First full week in Mexico!

Hey everyone! How's it going?

Things in Mexico are pretty alright! I am learning more and more Spanish everyday; I’m practically fluent now! I’m also going to teach an English class too! So yeah, things are turning out cool. I can see that Hermana Call already sent you some emails of us. Yeah, we got a pretty sick house. But it probably wont last too long, I have already seen another missionary home that was probably the ugliest house I’ve ever seen. But it doesn’t bother me. The food and the weather and the people make up for any living condition. To explain my area a little bit, it’s not very hilly. There are lots of buildings, a bit run down. There are trees. We mainly shop at Wal-Mart, its the only place you can buy anything really. My area is all urban. Roads, roads, roads. It’s pretty dry here, and the architecture is probably best described as "so THATS how many houses you can fit into a street.”

We have a pretty nice ward. Crazy thing, we entered the chapel on Wednesday and there was an attempted robbery! Windows were broken, doorknobs broken off, it was a sight. The window at the top of the secretary’s room was broken, but there were iron bars blocking the robber from entering.

The bishop is a cool guy. We always have food, because every day there is a member feeding us, and there are almost always leftovers for breakfast the next morning. So yeah, I have to be careful how much I eat here. Life is good.

We wake up, and get ready till 8am. Then we study for 4 hours. Language, scripture study, teaching study, all that good stuff. Then we leave the apartment and go to our appointments, and we have a lot of appointments. Mainly though, they are with less active or inactive members. They are all so nice, and all of them try to feed us. The area that I live in is called Santa Elena, and the ward we work in is called Joyas. My companion is from México. I forget which part. He’s great, and a real humble guy.  I love him.  Surprisingly, I eat spicier than him. Also I eat spicier than I thought. I visited a family last week and was completely fine, and the other people in the house were freaking out because it was so spicy. Elder Lopez doesn’t eat spicy, so the family declared that I was more Mexican than him. THAT was pretty funny. But yeah, the area is great; the work is great, I’m having the time of my life!

My favorite part of the day is when we step out of our house and start walking, it just feels awesome!

One of the scriptures that i have found that I really like is in Proverbs 4:25-26.

25 Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee.

26 Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established.

I love this, because every night we have a planning session for the next day. It’s pretty important that we do this part with the spirit, because its necessary to know what the Lord wants us to do.

I gotta go now, ill talk to you next week!

Love you!

First Day in Mexico!

I’m going to start writing right now because you are probably going to ask me how I’m doing. 

I’m doing amazing. This mission is amazing. My companion is amazing. my house is amazing. 

Currently I’m in the shop of a partially inactive member on one of their computers. We got here and were given forms we had to fill on the plane to get through customs and to get through the immigration office. i was a bit worried because the instructions we were given were outdated. But fortunately we did everything right and we got into Mexico and I met President Call. President call is amazing. he is the nicest guy, as is his wife. We are allowed to email for an hour AND A HALF on p day, which is today, since today we were told to treat like a normal p day. So I get to email you! Then we went to the mission president’s house and had dinner. It was delicious. We had red rice and beans and enchiladas. Then the president interviewed me and I think I left the best impression possible. Afterwards we were escorted to the mission office. During said escort I learned one thing: Everyone here drives crazy. Like really crazy.  And the funny thing is they don’t have as many accidents as us. Fortunately, we don’t drive ourselves, we take taxis. 

So we got to the mission office, (I had already split from my companions in the MTC) and I acted as a translator for the Elders I was with and the Mexican Elders. I was practically the only bridge over the language barrier. We talked and joked and filled out of ton of paperwork, but we slept real nice. In the morning we went over to the chapel that was nearest, and we had an orientation type thing. While we were waiting for that we all decided just to sing hymns in the middle of the chapel and Hermana Call took a video of it. We were told what address you guys need to send stuff to me, (I don’t have it on me though) and also we learned about how the money works and stuff and we also learned about the presidents a bit. Then I was assigned to my new companion, Elder Lopez. He doesn’t speak almost any English. Fortunately, I speak enough Spanish. He’s only been in the field for 3 months, but he is real awesome. We went to our house and lemme tell you, I got lucky. It’s got an awesome kitchen and its own washing machine and everything. It’s great. We then went to a member’s house to have dinner and we had lentil soup and potato patties and rice and sprite. It was delicious. Then we went to the bishop’s house and I got to meet him. The funny thing is he was sick and my companion and I blessed him with oil. So now I can say I blessed my bishop on my second day. And now we are here in this shop where I am writing you letters. From what I understand the weather is perfect 24/7. It’s beautiful here ( at least compared to Utah.) It’s also really safe in my area, so you don’t have to worry about that.  My P Days are Mondays, but President Call said since we missed yesterday, we could treat today like a P Day.  Also, I have a shower!

God sends his prepared servants to his prepared people. he also sends his prepared servants to his other prepared servants. I know that all these perfect things I’ve gotten and my companion were all given to me for a reason. 'Trust in the lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths' proverbs 3:5-6

This is where I’m supposed to be. I know it. 

I love you!!

MTC: Half way mark!

Hey! It's me again. Happy New Year! Just sitting around at a desk on a computer checking in. It's been pretty fun here. The weeks are getting intense though. We have been studying non-stop, every day. It gets pretty crazy. But it's not too bad. 

So the first thing I would like to get to is sweets. If I could upload pictures, (which I can't, because the computers are not doing that right now, says IT) I would upload the gigantic amount of candies and sweets that I have from all of you. I can't eat all this! I mean, I DO eat all of it, but that isn't really good for myself. Just tone it down on the sweets, words are better than candy. 

Second, thanks for all the letters! I've gotten one from almost all of you *coughrichardandryancough* I really appreciate every letter I get, it makes my day that much better. 

I feel good. It's fun here, and my friends here are cool. But don't think I've forgotten about any of you though! 

Gosh its freezing here. No, for real, everything is freezing over. The water in our creek is frozen, there is still snow here. The snow is nice, I still think it's nice at least. I appreciate the jacket, it's been real warm. 

We have faux investigators that we teach. It's almost a real experience, because the people we teach are practically trained actors. It gets stressful at times, but we have fun with it and learn more from that than anything else. 

I am trying to think of other things to say so desperately. I am having fun. The food is pretty good, today we are going to a place where we can get burgers and cheese steaks. Food is good. I think I've talked about food at least three times in this letter. Let's talk about something else. I want to know what's going on with all yall. Did anything cool happen, did anything blow up? Time here moves by weird, by the way. the days are long, but the weeks go by faster than anything. Spanish is a breeze. I learn all the things that are concepts easier than pie. I mean, If schools did the things we did, they would be mas bien. Its almost weird to type in english because we literally talk and write in Spanish all the time. anyways, that's all I have to report. I'll try and write some written responses to letters I've gotten today, so don't you all worry. I love you all.

-Elder Schuhmacher

MTC, two weeks in.

(I sent him a letter with a list of questions from the family.  Here is his reply.)

I get up at 6:30 every morning, and go to bed at 10:30. The day mainly consists of getting up, getting dressed, eating breakfast, class till lunch, have lunch, study/class till dinner, have dinner, study/class till 9:30, then we plan, then we have an hour of personal time, then we go to bed at 10:30. Its always a full day, because you are always doing something. We eat at 7:00 am, 11:30 am, and 4:30 pm. It is a buffet, but the food is sometimes not desirable. It’s still pretty good though.

I got the Christmas package, thank you so much for it. The cookies were completely fine, and completely delicious. The temple is closed still, so I cant go in it yet…but it reopens before I go. I got the camera, and I already sent pictures! I don't think I need anything, but I will let you know.

My final decision for my mission plaque is the same scripture I first mentioned, Jacob 6:12 (O be wise; What can I say more?)  I have used it thoroughly on this mission, and it is one of my favorites. And a great experience...well, one of the apostles spoke yesterday here. It was Elder Bednar and it was amazing! Our zone had an awesome meeting afterwards and the spirit was the strongest I’ve felt yet. I’ll be back in a bit, I still got a half hour of writing time. I love you! Ill be back soonish.

Love.

Max

(Then I asked him for more details on what he did Christmas Day)

All right! So we went to main campus and had a talent show, which was pretty awesome. There was a sister in our zone that played the fiddle. Then we had a devotional from ELDER BEDNAR! I SAW AN APOSTLE IT WAS SO COOL! Yeah, then we had this jazz concert and lunch.  (The main campus has much better cafeteria than our campus.) Then we watched a movie of the tabernacle choir, which admittedly was pretty boring. But the review we had with our zone after the devotional was awesome! We each took turns saying what we thought. We also got to email our families as well, but for only 20 minutes.  That’s everything on Christmas. 

Tell my friends to send me mail and send it quick, mail is like gold here. Tell EVERYONE TO SEND ME MAIL. I will attempt to find time to send stuff back. 

I got to go, I’ll talk to you next week!  I’m all good! Completely good. Getting packages of a little food here and there would be good as well. (I’m starting to lose weight, actually.) I love you!  And here are some pictures!

Christmas Letter

SO Christmas has been cool, our zone had a little celebration last night having egg nog and such. I’m having an awesome time. Also, I get to email you tomorrow for my p-day, so that's cool.

I haven't been over eating. I have restricted myself to not eat a lot. So that's one thing.

y la lingua esta mas facil para aprender, en mi cabesa. hablo en espanol mas bien en tres dias que tres anos.

Anyways, it’s been a blast.  The MTC is cool. I've made a lot of friends, I’m a district leader, and yeah. I can’t really think of much else to say. Today an apostle is coming and we get to see him. Also apparently its going to be broadcast, so I don’t know if you guys can see it. What else, oh yeah…please just put this email address on my Facebook, and also inform everyone on my Facebook about dearelder.com. dearelders come on the same day you type the letter because they print them out, but you gotta type them before 2:00pm. But yeah, I think it would be awesome if everybody could email me and send dear elders.

I feel as though I’m finally starting to feel the mission spirit. I’m happier than I’ve ever been out here right now. I've had some rough spots, mainly with the teaching in another language, but I’m getting through. My teachers are the coolest people in the world. We have two main-ish teachers, Hermano Finnly and Hermano Byrd. They are both hilarious and awesome, and I learn so much from them. We had one of the seventy talk today, so we got to listen to him and his wife. (Although we were expecting elder Holland) it was still an awesome talk. As I sit here in this weird little apartment on a computer, I want to write more, but I cant think of much. The Spanish is good. The food is good. The spirit is great. The friendships are great. The teachers are great. That's almost it.

ASK ME QUESTIONS. That will help. I’ve got 9 minutes left though, so if you are up on Tuesday at 6:41, lemme know.

Oh also tell Omi and Lisa I sent them an email a while ago, I don’t know if they check it at all.

So yeah, just tell everyone that I love em, and that I miss em. You guys'll have a blast anyways. Christmas is always the best. Sorry I can’t be there to share it with you guys! It’ll be just as awesome without me though. I hear families of missionaries get all the best blessings. So yeah.

Vos amo, y feliz navidad.

First letter from the MTC!

Hey Mom! So I got a lot to say, and an hour to say it. So heeerreee we go!

1. I sent you a letter. Thought you would've gotten it by now, but I guess not. I'm only allowed to send email on p-day, which is today, a Thursday. So yeah, that’s when I can send emails. 

2. So some bad news. I can't call you while I'm at the MTC on Christmas. It’s because we don't have the facilities to do that? I don’t know. It’s stupid, I know, but we can still email and send letters.

3. How I'm doing. I am doing just amazingly. Right as I left, I got a shiny new badge and a bunch of other stuff. The Spanish is going phenomenally. I've learned more Spanish in a week than I have in three years. And I speak it all the time. I’m happy, I’m healthy, and I got some great companions. I have two, surprisingly. We are a trio. Trios aren’t that common, but someone in our district didn’t show up on arrival day, so I have two. It’s awesome. Plus there are two other guys in my district that are just as awesome. Annnnyways, I’ll talk about them a bit. First there is Elder N. He is from Texas. Before he came to the MTC, he went to BYU Idaho. He's told me a lot about the place. He's blonde, a little short, and has hearing problems, so he uses hearing aids. He's real awesome. My other companion is Elder B. He’s from Utah. He's really tall, and the funniest guy here. He also has a missing tooth, and wears a fake one. So yeah, those are my companions. They are awesome. Then there is the two other elders in my district, Elder H and Elder D. They are also just as awesome. Elder H is from California, but from San Diego I think. He's a real fitness buff, but he’s also really cool and a nice guy. Elder D is from Utah as well, and he is probably the most sophisticated among us, and he is pretty smart. All in all, we love each other already, and its awesome. Another thing is that I have already been assigned to a leadership position. Crazy, huh? I’m the District Leader. The order of grouping goes District, Zone, Branch. I’m the leader of the five guys in my district; which is small, but amazing nonetheless. There are two districts in our zone, and the other district is great. The Zone Leaders are also awesome. Honestly, I couldn’t ask to be in a better position than I am now. And we have we have the best branch presidency. I love all of them. They are awesome. 

4. I love you! I need the emails of my friends though, because I don’t remember most of them. Hope you get this, because that’s all I got. 

Forever lovin ya,

ELDER Schuhmacher

P.P.S. Btw, is one of those presents a camera? Because I would very much be liking to use that now. Also tell everybody I love them, and that I’m doing everything I can to be the best that I can be. Love ya!