Week 95: Happy Easter

P-day water fight activity

Hola.  

This week we had a pretty great week. First of all it was Semana Santa and here in Mexico it is a vacation week and it is also the week were everyone parties all week long. So there were many drunks and not to many people home, but we were actually able to find a lot of people. I started the week off with exchanges. I went to Huatabampo with Elder Lopez and Elder Nilson went to Etchojoa. I really liked Huatabampo. It is a really strong branch and it is also really big. I would have really liked to have had the oportunity to serve in Huatabampo, but I got as close as you can get :) I also learned alot about Elder Lopez. He is a very dedicated missionary and I admire the courage he has to be out on a mission. He is the only member in his family and his entire family thinks that he is wasting his time and that he should come home. He actually told me that his parents have not written him since he left. I dont know how I would be if I did not have the support of you guys. But he told me that what motivates him is the love that he has for God. And I thought that was really sweet. I hope that someday everything that I do will be motivated by the love that I have for God and for others. I have been studying the words of the apostle Pablo (paul). I just love pablo and I love what he teaches and especially what he says about Charity. I downloaded one of the Bible videos of the church a long while back and I have listened to it so many times that I basically have all of 1 Corinthians 13 memorized in Spanish. That is one of my favorite scriptures.

Our investigator Juan (he is the husband of the recently wedded couple) is so awesome. His goal is to get sealed in the temple with his wife and he knows that he needs to get baptized, so he accepted a baptismal date for may 20th. We are super excited. they did not go to church this week because of the vacation that they had but I know that he is going to progress very well. Actually this sunday we were pretty lonely in church. Not many members went to church. There had to have been less than 30 people there. Alot of the members went to go sell things because sunday was the last day of the fair that they had in town. It is kind of disappointing because the members know better. They should know that not going to work on Sunday will bring them more blessings in their lives than a few extra pesos will. But that was that.

I have started practicing piano on my keyboard again. I made it my goal to wake up at 6 so that I can practice for an hour, but I feel like I am a slow learner.  I want to be able to play the hymns in Sacrament meeting because we have to sing acapella other wise. But i just cant seem to learn the hymns fast enough to be able to play them well on sunday. 

Today we had a really fun Pday because one of the zone leader had his Bday today so we decided to throw a surprise party. Elder Reid (he was in my district in the CCM) planned to fill up a bunch of water balloons and later attack him with the water balloons. So that was what we did. We got to the church and Elder Reid and Elder Tice had already filled up 600 water balloons. They filled all the trash cans in the church with the water balloons. Then when the whole zone was at the church we hid all the trash cans in a room. Then the zone leaders and the sister training leaders arrived. They changed into their sports clothes and we put a cake outside as bait. Then we all hid in the room with the trashcans of water balloons and waited for them to go outside. Then the other zone leader (one of them was in on it with us) came into the room where we were hiding and said to us, "go get them." then we all burst out of the room with a bunch of water balloons and had a massacre. It was super fun it turned into a huge water balloon fight that lasted quite a while. It was a pretty fun day. 

Thanks so much for the package. We have been enjoying the candy all this week. It is hard to believe that in 8 weeks I will be home. The mission really is such an amazing experience. I love it and I love the Savior.  

te amo

Elder Snyder

P.S. I forgot to tell you about this weird tradition that they have here in the northern part of mexico. For the past few weeks there have been people walking around beating their drums with these masks on. They are called Fariseos (Pharisees). And they pretty much walk around town all day beating their drums and on Easter Sunday is when they burn their masks. This is one of the masks that I put on.

Prepping for the water balloon fight

Zone Birthday Celebration