MISSIONARY FO LIFE!

Hey! 

So this week was pretty grand! Daniel was baptized on saturday! It was such a great baptismal service! I absolutely LOVE Daniel and Bethany! They are sooo awesome! Daniel is going to be a great addition to the ward! He already loves to serve so much. He even vacuumed after his own baptism haha super funny. It all went perfectly! Sister Schofield came and everything! it was soooo good to see her again! Then Sunday was even better! So Daniel got confirmed and is an official member of the church! It was such a great moment when he stood up and everyone raised their hands welcoming him into the ward. Then there was a boy who gave his farewell talk and a boy giving his homecoming talk! they were both so amazing! Then Sunday night was the missionary work broadcast! HOLY COW!! it was soooo good! If you haven't seen it go to lds.org RIGHT NOW and watch it! it is life changing really! Missionary work is moving forward and is sweeping the whole earth. What a great time to be alive! The world is so exciting and has sooo much good going on:) So funny moments from the past week are that I tripped big time twice in our apartment while talking to Sister Hollis. Once i tripped on her foot and another time was over a box of copies of the Book of Mormon. Just call me Grace. I read a lot in my scriptures this week about hope. Faith and hope go together. You cannot have hope without Faith. If we all put our trust in God and His plan we literally can do ANYTHING! I have seen that more than anything on my mission so far. I cannot believe how much love i have for all of the people here. I am already sad thinking about being 3 months into my mission. MISSIONARY FO LIFE! haha I want to challenge everyone who reads this post to go out and serve someone this week. If you already do a lot of service go out and do something extra. I know that the World could be a much better place if every one did more service. The Savage Mill Ward is always serving one another and it touches my heart. They have already changed my life and the way I think. They are always looking for ways they can help and what they can do more. I love it! I want to be more like that! Well I love love love you all! Thank you for supporting me:) MAKE GOOD CHOICES!

Love,

Sista Swisha!

p.s. played some serious p-day basketball today and I totally balled it up and made 3 baskets. Can I get a Whoop whoop? haha 

Working Our Big Butts Off

HEY HEY!! What an amazing week! The weather is still being crazyy! It is quite fun i must say! My companion sister Hollis and I are having a blast and working our big butts off! So this week we met a lot of amazing people but the most exciting part is that Daniel is getting BAPTIZED on saturday!!! HELLLOOOOO! I am going to cry my eyes out! I told Bethanie that I am going to get waterproof mascara and we can just bawl our eyes out together. Daniel is so ready! what an amazing family they are! seriously right as I type they are finding out the gender of their baby and we are going over there tonight to find out! Bethanie says she has a way she is going to surprise us! i think it is a girl and sister hollis thinks its a boy! We will see tonight who is right! Well we are busy busy planning the baptism and everything that goes into that. So yesterday sister hollis and i showed up to church MATCHING! like 3 year olds haha every one and their mother's uncle pointed it out. the saddest part was we did not even plan it! I have a lot of funny pictures to show you all! sister hollis loves taking pictures so i have a ton.... on her camera haha. I am still just absolutely loving being out here and being a missionary. i have already changed so much. don't get me wrong I am still a loud dork with a funny laugh but I have realized more about myself than ever before. another great experience we have had this week was we did service for an elementary school and it was soo hot and humid. afterwards sister richards, our mission president's wife took us to Rita's. oh whats rita's you ask? let me tell you! it is the best frozen ice/ custard place on the planet and it is the best place on this planet. it is so good i am already sad thinking about leaving my area and not having access to Rita's! Sister Hollis is such a good missionary and she just jumped right into it all. she has come close to all our investigators in such a short amount of time. It is so awesome to see the Lord's hand in this work. People come out of the wood work who are ready to hear and listen to the Gospel. I LOVE IT! Well look forward to next week's email when i tell all about the baptism and put up picutres!!! AHHHH!!! I am so blessed to be out here and to have met Daniel and Bethanie and all of the other people in Maryland. MAKE GOOD CHOICES!!

Love,

Sister Swisher

Blue-eyed Blondies

Hello everyone! I cannot believe I am a trainer!! I love my new companion Sister Hollis! She is 22 and from southern California. She also has blond hair and blue eyes, do they just pick the girls that look alike and send them on their way? haha she is more sarcastic than my dad and I combined! I know, how is that possible? haha We are already having a blast together and working our butts off. It was so hard to say goodbye to Sister Schofield, but then I realized I will make best friends with all my companions on my mission and will keep in touch with all of them. Also Daniel is getting baptized on June 22nd!!!! So Sister Schofield will be coming back for that and I will get to see her. Ok so it is POURING RAIN here! For like the last week it has not stopped. I have just decided that I am giving up on doing my hair until it stops raining cats and dogs. So it has been an awesome week as usual. Daniel is progressing really well and is sooo excited about being baptized. I am so excited for the Gospel to bless their little family. Speaking of that, Bethanie, his wife finds out the gender of the baby in a week! I can't wait!! We have been doing a lot of teaching and a lot of service. I have found out that I have a passion for vacuuming. I know I am a weirdo but whenever we help ladies out here clean their houses I always volunteer to vacuum the whole house hahaha. I am just loving being a missionary and a trainer. Every day we take an hour for lunch and I am to the point where I am like counting down the minutes til we get to leave the apartment and go back to work! I have never been so busy and happy in my life. Well I will upload a couple of pictures so you all can see that I am alive. I miss you all! MAKE GOOD CHOICES!!

Love,

Sister Swisher

p.s. sorry this is so short, I can't remember a lot of the week hahahaha

YOGURT + BROWN SUGAR + INDIAN SPICE

Aloha! Greetings from Maryland! This has been the hardest but best week of my mission! Ok so we kept having to go to the doctor for sister schofield and it turns out she is allergic to gluten! so we are living the gluten free lifestyle and it is wayyy too healthy for me! but she is feeling much much better now so it is all good. I had the most amazing day on saturday. it was heaven sent after a hard week. we took two investigators to the temple. it was so amazing! then we went our investigator bought us subway, score! then we went to a baptism for a lady the elders have been teaching. we took two investigators to this as well. one of them was Daniel. He has been praying and reading the book of mormon and has been waiting for an answer. after the baptism we asked him how he felt and he said he felt something all over his chest and his back. a good feeling. and we were like you felt the spirit! then we asked him what he thinks the spirit is trying to tell him and he said well since everyone was talking about the truthfulness of the gospel, i am going to go with that. and his wife Bethanie started crying! AHHHH he got his answer in an amazing way! so exciting. I love Daniel and Bethanie. honestly they are like our family. we love teaching them and talking with them. after the baptism we went took an investigator named peter on a church tour. a member named sister andersen drove us and helped us teach him. it was so good! i got this impression that we needed to sing this hymn for him and we did and he felt the spirit so strongly! The church is true! i love being a missionary! Ok so since it has almost been six weeks since i have been in maryland, it is time for transfers. i was so nervous to find out if i would be getting transferred or staying. drum roll please...... i am staying in my area and will be training a new sister that comes in on wednesday! ahhh! so scared but so excited! i can't believe they trust me with another human ahaha. oh and i get to drive starting wednesday. man they must trust me here or something! sister schofield will be leaving me to go to the annapolis area but we will write each other and keep in touch. I cannot wait for this next transfer. i am going to learn so much. alrighty so funny story, we are working with a less active named brother sethi and he is kinda a crazy old man. he thinks he invented nasa and the internet and his sisters are marilynn monroe and jackie kennedy. hahha i love him! well he always tries to feed us junk food and we told him no more to the junk food. so he gave us huge bowls of yogurt plopped a butt ton of brown sugar on them and then put this weird indian spice thing on top. nastiest creation on planet earth everyone! i almost died and he was sitting there watching us eat. hahaha my first nasty food story of the mission oh goodness! i hope you are alll doing well. love ya lots and am still praying for ya! MAKE GOOD CHOICES! :)

Love, 

Sister Swisher

p.s. we keep getting flash flood warnings because it starts thunder litghtning and raining out of no where all the time. I don't think I am in Brentwood anymore....