Week 57: Did someone say Heat?

Hey

It is always so nice to get and read your letters. It always makes me happy to hear about all the things that are going on back home. Sounds like Parker is excited to get his eagle project out of the way... haha. And I just want you all to know that none of your complaints about the heat will find any mercy with me!!! haha! This week was one of the hottest weeks, we have ever had. Its so hot, the sun is starting to hurt! Also it is so humid here that in 5 minutes you are drenched!! I also cannot continue to wear my lightly colored pants because you can see all the sweat lines. Pretty nasty! Now starts the time of sueros all over again. (Sueros is that salt drink that we are supposed to drink so we don't get dehydrated.)

This week was a little hard for us because our investigator, T., is not ready to get baptized. She says that she will be ready later on but we can tell she is not doing anything to make this happen, so we are kind of disappointed. But we found a new investigator that is friends with one of the members here. She introduced us to her. Her name is A. and she is the daughter of eternal investigators here in 4 milpas. She has seen the missionaries before, but has never really talked with them. She was home with her husband and her cousin, but her husband did not want to come out and meet us. We got to know them a little, and we left them with a pamphlet of the restoration. Then we set an appointment to come back and teach and with the member that introduced us. But when we went back, it turns out that her husband got a little upset and told us that he did not want us to come back to his house because after we left A´s cousin was talking about us all day. And it is really frustrating because the member we went with went and talked with her afterwards and asked what she would have to do to get baptized. ahhhh so frustrating. But Elder Ramirez is great. He is really funny and helps me to joke around and sometimes take my mind of the work, because it is really stressful here.

Also this week we had some crazy thunderstorms at night. At night we would sometimes spend an hour outside just looking at all the lightning. One night after planning we spent the rest of the night outside because it was a lot cooler outside of the house than inside. 

And today we had our first Pday where we stayed in 4 milpas. We woke up early to go climb a mountain and watch the sunrise. It was pretty cool because you can see our entire area. I took a few videos so you should be able to see them. But that is about it. 

I feel like I just wrote you guys so there is not to much more for me to tell. Sorry if this letter is a little short, but I will try to do better next week. But to make up for it I took a lot of pictures. 

Love you so much. Thanks for all your advice and support. 

Love

Elder Snyder

Here's some pictures of our hike this morning. And the other pictures with us in missionary clothes were from when we went to mochicahui. Ohh yeah, I forgot to tell you that friday night we got a call from one of the sisters in the Rosales Branch who wanted us to give her granddaughter a blessing because she was going to have surgery on saturday. The only problem was that they called us at night and mochicahui is like 10 kilometros away. So, in the morning on saturday we woke up early and left to bike ride an hour to go and give a blessing to this girl. The whole time I was thinking that I have never put so much faith into a blessing like this. I was thinking of the scripture in James that says that faith with out works is dead and how we show our faith by our works. And I was thinking that I have never worked so hard to give a blessing because we were dripping in sweat when we arrived. haha. But it all turned out ok.

Week 56: Mango Hunting and a Flood

Hello

Sorry I was not able to write on Monday. I went to Guaymas again to finish renewing my visa.  It was really fun. It was another party with my generation. Then when we got back we stayed with the missionaries in Macapule again. Only this time Elder Lowry was there. He asked President if he could end his mission in Macapule and he said yes. 

That video was so awesome of Jacob, Austin and Dakota. It was cool to hear a little bit of Spanish thrown in there. And I honestly laughed out loud at the picture of the LATE tag on Jacob's bag. It was so funny to see that it is the same old Jacob. 

But this week alot happened in such a short period of time. One of our favorite families from 4 Milpas moved. :( They went to Tijuana to live with their son and to work because there is not that much work here. But we are going to miss them because they were one of the few active families in the branch. 

Also, I dont know if I have already told you this but there are so many mangos here. After every lesson people ask us if we want mangos. We have like 5 kilos in the house. They are so good. So I have a couple of pictures of my companion and I hunting mangos. 

Last Sunday we were so stressed out when we got to the casa de oración...We got there to find that one of the pipes behind the building had burst and that the whole back room was flooded with water. There was so much water that it even entered the room where we have sacrament meeting. So we spent like 10 minutes collecting all the water with mops and we left the backroom flooded because there was not enough time to clean everything up. Then like 5 minutes before the meeting was going to start, someone told us that the person that we assigned to speak was not going to be able to come to the meeting. So that means that we both were going to have to speak. But it all turned out well. I presided and blessed the sacrament and my companion conducted and passed the sacrament. Then we both gave our talks. I talked about the importance of the sacrament and how we can make it more meaningful each time we come to church. That during the week we need to repent of our mistakes then when we come to church, we should prepare ourselves mentally to take the sacrament. Because it is not the action of taking the sacrament that gives us the remission of our sins. Just like how simply getting baptized does not wash away our sins. It is the sincere repentace process that takes place before and that is then sealed with a covenant. And when we partake of the sacrament, we get to renew that same covenant of baptism that we make, and we can still feel the same joy that we felt that day we were baptized all over again. 

So one of our investigators is proving to be very difficult. She has been investigating the church for about a year. She always comes to church, reads her scriptures, she even pays her tithing! But her problem is the law of chastity. She has a boyfriend that pays for the rehab of one of her sons who was a drug addict. But the worst part is that her boyfriend is married. He has a wife and kids. And she is struggling to make the decision to repent and get baptized. And we dont know what more we can do because she knows what she is doing is wrong and she knows exactly what she needs to do. 

But her mom is doing really well. We taught her the Restoration and she now understands more about Joseph Smith. She is progressing. She just needs more time, so that we can teach her everything.

And our other investigator just stresses us out. She has so much trouble paying attention. We explain things so basically, but she cannot understand and pay attention. She says she wants to get baptized, but we need her to understand what we are teaching before she can. 

But everything is going well here in 4 milpas. Ohhh... I got a new bike. The bikes that we have are for like 10 year olds, so it really hurts my back to be hunched over all day. But the family that left for Tijuana was selling all of their things including their bike. So I called up President Myers and he authorized me to buy the bike. I was super happy because now I have a bike that is my size :). 

Well I love you all so much. Congrats to Parker who got his braces off. Ohh and thanks for the package that you sent. The secretaries gave it to me when I went to Obregon to go to Guaymas. Thanks to everyone for all the letters. They were great. Tell Oma to be careful about sending money because they opened all the letters that were in my package. But I dont think that they took anything. 

Sorry for the late letter but it is better than nothing haha. I want to send the video of my shirt burning but the file is too big to send by email. I can try to send it by dropbox next monday. 

Love

Elder Snyder

Mango Hunting