My Knees are Brown and Crusty

THESE ARE SOME PHOTOS LET ME TELL YOU A LITTLE ABOUT THE PEOPLE IN THEM

[She didn't actually tell anything about them except for the last one - a little.] :)

This appears to be an MTC phys ed activity

All the members of the Chile MTC

Okay so on the last photo in the middle crouching down with his arms out is Elder Perrier and he is like my beST FRIEND AND HE LEFT TODAY TO GO TO HIS MISSION AND HE´S IN OESTE (you don´t have to include all of this information in the caption, just that he´s my buddy) and he´s the one that´s from Switzerland and speaks only French and he´s become like a brother to me. Obviously he could never replace my real brothers, but he´s as close as it gets down here. He and the elder to the right is Elder Tardencilla and he is also amazing. I´ve only known him for two weeks, but he´s going to be an awesome missionary. I am seriously so blessed to be here with all these awesome Hermanas and Élderes; they´re like my brothers and sisters away from home and they are all amazing. I am quite grateful :) but anyway, I have more pictures to upload and an actual email to write; just a mo

OKAY SO LET ME JUST TELL YOU ALL ABOUT WHAT HAS HAPPENED THIS WEEK MAYBE IF I CAN REMEMBER

First I want to say that these weeks have seriously gone by so quickly, it´s not even funny. I´m starting my 5th week in Chile today.

Let me say that again:

I´m starting my 5th week in Chile today. 

Yeah, this is crazy. The days sometimes go by so slowly but then suddenly it´s P-Day again and it feels like I was writing to you and out shopping and stuff literally yesterday, but tis not true. Our investigators and teachers for the last two weeks have been absolutely amazing; they have challenged me in ways that I didn´t know I could be challenged. I don´t remember if I mentioned this before, but we had an investigator named Carla that was becoming a bit of a trial of our faith (we found out that Carla is actually CCM famous for being terribly difficult to deal with) and so one day, after struggling to find out what her need was and teach according to that need, we asked our teacher (who was portraying her) for help and she advised us to go into a lesson without a plan, which was hard for Hermana Paulson and I because we really like to have a plan. 

So, we went in without a plan. And we just talked with her. And we cried a lot and it was somewhat accidental but we cried a whole dang lot and the Spirit was very strong and long story short, after our next lesson, she literally asked us if she could be baptized. 

Let me repeat that:

She asked us if she could be baptized. 

Right at the beginning of the lesson, too. I think our problem was that we knew that Carla was hard to teach and it was making it hard for us to love her as much as we could, but with that lesson/not lesson both Hna. Paulson and I realized that we really did love her, even if she was only being portrayed by our teacher. Andrew talked to me about loving the people before I left and I have taken that to heart and it has made all the difference. These people aren´t real, but the people that I meet in the field will be. If I can´t love my investigators here in the CCM, how much harder will it be for me to love them later? 

Mmkay, I apologize in advance because my thoughts are basically everywhere, so this is going to be a roller-coastery email (very much like every other email I´ve sent so far). 

Now I´m going to talk about conference! I´m not sure exactly what I´m going to say about conference though because there were so many things and I have about twenty pages of notes, so yeah, but let me just tell you how all that went down. Basically, conference didn´t start until 13:00 here because of the time difference and all, so we had classes in the morning (and between sessions) and then went and watched in the institute (perhaps I should mention that there are five basic buildings here: the institute, the CCM, la capilla, the temple of course, and Hospedaje [which is where most missionaries stay]) and it was just so amazing! I know a lot of the missionaries were getting restless because all the talks seemed to be about marriage and family, but I personally found that they were exactly what I needed to hear and they were more than applicable to not only myself, but especially to my future investigators. I especially liked the talk by Linda K. Burton about brothers, fathers, husbands, and priesthood holders in general. She talked about what we can do to strengthen our relationships with our companions and even though she was talking about marital companions, everything she said was highly applicable to mission companions, or really companions of any type. She reminded me to speak words of kindness often and to seek the help of the Holy Ghost to do so. 

I also really enjoyed Kevin W. Pearson´s talk; it had so many little nuggets of happiness in it. I don´t have much time to discuss it right now, but I highly recommend looking up all the conference talks and watching or reading them after they come out. This conference was really amazing. 

I also wanted to apologize for not seeming like I say a lot about the things that happen at home: I don´t mean to not address those things, I love hearing things so much but once I hear your things I just immediately want to talk about all of my things too :)

I´M SO GLAD JEFFREY AND MY KITTIES LOVE EACH OTHER YAYAYAYAYAY I LOVE MY KITTIES SO MUCH I LOVE KITTIES AND THERE´S A KITTY THAT ROAMS THE TEMPLE GARDEN ALL THE TIME AND JUST HANGS OUT AND HE´S SO CUTE AND I DON´T EVER TOUCH HIM BUT THE OTHER DAY SOMEBODY TRIED TO PUSH HIM INTO THE FOUNTAIN AND I SAVED HIM SO THERE´S THAT 

So yeah. I bought some gummy worms last Tuesday in honor of Jeffrey and I also found some peach rings but they were way expensive (I´m sorry Robby) and I also bought Tabasco to honor Andrew and yeah I don´t know what I´m saying I´ve got so many thoughts in my head right now

We moved again today! We moved from the Birdhouse (which we nicknamed the Birdshack for reasons) into the Ghost Room! Woohoo! Hnas Palmer and Hokanson were in there last and they said that they would wake up and their watches would be on different times and the wall clock would always change, so really looking forward to that, but at least we´re inside the house again! I should mention that it was way fun being in the Birdshack because I can make my bird call noise with my hands so I would make it whenever the Elderes were in the courtyard and they would start looking in the trees and stuff and it was such a good time, but anyway...

I don´t really know what else to say. 

I´m at a loss for words.

Which is strange.

OH LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THIS LANGUAGE

Okay so Spanish. I think I´ve successfully learned all the principles of Spanish and endings that I need to know, but the application is the hard part. Hna Paulson and I have made it a goal to try to speak only in Spanish ever so that we won´t be brain dead when we get into the field. We talk with all kinds of people in the temple square and on the streets and I FORGOT TO TELL YOU BUT I TOOK A TAXI LAST P-DAY HOLY CANNOLI I TOOK

A 

TAXI

AND NOBODY ELSE COULD FIND THE SPANISH WORDS IN THEIR MINDS SO I HAD TO TELL HIM WHERE WE WANTED TO GO AND ALL THIS STUFF AND IT WAS SO STRESSFUL AND SO AMAZING AND WE´RE GONNA DO IT AGAIN TODAY WOOOOHOOOOO

That brings up another point though: Hermana Paulson is such a sweet girl. She just is very sweet. She´s from Idaho Falls and grew up there and was born in Utah and is pure bred Mormon, and so are the rest of the hermanas in my district.

Which means that every time we go out into the street on P-Day they are scared out of their minds because the people are not all Mormons and it has been very interesting for me because the people on the street to me don´t even seem as scary as the people on the streets of Manitou Springs: they´re all really nice as a matter of fact, but all of my hermanas are afraid. It´s been... well the only word to describe it is interesting. I don´t have a whole lot of world/street experience or anything, but when I stand next to them, I look like I´ve grown up in the streets. 

That didn´t come out the way I meant it to.

But you understand.

[I'm so glad to know that my daughter is the one with "street cred." :) haha]

Anyway, it´s been fun with them. I´m very grateful for the new perspectives they open my mind up to.

Okay, I have a couple of other emails to write and though I hate to go, I must. I love you all! 

OH YEAH FOR EASTER ELDER AND SISTER JACOBSON WROTE OUR NAMES ON PLASTIC EGGS WITH CANDY INSIDE AND HID THEM AROUND ALCANTARA AND WE HAD TO FIND THEM AND IT WAS SO MUCH FUN HOLY CANNOLI 

But anyway, I love you all! Have a wonderful week; I´ll try to get some letters in the mail soon, but I have very little time to write them, so we´ll see how that goes. 

Nos vemos; ciao for now!

Until we meet again,

Hermana Schomburg

(also Momma, please title this email ´my knees are brown and crusty´ on account of the fact that we pray on our knees for every single prayer (and we pray before and after everything))

The first Chilean empanada

“Ye shall go forth in the power of my Spirit, preaching my gospel, two by two, in my name, lifting up your voices as with the sound of a trump, declaring my word like unto angels of God” (D&C 42:6).