Week 93: Conference!

"Tall and handsome"  haha! What can I say?

Hola

I hope you all loved conference. It was really awesome. I had to listen to it all in spanish, but I could understand everything that they were saying. It is crazy to believe that my first conference I did not understand any of the talks and now I can understand all of them. 

We had a pretty great week this week. Starting off, we were able to find many new investigators this week. We also were able to have our first Branch FHE. It was really great. Most of the branch members were able to come and we were able to teach them about the importance of a prophet and how they can take full advantage of the conference talks. Also one of our investigators went to conference and really liked it. We hope that he can continue to progress. 

Of all the conference talks, the one that I liked the most was by Elder Rasband when he talked about obeying the first prompting of the Holy Ghost. I think that listening to the Holy Ghost is the most important thing that we can do in our life because the Holy Ghost will always guide us to make the right choice. It can also be one of the hardest things to do because it involves lining up our will with the will of God. I know that the only way that we can respond to the first prompting is by being obedient to the commandments and having a complete desire to do what it right. I also know that we will be happier if we live in this way. Our Heavenly Father desires us to be happy and if we do what we wants us to do we will be blessed. 

We are also planning a branch mission activity. What we want to do is some sort of "meet the mormons" type thing, but we want to do it here in Etchojoa. The town is kind of small so everyone kind of knows everyone. So we want to have an activity were we show all the different members of the church and what they do in their everyday lives. We still have not planned out all the details but when we do, I will be sure to let you all know. 

Today for our PDay we went to Alamos, which is a little town that is like an hour away from Navojoa. It was really cool. We went to see the catholic church (I know…it seems like we go and see catholic churches a lot, but there are a lot of them here), and we were also able to climb up one of the hills that is in the middle of Alamos and see the entire town. Also something interesting happened up top. One of the Zone leaders got to the top and then had an asthma attack and did not have his inhaler. So we brought him a plastic bag so he could breath in and out. Then when he had calmed down a little bit, he asked me to give him a priesthood blessing. So we went to a place where it would not call the attention of all the rest of the people and i was able to give him a blessing. And in that moment a miracle occurred. Like a minute after I had given him the blessing, his companion, out of nowhere, pulls his inhaler out of his backpack! His companion was like, "what the heck is this doing here?!?!" It was truly a miracle because he was able to receive instant relief. But it was a really fun activity. I will send you more pictures when I can get everyone else to send the ones that they took. 

Love you all. I hope that you all got the best out of conference. It truly is such a blessing that we have living prophets on the earth today that are guided to tell us exactly what we need to do and know. 

Con mucho amor

Elder Snyder

Hiking up the hill in Alamos

Hermana U with her super exaggerated tiredness!

My District

Me with Elder Martinez

Week 92: First Week in Etchajoa

This was waiting for us when we got to our house. A present from the previous Elders. 

Hello

Well Etchojoa is pretty awesome. It was very interesting my first few days here. My zone leader showed me around for 2 days. So I had to days to remember where all the members live and how to get around. But I got it down really quick. It was not that hard to learn where everyone lives. The hard part now is to find people to baptize. We kind of struggled this week in finding new investigators, but we were able work with a member and talk with one of the members of her family who is not a member. She seems really interested in going to church. She was not able to go last sunday but we are going to try and get her to go this week. 

Also the branch seems to be like a typical branch. There is a lot of drama between the members but we hope to be able to fix that. One of the member is super awesome. They own a restaurant that is very close to our house and they told us that the missionaries always eat for free :) They are the Velez family. They are some of the oldest members here in etchojoa and they also have a daughter that is out on a mission. The attendance here is around 34 with a lot of young kids. There seems to be an active primary here. We also have bikes. But my bike is not as good as the bike that I had in Alameda. I have had to invest money into my bike but it will be worth it. It is also kind of funny because this is my companions 2nd area in his mission and his first time with a bike. But Elder Martinez is a hard worker. He is going to help me work hard my last few weeks here. Can't believe I only have 11 more weeks. It sounds so short when I say it like that. 

I also forgot to tell you, but I am also the DL here. My district is really small. It is just us and the Elders and Sister missionaries that are both in the Huatabampo branch. My whole district is branches so it is pretty fun.  

Love you so much

I will try to write more next week

Elder Snyder