PICTURES: Elder Schneider

Elder Schneider, his Companion, Franjo (a member) who baptized Sveto (far right)

LETTER: Elder Brayden Schneider • October 25th, 2010

Ok i dont know if Bryce told you but he said he heard a Elder from Slovenia speak.... and i totally know him! his name is Elvi! hahaha and i dont even try to spell his last name cause its super tough! But that is just crazy... Bryce said he talked to him, and Elvi told him i look exactly like him! hahaha

So this week was a little different.... we went Bowling... hahahaha it was so fun. The members organized a day to go. And its super cheap here, only $2 for unlimited bowling for 2 hours. So we played like 4 games. And of course i won!!! :) And another excited thing happened this week, on monday (our p-day) we climbed to a castle, and he had to climb up this huge rock wall, kinda dangerous but i survived! haha (ps... dont tell my president).

But this week we actually did about 15 hours of service, it was way fun. We helped a non active member build a patio for his garage. (when i worked building pools it was alot of that kind of work) So it was super good cause i knew how to do it, and because my companion and the non-active member arent the most cordinated... i pretty much build most of it! haha but it was great i loved it, its nice doing physical work!

Ok one other story... so you probable think all we do over here is play but we dont. haha Cause we got a new investigator this week, and when he came to church he saw we had a ping pong table, and he was like, "i am so good at ping pong" hahaha and so of course i challenged him to a match! hahahaha i was super suprised, cause i played really good, BUT this guy plays weekly with his friends and pretty much practicing ever day! hahahaha good news though, at the end of the game i had him running around, he was sweating like crazy, i thought he was going to have to take half time or something! hahaha good times!!!

ps.... got you some pictures!!! woot woot!

But Sveto was also confirmed this week in sacrament meeting, and it was great to see that we will have more preistood in the branch! Oh one other thing about Sveto, so he is actually moving to kopper for the winter, cause he was building his house in maribor, but because of the winter he has to stop building until next spring! So he actually drove about 3 hours to church, but said he is going to start going to Ljubljana church for the winter then come back up to Maribor. He is such a good guy, he told me thanks for teaching him and that he will help try and build up the church where he lives!

LETTER: Elder Jensen • October 16th, 2010

Dear most wonderful beautiful mom in the whole world/galaxy/universe. =)

Things are going wonderful here. I get more use to this stuff everyday. We are have a little trouble with finding some good investigators but still find some potentials. I have still been learning so so much since I have been here. I have been getting better at contacting people now too. Its weird to feel how much I have changed since I first got here. At first I was freaked out to even say hello to someone and almost couldn't even keep a conversation with some people. Also when I first got here I was so scared to knock on someones door that when I knocked on a door i kept thinking to my self " Please dont answer the door Please dont answer the door" But now it just feels so natural. I am now able to testify of what I know to be true also.

I had to speak in sacrament today too for 1st ward about missonary work. I feel like time like that is when I feel the Holy ghost working through me the most. I really felt like I could talk in front of thousands of people and be able to testify of jesus christ and his atonement. That how much I felt the spirit. After my talk I sat down and just felt great. Afterwards I had some people come up to me and say thank you so much for your talk and then they started telling me a little about what was going on in the lives at that time. I know the Holy ghost was working through me at that time. There were so many other things that happen too. It was just wonderful. =)

But anyways things are going better for me more and more everyday. We moved out of the hickmans place and are now in our new place for about a month then we are going to move again. I can feel a change in me alot this week. I feel like I have the Holy Ghost working through me so much more now. So please what ever you guys are doing please keep doing it. I pray for you everyday. And I love you so much mom. And i'm glad everything is still going well. You keep teaching those kids well. And before you know it I will be home and will be giving you the biggest hug in the world. But before that I have some people to testify too ;)

LETTER: Elder Brayden Schneider • October 18th, 2010

Ok good that makes me feel better that you didnt send a big package! its so not worth it, one sister got a $90 package.

So Vegas sounded fun! how were grandpa and grandma doing? I thought about it, and grandma and grandpa need to know how important the Jesus Christ is! so we need to baptise them!! (haha i hope they read this) :)

Ok so.... my first baptism went so well!! Franjo (a member) baptisted him. I have a picture of me trying on his pants that i need to send you! We had to get his pants specialy made. He is a huge guy! But we practice the baptism prayer with him about 1000 times, he would always mix up the words, but during the baptism he did perfect! So Sveto (our new member now) did so good. After the baptism he shared his testimony, and said he had been looking for the Christs church for 35 years and he knows he found it! And listen to this, so every time he came to church he would wear sandles and army pants, but he showed up in a nice suit! He is such a good guy, he said now that he is a member he needs to starts looking like one! But he is going to help out the church tons.

So we had to set up the pool and warm it up and take it down! it was so fun, i will have pictures for you next week! I am sorry i totally forgot to bring my camera.

Sorry it is a shorter email this week. Everything is good though!

ps... dad you she maribor is near austria, yes it is very close we can actually take a bus to austria. And yes, they dont speak the best slovenian! haha they add german words, and croatians words all the time! i know how to say "time" in 4 different laungauges!

PICTURES: Elder Jensen

Hey Family!

So Courtney has been doing an awesome job at keeping Elder Jensen's facebook profile up-to-date with information and pictures.

Check it out here and take a look at some pictures from the first several weeks of his mission.

THANKS COURTNEY!!!

P.S. I have attached a few pictures below for your viewing pleasure.

LETTER: Elder Brayden Schneider • October 11th, 2010

Hey family, if you havent sent the package for my birthday dont send it!!!! it like 40 bucks (or more) for a little package to be sent here! its really ok if you dont i promise! you already do plenty for me! thanks

So i met 2 ladies this week from Utah, one lived in sandy, and the other in Lehi, hahaha funny huh, the lady from Lehi told me where her house is, and its right across the street for wal mart! hahaha small world!

Ok so are you ready for this crazy information!!! so everything went good this week, Sveto is getting baptisted on the 15 (this friday) and we are so stoked! He is doing way good, but.... random problems keep coming up (the devil works on investigators pretty bad), but everything will work out! so we figured out who is baptising him! his name is Franjo, he is the biggest guy i have ever seen, he is so cool though! hahaha he calls me "easy rider" hahaha not really sure why. (probably cause thats about all he can say in English) but we are working on getting him some white pants, its going to be hard cause his pant size 66 (in american its 54) haha so hopefully we will get them all ready! its going to be great because he has been a member for only 1 year, and he needs some branch support so its going to be so good for him! When i talked to him about it he was so happy! Sveto is as studdly as always, he fasted this sunday! oh man he is just to good.

Um... and also a different member is going to give him the holy ghost, his name is Samir, and he has been a member for like 1.5 years! so we are super stoked for everyone.

Ok cool story time, so this week we did a service project with are branch president and his family! hahahahaha it was so fun, so we show up at his moms house with his whole family and we picked grapes on a massive hill. It sounds pretty boring but the hill was super steep, and the grass was wet, hahaha and my comps shoes had no traction! haha oh man i was laughing like the whole time, cause we would be picking some grapes and then out of nowhere someone would just fall down the hill! hahaha (mostly my branch president and my comp) just cause it was so hard to stay up there. So we picked grapes for like 4 hours and had dinner with the family/extended family. And they were so funny and nice (they didnt really act like slovenians) haha but then we were about to go and they made us stay so we could see them press the grapes and make........ juice, hahahaha but it was crazy because they press the grapes like they did in the oldin days, it was fun! but...... i forgot my camera, i was so mad! I drew a pix in my journal though! well thats was the highlight of my mission, i had to much fun!

Thanks for everything, and all the letters! love

ME!

ps.... tell Andrew Schneider i miss the little guy!!!! thanks!

LETTER: Elder Jensen • October 4th, 2010

Dear beautiful mom who I love so much. =)

Please tell Crystal and josh and lindsay and brett that I love them. And please tell them how I am doing. I would Write each person But as I said before. They only give us 1 hour to write anything and I only have about 6 hours on P-Day to do everything I need to do. I wish I could tell you all more on the things that have been happening here but ill just have to write a summary on what has been going on.

Things here have been going so much better then when I first arrived. I was so overwhelmed and had no idea how i could even come close to lasting 2 years and doing all this stuff. I didn't like knocking on random doors, I didn't like talking to random people, I didn't like having no time at all with how busy I was. But now i'm really getting use to it. I dont mind knocking on doors any more and I dont mind talking to people i dont know. I'm actually feeling very comfortable just starting conversations with everyone. I'm starting to get all the lessons down too and learning how to better teach them to there understandings. I'm still not use to the waking up at 6:30 though. I wouldn't mind more sleep =) But I know god is helping me do what I need to do. And i'm really glad to have met all the families here that I have. There so many people here in this poor town that need help and only a few will let us help them. There's so many drunks and drugy's and parents that dont know what to do with there children. Many divorces and addictions to all sorts of things. There are some that look at us like a living devil. And there are some that look at us as people that can help them. There are so many that could just use this gospel in there life's. But ya Andrew is getting baptized this friday so that should be exciting. This guy is really just ment for the gospel. He shared his testimony with us yesterday and he said the reason he even decided to learn more about the gospel was because he saw how happy the Mormon familys were with each other at a party and he saw that no one was drunk or fighting. Sadly that is/was what he was use too. That just shows how much people really do watch Mormon families though. So make sure you guys are always happy =)

I love you Beautiful mom and I miss you.

LETTER: Elder Brayden Schneider • October 4th, 2010

Oh man i am jealous that everyone went to lake powell! ok so mom said to tell her what candy i wanted.... ok so if any of these are possible, buggles, candy corn, startburst jelly beans (those are dang good) um... yeah otherwise we have most candy over here.

Ok so, conferance was way good, we watched 6 hours straight (its way to long to sit there, especially after a 3 hour train ride... and reading subtitles and stuff) haha but it was good.

So hopefully you remember Sveto, well listen to this, he was on vacation this week but then we told him about conferance.... so he decieded to come home early so that he could come to conferance! So he came to church and watched the 7 hours with us!!! hahaha i dont think any members even stayed for that long. But after 6 hours (cause he didnt bring any food) i told him like he didnt need to feel obligated to stay for like 10 hours. Then he just said, "i love this, this to me is so beautiful!" its kinda of a wierd translation, but i was so amazing. So he stayed and just loved ever min.

So he is still doing amazing, he finished the Book of Mormon this week (its only been less then 2 months) and said he knows its true! So October 15 at 6, he is for sure getting baptisted!

So me and sveto are like super close, and i wanted to baptise him super bad, but me and my comp are trying to get a kinda new convert on his lessons and really encourage that members baptise members, so that members will have a better relationship with other members. Its hard though cause just when i think of missionaries baptising investigators, but because maribor only has 8 active members we really need them to stay close and stronger!

But we have a new investigator, he is actually an former investigator. But we went and visited him and he said missionaries havent visited him for about 2 or 3 years... But he is way good, he said he reads and knows the Book of Mormon is true and he said i want to be baptisted! (another miracle) haha but then he said his dad wont let him. (p.s... this guy is 40 years old) then i just told him he was 40 years old and he needs to start making his own decisions in life! he loved it, then he decieded to talk to his dad about it and his dad said he wants to meet with me and my comp, so this week we have a meeting with him and his dad (to see if we are trust-worthy kids). So i am super excited, cause if his dad says yes then we will get another baptism in Maribor!

But one of our baptismal dates didnt show up, Žan, we think he started smoking again and is ashamed so doesnt want to get with us.. and he wont answer our calls!

Well thanks for the emails, and love you!