Week 5

HEy everyone it sounds like Lindseys wedding was an extreme success. I was able to be at the temple the same time you all were so thats cool. My carboard cutout was so cool! Like wow amazing. Cleat and Ida I did get your package i was going to write you last week and then had no stamps, i got some today though :) We had another baptism this week. Uwe Vogt. He's german and has lived here 5 yrs. He is a computer programmer and hes so funny. Im sure hed talk to you if you add him on facebook but idk.He has pics of me hed probably send you. Hes very talkitive and knows a lot. He has became a very good friend over this transfer. He always is calling to make sure we're ok and makes sure we have food. We had a foest firwe here this week and for a couple days it was pretty bad. Kind of like MT in 2000 but we got through it. It has been really hot too. We were talking to a guy on the street and then it sounded like someone stabbed a tire because the air was flowing out and we thought it was a car or something and then i looked and it was my bike! It was so hot that it popped ha and then the next day it happened to Elder Evans. Only thing was that we had to walk which is not as fun because you dont get a breeze. Hmmm we see miracles everyday but I dont have any really good stories. Im just continuing to work hard. We had president interviews and it went well. Pres and Sister Reeves are so loving and our just really the best mission presidents. We are lucky to be one of the highest baptising missions and we have a lot of people who are religious. Im so greatful everytime i receive mail it makes the day good no matter what happened. Im lucky to have so many people who support me out here. I was supposed to give a talk sunday and it was going to be on examples because really I have been shaped by everyone i have met in some way shape or form. I didnt because we had seven speakers ha so the missionaries didnt speak but we will be speaking soon im sure. Anyways keep up the good work, remember who you are, and I am doing fine. The ward takes care o us.

Elder Schallenberger

Elder Schallenberger Report

Hey this week flew by! WE had our firsdt baptism this transfer though it went really well. Sara Edwards was her name. She is so nice and just was so happy at her baptism. It was awesome. I love the spirit that she has and she is going to make the best member. I was able to be a witness and was excited for that opportunity. Next SUnday we have Uwe's and you can tell that he is super excited to get baptised as well. He can not wait to go to the temple and do baptisms for the dead. When he first came to California he tried to go to the temple because he had went to temples for all different denominations all over the world and when they wouldnt let him in he was so confused so he cant wait to go and do baptisms for not only his ancestors but just to see the beauty of the temple. We've been working hard and I've been trying to be more and more obediant. We've picked up some more people and so it is lucky to have people to teach. But Im sorry that Its short. All I have is we work hard and see the lords blessings in our life. O one of the elders broke his foot that lives with us so we have to go on splits more which slows the work down but still its going well. I love everyone and hope to hear from you soon.

Elder Schallenberger

Another Great Week

OK so THis week has been full of miracles and fun. Ill kind of go here and there so sorry in advance. But as for missionary stuff and for miracle experiences there has been quite a few happen. We were tracting and knocked on this old chinese man, john aun,'s house. HE had us in and hes like mr miago, he has the old cars and everything. HE said he was single and alone and that he doesnt go to bars, or hang out with the women, he said he was single like the son jesus christ ha but no then he siad something that touched me, he said, "I pray to the lord, to send me good people, to send people who are good, and then you knocked on my door, you are good people, you are sent form god" It was cool and we were aable to teach him> Another experience is we were knocking and this old guy talked and talked to us and we always ask if there is anything we can do to help them out and he said if you come across any furniture that no body wants then i would appreciate it and he showed us his house and all he had was a blanket to sleep on and a pillow and a bicycle so that was really humbleing so we are gonna find him some, One day we went on exchanges and so i was senior comp with the other elder for a day so i led the way to our appointments, except they were all people i had never met so i didnt know the street so i was always taking the "Scenic Route" to the places haha but the one place we were headed we both knew what way to go and i turned the opposite way and knew i was goning the wrong way but i didnt turn around and i was thinking, "Elder, turn around, what are you doing?" and even the other elder was like hey what are you doing and we went for a couple blocks down a man flagged us down and said, "I had been looking for you guys all week, i want to come to church and be taught" Kind of cool to realize that we are put into cool situations if we are obediant. ANd to realize that the lord directs us even when we dont know it.

THere is one little black kid, kelvin who we see everday cause he lives next to people we see all the time, he always runs to me and says, Booger! Booger! Booger! haha and we have a little handshake we do and stuff and then i always talk to him, hes four. But i think hes cool and stuff and then his mom was talking to the people we go see and she sida that he talks about me all day and wont shut up about booger this booger that. It made me feel pretty cool. HE always has the coolest little braids. Like a little bitty iverson haha.

We have some tongan families that always feed us. THey had a baby blessing this week so everyone was at their house for dinner. Holy cow ive never seen so much food. THey get offended if you dont eat two plates, which is equivelent to ike four plates back home. ANd the food is amazing. So much fish and pork and chicken and beef and a lot of weird stuff ive never seen before. THey cook banana like potatoes and they kind of taste like and have the same consistency as potatoes, they also have like watermelon coconut juice stuff and idk a ton of stuff. Before the meal the host, which was the dad of the baby that was blessde talks and welcomes everybody, recognizes visitors and elders, and then gives like a spiritual thought kind of, it was cool to see how they did it and he talked about their history a little bit and the pride thwey have in their heritage, hes huge he looks just like those pictures of the stripling warriors and you can see that those were his fathers. Then they had the eldest grandpa pray and even though i couldnt understand a word he said cause he speaks native tongue the spirit was way strong, the prayer i kid you not was like ten minutes, it was insane, you could only think about all the things that he said he was greatful for. ITs kind of intimitating to be there. THey have all the guys in there family there who play at like Oregon, BYU, Utah, USC, Oregon State, and tons of big school and just everyone there are huge football guys. THey also have been teaching me the ukalelee and some of their native songs are pretty sweet. Im running out of time though i love yall and its always good to hear from you.

Love
Elder SChallenberger

One Month Done

Hey everyone Im having a blast. The weather is what I asked for, its sweet. Im starting to know the area better and people in the ward and its starting to feel more normal. This week nothing really exciting has happened, we are teaching about 20 lessons a week i wish it could be double that, we have a lot of time that we are tracking and such which is the most unproductive thing. After we baptise the two people we have we wont really have anyone to teach thats progressing. Which is ok we just want people to have testimonies of christ and come closer to him. Ill send some pics from the mtc and such so this letter is going to be short im sorry. but no everything is going good i like it a lot, me and my comp get hes from twin falls get along and biking around all day couldnt be anymore fun, i like it a lot cause you can talk to people. Plus it burns off all the fod we are getting fed. Cindy i think that answers your questions :). Thanks for all the support you show me everyone I am so luck to have you behind me. I read the book of Ether the other day and the examples of faith are so amazing so this is some things that I've come to realize about faith.
Faith isn't a feeling, its a decision
Faith is confidence
Faith comes from experience
If we want to build our faith we need to:
Bear our testimonies
Record our spiritual experiences so we dont forget them
Pray
Read to have more knowledge to stand behind your beliefs
These are just a couple of the steps that we can do to have stronger faith. Faith that brought the lamanites to believe, faith that brought nephi to get the sword of nephi, faith the twelve apostles had, faith like samuel the lamanite, and my new favorite faith like the brother of jared (in ether). At the end of Ether he's the last one standing, all alone, and i dont have my scriptures with me but he says something like whether I die with pain or am translated it matterith not as long as i end up in the kindom of god. Isnt that the attitude we need to have, to have so much faith and to repet and be comfortable that it doens't matter what happens to us in this life, as long as we end up with our father in heaven again. Idk its pretty sweet. Anyways love you all.

Elder Schallenberger

I almost forgot thanks so much for the cards from Ryanne, Kila, Mom, Raegan, Megan, Travis and Malissa. They were sweet. Also form Linny and Jess and Cindy and the Coates. Its so good to hear from all of you.
Elder Schallenberger

- Sorry the pics are in the wrong order. Some are from the MTC others are from the mission.

Here are some photo's Cindy Willy sent me of Jason. They were taken the night before he left for the MTC.

First Week of First Transfer

So much to say, but I guess I'll go chronilogically, So as you know I ran into Coach Olsen at the airport and he gave me the hooked up with half a dozen krispy kremes and some food and let me use his phone to call, it was sweet and he gave me the low down on the sports world but anyway I loved the airport because everyone stares at you wherever you walk its way funny, The flight was good I was next to a sweet old lady, i thought she died half way through the ride when she was sleeping and was just about to check her breathing but saw her take a breath in finally. I got a good nap in. I woke up as we approached Ontario and It wasnt what i thought. There seemed to be tons of lakes but the with the smog you could only see a mile... not cool. There was a lot more mountains than i thought there would be as well.

Then we met the Mission President and his family and the AP's and they took us to the mission office where we met the sweet old ladies that work there, had orientations, driving tests, and Tons of subway which was a refreshing thing after the MTC. Then we headed to the Mission home and had a get to know each other with sister reeves while we met with President Reeves one by one, then we were put into the room with our potential trainers, it was insane, its like the bachelor or one of those shoes because you look around and wonder which one is going to be your "daddy" in the mission. They had all of us new missionaries (I think 14 of us) bear our testimonies and then they just tell you who your with. Mine was Elder Evans from Twin Falls, Hes a big loving guy who is funny and will be a good trainer I like him a lot and we get along pretty well. After we met we had a big dinner that was so Amazing. Sister Reeves can cook! After that we loaded up and went to our areas. We got to Hemet around ten at night so i didnt see a lot of stuff but there are some groves all around the outskirts and tons of palm trees everywhere.

That next morning I had to go get a bike (mom thats what that charge is on the credit card, you can take the money from my checking i didn't know if it went over so I thought it would be better to be safe then sorry.) Its sweet. John its a Giant I forgot what type its all blaco with white and silver, front suspension, disk brakes, its pretty smooth and a really good bike. After that we visited some people and rode around. The weather is pretty hot but i really like it.

Just so I can compare Hemet to something we can relate to. Where we mainly are is a lot like Dolittle in Vegas. Its pretty sweet a lot of hoods and a lot of crazy. But the outskirts of our area are really rich nice houses so we have a good mix. The second day we went on a media referall and the person wasnt home but there was this little kid named Keenan he was hilarious. He asked to see my hair under my helmet so i took it off and he said "dang you must be broke" haha then he said "its ok Im broke too" hes five yrs old. He tried to hustle us for everything we had, our watches, our pens, he would leave us alone till we gave him something so Elder Evans gave him a pass a long card ha but then he said he needed a pen to write his name. We finally got away from him though.

The next day we were going to help someone move and and we pulled up next to their house there was a pimped out old van. With Music notes on the side, spinners, a stripper pole inside and tvs, it was cool plus there was a huge decal on the top that said "Big Daddy". There was a big guy sitting in the yard in front of it. O and the two elders I live with plus Elder Evans are not very good at confronting people so of course I came out and starting hyping it up and was like dang nice ride and went up and spun the spinners and starting talking to him and their jaws all just dropped and he was so hilarious. HE said he was a barry manilow impersinator so i had him sing a couple songs and he went off about all these topics, he was hilarious and was literally on the ground laughing while the other elders were trying to hold it back because they didnt want to get killed but people like when you laugh at their stories. IT was fun.

That day my tire Popped which was unfortunate and tracking has been the worst. I always have faith but we get shut down for hours at a time. But we are lucky to have people to teach. We have two baptisms coming up on August 23rd and the 30th. One is Oover From Germany he's the man. He's in his 50's and he's loaded but lives in this ghetoo house. He takes us to all these fancy restaurants and he just wants to be baptized so bad. The other is Sara shes 17 and is part of a nonmember family, shes nice as well. The other Crazy we see all the time is a guy I like to call 10-4. Because he always talks like hes on a walkie talkie haha one night we were riding home and heard him singing and playing the guitar, so the next day I asked him when I was going to come over and jam and hes having us over for carne asada soemtime and we'll give him a lesson and ill play some church songs.

But no I like it here. Are ward is sweet. We have this old building with these huge valted ceilings and a sweet backdrop of rock its sweet and we have some poenesians which is cool and a great young mens and relief society. One of the guys in the ward is loaded he owns this whole hill and has zebras and all sorts of exotic animals. Ive seen ostriges as well. ITs funny. There is a recent convert family the Sibles and Keith has only been baptised for 4 months, hes a qward missionary and hes just doin work hes an awesome missionary and he just is an awesome friend and member. This week the Pungs are having a greeny dinner for us. Meaning every thing that we eat is green ill let you know how it goes. I love everyone and miss you kind of at times ha jk but no it will go by fast, ive almost been out a month.

Elder Schallenberger