Weston and Gerona friends

Weston with new member

Weston with new members

Letter dated 14Aug2012

[Dear family and friends, here is the letter we received today from Weston. I hope you enjoy it. Weston also sent some pictures - I will post some of these later on his blog -- and I'll let you know when they have been posted. We are in Idaho right now. We will be leaving Joseph and Daniel at BYU next week for school. May you all have a wonderful August! Weston's editor - BWS] Dear Family, I´m almost at my 5th transfer of my mission.. but it´s exciting because I have plenty of time to continue learning and progressing! Every day is still an adventure, that´s for sure. This is also the last week I´ll be with Elder Greep, because he is going home! His family is coming to Barcelona next week and he´ll actually be leaving the island on Sunday because he´s going to attend a baptism from his most recent area. I´ll be finding out who my new companion is but it´ll be hard to beat Elder Greep. That does mean that I´ll have my Preparation Day on Tuesday next week as well and then I can inform you about all the changes in my life! Ohhhh, exciting! (^_^) Yesterday I had a great opportunity to have some specialized training for our zone here on the islands. I was happy to have been able to learn what we did, recieve feedback to questions that we had, and also just to get to know our new leaders. The focus of the training for working with those people who have drifted away from the church was especially powerful for me. All the things shared in that conference were things that I knew would help our area here on the islands. What part I think affected me the most what what Sister Pace said about paying compliments. Her whole talk about us as missionaries giving sincere compliments to our companions, members of the church, and everyone else, really was an inspired thing that we learned. At the end of the day yesterday, we were teaching our family but as soon as we began we knew something was wrong. We could just sense it in the air. We asked them if there was anything that was wrong and we came to find out that the parents had been fighting just prior and they definitely were all feeling down in the dumps and we were all feeling a bunch of negativity in the family. At that time we had our trio of Elder Greep, Elder Swenson, and myself and we were just sitting there in silence for a few moments because we knew that anything we would try to teach them would be like throwing water balloons at the wall. Then Elder Swenson got up and said, ´´Alright, here´s what we´re going to do. I want you (the parents) to come together and give compliments to each other about what you love about the other.´´ At first I thought, ´´What in the world?´´ but then I thought ´´Man, why didn´t I think of that!´´ That visit became one of the most powerful moments we´ve had with them and everyone in the family cried at least once, as everyone gave compliments to each and every one of their family members. Finally, when we were leaving I asked when would be a good time to come back and they said, ´´Viernes!´´ [Wednesday] without any hesitation! The power of gratitude and the love of our families are some of the most powerful things we have in our lives! Everything that I´m hearing from you sounds positive and absolutely amazing! Have a great time in Idaho and dropping off Joseph and Daniel at BYU. Keep me posted coming up and I´ll be looking forward to everything that you´re all doing. The right thing is going to happen and everything will be for the best! Oh man, I´m just so excited for all of you! Ahhhh, HUG ATTACK! Con cariño, Élder Xander Weston Schindler, P.S. I´ve been showing lots of people the picture I have of me with all of you brothers! I might stop doing that though, since they all say, ´´Oh, so you have three older brothers?!´´ Maybe one day I´ll look older than a 16 year old.. (^_^) P.P.S. Send my love to Adam Jensen! He´s going to love Colombia! There is a Colombian family here in Inca and the mom has told us to call her our ´´mission mommy´´! As soon as I get my camera working, I´ll send more photos, but I´m very, very short on updated photos... and the one of our family is blurry... but hey, it works! :D I´m just dissapointed that I don´t have too many photos with Elder Greep...

Letter dated 6Aug2012

[Dear family and friends, good morning! I hope this note finds you safe and well. Here is the letter we received from Weston this morning. I hope you enjoy it. He would LOVE to hear from you. Simply reply to this email - and I will forward your response to him. Take care and be safe! Weston's editor - BWS] Dear Family, All is well in the land of Inca and we are making new efforts to see changes and new activity here in the area. Even before I arrived here I was told to be ready to work a lot. From the little bit of experience I do have in the mission I am learning a lot from this area. As of right now I feel comfortable knowing the area and most of the men and women in the branch. It is a bit different getting ready to say good-bye to Elder Greep, seeing as he goes home in two weeks. It´s been great having that extra edge of experience with me so that I can learn more here but still I´m anxious for the next Elder to come and join me in the area. I know that everything will be fine and we are working to make the appropriate preparations for the future. The family that we´ve been teaching have their baptismal fetchas [project date] for the Saturday in two weeks and we´ll be working as hard as we can in order to get them feeling welcomed and comfortable with the Branch. They didn´t come to church yesterday but they already had a planned activity in Palma, the main city on the island. We've been doing a lot of fasting and praying specifically for them since we both know that they are great people. I have found that the mission is one of the most powerful ways to feel love for other people and honestly think about them with sincerity of heart. I´m positive that the Lord is also at work and that the right things will happen according to His will. This week we are planning to make new efforts to contact more new people so that we can introduce them to the Gospel of Christ. It´s going to be a vital thing for us to do since I am going to be the experienced Elder in the area and I´m going to need to set some good foundations for the next several weeks so that we´ll have a great time and also help the people here progress! So that´s some of the missionary work of Elder Schindler(^_^)! Another thing that we had was an activity that we worked pretty hard to get together, code named ´´Noche de Juegos´´ (or Game Night), for the youth and the YSA (los jovenes y JAS). The night was really fun and we got 5 kids from our area to come and a few others from the other branches on the island. We also had some incredible help from the Senior Missionaries here on the island (who are in charge of the YSA here). They brought their computer, projector, and the first Pirates of the Caribbean to watch at the end of the activity and of course, we did *NOT* watch it with them. But we played a bunch of fun games, including one similar to that Police and Criminal game we would play with the Wilsons. It was a blast, but we didn´t have food, because a member said, "Oh, but it´s fast Sunday the following day!" It would have been so much better if we had food but it was still a success. We´ll try to get pizza or some small snack foods for the next one we do in the future. I did get a letter from a friend the other day and it reminded me how nice it is to get letters. I´m going to do my best to write everyone who´s written me so far because it just gives you a great feeling to see letters in your mailbox that are not advertisments! OH YEAH, and we were at a members house and the daughter was wanting to become Facebook friends with both of us and so we gave her our names to search and it was super weird when she got to mine. I hadn´t even seeing my profile picture in well over 7 months and I forgot what it looked like. I wish I could get it changed to some of my new photos in Spain! Speaking of which, my camera battery died last week and I left my charger in Gerona! Elder Carlson said he was going to get it to Barcelona but he hasn´t yet and now I can´t take my pictures once every day... but it´ll all be okay in the future. Con cariño, Élder Xander Weston Schindler (^_^) P.S. I got a lot of wiffs of very exciting news! I´m so excited for Donald and his mission call to the Ireland/Scotland Mission. We´re going to be little Europe neighbors, except I´m still super far away from him. I´m sure that he´ll like the Preston MTC a whole lot! I´m also very excited for Joseph and Daniel going out and getting dropped off at Utah this upcoming week. I´m sure that´s going to be an experience unlike any other! Probably way too many college adventures to even count! Andrew also sounds like he´s going great and that band camp was a blast! I´m so happy that you all sound so great right now! Man, we´re just all doing really great!! P.P.S. HAPPY BIRTHDAYS TO ANDREW AND TO JOSEPH AND TO JACOB! Sorry, I didn´t get you anything, unless you still have Netflix. You´re welcome!

Letter dated 30Jul2012

[Dear family and friends, I hope this letter finds you doing well! We have had a couple of busy weeks. Julie, Andrew, Christopher and Nicholas just finished a wonderful but grueling 5 weeks preparing for two musicals - Beauty and the Beast and Chicago. The twins were dishes and wolves in Beauty; Andrew did an amazing and wonderful job as Cogsworth in Beauty - and as Aaron the attorney in Chicago. Julie was the musical director for both musicals. Right now Andrew and I are at Band Camp for the week. I hope you are enjoying your summer! If you want to send a note to Weston, just respond to this email - and I'll forward your note to him! Much love, Weston's editor - BWS] Dear Family, I´m sorry, but photos will have to wait until next week. I forgot to bring my camera to the computer today so you´ll just have to wait. I´m excited to hear how well the plays went this past week! I can just tell that Mom is way more relaxed now that they´re done! You deserve a good rest for everything you did to help out Chicago and Beauty and the Beast. I wish I could have seen them, hearing everything that Andrew´s been doing in the plays he´s been in! You´re going to be so good by the time I get home that I´ll have a lot of competition for being the dramatic one in the house (HAHA)! I hope that you´re having a really fun time at Band Camp as well. It´s good to know that you are all doing so great and having a great summer right now. Rest assured, I am also doing great and so far I have not been attacked by any smoke monsters.. yet! [This is a reference to the smoke monster in the TV show - LOST.] There was a really weird thing that happened one of the nights this past week (but I need to establish a little bit of the story first). We were wondering if it would be possible to go up onto the roof of our apartment and so we talked with our building president to see if she had a key. She did and nobody uses the roof, so she just gave it to us but told us to keep it safe. So for the past week we´ve gone up to the roof to chill and just look at the stars. We also brought our couch up to the roof as well, and since it hasn´t rained much here, we´re good!) but earlier this week we were talking on the roof and some weird clouds came by and we started seeing lightning in the clouds. They weren´t striking the ground, but it was still super weird because there was no sound at all. It could have been the smoke monster but I´m not exactly sure... Oh, and the other week I had an interview with President Pace since he was getting to know all the missionaries in the area and I asked him if he knew Grandpa Wilson. We had already finished the interview and were walking back when I asked him and he paused, looked at me, then said ´´Come back into my office´´. He asked me how I knew the name Merrill Wilson and I told him that he´s my grandfather. He then gave me his account of how Grandpa saved his life in surgery when his appendix ruptured. President Pace is very fond of Grandpa Wilson. So we´ve had quite the week. One of the families that we´ve been working with are from Equador. They are a family of four and this past week we had a few lessons with them, teaching them about the Book of Mormon and then the last visit we had with them we watched the Testaments with them. We´ve been working with them a lot for the past couple of weeks and they have shown so much interest in learning more, letting us come over and teach, and they are reading out of the Book of Mormon. Then finally, yesterday, we walked over to their house right before church and wanted to check to see if they were coming. The father of the family looked out the window and told us that the girls were getting ready and that they were coming in just a minute. Elder Greep noticed in his hands that he was holding a Book of Mormon and asked if he had been reading it just then and said he was. We had a moment and told him that we love them and then he said that they all love us as well and then we went to church, shortly followed by them. It was a special time and we´re going to see them tonight to see them again but they are such a great family. We´ve been meeting lots of new people as well, including families that are less active but they all have great hearts and it´s been a blessing to meet and get to know them all. There was another family that we helped move some of their furniture because they are moving back to the mainland but we got to talking with them and they were just so great. Sometimes it doesn´t seem fair why some things are going on in our lives but I know that the Church of Jesus Christ is the biggest blessing that we have in our lives, right next to our families. I can´t wait to continue meeting and helping new people but I hope that you all continue doing what you´re all doing and always remember how important it is to give our devotion to the Lord. While this area in Inca may be one of the harder areas in the mission, I´m keeping my head up and haven´t felt as discouraged as some might let themselves get. I´ll continue praying for every one of you and keep you close to my heart, always (literally, I have a photo in my agenda and so it´s always right next to my heart XD) Can´t wait to hear from you all next week! I wuv you daddy, mommy, Joey, Danny, Andy, Chrisy, and Nicky! Élder Xander Weston Chandler P.S. Here is my actual adress and I know that it should work. But make sure you share this one with everyone and get rid of the other one. Elder Schindler C/ Ramon Desbrul #50, Escl. 2B Inca 07300 Mallorca, España