LETTER: Elder Jensen • December 5th, 2010

Hello beautiful mom. =) Yes things are going great still. Next week is are next transfers so I guess will see if I take of the area or not. I hope not though. Elder Soderberg is a great companion. I also have lots of new pictures and videos that I will try to get to you by christmas but im not making any promises. And Jordan is going to get baptized this saturday so I cant wait for that either. She is wonderful! =) Anyways our week went pretty great and we went to a couple churches yesterday. It was very very interesting. We first got up and went to the cathlic mass at 8:00. I felt like everyone was looking at us that whole time it was wierd. Well anyways we walk into the building and were the only ones dressed with a suit and tie so that was pretty much a dead give away there that that was our first time. Then everyone starts to go into the chapel and starts sitting down. We walked right in and sat down on one of the back benches of the room. The room was kinda like a U shape and everyone could see each other. So everyone was kinda looking at us as we just walked in and sat down. A few seconds later we notice others walking passed us and kneeling by the bench before they walked in and sat down. And they also did the cross thing with there hands when they entered the room. But hey how were we suppose to know that we had to do all that. Then after awhile the thing started and everyone started to go up for the sacrament but we weren't baptized so we had to move out of everyones way so that they could get passed us. So we had a full line of people walking passed us as we just stood there in the back having everyone taking turns looking at us. And man some of the things they teach there are just wierd. The priest gets up and starts doing is christmas talk. And he starts to talk about family and friends and so forth. " My brothers and sisters. Christmas times is coming around and it is a time Etc... And you dont have to love your friends. And you dont have to love your family. You dont even have to like them. You just have to respect them and be gentle with them..." Where in the world did you get that doctrine from priest man??! I can see why it is so important for this work to move on alot more after going to all these diffrent churches that day. We also went to some spiritual church right after and one of the parts we did some meditation. So during our awsome meditation with everyone in there being perfectly silent you could hear a pin drop. Our phone alarm started to go off... And hey they couldn't be mad at us we were the new guys. =) After being there a little while longer we had to leave so that we could make it to the next church meeting so we had to stand up from the front of the room and walk passed everyone to get out. I wish I could have gone invisable. But sadly the holy ghost didn't give me that power. So we then went to some christian church and that one was ok. It was a little bit more normal then all the other ones haha. But there was one thing in common from all of those churches that suprised me though. Everysingle one of them had Coffee and donuts at the end of church. I have now found out the way of there succses. Coffee and donuts! So we decided that our church should do the same thing, except were going to have some amizing hot chocolate and donutes. Will see how it works ;) But ya i'm running out of time now but things are going great mom and i'm glad brooklying and kambrea and the new comer Creed are doing so well and cute =) I will be calling creed "Jr." for now on though. I love you most greatest strongest mom in the world. =)

LETTER: Sister Adrienne Schneider • December 2nd, 2010

hola family and friends,

crazy here and can't believe i have been here for two weeks. i am now not speaking one language competely, but more like 1/3 fo each and it is very confusing to everyone i speak with ;) hagha! spanish, german, and english....for some reason the german keeps sneaking into my spanish and i get weird looks ;) but it is crazy! it is so fun to meet so many different people!

oh and p.s. i haven't gained any weight...yet...i think i have lost it if anything (more like my strong muscles...no worries, still pretty buff)

haha, i lost my voice and everyone makes fun of me. so i just started signing to people. i guess ia m not use to talking so much and teaching so much! so funny! so to the new sisters i pretended i could sign and got a pretty good laugh from it. it was interesting to see how a deaf person might feel! i actually did try signing to a deaf elder and he was super nice. pretty much all i could ask was if he knew sing language...oh well! it is great!

thanks so much for all the letters! it is so fun to hear from everyone! sorry i don't have everyone's emails yet: hope this is okay: (dad i assume you have them...and if you know them you should pass on the love ;) pay it forward ;)

dad: sorry about your teeth, i am sure your wisdom is still in there somewhere. i was thinking you have had some hard times lately, being so sick earlier and now your teeth! you are brave for going to the dentist! yuck yuck yuck! bleh bleh bleh!

megan--thanks for your letter ;)

whitney fuller--congrats on the wedding! ( i don't think you are married yet...i meant announcment!) i think that seriously was the cutest announcement i have ever seen! and i love your hair dark! that was so thoughtful to send it to me!

emilie wright: haha i see your sister here, i had no idea she was coming (i can't remember her first name..."betsy" always comes to mind...LOL) but i can call her hermana wright so i am okay. but thanks for your dear elder letter ;) haha....so funny!

lauren bangerter: keep going to the temple ;) it is a good place to be!

melissa palmer: that is so exciting about you serving a mission! do it! but make sure you WANT to do it before! for sisters, no one is making you be here, if you choose to come before, it will be so much better! it is the best thing ever though! i am so happy! thanks so much for you letter! so awesome! you will be great and let me know what you decide!

GILLET FAMILY: THANKS SO MUCH for the package! so so so awesome! it was the best timing! i hadn't eaten for two meals because my comanion had some health problems and i had to go with her to the health place. long story short i was sooo hungry! but i was able to pick up the package on the way...what a great 'care'

package that really took care of me!

all you young men...you want to and should serve a mission! DO IT! ;)

loves, gots to go

hermana schneider

LETTER: Sister Adrienne Schneider • November 29th, 2010

Yay! The first letter from Hermana Schneider! She sounds so good!

hola familia!

crazy...both p-days have been taken from us...but all is well ;) and i have snuck in a few letters but will have to catch up by typing like a cheetah

congrats to camon and the frisbee team (i assume BAKA) for winning the championship! that is how we work ;)

and i broke the soccer juggling record 777 juggles. and guess who had the record before me? haha none other than priscilla stewart (she is going to germany...and i played celtic soccer with her...just in case you forgot ;) and i missed gym on saturday when trevor was working because my district thoubht it was at another time...haha so funny.

i felt like i had a lot to write, but can't really think of it...guess i type too fast and my brain can't keep up! spanish is hard and i am probably the worst in my class...but i actually am starting to say things better and somewhat understand. being a missionary is so neat! the devotionals are wonderful! elder holland came and spoke to us today for thanksgiving! he is definitely one of my favorite!

i am sorry to single people out, but i have to cuz i won't have time to write letters: before I forget:

matt: thanks for your dear elder letters! love to get them! i know there were some questions but i can't think of what they are! i am so stoked for you to be done teaching! bueno bueno!

nicole: yes, i got a camera, gracias for the letter!

megan: thanks for coming with me and my wonderful family to the mtc...hope you got home safely ;) lol you are great and i love you! you are such a good friend!

shaniqua! you have been awesome and you can write me everyday you need to! seriously! il ove to hear from you! and you didn't fail anything! keep being the best and i will try to get you a letter! i absolutely love to hear from you! i hope you can give me your email and address so i can write you! and the sisters think i get a ton of mail because of you! they are jealous! you are so awesome and have TRULY helped me! Shaniqua, you got the first letter! thanks so much! the first day was not my favorite, but your letter made it one of my favorite!

(mom and dad you may have to facebook her ('Shaniqua' Alison Clark on facebook....minus the 'shaniqua part cuz she doesn't have it public on facebook) ...have jessie do it if you need....to get her information if you could ;) she has seriously written me every day!

lauren: thanks so much for your letter! you are amazing and such a good friend and example! i can always think of waht you would do in situations...and i know it would be right!

bryce: sounds awesome about you decorating rochelle's car. so fun! keep me informed!

thanks so much again for letters...i am sorry if i forgot to answer any of your specific questions....i tried!

everyone else...write me now ;) lol jk. i am not the best with letters but love to hear what is going on!

BEING A MISSIONARY IS EVEN BETTER AND MORE EXCITING THAN EVER! I LOVE THE SPIRIT AND THE STRENGTH IN MISSIONARY WORK! I NEVER THOUGHT IT WOULD BE THIS IMPORTANT TO ME AND TO EVERYONE AROUND ME! THIS IS WHERE I AM SUPPOSED TO BE AND WHERE I WANT TO BE!

My district is the best! Elders are great...they keep me laughing that is for sure! haha i can't imagine what it would be like if we had all of these indiivudals together and we could do whatever we wanted! party and fun! but that is not our purpose...there are so many good people and we stay pretty focused.

It seems like i know everyone here and it is so neat! I am working hard and have been getting up at 5:30 before everyone to try and get some exercise and sweat down my back so i can sleep well at night from fatigue and concentrate in class without too much A.D.D ;) it is just too hard to explain in words how awesome it is hear and the importance of eternal family!

i am so grateful my family is so awesome! i am so glad we know we can be together forever. i am so blessed to know what is like to have a family that loves me! thanks family! love you a ton! I am so grateful for you! ALL!

Elder Nunley is always a treat for me to see ! haha he hasn't 'good-gamed' me haha cuz it would be bad news! but it is at treat to see him! i can't wait until my spanish is good enough to talk with him in complete spanish!

sorry this is so spurratic!

love you! listen and follow the spirit!,

hermana schneider

LETTER: Elder Brayden Schneider • November 29th, 2010

Hi family!!! i love the pictures!! thanks, first off... dad i am sorry about your face! haha i hated getting out my wisdom teeth, but thats good you got them out at such a young age!!!! hahaha oh man, second off... i finelly got the package!!! haha good choice of candy, but i should have takin a picture of the package when i got it! i was in 2 pieces and held together by tape! hahaha it looked like you guys left it in the rain for 2 days then thru it in a fire and decided to throw it against the cement a couple times! haha but everything servived and i loved it. So thanks!! third off, i am not sure what we are doing for phone calls this year, i will keep you posted! fourth off, dad you can just send me adris emails and i should have time to read them! thanks.

so.... i could hardly wait to tell you the great news!!!!! so guess who found a FAMILY of 5!!! woot woot!! not even kidding, its so exciting cause it is my first family i have ever taught. Cause in Slovenia almost nobody gets married and if they get married they dont have kids and if by some chance they get married and have kids then they dont want religion!!!! haha so its a totally miracle that we have a chance with a family! well its amazing how it worked out, cause we were lost trying to find their house and so we walked around in a snowy storm for like 45 mins. And a lady says, hey are you guys looking for the andrej family! and we were like yes!!!!! hahaha so we had a lesson with them and they are so good, the dad is normal and has a good job (which is way wierd in slovenia) then we were just talking to him and his family and he was like... welll i want to follow Christ but i think the doctrines have been changed!!! and we were like yess..... its because they were changed but god restored his truth!!! he loved it!!! he said he will read the whole book of mormon and whats to keep getting with us!!! oh man it was so exciting!!!

ok well funny story for you, well this week we had thanksgiving and me and my comp were trying to buy a turkey! haha well we go to the store and we finelly found a turkey but the lables were in german... but it was like 25 bucks and it was really small! but since we are dumb and wanted a turkey, we bought it! so we didnt know how to cook a turkey but we tried. So everything was good but after it was cook we started to slice and cut it! And the meat was black... not because we burnt it but because it was actually a goose. So we actually got punkd (ps. dad and mom if you dont know what punkd means, its means you got tricked) and bought a 25 dollar skinny goose and we didnt know cause the lables were in German. It actually wasnt too bad, it was just a little greesier and not as favorful. But all is good and thanks for everything.

love you family!!!

pss. thanks celeste for the emails and for the letter you sent in moms and dads package!!

LETTER: Elder Brayden Schneider • November 22nd, 2010

Thanks family for writing.... oh hey and one other thing, Fanjo (a cool member) wanted to me friends with me on facebook, so i gave him my password, so he could add me. Cause he said he wanted to see my pictures. Just so you know.

oh yeah and he said he added some family members, i think jessie or dad. just in case you get a friend request, you wont think its some crazy slovenain or something.

ok so this week was good, we worked mostly with members, we gave one member a date to stop smoking, and are working with 2 other members to come back to church.

ok so cool story for the week, so Franjo (he used to be almost in-acctive until he baptisted sveto) well he is almost the most active member. He is so funny, he calls us like 2 times a week to get together cause he loves the church so much. But this week he decided to make us some good food... (cause he is a huge guy) and we baked some noodles and just joked around and stuff. I had so much fun, he is super cool and he has crazy stories cause he lived during communism and also lived in Iraq! But he thinks i am like the coolest missionary ever. Hahaha ever time i see him he says (Number one) or (easy rider) in a super crappy Slovenian accent cause he doesnt know English. haha and i asked him why he calls me easy rider and he just says its slang. hahaha he is too funny.

Its getting cold over here, so its not to much fun contacting anymore! haha

But thats about it, nothing too crazy just a good week!

Love elder schneider

ps... Oh forgot, we played risk again with the draskovič family... and i won!! woot woot! haha

pss. i got some really cool pixs at the last castle i went to, so i will send them next week! WAY cool PiCS

Awww.. adri is on her mission now, i think i will send her a letter.

LETTER: Elder Colton Nunley • November 22nd, 2010

Subject: hoof hearted?

hey family thanks for that super long letter it is always nice to have lots to read i loved it. so i get to see another apostle again today. i really hope it is jeffery r holland he is such a powerful speaker! it feels like i've talked to you guys about everything already though because every night when i write in my journal i pretend like im writing to mom so i feel like you already know everything that's going on haha. i think i'll just stick to writing letters because i really have no idea what to talk about. oh i've been sick for like the past week but i've still been like following the schedule and stuff like when to wake up and all that stuff but my teacher said that if i am really as sick as i look all the time i need to get some more rest. and i really didnt feel like i was that sick but my companion and some of the other elders in my district said it looks like im half alive haha so i wasn't gonna not take adavantage of my teachers advice on getting more sleep so this morning i slept in all the way til 7:30!!!!! hahah it actually felt so good and it seemed more like i slept in til noonoclock. but yeah they have stressed so much on us about obedience with exactness that i just felt like i had to be to class no matter what. but since it's thanksgiving this weekend both of our normal teachers are leaving to see family so we get my two favorite teachers hermano dela cruz and hermano escobar both of them are super awesome and they like only talk spanish with us so we have to learn really fast and they both teach with the spirit SO strongly!! i love it especially hermano dela cruz. he was the one who because his last name sounds native he got put into his spanish speaking mission only three weeks after the mtc haha and he only knew as much spanish as me . so i think he is so hard because he knows we can do it. and he relys on teaching with the spirit so much because he had to when he was on his mission but they are both awesome i love all my teachers they're all cool. i learned this week that in chihuahua they pronounce the ch like a sh so i've been workin on that. well i've got 22 seconds left and nothing else to say. love you elder nunley

LETTER: Elder Jensen • November 21st, 2010

Sorry for that way long letter last time. I will try and keep them shorter for now on but there just so much more going on now in my mission. But anyways Remember Sosa the lady I was talking about that said that I am one of her new sons now? Well she is so funny and such a sweet lady. She still has that wicked awesome accent too. But anyways she just put me on here life insuarance this week. Then she made us some necklaces. And now she want to take us shopping so she can buy all the food for us. I have never met such a nice lady in my life. But anyways this week has been great. We have another investigator on date. The lord has blessed this area so so much. We missonarys do nothing except show up and finish the last steps of what god has already done and prepared. And mom you should never ever worry about me because I promise god is always with me in everything that i'm doing I can feel it. Well to tell you the truth sometimes I cant feel it. But I get reminded of others that I do have him with me. Reason I say this is because we went on exchanges this week and we went and had dinner with the Spencers and at the very end when we were about to leave brother spencer came up to me and said "there's something about you... You just have a real special spirit about you. And i'm not just saying to be nice i'm be seriuse. Just keep doing what ever your doing." And that right there just remindeds me on who's side i'm on and who I am working for even though sometimes I forget. But I know that he's with me. I'm loving this work more and more everyday. Well to tell you some of the things that have happen to me this week. I have poped my tire twice in one day. No joke it was horrable. I poped the tire so i went and got some patches for it then a little bit later when the patches got wet they stoped working so we had to go back to the apartment again. Then went back to the tire shop and bought a new tire and put it on the bike. Then we went back out for tracting again and no joke 20 minutes later it poped again so we had to go back a 3rd time and bought another tire. Mom there's so many other things going on here to but they just dont give us enough time to write it all it bugs me so much. But to make things fast we put others on date and met with more crazy people and some really awesome people. Well thats how things are going here. And are thanksgiving we will be doing more work haha. The president just doesn't like to give us a break. But hey were not here for breaks =) And things with my companion are going great he's a real good guy. And we are having tons of succes. I love you most best mom in the world XoXoXo =)