Week 97: Last Transfer!

Goodbye party for Hermana Upiachihua and Elder Nilson

Hola

Well it is my last transfer and my companion and I stay the same. Big shocker I know. But I am super happy that I am going to be able to finish my mission here in Etchojoa. 

Well we had a pretty good week this week. We were able to say goodbye to all of our friends that were going home and to say goodbye to people that were leaving the zone. 

On tuesday we had our district meeting and I bought a cake for the hermana upiachihua and for Elder Nilson because they were both finishing their missions. It is crazy to believe that will be me soon. We also had a really great sunday because 2 of our investigators were able to go to church. Juan whose wife is a member came to church finally. And he is still set on his goal to get baptized so we are excited for him. We were also able to help Jesus go to church. We have been teaching him for about 2 weeks now. And we had a really special lesson with him the day before he went to church. We had a lesson planned, but when we got there we decided to ask inspired question to teach him according to his needs. And after a few questions we realized that he did not know what his purpose was on the earth. He told us that there was nothing that motivated him to get up in the morning, so we then knew that we had to teach him about the love our Heavenly Father has for him and what his purpose in this life is. We felt that the lesson changed a little after that. Then on Sunday he came to church. :) 

Also it was 5th sunday in the branch so we decided to talk about the branch goals (we didnt have any so we were able to set them ). It was pretty funny. I got up and explained to the whole branch what the purpose was in setting goals. I remembered a talk that thomas s monson gave when i arrived. He talked about alice in wonderland and the cheshire cat. The story goes that alice asks the cat which path she should take. And the cat answers her and says, "well that all depends on where you would like to go." she then responded that she did not know where she wanted to go. And the cat then said, "then it does not matter which path you take." I like this story a lot because it applies to our life. 1) If we do not have a destination we will never be able to get where we want to go. Just like Alice we will wander aimlessly watching all the opportunities that life gives us just pass by. 2) that we need to set long term goals to know were we want to be and short term goals to know how we are going to get there. 3) Follow up on our goals and make adjustments as needed. 

Just learning this has opened my eyes and let me know that I have a lot of potential and how I can accomplish the things that I desire to accomplish. But it all starts with the destination. If we do not have a destination we will not be able to accomplish our potential. 

Also last week we had to attend the district meeting because our branch president could not attend. And something that called my attention was what the district secretary taught. He asked all the branch presidents in the room what their goal in this life was. Then after everyone answered he reminded us what everyone's goal should be, and that is Exaltation. If exaltation is our goal then we will be able to do all the other small things in this life like raise our kids and be a good husband or wife. And it just made me think. What am i doing to prepare myself for exaltation? I know that I am far from that point and that I need to make specific goals in order to accomplish my long term goal. 

I know that his church is true and that everything it teachs is to help us be better. I know that we have the potential to become like our Heavenly Father and that Jesus Christ is the key to helping us become like him. I know that everything that the church teaches us is to help us accomplish our goal in this life and if we choose to not obey the small things, we are only delaying our progress. I know my savior lives and that he loves me. He is my friend :)

I am excited to talk with you all in 2 weeks it is going to be super exciting. 

2 weeks mothers day!   4 weeks my bday!   6 weeks airport!

les amo mucho

Elder Snyder

Elder Ochoa is my ZL now, so this transfer is going to be even more fun!

Week 96: This morning I found a cat in our "sink"

This morning I found a cat in the place where we wash our dishes.

Hola 

Well this week was a pretty normal week. It has started to get hotter. We are also in the last week of the transfer, so next week I will be starting my last transfer of the mission. Time really goes by so fast. 

Well the good news was that this week we were able to commit pretty much all of our investigatores to a baptismal date and commit them all to come to church.  But out of all of our investigatores the only one that we didnt plan on coming to church came. His name is Ricardo and his wife got baptized like 8 months ago and all of his kids are active members of the church. He just has not joined because he is still not ready to give up his old life, but he is getting closer. He decided to go to church by himself so that is a step in the right direction. But our other investigator Juan did not go to church and we still do not know why. We have our next appointment with him tomorrow, so hopefully we can get him and his wife to come to church more so that he can start progressing. 

Other than that, we have set a new goal in the branch. We have committed everyone in the branch to read the book of mormon in 3 months. We visited almost all the members in the branch and committed them all personally to read the BOM and then in church we official announced the goal to the branch. We have been seeing problems in the branch and after talking and making a plan with the branch president we felt that the thing that would help the members live the gospel more fully would be helping them to make daily scripture study a habit. I have started reading the BOM again also to support all the members and I have been reading with the schedule that we sent to all the members so that they will all be able to finish in 3 months. 

But an interesting thing that happened this week was that we left our keys inside the house and got locked out of the house. :( And sadly there was no window were we could squeeze ourselves into, so the only option we had was to break the glass window in the door. So now we have a hole in our back door. Dont worry because we put a safety in place so you can only open the back door with a key. But now we are a lot more careful with they keys. 

I love you so much. I cannot believe how fast the time is going by and how soon we are going to see each other again. 

te amo :)

Elder Snyder

The window we had to break to get in to our house. :(