Daniel with companion!

Daniel is a fish!

Swedish sunset!

Daniel's church house!

A time to sew . . .

More planes!

Flying away!

Swedish helmets!

Museum #1

Letter dated 25Aug2014

Käre familj och vänner: This week's pictures feature a put-your-face-in-a-board picture with me as a fish, Syster Morris as a live penguin, and Äldste Lambsson as a penguin photograph; zone trip to the Malmö fair last Monday! The Lund Chapel, me and Äldste Cahill at a multi-zone conference in Gothenburg, and the sky. On Monday we did had family home evening with the Forró family. On Tuesday we went to Syster Carlsson to help weed her garden, and were given fish and chips! I think this was the first time I had these together. Then we went to Broder Klang and taught about the Spirit. On Wednesday we had open church. While there, the Björklunds came by. We were talking to them about how no one ever comes to open church. We were thus regretting the suburban location of the chapel when we saw a woman walking past. We decided to invite her in, and said good-bye to the Björklunds. Turns out, she had been there before, wasn't aware it was open, and wanted to come in! Goes to show that ya gotta change the situation in stead of just talking about it! We went to Gothenburg on Thursday to learn from the Beckstrands, the Olssons (President Olsson is an area seventy), and the Teixeiras (President Texeira is the area president). It was a good and inspiring conference. We focused on finding those prepared to accept the gospel -- you gotta talk to everyone! And you need to meet those friends to those you're working with already! We've been applying this and it's going well. President and Sister Teixeira say hello, as well as that they are concerned and praying for all the missionaries' families. An important thing I took away from that conference was to always be ready to testify of that which I know -- the gospel of Christ. I got to have an interview with President Teixeira that was recorded. I was expecting for him to ask me how our missionary work was going, how well we were keeping the missionary rules, and so forth. But instead he just asked me to bear my testimony. It was a big surprise, so I wasn't ready for it. I was nervous at first, and then it got better in the end. Testifying is quite key for a missionary, so it helped me realize to always have my testimony on the front of my mind, to never forget it :) On Friday we met Patrik, helped the Schanners at Hund stund, went to a museum where Syster Aarenstrup works, and stopped by someone who had been referred to us. He was very nice, but not interested to meet with us. Luckily, though, it started pouring rain as we left, so we went back and invited ourselves in for shelter. It was a go, and we got to talk to get to know him for about an hour. On Saturday we went to the temple with Eskil. It was great! Yesterday, we had a terrific day of church, met a new investigator named Said (pronounced Sigh-eed), and also met Sara, for the first time in a few months! The Spirit was there for both lessons, so it was great. With Said, we were teaching about Christ. I thought of the scripture which says that Christ will go and experience all kinds of sickness and afflictions and even death so that he will be able to comfort His children when those things happen to them. I couldn't remember where the scripture was, but I opened the Book of Mormon and... BAM! It opened to Alma 7:11-13, that scripture! That was fun :D Another cool scripture experience: I was thinking about why it's the case that there is opposition and hardship in all things. As I was doing this, the Spirit whispered to me that I ought to read 1 Nephi 1:1. I was quite surprised by that thought, because I didn't know beforehand that that verse deals with why we have hardship, but then I read it and it provided a lot of light to the topic. In it, Nephi says that he has seen many afflictions, but that he had also been well favored of the Lord. As well, he had become acquainted with the goodness and mysteries of God. What I get from this is that he did not grudge his hardships, rather he just "saw" them. That's also evident in how he reacts to the tough things that happen to him, like when his brothers try to kill him: he's not angry and forgives them as soon as they stop being evil. So it's good to just "see" our hardships, instead of treating them like the end of the world. His hardships helped him appreciate the goodness of the Lord, thus he says he had been highly favored of the Lord. And they also taught him a lot about God, thus he was able to be better acquainted with God. That was a lot! I hope the move to Idaho goes without incident. Thank you to everyone who's helping pack\throw away all of our things! That's very nice of you :) Much love, -- Äldste Daniel Schindler

Happy Elder in land of green!

Swedish food candles!

Extra protection

Letter dated 18Aug2014

Dear Family and Friends: This week began as usual -- on Monday. On Monday evening we had family home evening at the institute center. The topic was Luke 2:52 (the spiritual, physical, mental, and social aspects of life) and we played charades :) On Tuesday we met our new friend Ofelia, the physicist from Iran. She is very similar to Zohreh! Iranian people are among the most respectful and kind people I know. They are also rather educated people, excelling especially in Middle-eastern geography. She has a hard time being separated from her family. We talked about how we can get strength and find answers through prayer. On Wednesday we had a zone training in a cool park in Malmö (see the picture with the tall trees). We put on blind folds and led our companions to accomplish a list of tasks. Very fun! Then we went to scrape gum from tables in "Hund stund." And we saw Eskil later! This coming Saturday we are really excited to go to the temple with him :D Äldste Downing and I went on exchanges Wednesday evening. Carl had us and Szilvia over for a huge dinner. He said it was the dinner of his leftovers he needed to get rid of before flying to Florida, but it ended up being really high quality! 1st course = bacon soup. 2nd course = SO MANY CRAWFISH!, cheese pie, and salad. 3rd course (dessert) = crembrulé, chocolate cookies, and home made ice cream. It was so good! Carl is terrific :D Thursday was also with Äldste Downing. We did nice things including extending my residency in Sweden. We played soccer that evening with the young single adults, and met another new friend, Mohammad, afterward. He's from Syria, and is miraculously able to be in Lund due to a scholarship in his Master's program. On Friday we met Jens and his friends from Gothenburg! One was a teacher of religion, one an engineer, one was a fun-lover and Jens is a dad. They all have a really high level of Swedish! We taught them about the restoration and they loved it. It was so fun! Church was good; Martin who's visiting from England, brought his dad to church again. His mom and he had joined the church 30 years ago, but his dad has not yet. Martin wants us to start meeting with him, we are really excited! It is a very humbling, uplifting feeling when a member wants you to contact his loved ones! Some things I love about Sweden: these pictured candies: official name is damsugare (vacuum cleaners). Made by taking cake crumbs and mashing them in a tube shape, covering them with marzipan or something of the like. Everything is always green here! When it rains, it sprinkles all day. So we get lots of water. A member has these gas masks and bee bee gun. Have a terrific week! Love, -- Äldste Daniel Schindler

Line to parking meter

Daniel by Swedish hospital

Swedish stained glass!

Older picture of Daniel in MTC (I think)

Older picture from Detroit temple several years ago!

Swedish church!

Letter dated 11Aug2014

[Dear friends, here is our latest letter from Daniel. If you have a message for him, send it as a reply and I'll forward it to Daniel. Take care and be safe! Daniel's editor - BWS] Hej hej! I hope you're having a good last bit of summer and a good-looking school year ahead of you! Lund University's students are starting to get here for the start of the year. Exciting! I had gotten some nostalgic memories of starting school years in the past. It's a fun thing! Maybe you're wondering what the subject is all about. There actually wasn't any showdown, just a birthday party. We threw the party for the relief society president, Anne, who's a Physics post-doc at LU, and she brought 8 of her Physics phriends! Most of them were post-docs, and a phew were just PhD students. So there was a pretty high I.Q. there. It was really good to meet them all. We played a game like charades, and it was so phun! A few of her friends were quite interested in learning about the church and took Book of Mormons. It was great! Krisztina is doing better, the operation on her foot was successful. She is funny when on medication, so it's fun visiting her ;) We taught our friend Jens, who's a young dad, for the first time in the park on Wednesday. He loved hearing about the Plan of Salvation. He is going to meet us again with three friends this Friday. Really exciting! Later that night we had a talent show in the church! We played the minute-to-win-it game of holding a piece of uncooked spaghetti in you mouth and maneuvering cheerios onto it. I got 9 in a minute! We helped Brother Schanner and his mom move their business from Malmö to Lund on Thursday. It's a new dog-care business, and I thought of the name of it! It is "Hund stund" which means "Dog Time." We're gonna help Mrs. Schanner there some more next week. On Saturday we went to the other side of the peninsula, a 6-hour venture, with the bishop's son, Jeremiah. That was fun. Then we went to Patrik with Äldste and Syster Davis. Patrik's kids like to play soccer with us. They call us "Presidenterna," the presidents, cause of the way we dress :) They are young guys, 3-8, and lots of fun. The days are getting shorter and shorter (the sun sets now before we go to bed), and I am reminded that winter and 3-hours-of-sun days are coming. I don't know why it's sad to see less sun, because we've had so much of it for a while, but it's sad nonetheless. Despite it being sad I saw a star for the first time in 4 months this week! It was neat. Always something to be thankful for ;) Pictures are of a couple of nice churches, me and the hospital, and a line to a parking meter. The first line to a parking meter I've ever seen. Have a good week! Love,

New Swedish bike!

Mop puppy!

Daniel with friend

Come blow your horn!

Letter dated 4Aug2014

Dear Family and Friends! It's rained a lot in Lund, so the temperature is much nicer than it had been before. Do you remember the guy on Space Jam, Jordan's friend, who has an umbrella hat while he's golfing? Well I finally followed my dreams and purchased an umbrella hat. It was only a few crowns (and Swedish crowns aren't even made to go on your head, so they're not too useful). It is really good for keeping a dry head and looking good. Krisztina is in the hospital, recuperating from a bad blood disease. But she's doing well. Definitely a trooper! Eskil, one of my most favorite members, is getting ready to do baptisms in the temple. I am really excited to go with him, hope I'm still in Lund for the temple trip! The pictures are of my Middle-Eastern\Swedish viking friend laughing at my war horn technique, Ole Aarenstrup (a Dane fluent in 7 languages) and me, Äldste Downing and I riding the bike European style, and a dog disguised as a mop. Love you all! Hope and pray that you have a very good week :) Love, -- Äldste Daniel Schindler

Viking museum

Visiting the Vikings!

Swedish cake!

Daniel and trombonist friend!

Dinner time!

Swedish Kocheloven!

Translation: Smoking Kills!

Daniel in front of green church!

Blue train named after famous astronomer!

Letter dated 30Jul2014

[Dear family and friends, here is the letter we received from Daniel on Wednesday. I will be putting his pictures on his blog! Daniel's editor - BWS] Dear Family and Friends! So much has happened since last week! This week has been a terrific one in terms of meeting new people and re-establishing contact with people whom we'd seen earlier! We have met a bunch people in the last couple days who are interested in learning about the gospel. One of the people we've met this week is Ophelia, the Iranian physicist, and there is David and his family, who are from an unknown nation, Marie from France, Ola (a Swede), as well as Dina from Indonesia! All are interested in meeting with us! On Monday I went on exchanges with Äldste Haddon, my first companion in the field, and we visited Henrik (who had given Barnes and me pancakes about a month ago). He has been struggling a lot this past month, which is very sad. But it was a great blessing we could see him again, and he was a lot more prepared for our message on Monday than he had been the previous month. He was really excited to read the book, ponder and pray! It was really fun to be with Äldste Haddon again! Krisztina is so funny! She always calls me Shidler. Probably my favorite phrase from her is "They get angry at me and treat me like the crocodile." (She has some kinda jerk friends who aren't happy that she's getting baptized). But she is really driving toward baptism nonetheless! On Saturday we prayed, and she felt distinctly that the 9th is the day God wants her to do it. She always gets answers so easily through prayer, SO COOL! On Friday, Amrita and Johan from Eskilstuna are coming down to Lund, so I'll get to say hi to them! Hopefully Mahmoud and Zohreh will also be coming down :) The Nilssons are a family in the congregation who are always doing fun things at their house, like hosting Midsummers celebrations for a couple scores of people, having the missionaries over for dinner and a game called "Crud," and having world-class concerts in their home. On Friday, it was a world-class concert. Their daughter, who's raising money for an Italian music school, performed piano with her teacher and her teacher's husband, Regamantus, the Lithuanian trombone mastermind! It was very spectacular to hear them and then to talk "trombone" with Regamantus afterward. There's a picture of him and me I'm sending! The Nilssons' daughter was a missionary and just broke her back in France. She is not very well now, so I think it would be really good if you could say prayers for her and her family. Even though life is so tough so often, it is a wonderful blessing. And God has a perfect plan for each of us. I am so aware of that now as a missionary, and I hope that I will always be able to keep that in mind. The pictures are of some exotic Indian food - great!, Brother Rönndahl making a Princess Cake (Princess tårta is as Swedish as it gets) to show us how it's done, my inner-viking, and Äldste Barnes and me by some viking ruins. The Viking Village was so fun! It was great to hear from you all! I hope this week is great and relaxing for you all! Love, -- Äldste Daniel Schindler

Letter dated 21Jul2014

[Dear family and friends, here is the letter that we received from Daniel a couple of weeks ago! I hope you enjoy it! Daniel's editor - BWS] Dear Family and Friends: Wow! July has gone by so quickly! Now that I think about it, 2014 is going by really fast! Based on dad'd letter, Pioneer Day is in a matter of days... this Thursday? I hope it's a good one for all of you, especially those going on the trek. I've included some choice pictures in this week's email. 1) most of the trains in Lund are purple "Pågetåg"s (pronounced Poagatoag). Each one has a name, and this one I liked a lot because Tycho Brahe was an astronomer in a previous century who studied the solar system. A cool guy! The train ride was out of this world (budumchhh....... cricket. cricket.) :P. 2) a handsome missionary and a cool church. 3) the big print on this pack of cigarettes says "smoking kills." Each pack has a similar warning. The warnings seem to be ineffective. 4) a kakolofin (kokelugn in Swedish) in the Nilssons house! We had tacos there yesterday after church with all 8 of Lund's missionaries and a couple friends we brought. Last night after the Nilssons' dinner we were contacting everyone we saw. We met Raza and his chihuahua right by our apartment. He's from Iran and was really happy that he could get a free copy of the Book of Mormon! It was great that we had a Persian copy in our library of Book of Mormons, so we got it for him right away! I love being able to give these to people and seeing how their lives' change as they start reading :) It is great that there are so many translations, because Sweden is incredibly diverse! Raza was super cool. We are meeting tomorrow and I'm psyched! We met José from Spain when we stood by our stand in the town square. He was a really funny guy. I said "Hola" and then he became ecstatic! He said that I do not look Spanish, but because my pronunciation of "hola" was so good, if I had my hands covering my face I could go around Spain saying "hola" to everyone and everyone would think me to be Spanish! He was quite serious. So Weston and I will have to battle our Spanishes. We even oddly had an El Libro de Mormon, in which he was interested, so we gave him that! We had a fantastic sacrament meeting yesterday. Mayhaps the best one I have been in ever! There were three musical performances and the talks, about the prophet Joseph Smith and women's importance and men's importance were super edifying and witty. Earlier this week we were helping out one of our friends and I did the dishes for 2.5 hours. So long! My kitchen job really paid off! Love each of you. I pray that you will all have a terrific week! If you are bored, read Alma 32. I just read it for the millionth time and learned lots! Email me about it and then we can talk! Love, -- Äldste Daniel Schindler