So we've had some changes this week! 1-30-2017

2:44 PM

¡Hola Familia!

So much has happened this week! I feel like I have so much to tell,
but this week has been incredible! I have had so many spiritual
experiences and I am so grateful for this past week.

So we've had some changes this week, I'm sure y'all have already
heard! But this past Wednesday we had a worldwide missionary broadcast
and it was amazing! Ah the spirit was so strong and I was so pumped to
be a missionary. Really though, I wanted to go save the world after
that broadcast but they made some changes in the missionary world.
They changed our key indicators so instead of reporting 9 each week we
only report 4 and we no longer have nightly planning and we have two
extra hours on P-day! Crazy huh? It's 9:30 right now and I'm writing
this email! But that was a really neat broadcast, I'm grateful I got
to be part of it!

Also, Maribel was baptized! Oh my goodness she is incredible. We
taught her the rest of her lessons and she passed her interview with
no problem. She's so sweet. All week she kept telling us how special
we are and thank you. I seriously love her. We had her baptism on
Saturday and everything that could go wrong went wrong. First, the
person she wanted to baptize her was called into work. Second, we
didn't have a key to the font and nobody could get to the church in
time for us to fill the font so we had to hop over the little glass
protector and I sliced my finger on it (nothing a bandaid can't fix
though haha!). Then the elders came to watch the font while we went to
the library to finish her program but the library decided to be
closed. And as we were trying to set up for the video presentation the
guy brought the wrong chord. But we prayed and everything worked out!
The brother she wanted to baptize her was able to get work off to
come. I got a bandaid for my finger and the font filled up in time. We
had a member help us out with the program. And we were able to find a
different video to play that used a DVD player instead and it was
perfect!

Her baptism was incredible! The spirit was so strong. Both her kids
are members and so are her parents. Right before the program started
Maribel and her kids face timed her grandparents to tell them she was
getting baptized. And the whole family cried together. They now can
become an eternal family. The program went perfectly and at the end
Maribel bore her testimony and it was so powerful! It was such an
amazing experience!

We had a few other lessons with some new people this week, but they
don't want to continue the discussions. We've been working hard and
looking for new people to teach. We had a lesson with Manuel and
Marcos last night. They moved here from Guatemala and the lesson was
okay. Manuel was trying to pay attention and you could tell he could
feel the spirit but Marcos kept telling us we were lost and he needed
to help us. So it was hard to teach a lesson with Marcos telling us we
are lost every other sentence haha!

We had exchanges with Hermana Wilkinson and Hermana Espinoza this
week! They are incredible! I went to Lexington with Hermana Wilkinson
and she is an incredible missionary! She's only been out 7 months and
her Spanish is perfect, she is amazing! We had so much fun and I
learned soooo much from her. Also, we had some mutual friends from
college so it was a lot of fun to talk about that. We're pretty sure
there were a few times we were all hanging out at the same time in
college and we just didn't know each other haha! Small world!

Also, I went to the doctor this week and he said I don't need to get
an MRI because I've made improvement in physical therapy! So I won't
need to come home for surgery or anything! I was given permission to
have three more physical therapy visits and then I'll just have to
keep working on strengthening and stabilizing my shoulder on my own.
He said my shoulder will probably never be the same but I get to stay
on my mission and that's what really matters! Thank you so much
everyone for all of the prayers!

But that was pretty much my week. This morning in my studies I was
reading in Alma 46 all about captain Moroni and the title of liberty.
I used the institute manual as well and I found this quote in there ,
"Improve your community by active participation and service. Remember
in your civic responsibility that ‘the only thing necessary for the
triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing’ (Edmund Burke). … Do
something meaningful in defense of your God-given freedom and
liberty." -Ezra Taft Benson.
That really stuck out to me and I realized how blessed I am to live in
a country where I have freedom of religion and where I have freedom to
share what I know to be true. There's just a quick thought for y'all.

But I hope you have a great week! I love you all very much and I pray
for you always. Make sure you make this week a happy one. Because life
is too short to be anything else.

Con amor,
Hermana Swapp

PS: "For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the
fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the
enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and
becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and
becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love,
willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict
upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father." -Mosiah 3:19



Maribel's Baptism!
 

Hermana Wilkinson!
 

Aulbrey! Just the cutest girl in the ward!

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