El Reino Celestial

So you all know, I have been transferred to paradise.  Literally, this place is like the celestial kingdom.  It is BEAUTIFUL.  Our piso is about a 2-minute walk from the ocean.  It is normally about 75-80 degrees and there is always an ocean breeze blowing.  All the buildings and everything are super colorful and most people live up in the hills/mountains so everyone has a view of the ocean out their windows.  It´s incredible.  

And I have to say it is really nice to be able to speak English with my companion.  We´re going to try and speak in Spanish most of the time but I needed a week break to remember how to talk to my companion in my native language!  Hermana Floyd and I get along really well and even though we´re both pretty new and don´t always know exactly what we´re doing, we are capable enough to teach in unity by the Spirit and our investigators can feel that, even if they can´t totally understand everything we´re saying.  It´s really cool to see how capable I am when I have to be the one that knows Spanish.  Neither one of us is senior companion, so we´re just being awesome over here in Las Palmas.  The elders in our branch are also from our MTC group.  Heavenly Father has a lot of trust in us to do some awesome things here.

And speaking of awesome things, WE HAVE A BAPTISM ON WEDNESDAY!!! His name is Jaime and he´s 41 and from Ecuador.  He is INCREDIBLE.  I first met him last Monday night at FHE and if Hermana Floyd hadn´t already told me about him, I would have thought he was a member.  He was quoting Elder Holland´s last two conference talks to me.  He has the strongest testimony I have ever seen in all my life. He is so ready to get baptized!

Also, we have a fecha (baptismal date, for those of you who don´t speak Spanish) with Julio, for August 17.  And to explain about Julio, I´m going to talk for a minute about the Buhlers.  The Buhlers are the senior couple here, and they are the coolest people I have ever met.  Every Wednesday for district meeting Hna. Buhler makes us American food.  And it tastes SO good just because it is American!  She is a lifesaver, seriously.  

But back to Julio.  So Hna. Buhler teaches an English class here every Tuesday and Thursday night.  About 30 people usually come. Julio was one of the first ones to come, and one day he just asked Hermana Floyd, "You guys have scripture study classes too, right?  I want to go to those."  And so the hermanas started teaching him.  He is really cool and has a really strong testimony too.  He is Peruvian and his wife is from "The Peninsula" which means mainland Spain.  He was just investigating by himself but now he´s been bringing his wife to church with him too!

I don´t have time to tell you about all our other investigators, but here´s a list:

Jaime

Julio

Susi

Harrison

Linda

Dilcia, Marvin, Georgina

Claudia, Gianni

Dora

Guillermo

Our main thing right now is to look for new investigators, so we´re going to try and work with the ward to find some less actives or part member families to teach.  Our branch has more than 600 members, but only about 120 come to church every week.

I exhort you ALL to google earth my address.  And also, if you want to send me something PLEASE send it here because if it gets sent to the mission office I will not see it for probably 6 months.  

ADDRESS in LAS PALMAS:

Hermana Lara Schaumann

C/ Leon y Castillo 111, 4ºC

35004 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

SPAIN

Cambios!!!!

I´m going to Las Palmas in Gran Canaria and it´s going to be amazing.  My companion is Hermana Floyd, who was in the MTC with me.  We were FB friends before the mission and everything. I feel so loved and known by my Heavenly Father and this change is in answer to months of earnest and faithful prayers. My companion is still staying in Torrejon with one of the sisters who lived in our piso my first transfer.  

I am just so happy I could die.  Scott, I want to know exactly where you were in the Canarias.  I´m super excited.

If you sent me a personal email this week, I can´t answer it right now, but I´ll get back to you either when I get to the islands or next week.  

WOOHOO I AM SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!

muchisimo amor,

Hermana Lara Schaumann

Later that day.......;)

So as it turns out we´re here at the airport 2 and a half hours early, and so we´re going to email again now.

Our week was pretty good.  We were a little stressed about transfers, but it still went well. 

Nothing really exciting or important happened to the weekend.  On Friday we had a lesson with a new investigator named Paola who is from Columbia.  She has a friend who lives in the US in Iowa who speaks Spanish, and she was asking if I knew him.  She met him because she is a professional cake decorator and she was trying to order a cricut machine from the US, and he was the employee who could speak Spanish and talk to her.  She was explaining this story and told us that he knew Spanish because he had served a mission in Argentina. Of course, we asked if he was LDS, and she said she didn´t know.  She got online and sent him a message to ask him, and he is!  She has had wonderful experiences with him and even without talking about the church specifically he has been a great missionary in her life.  Hopefully she will continue to progress well!

Saturday was a fundraiser barbecue for the youth to raise money for EFY, and before it even started we had 2 lessons with other new investigators.  Rafael is Spanish (which is a big deal because we NEVER teach Spaniards) and he told us he feels like his life is missing something.  He´s ready to change and learn and do what he needs to find the emotional, spiritual, and temporal stability he´s lacking right now. I felt a wonderful spirit in our lesson with him.  The other new one is Javier, and he´s from Ecuador and is super curious to learn about everything.  I hope he will be willing to put in the effort to actually gain his testimony, because he was a little wishy-washy on that. The barbecue was SUPER fun, and our investigator Andres (the 17 year-old) was there helping out the entire time.  He is a great kid and hopefully he´s going to get baptized in August when he turns 18!

After the barbecue we had a baby shower for a recent convert and after that we went to Jhony and Alba´s house, where I made rice krispie treats that turned out blue-green because plain white marshmallows are not sold at Carrefour. But it still tasted the same, so I consider this a job well done. We were there late at night, and we were waiting to find out about transfers.  We were all super nervous and pacing and we kept waiting and waiting and the email didn´t come. Finally the food was ready so we all sat down at the table and were ready to eat (keep in mind this is at 10:30 at night and that is a normal mealtime here) and the phone rang.  We said the prayer and then Elder Baker told us about transfers.  I was really nervous because I had been praying really, REALLY hard for one specific thing this transfer, and I was scared that I wasn´t going to get it.  He started out and he was joking about himself and his companion, like "Elder W is going to...Coslada, San Fernando, and Torrejon!"  So when he said "Hermana Schaumann is going to...las..." I was expecting some joke because I´ve only been in Torrejon for 2 transfers and I wasn´t going to leave.  But then he said "Las...Palmas" and I just about fell out of my chair.  Hna. Vouemba was in Las Palmas before she came to Torrejon and so I knew where it was. Then he didn´t know who my companion was and I had to call the zone leaders to ask them.  It took like 20 minutes to get in contact with them.  It was crazy.  But then I found out that I´ll be with Hermana Floyd and it´s going to be awesome. We´re going to have a crazy time. I AM SO EXCITED.  Jhony and Alba were super excited for me.  They are so great.

On Sunday the whole ward was shocked that I was the one going and not my companion, but they were all sad to see me go.  Mom, if you have a bunch of friend requests in my Facebook from people in Spain, please accept them for me. :)

Sunday we had a lesson with Teresa.  I had already planned what I wanted to talk about, and so we read scriptures about the love of God and I bore my testimony to her that she is important to God and that He loves her and we love her and even just in thinking about her we know she´s important to God.  I had never felt the Spirit so strongly in a lesson, and I don´t think she had either.  She´s usually pretty quiet and relaxed, but as I was asking her questions and sharing my testimony, she just started to bawl.  She just sat there crying and crying and I knew she could feel what I was saying and she knew it was true.  We set a baptismal date with her for August 18th, so hopefully that will go through.  It was awesome and exactly what I needed to feel satisfied leaving Torrejon. 

Also on Sunday I really wanted to see Gaby before I left but it was getting late and I had to go pack, so we were going home, and I ran into her and her parents in the Plaza! and so I got the chance to say goodbye to them.  It was awesome. Definitely an answer to prayers!

Anyway, I´m pretty much out of time, but here you get an actual update, and I will write you again with Hermana Floyd in Las Palmas!

WOOHOO!

la misionera mas contenta y animada en el mundo,

Hermana Lara Schaumann

We can't do this alone....

We had a lot of lessons this week, again, but we didn´t get ANY contacts.  2 for the whole week.  I was a little ashamed to tell that to our district leader. But it was okay because we had 10 lessons with members present.  I increased my testimony of inviting investigators to ward activities.  We had a lot of investigators that came to our Spanish cooking class or our FHE and it was really cool. 

But what I want to talk about today is Carmen.  I don´t know if I´ve mentioned her before or not...sorry, I´m just going to repeat her whole story. 

Carmen is Spanish and a less-active sister who went less active 10 years ago when her husband suddenly died.  He wasn´t very old but he suddenly got sick and while the doctors were still trying to figure out what was wrong with him and were assuring her that he still had a while to live, he just suddenly died. She lost a lot of faith in God and was also offended that the members of the ward didn´t come to visit or help her, and so she just stopped coming. My companion found her on the ward list with her old companion and started to visit her.  She was always nice and receptive, and knew the church was true and liked to listen to us, and would sometimes come to activities, but didn´t really have interest in coming to church.   Then for the summer she started to have more time for us to come by and so we came more often to answer her questions about her scripture study and to talk with her son, who isn´t a member.  Then 3 weeks ago I looked over in church and there she was, just sitting on the front row.  My jaw hit the ground and I think I might have smacked my companion in the arm kind of hard.  We were shocked because we hadn´t invited her or anything.  She just showed up.  She only stayed for Sacrament Meeting but still.  It was amazing.  We went to visit her a few days later and she just said that she had realized that she can´t do this alone.  Just her faith and scripture study aren´t going to save her.  She needs to renew her covenants and be strengthened by the other members in the ward. It was amazing to hear her say that and to see her faith.  She´s been coming to church still and yesterday stayed the entire block.  We got to sit next to her in Relief Society and it was the best feeling in the world.  She´s also really excited that we are teaching her son and I know that she wants so badly for her family to come back to the church.  Her older kids are also less active and she feels responsible for having pulled them away from the church.  But every time we´re with her, I just know that they´re going to come back.  Her kids will see her example and remember what it feels like.  Her son will get baptized.  She has so much faith that the miracles are going to flock to her. I have been so blessed for seeing the miracle of her change of heart. 

As for other news, nothing much different with our other investigators.  Transfers are next Monday, so Sunday we´re going to find our what our fates will be.  And we get to do it with Jhony and his family!!  One of the Elders in our ward is the district leader, so he has to go to check online what the transfers are before he can call us to tell us.  And Jhony has internet, and he invited us all over for a dinner/FHE/transfer surprise at his house on Saturday night.  And he had the presence of mind to invite an investigator!  I cannot even put into words how much I love Jhony and his family.  They are the best.  I am so excited.  And I sort of accidentally volunteered myself to make rice krispie treats for it.  At least they are ridiculously easy to make and I can´t mess up the recipe.  And they have butter, marshmallows, and rice krispies in Spain. :)

I love you all and I hope you have a wonderful week. 

Keep Carmen and her family in your prayers! 

-Hermana Lara Schaumann

Back Up to Speed...July 8

And finally, today's email:

As predicted, we had even more lessons this week than last week.  The weird thing was that I didn´t feel like we had more lessons. A lot of our appointments fell through and we were lacking in our daily goals.  But as it turned out, we had 3 more lessons this week than last.  I don´t understand anything. 

And...we didn´t end up having a baptism yesterday.  It ended up being that we really wanted it but it was for us more than for the people who are getting baptized.  I had to put into perspective my motives for getting this baptism and realized that Miguel couldn´t be entirely prepared in that time, and it would end up being too rushed and not the way he needs it to happen.  We think Miguel should be ready by this coming Sunday.  He has a lot of interest and he´s reading and progressing well, and he has wonderful questions, but our lessons with him are SUPER hard because his two little boys who are 5 and 1 are ALWAYS in there playing and crying and screaming and it is SO hard to feel the Spirit and to know what to say to him.  He was going to pray this weekend (and I hope he did!) to ask specifically if Heavenly Father wants him to get baptized.  I feel confident that he will get that answer and be prepared to get baptized this weekend.  

As far as Clelia and Andrea...it would be nice if we could actually have a lesson with them.  She always tells us that she doesn´t have time.  I just want to bear my testimony to her.  That´s it. I´m praying that she will let us in this week!

My exchange was a little taste of heaven.  Hermana Judy is the best teacher I have ever seen teach.  When she introduces the Book of Mormon to someone or shares her testimony or even just talks to them, her whole face is lit up with love and happiness.  What we were teaching was the love and reality of Christ.  The words literally flowed out of my mouth in a way I had not experienced before.  I felt so happy and refreshed.  I felt free to bear my heart and to show the people we were teaching that this is real and true.  I wanted to talk because I wanted to add my witness to what Hermana Judy was saying.  At the end of the day she told me I was a very good teacher and I felt so flattered to hear that praise from the best teacher in the world.  Also, Alcalá is really pretty and I loved getting to know it a little better. :)

Thursday we had Zone Conference and it was INCREDIBLE.  At the beginning we all got to stand up and sing The Star-Spangled Banner and it was awesome.  Truth is I really miss America sometimes. :)  The theme of the conference was miracles and I felt so strongly that we are entitled to them as servants of the Lord.  We got to listen to a few missionaries share miracles that had happened to them and it was amazing.  Not surprisingly, I cried pretty much the whole time. We started and ended the conference watching a clip from the John Tanner story, the part at the beginning when he wants to get baptized but can´t because his leg is seriously damaged and he can´t even walk.  Of the two missionaries teaching him, the one who invites him to get baptized is initially dissapointed when he says he can´t get baptized, but his companion recognizes that this is an opportunity to work a miracle.  He asks him if he believes that Christ healed the lame like it says in the Bible.  He then bears testimony of the complete restoration of the gospel, and asks John Tanner if he believes that this healing power is a part of the restored gospel and if he has faith that he can be healed.  John Tanner´s eyes get wide and he says "Yes.  Yes I do."  And then the missionary stands up and commands him in the name of Jesus Christ to get up and walk.  And he stands up and throws aside his crutches and walks across the room.  I started crying so hard at this because I could feel that that power is still the same today as it was then.  We still have the power to heal and change lives and work MIRACLES because we have the power of God in His restored gospel.  This is REAL.  It is.  I know it with every fiber of my being and I cannot deny it. 

The rest of our investigators are progressing decently, nothing too dramatic, and I don´t feel like they´re ready to get baptized quite yet.  Keep praying for them, especially for Miguel, Clelia, Andrea, Luz, Teresa, Hazzell, and Andrei.  I´m sure they will get baptized sometime soon. :)

I surprised my companion with a birthday cake and ice cream for her birthday on Friday and we had a good busy day.  Saturday we really had a party and birthday lunch with Jhony and Alba, who are still my favorites.  I love listening to them and talking to them.  They know the gospel is true like I know it is true.  They are an incredible family and every time I talk with them I have this desire and the faith that one day I´m going to find a family like theirs to teach the gospel to and to baptize.  I know I will.  I love this work so much. I can´t even express how much I love it or how much I love my Savior.  He is REAL and I LOVE HIM.

Have a wonderful week!  Hopefully this email will actually go through... :)

con un testimonio inquebrantable, 

Hermana Lara Schaumann

Catching up....July 1

And here is July 1st:

This week we were jam-packed with lessons.  We didn´t have time to contact, even in between lessons, because we were running all over the place going from one appointment to the next.  And from the looks of it, this next week is going to be even more crazy.  

Today we´re all going to have a picnic/water fight/I don´t know what in the Parque de Retiro for the 4th of July.  It should be super fun.  Then on Wednesday we have exchanges, and I have to leave Torrejon to go to Alcala for the day.  My companion is planning on heading to Campo Real.  And Thursday we have Zone Conference in Pavones, which is where the temple is.  That should be really fun.  Friday is my companion´s birthday!  And we´ll be in Paracuellos with one of my favorite families in the ward.  Paracuellos is even further than Campo Real, so we´ll probably spend more or less the whole day there.  Aah we´re going to be busy!

Andrei finally came to church yesterday, after 2 weeks without seeing anything of him.  He found a job, which is good for him, but now he works all day every day, and it´s hard for him to even get away to go to church. He said he´s still been reading the Book of Mormon, though, which is good.

We saw Luz on Friday and she said she´s going to try to get her schedule changed to be able to come to church.  She has to come at least twice before she can get baptized, and so we hope she can come so she can still get baptized on her date, which is the 21 of July.  She has a lot of faith, so I think this should be able to work for her.  We´ll see her again today, and I´m excited to hear her news about her schedules. 

Teresa is still progressing really well.  She´s reading the Book of Mormon and praying about it, and we´re currently teaching her nephew, Joel, along with her.  They came to a Family Home Evening that we did in the chapel (and 22 people came!  3 of them were our investigators!) and Joel came to our English class on Wednesday and to play soccer and basketball with the ward on Friday.  He is 9, and he has an incredible enthusiasm to come to activities and to listen to us and to read the scriptures.  He always requests scriptures to read and study, and he has marking pencils and everything.  He's awesome.  We still haven´t gotten a date for Teresa, but we´re not sure we want to set one yet because our recent convert Alejandro used to be good friends with her and he told us of a stumbling block with her that we have to watch out for.  We´re going to talk with her and make sure things are still that way, but if they are, we´re going to have to work with her for a good while before she can get baptized. So keep her especially in your prayers.

We have new investigator named Hazzell (just say Hazel) who is Nicaraguan, and she lives in the same piso with one of the elders´ investigators.  It´s crazy because we got her reference from elders from a different area who contacted her in the metro.  I guess there´s something special with that piso.  She has good potential, but the problem with her is that she lives in Coslada, which is 30-40 minutes from Torrejon, so we can´t visit her very often because we rarely have time to go to Coslada and back. So hopefully she will keep doing well and will be able to come to church and activities. 

This past week we had a zone meeting that was really powerful. President and Sister Jackson were there, and our zone leaders talked about faith, hope, and charity, and how we can use these to be better missionaries.  They told us that they had been challenged in a leadership meeting on Tuesday to challenge someone to be baptized last Saturday.  And they did it, and the person got a testimony that the gospel is true and she´s going to get baptized this Saturday.  Our sister leaders also did this, but their baptism worked out for last Saturday.  They, in turn, challenged us to do the same thing for this coming Saturday.  And we´re going to do it!  We have 3 candidates.  

The first 2 are a mother and daughter named Clelia and Andrea.  Clelia is married to an active member and has been investigating the church for years and comes every week and has a testimony that it is true, but she´s stubborn and wants to feel specifically in her heart some magical feeling that she needs to get baptized.  We have been praying and fasting for her to be able to know that she needs to do it, and we want her to do it this week. Her daughter also comes to church, and if her mother gets baptized, most likely she will follow.  She´s 9. 

The other candidate (our backup plan) is Miguel, the husband of an active member.  He also has been investigating for years and he comes to church but he never progressed with the missionaries. He just got back last week from 2 or 3 months working in the Dominican Republic and he told us that he´s changed a lot.  He´s stopped looking for happiness in the things of the world, because he´s realized that his family is the most important.  And what more can you do to bless your family than be baptized and hold the priesthood.  His wife got her patriarchal blessing on Saturday and he went with her.  I wouldn´t be surprised if there was a promise to her that she will have an eternal family sealed in the temple, and I´m sure that if that was in there, it must have touched him deeply. 

So I solicit your prayers most of all this week for Clelia, Andrea, and Miguel.  One or two or maybe all of them are going to get baptized this weekend!  I know they are ready and I know the Lord loves them and wants them to do this, and I have the faith that it is 100% possible. And not only is it completely possible, but it´s going to happen! 

Wow that was a really long email.  Sorry. 

I love you all and I´m praying for you!  Have a wonderful week!

con un monton de fe, amor, y esperanza,

Hermana Lara Schaumann

Triumph Over Computer Glitches! From June 24

We had not received Lara's emails for today and the previous two Mondays, due to some unknown glitch.  They were being returned to her, and we weren't getting them.  Here comes the catch-up!  

June 24---

*****************************************

I had definitely thought of a lot of things to say in this letter and now that I´m sitting down to write it my mind is completely blank. 

This week was pretty good.  The temperatures cooled down a bit and we didn´t roast any time we stepped outside, which is always nice.  

We had a bunch of lessons this week with Teresa.  She is amazing.  Yesterday she made sure to arrange to have her nephew visiting when we came so he could talk to us as well.  On Tuesday we taught her the Restoration, and it was the best Restoration lesson we´ve ever taught.  We could feel the Spirit immensely, and at the end of the lesson she was looking at us, her eyes glowing, and she said that she felt so filled.  That sometimes you listen to people preach and it´s like they´re just saying words, but sometimes you listen to them and you feel full and happy and at peace, and that was how she felt with us.  

Let´s talk for a second about the Restoration video.  We love using this video because it´s powerful.  It always brings the Spirit and it always touches people´s hearts in a way that just our words can´t do.  But Satan also knows it´s powerful, and he does not like it one bit.  Every time we watch this, something bad happens.  Let´s list them: 

1) the DVD player will not function  

2) the remote control won´t let us move around on the menu screen to change the language  

3) the DVD freezes up halfway through 

4) someone rings the doorbell or comes into the room during the First Vision scene  

5) the phone rings right as the First Vision starts.

That´s what happened with Teresa.  Right at the beginning of the First Vision scene, her phone rang.  But it didn´t work because she still felt the Spirit strongly.  Haha, Satan, you can´t win.

Even though she can´t come to church very easily with her mother at home, really sick, she wants to come so badly.  She told us she was going to try her hardest to come but then her mom had a bad night and she didn´t want to leave her alone even for a little while to come to Sacrament Meeting.  

We had our first lesson with Jorge and he brought a friend with him!  And turns out his friend lives on the same floor of the same building where a couple from our ward live!  I´m excited to teach more lessons to the two of them!

And yeah, Mom, thanks for mentioning the missionary broadcast.  We don´t get to watch it until next week, so I have no idea what it says.  Now I´m going to be waiting anxiously to watch it...

A little note for all of you-- if you want me to get your letters without having to wait 3-6 weeks, please send them to my piso.  The address is

Avenida de la Alcarria 9, 1º D

28806 Alcalá de Henares

Madrid

SPAIN

That being said, we have zone meeting this Wednesday, so I should be getting all my mail from the mission office then. 

We didn´t see Andrei or Luz at all this week, because they both work all day, every day.  Hopefully we can see them!  I hate not being able to see my investigators.

Updated list of investigators--

Andrei

Luz

Teresa, Alejandra, Joel

Jorge, José

Nora

Marisol

Nefí

...and I think that´s it.  We had to drop a ton of people this week because we can´t ever get in contact with them or they just aren´t interested.

And before you ask, Nefí is the son of a less active sister in the ward.  He´s 23 or 24, I think.  We´re going to have a FHE with him, his mom, and his older sister and her family sometime soon.

Well, I think that´s about it for Torrejón.  I´ll let you know what else starts to develop this week!

con cariño,

Hermana Lara Schaumann