News from Elder Schneider

Well I dont know what happened last week, but this week I got everyones emails. Just keep sending me emails at davidbschneider@myldsmail.netThats great about the trip down to LA. I received the pictures. Everyone looks like they are doing great. LA is a great city, and I loved celebrating thanksgiving there in 2003 and 2004 and Christmas there last year. The twins look l great, and thats crazy theyve started talking now. Maybe they can learn spanish before I get home in only 19 months now! I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving. We had our zone class on thursday this week, and we all ate pizza from Dominos as a celebration for American Thanksgiving and also because the President is really pleased with what we are doing in the zone San Pablo. Chileans of course do nothing to recognize American Thanksgiving. And I dont know if I have cleared it up, but they didnt really seem to celebrate day of the dead here on Nov. 1, but they had halloween here like they do in the States. November 1 is All Saints Day here in Chile. Well I am here in Corona Sueca with Elder Wood, and the next change is Dec. 23, so we might be together for Christmas, so maybe it will be the first time a gringo will arrange the telephone call home. I dont think we will have transfers that week.Anyway the Christmas package, dont worry if you cant find the scripture mastery cards in Spanish, English will be fine. Thanks a ton also for the pictures, they have been a great help. I used some of those laminated ones you sent me for the first time to explain the Book of Mormon to a couple on Friday night. The couple isnt married and already have a six year old kid so that will be a problem if we are still teaching them for the next couple weeks. But this message is for everyone.Anyhow this last week we saw some miraculous blessings. On Friday we had a baptismal service for an eight year old, she isnt a convert, but we had to fill the baptismal font a couple hours before the baptism. Luckily the Elders Quorum President was there as well as a couple other members. We had the doors to the church open and some members inside the church, and we thought why dont we give people a quick little tour of the church? Have them meet some members and get some lessons with a member present. So we gave four people a tour of the church, showed them around, showed them the baptismal font, showed them the chapel, and set a return appointment. Its just so much easier to teach the gospel when we teach them inside the church. It was so great!Also this last sunday we had 7 investigators in the church. A new personal record for me, and hopefully a record that will be broken the next week. We had a great amount of help from the members. But 2 of the investigators that came to the church, couldnt find our chapel and were looking around for the church for 30 min. and one of them had a baby that she had to carry in her arms for that whole time, and they still made it to hear the last speaker in the sacrament meeting, it was amazing! We truly got lucky, or lucky meaning we truly had the Lord helping us. We really had a great past week, and I hope I can work harder this week and find more people to teach. Anyhow, I am greatful for everything that you have all done for me. This week we are going to have our mission conference with Elder Paul V. Johnson of the first quorum of the seventy and first counselor of the area of Chile. And if this mission conference is anything like the last one when we heard Elder Hollands farewell Chile talk, it will be a great uplifting experience.Well I hope everyone is doing great, hopefully I can try and send some more pictures. I got the news from Kevin, Budapest Hungary is pretty amazing. I remember my last couple weeks in the MTC we shared a floor with missionaries learning Hungarian, which was pretty odd, because for the whole rest of the time we shared it with missionaries going stateside, guess it was a sign.Well the Chilean culture fact tidbit for the week. There are many Chileanismos. One of the modifiers that Chileans use to indicate an abundance is "re" you can say for example, sería rebueno (it would be really good). He is realto (he is really tall). I dont know if that is how you spell it, but people use re as a modifier. Also in Chile, some people pronounce the "y" and the "ll" like the "j" in bonjour, or Jean in French. So the word key which is llave, some people pronounce with the "j" sound. Or help, ayuda, some people pronounce with the "j" like bonjour sound. People in Argentina and in Uruguay emphasize the "j" sound even more. Until it almost sounds like "sh." For example voy a ir a la playa cruzando la calle. The y in playa and the ll in calle are really emphasized for Aregtines and Uruguayos. For gringos the sound just dosent sound as beautiful, when we do it, maybe near the end of my mission ill get better using that sound.Anyway, love you all. Thanks for everything that you do.Elder Schneider