Not exactly a White Christmas!

Rankin Family... also known as "Sacrament Distractions"

Hi there Family
This christmas was one of the best i have had yet. Its was so much fun. early morning we got up and had the fattest breakfast known to mankind. Sausage(jimmy Dean)(2), Bacon(large rack), Eggs(12), Toast(8), Milk, Cereal, it was so way good. After that we took turns opening our stockings which we filled for each other. That was so fun watching someone opening something that you bought them. I love that part. Then after that we played monopoly for hours on end. I got my hine parts kicked. I sucked way bad but i got free parking all the time so it was fun. So in the afternoon we went over to our friends the Neuhaus' they are such a cool family. they are about to have their 9th kid here in a couple of months so their house was such a party. I got to talk to my family which was way sweet. it gets funner and funner everytime i talk to them. we played basketball with the kids and we played airhockey and a bunch of other games with them as well. that night we went to the Rankins' which are my favorite family in the ward. 4 kids in the fam, Allison, Natalie, ben, and jonathan. We started our own band with them called "Sacrament Distractions" its way sweet. So we went over to their house and played catch phrase, bananagrams, and last word(such a loud game) It was so much fun being with a family just like our own. so christmas for me was Too legit. thanks for making this one of the best christmas' ever, only thing better could of been snow! ha ha but cami took care of the for me! Thanks for all the stuff ya'll sent me. I really loved everthing i got. I hope ya'll have a good new years. We are playing sports and watching a movie. Oh so we had a sweet lesson with this lady Wanda. Tim and connie Anderson(who we are related to) had us over to their house to teach her. It was sweet. we are going to church with her on Saturday. Its gonna be so kickin. God Bless I love All ya'll

ONE LOVE
Elder Schwendiman
ONE LOVE
ELDER SCHWENDIMAN

Wornout Weekend Warrior!

Elder Haire and Me

Merry Christmas and Happy Flippin Hannukah!
Hey ya'll? Hows the Homefront? things this side 'o the mississippi are super good. This week was super busy. We had Zone Conference On Wednesday and it was one of the funnest ones i have been to yet. We got to train on a couple scriptures about coming to the table with Christ and feasting with him. It was really good and we had a lot of fun doing it. During the middle we had a little testimony meeting/Tell us you favorite christmas hymn and we will sing it. ha ha it was really funny. My favorite is hymn #215 ring out wild bells. ha flippin funniest song in the world. I have never heard it sung or anything like it. ya'll should try and sing it sometime. After Zone Conf. we were given the opportunity to go caroling at an old persons home for the sick. Dont know the name but it was so much fun. We walked in and there was 16 of us and everyone was staring at us and the assistants totally forgot to set it up so i had to talk the manager into letting us split up into groups and go sing x-mas songs to the sick and dying. It was so much fun. I really enjoyed it tons. I suck at singing but neubert had my back so it was all good. Okay so Friday-sunday the mission was doing this whole big choir concerts things around the mission and neubert was singing. so i needed a companion. well luckily there was one in the mission home who was way sick and might end up goin home. But friday we had to run downtown nash to get a couple of things for the assistants and jazz like that so we made the spanish drive us and then i had to drop off elder neubert at the mission home and stay there til sunday night..... so i thought. So all of Friday afternoon and night i gotta watch the Work and the Glory's and Living Scriptures ha ha it was way weird but it was still legit. That night there were 40 missionaries both sisters and elders staying in the mission home and guess who came in my room at midnight. You guessed it ELDER BECK ha ha we didn't go to sleep for ever ha ha Saturday we woke up super early and i had to go pick up some missionaries on the other side of Nashville and have them back to the mission home by 8:00 AM. After that we had to drive 110 miles to go drop off some stuff at a mall for the choir thing so we stayed for the whole performance and it was way good but they picked the worst staircase to perform on. they were right in front of Victoria's Secret and it was so funny watching the elders trying not to look at it. i died laughing but it was really good and the spirit was there. then we had to run to the church and fill the font for gary's baptism which took a couple hours and we ran outta hot water so he got baptized in the Arctic. ha ha it went really good. He bore his testimony after the baptism. One of the best baptizzy's i have been to. After the baptism i had to go do something for the Spanish ZL's and then after that we had our x-mas party for the ward which was way super fun. We went Home that night and i got like 6 hours of sleep Cuz we didn't get home til late and then Sunday morning we were at the church by 7 in the AM. I took Kallush back to the mission home and i fell asleep to Nephi and the golden plates living scripture style. THen we went to dinner, and then we went to Handells Messiah Concert. It was so super good. I am so worn out. this was definately a weekend to remember. Merry Christmas and happy Hannukah and hope ya'll have a super good Holiday

ONE LOVE
Elder Schwendiman
ONE LOVE
ELDER SCHWENDIMAN

Divinity yahoo's

tis the season to be merry. "well thats my name".......
Ha ha i thought about christmas vacation the other day. thats my all time favorite christmas movie. So this week was so busy and crazy nuts. On tuesday morning me and elder neubert got to sit in for the assistants at Belmont University. Some of the students were doing a project about our church for their world religion and divinity class. It was so sweet. They gave a very positive presentation about the church and our stand on the humanitarian aid. at the end of it we got to stand at the front of 60 students and teach about missionary work and what we do and we had one of our members with us and she gotta bear testimony of her son being on a mission. and then we got to answer questions that the class threw out to us. It was really sweet. so this weekend Gary is getting baptized. Saturday at 4:00 Pm and then after that we are having a ward party and we get our own booth. Its the "Ben and Nephi" instead of barnes and Noble book store and we are gonna have all the church material a non-member needs. so i saw the other day my favorite family from brentwood. the robinsons. I spent christmas with them last year. I love that family. Me and her had a good talk about life and her family and stuffs like that. On saturday I had lunch with Amber Blackwell from clarksville. SHe works down the street from us so she took us to Pei Wei and it was so good to get caught up and everything. Her daughter is now over 2 years old which is nutso. She brought us some christmas music. This morning we had a meeting with PResident Hutchings so i got about 5 hours of sleep last night getting the graphs and the numbers and trends and paths that we are doing and all the plans for the Zone to fix what we need to. It was a really good meeting and we felt really confortable because as a Zone we have 2 baptized and 7 future dates and if all goes well this will be the 1st time Nashville Zone has ever reached its goals in almost a year. so Heavenly Father is playing a huge role in this right now. We had to get thru the Furnace of affliction(purification process) before we could see success. We know the Lord was testing us to see if we would hold faithful and i cannot express the Love and thanks i have for the blessings that he is bestowing upon us right now. Its the greatest feeling you can have as a missionary when the Holy Spirit of Promise seals what you are doing. I love this work and everything about it. the good the bad and the ugly. So right now im looking at a guy who looks like the main character from NottingHill, not the underwear one but the other one. I love ya'll so much and hope ya'll have a happy week

ONE LOVE + Happy Holiday's

E. Schwendiman

Is it sad that i already forgot that song (Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat). ha ha i would love some christmas music anything ya got. Its so much fun so this morning we traded cars with smyrna. ha ha ha ha ha ha that was my evil laugh. we got an '09 malibu instead of the truck. Its a much nicer car. im suprized president aproved it. 

Current Address

318 Edmonson Circle

Nashville, TN 37211

MIND is officially BLOWN!

18 Months

well Hey there
What a week Huh? can ya'll believe that its christmas time almost? I can't. time is going by way to flippin fast. It feels like im trying to hold on a rope dipped in karosine! its not working. It seems the harder i work the faster time goes. so im done working..... Ha ha JK i love it out here even tho its getting pretty daggum cold. Thanksgiving was off the hook. We spent it playing in the turkey bowl in the morning when it was 40 degrees witha chill factor of like 16. and then went home and took a 2 hour nap that felt ridiculously amazing. Longest nap i think ever. Then we went and hung out with the Rankin Family. We had so much fun. Before dinner we played "catch phrase" for like an hour and then we had the usual, turkey, stuffing, taters, dressing, rolls, etc and tons of freakin pie. It was so much fun. and then after that we created a band. its called "sacrament distractions" and our record label is "NO SHAME" ha ha Me and Natalie were playing Heart and Soul on the piano while mama rankin played the guitar, Neubert played the cow bell, jonathan played the bongo's, alyssa played the tamberine and then ben play the banjo. Its freakin tight and i will send you the link when they post it on the internet. i have never had so much fun playing that song. So i had to speak in church yesterday and ya it was on gratitude ha ha it was only 7 minutes which is lame but they didn't give me more time to speak but it went really well. Our organist is an 11 year old kid. he is freakin amazing. Gary is moving along pretty nice. he is gonna be dunked here in a couple of weeks so that will be good. but other than that we are still trying to fill our teaching pool. Just know i'm thankful for ya'll and i love ya'll with all my heart. Keep it real.

ONE LOVE
E. Schwendy

Pics for the week

Me while studying

Elder Wall and Elder Johnson

Good Morning Gill!

Good Morning Gill, I said Good Morning Gill

I feel good i feel great i feel wonderful, I feel good i feel great i feel wonderful. So this week has just been i hectic week. Lots of meetings and other things to take care of in the Zone. First off Im running off 3-4 hours of sleep last night. I got a call at 11:30 last night from some other Zone Leaders informing me that one of my missionaries was doing something he shouldn't have up in another area so that was fun. at 2:30 i got a call from One of the DL's and some black dude broke into their apartment and held him up at gun point in his living room, so i was on the phone with him for a bit. he couldn't sleep. and then president Hutchings called at 3:30 thinking that he had called the Franklin Zone Leaders telling me that Elder lawrence needed to go to the hospital to have his stomach checked out. so right now im really tired. early this week i got to go on an exchange with Elder Boswell. He goes home in 3 weeks. We had a lot of fun chatting and working. I miss hanging out with that kid. So we have been playing this little game with the assistants where they came into our apartment and kidnapped craksak(that little monkey puppet) and now Elder Panda(a stuffed aminal) has him hostage. I owe him 274 lbs of bamboo and a corndog for ransom. Its fun. So this week we had Stake Correlation... thats where we sit in front of the stake presidency and give a report of how the Zone is doing. Its an hour long. We have the coolest stake Presidency. they are so much fun. They brought us cookies and we had a good chat about byu and utah football. Saturday morning we helped on of our friends move into their new apartment. and then later On saturday we had a DLC(district leader council) in our apartment from 12-3. It was a good meeting. we got to run it how we wanted and we gotta talk on what we wanted. we have some of the best district Leaders in the mission. Our Zone is really turning around pretty quick. We had a really good meeting and we are all on the same page now. I hope me and Neubert stay together for christmas. Thats gonna be so much fun. So right now im very thankful for a Loving Father in Heaven who loves me and cares for me. Im thankful for the Eternal Sacrifice of My Savior. Im grateful for a loving family who supports me in all things. I love ya'll so much and i would be nowhere without ya'll. ya'll are the best. I love being a missionary and how much fun it is. There has not been a better reward thus far that i can think of. I hope ya'll have a freaking sweet Thanksgiving and pack the weight back on. Sorry not too much to say. Gary is still good from X-mas but not this month. Colleen dropped us like we were hot! ha ha so she is outtta the pic. I love ya'll HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

ONE LOVE
Elder schwendy

Nutso freakin Week!

Hey there ya'll

First off let me express my gratitude to ya'll. I am so thankful that ya'll are my family. There is no greater blessing out there than being a part of this family. I love ya'll. so this week was off the hook crazy. So on wednesday we had our Zone conference with Elder Arnold of the Seventy. First thing he did when he walked up to me and put his hand on my neck and the side of my face and was like "your just the happiest guy i ever saw" i guess it looked like i was beaming or something, or he was just looking into my soul. but the meeting throughout the whole day was so spiritual. I have never been in a meeting where so much revelation flowed. It was incredible. We learned a couple new tactics of how to contact people and it works like gold. He talked a lot about goal setting and being personally accountable to that goal, he gave us 14 points on how we can be more effective in our missionary work, and the neat thing is that the whole afternoon he was shootin from his hip with his trainings. Unbelievable. after the Meeting he had 1-on-1 interviews with the Zone Leaders. I can't even to begin to tell ya'll what a blessing it was to sit knees length away from someone with so much power and to have a conversation with just him, was incredible. Never in life have a experienced something so real, and so spiritual. The things we talked about were of the Spirit and revelation. I know he was called of God to work in this ministry. that night we had a fireside with him as well and we took Gary to go meet Elder Arnold. He met him and the two talked about growing up on a farm and jazz like that. He loved it. we are gonna talk to him about getting baptized this month instead of next month. So i was supposed to give a talk in church again for the 2nd week in a row but the dudes cancelled on me but im speaking on the 29th of this month so it should be good. Just know im happier than ever and that im loving life more and more everyday. I love ya'll and hope ya'lll have a super tight week.

One love Elder Schwendiman

Garff Waters!!!

Elder Neubert and Me

Hey there Schwendy Family,

Its good to be alive! Im sitting on cloud nine right now. this week has been a real good week for us. So yes i am now with Elder Neubert and we are having so much fun. its been fun talking about past memories of the Murf turf. We get along better than we did when we were together the 1st time. this is gonna be a fun couple of transfers. So right now our phone went off and it was in Elder Neuberts pocket and everyone in the library just turned and gave him the "i hate your ancestors" look of death. ha ha so funny. We have had a couple of meetings this week. one was a Leadership Training meeting with President and the assistants and the Zone Leaders and District leaders in the Nashville area. It was really good and their focus was on The Gathering of Israel and asking effective q's so that we understand our role in that process. and then on saturday we had a meeting in clarksville(which brought back a lot of memories as well) we got up at 5:15 because we had to be fully prepared for the meeting and we had to be at the mission home at 6:45 IN THE AM! way too early. i never knew 5:00 existed until this weekend. but the meeting was good. i got the see Elder Richins because it was a ZLC which means all ZL's in the mission were there and the meeting was super long. For lunch we had these mega subs and i think the pic explains all that needs to be. My face hurt for hours afterwards. Then after that meeting i had to go back into nashville and give 2 baptismal interviews. and then we set a date with colleen for the 28th of this month. Gary has a date for Christmas but we are trying to move that up so there wont be any room for error. Me and elder Neubert are trying something with our Zone this week. We are having each companionship invite 70 people to join the church. that is gonna be 500 for the zone. The jacksonville florida mission on averag invites 6000 people to join the church a month. That freakin insane. No wonder they are the highest baptizing mission in the East and south. but we are on our way up. There wasn't anything too exciting that happened this week just a lot of meetings and taking care of our zone. Thanks for all ya'll do for me. i got the K-dub times thanks. sounds like homeboys are doing really good in their missions. have a great week and i love all ya'll

One Love
Elder Schwendiman

Still in Nashville but Neubert?

Smyrna District

well good morning cadets!

How are we doing this morning. this week has been on to remember. transfer calls came in on Saturday night and im staying but im training elder Neubert (yes my 1st seed to come forth) how to be a Zone Leader. I was really shocked to see him go Zone Leader at 9 months out but he is still an incredible missionary and am stoked to serve with my boy. we are gonna have so much fun and we will have some oober success. im sad to see Elder Osmond go. He has taught me a whole lot for better and for worse. He is such a good kid and i got tons of Respect for him. This should be a real interesting situation since we have to give Zone Reports to 2 general Authorities next week. Elder Arnold and Elder Cornish are going to come tour the mission and Me and Neubert have to give a presentation to them 1 on 1. Its gonna be buck-nuts but it should also be a lot of fun. sorry i emailed so late. We were in meetings with President all day. This next transfer is gonna be fun. we got a lot of work to do but right now we have two dates. Colleen Law and Gary Glass. we had lunch with some members the other day and they brought gary their non-member friend and we had a great gospel discussion and he is wanting to join the church. its gonna be sweet. Next time we teach him it will be in their home so we wont have too many distractions. but colleen almost got baptized but her parents threw away her book of mormon and told her she couldn't join a few years back but now she is living by herself and wants to join the church some more. He date is the 28th so pray real hard that she will some to church and get baftized. Elder Rigby is going DL this transfer and elder richins is going ZL too. this mission is gonna rock this month. We are shooting for 100 baptisms so it should be good. We need lots of prayers. I love ya'll so much and just know that im having the time of my life and enjoying every moment. Thanks for all ya'll do for me. ya'll are the best.

KICK IT!  Elder Schwendiman

Kick IT Kitty!

Elder Knaras was sitting in that chair until i jumped on him and we went right through it ha ha

Fat gut in window

Hey whats kickin Fam.
This week has been kinda uneventful for me to say the least. So monday we had the phone call with president all about missionary work and what needed to happen. He told us if we didn't contact all referrals we got we could not have a P-day. Pretty bold if i ever knew. He also told us that Elder Arnold of the Seventy is gonna tour our mission next wednesday and we have to give a personal report to him on our Zone. Its gonna be way intense. but our Zone has improved 100 fold since we got here. The last Zone leaders did almost nothing with the area and the Zone.  But they got released from ZLship so its cool. Elder Knaras(assistant) came out with us for 3 days M,T,W, and we saw a lot of good people. He is from riverton. His family is just like ours. Spiritual but loves to have a crazy amount of fun too. They go boating and all that jazz. Ya'll should become friends! ha ha   But Thursday morning i went down to Smyrna TN to go with one of the DL to help him out in his district. This is his first transfer as a DL and he has been out almost 6 months so still kinda new but we got things rolling and now we should see the Zone really explode. We got attacked by a dog, ok well, he got attacked.  I let the dog run past me because i was riding a bike that wasn't fast at all. 1st time on a bike in 6 weeks. ha ha i'm still hurting.  We went to a wedding of a kid in their ward.  oh check this out, I learned how to do a Rubix cube and now i can do one all by myself ha ha i feel dang smart. Elder Marsh taught me how to do it. He can do it in 1 minute and like 19 seconds. It takes me 9 minutes and some change. So this is pretty funny every morning when we wake up we send a message to the whole Zone and we play a primary song on the ipod and send it to the whole Zone. This morning we did primary jamboree ha ha we thought it would start everyones day off on a good note and its working. ha ha so right now its turning really pretty because all the leaves are changing colors really fast. I love the fall here but its gone way too fast. Winter will be here in 1 1/2 months and then everything will be all grey. Yucky! but thats about it for the week. I love ya'll and thanks for all you do for me.

ONE LOVE
ELDER SCHWENDIMAN

Archuletta?!!!!!!

Hey there wicked sweet family,
Okay so just to get it outta the way, i met david Archuletta yesterday. I saw this kid at church and i walked up to him and said hi im E. Schwendiman and he was like hey. Come to find out it was David A. ha ha He was in our sacrament meeting. He is in town writing music these next couple of weeks so ya.  Also the girls from Shedaisy are in my ward. I was talking with them yesterday and their little brother Clayton is one of my good buddies now. This week has been pretty normal except the last couple of days. We have found a lot of new investigators, taught some good lessons, we have been teaching this girl Jessica and we taught her about Joseph smith and The Restoration and then we taught her grandpa too and now they both have a book of mormon and are loving it. so they will be progressing here in a couple of weeks. Okay so here is the nutso news for the week. Yesterday I got a call from elder rasmussen telling me and elder osmond to pack our bags and be at the mission home by 10:00 monday morning(this morning). all the ZL's in the mission had to pack their bags and be at the mission home by 10 today. He was gonna replace every ZL witha different one. All of us were freaking out because i have fallen in love with this ward. it reminds me of our old ward back home hee hee but President is acting like someone who just licked his lolly-pop. he is real mad. We have a conference call with him at 12:00 Noon so that should be fun. Our Zone is not doing really good. We have a lot of obedience issues and laziness and no desire.  So me and Elder Osmond came up with a competition to get every one excited about missionary work.
NEW INVESTIGATOR= 2 Pts
MEMBER PRESENT= 10 Pts
CHURCH ATTENDANCE= 15 Pts
DATE SET= 25 Pts
Its gonna be so much fun to see who wins. whoever beats me and elder Osmond, we will take them to a restaurant of their choice. But they are gonna have to fight real hard to beat me and elder osmond. we are putting up what districts are doing right now so this should be a good push. We are gonna try and set a date wit jessica this week so pray real hard that we can do it successfully. Okay funny story, there is this lady in our ward who came up to Osmond and told him that she dated his dad for like 6 months and almost became his mommmy but she told us she will be our mission mom. ha ha poor kid. Every single person without skipping a beat asks if he is related to the osmonds. We also have the worlds largest osmond fan in our ward. He is handicapped and loves elder osmond. He calls us between 30-40 times a week. I love it and he leaves messages that are like 10 minutes long just repeating the same things over and over again. so thats about it for the week but i love ya'll so much and hope all is well in the new ward and tell Elder J. Baker i love his guts. Have a super week and take care.

ONE LOVE
Elder Schwendy

okay so here is another funny story that happend this week. We had to go get our truck fixed at a car dealership, and when we got their we had a 2 hour wait and we were far from home. So, you know me, I like to go exploring so we did and we found a $140,000 Corvette ZR1 in the show room and we got permission to go sit in it so we took pics and all that jazz. Well inside the car we sat and then the car battery died on us so we sat in this car for like 35 minutes and couldn't figure out how to get out. its nuts. The door handle isnt on the door. its in the floor. ha ha we had to have like 3 people come help us figure out how to get outta the car. it was real dumb but real funny. ha ha

ONE LOVE
ELDER SCHWENDY

New Nashville Address

Elder Dallin Schwendiman

318 Edmonson Circle

Nashville, TN 37211

Man That's Crispy---

So we meet again,
Okay so first off for the week I got a hair-cut. Now i don't have a mop on my head anymore. I had a neck beard and sweet ear mullets. There is a member in the ward who gives 55$ hair-cuts to missionaries for free. Her husband is Tim Anderson and his cousin Heidi is Marrried to Gary Schwendiman. Don't know where the relation is but i told him we could just call each other cousins. He is a way cool dude. Mom Thank you so much for the package and i was going to totally send pics but our truck is getting fixed in the shop(and it wasn't even my fault) our brake distributor went out so our truck was all sorts of messed up last night oh so my backpack is in the car and my camera is in it so ya i'll get them to ya'll next monday. ya'll will really dig 'em. We had a lesson with this guy Serkin who is from turkey and we walked into the house and he went out and got him som Mo-TAB some how and thats what was playing in his house. it was cool but it went from good to evil in like 1.1 seconds. He got mad at his wife for something and he went and kicked down his bedroom door and went in the other room and slammed the door shut. I think he felt way dum dum after kicking the door down so he had to make up for it by slamming another door. ha ha So we are not going to be teaching him anymore. He was acting like someone had stuck their finger all up in his ice-cream. I mean he was mad. He likes to drink way too much. Elder Boswell called me and asked if i would take him on an exchange, cause as assistants they don't get to do much missionary work so he came with me and we went and saw a bunch of poeple and talked about past times and had a really good time. He is gonna come see ya'll when he gets home around christmas time. Oh mom before i forget to do so, tell G-ma Schwendiman thanks for the package of cookies and candy. and tell her i love her and Tell your parents that i will be sending them a letter soon. They wrote me last week. and Tell everyone i love em. IM really sad about the ward splitting. Me and Trey had these sweet plans to be home-teaching companions. Now it can be me and mitch. Thats cool cami is in there as well. Same with julianne Egbert. They both are really good girls. So we had Zone Conference and me and Elder Osmond got to train on Positivity and Accountibility, and There is no such thing as a dead area, just dead missionaries. I like everything about it except the things i didn't. ha ha THis week is gonna be even Busier than last week. Thursday we are hitting up all the companionships in the Zone to have a come to Jesus Talk with them about missionary work. But we are gonna do it with love of course. Well just know im loving the work and im working my little heart out. I don't have too much time and i wanna go out with a bang. I love ya'll so much and Just know i love this gospel with Everything i have.

ONe lOve
Elder Schwendiman

Alofa oi!

Hello there my Hawaiian family
Im pretty jealous that ya'll went to the islands but thats way sweet.  Ya'll are just buck wild ya know ha ha  This week has been really busy. Starting on wednesday We had district meeting with one of our districts and after went and got some lunch at CiCi's pizza. Then we split up. I went to nashville to my old ward GreenHills with that companionship on wednesday and then another compship needed some help getting motivated and doing the work so i went over thursday morning to bellevue to help them out. Meanwhile Elder Osmond went to smyrna to go with the smyrna elders while elder jolley stayed in the area with another misisonary and took care of things here. He set a baptism date for the 24th with this guy from turkey. Sirkan Sinan is the coolest guy and he gave me a sweet italian tie. But when elder osmond went to smyrna he got so sick and got a temp of 104.4 and ended up in the mission home for 5 days. Half the mission is sick right now its crazy. So i have never had a better conference weekend in all my days. So saturday morning we got up at 5:00 and headed over to the mission home for a wonderful weekend of zone Leader council conference style. All day saturday we had all the Zone Leaders in the mission over at the mission home having meetings every hour of the day wth president and the Assistants and then in between that we watched conference and then sister Hutchings cooked us home made meals for every meal. My favorite talk was by President Uchdorf about work and the responsibility and accountibility we hold in doing work. "Its in the doing and not just the thinking" that was my favorite quote from that talk. but it was a really fun weekend and now elder osmond is back with us but elder jolley is getting emergency transfered to Dickson Tenn. Im gonna miss the kid but he has to go fix another area so now we have more work to do but its all good. I love ya'll and hope all is well and let me just add my witness that i know this work is true and there is none other that brings eternal happiness.

ONE LOVE
Elder Schwendiman

Crazy week!

Elder Osmond, Me and Elder Jolley

Good Morning family

This week has been crazy busy. So you know we got into Brentwood on tuesday, Fact: brentwood is the 3rd most wealthy city in the USA. There is money flowing all over the place. So my companion(s) are the coolest kids in the world. Elder Osmond never has a dull moment, and elder jolley has jokes. Elder Jolley comes from a big family and grew up raising cow in idaho and you all know osmond. We have been so busy. We went 350 miles in the last 4 days just trying to figure out the area and the Zone but its really good. We have some really good district leaders and a really good Zone, a little slackish but thats what i love to work with. Me and Elder Rasmussen went on an exchange because he used to be in the area and he took me to all the sweet fams in the ward and all the cool investi's. We had so much fun. Thats the first time we got together since he trained me. thats over a year ago. Time is just cookin by and its goin even faster now. We went to downtown nashville and had lunch the other day. We went to a pita place which was really good. We are on the road a lot. We drive a 2009 Chevy colorado truck ha ha its the sweetest truck, just kinda small for the 3 of us. Last night we had a program called Songs of the savior and we had a couple of investigators there and one of them wants to get baptized before he goes back to africa. he is the mayor of Lira Uganda. he is so cool. We had such a big dinner last night with our WML. Brother and Sister Swenson are the coolest family. We had ribs, and pork, and cole-slaw, and rolls, and beans, and for Desert we had home-made cheese-cake. ha ha off the hook meal. We have tons of support from our ward and the are giving us referrals like crazy. Elder Beck and Campbell kinda messed up a little bit and didn't take care of the ward so the ward is a little standoffish but its gonna be a ride thats for sure.Im pretty jealous of ya'll goin to hawaii. Im so white. IM BEAMING! and almost glow in the dark. I love ya'll so much and i hope ya'll are safe while ya'll are in HI that wounds like fun. I love you

One LoveElder Schwendiman

ZL that's flippin' nutz

The Coots Family

Coots kids

Some modeling

HI family
This week has been really fun but hectic at the same time. Early this week me and rigby bike almost 30 miles to go see some less actives and we found this red barn and we took modeling pics next too it. Its so funny. I'll send you the pics in just a minute. We got chased by a lot of dogs this week ha ha i don't like dogs as a missionary because im convinced that lucy has power over them and he makes them attack us. I carry a knife on me just incase i get really attacked. hope i don't have to do something i will regret. thursday morning President knocked on our door at 8:45 in the AM and he said he wanted to have a meeting with me so we sat in the living room just me and him and talked about leadership and we talked about the district and what i could do to make it better and then he gave me a leadership training handbook and told me to read it and get back to him on it. So on saturday President gave me a call and said he needed to talk with me for a couple of minutes. He told me i was going to be in Old Hickory with Elder Osmond and Elder Jolly. We are in a 3some but Elder Jolly's focus is to watch over the ward while me and Osmond watch over the Zone. Its a really efficient way to do missionary work. PResident is getting wild and ferocious. Im just really excited to be where people have teeth ha ha and they don't rely on EBT(food Stamps). Im glad im going back to Tennessee.. Im pretty sure we cover the mission home because our Zone is pretty big. Can you believe Elder Beech is going home in 2 days. THats so nuts. I remember serving with him a year ago.Seems like yesterday. Kenzie looks beautiful, im happy for her. Who's the goober she is marrying ha ha they look total opposite but i guess thats why they attract. Well the only thing going on here is that Seth Queen is getting baptized on the 10th of october. so i don't think i can come back since its an hour and a half away but its all good. Well i love ya'll so much and hope you have a good week.

ONe LOVE
Elder Schwendiman

What a surprize...

Stephanie

Sister Lowery

#1 Family wassup.
This week was off the hook sweet. Okay so brenda Lowery got baptized on saturday night. It was such a good baptism. All of her non-member relatives were there and now some of them wanna start leaning about how to get baptized. iTs pretty cool how that works. So we are gonna teach her cousin and teach him. He has had all the lessons and almost got baptized but he got really sick and went to the hospital but now he is out. So you are never gonna belive this but here it goes. Do you remember me telling you about a Johnny Jeskie and how he was dating a non-member. Well she called us yesterday and told us the spirit told her to get baptized that evening. So she drove 2 1/2 hours to come to the church and we threw a emergency baptism together and it was the most spiritual baptism i have been to. Me and her are really good friends and she calls me all the time asking q's about the BofM and stuff like that. I was so happy for her to get baptized. There were 50-60 people there to watch. So yesterday i got the privelage to teach junior sharing time in primary. I had so much fun with those kids. They are freakin wild. We talked about prophets and how they bless families, played follow the leader around the inside of the church, oh and get this, they were so dead quiet ha ha it was so sweet. So i just got a call from one of my favorite members and he is taking us golfing right quick. ha ha havent played in a really long time. Oh so right now im going through an intense study of the pualin apistles. and im also doing a summary of all the chapters in the old testament. its pretty wild. So other than that i think thats about it for this week. Dad im catching up to you pretty soon. Im back up to 175 ha ha only 20 pounds to go thats my goal. how cool would that be if i finally passed you up in weight. we will see. im working out pretty hard right now turning all my fat into muscle so im gonna be 2nd best to the hulk when i get home. but congrats on losing that weight. You too mom. ya'll are the bomb. well i love you all and have a safe, but enjoyable weekend.

Quote for the week. I came up with this yesterday.
"Personal Accountablilty"
If you want something done, Do it yourself.
For the time that you wait for others to
accomplish your task, Your time is far spent.

ONE LOVE
Elder Schwendiman

I'm a Country Boy!

THANK GOD IM A COUNTRY BOY. isn't that the coolest machine. ITs like the one Crawl drives in Son-in-Law

Eye to Eye!

Good Morning Ya'll.
I cant believe its already September. August went by really fast. i just hope i can hold onto this month a little longer. So as an update the Lowery is still planned to get baptized this saturday and Elder Rigby is gonna do the baptizing. He is way pumped up for it. Brenda and Jesse are the ones that are gonna be getting baptized. Pray for them extra hard this week they are gonna need all the prayers they can get. So we set another baptism date with a 9 year old boy for the end of September. He is such a cool kid. His dad has been doing WWF wrestling for 12 years. ha ha he is such a funny guy, he was showing us some of the videos of him whoopin some people... It was totally legit. We are getting the Family ready for their temple sealing. They are recently getting activated so that they can go to the Temple. So this last thursday and Friday i spent time in Tennessee with Elder Osmond. (Jay osmonds son) his is such a cool kid. We went and Taught some Samoan kids. They are so tight. They taught us how to speak Samoan and how to pronounce some words. E Alofa OI Mom That means i love you in Samoan. and Then on Friday afternoon we had dinner with the Baileys. Sis Baily is From Australia and she is such a good cook. For dinner we had Fried chicken, Green Beans cooked with bacon grease and with real bacon bits inside, and then bbq baked beans, and Fried green tomatoes, Ginger Ale, and then for desert we had peaches with butter, brown sugar, and some other stuff inside, it was absolutely the best meal i have eaten on my mission. lets see I got to go on exchanges with elder bytheway. Their apartment caught on fire so they are living with the ZL's for a week but osmond stuck me and T-dub together in an area neither of us knew and we had an exchange with some dude we didn't know. ha ha we were whatev so we went tracting with this guy, he is bald and has tatoo's all over his head. he is the coolest guy. oh so i got chiggers. Ya they diffinately suck. They are so itchy and they don't go away for weeks. Last night we went out with a future missionary and we were pretty much in the Blaire Witch Projects(by the way those are in our mission) but like fog was coming off the ground, we were in the middle of nowhere surrounded by forest. it was nuts but we went and taught two ladies who just had a husband/Daddy pass away and we went and taught them about the plan of salvation and they loved it and they wanna come to church and to a ward party on friday and i know they are gonna be ready for baptism for October. We talked with them about being able to be sealed with their dad/hubby, it was really cool. Darlene and Wendy. Pray for them too, they are going through a hard financial situation. Have i ever told ya'll that i love being on a mission. Im not sure if im coming home next summer. I gonna be a missionary for 4 years and pull an Alma and Amulek. That would be wild but im jk mom im comin home for ya. I love you Family. Ya'll are the Worlds Greatest. Have a good week and make it eventful.

One LOVE
Elder Schwendiman

Don't worry Be Happy!

Kentucky Country

Here is Josh and Rachel

GOOOD Day Schwendy Family!
Today's forcast is a whole bunch of smiling faces with a 100% chance of Love. ha ha How the heck are ya'll doin? Yesterday was absolutely a miracle. SO ya'll know we had the whole family planned to get baptized on saturday but that didn't happen. THey said they wanted to wait til the 12th of September. We Saturday we had a great lesson with the Lowery's and i asked Brenda(mom) if we could baptize her kids on Sunday after church and she was like "its up to them". ha ha i love when parents say that cuz the kids are always up for it. So yesterday we had a sweet baptism for Josh and Rachel. THey are the two youngest ones. It was so much fun and you would not believe the spirit that was felt in that room. everything went perfect and we had about 45 people in attendance there to support them. I gotta baptize both of them because they picked me to do them. Elder Rigby is gonna do the others in the family when the time comes. OH so we got word about RIgby's visa. ITs comin in 2-4 weeks. ha ha he is so pumped up about it. Im way excited for him but im def gonna miss the kid. We work so well together, we have worked out all the kinks, and now everything is working smoothly. So we had interviews with president Hutchings this week and those were really good. All we did was chat about family and the District. There are some problems in the district with comps wanting to light each other up, but its all gonna be okay. Things here in bowlingGreen are goin absolutely good but i think im gonna be leaving in a couple weeks. i don't know if i could stay another transfer here. 6 months is long enough. So on Wednesday me and Rigby split up and i went with a Returned missionary of a week and me and him went out all day. We found a less active family/Part Member family and the husband wants to get baptized so we are gonna get them Re-activated and get him dunked. ITs gonna be sweet. So other than that this week has been alright. nothing too excited to talk about except the fact that i love all who are reading this to know i love you! Mom thanks so much for the Package. Im wearing the shirt as we speak. THats one thing i wanna do when i get home is eat at Pizza Factory 1st. I left with pizza factory, im comin home with pizza factory. Can ya'll believe 15 months down. Time is cookin. Once again i love y'all with all my heart and just know That our Father in Heaven loves each of you!

One love
Elder Schwendiman

Way Cool!

Dear Family, 
Hi~ How are ya'll doin this beautiful mornin? Its such a good day here in kentucky. NIce and warm with a slight overcloud. This last week has been phenominal. As you well know i was not on my side of bowlingGreen for a whole week. What a relief, ha ha it was good though. There was a lot of success in all areas this week but at the same time there needed to be oposition, so there was a lot of trial, and un-success as well. So for the first exchange(tuesday-friday) I was with Elder Davis and we got a lot accomplished except for Thursday morning and afternoon. He was sicker than a cow in a swamp. I mean the kid set a world record for consecutive hours slept. He slept from 10:00 Pm Wednesday,-5:00 PM THursday. I have never been so bored in all my days. I was so bored that i build giant tower outta pass-along cards, i made some pictures for Lesson 3 in Preach my gospel, I read 15 chapters in the BOM, I ate some food, I listened to 10 different CD's, it wasn't too bad, but we went out that night and got 3 new investigators and 2 lessons, so that was a good flipside to it. We had planning session with the spanish so there were 10 missionaries having planning sesh in one apartment, it went pretty well, just a whole lot of A.D.D goin on ya know. Saturday was probably one of the funnest exchanges i have been on, ME and Elder Paddock went down to Franklin, KY and spent the whole day with brother Divens on an Exchange. He is such a "treky" ha ha we were driving all around in his dodge stealth, we went and saw this 85 year old black lady who has Alzheimers she is so funny, she is like 10 second Tom off 50 first dates, she was sportin some sun glasses that i was wearing ha ha she looked adorable. We also went to this family, the Boohers. They are way country and i got some pics with horses and all that jazz but i have mis-placed my camera cord for the time being so i will get those to ya'll in a jiff.We didn't end up getting home til 10:15 pm becuase it was so far away and we didn't get outta the last appointment til 9:30 pm. So overall this week was bomb. I was so proud of elder Rigby this week. He set another baptism date with this girl paige, for September 19th so that should be good. We had 12 non-members at church on sunday. THats the most i have had on my mission, it was so cool. 2 of them showed up outta nowhere. The daughter Betsy, lived in Skagway for a time, so we talked about that and she told us that she was investigating the church, so we will start teaching her next sunday. Lowery's all came, Stephanie and shelby come, it was a really good meeting, one of the speakers talked about change and how important change is to be eternally progressing. Brenda, josh, and rachel are still scheduled for this weekend, the others say they are not ready so in due time. September should be a really good month as well. So the ward is really helping out now, they finally trust us a missionaries, We have set up 11 family mission plans in the last week, we had 2 dinnners with investigators there, a family made us brownies last night, and Bishop Fed us and gave us referrals. What a week. I love being a missionary. THere is nothing greater then serving the One True and LIving God. Oh ya mom i will have that survey done this week and try and get it back to ya'll. I love ya'll with all my heart and im grateful for ya'lls love.

One Love
Elder Schwendy

Southern Phrase for the Week: That right there's like trying to slip sunup pas a rooster!

Hi

Hi Family,
This week has slowed down a little bit just because we are spending a lot of time getting our baptism dates solid. THings are starting to get wild and ferocerious. IM not gonna be in my area 1 day this week except sunday. I'll be on exchanges tonight until saturday night, there are some problems in the in the district that president needs me to fix, so im letting Elder Rigby run the area while im gone. He is gonna do just fine. The kid is getting more like a missionary each day. its really cool to see the progress he is making and how far he has come. He is loosening up quite a bit. He was quite a "quarter pincher" when he first got here but i love the kid. I don't know if i told ya'll or not but we set a date with brenda Lowery. The mom of the Kids. Rose didn't come to church on sunday so we are gonna post-pone her baptizy til september. We drove an hour down to glasgow Ky to go see her and we had a really good lesson with her in the church down there. We had our WML and the other BML(branch mission leader) with us and they are both spiritual giants. I felt like i was in science all the way down because Bro Rinehart teaches mIcro biology at WKU and Bro Vibbery is A Micro Biologist and they had the craziest talks about Hydrogen and how you can run a vehicle on it with some gas and all the jazz. It all went over my head. Im no science smarty. So last night we drove down to Madison TN for a Stake Priesthool meeting, and then the General Priesthood meeting. IT was so good. Pres. Barjarnson Talked about how we reap what we sow, and he told the story of the Hen when was gonna make bread but she needed help with the ingredients and grinding up the wheat and nobody would help, but they wanted to reap all the benefits, and how that related to us as members and Christ Second Coming. IT was really cool. I'll try and get a copy of the talke and send it to y'all. So i have become good friends with this kid Elder Haire! He plays volleyball for BYU. He is 6' 7" and he is gonna hit all day on me. ITs gonna be sweet. He is from vegas. HE is very good at volleyball. Thanks so much for the Package by the way. Ya'll are awesome. Tell G-ma and G-pa thanks as well. They sent me a package. I just wanna let ya'll know how much i love My Saviour and how grateful for you mom in giving me such a big push to get on my mission. Yesterday was a day where we as priesthood brotheren Reflected on the Women in our life and all i could do was think of you and how much ya'll have helped me get to where i am today. I honestly don't think i would be here if it wasn't for your testimony and your good example. THANKS mom. Your the Best. I love you with all my heart and i love everyone else as well. Have an awesome week. Keep the lowery's in your prayers. THey are gonna need them this week and next. Buena Suerte Hilary with st george! ONE LOVEYOUR MISSIONARY ELDER SCHWENDIMAN

Dallin's current address:

1040 Shive Lane #E5

Bowling Green, KY  42103

This week's pics

Me and the sugar glider

Utah?  That's awesome!

Sugar bears and DL's

Why hello there Sugar bears!
This week has been even better than the last two. We have really vamped the ward. When i got here they were not too excited about missionary work but now they are so stoked. Friday after noon was one of the best days of the mission. So i have talked to ya'll about the Lowery's and i can tell that ya'lls prayers are coming true because They all have baptism dates. We went over their friday afternoon and taught them a solid 1st lesson about he restoration. WE were all jam packed into one bedroom ha ha it was so cool all of them were jam packed onto one bed. We'll after the lesson we talked to them about baptism and asked if any of them had obj's of getting baptized and none of them did. We have some word of wisdom issues but thats about it. and then friday morning i was planning with Elder Giggidy RIgby and i got the impression to call Destiny. We talked for a little bit and i asked her how she felt about being baptized in August. She said she would love it. She needs to know more but thats just fine.All the Dates are for the 29th of this month. So right now we are sitting at 6 baptism dates and we are gonna try for 2 more this week. We are not sure if Gary Lowery's wife is a member. She acts like one but we still are not sure so this should be another great week. So with rose she lives in another area now but we are still teaching her. We are using the other branches President and WML to get her baptized it so crazy right now. THings are rollin' just fine down here. So on sunday I have all the Auxillaries in one meeting with me and we sat down and talked to them about missionary work and i introduced a plan called "set to wet" and if the members follow it with the investigators they are guaranteed to get baptized. I had the Bishop and all the PEC members, Relief society president, YMP YWP, primary president Elders quorem and the YML. It was so good. Now they are all on the same page with us and we pretty much turned the investigators over to them to start working with them. All we are gonna have to do is teach. Nothing else. ha ha i have been trying to get this done for a couple of months and i finally figured out how the Lord needs it done. So im Staying here in BGKY for another transfer but Im now taking over as DL again. President said he needs me in leadership again so this transfer is gonna be even busier and im so stoked for it. So i gotta hold some sugar gliders at the Flea market on saturday morning. They are the coolest animals on Planet Earth. Ya'll should get a couple. ha ha we'll i love you guys. Ya'll are amazing and congrats on losing the weight. Tell chase i love his guts and same with the Farringtons. Tell Jodi i love her and her whole family. Tell her next year we are gonna do another double date thing with bowling.(me and my sweet mom, and Ryan and his sweet mom.) that will be so much fun. well have a great week and enjoy life.

Pics for the week

Here is Me, Elder Richins and Elder Higbee

Here is the coon I was playing with

Here is the coon that i was playing with

Did you know?

Why hello there family!
So i am having the hardest time trying to see ha ha They dilated my eyes and my pupils are so big. i look like a gecko! This week has been oober good. Things are on fire here. Its taken me 4 months to figure out what this area needed because when i got here it was so dead. we were only teaching like 14 lessons a week. THis week we hit 22 lessons. We are having so much fun. SO this week i was on exchanges with elder richins for 4 days. It was a total blast. Me and him get along like buzz lightyear and Woody, We went down with Brother Higdon on Friday to Scottsville and Had 2 of the Best lessons of the Week. First we saw a guy named Russ. He is absolutely nuts. He has spent over 20 years in a State penn on lock down becuase he has killed a few people. He is the one we got to take down all the bad pics he was drawing, well we taught him about the plan of salvation and he was so enthrauled. He had no idea where he came from, or why he is here, or even where he was going when he dies. We were inches away from getting him to pray for us. He stopped drinking and smoking, now we just have to commit him to baptism. i believe he could be baptized in September but he needs to be interview by an apostle. how cool would that be. and then the other lesson that we had was with Destiny. She is doing amazing. We taught her about the Restoration and she said that she would pray and read to know the truth. I give her 3 weeks and she will be baptized. Oh and while we were in Scottsville we went out to amish country and i got to hold a bapy racoon. it was so sweet. IT was crawling all over me. They would make good pets. ha but he took us shopping at the Amish store and baught us bread and fruit and vegetables. Lately i have been eating a lot of zuccini and peppers and tomatoes and potatoes. Sounds weird comin from me huh. i know but i love em now. So yesterday was fast Sunday and it was AWESOME. I still chickened out and Didn't bear my testimony but i was really good. We had 8 people in gospel Principles class the Priesthood lesson was really good. Half the time i don't even pay attention but i did this sunday. Destiny got up and bore her testimony. How cool is that. thats the first time i have had an investigator bear their testimony in church. Bishop had the Biggest smile on his face. After church we went over to Gary's house and gave him a blessing, and gave his son Casey a blessin as well and Gary started to cry and it was such a spiritual meeting we had with him. We are gonna teach his sons, Casey, jesse, josh and his daughter Rachel. They have huge potential for August as well. Keep the Lowery Family in ya'lls prayers, they need 'em. and then last night we set up two family mission plans with the Dunda's and the Coots. they are my two favorite families in the ward. Me and Brother Coots get along like Timon and Pumba. he is such a cool guy. but other than that this week has been fenominal. I love ya'll so much and im grateful im apart of this family. Ya'll are #1.

ONe lOVe
Elder Schwendiman

It's all gravy baby...

Why hello there Family!
This week has been one of the best weeks ever! Okay so the story of the Year happened on Saturday. We met this girl Rose while we were knocking out an apartment complex and she was walking her dogs so we stopped and talked to her for a jiff. She was telling us all about her medical condition about how she has a brain tumor and all that jazz. Well we taught her about the priesthood and the Blessings that are administered therein and we offered to give her a blessing on Saturday. She agreed and said that we could come over and do that for her. We when Saturday came around we went over to the house and her friend Dustin answered the door and was really standoffish to us but we sweet talked him into letting us in. We sat down with them and taught them the 1st part of the restoration of the Gospel and we got to the Great Apostasy and Dustin and his GF got up and left. Me and Elder Rigby we both really confused why they left but it was for a good purpose. This gave us an opportunity to give rose the blessing. She was fine with it and said we could do it. Rigby Anointed and I gave the blessing. It was the most incredible blessing I have givin on my mission. The spirit was so strong and after the blessing we asked her how she felt, she told us that during the blessing everything turned bright white and she couldn’t see anything. Then she proceeded to tell us about how her heart had been physically hurting for the last 3 weeks and after the blessing it completely stopped. She then went on to explain how her mom was into witchcraft and all the evil stuff and how she really wanted to find the Holy Ghost in Her life. She explained that she had felt the HG in the blessing and she told us how she wanted to have it with her at all times. We asked her if she would do anything to have it with her at “all” times and she said “yes”. We asked her if she would be baptized so that she could get the gift of the Holy Ghost and she said YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She wants to be baptized on the 22nd of August. I’m so stoked for her. That night the other elders were having a baptism and she went to that and watched someone get baptized. And then after that we taught her about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith and she said she believed in them both and that she would read and pray about them both as well. She is such a sweet girl and she is only 18 years old. So pray for her so that she can be healed from her sickness and that she can hold this baptism date. Yesterday we had a Zone P-Day. It was so much fun but im feeling the after effects way bad this morning. I woke up with a head ache and my whole body is so sore. Ha ha we played basketball, Pakistani one ball, (dodge ball where you have to get everyone out by yourself) its buck-wild. Wiffle-ball, kickball, wall-ball, and then we played this game called cashflow. I really think ya’ll should invest in this game. Dad might know what it is. It is a business board game that deals with really situations with money, jobs, loans, financing, ect. It’s a 200$ game but it is the coolest game in the world. But other than that this week has been really good. I love ya’ll so much and im so glad that ya’ll are my family. I love ya’ll.

One Love Elder Schwendiman

What a week!

What a crazy flippin week!
I have never been so exhausted my whole mission. ha ha i love being this tired and i hope im this tired the rest of my mission. we have seen some of the greatest success this week. To start off monday he had a good day, we saw a couple less actives and got a couple of new investigators.  So on wednesday we had Zone conference where we raised a Title Of Liberty in honor of our Family, Friends, our God, and our Freedom as missionaries. I like to call it the Standard of Obedience. We came up with our own title of liberty just like Moroni. It was really intense but the Holy Spirit of Promise was there and witnessed to all that what was said needed to be said. We had the best numbers in the History of the mission this week.. Our mission Baptized 7, set 46 baptism dates, had 800 new investigators, taught 1461 lessons, 172 people at church, it was such a busy week and it was so much fun. We set a baptism date with Jenifer Gardner. She is such a sweet lady, she has 2 daughters Courtney and Karley, and we taught her about the Atonemnt of Her Savior, and she just started to cry, she has been going through a rough spell with life and she just needed to hear the message. She said she is slowly losing her faith in God but we are gonna do everything in the Spirit to help her find that faith once again. We had 21 total lessons, 17 new investigators, and we had 8 people come to church with us on Sunday. trust me when i say that me and Elder Rigby had nothing to do with it. The Lord is so merciful and so loving! We are gonna go down south on Friday and hopefully set 4 more baptism dates. Thats gonna be so fun. Oh and we had a little righteous competition to help us get moving and me and elder Rigby beat out 9 companionships(even the Zone Leaders) and now they are gonna come cook us breakfast. ha ha im so excited for it. other than that, this week has been alright. So i was reading in Alma 60:24 and i found a really funny southern phrase. "begin to be up and doing" and then in alma 33:25 he quotes, "ye all of you" which down here translates to "ya'll..." ha ha i think that part of the book of mormon came from down here in the good ol' south! ha ha i hope ya'll had a good safe week. and just know that i am as happy as can be!! oh and bytheway ronald mundy has expressed to stay Baptist til he dies! so thats not gonna go down. I love y'all with all my heart and i wish Gods blessings to be showered upon you!
One Love
Elder Schwendiman

Well I'll be a dirty shirt!

Sweet donkey huh!
ha ha the other day i had 3000 dollars in my pocket. Brother higdon took some money outta the bank. the guy is nuts. I love you mom

Hi there family
This week has gone incredibly slow but very well other than the stress of training. We are still keeping up with Ronald Mundy and he is on track for a week from this saturday so keep him in your prayers. We gotta go to the temple on Wednesday. It was so nice. It was one of the most spiritual experiences at the temple i have ever had. 
I had a couple of my own personal concerns and questions answered. It was really good. We got a new bishop last week and we had dinner at his house on Friday night. IT was so good. He fed us steak and salad and sweet potatoes. and then we sat down and talked with him about what we could do as missionaries to help the ward and we came to the conclusion that we needed to hit hard with the less active members. we have 180 less active families in my area. ITs gonna be a lot of fun but its gonna be nuts for the next couple of months here. Saturday we got taken out to Outback Steak house with a non-member and members as well. The bill was 230$. how ridiculous is that. they do this once a month. Sunday was really good. they whole day was focused on missionary work and Temple work. I gotta teach the gospel principles class. That was a lot of fun. Oh on Wednesday we gotta Teach the State Street Baptist church. We taught about the Great Apostacy and The Need for the Restoration of the Gospel. We talked for 25 minutes and believe it or not their were no objections. There was not even one question. The spirit was so strong there that it had the people speechless. We gave out 8 Books of Mormon and got a new person to teach. It was really cool. They gave me one of their Hymnals and i'll be sending that home real soon. Well other than that, thats about all that happened this week. I had a long chat with my boy about some stuff and we put all cards on the table and all the conflicts were resolved. Its gonna be a good week. I love ya'll so much and i pray for ya'll all the time. and yes i did get the package ya'll sent me and i loved every bit of it. Have a good week and God bless. 
One Love Elder schwendiman

Weekend Warriors!

Well hey there mom!
I don't really have a lot of time. My comp is getting antsy and pushy with me so i only have like 20 minutes. He is having a hard time having fun. Which is hard to imagine but he hasn't found that missionary work can be fun and you can still be obedient.. He is teaching me a lot of patience. We had a really good week. We set a baptism date with a guy named ronald mundy. He is a sweet black guy who lives by himself. we taught him about the Atonement and how it can heal him and then Elder Rigby Committed him to baptism on the 25th. I felt so proud. Something i taught him worked! Is that how you feel as a parent whenever your child does something you taught them. Like a sense of accomplishment. Thats how i felt with him. He came to church yesterday and he felt so welcomed and loved and we had a pot luck after church to break our fast and he enjoyed every second of it. Well for the fourth of July we really didn't do too much . We helped someone move for 3 hours and kinda just hung out all day. We played a new card game called fixin'. Way southern. Its sweet. Ill teach ya'll when i get home. We had to plan for our week on saturday night so we couldn't watch the fireworks and Rigby didn't wanna plan outside so we could. so im doing this new workout where after 3 weeks i'll be able to do 100 pushups in a single session. I did 180 this morning but not in one sitting. Next week we start getting into the 200's. ITs gonna be nuts. Im only doing it so i can prove it wrong. I don't think that i can do 100 pushups. but we will see. I getta see Elder Rasmussen Tomorrow. He is a traveling assistant now. How crazy is that. Im so stoked to see him more often. Other than that this week have been really boring but busy. Im just trying to keep my cool with rigby. I know he is trying his hardest and doing whats right Sorry this email isn't too long. Did ya'll get my pictures? i sent them a weebit ago. Mom i love you with all my heart and i will definately have sister hutchings call you after my appointment on Wednesday. I love you mom have an awesome week.
Love Your missionary