Letter dated 2Oct2012

[Dear family and friends, here is the letter we received from Weston earlier today. He is back in Inca! As you can tell, he loves your letters and your notes. Reply to this letter with a response and I will forward it to Weston. Thank you EVERYONE for your support and prayers! Weston's editor - BWS] Dear Family, What a great last week! Not to mention what a great last transfer this has been. I can´t believe how fast the time is going by, but it definitely is moving and moving fast. Today I said good-bye to Elder Swenson once we both recieved our new companions and I feel like we are moving into the new chapter here on the island. Now that we have more Elders here in the island I´m excited to see what the new progress will be here in our areas; his in Manacor and mine back here in little Inca! My companion, Elder Batanero, is from Spain and he loves photography and many other thing that I enjoy as well. I´ll be getting to know him better and better during the next few weeks but I am especially excited to be learning all the Spanish during our time together! (Also, he is a magician, nicknamed The Magician´s Nephew by my ex-companion Elder Carlson. He´s rather quite tricky sometimes! I´ll basically be going up 100 notches higher, improving and critiquing my skills. He and I served in the Gerona district in our separate areas earlier in my mission, during my beginning months in the field. I feel like we´ll be able to have a new kind of experience here in the city different than what I´ve seen here before. He has been saying only positive things and is ready to help me work in the area, improve my speaking ability, and serve the Lord. I know that this will be a time to remember. I will also always remember the time I had with Elder Swenson. We really were able to connect and I honestly can say that he is one of the most humble people I have ever met. He brings a spirit with him that I would love to have everyone feel and his love for the people with kindness and understanding is incredible. He´s going to have a great time working in Manacor and both areas will become even better in the coming month, I know this for a fact. One miracle I was blessed to see happened after our district meeting last week. That night we had a visit with our friend Ema from Brazil and we were wrapping up the lesson but then finally I had to ask what was troubling her. She told us and basically said that for the past month she had no intention to be baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints because she was getting ready for her communion in the Catholic church.. that was hard news, because she made no mention of this previously and it caught us by surprise. At first we basically thought that we had thrown out all of our time spent with her and we took some precious moments to talk to her, address doubts, and make sure we knew exactly where she was coming from. It was sad when we left that lesson and for the rest of the day I felt heavy.. but then finally the next day we went to introduce ourselves and meet a boy whom we had contacted a week before. We arrived and sat down with him, Alex, and his girlfriend, Shela. As the lesson progressed, every heavy feeling I felt left me from the previous night. The simple lesson and the two new kids we were teaching reminded me how powerful our message is and why we´re here on the Earth. I then realized that even if some of these people don´t want to progress with us at this moment, we have already laid an incredible foundation and that they will never forget us in the future. By the end of the week, knowing that I would be leaving the area, we had a visit with Ema and I was able to say farewell and there were no negative feelings and we had a great chance to say farewell. I´m grateful for Jesus and His message and I know that everyone that we meet has an impact from us, one way or another, and that it´s important for us to not get carried down into the pits of woe, so to say. But yes, that was a lot I just wrote you; now stop reading and get on with it! Oh, and I should be sending some pictures in the upcoming week or two! YA! Os quiero, Élder Xander Weston Schindler P.S. I sent the application, and I´ll send it fast when I get it again. [Application for absentee ballot!] Just be sure to give the people the appropriate amount of stamps for the return send off! P.P.S. That´s really weird what happened on my Facebook... I know my leg´s broken but they didn´t let me go home.. They actually told me that I had to stay a few more years in Spain and wait for it to recover! (^_____^) [Weston is talking about a prank one of his friends pulled on Facebook. Weston's leg is NOT really broken!] P.P.P.S. I will be here in Inca for at least 6 more weeks, maybe more. My mailing address is still the same one, and I did get some really awesome letters from friends, so if you read this message, you know that I got it!