July 27, 2015

With the new emailing time, I don’t have a ton of time, so please don’t worry if any of your emails are shorter! I love to hear what’s going on, but don’t feel bad at all if they are just short and just keep me filled in on what’s going on at home and how everyone is doing!!

Attilla is still doing great! He has been reading and praying and said that he knows the Book of Mormon is true. We had a great program last week and he agreed to come to church this week! 

Ferenc is also doing so so great! We taught him the restoration and we were actually so surprised with all of the great comments that he had! For example, we were teaching him about prophets and he said “right, but we gotta remember, he is really just a man. A simple man that has a lot of faith and obedience. What he says comes from God.” Wow, he was so right! He also has been reading and praying daily and came to church! We’re so so happy for him! 

We were meeting with György and he is doing super well! He was asking all about baptism and repentance and the spirit was there really strong. He has had such a hard life and been through things that I can’t even imagine. It is so amazing teaching people like him to learn how to repent and how the Savior’s atonement can bless his life. For someone who has never experienced it before, I am so incredibly excited for him to receive all of the blessings from it! 

haha Part way through the lesson, he stops and tells me he has a question. He said Sister Schnoor, I hope this won’t be too personal, but I’m really curious about something.” I was a little nervous and said, “alright, what is it? He got all serious and asked “are you an Indian?' hahaha So so hard not to laugh and as best as I could, I kept a straight face and told him that no, I am not an Indian! haha I guess all of this heat lately has given me some extra color!!

We had a great zone training this week. It was all about Christ and the power of grace in our lives. I felt the spirit there so strong. I don’t like to talk about the end of my mission, but next week is my “dying transfer!” It will be the last transfer of my mission, last city and last companion.. I don’t like talking about it, but with my mission coming closer and closer to the end, I can’t help but think of the last amazing months that I have had in this country. It has always been so hard for me to express how I feel about my mission, but if anything, I am so incredibly grateful for this amazing experience that I’ve had to be here, to be a representative of our Savior Jesus Christ and to wear his name on my name tag every single day. With learning and talking about Him every day, I can’t help but feel a little overwhelmed, thinking that I am here to do and say what He would say. Those shoes are way too big for me to fill (at least alone), I can’t even begin to do and say all the things that He would. It is easy to feel unworthy or too little at times, but I have seen over and over again on my mission and have learned this lesson time and time again: that our Heavenly Father doesn’t expect us to be perfect, in fact, he expects us to make mistakes, he knows that we’re not perfect and that we’re going to fall short, but what He also expects of us is that we turn to Him when we make mistakes. He will always always be there for us, to comfort us and to strengthen us. That is when we need the amazing power that grace gives us from the Atonement. I can’t tell you exactly how the Atonement works, or exactly what happened in the Garden of Gethsemane, but what I do know, is that it does work. That the Atonement is real and I have felt the effects of it in my life. It has changed my life, it helped me come on my mission and become who I am today. I am so grateful that I will always have it available to me for the rest of my life. 

Have a great week!

Love you!