January 22, 2018

Hello my family & friends! I hope you are all doing wonderful! 

Well I did not write y'all last week so yeah..I'm lazy!

I guess you all probably wanted to know this but I got 2 new ties so that is cool. But a couple weeks ago on Fast Sunday, Elder Dixon and I fasted to find people to teach. And through faithful prayer and fast, WE FOUND SOMEONE!!!!!!! Her name is Michelle Leonard. We have been trying to meet with her since we have been here in Roseville but she was always super busy with work but it was just a seasonal job but since the holidays are over, she was finally able to visit with us! We have taught her 4 wonderful lessons and she is currently on date to be baptized February 24th!!!!! She is so awesome and has so much faith and real intent! Yesterday, she attended church in our ward for the first time, (she has been attending a YSA down in Citrus Heights with her boyfriend) and she stayed for all 3 hours! She also went to her BF ward as well, so 6 hours of church yesterday! But Elder Dixon and I are going to explain to her that she only has to go to our ward, lol. It makes it even better because the ward has already shown her so much love!

We picked up 1 new investigator this past week and her name is Darlene Belton. She is a former investigator we have been trying to meet and it finally has worked out. She is this big ol' black lady and she is just a character.

This week we attended a funeral for some guy named Rocky Rockholm. Elder Dixon and I never met him, but based off the funeral, we could tell that he was a great man who influenced and helped a lot of people.

A couple stories from Thursday: Elder Dixon and I go on a walk every morning so we were walking and this little kid walked up to us and started talking to us about how he would be turning 5 on his b-day and how he loved cookies, cupcakes, and donuts. His name was Gideon and it was seriously the cutest thing ever! Second, we were teaching Peter and when we got there he was fixing a bagel. Well, his grandma didn't want him to eat it until after our lesson but Peter felt otherwise. But his grandma decided to take away his bagel. But then Peter's sister Jasmine ate the bagel so Peter was super angry. So basically, Peter lost his bagel and then it just went downhill from there. Moral of the story: Don't eat bagels when the missionaries are over! lol We have also found out that Whole Foods does not appreciate missionaries setting up a stand in front of their store. But I guess the type of people shopping there aren't really looking for religion, ha-ha.

Totally forgot! The announcement of the new First Presidency was so great! I'm going to have to get used to testifying of President Russell M. Nelson as the prophet, but it won't be too difficult. The Spirit has already confirmed to me that he has been called of God to lead his Church!

Got to go! But I love and miss each and every one of you dearly and am so grateful for all the love and support you show me!

Love,

Elder Schneiter

 

January 8, 2018

Hello, my people!

I hope everyone is doing fantastic! I don't really have much to talk about. Actually, to be honest, it was a pretty anti-climactic week. But I will definitely say it was better than last week!

Well let's see here……Tuesday we taught Wendy Jacobs and we read out of the Book of Mormon with her. That was extremely tough because we read 1 Nephi 20 and 21 which are Isaiah chapters. They make no sense to me so I was basically useless during that lesson. We taught Peter O'Con, which I will say, his lessons have gone from something I dreaded to some of my favorite things ever! Peter and his sisters have given me a couple drawings and it is seriously the cutest little thing ever! It is so awesome because Peter has gone from not liking our lessons to them being his favorite thing of the week. He even is super excited for church and to be BAPTIZED! It has been such an awesome thing to experience!  We taught Paul and helped him to download the Gospel Library App so hopefully he'll stop using Google to research the church and the doctrine!

On Thursday, we helped Brother Richardson in the ward build a shed in his backyard which was pretty cool! He's from Ireland so he has a sweet accent. Also, while we were contacting, Elder Dixon had a prompting to knock on this door. We found this awesome lady named Maita! She has 2 kids and 6 dogs! She was super open to learning and we showed her the Prince of Peace video. It was so amazing! The only problem was she didn't speak English very well so the video was in Spanish.  We referred her to the Spanish Elders but either way, it was such a great experience!

Friday, we tracted Brother Hoybjerg's street because he told us about a bunch of his neighbors so we thought we would just do that. The only problem is he lives in the north part of our area, which is the nice part and the people aren't interested in listening to us and of course.......nothing. We did have some born again Christian lady talk to us about the trinity and how we are polytheistic. After we left, she chased us down in her car and gave us some scriptures that "prove" Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are all the same. That was interesting.

Spiritual thought time! This past week I was reading in Mosiah, chapter 4, which is when King Benjamin is addressing his people. It is one of the best parts of the Book of Mormon! I read verse 9, which reads, "Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend." When I read that, the Spirit just HIT me and my testimony grew so much! I know we have a Father in Heaven who loves and cares for us deeply! Jesus is the Christ and he atoned for our sins. The Book of Mormon is the word of God! I testify of that truth to each and every one of you who reads this! My challenge to you is to read the Book of Mormon. Not just those of you who are members (of course you should be doing that!) but those who are not members, as well. Read the Book of Mormon and see for yourself if it is true! I sincerely promise that if you do so and are sincere and pray to ask God if it is true, he will answer your prayer. The Holy Ghost will confirm to you that it is TRUE! It is my testimony that this is God's kingdom here on the earth today. Serving the people of California and sharing the gospel with them is the single greatest decision I have ever made in my life!!


I love you and miss all of you so much! And please, have some fun for me!

Love,
Elder Schneiter


P.S. I apologize for my emails being ten years long…. LOL! If you want an amazing conference talk, listen or read "The Purifying Power of Gethsemane" by Bruce R. McConkie. It is seriously like Hall of Fame status. Check it out!

#1- Bike Selfie
#2- No Mom, I didn't eat all of those.... only 2 HAHA

January 1, 2018

Yooo!!!!!! Happy New Year Everybodyyyy!! 

I hope everyone has had an amazing holiday season and is making dang good resolutions for 2018! I believe in each and every one of you that you will actually achieve those resolutions! I know that most resolutions only last a solid month and then nothing, but I have faith you can do it!

Well, the past week has actually not been the most exciting, in fact, it has been kind of rough. I'll just start from the beginning.

A couple of weeks ago on P-day we went to hit golf balls at the nearby driving range with the Zone Leaders. The only other guy that was on the range was this old, bearded guy and as he was leaving, he turns to us and said "I could've been a contender if I wasn't into drugs and crap, but I wouldn't change a thing. What can I say......I love drugs!" It might be the funniest thing I have experienced so far on my mission! The day after that though was Elder Brown's last day in the area because he got transferred up to Orville. It was a little sad, especially since now we can't hear his beautiful piano skills!

Another funny story was as we were teaching Paul Sanchez, right in the middle of our lesson, the police knock on the door and searched his grandma's home for like 10 minutes and were questioning Paul outside! So, during the time I thought to myself, "IDK if we are going be teaching Paul anymore!" That was definitely an experience. I am still not quite sure why the police were there.

One last funny story was how we found a potential investigator named Mercades. We had been visiting with one of our investigators, Valerie Jacox. While getting on our bikes we met Mercades, while she was walking her dog. She lives in the same neighborhood as we do and she explained how much she hates our neighborhood. She was using a lot of potty words!! She said she wanted us to convince her why she should like organized religion so we talked to her for a bit. She said she was interested in meeting with us! Well, the funny thing about it was she was drunk HAHA!

We had a sweet Christmas devotional at the "Antelope Temple" which is a huge church house with two levels and has two chapels inside it.  It was such an awesome, spiritual experience! It was a great reminder of why I am out here doing what I am doing. On Christmas Eve, we had dinner at the Magnussen's home and they have this awesome tradition called Jesus Cake. They sing happy Birthday to Jesus!! How cool is that! Christmas was of course AWESOME since I got to talk to the Fam!!!! But, after that I realized just how much I miss them so for the next couple days I had some lingering homesickness but I'm over that now! We had Christmas dinner at the Dufort's home and it was super sweet.

On Tuesday, we went on exchanges. and Elder Griffin came to our area with me so that was good. Honestly, at first, I was super nervous to be in charge of our area for a day but as the day went on, I realized that I am a better missionary than I give myself credit for. Also, Elder Griffin fell into a bush and lost his soda. That was an unfortunately funny experience!

Thursday was when everything started going downhill!  That morning, we got a message from our top investigator, Mark, who told us he was no longer pursuing the church, which was seriously the hardest thing I have experienced as a missionary! It really hurt. Not only that, but the work has been very slow.  Elder Dixon and I have both agreed we haven’t been working as hard as we could be! That will be changing!

Our saving grace this past week has been John Shade! We met John about a month ago and he came to church once. We hadn't reached out to him for a while so we decided to see how he was doing and just like that.....he's now our top investigator!  We taught him twice this week over Facebook video chat!!

Thank you to everyone that sent me Christmas cards and packages.  I really appreciate it!  I love you all and miss you so very much! I would love to hear from all of you hooligans! Happy New Year!  Remember to put the Savior first in your life, everything else will be much easier!

Elder Schneiter

Zone Selfie

My friend Stan...RIP

IDK we're just weird

MTC Comps forever!