Week 28: Happy New Year Everyone!

New Year's Day Zone Meeting

Hola

This week was New Years, but it really didnt feel different than any other day.We visited mostly members and less actives because there are hardly any people in our area. Everyone is on vacation. So we had pretty much the worst numbers in all my time as a missionary.  On New Year's Eve, I thought there were going to be a lot of fire works, but there were hardly any (or I was just fast asleep) because I didnt hear anything.  

This week we helped one of the members clean their backyard. It was kind of gross because there was a bunch of crap from all the chickens that they have but we had fun. Then after she took us all out to breakfast so that was pretty great too. 

We had our first zone meeting on the first day of the year. And luckily we had a member drive us there because there were no buses running that day. Usually there are tons of people when we have to go to central but there was hardly anyone. When we arrived at the zone meeting, the zone leaders asked me if I could conduct the meeting. I really like conducting the meetings, but the only thing was that it was a little weird because I have hardly met anyone in our zone... but it all turned out well. 

Today was super fun. Last week when we went to play soccer with our district the church was locked, so we called my old zone leaders to see if they were going to come play with us and unlock the church. But they told us they couldn't, but that there is a park very close that has a really cool court. So we went there and found this soccer field. It is a field made of turf that has a wall with fencing that surounds the field. The field is about half the size of a normal field. But last week we all thought "this is too big for only 6 missionaries, we need to invite the zone." So today, we invited all the elders in our zone and my old zone leaders to come play in this field. It turned out to be super fun. Surprisingly everyone in our zone came and in the end we had about 14 people come so it ended up being perfect. 

Sadly, with our investigators, not that much happened this week. Flor is still on vacation until tomorrow...and we need to find more people to teach. Tomorrow we are going to have interviews with the president. And I am kind of excited because I always like to see and talk with the president, but I know he is going to be disappointed with us because these last 2 weeks our numbers have been crap. There really werent any people these past two weeks, but the president always says that he knows that we can do better.

Now to answer a few of your questions. I hardly ever cook anything at night because I normally just want to go to sleep at night. With contacting, our area is kind of big, but we only use about half of it because one half is very rich and there are never people outside, and the people that are outside are usually their gardeners that always live in different areas. But yeah we are basically just contacting and looking for new people to teach. But the problem we are having is that we teach people one time and then we ask if we can come back another day and they always say yes, but when we return they dont want to answer the door. It is really childish. We can see them in the window and then when they see us they go and hide as if they are little children. I don't understand why they cant just tell us that they dont want us to come or something. We are supposed to have intercambios with our DL and ZL at least once every cambio but we have not had one yet. And I dont really feel bad about not being DL anymore because I have a lot less things to worry about which is good, but I do miss calling all the missionaries every night to ask how things are going. But I feel fine. I know that I am where I am supposed to be. So one of the mission rules is that we have to get up at 6:15 instead of 6:30 to read the Book of Mormon. It is my goal to finish the BOM in Spanish and right now I am in heleman 5. And during my study, we are supposed to read "Preach My Gospel" for 30 minutes, so I mostly study that and then I read the BOM more. 

Thanks so much for everything. I love you all so much and it was so awesome to hear what happened with all of you this week. The time really flies here, especially when you can understand spanish. :)

Cuídense 

Elder Snyder

Week 27: Feliz Navidad and the 6 Month Tie Burning! (Dec 21-27)

The Mision Posada

Hola como están todos

This past week was really fun. First of all we had our mision posada. We got together with our zone and my old zone. So I got to see all of my old friends again. We started out with a training from the zone leaders. And there wasnt really anyone who was too excited for the training. But then at the end of the training the zone leaders wanted everyone to do a role play with all the missionaries, and as they were explaning what we were going to do the president walked in the door. Then it was kind of funny because the zone leaders continued explaining what we were going to do and then the president said "um, why dont we start with the activities instead" So we were all very happy with that! :)

Then we played a bunch of games. We were separated into 3 teams for the first activity. They had tied a rope to a tree and a pole and the whole rope was suspended about 5 feet in the air. Then we had to help everyone cross from one side to the other and everyone had to go over the rope with out touching it. So we made a little pyramid to have the first few elders cross. Then later the hermanas all crossed. Then pretty soon it was just me and my companion who had to cross. So I had to lift up my companion and then pass him to the other elders on the other side. Then I was the only person left and I had to try and jump the entire rope. We had everyone else waiting on the other side to catch me as I tried to dive over the rope. It was pretty fun.

Then we played a game of soccer with exercise balls. But what made it fun was that we were tied together with our companion like we were having a 3 legged race. It was super fun. Then we went through the rest of the posada kind of hanging out with all the missionaries and then we ended with a training by our president.

Then on Christmas eve it was really fun because Elder Tice, Elder Rivera, and I had all completed 6 months of our mission. So, to celebrate, we all burned one of our ties. We all got together then we used a can of Axe and a lighter and burned them flame thrower style! Then we were all invited over to the house of a member and we all ate carne asada. :)

Then on Christmas I got to call home! It was so awesome to get to see all of you guys. I was smiling so much and it made me so happy just to see everyone.

But pretty much all this week Libertad has been dead. There was hardly anyone in the streets or in their houses. Most of our investigatores told us to wait until january because they are all on vacation. So we did alot of walking this week. And Flor the girl that we are going to baptize isnt going to return home until the 5th of January. So we have to wait until the 9th to have her baptism.

Well I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I love you all so much and it was so awesome to see everyone.

les amo mucho

Elder Snyder

Reunion with Elder Ochoa

Elder Tice, Elder Rivera, Me, and Elder Salomon

The 6 month Tie Burning!