories about Wilfred in the coming weeks. 

We had our first exchange this week. Hermana Parra came here to Shelbyville with me and Hermana Heil went to Frankfort with Hermana Milligan and let me tell you it was a blast! Hermana Parra is seriously such an amazing missionary and I learned so much from her, also she's Colombian and so I couldn't tell all the Hispanics that I'm Colombian that day because standing next to a real Colombian I couldn't pull it off. But we had a lot of fun. 

I had physical therapy twice this week and he said my shoulder is looking good and has made some great improvement. I go to the doctor on Tuesday but the physical therapist said he doesn't think I'll need an MRI. So that's great news! It was kinda cool though, because every time I go to PT I feel like everyone just stares at me like I'm a weirdo because of my name tag but while I was waiting for my turn I prayed to Heavenly Father and asked for an opportunity to share the gospel with them. When I went back four of the physical therapists asked me all of these questions and were super impressed with the church. I even taught them a little Spanish haha! It was such a cool experience though and I was so grateful that Heavenly Father had answered my prayer. Ask and ye shall receive. 

So there's this super cute lady in the ward named Sister Wagner and we went to her house this week to do service. I have never seen such an immaculate house in my life before but she told us it was dirty and needed cleaning. Oh she better not come see my bedroom.. (Just kidding my room is clean, I promise). So we scrubbed the floors clean and made the house that much more spotless and when we were all done Hermana Heil and I snuck some cookies. I grabbed two (I was hungry) and I thought I shoved them both in my mouth but right when I closed my mouth one of them fell to the ground and I saw my life flash before my eyes. Everything was in slow motion and I watched as the cookie fell to the ground and crumbs flew everywhere. I dropped to the ground to try to hide it but she walked in just in time to see it all and the three of us all just laughed together. I got it all cleaned up but it was super funny. 

We also were able to go to two different family's homes from the ward this week and they both own horses and we got to do lots of service for them. Oh it is the coolest thing in the world. One of these days I'm going to hop on one of them and run away with the horse. Not really but I want to really bad. I seriously want a horse so bad though. I'm going to live on a farm when I grow up I just decided. We also went to another family's home yesterday for dinner and they have a huge farm and their goats just had babies. I thought of Maddie, but of course I held them. I love Kentucky. 

This week has been so much fun and so amazing. I am finally seeing how perfectly tailored every mission is to each missionary and it is the coolest thing. My mission is the best decision I have ever made in my life and I am so very grateful for it, it has taught me so much and I learn something new every day. I have never been happier in my life. I invite all of you this week to pray for a missionary opportunity and to enjoy the happiness that comes from it. I promise it'll be in the top ten best decisions you make this week. 

I love you all so very much and I pray for you always. I hope you know how special you are to me and I hope that you are happy. Because life is too short to be anything else. 

Con amor, 

Hermana Swapp 

PS: "The light of the body is the eye; if, therefore, thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." -3 Nephi 13:22

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2010-04-20-our-true-identity?lang=eng

 

The first thing I'm going to do when I get off my mission is buy a horse.

Exchanges!

 

 

¡Hola Familia!

¡Yo espero que todos tuvieran una buena semana! Wow where do I even
start with this email? It has been a great week, one of the best on my
mission for sure! I am so happy. Shelbyville is incredible and Hermana
Heil is one of the funniest people I have ever met. We're definitely
going to have to work on when it's appropriate to laugh and when it's
not. We started laughing during district meeting this week and then
Hermana Heil snorted and it all went down hill from there. It took us
a minute to settle down.

Shelbyville is so pretty, it reminds me so much of Paris! So it's
almost like I'm back home! It's the perfect mix of city and country
and it made me so happy to see fields that go on forever again. Oh I
love Kentucky.

And the ward members are incredible here! They were so welcoming to me
and made me feel so loved. I can't even tell you how much it means to
me as a missionary to go to a new ward where I'm supposed to help them
feel loved but they do it for me! We've had lots of dinner
appointments this week and a bunch of ward members offered to take me
to my physical therapy, it was the nicest thing!

Hermana Heil. Haha I seriously love her so much. I honestly don't
think I have ever laughed so hard in my life. We seriously have the
same humor and once we get laughing we can't stop. She has this thing
for jokes and so every day we send our zone leaders a joke of the day
and then we can't stop laughing. Last night after our nightly planning
we spent the rest of our hour juggling. Yesterday when I was backing
her up in the car she totally ran into another car and I dropped to
the ground laughing. There was no damage but it seriously was the
funniest thing. And I promise I said slow. Not go. And we may or may
not have gone to homemade pie and ice cream cafe three nights in a row
for our dinner hour. (Why did the Lamanites have to eat off of the
table? Because the Nephites had all of the plates! Ha!).

Also, it's been crazy but every time when we have companionship study
and we share what we learned during our personal studies we always
studied or learned the exact same things! It's been crazy but so cool!

I also started physical therapy this week. It went great, I got some
good exercises going and the physical therapist said he didn't seem
too worried. He said he thinks I may have torn my Labrum as well but
if I need surgery he thinks I could probably wait until after my
mission. But I won't know until I get an MRI. I have two more physical
therapy appointments this week and then I'll go back to the orthopedic
on the 24th to get it checked out. Thank you everyone for all of the
prayers.

But besides all of the funny parts  and the physical therapy I promise
I was actually a real missionary this week. Wow this week was powerful
and the spirit has been so strong. The mission is doing a mission
fast. We started by fasting and asking Heavenly Father everything we
need to change to help us become better missionaries. And then all of
the things that are preventing us from having the spirit we write them
down and then fast from them. And there has been some real power in
that. As I've accounted to the Lord each day at how I am doing with
fasting from things that prevent the spirit from being in my life I
have noticed how much the atonement really does lift you and carry
you. And the spirit has been so much stronger. We had some of the most
powerful lessons this week.

We first had a lesson with Lisbeth. We taught her the Restoration and
the spirit was so strong. It was one of those lessons when you can
feel the spirit but you know for a fact that they can feel the spirit
as well. She understood it and she knew it was true. When we asked her
how she felt she said, "I can't explain it. I'm just happy and I feel
really good." We invited her to be baptized in February and she said
yes.

We had another lesson with Maria. She has been meeting with the
missionaries just for a little bit but she has been so sick this week.
It's made me so sad. But we were able to get in at the beginning of
the week and we read from the introduction of the Book of Mormon with
her. She really enjoyed it and she committed to baptism as well in
February.

We had the most powerful lesson with Maribel. Both of her kids are
members and she has been to church 15 times but doesn't feel ready to
be baptized. We read Mosiah 18:8-10 with her and asked her what the
desires of her heart were. She said she wanted to be baptized but she
knew she wasn't ready. And the spirit was so strong and told me to
share my experience right away. I hesitated for a minute because I
really didn't want to share it but the feeling was so powerful and
wouldn't leave. Most people don't know this about me, mostly my family
and a few companions but before my mission I had the worst anxiety
about being worthy. I didn't feel worthy to go on a mission or ready.
It was something I wrestled with for a very long time. And since I've
come out here it's something I still struggle with. And I explained
that to Maribel. I told her I didn't feel ready to go on a mission but
I followed the spirit anyway and since I've come out there's been
times I've questioned if it was the right thing to do. But I know that
it was the best decision I have made in my life. I've learned
sometimes when we're trying to know what's the right thing to do the
first person to answer our question is Satan. We explained that
baptism is a good decision and that Heavenly Father would never tell
her it's something she shouldn't do. It's a commandment from Him and
sometimes Satan tries to make us feel like we're not ready but that's
when faith comes in and when we exercise faith the atonement makes up
for the rest. It was so scary for me to share something so personal
with an investigator but the spirit was so strong and she told us
right away she would be baptized without any hesitation. When she said
yes it was the happiest I had been in a long time. She will be getting
baptized on January 28.

So there's an inactive in the ward and her name is Sister Dickerson.
The hermanas have been seeing her for a while. She's only inactive
because her health is so bad and she can't go to church. But she is
incredible and has the most powerful testimony. We've been able to go
over there and teach her a couple lessons and do a little service for
her. Her little brother Farryl lives there and he never joins the
missionaries. I guess Sister Dickerson's whole family has been pretty
against her joining the church and they're vocal about it too. Well
this week we had a miracle and we got him to sit in on the lesson and
we started talking about family history and he loved it! He was so
fascinated by the whole thing and couldn't believe our church had such
good resources. We invited him to come to church and to the pot luck
we were having after church. I even challenged him to an eat off. And
when he found out there was going to be a competition he couldn't say
no. And guess what! He came to church!!! Boy I have never ate so much
food in my life... And the sad part is it wasn't even a competition
because he couldn't stay for the food! But it was a miracle that he
came and I'm excited to hear about his experience when we see him this
week.

So we had another lesson after church with a different Maria. We'll
call her Maria C. She's incredible. The missionaries taught her a
little while ago but they had to drop her. We went back over and read
from the Book of Mormon with her and we read it with her and her
husband and the spirit was so strong. When we were done reading with
her we asked her if she would be baptized and she said yes without any
hesitation. She was incredible and the spirit was so strong.

So other fun parts of the week. Our service is every Wednesday and we
work at a little food bank, we had so much fun! We got a bunch of food
ready and we do the service with the elders in our area and we had a
blast. We get to do that every week but this week we get to help a
member out with her horses too. So I'm super excited about that!

And that's about it for this week! It's been one full of laughs,
powerful lessons, love, and the spirit. I really have no other words
to explain my week rather than it was a happy one. It's incredible how
much happier I am when I'm doing absolutely everything in my power to
have the spirit in my life more abundantly. Heavenly Father really
does give blessings. I love you all so very much and I hope you have
the most amazing week ever. Always remember how loved you are and be
happy. Because life is too short to be anything else.

Con amor,
Hermana Swapp

PS: "And to love him with all the heart, and with all the
understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and
to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt
offerings and sacrifices." -Mark 12:33

PPS: My new address is
1075 Lakeview Dr. #210
Shelbyville, KY 40065

The new district featuring the APs. 

We slacked on pictures this week. But here's a blurry selfie! 

The Mushalas!

The Valencias! 

Zone Meeting!

Last week P-Day! 

Happy New Year!

 

District Meeting!

Pday Today!