Monday, May 26, 2014
Dear Family and Friends:
This week we went to Denmark! We were just there Saturday to go to the temple with Mats, who was baptized recently. He is really great. He is currently preparing for his second 100-mile race this year! He completed the first one in 33 hours! We also walked past an Aldi, and an amusement park called Tivoli! We got to go on a detour as well to the cathedral with the original Christus statue! It was so cool!
We went on exchanges this week, so I was with Elder Lambson in Malmö. Äldste Lambson's uncle and aunt are the mission president couple (President and Sister Pace) in the Barcelona mission! So I let him know that Weston was a missionary there and that Grandpa was President Pace's doctor. And it was a really good day in Malmö! We taught a couple from Serbia and got Turkish delight, and then we went on a walk with a Danish member who had a lot of Danish spunk, including the heftiest handshake from a girl I've ever shaken hands with.
On Friday, we met with Eskil, who is one of my favorite members I've met. He recently started coming back to church, and it has made all the difference for him. He has been able to quit alcohol, cigarettes, and on Friday he gave us his last canisters of tobacco! It was a bit frustrating at the beginning because we spent almost an hour trying to recover the password to his new computer, and it didn't work out until we fixed it today, but then we got to talking about the scriptures, and he told us that he's been reading them daily and feels so much better since doing so. We also found out that he's got fluent English then, so that was cool!
We met a person from Johannesburg, South Africa on the street this week and are friends now (were you in Johannesburg ever, mom?). His name is Leo, and he is really funny. We are about to start teaching him. We also met someone from Minorca, Spain (Weston, you served there, right?) whose name is Raffeal (just kidding, I don't remember his name, so I just put down one of the other Ninja Turtles).
I hope the best for you all, and I love you and miss you. The weather and work here is great!!
Love,
--
Äldste Daniel Schindler
Monday, May 19, 2014
Letter dated 19May2014
Dear friends, here is Daniel's letter that we received today. I know he would love to hear from you! Simply hit reply and type a reply - and I will forward it to him! Have a beautiful week! Daniel's editor - BWS]
Hey Family and Friends!
We've had a terrific, warm week in Lund!
Carl has read so much from the Book of Mormon! He's read the first 200 pages this week. When I told him that that impressed me, he said that the results of it have impressed him! He's had many spiritual experiences through reading and praying. It is so cool to see how it has led to his conversion! Less than two weeks ago he did not at all believe in Christ, but in Church yesterday he shared his testimony often inSunday School and said when he introduced himself "I have found my faith" :) The Book of Mormon is super!
That's Carl in the picture making food. He's a good chef and musician. There's also a farm house and a farm, and the Dr. Seuss soccer field.
Don't have much time, but I'm excited for everyone being able to start summer vacation soon! Hope you have a super week! Love you and pray for you all :=)
[I will post the pictures on Daniel's blog!]
Love,
--
Äldste Daniel Schindler
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Letter dated 12May2014
Dear Family and Friends:
It was super great to chat with dad, mom, grandma, grandpa, Weston, Andrew, Nick and Chris yesterday! Fantastic to see you and hear you!
Things are going great! We are quite busy with a lot of things right now. In Lund there is a young adult center that is great because it's in the middle of the city and an activity happens here just about every day to which we can invite our friends. As well, there are many, many members here that we visit and whose friends we get to meet. So the missionary work is very busy and effective here, which is really fun!
I've really been looking forward to telling you about what happened to one of our investigators, Carl, this week! He is a Columbian Swede who is really fun and who's been taking English lessons from the missionaries for a month or so. We met with him and Jeremiah, who's preparing to go on his mission, on Wednesday to teach about the gospel, and it began as a pretty rough lesson, we were watching "Finding Faith in Christ," and I accidentally dozed off during it because I've seen it so many times and was pretty tired, but luckily I woke up just as the last scene finished! (That was lucky, phew!) We taught about how God has given us Jesus Christ and scripture, and how we can find out if God is there through prayer. He really wasn't very interested at all then. But he said he would come to institute the following day. He came, the lesson was on the book of Mormon in the Book of Mormon and really enjoyed it :D He said that it felt good to him to read the Book of Mormon and that it made sense! We gave him a copy of it and he's been reading it, and says that when he reads it he wants to keep reading to find out what happens next! He came to church yesterday and liked it too!
I love being a missionary and being here to help these people with the message that I know is true. I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and friend and that He is the way back to our Father in Heaven.
I love you all and hope you have a great week!
Love,
Äldste Daniel Schindler
Thursday, May 8, 2014
Letter dated 5May2014
Dear Family and Friends!
It has been a terrific week!! It was sad to say good-bye to Äldste Bybee and everyone in Eskilstuna. But we had a really fun service project where we went with Mahmoud and Zohreh to Helena (a member who is quite ill) and cleaned her windows. It was a great last thing to do before leaving because nothing is better than service, especially when it's with great buds! Right before that, I was teaching Zohreh a piano lesson at the church. We were working on "Come Follow Me," and she said that the song felt very familiar to her from her childhood, which is pretty impossible because she grew up in Iran. So it was perhaps that she remembered that song, which is about baptism, from the pre-earth life and had a moment when she could remember a little bit from the pre-earth life. We talked about baptism for a while, and the Spirit was felt so strongly. It was so cool!!!
Well, now I'm in Lund, the deep south, with Äldste Dahle, who is great! Lund is the home of Lund University, and most of the students are open to listening to us and several of them only speak English, which are great things! The ward is very big and very good. The first day I got here it was Valborg, a Swedish Holiday. We went to a member family's house, had a big fire whose traditional purpose is to scare away witches, played some Swedish trivia, and had great food! There were so many people there!! I met Christian, who's in the bishopric and is Superman when it comes to member-missionary work. When my MTC group first arrived in Sweden, Sister Newell told us about a couple who had both served missions and who study Preach My Gospel everyday together... and that couple is Christian and Amanda! They are really amazing and there are so many other people in the ward who are great member missionaries!
The accent is pretty difficult. It is described by Northern Swedes as being as if a person has porridge in her upper-throat. I don't plan to ever pick it up because they can understand me easily, but I did a really good job on it by accident when I was talking to Äldste Dahle in Swedish with a hunk of fudge in my mouth. It was really funny.
There is a piano in our apartment, which is really nice!
It's great; I love Sweden!
Here're pictures of a squirrel and me, "Welcome to Lund!" sign, a really great church (Lund is Sweden's perhaps-second-oldest city and has great architecture), and me eating my first Kebab in Lund, which every missionary looks forward to :)
I hope that you all have a terrific week as you're doing Celebration, AP Exams, play performances, other school stuff, serving, sharing your testimonies and everything else! Love you all! I cannot wait to talk to you and hopefully grandpa and grandma on Google Hangout on Sunday!!
Med kärlek (shairlek),
--
Äldste Daniel Schindler
Letter dated 28Apr2014
Hallå där!
This Wednesday I'll head from Eskilstuna to the town of Lund, in southern Sweden! Lund is a university town. I'm not sure if it's an all-male university like the one Weston's going to or not, so I guess we'll see in a couple days :P They speak a dialect of Swedish there which sounds a lot like Danish (a.k.a. very difficult). So we'll see how that goes in a couple days as well.
We have had such a good week! A sure highlight was when Mahmoud and Zohreh made dinner for us as well as the Karlsson family on Friday! They had spent half the day making a really great chicken delight that was placed atop rice in which there were mixed berberries. It was super good! For dessert we had something like a huge twinkie, a flat cake with frosting and nuts rolled up in tubular form. It was really good :D Then we went to play volleyball as a branch, and had a couple of close games.
On Saturday we went with the the Lundkvists to Sweden's third largest lake. Right by it, there is a flat rock with an old Viking story en-graven on it (look at the picture with said rock and a great family) and the remnants of a viking bridge that was just made of several stones piled up on top of each other.
Earlier on Saturday, we had just been canceled on and so were about to go to plan b, but I had a feeling to do plan c instead, so we went by someone who was referred to us who is very difficult to contact, and actually met her on the way out of her door! It was super good that we did that because I have a pretty good relationship with her and could see her once more before heading to Lund. And then it turns out that her neighbor is also interested and now has a Book of Mormon! I am really grateful that God prompted us to go with that plan instead of the regular thing because it was so unusually positive!
On Saturday night, right before hopping into bed, I decided to call some friends who stopped investigating the church a few months ago. They had never been to church, and didn't want to come ever, but they said they would when I called them because I would be on the program. They came and they said that they felt so good, relaxed and uplifted in church, and they were also invited by the Karlssons to have dinner with us all today! And then earlier today we went on a walk together in Skilsta (see the picture of us three in front of the fence as well as the picture of the rock dam). It was super cool and really nice that we could say bye to each other.
Also on Sunday during church, Mahmoud and I passed the sacrament together. It was so good to see him all the way from someone behind a door to see him as a member of the church, helping everyone at church by passing the bread and water.
And then there's also a picture of a Czech Book of Mormon I found which is cleverly disguised as a communist book so that they could smuggle them in a few decades ago (so I am told by Joseph).
I love you all and I know that the church is true. I love being a missionary!! Good luck to you as you finish the school year and are super busy.
Love
Letter dated 21Apr2014
Dear Family and Friends:
Glad Påsk means Happy Easter, and it was so wonderful to have Easter this week! It has been so comforting to know that we will see Grandpa again. It will be such a great day!
Things have been super this week! I saw a guy outside of our apartment on Thursday and went out on the balcony to meet him (it's a 4-foot-high balcony), and he's a very interesting guy! He is Brazilian-African but has mostly lived in Sweden. It was super cool as we gave him a Book of Mormon which had a super sweet member's testimony written on the inside. He read it as he first opened the book, and was impressed by it. And we had been invited by a member to come to lunch the day following, which we invited him to as well, which was super cool to be able to do as he was super short on cash. It was just super cool how both of those things worked out like that.
I love you all and am thinking of all of you especially a lot right now. I pray for you every day and hope that you are each doing well. Thank you so much for you prayers and love.
Love,
--
Äldste Daniel Schindler
P.S. Twins! How are you doing? It's been forever since I've heard from you! I hope that doesn't mean you've just had a boring last many months and nothing's changed... keep me updated!
Letter dated 14Apr2014
Dear Family and Friends:
It was so great to be able to continue teaching Mahmoud and Zohreh this week and then for Mahmoud to be baptized on Saturday! Seeing how readily and strongly Mahmoud has received a testimony of the gospel and church has really strengthened my testimony that the Lord is involved in this work. Saturday and Sunday were so great, that we could baptize and confirm him. We are hopeful that Zohreh will follow him soon; she really loved the baptism and is also a wonderful person! They are planning on making three meals for different families to come over to their house in the next couple weeks! This is in response to having received dinners from different families in the branch, and it's amazing to be a missionary because we just get caught up in the middle of all these meals :D
At the same time that the work is going so well in Eskilstuna (and there are so many other positive aspects that I have not been able to mention), I am so sad to know that Grandpa passed away last night. I love him so much and will miss him so much for the rest of my life. I am so grateful for how closely I knew him. One of my favorite memories of him was when he took me fishing in Valley Creek, even though we had seen a bear by the cabin the week before, we went on a day-long trip (grandpa is probably the only person I would have felt safe with traveling through bear-infested areas for a day with lots of trout). We got to the starting point, and he gave me the lesson of how important patience is for both fishing and life. To demonstrate that casts are usually unsuccessful, he cast the line. And on the first cast a trout caught on! It was super funny and we laughed about it the rest of the day. That was a really great day, and he also taught me about constellations (there were no clouds out) and how to do a cowboy woot. He was such a great man, and I know that he is so happy right now. He would always read the Book of Mormon daily (for an incredibly boring amount of time, I remember thinking when I was 9), and it's great to hear that that's what he was doing yesterday as well. I found this scripture today in Job, and think that it is really wonderful: 25 For I aknow that my bredeemer liveth, and that che shalldstand at the latter day upon the earth:
26 And though after my skin worms destroy this abody, yet in my bflesh shall I csee God. Just like Job, Grandpa never forgot that his Redeemer lives, and I am so thankful for grandpa's faithful example.
I love you all, and pray that all is well with each of you.
Love,
--
Äldste Daniel Schindler
Letter dated 7Apr2014
Dear Family and Friends:
I don't have a lot of time just now, but I'll fill you in on the best things of the week!
So Mahmoud is doing really great. His baptism will be next Saturday, and we are very excited for him! He has been so remarkable to teach over this while. It is really interesting because of the language barrier, but it has been so good, and he is so prepared. Once, near the beginning, we talked briefly about the Word of Wisdom, but hadn't spent much time with it. But when we taught it for real and asked him for the first time if he would obey it, he said that he had already poured out his wine and had been obedient to it since we explained it to him! In another lesson, he drew us a picture that said every time he reads the Book of Mormon he gets a little closer to God, and every time he goes to church, it was a larger distance which he would make toward God even though he doesn't understand church very well. It is so great to be able to teach him and be his friend!
General Conference was super good! My favorite talk was Äldste Holland's, it's so important we're courageous disciples of Christ!
The pictures are of me in my favorite chair in the library, a mid-river statue of something cool in Torshälla, a sweet spoon of a member which comes from South Africa, a really good Iranian dish of baked rice and meat and carrots, and a rare sighting of an Albino Bus!
I loved hearing from you this week, and it sounds like this week will be busy with everyone returning to school. Good luck with everything! I love you all!
Love you all!
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