LETTER: Elder Brayden Schneider • April 11th, 2011

ok so i am not going to lie..... here in maribor we are dominating everything!!! so let me tell you a little bit about church. Well president fidler called us Sunday morning and said he was sick so he asked Andrej to lead the meeting. And Andrej has never led a meeting or anything, so he was really really nervous. Then to make the meeting even crazier we had 8 INVESTIGATORS COME!!!!!!!!!! yeah i know... it was crazy, we only had 8 members there, and then we had 5 investigators kids that decided to come. So i would have to say i dont think i have prayed so much in one meeting as i did in this one. Ever missionary had an investigator on both sides of them. Hahaha and it was a first time for alot of the investigators. So Andrej did really well, it was kinda wierd at some points but ever member was trying there best so there isnt much more you can do. One bad thing though, when franjo (the huge huge member that is super cool) went up to bless the sacrement his underwear was showing in the back, and it didnt have the best impression on the investigators. But he didnt mean to, he is just such a big guy.

But i love it here in maribor! We are finding alot of people right now! This week we had to do down to ljubljana for a meeting and so we took a train that was pretty much empty. While waiting to leave, we were sitting on the train and for some reason i threw my companion a coin, which took a wierd bounce and started rolling down the aisle. Then i guy (about 30 with tattoes) comes up to where we were sitting and gives me my penny back, and so i invited him to sit up with us. Well he ended up being super cool. I talked with him the whole ride down to Ljubljana (3 hours) and i taught him about the book of mormon, and after life, and he just had a bunch of questions so i would tell him where he could find answers to some of his questions in the BOM and he would look them up! He really really liked it. So hopefully something good will happen from it.

English class is going super well. And we are starting something new next transfer to even get more investigators. We are going to do seperate English classes, so pretty much one on one with the students. We have a ton of good ideas, and i am really excited!

WEll i got my package.... actaully 2 packages (thanks mom... thanks grandpa)! they were the best packages ever! Everything in them was in good shape. Well i am doing good. i really dont want to get transfered!!!! and transfers are coming up soon.... so i am really nervous!

Well hopefully we will be seeing some baptisms in maribor soon! love you guys!

ps... i almost forgot that we totally went door bell ditching twice this week! hahaha cool huh? There was a member that joined a different church that was thinking about coming back. But we knew she would feel a little dumb coming back because she would be worried everyone would hate her or be ashamed (which isnt true). So we got a couple people to write her cards then got her flowers and rang their door belll and ran. Well we ran hard and far so she wouldnt know who it was and its always more fun... but we forgot that her daughter (10 year old member) was a little beast and always has the most energy ever. So when we thought we were plenty far away we started walking then we heard...... "there they are" then we see the little girl pointing and running at us... so we run super super far this time over this mountain (slightly exagerating) and we look back and she was still coming! hahaha so we ended up running for like 10 mins. hahaha it was super fun!

LETTER: Sister Adrienne Schneider • April 11th, 2011

¡HHHHOOOLLLLAAA!

ya, i have gotten most of the dear elders...i love them! thanks! keep sending them this way!!!

your questions are kinda fun to answer, haha here we go.

1--my favorite food....i think i am always hungry and eat a ton.....i eat everything....i dont know....the meat here is really good and we actually dont eat much meat as i thought we would. the epinadas and milanesa is really good! everyting is either fried, baked, or cooked, so sometimes i crave the good old raw veggies and fruits which are hard to come by sometimes. everything is pretty similiar here though....so blessed!

2--Favorite gospel topic to teach: The ´Plan of Salvation! i love that plan and it makes everything else make sense...why do we what we do. i was thinking the other day and this life is really all about choices. so crazy...agency really us a gift.

WOW, i would love to play some soccer, but i dont think i will get to play much until after my mission. oh well though, that isn{t really my purpose right now....crazy to hear that from myself, but it is true.

and what happened....bryce, camon...since when did schneiders lose at anything?

well, i dont have much time today because i have been at this office place in order to live in argentina...se llama domicilio...haha i am sure that is no help to you!

love you!

hermana schneider

LETTER: Elder Colton Nunley • April 11th, 2011

sorry i couldnt write you all last week. i was in the hospital for conference :( what a bummer right? it was alright though cuz i was able to watch the talks later on the internet. but i think the one i liked the most was the one by Elder Scott. Man his talk was so personal! you could tell how much he loved his wife and how important love like that is for each and every one of us. haha it seems like the Lord really wants us to get married pretty fast huh after all of those talks haha.. i{ve still got a long while before i gotta think about that stuff though. but yeah there were so many talks that were so dang good i loved it. haha before conferences seemed so dang long but this time after two hours i was like ahh man its already done? haha for real i loved it so much.

OH man that is so cool how many people got their mission calls!!! haha i honestly thought about Jacob Howell the other day and when he was gonna be coming out here. That is so cool that he is going to Buenos Aires!! i cant wait to make fun of his spanish when he gets back!!! haha (just kiddin jake haha) but yeah life here in the offices has changed a bit since i last wrote. my companion slash trainer is already gone!!! haha and i dont know anything still!! haha oh my gosh there is so much stuff to do!!! but at first i was like worrying about it the whole day like even when we were out working with the people. but now its just like after we leave the offices i dont even think about that stuff. i love being able to do that now haha cuz honestly i get so stressed out about this stuff with alll the visas and fm3´s and stuff like that. cuz if the elders dont have em they cant live here and in some cases we would have to send them back to the united states like right away and that would cost the church a bunch haha and to be honest i dont want to have to deal with that haha. but now im starting to get it all down. im starting to organize everything a lot more and slowly but surely it is getting better. im learing a ton from the president though that is way cool.

oh in this conference the 1st counselor of President Angulo got called to be a 70!!! haha i just ate in his house the other week! haha oh my gosh his wife is such a good cook. honestly the best desert i{ve had since i{ve been here in méxico. but yeah his name is President... well Eder Valenzuela haha but yeah look for him in the ensign when it comes out he is a way nice guy and he actually lived in minnesota for a while.

yeah i did get the letter from you last week it was just with conference and being in the hospital and all i couldnt write and honestly up till yesterday it has been so crazy in the offices. but that is way cool that krabby and greg came over to the house haha. thats so cool that spencer is loving the mission so much. you shouldve sent the missionaries over there while he was packing so he can start preparing to serve a mission in this church!!!! haha oh man i so regret not teaching all my friends but when i get back im all over that!!! haha but lets see oh yeah i got one package from you with the one shoe!! thanks!! those mcdonalds shoes just keep getting uglier and uglier haha oh well at least they are comfortable!!

oh so i have been studying charity a whole lot lately and jsut studying it makes my life better haha im able to deal a whole lot better with elders used to get on my nerves and now its just like i can honestly laugh it off. it is really neat. The Lord is so awesome. He has been helping me out so stinkin much here on the mission. like for real ive realized finally that He wants me to depend on Him. obviously i{ve gotta do the work but He wants me to depend on Him for help strength courage faith whatever it be. He even blessses us with awesome investigators even when we have to spend a ton of the day here in the offices. like we have found families that are jsut straight up waiting to hear from us. The Lord truely has His hand in this work.

right now my favorite scriptures are alma 7:23-24. there are 13ish charachteristics (pretty sure thats way off... but its better than braydens spelling haha LOVE YOU BRAYDEN!!!!) that alma tells us that we should have IN 2 Verses!!! way cool

oh i loved the pictures that you sent with the shoe haha thanks a lot. oh and the fruit snacks too!!!! OH MY GOSH. haha and the jerky!! Thanks grandma and grandpa!!! thanks to everyone who has been writing me!! haha honestly even though i dont have time to write back i still appreciate them a bunch.

oh so i will finally tell you i was in teh hospital for another elder haha im totally fine haha it was jsut a mini april fools joke i guess haha i just had to baby sit him for a while :) haha

love you so much

LETTER: Elder Jared Jensen • April 11th, 2011

Dear favorite mom.

I'm glad Baby Creed was blessed last Sunday and that so many family members showed up. =) Its amazing what God blesses us with isn't it?

Well alot has happened this week. But I feel like I should write a little bit what happen a couple weeks ago. I didn't want to share it before but now that I have been seeing gods hands in things that have happen I feel like I should share whats going on. Alright a couple weeks ago I had a very hard time with some of the things that were going on and things are going to sound a little dark when I say them at first but in the end you see gods hands come into play. It was a beautiful day outside at about 5:00 Sunday. We decided that we were going to go and see this lady named Tina who hasn't gone to church for a couple years. We have had a couple other appointments with her before but none like this one. So we knock on her door and her son lets us in and we meet her older son and older daughter for this first time and everything was going well. They then went down stairs and we started to talk with Tina a little bit about her patriartical blessing because we had an ex-patriarch with us. But as we were talking I kept hearing all this noise coming from down stairs. (Such as banging against the wall, glass breaking and the F word 100 times) I finally couldn't handle it anymore and said Tina I think you should make sure everything is going OK downstairs? (I guess she couldn't really hear anything but I'm still not sure if she was acting like it.) So she went down stairs and we just started to hear all this yelling and a couple other words. Finally the daughter came back upstairs and went into her room and Tina came in a little up set. I stood up and looked at straight in the eye's and asked if everything was OK. She looked at me and was nodding yes but then started to get teary eyed. So we all set back down and she started to talk to us a little bit again and we could tell that her son was being abusive by that time because of how she was acting and I started to ask if this stuff happen all the time and she just said it did sometimes. We then started to hear more crying and could tell that the son was by her daughter again and the daughter kept whispering please stop, please stop you have to be quite. The son continued to be angry and outraged. The patriarch was totally calm during this time and I'm not sure if it was because of his old age or what and then out of the blue the patriarch asked "Well Tina is there a time that we can set that we can come back" And oh man was I mad! Right when he said that I cut him off and said "No! Tina are you OK right now?" and continued to talk with her and was just mad that the patriarchs biggest worry right then was another appointment. . . A few seconds later we heard another glass break and Tina said I'll be right back and walked off again. I felt like he was being abusive to the daughter again and I couldn't handle it anymore. My heart started to pump my blood started to flow my hand started to squeeze tighter and tighter. . . That's when I stood up and said " I'm sick of this." I was going to kill the kid. I started to walk around the table (My companion later on told me that my chest was pumped way out too) and I started to walk towards the door when I heard the most piercing "ELDER!" that I have ever heard on my mission. I heard it so strong that I literally stopped right where I was and looked back thinking my companion said that but when I looked back at him he looked all puzzled like as if to say "Why did you stop? Lets go kill this guy." Then I looked at the patriarch and he was just moving up and down on his rocking chair so I know he didn't say it. I then sat back down wanting so badly to go get that guy. A little bit later she came out and I asked if I could go talk with her and she told me no not right now. So we left and it was just in my mind all day. I didn't know what to do. I felt like this biggest wimp and felt like I did the wrong things. I kept thinking why did I not go and stop this. I later on asked my companion why he yelled at me and told me to stop when he said "Elder" To my surprise he said that he never said anything. He then told me a little on his view and he said that he was confused when I turned around like I did. But he never heard anyone say "Elder!" I feel like now that the Holy Ghost for what ever reason didn't want me to go over there. But your never going to believe what happen in a few weeks =)

Part 2. A few weeks later we decided to go back again and to our surprise Tina was very very happy. We started to talk with her and she said that her prayers were answered. (So were ours) But she told us that her son moved out because he finally was able to get a job as being a chef and her daughter moved out to her new apartment. So now its just her and her 10 year old son and they are just loving life and we are now able to have lessons with her when ever we want. God pretty much just said " OK here you go. I took them out so that they will now be able to be taught." We are always able to feel the spirit there every time we go. We love those guys =) It took me so long to get over what happen too. I felt like for so long that I made the wrong choice by not going and stopping them. I don't know what would have happen. But after hearing this things went so much better for me. I wish I could have gone into more detail but I have to go.

I love you my mom =)

LETTER: Sister Adrienne Schneider • April 4th, 2011

1- Im not sure who i have learned from the most thus far. I have started to get to know my mission president a litte bit better and he is amazing! I cant even explain it! Serious! His example. Can you imagine bein in charge of over 100 missionaries? And...missions are hard times for these people too....? And, he remembers everything we write, our investigadors, a Father of gazillions of people! He is a great example and very confident!

2- Sunday activities: Wake up 630, shower, go to a meeting with the ward if we have one, pick up investigadors, go to church, eat lunch (hopefully a member remembers they are feeding us :), then go do lessons, contacts, etc. Everyday is Sunday to a missionary, except Preparation Day....haha it is great!

im sad to hear about camon and logans injuries....no bueno! Tell camon to do a handstand the whole time and play! jk...love you camon! I was actually thinking about camon the other day! love you!

So...can you tell me a summary of how the priesthood session went? I would like to know if you have a little bit of time! i love conference! Also, did they say much about missionaries? i only got to watch 2 sessions in english. i love conference!!!!!!!!

That is awesome how Taryn is getting involved and helping you out and stuff! Glad the UVU team is getting involved too! how do they look this year? i think Camel is a senior! so crazy! i love that girl!

oh i think it is someones birthday today, on your side of the family....gma? i can{t remember but tell them happy birthday :)

lovelovelovelovelovelove love you!

hermanita schneider (ps no one can say my name here...me included...way funny)

LETTER: Elder Jared Jensen • April 4th, 2011

Dear Mom who is way beautiful.

Things are going fantastic here. Me and Elder Smith are just having a great time. I feel like I'm with one of my best friends here so its making things fly by right now. General conference was amazing! I cant believe I would ever sleep some times while watching it. General conference is our Christmas time on our mission. The priesthood session help me out so much too. All I can say is Elder Ucthdorf answered my prayers. However if there is one thing that I learned from general conference from the priesthood session and the last session of conference is that I am doomed and will be getting some Dear John letters soon. Man after the prophet finished his talk in priesthood I turned to my companion and said " Man I'm on a mission and if i was home... I would probably marry the first girl I saw after that talk."

Well things here are still booming and we are still finding a lot of new investigators. The other missionaries here don't like us very much though because of how well we are doing. Its actually kind of funny we are loving it. God has been blessing us so much with so many people to teach. =)

So mom remember how I was never really good at following the rules and I would always like to do random crazy things? Well I still haven't changed from that very much. Its not that I'm doing anything really bad its just that I like to have fun out here while I work. And its the same way with Elder Smith and that's why we get along so well. Anyways... Last night we got home and there is this bible study class that we always ride our bikes past. Well a great idea came into my mind that maybe we should go into that bible study class and pick out certain points that talks about the book of Mormon and our church. For example; "Prophets and Apostles and other sheep that I have" So I turned to Elder Smith and told him of my master plan. After a little time past he agreed that it would be a lot of fun and that we might find some new investigators this way. (Because there's always around 15 people that are in these bible study classes.) So we started to change out of our church cloths and put on our Levi's and bling bling and went out the door. Shortly after as we started walking to our destination and we noticed that there were a lot of people starting to leave the building. So we started to walk up to the front door (Looking like a pair of college kids) and walked right in. The people there looked at us a little puzzled and just stood there looking at us for a bit. I looked at the guy that looked like the leader and said " Hey, we have always seen all these people come in this building and have always wondered what it was" We then saw all there faces light up with a smile and they said " Oh, Well we have been waiting for you..." At that point I thought they caught us and knew that we were LDS Missionaries. (Because we would ride our bikes past there building at least 6 times a day) So I smiled at them and said " Oh really?" They replied " Ya, every one here is welcome and we just come here playing games and stuff here and hang out. (We knew they were lying because we new for a fact that they do bible studies.) So Elder Smith said " Well do you guys do Bible study? Because I see some scriptures up on that board." They all of a sudden got really tense and not knowing what to say because they didn't want to scare us off by saying they did Bible studies. finally after a short time they told us that they did but it wasn't all the time and it was just for fun. We then started to act really interested in the Bible study and there whole motive changed and they said "Oh ya we do Bible studies all the time and people get to ask any questions they want to help them understand the Bible. It doesn't really matter if you guys don't know very much because we will help you out. We really just have an open discussion with everyone. And doesn't matter if you guys aren't very smart." Wow! now look how fast he judged us for not being very smart and not knowing anything! So we smiled and said " Wow that sounds fantastic. We would love to come and do a Bible study sometime with you guys." We continued to talk a little bit and asked them a few more questions. But then they started to ask us some question's... You have to remember that we didn't want them to know that we were Mormons yet and not only that but that we were also missionaries. So they asked what we did down here. In my mind I was like (Ah flip!) I tried to hurry and think of something and the first thing that came out was "Ummm uhhhh We just left High School and were not going to school right now because we just felt like school wasn't for us. (And I wasn't lying mom just in case you were wondering. Because school wasn't for us. The mission was.) They then asked ah did you guys go to Shadle High School. The same thing went through my mind again. (Ah Flip!) I wasn't going to lie to them so I said " No, no we didn't go to Shadle High School." (Hoping that they would drop it from there but they didn't) They then looked at me again and asked "Oh then what high school?" Gah! Why couldn't they just leave it alone! I looked at the lady that asked and tried to think fast and said "Oh, ummmm Copper Hills, ya Copper Hills" They looked at me with a confused look and said "hmmm Copper Hills? I don't think I have ever heard of it before... Where is it at?" Ah man they were killing me I was trying to do everything I could with out telling them that I was from Utah so I answered while nodding my head up and down "Oh, its in South Jordan" Hoping that this time they would stop asking... but that hope was in vain when they asked "South Jordan? Where is that? " We then decided that things were starting to get too risky." Its in Utah. But ummmm we got to go but we would love to come to one of your guys bible studies." They replied " Ya that would be great. Well do you guys go to a church at all?" Ah flip I had no idea what to say there! So its great that Elder Smith answered "Ya we go to a Christian church" They all nodded as if to say "Ah, OK" Luckily for us they didn't go any further then that. So in the end they still don't know that were Mormon but in due time we will tell them. I will be sure to tell you what happens next week or the week after. =)

But things here really are going great and the members are taking care of us. Heavenly Father has been blessing us so much. We get fed by our investigators almost everyday now too and randomly people will just buy us food and give it to us. God has been watching over us in so many ways. Testimony of the church grows more and more everyday.

I love you so much my beautiful mother. I'm so grateful for all of your wonderful letters and prayers. Thank you so much for everything you do and have done for me. I'm so grateful for all of the ways you had taken care of me growing up. You always stayed strong to the faith even when no one else was. The one thing that sticks out to me most that you have taught me was to "Endure to the end" Thank you so much mom. You have truly given me strength. Also Since I have been out here I have realized that I'm a lot more like dad then I realized. I don't know if you ever noticed that but it just hit me this week that I'm really just "chill" you could say like dad. I realized how much I love him and you so much more. I really do look up to both of you so much and I could never ask for any other parents. Thank you so much for everything you have taught me.

I love you. =)

-Elder Jensen

LETTER: Elder Brayden Schneider • April 4th, 2011

hey i loved the emails this week!

Mom just so you know i sent you and email concerning school and stuff! thanks A TON!

ok so this week was really really crazy. We taught a record of 22 lessons i dont think we ever ate dinner cause we were so busy! i didnt even think it was possible, and then the sisters taught 29 lessons we had a goal to get 56 lesssons together! we are trying to strengthen our branch and everyone loves getting with us! :)

So english classes are doing great, we have a lot of good potentials. And we invite members to come and they are always super proud to be a member of the only true church! The members are really something special here!

This week was awesome because i havent gotten mail for the longest time and president made a suprise visit and brought mail.... and i got a letter from Ammon and also Sean... it was like christmas!!! oh man i miss those guys so much!

So we are teaching a family, the parents are both members and were a couple of the first baptisms in slovenia. Well we are teaching them and they have 4 daughters who are super cool. So we challenged them to baptism this week, it was exciting... but they wouldnt accept a date, so we will keep working with them!

ok so thats about it, conferance was super good! we went down to Ljubljana and watched it! I am not sure which sessions i saw i didnt get to see all of them, i think i saw preisthood and 2 others.

I learned that when i get home there is not goofin off for elder schneider. haha no jk, i just realized a couple of things... i need to study HARD, and get me a wife... And then treat her amazingly!!! ANd never get divorsed! :) that was the basics that i learned. :)

thanks family! :)