Week 78: Feliz Navidad!

Hola 

Well this week was pretty great. We had a pretty average week with a baptism at the end of it. Everyone is getting excited for christmas and lucky for us no one is leaving to go visit family (unlike last year when we felt like we were in a ghost town.) 

This week we were able to find more new investigators but other than that that is pretty much it. 

We had our baptism on sunday morning because the family lives really far away and they dont even have enough money to pay for buses each week, but they come as often as they can. The boy who got baptized is named Rubén. He got baptized 4 years ago but the president never sent his record to the church HQ and we found the old record, but it didnt have any signatures or dates so the mission just told us to baptize him again. So we got to have another early christmas baptism gift. 

Today for our last free Pday we went to the suspension bridge that is in our area but this time we brought the zone leaders because they wanted to come see it. So we were all on the bridge and sometimes I forget that we are all still 20 year boys, so when we all got to the middle of the bridge everyone started to shake the bridge back and forth. It was pretty scary... it moves so much when we are on it but it is totally safe to cross (dont worry mom ;) ). So yeah we messed around on the bridge for a little bit then crossed our bikes over to the other side. Then when we were waiting on the other side, some guy on his bike came out of nowhere and crossed the bridge while riding his bike. So then all of us were like "oh so it is possible to cross while riding." Then a team of bikers came and they all went to go cross the bridge. And they all crossed the bridge super fast while riding their bikes. But while one of them was crossing the bridge one of the wooden planks fell off and into the water. So of course, all of us were like "okay on our way back we are all going to cross riding our bikes." 

After we went to a members house to go eat breakfast and then we returned to the bridge and this time everyone crossed the bridge while riding their bikes. I will send you a video so that you all believe me. But it was pretty fun. It was the biggest adrenaline rush that i have ever gotten my entire mission. haha

Well I love you all so much and I am so excited to see you all this christmas. I think that I will be calling around 4 on sunday. And we will be calling from the church computer, so I hope that the internet connection does not fail. It has not been working too well the past few weeks. 

Feliz Navidad... see you soon. 

Con Amor

Elder Snyder

Ruben's baptism

The suspension bridge

Week 77: Let's give it up for Los Elderes!!

Hola 

Pues we had a very fun week. We got to go to a baseball game and we had a baptism! On friday we all left Guasave and traveled to Mochis. We all met together in the church building in mochis... all the missionaries in Sinaloa. It was like a big reunion. Pretty much all my friends in the mission are in Sinaloa, so it was pretty much a party. At the baseball game we were pretty much the loudest fans there. We got put on the big screen a bunch of times too. We were right in front of the camera. And our presence was announced like 3 times throughout the game. The announcer would say, "Lets give it up for Los Elderes!" and when he would say that they would put us on the big screen and everyone would start going crazy. It truly was such a fun night. Then we had to spend the night with the different Elders in Los mochis and travel back the next day. 

Saturday was a pretty stressful day because when you have a baptism planned the opposition almost always gives you everything it has. So on tuesday we found out that there was no water in the church and that the only person in the church that had the key to the baptismal font had lost the key. So we spent the whole week trying to find the guy that has the key (another challenge: he does not have a cell phone and is almost never home). So on thursday the zone leaders told us that the guy had lost the key, but that there was a member in their ward that knows how to open locked doors. So we asked this guy if he could come to the church Saturday morning when we got back from the baseball game to open the door. So we got the door open after the guy battled with the door knob for a half hour. Then when we opened the door, we realized that the font was still full of water, and it smelled a little bad. So we had to drain the font, clean it, then deal with the problem that the church still didnt have any water. Luckily the bishop of the other ward was able to help us solve the water problem. So we were able to get the font filled and then we finally got to go home. 

Then we came back at 5 and the only people that were there with us was the girl's family. The person who got baptized is called Nohemy and she has been attending church for a long time but what happened was that she got baptized by a suspended member when she was 7 years old. So she had to get baptized again the proper way. And she asked me to baptize her :) But it was really frustrating because the branch president told us that he was going to come but when we called him he said that he was at a party and wouldn't be coming. So it was really sad nobody from the branch came to support. I got really sad I almost cried. I was so frustrated with the members. But it turned out to be a good experience and the zone leaders were able to come and helped us out by being the witnesses because no one else came. But Nohemy was happy and the next day she was able to be confirmed without a problem. 

Now this sunday we are going to have another christmas gift baptism. Another kid is 12 years old and has been in the branch for 4 years. But because of bad record keeping his baptism never made it into the system. I called Salt Lake with his data and they dont have him recorded as being baptized, so we will be having another baptism this Sunday. 

But I am so excited for our christmas call. I think that we will be calling from the church building because there isnt anyone in the branch that has a computer. And the president said that we can call for 45 minutes. Also our sacrament meeting gets out 1130 but I am pretty sure that I can call in the afternoon. I am going to check with the missionaries in the other ward because i think that they were also planning on calling from the church building. 

Well that is pretty much it. I love you all so much

Les amo

Elder Snyder

P.S. i forgot my camera again :( So I will send you pictures from elder Chavez´s camera and i will try to send the pictures from my camera tomorrow in the church building

At the baseball game!

Staying with the Elders in Los Mochis

Week 76: Visiting a Care Center and a Baby Blessing

We went and visited with people at a care center for our service activity. 

Hola

This week was a pretty fun week. On Wed we got a surprise call in the morning that one of the Assistants was in Guasave and that he wanted to work with us that day. At first, I could not help but think, "what are we doing wrong? Why do the assistants always want to work with us?" but it turned out to be a really good experience. We were with Elder Funes. He is pretty cool and he shared some pretty cool experiences with us, but most of all we could see that he is always just so excited to go to work. It is a really great atribute that he has. 

Then on Thursday we had our zone service activity. We went to a care center to take care "play" with the old people. It was actually pretty fun. Some of the old people are just hilarious. They remind me of toddlers haha. One of them was named manuel and it was really funny because he did not want anything to do with us. We would say things like "Manuel, we are going to sing." and he would respond "I dont like that." "Manuel we are going to go outside." " I dont like that. " Then we told him that we brought presents and he said, " Presents? okay here I come." haha! Super funny... the old people. At the end most of them went to bed early so the ones that stayed awake were the only ones who got presents. I gave my present to one of them and you could just see his face get so excited. He did not want to open it with us there, but it was just fun to see his reaction to everything. 

Then on sunday, I did something that I never imagined that I would do on my mission. I blessed a baby. Yeah, I was forced to break the mission rules and had to hold a baby in my arms to give her a blessing. I had to look up the ordinance in the missionary handbook because it was something that I had never done or participated in, but it was a really great feeling. I felt very blessed to have that experience. The Sister in the ward attends with everyone in her family exept her husband that works. But no one in the family has the melchizedek priesthood, so I had the privilege of performing the ordinance. It helped to strengthen my testimony of the power of the priesthood and how important it is that we have it. Because without it we would not be able to do any of the ordinances that make our salvation possible. 

Well I forgot my camera today, so I am not able to send all the pictures from last week. But I have some pretty awesome pictures of this sketchy bridge that Elder Chavez and I found out in the pueblos. So a little something to wait for next week haha. 

Oh and this week because we have the best mission president in the world, he is going to take all the missionaries in Sinaloa to a baseball game. Yeah that is right we are going to see Los Cañeros de Los Mochis!!!!!

We are so excited. So this friday we will all travel up to Los mochis to see the game. 

Well I love you all so much hope that you are all finding ways to give service this month. Enjoy this last christmas without me. love you

Elder Snyder

Week 75: Service and Santa Hats

Wow sounds like you all had a super fun time in Utah. It is going to be crazy to think that by the time that summer comes around, I will be heading back home. I loved all the pictures of the family. Everyone looks so big. I cannot believe it. 

This week was a pretty average week. Our investigators that have been progressing to be baptized did not go to church this week. :( It has been kind of hard to teach them because I can tell that their minds have been messed up from all the drugs that they used to do. So it is kind of difficult for them to understand some of the things that we teach. We had trouble teaching one who´s name is José about tithing. He understood what to do, but he was not able to understand why he should pay tithing. We tried explaining, but he kind of closed his mind to what we were saying. We are going to try to explain it again to him and hopefully he can have a little more faith as to why we should pay tithing. We recieve so many blessings when we pay our tithing. It is one of the few commandments that comes with a promise attached that says, "prove me now." The Lord invites us to test him with our faith and he promises us that the windows of heaven will be opened to us that we will not have room to receive the blessings. 

We are also planning on having quite a few baptisms with children whose parents are less active and we are working on reactivating them, and children whose baptisms never got registered so they have to be rebaptized to make a record of it. 

We as a mission are also planning on taking part in the worldwide church service day. On Thursday we are going to do a service project as a zone. I still dont know what it is that we will do, but I will be sure to take pictures. Oh and we have also made it a goal of ours to take pictures of all the families in the branch with Santa hats so that we can make a gift for the branch. 

But that is about it for this week. I will be sure to write more next week. 

I love you all so much. I hope that you all enjoy this last christmas without me haha. Sing lots of Chirstmas hymns for me.

Con mucho amor

Elder Snyder

p.s. Forgot to tell you that we gave service this week with a less active member. We helped him with his job where he makes little sculpture piggy banks. We just started getting him to church he has gone the past 2 sundays. woooh! So we had to shake the molds so the mixture would harden. I know that I didnt explain very well but I hope that the pictures can explain better than I can. 

Helping to make piggy banks

We helped put up the tree in Johan's house. Johan is the special needs boy who is obsessed with Jesus Christ. 

Johan and family

The view from my bike

Week 74: Happy Thanksgiving from Alameda!

My District

Hola 

Well it sounds like you all had a very great week. i am so glad that you all got to get together this week. It is so cool seeing pictures of all the family together. I cannot believe how much everyone has grown. It kind of scares me a little bit, but I am so excited for when I will see you all again this christmas. The BYU game sounds like it was a blast. I cannot believe that it is already thanksgiving time. I had almost forgotten because we do not have that holiday here. 

But anyways Alameda is super awesome. My companion is super cool too. The branch is a little more organized here and the members here are really great also. The attendance this sunday was 33. The branch still needs a lot of help with organization though. We still have to speak every sunday because the president has trouble assigning talks, but we have plans to help him with that. We also have a few people that we are teaching that have baptismal dates. We also have been helping the president with the member records and as a result we found that there are many kids that go to church, but have no records of their baptisms. We are searching for their records and if we cant find them they will probably have to be rebaptized. So we have a lot of technical problems here has well, haha. 

Besides that I love the area. We have half of the city of Guasave and all the little pueblos around it. But we have bikes so it is alot easier to travel around in the city. The only thing is that the cars scare me a little bit. I did not have to deal with cars in 4 milpas. One of the members here is this 16 year old kid who has a type of high functioning autism. But you know how like all autistic people have like a knack for something or that they are obsessed with one thing in particular. Well this kid Johan, is obsessed with Jesus Christ. It is the best. And he is always asking when is the second coming. But he always tells us how he loves Jesus Chirst because he is his Savior. Wouldnt it be great if we all had an obsession like his? But pretty much everytime he sees us he always asks us the one word question. when? 

My first week as a DL has been awesome as well. I love my district. My district has the zone leaders and the sister training leaders and us. So it is really easy. Everyone wants to work and everyone has a lot of experience in the mission. The sister missionaries are really funny as well. But we all had a pretty good first week. 

So this Pday the zone leaders and the sister missionaries invited us to their ward activity which was a sports activity. So we played basketball and volleyball with the other ward. And everyone was told that they had to bring their own food to the activity. So Elder Chavez and I decided to make pancakes for the missionaries in our district. So I made the pancakes and brought them to the activity in the little tuperware container that I had bought. Then the sisters brought juice and maple and we ate the pancakes. We also shared with all the other ward members there. But everyone said that that they like our pancakes. 

Then we went exploring in this park that is in guasave. It turns out that it has a mini zoo. So I took some pictures of all the animals that we saw. The racoons were especially funny because Elder chavez would hang his camera out in front of them and they would try to grab it with their little hands. There is also a miniskate park there. So we messed arround with the bikes their and took a district picture in the half pipe. But all in all it was a pretty good day. We also wash our clothes with our landlord on monday. It is kind of a hassle because we have to wait until our landlord is ready and we cannot wash whenever we want but it is much better than renting a washing machine so I am not complaining. 

But that was my week. 

I miss you all so much. I hope that you all have a happy thanksgiving. 

Love

Elder Snyder