Week 55: New Mission President and another transfer in 4 Milpas

Our new Mission President, Pres. Myers, and his wife

Hello Everyone

I am glad that everyone had such a great time at the family reunion. It sounds like it was a lot of fun.

So last monday, we had to pay the rent for the house. And it was about 9 at night as we were hurrying to meet with our landlord. So my companion was in front of me and we passed a truck, and we heard someone call out "Elders!" So we turned around to see who it was. The driver who called out to us got out of his truck and said "Elders, I have a surprise for you." Then I saw two people getting out of the car. One was very tall and the other was a woman. I then saw that they had missionary tags on and I realized that it was our new Mission President. haha! So then and there, all sweaty and late at night, we met the president and his wife for the first time in our pueblo. He said he came to meet the district president that lives in 4 milpas.

Then the next day we had a multizone meeting to get to know our president. President and Sister Myers told us many things about their lives and it was pretty cool to get to know more about them. They also told us that in our lives there are 2 types of zones. 1 zone is called the comfort zone, and the other is the miracle zone. They told us that when we start to do the same types of things, we get comfortable and start to receive the same types of results. And when we leave the comfort zone, we enter into the miracle zone. But then when we get comfortable in the miracle zone, the miracle zone starts to transform into a larger comfort zone. And the point is... that we have to work even harder to leave the comfort zone to enter into the miracle zone again. And they challenged us to start to do things differently. That if we are scared to do something, we should do it anyways because that is how we are going to see miracles. 

We also had cambios (transfers) today, but my companion and I stayed the same.  Elder Ramirez is the first companion that I have had for more than one transfer in a row. Not counting Elder Lowry. But speaking of Elder Lowry he only has 1 transfer left and he asked president if he could spend his last transfer in Macapule. And he got what he wanted. He got transfered to Macapule for his last transfer. 

Also the guy who we rent our washing machine from, finally brought back our washing machine. So we rent our washing machine by the week. But the guy who rents it to us is not that smart. We pay this guy every week, so that he can just leave the washing machine at our house. But this time he decided to go pick it up and bring it to his house. This happened about 2 weeks ago. Since then we have been going to to his house pretty much everyday asking him to bring the washing machine back. And it took him 2 weeks to finally bring it back. So during that time we had to wash our clothes by hand. And wow! It takes forever. Every night after daily planning we go outside to start washing our clothes. But it is all good because we finally have our machine back. It shocks us every now and then, but the important thing is that is works. :)

We had a baptism this week. A little girl in the branch extension turned 8 years old and she wanted to get baptized. So we had to fill the font and get everything ready for her. And because there is hardly anyone who has the priesthood here the girl asked my companion if he could baptize her. So it was fun to have a little baptism. We had to fill the font with a little garden hose and it took about 5 hours to fill with water. But the fun part was draining the font. We had a lot of help from the members. Someone brought a big hose and we used that as a siphon to suck some of the water out. And during that time we also used buckets to bail all the water out of the font. It took about an hour to get it done, but it was pretty fun.

Also this sunday we did not have our super attendance of 32. We were actually missing many priesthood holders, so my companion and I had to preside, conduct, and bless and pass the sacrament. But these experiences have only strengthened my testimony to know how important the priesthood power is and how there are so few people in the world that have the power and authority to perform the ordinance of the sacrament and the other ordinances of salvation. 

But this sunday not all of the people that we assigned for talks came, so I had to speak for the remaining time. It was not too hard, but I just felt like I talked alot that meeting. I conducted the meeting, confirmed the young girl that got baptized the other day, and I had to fill in the remaining time. 

But that is about everything that happened this week.

I love you all so much and I hope that you are enjoying your summer. Stay cool for me because here it is super hot!

Love

Elder Snyder

Zone Conference with Pres. Myers

Inside the Casa de Oración (our church)

The outside of the church

The baptismal font

Week 54: Miracle at the Casa de Oración and ...I fell in the channel!

Hola!

I want to start things off by saying your prayers have been answered. We got our AC fixed!!! haha! We can finally sleep super well at night. This week was a little crazy with all the Guaymas stuff. When I got back to the house on Tuesday, I felt a little sick because I had not slept well the past 2 nights because I was with my generation one night then on monday night we slept in the house of Macapule. But it is all good now.

Our mission president changed last week also. I still have not met our new president, but he is coming to Los Mochis tomorrow. So afterwards I can tell you a little more about him. 

This week we also had intercambios with the zone leaders, and I stayed here in 4 Milpas and Elder Robbins came to work with me. He is from Canada. But it was pretty fun... the intercambio. I got to show Elder Robbins how enormous our area is. And afterwards, he kept saying that he is ready for president to send him to a pueblo and that he wants to have the entire mission experience, which includes serving in a branch very far from the city. But it was pretty awesome because one of the members in 4 Milpas has a friend that she wanted us to go visit. Her name is B. So we went to visit her, and we realized that she lives super close to the casa de oración.  So we got there, and she was saying how she wanted to go to church with us before we even started teaching. She has had a lot of difficult things happen to her in her life and she says that she is ready to change her life for the better. She accepted a baptisimal date for the end of this month. And she went to church yesterday. 

We also have another person that we are hoping gets baptized this week. Her name is T. She has been an eternal investigator. She has been attending church for about a year and she likes everything about the church, but she is just not 100 percent willing to give up her vices. She has a baptismal date for this saturday, and we have been working with her to get excited to be baptized. We hope that she will be ready to be baptized this week.

This week we had a miracle happen at church. We were all sitting in the casa de oración waiting for everyone to arrive to start the meeting. And as the meeting started, a bunch of people started to come in. We did not have enough chairs for everyone to sit. We had to take some chairs from the primary room for some of the kids to sit. We had 32 people in our meeting this sunday!!  Now I know that it is nothing compared to the 1800 that you all saw last sunday in Bear Lake, but 32 is a lot for our little casa de oración.

Well, I have a really funny story for everyone. So last night it was about 8 and we had to head back home. (It is about an hour bike ride from where we were.) And to leave we have to cross the channel. And we always cross on this little wooden bridge that takes you to the other side. It is about a foot and a half wide and is made of all different sorts of random planks of wood. So my companion and I decided to ride across it to get to the other side. So when I went to cross, my bike tire fell into one of the little holes in the bridge and I lost control and fell 5 feet down into the channel with my bike. haha! Luckily, I did not submerge and my scriptures did not get all wet. They were the first things I took care of after I fell. But yeah, I fell in the channel and the only thing that was wounded was my pride. I now cannot make fun of all the other missionaries that have made the same mistake as I. But I hope you all get a good laugh out of it. :) Afterwards we called one of the few members with a car to drive us back home. I was pretty upset at myself the whole night, but its okay because all is well in Zion. 

I hope that you all had a great time at the family reunion. I look forward to hearing about it from the rest of the "tousins." Love you all so much!

Con Amor 

Elder Snyder

P.S. I didnt take pictures this week because my camera broke. The button to take pictures would not come back up. But I got that fixed today. It was just a faulty spring so dont worry mom haha. I will take more pictures this week

Week 53: Arely and Metzly's Baptism

Arely and Metzly Baptism

Hello,

Dont worry I did not die. Sorry to scare you all about the water situation but right after we finished writing, we went outside and saw someone watering their dirt (oh yeah everyone here waters their dirt, it does not make sense because they say that it is so the wind does not pick up so much dust, but that only works for like 5 minutes because afterwards it is dry again.) But after we saw that, we realized that the water was back on. And we are happy because we have had water all this week. :)

Sorry I didnt write yesterday, I had to go to Guaymas to renew my visa. So they got all the missionaries from my generation together for one day. Everyone who did not live in Obregon got on a bus on Sunday, and we traveled to Obregon and stayed at the Asistants´ house. Then monday morning, we got up early to travel to Guaymas which is outside of the mission boarders so it was kind of an adventure. It was also super fun to see everyone from my generation and to ask all of them how it is going. Then afterwards they sent us all back to our areas. We got back to Los Mochis at like 9 at night, and at that time their were no buses to take us to our area, so we stayed with the Elders from Macapule...My very first area. It was a super long day and I was super tired. The house in Macapule is also super small for 2 Elders and with 4 Elders it is just insane. To sleep we pushed the two beds together and we all slept on the 2 beds. 

But I want to tell you all that Arely and Metzly got baptized! I got to baptize Metzly and my companion baptized Arely. (Metzly is the shorter one). But the baptism went really well. We had to go to Los Mochis to baptize them because their is no font in Rosales. But everything went super well. 

I also burned my shirt, but I will send that video next week. It was pretty awesome. 

I hope everyone has a great time in Utah and at the reunion. 

Love you all,

Elder Snyder

The Burning of the Shirt