Kai Clips

Subject: Danger Zone (8/12/24)

Finished my sister mission! I hit 18 months :)

Welp, had alcohol during the mission, who puts alcohol in Peaches!? The menu didn't say anything about it I swear!

Besides that fun situation during our lunch today we've had a very exciting week! For the first time in our month together in Palmira (Elder Scott hit a month in the mission! Yippee!) we went to Barriales, an area much calmer and further south than the city of Palmira itself. A member accompanied us and showed us where the majority of the member families live, there are only a few (for a the moment >:) ). It's a truly beautiful little city, one of the members lives 5km from the nearest bus stop and has a boat that he takes people fishing on on the lake nearby, I also learned that Argentinian fishing boats have grills to make asado, obviously.

We were running around a lot doing baptismal interviews as well, despite being the smallest zone, comprising only one district, we have the highest baptismal goal for the month of August with the hope that 15 souls will make a covenant with their Heavenly Father. Natasha Suarez was baptized Sunday afternoon! We're also seeing the fruits of our obedience, we wanted to stop by and visit the Suarez family but there was no adult male to accompany us. Despite the insistence of the family that we could enter the home and that it wasn't anything serious, or that the rest of the missionaries had done the same, we stood our ground and did all we could to find a man to accompany us. Searching for said members we ended up finding Ulysses and Joni, they couldn't accompany us, but we put Ulysses on date for baptism! It was a very exciting moment. After a long wait we finally found Luis, he accompanied us, we entered, drank some mate cocido, bizcochuelo, and heard a powerful testimony. After the lesson he gave us 3 great references and let us know his brother wants to be baptized! The fruits and miracles of obedience are so flipping real.

Another big highlight was getting a tiny book of Mormon that I can now use proselytizing, super epic.

By far the biggest highlight of the week was participating in the Missionary choir in preparation for the Mendoza Temple's open house. We sang incredible hymns, got to perform in la plaza de independencia (Mendoza's most central Plaza) with a great sound rig and were put practically on center stage in downtown mendoza on a saturday morning. The last two hymns were "Me encanta ver el templo" (I love to see the Temple) and "Las Familias Pueden Ser Eternas" (Families can be together forever). It was a powerful moment but we had time for one more song... the Elders started to quietly sing "Oracion del Profeta" (Joseph Smith's First Prayer) we said we wanted to sing that song and as we sing I swear my tired voice was lifted in strength like I hadn't felt for the entire performance. There, standing in Mendoza on that warm saturday morning with the sun shining through light clouds onto our faces, I felt as if there were Angels by our side singing along and as if I was there in the moment with Joseph in the Sacred Grove as we sang, "Qué hermosa la mañana; qué brillante era el sol. Pajaritos y abejas daban voces de loor cuando en la arboleda suplicó José a Dios,"

What a testimony of the reality of the first vision was made in that moment. One of the most sweet and sacred experiences of my entire mission without a doubt, I almost began to cry. (Yo soy re llorón).

Anyway, it was an amazing week! I even got to see other members from La Gloria

Love you all! God Bless
Elder Kai Schwemmer

Subject: She's on Fire (8/5/24)

This was without a doubt the most miraculous week of my mission. Sunday alone. Too much to write!

On Friday we invited one of our friends Natasha to be baptized, she's the only one in her family who hasn't been baptized yet. She wasn't sure and told us she'd let us know the next after talking with her mom (and her Heavenly Father we reminded her). Saturday in the morning Benjamin and Santiago were baptized, their friend couldn't baptize them unfortunately so we did, it was a very sweet moment, spiritually uplifting and the spirit was strong. The next day is when the miracles begin.

We had our Sacrament meeting and saw 3 friends who haven't attended during our time here in the reunion, Moises, Ulysses, and Oscar the father of and only member in the Sanches family who hasn't been baptized yet, his daughter Natalia opened her Mission call after the sacrament meeting and is heading to Resistencia where she might meet my CCM pals Elder Cummings y Elder Manwaring! Benjamin and Santiago were confirmed and in a miracle Celina, a young girl who was baptized 2 months ago but never confirmed, stepped forward with her father and was confirmed as well! After the sacrament meeting Moses came up to us and said to us "I have to talk with you two so I can be baptized". Sure thing! He set his own date for the 24th. The sanches' invited us to have lunch with them and some of their family who'd come to watch Natalia open her calling, we were able to teach 8 people there and give them books of Mormon with an invitation to read it and visit the temple! It was a very special lunch.
Not to mention we had the best empanadas I've had in the mission. I count that as another miracle.

Later on we were returning from a visit, we had to head back to the pension to get more books of Mormon (you already know we gifted them) and read that our friend who was going to accompany us couldn't make it to the teaching appointment with his friend Lucila. Buuuut right as we got to the house we see Benjamin who had just been baptized that morning, we asked him if he'd like to accompany us and he did!! He bore a powerful testimony of coming to know the church is true and that he ought to be baptized, we invited Lucila to be baptized and although she said she wanted to keep going to church first, she gave us a big "Yes." When we asked if she'd be willing to be baptized after coming to know it was true.

At night Moses and Natasha called, both needed to adjust their baptismal dates. FOR A WEEK EARLIER THAN PLANNED. Now we've almost got baptisms planned every weekend until the end of the month.

We're seeing miracles here, the Lord directs and guides his work, and I'm just grateful for the opportunity to witness it and be a part!!

God Bless
Elder Kai Schwemmer

Subject: Kids (7/29/24)

Oooh whenever there's a slightly bajón week we come back with a great one!! This week we switched up the routine and starting going out to new parts of our area, Barrios Aguaribay, y Romanof, which are both supposedly more "turbio" or "complicado" which means dangerous. However the experience Elder Contreras and I had in intercambios when we went for the first to Barrio Romanof was all the opposite! We got there looking for a Facebook reference who had contacted us some time ago, and as we walked in we were surrounded by 7 kids who excitedly passed us a soccer ball and asked us questions, we got them all rounded up into a circle, with their parents sitting behind them against some apartments and taught about the Book of Mormon and Jesus Christ. Kids from every corner of this little neighborhood started pouring in to listen. We quickly realized we didn't have enough Books of Mormon to hand out so we promised we'd come back with more, we later found out that one of the parents was the woman who had sent us the reference!

We had a sports night in the little cement court beside the chapel on Saturday and un montón of kids came by to play soccer and basketball (there were only 2 slight injuries).

Santiago y Benjamin had their baptismal interviews on Sunday and will both be baptized next Saturday! They're already down to go proselytizing with us, such legends. Later that night we went to a members house to chat with him about planning family home evenings in the ward with various families and we ended up finding 2 of the recent converts, one of the Elders Quorum councilors and one of the converts friends who's been pretty resistant to the gospel. For whatever reason we ended up talking about life after death and how having a living prophet called of God on earth today has helped answer so many of the questions about the topic, as we testified the spirit was very present, and Axel told us it was the closest he'd felt to going to church, we'll be with him again Tuesday so we're hoping for the best!!

Super exciting news: Elder Scott bought his first Maté! I'm such a proud dad :')

It was a great week here in palmyra and I hope you guys have all had a wonderful time as well, remember that you're all Children of a Loving Heavenly Father who very actively seeks to bring all of you home, trust in him!

God Bless,
Elder Kai Schwemmer