Letter dated 23Jul2012

[Dear family and friends, I hope this note finds you well. This is the letter that we received from Weston this morning. We appreciate your support and prayers! Be safe, stay cool and enjoy the rest of July! If you would like to send a note to Weston, simply reply to this note and I will forward your note to him. Weston's editor - BWS] Dear Family, Another week gone and here I am again! Best wishes that you all recieve this letter as well. I´m sure you are staying healthy and well at home. Rest assured that I am also well here on the island. It weird that I´ve only been here in Inca for 2 weeks. It feels like it´s been way longer than that but I guess a lot can happen in 2 weeks. We´ve been having a good amount of sucess here during this time. The first week was dedicated to getting to know the area a bit better, contacting people in the street, and introducing ourselves to the members here in the branch. We continued doing the same during this past second week but we also were able to begin teaching new people who are amazing. We found a family from Ecuador and we´ve taught the family three times this week and its been fun and exciting to share the gospel with them. They are very humble and they are always prepared when we come for our lessons. The one sad thing was that they didn´t come to chruch yesterday but we´re going to visit with them tonight and on Wednesday as well. The names of the parents are Juan and Sandra and they have two kids, Julie who is 17 and Juan who is 11. If they continue progressing and start coming to church then they will be able to be baptized on the 11th of August, so if you would, could you help Elder Greep and me by praying for them during these upcoming weeks for them to come to church and to feel the Spirit in their lives? I know that your prayers will make wonders! Something that I started doing this week that has been lots of fun has been making brownies for different people. I´ve been using a super easy recipie I´ve found but they turn out really, really good! I enjoy thinking about the story from Dad´s mission about the cake you made and how it made a huge impact on that father of the family that you taught all those years ago. Sometimes it´s the smallest of things that make the difference in the world (I may or may not have just quoted Lord of the Rings (^_^) ) but I´m definitely still finding out what kind of missionary I am here in Spain. The nice thing for me is that I still have so much to see and do and I have all that time to improve the things that I still want to change about myself. My companion, Elder Greep, is on his last transfer of his mission right now and it´s interesting because he´s going to be with his family within the next month. I need to make sure that I´m using my time appropriatly right now because when he leaves I´ll be with a new compaion and once again I will be the experienced Elder in the area. I´m really looking forward to it. I hope that the address I gave you last week works, because if it doesn´t then I´ll have no idea how to know! Daniel, sounds like you´ve been having a really good summer! I´m sure this last week will be a blast and that you´ll be ready for BYU very shortly. It´s exciting to hear that the ward is taking off in missionary work! I´m exctied to see the difference in the future and I´m sure it´s going to be completely different in the next year and a half, with all these new callings, new faces, and the fact that everyone will speak English! ¡Les quiero! Élder Xander Weston Schindler P.S. Andrew, how are the plans for your birthday coming along? I´d get you something but I have an ocean in the way so.... sorry. But if you still have Netfilx at home, then just consider that my present to you! ;) By the way, you should cancel my Netflix if you haven´t yet. Thanks! P.P.S. Post script, eh? Makes sense. (^_^) But that news about what happened in Colorado is so sad... I hope that it wasn´t influenced by The Dark Knight Rises.. P.P.P.S. I´ll have more photos coming in the next couple of weeks, but I´d like to see some new photos of the family if that be possible. If not, I´ll understand.

Letter dated 16Jul2012

[Dear family and friends, I hope this note finds you well. We enjoyed seeing our Wilson family at Nauvoo! Here is the letter we received from Weston this morning. It is always so good to hear from him. I am hoping that I can share some more pictures next week - if he has time to send them. In the meantime, I hope everyone is well and happy. With love, Weston's editor - BWS] Dear Family, Hey, sorry for last week. I just ran out of time so I couldn´t tell you anything that happened that you didn´t already know. So right now I´m going to give you the run down on everything I can think of during the past two weeks that I should let you know. Melky and Jean were baptized back on the 7th and Jean's was my favorite baptism. He was just so ready and it was amazing to see his change from the first day he came to church to the last Sunday I saw him. The first day he came he was wearing a shirt that said, ´´Sex, Drugs, And Sausage Rolls´´ but then the last Sunday he was wearing a suit and tie! I have lots of pictures to send but that´ll have to wait since the good Locotorio [internet cafe] is closed today for some reason. But I have been here on the island for about a week now and now I have a good idea of what the area will be like. The branch here is small but it´s a great group of people. We had about 25 people in church yesterday and I finally got to see more of the members which was great. My new companion, Elder Greep, had actually served here in Mallorca for his very first area in his mission. This transfer is his last and it was a surprise for him to come back to finish off his time as an Elder. We´re whitewashing [this is the word missionaries use when two new missionaries replace two existing missionaries in an area] the area from the Sister missionaries who were here before us. One nice thing that we have here in Inca is our apartment. Sister missionaries just seem to have better homes than most of the Elders so we were lucky to get their old apartment. Here in Inca, the work is a bit slower so I´ve been doing more contacting than I have ever done in Gerona. We usually start talking to about 20 people each and every day and get to know them a little bit and give them our invitation to learn more and it's been a great experience to have been doing more of that. We have already met quite a number of people who have shown real interest and I´m excited to see what happens here in the island. One thing that suprised me is that we have a lot of mountains on the island here and it´s somewhat similar to being on the island from Lost . [This is a confusing (and pointless) television show about people lost on an island.] So far I haven´t seen any smoke monsters but I´m keep both eyes open at every moment, just in case! [There was a smoke monster on the island in the show Lost.] May the force be with you, always, Élder Xander Weston Schindler P.S. I´ll try to e-mail a few more specifics next week, but I ran out of time, again! I´ll also do my best to send the photos back from Gerona. I´m excited about the blog present you made for me. I´d follow it! (^_^) if I could. Also, here is my new address so that you can send whatever you want out here to the island! From what I´ve been hearing, I might be here until winter, but we´ll find out about that I guess! Elder Schindler C\ Ramon Desbrull Escalera 1,2ºB 07300 Inca España

Information about Inca

Here is a link to an article and pictures about Inca, Spain! http://www.mallorca-info.info/Inca.htm

Information about Mallorca Island

Here is a link that has some information and pictures of Mallorca Island. http://www.mallorca-info.info/index.htm

Information about Inca, Spain

Here is a link to a Wikipedia article about Inca: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inca,_Spain

Letter dated 10Jul2012

Dear friends and family, Here is the letter we received from Weston a little while ago. As you can see, he has been transferred to Inca, Mallorca -- which is on an island in the Mediterranean Sea! I will be putting pictures in Weston's newly created blog! (See below!) Thank you for your incredible notes for Weston's birthday. As you can tell, he LOVED them. I will see some of you at our Family Reunion this week! I hope you are all well, happy and cool! Weston's editor - BWS] Dear Family, I want you all to know, before you continue reading, that I am brain dead right now, so bear with me. (Yeah, Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.) A BEAR?!?! PWSH!! As I had previously informed you the other day, I have been transferred to Inca, Mallorca. I arrived today but I have to fill you all in right now, just give me a second to get my thoughts put together. Alright. This past Friday (which was my Birthday, thank you for sending all the notes that everyone sent to me! [I was able to send over 50 birthday notes -- thank you EVERYONE!]) I recieved the news that I would be transferred and that my companion, Elder Carlson would be training in Gerona. When we got this news, I didn´t believe it at first because our District Leader had told me two times previously that I was being emergency transferred but he was just lying. This time it was true though and we were both really excited to get ready for this huge change. This past Saturday I was blessed to have taken part in the baptism of our two wonderful friends, Jean and Melky. With Jean, it was Elder Call and I who first met him and we were the first people who introduced the gospel into his life and for that reason he asked me to baptize him. Melky had previously requested that one of the members, our Gospel principles teacher, would be the one to baptize her. From now on, whenever I think of Gerona, I´ll think of each person who touched me and whom I know I touched in some way or another. (MORE TO COME NEXT WEEK, I´M OUT OF TIME) I have started a blog for Weston! The address is: http://bwschindler1.blogspot.com/ I still need to work on it -- but it is finally started! I hope you can visit and -- and become a "follower!" I will be adding some pictures of Weston's new town/Island so you can see where he is living!

Transfer to Inca - 6Jul2012

[Dear friends and family, today is Weston's birthday - and we received the following note from him today! I am sure this island is beautiful! It takes me back to my transfer to Awaji Island in Japan - several years ago! For his birthday, I started his blog -- which is not finished -- but it's a start. I'll be putting all of his pictures on the blog later this weekend. Here is the address for his newly created "birthday blog"! http://bwschindler1.blogspot.com/ Enjoy!! Weston's editor - BWS] Dear Family, Just really quickly, so that you all know, I am being transfered to Inca. If you look it up on Google Maps you´ll see that I´ll be serving out in the islands! Catch you all this Tuesday sometime (I hope)! Oh, and pray that I´ll arive safely in Inca but also pray for my final baptisms here in Gerona tomorrow with Jean and Melky. Have a fun birthday celebration at home for me! I got the second letter from mom with the awesome cookie card! LOVE, Élder Xander \/\/eston Schindler

Letter dated 3Jul2012

[Dear family and friends, greetings from a stormy Michigan! (We're getting some much needed rain with lots of lightning and thunder!) Here is the letter we received from Weston yesterday (it took it 11 hours to make it to us from Gerona!). Friday is Weston's birthday!! Thank you for all of your birthday wishes. If you have any more notes you would like me to forward to him, just send them as a reply. I hope this note finds you well and safe. Have a GREAT 4th of July and holiday weekend! Weston's editor - BWS] Dear Family, Thank you so much! I did get the first little package that you sent to me! I´ll be sure to be making some brownies this Friday and then send some pictures in a few weeks with the sick [as in "cool"] balloon you sent too! The pictures are also fantastic and I´m so glad to have them now. I finally have a family picture right next to my desk and sometimes I catch myself staring at our amazing family while I´m studying. Maybe it's not the best way to spend my time, but it was a fantastic early birthday present. I am also excited to use these recipes I´m receiving now. I´ll hold off plans for gyoza until after transfers just because this week is going to be super hectic, since we have an intercombio [exchanges with other missionaries] this Tuesday till Thursday, we have three people being baptized who are planning to be baptized this Saturday, it´s my birthday, and I might get transfered. It sounds like you´re all just doing everything that there is to do from what I´m hearing from back home. I hope Joseph and Daniel are having a good time working so far. I know this is their second day but it´s a whole lot of fun. [Joseph and Daniel are working at Paul Bunyan Scout Camp; Daniel as a cook and Joseph as a wall climbing and zip-line instructor!] Today we went to Barcelona and I hope you get the pictures I´m sending. I saw the Sagrada Familia once again but this time got a few pictures! We have so much planned for this week and I will be e-mailing on this upcoming Tuesday. That will be when I´ll let you know if I´m still going to be with my Gerona or moving onto new and exciting things! I´m really hoping I stay in Gerona a little longer, but I know I´ve done work here a while so we´ll see what happens. I have a list I have to make of all the funny stories that happened to me during the week, but here were a few that happened recently. When we were teaching Jean yesterday he asked me if I used make-up to get my cheeks so red. I suppose that´s just an international question people have for Weston Schindler! Today we also were asked by some people to sign a paper and donate to a cause that they had. I´m a pushover so I donated one euro, but then we had some police dressed as civilians who came up, told the women to stop what they were doing because they were frauds. They asked us if we wanted to prosecute them but we said we didn´t want to, since it was just one euro! We also came back to Gerona and saw two people playing the bagpipes and riding unicycles to get money from cars parked at the red light. I think the world's going crazy, but that could be just me... As always, I just love you all to death! Elder Xander Weston Chicle (Spanish for chewing gum, but it´s easier for people to call me Elder Chicle (^_^´)! P.S. I´ll let you know when I get the next letter but hold off for just a week before you send anything else, since I could be in another part of the world (maybe closer to Hogwarts, I don´t know).

Letter dated 27Jun2012

[Dear friends and family, We heard from Weston today -- here is his letter. Enjoy! Weston's birthday is on July 6. Send your birthday wishes as a reply to this message - and I will pass them along to him! I hope you are all having an enjoyable summer! Stay safe and stay cool. Love, Weston's editor - BWS] Dear Family, Whoa, so it´s definitely true right now that summer is here! In Spain the weather is at a solid 32º [this is Celsius!] and it is so hot right now! It sounds like Michigan is getting a pretty similar heat wave so I´m sure it´s easy for you all to relate to this problem. If I were all of you I would go to the beach as soon as possible so as to cool off a bit, whether or not you are all so busy! Stay cool and stay fresh for me, please. But this week we seemed to have the funniest things happen to us and every story was just super hiliarious. One night when we were sleeping I woke up Elder Carlson because I was sleep talking. I have absolutely no memory of it but he told me that I said ´´...en el nombre de Jesucristo, amen. En el nombre de Jesucristo, AMEN!´´ He was afraid at first because he had not idea what was going on but then I just continued saying weird things, but it was all coherent and he was just cracking up the whole time. According to him I said the following: ´´Judging by the top of her head ... dang.´´ What was going on in that dream, I have no clue, and as to what the top of the head is, I have no idea, but it was soooo funny! Also this past Saturday we went to a member's house and taught some English to the children and a few of their friends but then at the end of the visit I answered the phone and was talking to an investigator and was setting a time for us to visit her. Elder Carlson, in Spanish, said to tell her at 6:00. Then I, just repeating what he said, basically said ´´Dígale a las 6´´ [for those who know Spanish, this may make sense. I am guessing the the "six" was in English.] which made the family just crack up because it was so funny! Another thing that happened this week was the Day of John the Baptist [must be a Spanish holiday] and everyone was setting off fireworks and firecrackers the whole day. We were sitting at a bench in a park planning out where we needed to go; then a guy and his girlfriend walked up to us, then the guy threw a firework into the middle of the park and then it exploded. At first I was thinking to myself, ´´Are you seroius?´´ but then as they got closer I thought it was super funny and I asked them if they had another one. The girl asked if I was serious and I said of course! So now I have a big firework and I´m going to save it for next week for the 4th of July or for my birthday. Whenever I do set it off, I´ll take a video of it and be sure you all see it in a year and a half. But the reason I´m writting a bit later this week is because we had a visit with a family who lives in a city thats really far away but is still in our area. The city was really beautiful because it is right on the coast and there are mountains sitting on the entire coast. But then yesterday we couldn´t take a preparation day because we had our district meeting. We were planning on not having it because we just had a conference in Barcelona on Friday and now we actually have another one this Saturday. The reason we have multiple conferences is because this is the last week that President Hinkley will be here and we will be receiving President Pace at the end of this week. [Weston's mission president, President Hinckley will be finishing his 3-year mission on June 30; President Pace will begin his 3-year mission on July 1!] We´re in the process of preparing 3 people to be baptized within the next few weeks. One of whom is Jean who I´ve mentioned before and recently we´ve gone out running with him and then teaching him after we´re done running. It killed me the first time, since he´s training to do either Marathons or possibly the Olympics (no lie) and so keeping up the energy was crazy hard. If I stay here in Gerona for the rest of July then I´m going to finally get into really good shape if we keep this running up. We went running again yesterday and now I just need to work on my cardio so that I can keep up the internal fight. Another friend of ours that we are helping progress is Vlady. The interesting thing with him is that he does not have a background with religion but he wants to feel the spirit in his life because of his best friends, who are members. The one thing that we are going to make sure of is that he´s not just getting baptized to make his friend happy, which happens to be an amiga. [I am guessing this is a lady friend!] If that's what it turns out to be, then it wouldn't even be for the right reason so we are trying to see if his desires are sincere. The other one that looks promising is Melky who is from Honduras and she has been interested in the church for the past year or so. She´s waited so long because she has been wanting to make sure that what she´s been learning is the truth and now she has her answer, but we´re just waiting to see when she can have time off from work for us to set up her baptism. From what it looks like for next week, we´ll be having a little missionary party this Monday for the best holiday of the world, MY BIRTHDAY (or the Fourth of July, one or the other). But this should be a great week for me and I can´t wait to let you know how it goes. It´s possible that it will be my last week here in Gerona, and I will be very sad if it is. This transfer went by way too fast and I´m praying that I can stay for at least one more! But from what it sounds like from what dad said, I might have a package coming my way! If that´s true, then just don´t break the bank with it, but you know that I don´t ´´need´´ anything. But I´m glad to hear that you remembered my birthday and I´m just going to go crazy because I don´t feel like I´m almost 20 years old... I´m going to miss the good old days when I was just a crazy teenager! Brothers, mother, and father, with all the love I can muster within my heart, take care and always remember that I love you, Élder Xander Weston Schindler P.S. Daniel, that´s sick [sick -- in a good way!] that you shook hands with Brother Romney! [Daniel met and shook hands with Mitt Romney this past week!] I´m sure it was just like going to a rock concert! I´m also excited to hear that both you and Joseph will be working at the Paul Bunyan Scout Reservation this summer. [Daniel will be a cook; Joseph will be a rock climbing/zip line instructor.] I´ve never been, but I´m sure you´d have a blast this month kicking it with all those childrens! Andrew has C3-P0, so just ask the brother politely and he´ll give it to you. Mother, I´m praying the best I can for your outcome with work coming up and I know as well that the Lord has the best plan in store for you. Just don´t stress too much, it´s summer! Same goes to you dad, I can´t imagine being 4 gallons lighter can help with your declining health right now, but my prayers will be coinciding with grandma´s wishes to keep you going! [I received my 4-gallon blood donation pin this week; Grandma Schindler thinks that it will"do me in!"] YES, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! [Julie and I celebrated our 23rd Anniversary on June 24.] That´s strange to think that you hit the 23rd mark... dang. Nick and Chris, it looked like that the rock climbing was fantastic! You should also refrain from watching Adventure Time, since that show is of the devil (I kid, but seriously)! Andrew, my heart will go on, but you need to write me something. I can´t expect to try to send you my camera if I don´t know how / what you´re doing! Just keep being you though, bro! P.P.S. This is more of a want list than anything else, just keep this on record of what I want. Pictures (Thanks mom for getting those ready!) Ties (Harry Potter ties would be the best) Cheezits Recipes (including Egg Nog, ASAP) Family History Stories Family Mission Stories Black Socks My Visa Card Laser Pointer (Just because) My Lord of the Rings Music Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (They have oreos here in Spain, so I´m good with those (^_^) MISSION FOR ANDREW: The LOTR ring from that game that is super legit. I would love that, so so much! Cancel my Netflix Any little action figures from home that you know I´d love (i.e. Dinosaurs, Star Wars, Batman) ¡AMOR!

Letter dated 18Jun2012

[Dear family and friends, here is Weston's letter that we received this morning! I hope all of you are healthy, happy and doing well. Weston LOVES hearing from you! Send a reply to this note - and I will forward it to Weston. Be safe and be well! Weston's editor - BWS] Dear Family, From what you all sent me, you all sound terrific! This summer sounds like it´s going to be turning into quite the adventure for all of you. Just remember to have too much fun, all the time! I´m already having a very fun summer as well. It´s getting pretty hot here in Spain and I´m finding myself looking exhausted when I get to different appointments, seeing as how everyone sees my face and thinks I´m going to die (you know, since my face is so red). We´ve been getting a lot of sun as of late with some very relaxing breezes as well which gives you the best of both worlds. It´s the humid days that I can live without but I´m sure we´re going to have quite a few of those days coming up soon. These past couple of weeks have been the best of my mission so far. Elder Carlson is the kind of Elder who knows when to work but he also knows that life isn´t something to make stressful because that just gets you worked up for no reason. We´ve been meeting brand new people and as of right now, we have a group of 6 people with whom we are working to be baptized in the upcoming weeks. One of the men, Jean, is 22 and has been coming to church for the past four weeks but yesterday was the first day so far that he didn´t come. We have set up plans to go running with him and teach him after we are done as a way to get to know him better and also to get into better shape. He´s African so I´ll do my best to run and not die when we start doing that later this week. We are also teaching Vlady, who is an 18 year old guy from here in Spain. He´s really close friends to a lot of the youth in the church and just the other day he said that he wants to get baptized within the next three weeks. He´s definitely going to be a good kid to join the chruch and I can´t wait to see what happens with these two friends of ours and with the others that we´ve met! As part of our companionship we have also been making goals for ourselves including contacting goals of meeting new people, speaking more Spanish throughout the day, and also getting into better shape. Just the other night I made some homemade fudge brownie mix but I ended up eating too much of the batter. The other Elders are very curious as to why I don´t have diabetes yet. I´m beginning to wonder the same thing myself.. but today we have plans to be going to Barcelona and seeing what happens down there! It should be a lot of fun and I hope to take lots of pictures, not get robbed, and get home safely tonight. With great love, Élder Xander Weston Schindler P.S. I´m not sure if you´ve sent the pictures yet, but let me know when you do. And if you haven´t, would you be able to see if you could send me a CD with my Lord of the Rings music? It´s all on our iTunes and if you just send the envelope with a ´´DO NOT BEND´´ sign, I hope that would work. Thanks so much for that! (^_^)

Letter dated 11Jun2012

[Dear family and friends, I hope this warm June day finds you happy and well. Daniel graduated from High School yesterday -- in the top 10 of his class! His graduation party will be on Thursday - we hope to see some of you then! Keep sending messages to Weston. You can simply hit reply -- and I'll forward your note to him. He loves hearing from you. Thank you for your love and prayers. Weston's editor - BWS] Dear Family, Hello, dearest family, for whom I have a fountain of love. I hope you are all doing well on this fine, summer day and that you are all happily gathered together within the walls of our home. I hope so, since I have traveled far away and now reside across the great waters in a foreign land where they speak with foreign tongues. I find myself often speaking with a similar tongue as the men and women native to this land in order to make trades and words. Wow, that would be scary if I actually talked like that all the time! I couldn´t even imagine (actually, I can imagine, I just think it would get really bothersome after a while). I am safe and well here in Gerona and we have been doing a lot. We have been doing so much this week that I´m just finding myself exahusted when we get home and then I just sack out when I hit the bed. It´s been a really good time though, since Elder Carlson is a lot of fun. It´s nice that he loves to talk because it keeps the day full of activity and I´m definitely not getting bored of anything. We had a really good week this week and I had a lot that happened. Ealier in the week we had intercombios [exchanges] and I was with an Elder who just came straight out of the MTC and let me say ´´WOW´´ again: WOW, I´ve learned more Spanish than I really realized! It was so weird to be the more experienced Elder but we just went around doing what we always do and it was so natural and easy. I do have a new goal though; to speak more Spanish this month than ever before because I want to double my skills by the time my birthday comes around. It´s going to be a lot easier with Elder Carlson, because he is a Spanician (Spanish/Magician). But also during the week, I tried one of the best creations ever made. I ate a pizza with bacon and tuna on it! And guess what? It was delicious! I think having this kind of pizza here in Spain makes up for the fact that they don´t have good ice cream. But a really nice surprise earlier today was a letter I recieved from the Elliots! I have yet to read the letter but I got a lot of pictures of Daniel and Donald and now and I can show people what one of my brothers looks like! There is a member here who always asks me if I have my pictures yet but I keep promising that they are coming- and coming soon from what it sounds like. Thanks mommy! But yesterday, during church we had a very interesting day. During our Gospel Principles class, everyone was introducing themselves and telling everyone a little bit about themselves, such as where they are from and things like that. One of our investigators, Jean from Ghenah, told the class that he is wanting to be baptized and everyone in the class started congratulating him on his desire. Then the next person, Melky, said that she was also wanting to be baptized. Elder Carlson and I just looked at each other and gave each other a head nod! But strangely, at the end of church, I come to find out that one of the strongest families in the branch said that they were struggling. If you could, could you keep them in your prayers? I know that your prayers would help a lot! Until next time, with an extra dose of love, DFTBA Élder Xander Weston Schindler P.S. I´m sending and writing all my letters today! I hope they all find their homes in the States!

Letter dated 4Jun2012

[Dear friends and family, good morning! It's hard to believe that it is already June! Here is Weston's latest letter. He'd love to hear from you! Send any response as a reply to this note - and I'll forward it to Weston. I am sure that you are all busy. This is the last week of school for our boys. Daniel graduates this week! Where does the time go?!? We were excited that Natascia had her baby - a little (9 pound, 5 ounce) girl! Hoping you all have great June! Weston's editor - BWS] Dear Family, I´d like to let you all know that I´m doing well and that we´re continuing to see lots of sucess here in Gerona. Actually, I just got better from being a bit sick. It wasn't anything severe, but I had a badly stuffed up nose and a sore throat. It probably came from the change of weather we had this week which has been brutal for us. It was staying in the 90´s for quite a few days and no one has air conditioning. Luckily we had a great rainstorm yesterday and it cooled everything down and today is nice and fresh. This past week was the first new week with my new companion, Elder Carlson. It was weird to be the one who knows the area and I had to be the one getting us around and setting up visits and then helping him get to know the area as well. That´s actually a difficult thing, to talk on the phone in some weird language that you just started learning a few months ago. I prefer talking in that weird language face to face but apparently I´m not as afraid of the phone as a lot of other new missionaries are. We are actually working with teaching a few Spaniards right now but it is a lot teaching different people from different countries, because they all have different attitudes and different degrees of belief. It´s interesting to meet all of them, that´s for sure, and I´m learning a lot right now. Speaking of which, I´m learning a lot more Spanish right now with Elder Carlson, because he does take studying the language seriously and we do practices from time to time out on the street. I want to get as good as he is for the ability of being able to be myself and being able to talk to people as if we were just speaking English. That´s crazy to hear that Elder Carey is now almost done with his mission! [He is a good Elder here in Michigan who worked with Weston before Weston left. Elder Carey has been transferred to Midland!] I hope he´s having a good time in Midland and I would love it if you let him know that I´m out in the field right now (if you haven´t yet) [of course, that's all we talked about when I saw Elder Carey yesterday!] and send him some love from me! I am doing well and just remember to keep being a happy family! I always find myself remembering the happy times, since honestly, the times when we weren´t laughing or smiling weren´t worth it. I´ve implemented that into my mission now and make every day a good day, sincerely sharing peace and joy with other people because it really changes lives. I´ve been reading in 2 Nephi 26 recently so I´m sure you´re ahead of me now, [We're reading Jacob 5!] but Nephi talks about how he delights in the plainess and simpleness of things pertaining to the Gospel. So, plainly, just love everyone and be a good person! I love you all and I pray for you every day. Just keep on doing what you should be doing! Love, Élder Xander Weston Schindler P.S. I loooove asking for recepies and family stories! (Winky face) [If anyone wants to help by sharing some recipes, please forward them to me and I'll send them along to Weston!]

Letter dated 30May2012

[Dear family and friends, here is the letter we received earlier today from Weston! I hope you enjoy it as much as we did. If you have a note you'd like me to forward to Weston, just reply to this note. Thank you for your love and support! Weston's editor - BWS] Dear Family, Today is transfer day and I´m still in Gerona but I have a new companion. I actually already know him, because he has been serving in my district and I´ve gone on some intercombios [trade-offs - where missionaries go with a different companion for the day] with him already and we already hit it off really well. His name´s Elder Carlson and he´s from California. He´s been out in the mission for just over a year and his Spanish is fantastic. He makes a point to study whenever possible and he has dedicated a lot of time to learn and understand an incredible amount of the language. We´ve already made it clear that we´ll be having some English Fasts [when no English is allowed!] during this transfer so that I can learn more Spanish and also so he can learn more. I´m going to miss Elder Call and he was definitely one of the hardest working missionaries I´ve ever met. This will be an interesting transtition too, since Elder Call and Elder Carlson have completely different personalities. Just as long as we both stay focused in Gerona we´ll help bring about great things. I´ll try to send some pictures next week as well when I have my camera (we´ve been in Barcelona the whole day) including some pictures of our latest baptism from this past weekend and some of the members of the branch here. The baptism was a woman from Ecuador whose mother was a member but died about a year ago. Her name is Sister L.M. and she´s been living with one of the families in Gerona. As we got to know her and teach her she began getting really funny and really crazy with us (crazy is a good thing in this sense) but is was great for us to get to know her and help her during these past few weeks. Right before her baptism we visted the jail in Gerona to say hello to one of the members who´s waiting for his trial. Do you remeber the photo I sent of the baptism of Lesly and Seidy? He´s the husband of Seidy and has been in jail for about a month now. It was an interesting experience visiting him in jail but he´s one of the nicest people you´d ever meet. We´re still trying to figure out if he actually committed the crime that he´s been accused of, but I suppose we´ll just have to wait and see. The weather has been getting a little bit hotter and I´m thinking about cutting the sleeves of some of my long shirts since I am short on short sleeved shirts (too bad I don´t know how to do it without it looking bad..) but we´ve also had some days with rain. It rained yesterday while we were having some last visits with members and investigators for Elder Call leaving. We ate so much, but it was all so good! I´m going to make sure that I know how to properly make some of the Honduras dishes that we´ve had so far in Gerona because they are so good. I´m excited to get some recipies from you all so that I can add that to some of the things I´ve learned so far. If you´d like, I might start taking photos of some of the meals so that you could get a better idea of what I eat out here. Just a thought. Too bad I missed Memorial Day.. sounds like you had a good time at the picnic the other day. I always loved going to the picnic with everyone there. I love you all and can´t wait to hear more about what´s going on in Michtown. Congragulations on the baby as well! [My niece, Natascia, had her baby!] Sounds like everything is going well and everyone´s doing fantastic! With POWERFUL love, Élder Xander Weston Schindler

Letter dated 21May2012

[Dear friends and family, here is the letter we received from Weston today. We are grateful for your support and prayers on behalf of Weston. If you have a message for Weston, send it as a reply to this note - and I will forward it along to Weston! I hope that you are all enjoying the same beautiful weather we have here in Michigan! Be safe! Weston's editor - BWS] Dear Family, I hit and passed my 2 month mark in the mission the other day. The weeks are flying by like days but I´m doing so much too! For your question, Dad, about the earthquake in Italy, we did not feel it here in Spain. I imagine I could have slept through it anyways, in case it happened during the night. But this week has been eventful, for sure. I had the opportunity to paint someone's house the other day this past week. Here in Spain it´s hard to come across service work so it was nice to be able to do some. Most people here always refuse help but we had been pestering them for a while for us to help once they mentioned they would be painting sometime soon. It was a lot of fun to paint their white rooms.. a different shade of white! We have been having Family Home Evenings with their family for the past several weeks and we are working on bringing some of the family members back into the church, but they just don´t feel like doing anything, ever! That´s pretty common for the people in Spain though. They like to just bum around when they´re not working but as soon as we help them burst their bubble they open up and are a lot of fun. It´s great, because I can totally relate with them, since that´s all I did before I came out here! [An interesting comment!] We have two people that we are helping come to church right now that have plans to be baptized this Saturday. Everything looks good right now for this week with them but they´re actually newer investigators that we´ve only started teaching pretty recently. We are getting to the point here in Gerona where we are being able to teach a bunch of people but we need to make sure we work on finding new people. It´s just amazing to see the diversity of different people here in this city alone and Gerona isn´t even the biggest or most diverse city in Europe! Hmmm... what else.. starting today I´m planning on initiating a new health program for myself. I keep finding myself making food and then just eating and eating all the time, so I´m going to take some advice from President Uchtdorf and ´´Stop it!´´ Elder Call likes to tell me that when I measure myself on the scale and I´m about 83kg that it measures out to about 200lbs. I know that´s wrong, but hey, I´m going to still cut it out. But I do really, really want pictures of the family. I get asked about you all the time and I can´t show them what my family looks like! But mom, you have a lot of women here in Spain who send their heart out to you, for having 6 boys and no girls. I always make sure to tell them that you gave up after the 6th boy! Les quiero, Élder Alexander Weston Schindler P.S. I have transfers coming up this next week, so that means that I´ll have my Day of Preparation on the following Tuesday. Also, it will be most likely that Elder Call will be leaving Gerona but we´ll find out this Sunday. It´s unlikely that I´ll be moving somewhere else next week but it´s possible. But I have been so happy to have been getting letters from friends here in Gerona! Dad, could you see if you could thank my friends for their letters? You should let them know that I´m writting them back soon! I´ll also be sending my letters back home for all of you including the ASAP one. Good times!

Letter dated 14May2012

[Dear family and friends, yesterday we were able to Skype with Weston! He looked GREAT! He was happy and it was a delight seeing him so happy. We hope everyone is enjoying their May. It's going to be a beautiful week here in Michigan! Weston loves hearing from you. Send me a note and I'll make sure he gets it! Love, Weston's editor - BWS] Dear Family, Thank you all so much for the wonderful skype call we had yesterday! I´m thankful that we had that opportunity and that there wasn´t any technical difficulty. [This was my very first Skype call! It was cool!! BWS] You all looked and sounded (minus the fact you all have colds) fantastic! I am so excited for all of you in everything new going on in your lives. Dad, with your new calling as the Ward Mission Leader. Mom, with directing the Beauty and the Beast AND Chicago this summer and getting paid for them as well. Joseph, for finally getting a job and participating in the YSA activities. Daniel, making bank with all of your scholarships and getting ready for graduation. Andrew, with your new super deep voice. Christopher, with your very awesome Green Power Ranger Costume. And Nicholas, for reading The Hobbit and not letting me ignore you! I will also take to heart that you would all like to hear more of my experiences throughout the week, so I´ll try to do that a little bit more for you all. Like I told you all already, we had another baptism this past Saturday. Her name is Gloria and we´ve been teaching her for the past month or so. She was having a lot of troubles with work and where she was living so she gave us a call. She had been contacted a few months ago by the previous missionaries but then she fell out of contact. When we met with her she told us her situation and we took it upon ourselves to introduce her to a family here in the ward who had previously gone through a lot of hardship as well. The family welcomed her in and ever since then she has been living with them and looking for work. It´s great to see the power one family can have and they have been a blessing to us as missionaries and to other people that they help whenever possible. This past week I did have another intercombio in Mataro (the area that Rick Russell served in many years ago) and that was where I got that Star Wars spoon. Also we contacted a man who is from Ghana or Giena and he came to church yesterday. I´ll be interested to see where our progress goes with Jean since he´s shown interest in reading the Book of Mormon, came to the baptism service, church, and is planning to come to a Noche de Hogar [Family Home Evening] tonight at a member's house. This past week has also been a good week for me in the kitchen. I´m trying to start learning how to cook better; it is a skill that I´m continuing to try and develop. I´ll continue working on that this month but more importantly I´m going to make the rest of this month a time of focus for myself. The end of this month is transfers and it´s most likely that Elder Call with be leaving Gerona so I have to make sure that I´m ever focused on the work and also focused on learning and applying the language whenever possible. I want to turn 20 this July and be able to say that I´m at least a little fluent. I don´t know if there will be a time when I´ll say I´m completely fluent since I could see myself always wanting to improve, no matter how much I learn and know. I´m excited for this summer and what it´s going to bring. Tomorrow will be my two month mark in the mission field and I am excited for what the future has in store for me. I will be writing letters throughout this month (I have a few completed) but I´m going to send them out hopefully next week if all goes well. I´ll also be sure to get that urgent letter sent, but keep reminding me just in case. If there is anything you want from me or anything that anyone else would want from me, let me know. This could include pictures, specific stories, certain thoughts about the mission, etc. Les quiero, Élder Weston Schindler P.S. Hmmm, I´m out of things to say. Love you!

Letter dated 7May2012

[Dear family and friends, here is the letter we received from Weston this week. I hope you enjoy it! We are excited to talk to him on Sunday! Let me know if there are any messages you would like me to pass along to him. Thank you for your support and prayers. I hope you are all having a wonderful May! Weston's editor - BWS] Dear Family, I hope that this message will meet the demands from Joseph "Pepa" "The Boss-Man" Schindler and that I can write you all a good letter. Even if I can´t, oh well. It'll be better than the letter that Andrew may or may not have sent last week (which, by the way, made me laugh a whole lot). But that is exciting to hear all the things that have been going on. Congratulations Joseph in getting a job and best of luck with the rain. Spain is a lot like Michigan with the rain so I´ll just figure if it's raining here then you won´t be working that day. ¿Estoy correcto? Pues, no pasa nada! And Daniel, your stories about the hotel rooms and the croquet games were awesome! [Daniel and his other Senior friends have decided to take up croquet during the school's lunch hour -- in the school yard! They wear preppy clothes -- and get LOTS of attention.] I would love to see pictures of either if there are any pictures. I´m glad to hear that all is going well and that home is still home and not something else. [We're happy about that also! We'd hate to have our home turn into a mall!] That would be terrible! I just read in 2 Nephi a great scripture. ´´And it came to pass that we lived after the manner of happiness.´´ Sounds like that´s what you´re all doing right now and I´m glad for that! And in continuation of what I ended my last message with last week was a request for recipes and family stories. Here are the reasons behind those. For the past two months of being here in the field I have had a knack for making Turkish Delight [the name I use for ANY and EVERY meal I cook!] for ever single meal and frankly, my companion is getting sick of watching me eat it every day. Most specifically, I would enjoy knowing how to make the insides for Pot Stickers and I´ll be on the lookout for ingredients at Asian stores for the wraps if possible. But also I want to receive family history stories; I would like hard copies that I can read and then share with investigators. I had a wonderful expereience a couple of weeks ago to take out the family charts I have and hang them up right next to my desk. I especially love the one with Grandma´s lineage and one thing that´s great to share in lessons is family stories because they are so powerful. Family Home Evenings are also a hit for us to teach to new members and really do brings families closer together. Here in España they are called Noche de Hogars, just in case I refer to them with that name in any future letter. Yes, but I did have a great Fourth of May. My companion didn´t seem to enjoy it as much as I did when I wished him a "May the Fourth Be With You," but that´s OK, I´m sure he liked it. He also liked it when I forgot the keys to the apartment and we had to wait to get back in and had to pay (confidential) euros. Yes. But this is what I really want to share today. This Sunday is Mothers Day and guess what? We can Skype! It´s actually best if we Skype, because it´s free and it´s been approved for us to do that. So what we have planned as of right now, since my companion's family lives in Alabama, is for us to start out call at 4:00pm here and that would be about 8:00am over in the States. If that´s wrong, then just be on the computer ready to answer a call right before church and the call should be about 45 minutes. I´ll try to be prompt so that I don´t take you away from your time at church too. If I remember correctly, then Dad, you have an account so just make sure you have it open and then I´ll call you. I´ve been thinking that in case the laptop is not working, you can use the Mac and plug in my microphone or something like that. If you could actually hook that up for the call regardless to either computer, then the quality of sound would be the best for me. Just make sure you get Joseph to get everything working right and that the computer is using the good mic as the mic to be used in the call. It´s a bit tricky, but he´s the family member I trust with that job. My skype account is ´´wes_alex´´ in case you use a different account, but yes! I´m excited to talk to you all and (maybe) see you this Sunday! [I am glad Joseph is the one with this assignment!] Happy Mothers' Day, Mom! Con la amor de me corazon,´ Élder Xander Weston Schindler P.S. No one knows how to say my name. I don´t know if I´ve mentioned that before, but I always get things like Elder Sandler, Elder Sindar, or Elder Hitler (no lie). But when they ask me what my full name is, I just tell them Alexander and they love that name. I usually don´t bother with Weston because that is even foreign in the USA! P.P.S. Happy Mayday! Besos!

Letter dated 4May2012

[Dear family and friends, here is the letter we received from Weston today! We are excited because we'll have the opportunity to talk to him on Mother's Day! If you have a note you'd like to send, simply reply to this note and I'll forward it to Weston. Thank you for your support and prayers! Weston's editor - BWS] Dear Family, Hello from afar to afar! I pray you are all doing well on this wonderful last day of April. I have so much to tell you and share with you but first I want to let you know that for me this month has just flown by. I can´t believe it´s going to be May already but I am stoked for this Friday, you know, being May 4th and all. May the fourth be with you! So the picture I shared last week [see it on my Facebook page!] was of Nahomy and she is nine years old and her family is from Honduras. Her immediate family is less active but a couple of weeks ago her mother called us and asked us if we could baptize her, since she knows the importance of the church in the lives of her family. So we began teaching her and she was very shy and timid, but as we got to know her she is one of the sweetest little girls you could ever meet! She loves playing futbol, hates wearing dresses, and her favorite team is Real Madrid. She´ll probably repent of that and like Barça when she gets older. But something really special for me was that she asked me to baptize her and so I had that opportunity to see an investigator from the start to the finish. (And mom, no, I am not getting too big for my pants, thank you, but those are my companion´s pair because I don´t have any white pants. But thank you for watching out for me, mommy!) Oh and guess what?! It rains a lot here in Gerona! ¡Me encanta eso! It reminds me so much of Michigan and I love walking out in the city when it´s raining because it does a good job of drowning out the sounds from the city. [Weston has always LOVED the rain!] But this past week has been interesting. My companion ate a bad kebab and got food poisoning from it and so we had to stay in our piso for a day and go slowly for the rest of the second day. It was hard on lessons and to top that off I had to go to Madrid this past Friday to get my ID, which was great, but we had very little time to teach with all of those set backs. But in Madrid I was able to see some friends from the MTC and see how we´ve changed with only 40 days of our missions and it´s incredible how much I´ve even been able to see myself progress. My Spanish (far from great) is so much better than it was when I got of the plane and it gets better each week. I´m grateful to have the opportunity to learn this language and realize just how much I understand already when I´m talking to people in this new idioma! In a few months, I will probably try to have a total English fast, but I´ll wait till after Mother´s Day to do that. And just a warning, bear with the spelling of things in my letter(s) during that time because it´s one thing to say things compared to sitting down and write them! Les quiero, Elder Weston Schindler P.S. Send me recipes, family stories, and photos! I have a whole thing to talk about family history, so I hope I don´t forget! And Nicholas, I LOVE YOUR LETTERS!!! THEY´RE THE BEST!!!

Letter dated 24Apr2012

[Dear friends and family, our letter from Weston came a day later than what we expected. Here it is! Send any messages you have for Weston as a reply to this letter -- and I will forward it along to Weston! I hope you are all doing well! Weston's editor - BWS] Dear Family, I am having a similar time as you all, seeing as I do not have a lot of time to write today either! I have so much I want to tell you all too, but we have a visit we need to go to in a couple of minutes. Really fast, I do want you all to know that I´m getting your letters. I am getting the ones from Daniel, Joseph, mom, dad, and Nicholas. Joseph, I gave you a whole extra day to write more, but that´s alright, I don´t have much time to write to you all today. Yesterday we had a Spanish holiday, Sant Jordi, which is similar to Valentine's Day but it is 10 times better! All the men give the women flowers, usually a rose, and the women give the men books. So, as missionaries, we hand out Books of Mormon and ended up giving away 154 books by the end of out day. It was a real success! I was, honestly, planning for today to be a picture sending day with stories about them all, but I only have time for the one, which is of out most recent baptism, Nahomy. Next to her in the picture is her mother Nohemi. She is 9 years old and we have been teaching her for the past month. She has family members who are members and the baptism was great. In Daniel´s words, here are your pictures, since it happened! Les quiero, Elder Weston Schindler P.S. Thank you for the updates of life back in Michigan. Get Chris and Andrew to write some notes quick too! Love you!

Letter dated 16Apr2012

[Dear family and friends, here is the letter we received from Weston yesterday! If you have a response, simply send it to me and I will make sure that Weston receives it. Thank you for your love and prayers on Weston's behalf! Weston's editor - BWS] Dear Family, I had the great opportunity of visting more of Gerona during this past week and both today and last week I went exploring with Elder Call. We found many great buildings and all of which are very old. Some of the buildings and constructions must be a few hundred years old, some of them are over 1000 years old, for sure. The other pictures I´ve sent are from the other week in Barcelona next to the statue of Columbus and the other is of Lesly and Seidy, who were baptized just the other week. We have four people who have baptism dates coming up and I am excited to share more of their stories after they are baptized! Earlier this week we had to the oppotunity to have a ´´friendly´´ discusion about the bible with some Testigos (Jehovah Witnesses) and it was the first experience I have ever had with that. The whole time I was thinking to myself how sad it is that I know all this great stuff and they have no desire to do anything with us except have ´´Bible discussions´´, which turn into silly questions they have for us that we answer very easily. Oh well.. And congratulations to Brigitte and Doug! [My beautiful niece got married last week!] I´m glad to hear the wedding party was a blast and I hope that I was missed (too much)! [We're not sure if Weston meant "missed" or "not missed." We had a family discussion about this yesterday evening - and we did not come up with unanimous consent!] This week will be a picture week, so I´ll just have to write more next week. I hope that´s okay. [I'll post some of the pictures on Facebook -- and now that Tax Day is almost behind us, I can work on Weston's blog! ] This week's scripture comes from Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 and was sent from Hermana Hinckley, President Hinckley´s wife, ´´Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to lift him up.´´ Un abrazo fuerte, de su hermano y hijo, Élder Alexander Weston Schindler P.S. I loved the letter from Nick the other week and I can´t wait to hear what happens next in the Hobbit. Also, I will do my best to see if I can bring home a baby bull for you! Now it´s not of much consequence, since the mailing address will work regardless, but here is a better one in case that is possible. Élder Schindler C/ La Cruz 53, 4º2 17002 Gerona Spain Some of the things are flipped around, but it shouldn´t matter too much. And I´m excited to hear from my friends! Thanks for sharing their notes with me, dad! I have a massive letter that I´m sending them and that should be heading state-side within the next couple of weeks. I figure it´s better to send huge letters at a time than to send small dinky ones, so yes, I win!

Letter dated 9Apr2012

[Dear family and friends, I hope you enjoy this letter from Weston! He has included his address below. If you'd like, you can simply reply to this note and I will send your note to him! Thanks for the love and support that you show Weston! Love, Weston's editor - BWS] Hola Familia, I would like to apologize for the rushed letter I sent last week. I´ve been really busy and I ran out of time to write you all what I´ve been doing but I enjoyed greatly what you all wrote me last week and this week. I feel sort of badly too, because I realized I didn´t leave a scripture with you last week! But don´t worry, I have a special one just for you this week. I believe I´m a little ahead of you in our reading, but this is a very special scripture about the soujourn of Nephi´s family in the wilderness. In chapter 16 Nephi accidentally breaks his special bow and his entire family start complaining about not being able to have food. (Yup, they definitely were American to complain about not being able to eat) But Nephi´s such a great guy and he goes and makes a bow on his own and then goes to his father to see what he should do. Lehi, Nephi´s father, then realizes his mistake at turning away from the Lord and prays and is able to inquire of the Lord of where they should go find food. Then in 1 Nephi 16:32 ´´...I did return to our tents, [carrying] the beasts which I had slain; and now when they beheld that I had obtained food, how great was their joy!´´ This verse reminded me of home, whenever mom and dad would bring home food and how happy we would all be. But in all seriousness, I greatly enjoy verse 29, as it states that ´´by small means the Lord can bring about great things.´´ [Here is a link to the story to which Weston is referring! http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/1-ne/16?lang=eng] And since I´ll probably be in Gerona for a while I´ll let you know what my address here is. It is as follows: Elder Alexander Weston Schindler (or shorter, my whole name is not necessary) C/ La Cruz 53, 4º2 Gerona, B 17002 Spain Alright, now here are some things that I left out of the last letter as well as some new things I´d like to share with you. As far as Spain goes, it´s very similar to the USA, or maybe I´m just very used to it. At least, the new areas of cities are very similar; the old parts are way better than most anything I´ve ever seen before and are trully amazing. I´ve been on an intercombio (splits) and have seen a lot of another city called Mataro which is right next to the Mediterranean Sea. While there we traveled down to a place called Calello which is a huge tourist place and (por su puesto) I had some ice cream, and was very pleased with the German Kinder ice cream they had. Also, in Spain they have great pastry shops, sometimes called bomboneria. Another thing I have adapted to is the milk here, since it has so many preservatives in it but it stays good for several months and is only 50 cents for a liter of milk. Also, there are a lot of people who ride motorcycles here, and strangely, many women are driving them. I guess it´s just what they do here in Spain. It´s awesome. But some other experiences I´ve had have been in Gerona, such as a time when a drunk man came up to us and asked us for money. I wanted to tell him that I´d like some money too, but I didn´t say that. It doesn´t help that we are always wearing suits.. anyways, I said I didn´t have any money, so he pinched my cheek and that was sort of different. Never had that happen before. But also there are many people from Nigeria and various other African countries that we teach but they have the lamest excuses for not being able to visit with us. My favorite is ´´I am cooking´´. But when they pray, I love it when they ask God ´´to bless everyone to be able to eat well and not be eaten´´. I love it! And the other week I got a few ties from President Hinckley [Weston's mission president] and I´ll be hanging on to those for a while. I might ask him to sign at least one of them, but then again, I probably won´t do that. But most importantly is what I´ve been doing here in Spain. This past General Conference we had several of our investigators come to the Chapel and see conference there and my favorite was from the Sunday Monring Session from President Uchtdorf and the reason I loved it was because even though I listened to the Spanish translation, he speaks plainly and simply and it was all things that can be applied directly to everyone´s life today. [Here is a link to this talk: http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/04/the-merciful-obtain-mercy?lang=eng] Earlier this week, during one of the training sessions with my companion and me, we used the wedding invitation of Brigitte and Doug as our investigator and it was great to teach them the Plan of Salvation! [Brigitte and Doug were married on Saturday!] They were really great investigators too, but they didn´t have too many questions for us. But this past Saturday we had two baptisms, of Lesly and Seidy. For me, it´s been an amazing few weeks to teach them and to see the beginning of a new chapter in their lives. Lesly is 14 and is from the Dominican Republic and Seidy is 23, has a husband who is a member, a son, and is from Honduras. A really special experience for me was to see the sister-in-law of Seidy, Lorena, come to the baptism and to church the next day. She hasn´t attended church in a very long time and she had a brother who died when she was younger who was going to serve a mission too. She definitely found something that she had been missing for the past several years and it was great to see her participate in church yesterday. We actually had over 80 people attend church yesterday in our small branch and Gerona will soon become a Ward. Our little area is exploding and there is definitely a lot of work to be done still and I am thankful to be a part of it at this time. I had a realization the other day, that I shouldn´t dwell on regrets. I made the best decision to come on my mission. Love, Elder Weston Schindler

Letter dated 2Apr2012

[Dear friends and family, I hope you are all doing well. We are having wonderful SPRING weather today -- which is nice. I hope that you are happy and well -- wherever you are! Send any notes you have as a reply -- and I will forward them to Weston! Weston's editor - BWS] Dear Family, Hello there. I´m so glad to have heard so much from you all about what is going on back in A-Town. (Auburn) I´m also very, very excited for Brigitte and Doug! Marriage isn´t what brings us together today, [a quote from a movie!] but it´s so exciting that they´re getting married so soon. I actually just got the invitation to their wedding in the mail today, via airmail. The letter arrived a bit later but I wish the best in the preparations you are all doing right now for both of them. Take lots of pictures for me! Today was a good day and the reason that I´m writing a bit later than I usually do is because we had our Interviews with the President earlier today in Barcelona. I had a great time with the office Elders and a Phillipine member made us some delicious rice and it was some of the best food I´ve had in a while. It definitely beats tuna fish sandwiches, which Elder Call has called me out on. Now, as for other food, I love eating at members' houses since I don´t have to spend time to cook it myself, but also they always make delicious foods for us. Here in Spain, they like to serve random foods with other foods, but I´m used to that thanks to you dad! [I don't know what to say!?!] I did buy myself some hamburger patties that were on sale as well as some fancy Spanish cookies (they´re not too fancy, they look like Oreos). Ahh, but after eating I took a walk down a place called the Rombla in Barcelona and walked down to the shore. The whole calle is filled with shops and people and we went to a market and I saw all sorts of fresh fruits and fresh meats. In Spain, they like to just cut off the legs of cows and pigs and hang them up in their shops. But down at the Rombla I saw a wonderful statue of Christopher Columbus, which is over 100 years old, and I took some pictures but I´ll have to send those at another time. And now for General Conference. We were able to watch it right in the chapel here in Gerona, but of course, it was in Spanish and it was hard to understand everything that was being said. The only session I didn´t see was the final Sunday one, since the first one ended at 8:00pm here in Gerona but the first session was amazing. I also loved what President Uchtdorf said about keeping contention out of our lives and living better lives. We had 29 people in the Chapel for the first session and then even more for the final session on Sunday. 7 of our investigators attended at least one session of conference and this upcoming Saturday we have two baptisms lined up and four more on the following week. I want to write more and more, but sadly I am out of time now so I´ll finish my short message to you and write more next week and answer all the questions people have had for me during this past week as well as next week. I have a lot to share, definitely, and I want to know that you are all in my prayers! Love, Elder Xander Weston Schindler P.S. This is a shout out to Sarah Lane, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Letter dated 26Mar2012

[Dear family and friends, here is Weston's letter that we received this morning. I have included a few notes below. I hope you enjoy this as much as we did! If you have a note you would like me to forward Weston, send it as a reply and I will forward it to him! Have a great week. Weston's editor - BWS] Dear Family, I loved hearing everything that has happened this past week! I especially loved the story about Daniel´s shoulder. [Daniel dislocated his shoulder during a church b-ball game on Saturday] Maybe that´s the reason I never really liked church ball; it usually gets pretty serious from time to time. I´m glad to hear that you are doing well and that you should be back in working order within a week. And that´s great news that you´ve had wonderful weather within the past week. Too bad you have cold weather coming in soon. It´s been a bit random here in Gerona. Just the other day, on Thursday, we had a huge rainstorm and it was a good thing we had weekly planning so I didn´t wreck any of my suits! During that day I realized for sure that I love this city. Just the rain, the thunder, and the awesome feelings that I get when that kind of weather is out and about! [Weston has always loved the rain.] But I love the city especially because of the people. Since last week, Elder Call has had me invite each person we teach to be baptized. As of this moment, we have nine people that have have accepted the baptismal invitation for either the 7th or 14th of April! Let me tell you, we have a lot of work here in Gerona! And with regard to the pictures I sent last week I do have to say that I feel very, VERY tall around here. My companion is shorter than I am (a lot shorter) and most of the people we teach are from Honduras and they are a very short people too. Sometimes I feel huge while I´m walking around and meeting people. Maybe I´ve grown a little since January (probably not, but I wish...). Today is once again our Day of Preparation and we will probably go to a store called Marcadono (I´ve been told they have peanut butter! And do you know what´s a great idea? Take a spoon, get a big glob of peanut butter on it, dip that into a box of cereal, and you have yourself a delicious treat! Nutella works too if you have some). That´s cool that you, Joseph, had Lidl stores in Czechland. I swear it´s the same as Aldi in America! Ah, and Zone Conference was a blast last Friday! I already know that I´ll miss President Hinkley when he leaves this summer. He´s a great Mission President. We learned lots of things about how the small things are important to do and how we recieve blessings for being ever so diligent throughout our days. Afterwards, Elder Call and I had some time in Barcelona and we went to go visit this place called the Sagrada Familia. You should definitely check that out since I didn´t have my camera with me. It is truly breathtaking! I´m sure I´ll get some pictures of it sometime within the next several months but it was a fantastic sight to behold! And as always, here is my weekly scripture that I would like to share with you all. As quoted from Alma 39:14 ´´Seek not after riches nor the vain things of the world; for behold, you cannot carry them with you.´´ http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/alma/39?lang=eng I love you all with my enitre heart (Yo amoles con mi todo corozon) Elder Alexander Weston Schindler P.S. I´m still waiting for some of the lyrics I´ve requested for, but I also have a few more to add to that list. I can´t remember the name of it, but it´s the song from the Hunchback of Notre Dame at the very beginning of the movie. Also, any song from the Phantom of the Opera would be splendid! And any song from Enya would be great as well. [Thank you Kevin Henson for sending some of these lyrics!] P.P.S. How´s the blog coming? I´m excited to hear when that goes up! [Hopefully it will be launched -- this week! I will let you know.] I´m sending some pictures from the MTCs and I´ll try to send more in a minute or so. [Weston sent some cool pictures that I will put in the blog. I will place a couple on Facebook -- in the meantime!]

Letter dated 20Mar2012

[Dear friends and family, hello! I am hoping that everyone is enjoying this first day of Spring. We were surprised, yesterday, to get a letter from Weston. His preparation day will be Monday -- so that is when we will hear from him. He sent some pictures which I will be including in his blog -- which I am currently creating. I will try to send a picture via email -- but I know that some of you are unable to receive picture attachments via email. If you have a message for Weston, send it to me by Sunday -- and I will make sure he gets it on Monday. He loves to hear from all of you! Weston's editor - BWS] Dear Family, Surprise! Today´s my day of preparation! I suppose that Wednesday´s are only the Madrid missionaries' day for preparation so unless I tell you all otherwise, Monday is the day that I´ll be sending my weekly e-mail. I´m having a hard time thinking of where I should begin. I took a train from Madrid to Barcelona on Friday and was greeted by President Hinkley and his wife [This is Clark Hinkley, the son of Gordon B. Hinkley] as well as my first companion, Elder Call. It was then that I recieved the news that I will serve (but now I am serving) in Gerona España. The name is also spelled Girona, which is the way you spell it in Catalan which is very prevalent here where I am. Gerona is north of Barcelona and is fairly close to the French border. I received two nice surprises once I arrived in Barcelona. I had two letters waiting for me that had been sent to the mission home. One was from Sarah and the other was from Sister Stassforth and I´m glad that I now know that I´ll be able to recieve mail here in España! I slept one night in Barcelona and then took an early train to Gerona on Saturday. Once we arrived I was introduced to the apartment and I dropped off my things and then we left to go down to the chapel (capilla) which is about a 10 minute walk away from where we are staying. We had a baptism that day, and it was the very first day of me being in the mission field! Her name is Danielle and recently turned 9 years old and I was able to meet several members of the branch [the name of a small congregation] here in Gerona. Then after the baptism service it was off to do missionary work. We walked a lot and by the end of my first day I was exhausted. Elder Call told me that you know that you´ve had a good day if you are exhausted by the end of it. Also, I was able to become reaquainted with my Lion King bed sheets when I was preparing for the night. We have a different schedule than most other missions. Since the culture here in Spain is a bit different, we get up at 7:30 in the morning and go to bed at 11:30 at night. I´ve found myself waking up at 6:30 still, since that was the time that I would wake up in the MTCs. [Mission Training Centers] I feel like I´ll adjust just fine though. I was actually thinking the other day how I used to get up at 4:30 some mornings to get ready for work. Then, that got me to thinking how it´s different for me now as to what I´m doing compared to what I used to do. I´m constantly working now but it´s different and I don´t get paid but at least I´m not standing around in one place for 8 hours at a time. Also I get to meet new people and learn about all sorts of different cultures. For example, here in Gerona there are many people who are from Honduras and many of the people I have met and had lessons with have mostly been from Honduras. One investigator that came to church yesterday is actually from Ghana and we´ll be visiting him tomorrow. Oh, what else!? I did some shopping today. Fun, fun fun! There is a store chain here in España called Lidl which is from Germany and it is very similar to Aldi back in America. Could they be the same, by chance? Now here are a few things that happened. I ran into luck as I found that they have tuna here in Spain! However, when I was told they don´t have peanut butter in most stores it made my heart sink. All of this Nutela will make me fat, so I won´t buy too much of it! After that we traveled to the wall that is around the city and all I can say is ´´WOW!´´ The wall, cathederals, bridges, and all the ancient architecture was amazing to see! You should look up some facts about the city and then message me back about it because I´d be very interested to know some interesting things about the place I´m living in for the next several weeks! And one thing that I thought was awesome was when we say the main cathederal here I thought of the Hunchback of Notre Dame and the crazy awesome drains that were in the building. I love the part in that movie when What´s-His-Name (the bad guy) grabbed onto the gargoyle and said ´´I can´t carry it for you, but I can carry you!´´ and then they fell. Good times. [Inside joke! This is a line from Lord of the Rings -- which we just happen to find in every other movie we watch!] Also today we cleaned the apartment like crazy! When I first arrived it was rather dirty but now it´s rather nice! (my bathroom was the worst!) But I want you all to know that I´m safe and doing great! Everything is new but I´m becoming used to it all. The city is beautiful and I hope that Rick Steves comes here so that you can see one of his goofy videos about it! If not, try to watch out for any other Spain cities, such as Madrid or Barcelona. But actually, from what I've seen of Gerona and what I´ve seen of Madrid, I sort of like Gerona more. The buildings, the feel, and the people I´ve meet have just been better. Madrid is the big city of España so there are lots and lots of tourists, but it´s just something about it, I don´t know. I know for sure that Gerona will be on my list of places to come back to in a couple of years. Ah yeah, and for a scripture to read. I love Mosiah 27 a lot and I´ve probably told you this but it´s amazing and that´s all that needs to be said about that. I hope you are all well and from what it sounds like you all are! I´m glad that Western High School took first at Science Olympiad! That´s amazing! I also loved that little story of Nicholas and Brother Haskell. [My old roommate and good friend Arnold came to visit this weekend. He came late Friday night and so Nicholas didn't see him come. On Saturday morning, Arnold walked into the TV room and Nicholas said, "Good morning. Can I ask you who you are?"] It made me laugh! I hope to hear lots in the future as I will have lots to share as well. This Friday is zone conference so I´ll become acquainted with more Elders here in the area. Os amo, (I love thee, (more or less)) Elder Alexander Weston Schindler P.S. I titled this ´´My Gerona´´ because I always think of the song ´´My Sharona´´. Another song that it reminds me of is ´´Ramona´´ and in the song that´s the only word that is sung. Also, Daniel, it´s ´´campo´´ not ´´field-o´´. And no, I didn´t look that up just now. Love you!

Letter dated 15Mar2012

[Dear family and friends, I hope you enjoy Weston's latest letter that I just received! I hope that Spring is finding all of you today. Yesterday, we were almost (not quite) HOT here in Michigan! We're loving it! Reply to this note -- and I'll send it to Weston! Weston's editor - BWS] Dear Family, First things first, I´m only one and a half days away from finally being in my mission field! I love both of the MTC´s [The mission training center in Provo and the one in Madrid] I´ve been to, but after two and a half months I just want to get out there and meet the people! And I know my Spanish isn´t great (for example, I got my hair cut today and I had hardly a clue as to what the hairdresser was saying half the time) but to remember how much Spanish I knew when I left home and now is astounding! I can´t wait for the moment when I ask someone ¿como? because I accidently didn´t hear what they were saying and not because I can´t understand what they´re saying. Good times are coming up soon and fast and I´m ready to take them on! Now here´s the deal. Tomorrow I will be traveling to somewhere outside of Madrid to finish up all my residency things and doing fingerprints and other things. Then after that I´m going to be dropped off at the train station and be heading on out to Barcelona.. all by myself! For some reason I´m going a few hours later than everyone else but there is a reason for everything so I´ll do my best to remember to tell you how Barcelona is. And as far as I´ve heard, my PDays [Preparation days] will now be on Wednesday, but that could change so just be ready whenever for which day is really my Preperation Day. Oh, but what else... we have new missionaries here and a lot of them are from all over the world. There are some Elders from Chile, Mexico, France and there is a Sister from Italy and they are all excellent people to be around. One of the French elders has been a member for a little bit less then 2 years, doesn´t speak English, but has a strong testimony and it´s awesome to hear him talk. Another thing I´m not sure if I´ve ever mentioned before is the food here in Spain. Now, all the food I´ve had has been from the Cafeteria here in the MTC, but it´s definitely a lot different from that of the USA. But after being here for two weeks, I´m in love with the food here. I have yet to find out what food will be like in the field, but that´ll be a great adventure that I´ll do my best to share with you all! And actually, I think I might have gained more weight here in Madrid than I did in Provo (not that I gained weight in Provo, but it´s to add to the story) because here in Spain they love to put oil in all of our food. Sure, it´s olive oil, but they seem to just love lathering our meats and other food in the stuff. I´m not complaining, it´s delicious, but I already feel like I won´t be able to handle much oil or grease back in America just because of the way my stomach will adjust. And also, they have a big bowl of Nutella for us to eat and they refill it all the time and I´m pretty sure i´ve gained 40 pounds from it (just kidding, but seriously) so I´m cutting out Nutella and sticking with good old peanut butter. Mmmmhmmm. Also, they have tuna here and lots and lots of other fishes. The shrimp we had a week ago forgot to look normal so we had the little shimp faces just looking up at us looking all innocent and everything. They were delicious. I should be sending letters in the very near future, so be sure to check the mailbox late Marchish-early Aprilish. I should also send letters to friends and other family as well around that time and I´ll be excited to hear back from all the wonderful people in my life! For this week, my scripture I can across that I wanted to share is found in Ether 12: 2-4 ´´...he could not be restrained because of the Spirit of the Lord which was in him. For he did cry from the morning, even until the going down of the sun, exhorting the people to believe in God... saying unto them that by faith all things are fulfilled- wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God.´´ The rest of the chapter is pretty good too, come to think of it. Oh, and this one is to you mommy and daddy. I won´t quote it because my Bible is in the other room, but read Matthew 26:30 and share it with all my brothers. I´m sure they´ll love it too! With love, prayers, some more love, and a whole lot more prayers, Elder Alexander Weston Schindler P.S. If someone could be so kind, could they email me the lyrics to any Enya song? I´m craving some of that delicous goodness! Also, if possible, there is an Owl City song that starts off pretty quiet, but then it gets loud when it says ´´... WAKE UP!!!´´ It might be called Wake Up, but I´m not sure.. Ahh, yeah. Oh, and I woke up this morning with a strange feeling that one of my brothers was hidding some Pokemon thing. I don´t want to name anyone in specific (Christopher) but we are told to not keep our light under a bushel, so make sure you don´t wear any hats, if you catch my drift. Also, you should give Daniel and Joseph the game back or I´m gonna have to come over to Michigan to help them find it. Don´t make me do that.

Letter dated 8Mar2012

[Dear friends and family, here is Weston's letter from Madrid that we received this morning! As you can tell, he is doing well and greatly appreciates hearing from you! He has included his Barcelona address below. If you want, simply respond to this note - and I will get your note to him ASAP! I hope everyone is enjoying some spring-like weather! We were in the 60's yesterday here in Michigan! Weston's editor - BWS] Dear Family, So of all the things that I´ve gathered from you is that most people back in Michigan are wondering when I leave the Madrid MTC. We are currently waiting for the process of our residency here in Spain to process through and the final date when we go to City Hall is the 15th or 16th, and I will be one my way to my first area in the Barcelona Mission next week. One thing that I´ve heard but I´ll be sure to let you know is that Barcelona will be very humid. Here in Madrid we have had very nice weather. The people of Madrid wear jackets because it´s a bit chilly to them but it feels nice and fresh to all of us! Most every day we have clear blue skies and on the other days the sun is always out. I´ve heard some of the other missionaries talk about how at sometimes it feels like we haven´t left the USA because it is just a big city and there are quite a few things that are similar, but that is not the case for me. It is very similar at times, but then one look at the traffic signs in Spanish and the buildings remind me that I´m in a brand new place. The buildings here are all red and it´s an awesome contrast from the white Temple and the red buildings surrounding it. http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/madrid/ [Follow this link to see a picture of the Madrid temple - which is next to where Weston is staying. ] But as for some of the other buildings I´ve seen... wow! So far we have actually gone to a park in the middle of Madrid and have started meeting the people of Spain and sharing the Gospel with them. And so far I´ve learned one thing. I have a lot more Spanish to learn. Most people we meet do know some English but if anything I see that as a crutch for my own learning here in Spain. And the first time we went to the park left me in awe of everything going on around me. It was the first time I took one of the metro trains and all the buildings around the park and the statues and architecture within the park are absolutely fantastic! I probably won´t get pictures of the park, since I´m only in Madrid for one more week but I will be taking lots of pictures today on my P-Day [Preparation Day]. After lunch we are going to head into the heart of Spain and explore a part called Sol, where they have lots and lots of shops and other awesome things to see! One other place I´m planning on seeing today is the King´s Palace (¿Palace de Real, posiblimente?) but I´ll be waiting to see one of the huge Fotból arenas when I´m in Barcelona, since they are the best team in the world! I´m in the process of looking for some decent cheap fotból shoes since we play a lot during our actividad fisicá (physical activity). The kids here, hardly older than Chris and Nick, are amazing at soccer! I hope I get better by the time I´m finished but I won´t make any promises. I will let you know when and if I ever make a goal when I´m playing. ¡Estoy una bromista! Sadly a few days ago we said goodbuye to some of missionaries from Russia and Italy who were here at the MTC. They were all awesome people and it was awesome to get to know some of them. A good number of them knew English and they were all really great to be around. They definitely had the Spirit around them. Also our teachers are fantastic as well. One of my teachers, native to Spain, served a mission in Boise, Idaho and he is the funniest person I´ve met here! A phrase they have in Spain is something along the lines of ´´down the tube´´ and he talks about how with our missions we have blessings coming ´´down the tube´´! It was so nice to hear from everyone who wrote me between Monday of last week up until now! I have not quite been able to get around to mail anything quite yet but I do have the address of the Barcelona mission home. I think that if people who send me letters use this address it should be the best way for mail. If any other way ends up being better then I will inform you as soon as I find out. Elder Alexander Weston Schindler Spain Barcelona Mission Calle Calatrava N 10-12, bajos Barcelona 08017 Barcelona Spain Phone (for certain packages I believe) 34 932-116-762ç [I believe this would be for packages that require an address in Spain. This would not be a personal phone number for Weston.] Also, in personal study, I´ve found two scriptures I´d like to share with you all. the first is in Ether 4:11-12 ´´...for because of my Spirit he shall know that these things are true; for it persuadeth men to do good. And whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do good is of me; for good cometh of none save it be of me. I am the same that leadeth men to all good...´´ The second is found in 2 Nephi 31:20 ´´Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ having a perfect brightness of hope and a love of God and of all men...´´ These have been great missionary scritpures for me to read and I hope you think they are as awesome as I do! I love you all and pray for the best of everyone one of you, Elder Alexander Weston Schindler

Letter dated 1Mar2012

[Dear friends and family, Weston arrived this morning in Madrid! He sounded very excited when we spoke with him from the Atlanta Airport. I am looking forward to receiving some pictures that I can post in a blog in the near future! I hope this letter finds you well and happy. Continue to send any replies as a reply to this letter -- and I will forward it to Weston. Much love, Weston's editor - BWS] Dear Family, I was blessed to travel to Madrid on time and actually a little bit earlier than what was expected. I enjoyed getting to call you yesterday and I wish I could have talked for longer, but alas, I had to catch my flight from Atlanta to Madrid. And speaking of which, both flights (the first being from Salt Lake City to Atlanta, the second then to Madrid) were incredibly fun and amazing! I was with 11 other missionaries in the first flight and we talked the entire time and I also had some time to write my own personal thoughts into my journal and the second flight was even better! It was an 8 hour flight and by the time we arrived in Madrid it was 9am, so to say the least I´m a little bit tired now... (it´s about 4:30 en la mañana. Also, to Daniel, please don´t type Espanyol anymore, mi corazon is filled with much pain whenever I read that so if you have to use it, just swich the keyboard to Spanish and then find the ñ. Por favor y gracias). Oh, but Madrid is better than anything I could have expected. The building here is the Madrid MTC (o CCM en Español) and we share the same square as the Madrid Temple, which is one of the most beautiful temples I have ever seen. I´m definitely going to be taking lots of pictures on PDay [Preparation Day] which is going to also remain on Thursdays (jueves Daniel, por favor). And as for any letters or DEARELDERS that might be sent to Provo and I did not recieve, I´m not sure if or when I´ll recieve them but I will get a hold of the mission address soon so that you can share that with people, dad. [I will send that out when I find it!] I was able to get an hour nap earlier today and we had Spanish tacos for lunch (by the way, the rice here is amazing!) and they had these crazy European ice cream bars that were super creamy and amazing! I´ll send you a box of them in an icebox! BROMA! Today is a day for us to relax and the teachers are speaking more English today for us because we are all so exhausted but we will be immersed in Spanish tomorrow and the following days. We also have more freedom here and can go down to the main part of Madrid on Pday and see all the amazing buildings which is west of us. Also, there will be plenty of pictures of those as well. I wish you could all see what I´ve seen on my first day and I already know for a fact that I´m going to be coming back to Spain in the future. And one thing that I am not sure I have said or not, but here in Spain they talk with a lisp on the soft C´s and Z´s so in the future, watch out for my awesome Royal Spanish accent! Also, according to the cover of USA Today at the airport, congragulations to Mitt in Michigan. I figured I´d let you know I saw that so you don´t have to update me with that (Daniel). Os amo, Élder Alejandro Weston Schindler Elder Alexander Weston Schindler

Letter dated 26Feb2012

Dear friends and family, We received a surprise phone call from Weston this evening. His visa has been issued and he will be leaving for Barcelona -- on WEDNESDAY! (February 29). I will keep you posted!

Letter dated 23Feb2012

[Dear family and friends, Here is the letter we received from Weston today! I hope you enjoy it as much as we did! I hope your February is going well! If you want to send a response to Weston, merely respond to this note -- and I'll forward your note along to Weston! Weston's editor - BWS] Dear Family, I don't know if I'm alone when I'm saying this, but these past 7 weeks have flown by faster than any other 7 weeks! No offence to any other set of 7 weeks, I'm just saying in general. I actually have an important meeting tomorrow with the Consul of Spain. All of the missionaries, elders and sisters, will be there and I'm interested to find out what will go on during it. But anyways, it's the Consul of Spain! I was actually very thankful for all the messages I recieved over the weekend. It was President's Day on Monday and here at the MTC mailroom, they were closed on President's day! So all my DearElder letters [this is how I communicate with Weston while he's at the Missionary Training Center] from Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday came to me on Tuesday night and I loved every message I recieved! First and foremost (don't quote my spelling), congratulations to Daniel for being accepted to the BYU School of Music! I think I was only told 5 times from Daniel and dad but each time I was proud because I know that I taught you (Daniel) everything you know about music. Oh, and when I say that, I mean I let you play your trombone 24/7 without throwing it out the window. So you're welcome and congratulations! But earlier, from Joseph, I loved reading the Man from Snowy River poem! As I finished it, I thought to myself "Should I be reading this as a missionary?" but then I thought "Joseph was a missionary and he wouldn't send something to me I COULDN'T read" so I felt good about it. It was a great story too. Reminds me of a movie we've seen before.. I think it's called The Man from Snowy River or something like that. I dunno, you should check me on that one. And speaking of movies, I love that scene in the Beauty and the Beast when Belle tells the Beast "I can't carry it for you, but I can carry you!" after the wolves attack him. [I jokingly find this quote from Lord of the Rings in every movie I watch!] Too bad she was just kidding and made the horse carry him. And to finish off to Joseph, I pray for the best for you every night and it's my sincere hope you are doing well! You're awesome! Can't wait to hear from you (and everyone else) soon! But to Nicholas, great job with that fantastic letter you wrote to me! I was smilling the entire time I read it! Do you wanna know how I know you are my brother by the way? Because you're reading The Hobbit like a champ! I read the Hobbit in the fourth grade too and I love that part when Bilbo is with the creepy frog guy [my description of Gollum]. You should definitely update me on your progress in the book and keep me up to date with other things going on at home. I'm sure dad would love to help you out! And to every participant in the play, may the force be with you, always! I know you'll do fantastic jobs and why worry, right? I know it'll be amazing and you all will learn so much from this! And Daniel, best of luck with that (fake) kiss or whatever happens at the end. Yeah! [Daniel is the prince at the end - after the beast converts to the prince!] Well I'll be highly anticipating to find out where I'll be assigned in the meantime before my visa arrives. The district in my zone that came in a week before us were all called to Mexico, but Mexico and Spain are like the Gestapo (don't mind my spelling) of visas, though I've heard it's hard to get a US visa too... Anyways, they are mostly going to Calfornia, San Jose and San Fransisco and one elder is heading up to Seattle, Washington. Hopefully I will know where I am going by the time next Thursday rolls around but you should all guess in the US (haha, I rhymed) where I'll be going. My money's still on Nebraska (just kidding, my money's on Cali or Chicago!) But in a side message, I try not to complain about much, and I'm sorry if I do, but there was something that really disturbed me here at the MTC. I came to find out that one of my roommates, Elder Rockwood, hates Batman. I know, it's pretty serious and I hope he'll change his ways, but he went on and on to say that anyone could beat Batman, even a Bellsprout or a Magicarp. I'll try to come to terms with his opinion, even if it's wrong, but I hope he finds the light. True story. Now that I'm done talking about that, I'll be sending a package next week with lots and lots of photos both hard copies and on one of my SD cards. I hope you can find a place for the digital copies but be sure to send it back with every photo still on it. Please and thank you! I will also send some random things if I feel like it! Can't wait to get my triple combination either! I've been marking up the one I grabbed that's an old seminary one and I found out that it's so fun to make the pages really colorful. For future reference in my scriptures, the yellow markings are my most favorite scriptures and consist of lots of inspiring and awesome scriptures. Ether 15 comes to mind, if you know what I mean. I'm glad to be reading the Book of Mormon with you all as a family too! I'm super excited for Ether and I'm sure you'll all be ready to get confused about who's the king and who's son is taking over the kingdom. Good times! I've come to find out that I do truly miss and love you all but I love what I'm doing so I hope you don't miss me too much! 23 months is only a blink of an eye in reality. Or 16,000 hours, if you want to get down to hours. Or 58,000,000 seconds, but who's counting, right?! I love you all, TTFN, Elder Weston Schindler