LETTER: Elder Brayden Schneider • August 22nd, 2011

Thanks a ton for working on my schooling this week! That is super cool to hear that logan is already at school.... that is really really wierd though, he still seems too young! haha

Also thanks for the update on my card! you guys are the best!

Also dad last week you asked for my address.... not sure, it would be easier if you just sent it to the croatian address.

Well.... this week is going to be crazy, so listen to this, on friday we are having a special training for all the missionaries here in Ljubljana, and we will be training on HOW TO TRAIN MISSIONARIES, the crazy part is, is the first presidence athorized that ever companionship gets a mini DVD player. Hahaha you guys totally think i am joking but its the truth, so i have a good feeling about this. I am super excited.

Well we almost have a baptismal date but our investigator said that she started drinking coffee again... and she is having the hardest time stopping so tommorow at like 5:30 we are going to make her hot chocolate and show up at her house, in our white shirts and ties and give her hot chocolate instead. (cause she said she only drinks coffee in the mourning). I am hoping that it will make her feel specail and that the word of wisdom is a big deal! wish us luck!

This week we have transfers, i think everyone is more excited the usual! I am pretty excited.

Good news, Sean wrote me he is still going way good!

So i just finished reading my first text book. haha not really a text book but its the CHURCH HISTORY IN THE FULLNESS OF TIMES, i love it, i am super super wierd now, i like to read..... i know i bet you guys can hardly believe it.

This week was so hot at night i couldnt sleep so i stayed up until 3 on night at studied about angles.... that is really really interesting. I would highly suggest studing that.

Well thats about it. i am doing good!

ps.. i got the coolest new tie last week i will have to send a pic soon!

love you.

LETTER: Sister Adrienne Schneider • August 22nd, 2011

WOW!

I am just going to write a little bit about what is going on....haha we divided a stake and so we had a reunion with a whole bunch of people and wards! it was so great! there were so many missionaries, wards, and people. One person from the 70 spoke and everyone was really excited to hear from someone in the ¨70¨.....they don´t even think about coming to utah and actually hearing the prophet or one of the 12. what a blessing to live in utah and have so many opportunities to hear and see the prophet and apostles!

some great things that happened.....this little girl fell in love with me. i said hi to her...and after that....she just kept giving me bunches of hugs and kisses. haha she had me sit by her and just was the cutest thing ever! so we sat by each other, and the whole time she was telling me that she loved me...like a ten year old girl....and lots of hugs. it was pretty precious! she was so sad when i had to leave and she had to go with the other missionaries..... the missionaries in her area are great! I found out she recently got baptized like a week ago. She said she is going to miss me a whole lot. I felt pretty good about it.

The other fun thing about this reunion was that i got to see people from Hurlingham. This time...i could actually talk and understand what they were saying. there are a lot of great people there! i already miss them....but i felt satisfied that i could talk to them and that i have been working hard to learn their language. One counselor in the bishopric is just grea tand his wife had a baby...it was fun to see their baby becaue they are a young couple. When i was talking to them, this little girl came up to give me a big hug and kiss to say good-bye....the counselor just looked at me and said...you know her? haha i laughed and told him i met her in the conference. Then he said that it is my strong spirit and love for the people that she sensed instantly, which helped me feel good. He helped me a lot when I was in Hurlingham. We joke that he is one of our heros because he is just so great to everyone. He sees things how they are....

I also got to talk to Sebastian Sires....a real conversation (I could never understand him before...and if I could...I couldn´t respond)....he is good and has to do his mission papers again.....but he said he saw a vision that his brother got baptized......

Later...i talked with Hermana Clark (she is in Hurlingham) and she told me that the brother of Seba is getting the lessons, but has to stop smoking and drugs and everything, but has a baptismal date! it was super fun to talk to him and all the people. I was super excited to hear about Sebastien and his brother!

Also, there was a choir that sang in the conference, i thought...i´d like some music to plan in spanish so people can sing. I talked to one woman from Hurlingham and mentioned the music (she knew i played the piano) and just gave me the music....small blessings.

I was so stinkin happy and grateful last night i couldn´t sleep.....thinking of all the people, the little children that i absolutely love....and just the mission. I thought that i don´t know if i would ever send my daughter on a mission......I think it would be hard as a parent to send your kids out on a mission...foreign land, language, customs, cultural, people, and distance from teh family....how crazy....!

Then i started thinking more....that Heavenly Father sent us here...it was hard, but necessary. Jesus still did the will of his father and completed his mission.....I hope I make sense.

It has been awesome to be with Leyna (17 year old girl that got baptized) She is just great and it is so fun to be able to talk more with her. She wants to serve a mission :) haha she is amazing and the only one in her family. I want to do something nice for the mom....she doesn´t ever want to talk to us....I pray we can soften her heart.

We had a family of 10, but something happened and they don´t really want to listen to us for now....i am praying to know what to do. Other than that, we have been contacting and looking for people. WE had transfers and I am training someone new that is waiting for her VISA to Venezuela. She has problems with her knees sometimes and walking...but she is nice to me. haha learning a lot with every companion...I´ve had 4 different companions in 4 transfers.......

The Elders still help us a lot. Our District Leader is really great and has given me good advice with things. Soemtimes the zone leaders get a little carried away with numbers and baptisms.....which stresses me out cuz we don´t have any fechas right now.....but he helps me keep the perspective of the people. He gave me the idea to do something nice for Leyna´s mom.

so congrats on all the babies, weddings, and everything too! it is so fun to hear!!!! Seriously! Thanks for those tidbits of information!

I wrote a lot about me hoy....sorry

love you tonz!!

Hermana Schneider

LETTER: Elder Colton Nunley • August 15th, 2011

*answering some questions for the Nunley family reunion*

What do you want to be when you grow up?

still dont know what i want to be when i grow up

What was the craziest rule you broke in school?

haha my senior year 86 absences... woot woot!!!!

What is your favorite drink? Favorite food?

here in mexico GATORADE, Mexican food

What is your favorite hymn or primary song?

Kolob, come thou fount

What is your favorite scripture or story in the scriptures?

haha oh man the whole book of mormon

Who?s your favorite super hero? If you could have any super power what would it be?

batman cuz he doesnt need superpowers he´s just that cool. the powers of spider man to climb walls and stuff

What is one of your favorite childhood memories?

haha one more time thats all

What is your greatest accomplishment so far and what do you hope to accomplish?

making the decision to serve a mission, to serve my mission the whole rest of my life. Im never gonna stop feeding His sheep

What is the most daring thing you have ever done?

haha everyday when i leave the house here in mexico ( haha just kidding mom it is SOOOOOOOOOOO safe here!!!)

--------------

hhaah well theres my answers and now mom that super long letter i promised wont be coming this week becuase i had to answer all those oober hard questions haha.

so my bday we had a zone conference in a place called cuauhtemoc and it is so beautiful there!! there is actually green life there haha here in chihuahua its all brown haha. but yeah so i got the package on my birthday which was pretty cool. thank you soo osoo much!! oh man i miss gewey chews so much haha thanks ma.

this week was super good. we had an amazing baptism. her name is anabell and is such an amazing convert and wanted to be baptized this week and then later her husband and son are gonna be baptized...hopefully. but yeah she is so good and the bishop is loving our work here. he invited us to the ward council i think its called.not sure but it was the first time he´s invited the missionaries...woot woot!!! he gave us some less active members he wants us to visit and yeah everything is going really really well here. oh so in my district we have the assistants to teh president the zone leaders us and two other areas that are super good.

this week we had 6 investigators in the church and we did a family home evening with some investigadors in teh house of new converts and it was so amazingly spiritual!!!! the mom has been coming to church and we are teaching her regularly and the husband and kids just dont want to listen but the daughter went to this fhe and then el domingo went to church!!!! oh my gosh we have so many amazing experiences every day its hard to tell you all of them and dem to answer your question the absolute best part (most spiritual) of the mission is hearing my investigators bear their testimony after their baptism. its like in dyc 18 :15-16 i think. my joy is so much more when i can share it with others and when they truely feel it.

Derek thanks for writing me. and congratulations on your wedding and everything else in you life haha!!!!

love you all

Elder Nunley

LETTER: Sister Adrienne Schneider • August 16th, 2011

hola!

So, it has been a hard transfer. We have kids that want to get baptized, but we don´t have the permisson from the moms. The dads are fine with it, but the moms are soooo hard to talk to and won´t budge for anything. They don´t have problems if they come to church, activities, pray, or read the book of Mormon....but they can NOT get baptized. i haven´t found out why yet....It has been hard for other reasons....but remember these words and maybe I will tell you after: Jose Alico (Calle) and Rodriguez

They are the best! the villa is crazy...i want to take pictures, but it wouldn´t be too smart to take a camera and i don´t want to lose...i will go buy one the next pday...don´t have time today...sorry!

I can´t remember what I have already written,,, but We are going to marry a 75 year old grandpa! haha we baptized him....and he can´t read or write and barely hears. He loves to come to church! his señora came back and they wan tto get married and she wants to get baptized! We have a lot to teach her...but it is so great! They cry everytime we visit them! We have to wait a month to marry them off though ;( i don´t know if I will be here. we were able to give ANA (the señora) a skirt. haha she is funny! very catholic but sweet!

We had transfers again, I am kinda training, i´m an aunt now. My comp was a mini and only serves for a transfer, but they asked her to serve in another area. I am training a new sister, she has one transfer, but her mission call is for Venezuela. So, it is pretty crazy. This transfer with a new president has been a monton de cambios! Two sisters are with their original mothers...which is so so weird. So, two really experiences missionaries are together. It is insane! I had a feeling to call one of my original sisters (one of my hermanas in the mtc...) normally, we don´t call others without the permission, but i called anyways (you can edit this part...first our priority is to the Lord...so i don´t think i was disobedient :) but it was good to call her and she just started to cry and felt sooo alone. I could relate with her all too well with eveyrthing she is going through.

Also, the Elder that helped me out and talked to me when I was training is now Asistent to the President. I think he was pretty shocked and kind of reacted the same way I did when I found out I was training. I could relate with him all too well. I was able to try and return the favor and help him out. It is really great to try and help people!

All those experiences I have had, have helped me relate with the others. I can see them experiencing the same thing and my heart goes too them...it is hard! But there is nothing I can really do, because it is just something they kinda have to experience. I know that they understand how they feel. That is kinda vague, but those hard experiences are refining me...

and allowing me to help others and relate with them

I seriously don´t know what i would do without the Elders to help me out mom. They are great! I have traveled a lot with my mini comp because she is from Argentina. She has a lot of random thigns to do...like vote, fix her braces (not very many people have braces here)...and we need to travel. Not going to lie it has been fun to travel and see more of Argentina. When we were traveling, we saw 4 Elders and it was so fun to see Elders! I hope we give people hope when they see us sisters! We joke that we are the popular sisters because they always call us to invite us to do things with them. We work hard too! People help us all the time! we were sitting in a train traveling...not really knowing where to go, and almost every time someone kinda took us by the hand to show us where to go. One man randomly looked at us and said....this is Ramos...didn´t you want to get off at Ramos? If he hadn´t said it, we would have lost ourselves....

We had four dates for baptisms, but they fell through because we couldn´t get the permission from their mothers. We can baptize with only the permission from the dads..but I want permission from both because they have big families. i don´t want to get the mom´s mad right now. One of the girls is named Jennyfer and is the sister of our amazing baptism! haha she is 9 and was sitting by me in church. I was writing her notes and this was our conversation written<.

Are you Praying?......SI (Written big in block letters! enthusiastically)

Do you want to get baptized?.....SI

Why do you want to get baptized?....I want to enter into the kingdom of God

I want to help you, I will pray for you that you can get baptized......me too GRACIAS!

This little girl is so stinkin cute! so grateful and KNOWS that she needs to get baptized! She was grateful for me! that was the best!

sorry i am everywhere! working hard, i love you! I am so glad for so many things! our family rocks! you can share with dad too, i am running out of time...

love always,

hermana Schneider

LETTER: Elder Brayden Schneider • August 16th, 2011

so you are probably wonduring why i am writing today. Cause yesterday was a holiday so everything was closed.

So i am really excited to hear that i can live at home for the first semester!! hey what day, and time does my flight arrive in utah?

Well good stuff happened this week. Actually i am really excited, we had a lesson with our main investigator and we read 1 nephi chapter 8, and talked about enduring to the end and everything. We 3 other members come on that lesson, and when we talked about it we felt that she is ready for baptism. She has came to church like 10 times in a row and said she will continue to come. Well tonight we have a lesson with her and we are going to ask if she will be baptisted on September 3! She will say yes i already know, but its still exciting!

Also we had zone conferance this week and we taught about refferals! And last week we got 3 refferals. We had a really cool exspericnce. So we were teaching a less active member and he has been doing really well lately, so we had a lesson with him and taught him about service, and then we decided the best way for him to learn service would to actually do it. So for our lesson he came with us while we visited some of the ladies in the branch. While we were with him i felt like i needed to ask about his parents. And if they were still living he said.. yes, and they live right there, (as he pointed to a building) then i was like cool man lets go visit them. But he declined, so we kept walking as i was trying to convince him, that we should go visit them together. So we just kept walking, for about 5 mins then the spirit started working on him and he said, ok if you wanna go visit them lets go. SO to make a long story short we visited them, and had a short lesson/visit, it was good... they really like us, so hopefully you will hear more about them.

Also we are teaching this members wife, she is super cool but wont do anything, and the spirit worked on her this week and she came to church! I didnt know she was coming and at the end of the meeting when i saw her i seriously like ran to greet her! it was the coolest thing to see her there!!!

We had alot going on this week. It was good.

love you family!

LETTER: Sister Adrienne Schneider • August 8th, 2011

hola dad!"!!

we have a good looking family! not going to lie!!!! jessie...wow you are gorgeous! The family look sgreat! Thanks for the pics! how the heck is Brayden? i haven´t heard from him for ever!!!!! i miss hearing from him!!! Glad that the trek was a good experience.

Question 1 - What impressed you at Martin's cove when you went with heritage tours? I am not sure I remember really well (about 5 or six years since i was in Martin´s cove...but I think there is a picture of a boy in teh snow with his dead fatehr ot something in teh snow. I can´t remember everything exactly, but i have a picture of it. If i could see the picture I took, I would remember...I can´t remember where those CD´s are of Trek...que lastima! I just remember feeling the sacrifice of the pioneers. They are pretty amazing!

Question 2 - Is it harder for you to take the time to write letters home because you have so much work to accomplish during your P day? There is always a lot to do on pday...but We always have the same amount of time to write our family. We have to write our family acutually,and president. The other day president didn´t receive a letter from my mini because she didn´t have a form, and so we had to go back another day to write. normally, we try to sleep because we work so hard during the week. But today we are going to go with Elders to play sports. it doesn´t happen very often, and those elders won a sports day of pday...but asked permission to invite me and my comp! was sooo nice of them! THere is always a ton to do on pday....but it is great!

are you and mom going to serve a mission dad? when you have...more experience (I think that is how brayden says ölder¨ but i can´t remember..haha) so crazy! you can read mom´s email if youw ant. i kinda rambled like always! but it is good! hard, but good! THanks for all teh support of everyone! Soemtimes i feel alone, but then someone always thinks of me and does something for me or algo asi! it is so great! I am so lucky so many people care about me! THanks for everything! love you tonz!

Time is about out! Pleas tell jessie that if she can resend her email to me...somehow it was deleted..i saw a new email from her....clicked it...and then it deleted itself. anyohw, if she can resend it or something. i feel bad i didn´t respond!

love always,

hermanita schneider

LETTER: Elder Brayden Schneider • August 8th, 2011

aha i love those pictures that you gave me! that trek looked like a bunch of fun not work or hard times! hahahaha thats way cool though!

We are busy doing missionary work. Everyone was on vacation so we were lacking in the lessons area.

Wow you guys got my flight plans??? JAN 2, 2012 hahahahahaha oh man that is just to weird. My question is, is how am i going to go to school on Jan 2? hahaha well i guess it looks like i will be missing the first day of school. Oh man that is crazy..... and that means that i will be missing 3 Christmases! hahaha what a blessing! hahaha that will be the coolest thing to say, that i missed 3 Christmases on my mission.

On cool experience that we had was 2 new ladies just showed up to church. I talked to one of them and the end of the meeting and she said that she is 100% sure this is church is true, and that she wants to be a member. (we will start teaching her but she might be a little crazy), but the other lady is amazing she loved it and said she was going to keep coming!

So we are teaching one lady that really really wants to be baptized, but we are waiting for a little bit because we dont know how sensor her desires are! Its an interesting situation! haha

The weather is super weird over here, it rains and then is 10000 degrees.

So this week we had alot of meetings! We had separate meetings with the mission president, assistants, and the branch president.

The branch president is really liking the missionaries that he has right now! Its alot of fun working with him.

Well good news i am losing weight.... when i came out on my mission i was about 200-250 pounds but now i am about 145! hahaha no jk but i think i have lost any muscle that i used to have! haha

ok so we had some really good lessons this week.... its weird cause now i never know what to write about our lessons!

otherwise i am good! And hopefully next week you will hear about a baptismal date!!!

Ps... mom and dad i do want to go to UVU. How can we get me signed up? can you guys work on that one?

ps... my president really really likes me.... even more then president hill did! hahahaha the mission just goes so much better when your leaders like you! hahaha