Letter dated 23Dec2013

Dear Family, Just to begin, I was hesitant to let Oliver call you, mom. BUT then I remembered that it was Dad´s, Nicolas´, and Christopher´s birthday so I let him do it! I´m glad you enjoyed that little call. In preparations for the holidays, we had a White Elephant today and it was very fun, then we played scatter-ball... so for that I am exhausted.. here are some pictures of the zone together! We are also all very excited for the holidays and for our Google Hangouts that we´ll be able to do! But enough of that, since we´ll talk in two days, here´s what´s big that's happened in my neck of the woods. Elder Gomez and I have been visiting a less active, part member family for the past several weeks and have been diligently been inviting them to the church and other activities. As part of our ´´rescue´´ in the ward we have been working very hard with the nine year old son, who has been hard to teach seeing as it´s hard to keep him focused. Two weeks ago, as part of our work as missionaries, we left him with a baptismal calender, though he had expressed no interest in being baptized. It wasn´t an official date, but we had faith that he could recieve his answer before the 28th of December. As the weeks continued to come by, we saw the light but it wasn´t exactly promising and it really frustrated us quite a bit. Then on Thursday of last week, on the 19th of December, I was at a breaking point with him. I knew that he didn´t like the idea of being obligated to do anything and decided that if he continued to act like he was, I would rip up the calender in front of his face and teach him that he would not be obligated to anyone but himself and to the Lord. ¡Super fuerte! If you know me, this was definitely the extremity that does not come out of me often and a lot of it had to do with my work that I´ve put into helping the family and how this is my very last area.. I had so much desire to see him baptized while I was here, because I knew that one day he would get baptized and I knew that this time would be better than never. After a spiritual message from the Book of Mormon, I took his calender from off of the wall and had him look at it and I asked him what did he see. He told me that he saw that he was praying every day but that it was hard to read in the Book of Mormon every day. I told him to look again and to tell me what he saw. He told me that he saw the day we marked for his baptismal date and he said that he had his answer. ´´Yes, I want to get baptized.´´ I was floored! He had been showing absolutely no interest before and then, in the moment I was about to give up hope for him, he does makes a complete 180º turn around and his sisters also looked at him and were as surprised as I was! In that moment, I once again realized why I stayed in the mission those extra three weeks. I realized that Dylan and his family needed that help and all the work and effort we had put in is paying off. I then shared my personal experience that I wanted to be there for his baptism before leaving and the whole family started saying that they wanted to say good-bye to me at the airport! I then realized later that night that had I went home on the 18th, I would not have seen his progress, nor been able to see his baptism. The church is true guys. That´s all there is to it! Happy Christmas! I can´t wait to talk in two days. I´ve checked my profile now, so I should be okay! Here´s hoping! -- Élder Xander Weston Schindler PS We have to go back, Kate... PPS We also went to a cool site in Barcelona the other week, thought you´d like to see Barcelona ^_^