Week 18 - Transfers! A New Companion and a New Assignment

Me and Elder Ochoa

Hola

I am glad to hear that the whole family is doing well. It sounds like everyone had a very exciting and busy week. I completely forgot that it is almost halloween. Your costumes all looked fantastic. And, Mom, I laughed out loud when I read that you were a little offended when Elly was raiding your closet looking for grandma clothes. haha! I'm so glad that Jon was able to translate the video that I sent for you. (I forgot that it is all in spanish.)

Okay so this week many things happened and the most exciting was cambios!! So mi papa (trainer) Elder Lowry was transfered to Obregón to be a Zone leader. So that means that I am still here in Macapule and my new companion is Elder Ochoa. He is from Oaxaca, México. So yes, I now have a native companion. And the best part is that I can understand everything that he is saying with the exception of a few words, but that all comes with experience. But the crazy thing is that I am now the District Leader here in Macapule!!! Yeah, I just finished my training and now I am the district leader. I still can hardly believe it, especially because since I have been here in the mission, I have not even had an interview with our Mission President yet.  Elder Lowry and I were so surprised when we found out.  So that means I am in charge of the 10 missionaries in our district which also includes the zone leaders that are in our district, and I have to lead the trainings that we have every week. It is a lot of responsibility for someone who has just finished training and who does not speak perfectly yet, but I have faith that the Lord called me to be a district leader because he knows that I can do it. But we will see how it goes this week.  :) 

Elder Ochoa is from my generation, so we have the same amount of time in the mission. And I am compañero mayor (Senor Companion) so that means that I am in charge of all the rent, the luz (the electricity bill), and I am in charge of leading the lessons.  For this, I'm really hoping that my Spanish will be good enough. 

As for the "hurricane" I honestly had no idea that there was one. haha! It didn't even rain here! Actually I dont think that anything really changed. We would have LOVED to have had more clouds, but there weren't even any of those this week either. 

So most of the exciting things happened this weekend. But I am so excited for this opportunity to serve the Lord as a district leader and I hope that I will be able to help the missionaries in our district. I know that these callings are inspired because there is no way that the president without an interview would know that a new american missionary who just finished his training would be ready to serve as a district leader. But, I have faith that the Lord is going to help me during this time because he would not call me to do this, if I was not ready and able to do it. 

But if you have any advice on what I should do, I would really appreciate it. :) And extra prayers would be good too!

Well that is pretty much it. I hope that everyone has a great week and that you are all able to feel the Savior`s Love.

Love

Elder Snyder

Week 17 - The Missionary Tower

Our Missionary Tower

Hola ¿cómo están?

That is so cool that Jon is back. Make sure to tell him hi from me. And wish Noah the best from me as well. 

So, the sisters in our district had their house robbed about two weeks ago. Luckily, they said not too much was stolen. But they said that someone had tried to steal their air conditioner because they found it outside their house. I don't think it was the same sisters you all heard about because our sisters were living in a house, and I know that they don't have an ipad. I'm actually pretty sure that no one is allowed to have an ipad in this mission because if they did someone would definitely try to steal it. But ya, in answer to your question, I feel very safe in our area and our apartment. Alot of people live in our complex, so it would be kind of hard to steal anything and because they all know that missionaries live in our apartment. And for extra safety, we also have a picture of Christ in our window :) so I dont think that we will get robbed. 

So this week we had a few long days. We pretty much walked all day and could not find anyone to teach. There was hardly anyone in the street that we could talk to and nobody was home or they just didn't answer the door, so for like two days this week we were just walking for hours in the blazing sun. Also this week the heat decided to return for some reason, so we have been battling that as well. But we were able to find someone new to teach this week. We were with a member and we went to visit an investigator that we had not visited in a long time, but she was not home. So then we decided to go to the home of a recent convert/less active member. (The retention here in mexico is not very good. For this reason people have to go to church 5 times before they can get baptized, but sometimes that is still not enough. So if you have any ideas that can help with the retention of members that would be great. Because it does not benefit a person anything if they are baptized but do not keep their covanents.) So we arrived at his house and he was asleep, but his step daughter was home and we asked her if she had ever spoken with missionaries before. And she told us that she has talked with a lot of religions but none could answer her questions. Well that phrase was like music to our ears, so we asked her  "well what questions do you have?" And all her questions were like Where did we come from? and Who is Jesus Christ and why is he so important in so many religions? So it was really awesome to teach her about the plan of salvation. And it seemed to all make sense to her... everything that we were explaining. 

So she all of a sudden had a huge desire to learn about our religion and she asked for more pamphlets and has been reading in the libro de mormón that we left with her. We even brought her to a baptism that the other ward was having to see an example of a baptism. But for some reason we seem to always lose our best investigators. So her name is Kimbery and she is moving to some place in Tijuana because she has some family problems here. So we are going to lose her in about a week. :( I'm happy we can at least teach her right now. But we are still looking for people that want to learn and actually stay in our area. And I feel really blessed because I have been lucky to have three baptisms already where as my other friends in other areas havent had any, so I am really grateful for that.

We also had an actividad de zone today where we cleaned the church, played some soccer, and ended up making a human tower. We made this human tower because we were playing with a vollyball in the multipurpose room and one of the sisters hit the ball into a screen that covers the vent and the screen fell off. Well, we did not have a ladder, so we did the next best thing and built a tower out of missionaries because the ceiling is like 15 feet high. So because I am one of the tallest and one of the lightest, I was on the top. I will send a picture so that you can understand what I am trying to explain. 

Also there is a tradition here in Mexico called "The Bite" that when it is someone's birthday they have to take a bite of the cake without their hands and then their companion shoves their face into the cake. So it was really funny because there are 3 birthdays this month. One set of the sisters was really funny. The sister went to take a bite of cake and yeah her companion shoved her face into the cake, but then her companion did not feel like she had enough cake on her face, so she shoved here face into the cake again only with alot more force. It was just really funny because it was like 1...2 times that she had her face shoved into the cake. Then at last, it was time for the other elder to take "the Bite" and he said that he wasnt going to, but then his companion told him to do it and four other hands from all the surrounding elders shoved not only his face, but his entire head into the cake. It was just so funny because no one was expecting that and he had cake all over his face and his hair. 

So this week was pretty fun and also this week is the last week of my training. We have cambios this Sunday, so we will see if anything changes or if it all remains the same. Thank you for all your letters and sorry this one is so long.

Love,

Elder Snyder

Week 16 - The coolest fast Sunday ever!

Hola!

This week, we had another junta de zona. It was great. I always love to see all the other missionaries that are serving in our zone and alot of the missionaries that were from my generation in the CCM. Also it was funny to see them lugging this huge suitcase that was full of Libros de Mormón for our zona. But we learned alot about how we need to use our ward mission leader and members of the ward to help us find and teach and help our investigators feel comfortable in the church.

Yesterday was fast sunday and it was honestly the coolest one ever. First off Carlitos was confirmed a member de la Iglesia de los Santos de los Últimos Días by his dad and it was so awesome to be a part of it. Next, all of the stake presidents in our mission were meeting that day so they were attending our sacrament meeting and our mission president was there too. Then to add to that I didn't realize this till after, but there was a member of the 70 of Mexico who was presiding at the meeting. So it was so awesome to hear everyone share their testimonies most of which were about how they know that prayers are answered by seeing the baptism of Carlos. And then at the end, one person got up who we had never seen before and she bore her testimony of how she felt the same as Carlos to know that she needed to be baptized. She felt the same way that after the missionaries left her house she tried to run and find them to tell them that she wanted to be baptized. She said that she has been less active for many years and this meeting reminded her so much of the love our Heavenly Father has for each and every one of us. Then the member of the 70 got up and started saying "Brothers and Sisters, we have witnessed a miracle today..." and talked about everything that happened in the meeting. It was super cool and the spirit was so strong in the room. 

So Sunday afternoon Elder Lowry went to Cuidad Obregón to renew his visa along with all the other american missionaries in his generation. So I spent the night and today with the Elders in Barrio Central. It was really cool to see their house and how it is much bigger than ours, but also to go to a different area even if it is across the street from us. And it is really funny because all the missionaries ask each other what they do on Pday because everyone is looking for something fun to do. It is really funny when we read the mission handbook and read about things you can do on Pday like go to a zoo or a museum. We always just laugh because there is nothing like that here. So we usually just stay in the house and study and read the Liahona. It sounds kind of boring, but I really like having the opportunity to read the messages that we recieve every month from our church leaders. But when we find something cool to do, I will let you know, but for now all we do is study and buy food for the week. 

Love you all so much and I hope that everything is great at home. 

Con Amor

Elder Snyder

p.s. Mom, I still haven't gotten my package because there were so many packages for our zone that the zone leaders could not bring them all back, but I think Elder Lowry is going to try and bring them back today.

Week 15 - Surprise! Carlitos is Getting Baptized!

¡Hola!

I am glad to hear that all is well and that everyone had a great conference weekend. And glad that you are going to start "ponderizing" the scriptures. :) I was thinking as he was giving that talk, "If we had started doing that a long time ago it would have been so easy to memorize scriptures and to actually think about the word of God throughout the day." So that is so great that you are going to do that. I would start too, but I still have so much that I am working on memorizing. Our mission president has asked all of us that we memorize all the points in the 3 main lessons in preach my gospel. I started and finished the first lesson this week, so I still have 2 more to go, but we have a scripture of the month that we always try to memorize as well. This past month it was Jacob 1:19.

So to start off... this week was awesome because Carlitos (Carlos) was baptized!!!! It was such a crazy and amazing week. We were basically running all over los Mochis to try and teach Carlos the necessary lessons to be baptized. So basically it was a really fast run through of all the commandments. It was really funny because in one of our first lessons with him we were like "Carlos, we are going to leave you with these five pamphlets, try to read them ALL by tomorrow before we see you, but you probably won't be able to read them at home because your parents will know what is up if you have all of the missionary pamphlets with you." (He wanted his baptism to be a surprise for his parents.) But it all ended up working out. We were able to teach all the lessons and it was super easy because he already knew this was the right path for him, so we got him all ready for his interview with the zone leaders. 

The day of the baptism was crazy. So we had a lot of time before the baptism because we were going to have it at like 7:30 at night because that was when his dad would be back from work. So we got to the church at like 10 to start filling the font. Then like 3 minutes after we started filling the font we realized that the water that had been sitting in the pipes for a few weeks smelled terrible. It smelled so bad it started to stink up the baptismal room. So then to counter act the smell, we poured in soap used to mop the floor, so that seemed to mask the smell of the water to a nice lemon smell. :)

Then at night, we went to the church to get ready for the baptism and when we got there, we found that Lolita (Carlos´s mom) was cleaning the church. So we had to distract her so that her son could sneak into the church without being seen by his mom. So luckily we got Carlos in the building without being seen. He then got changed into all of his white clothing and waited for almost a half hour for his dad to arrive. Then when his parents were sitting down, (We were glad that they were sitting down because we thought that hermana Lolita would faint) we asked them if they would like to meet "Antonio" (the fake name we had to make up because his dad is on the ward council). They both said, "yes" and when they turned around there was their son Carlitos standing there all dressed in white. It was kind of fun because they both had to do a double take and then they both just said ¡¿¡Qué!?! They were both so happy! Hermana Lolita was just in tears and she went and embraced her son and Carlitos was in tears with the reaction of his mom. It was so beautiful, I almost started crying to see how happy their family was.

Lolita then told us how she is so grateful for our Padre Celestial (Heavenly Father) and how he answers our prayers. She later told us that when she went to the temple with the ward she put a bunch of peoples names on the prayer roll, but for her son Carlos, She put his name down like 20 different times on different pieces of paper. It was also awesome to hear the testimony of Carlitos' father, Carlos, and how he was so grateful. We then asked him if he was ready to get wet and he got a big smile when he learned that we had brought clothes for him to baptize his son. It was such an awesome experience. So many of their friends were crying  and were so happy when they walked through the door to discover that "Antonio" was actually Carlitos. It was really cool too because their family is like the heart and soul of this ward and to see their son be baptized was just truly amazing in a way that words cannot even describe. And now in a year they can go to the temple and be sealed together as a family for time and all eternity one of the greatest blessings that our Father in Heaven has given us. 

And yah, on top of all that, it was conference weekend so we all got to watch conference!! Thankfully, I watched it in English. All of the churches have smart TVs now, so we were able to watch conference on the mormon channel. It was pretty cool, we had a room that was full of American missionaries. 

I love you all so much and thank you for all the letters and pictures that you send me. 

Love, Elder Snyder

Carlitos and his parents

The outside of Our Apartment

Week 14 - "I'm in Venice!"

Hola

So this week we had another junta de zone (zone meeting) with the president. It was cool because our zone got reorganized. We were the only district that stayed in the zone and we got two new districts. So it is kind of cool to see all the new people in the zone... two of the companionships were people from my group in the CCM so it was good to talk to them and see how everything is going. But after hearing about their areas, it makes me grateful for the area that I have. Our area is small compared to theirs, so we dont have to walk as much as they do. And we have a walmart and another grocery store in our area so shopping is super easy for us. 

In the beginning of the week, it was raining a lot at night and as you can see from the picture, the streets here dont really have drains.  So usually after it rains, there are certain streets that are like lakes.  So we were walking down this one street and had to completely change course because the entire street was flooded. But it isnt usually that bad. 

We found a new investigator this week. His name is Leonel and we taught him the Plan of Salvation and we gave him a date to be baptized and he accepted. We were super excited but then he told us that this week he was going to the hospital to get a tumor removed. So we decided to visit him and when we arrived at the hospital no one had any record that he was there. So we went to his house later that day and he told us that the doctors had changed his schedule and now he has to wait until November for his surgery. Also he told us that he was going to go live with his son until his operation. And his son lives very far away. And so just like that in 3 days, we had someone with a baptism date and then we lost him. 

Then later that day we went to visit our other investigator Mirian. And we talked with her and she told us that she was moving also. She has been living with her boyfriend, but she is leaving him because he has been cheating on her. And it is really sad because she has 4 kids that are all super young!! So we are going to let the other missionaries in her new area know so they can help her and teach her. And then my companion and I were both really sad because we were like, Wow, we just lost 2 of our best investigators in the same day. But don't worry... the week got a lot better. :)

So this Sunday was Elder Lowrys birthday. And some of the members in the ward threw a surprise party for us on friday. It was super cool to see all the members that are in this ward and that they all have so much love for everyone. But the best part about this was what happened after. So the party was at the house of our ward mission leader, Carlos and Lolita. And their son lives with them, and he is 28 years old and is not a member. So as we were leaving and walking down the street, we hear a voice that says "Elderes" And it is Carlitos, their son. He then says to us "make sure to fill the pools this sunday." Me and elder Lowry were both really confused and said what? Then he told us that he wants to be baptized. He said that he talked with God and that it is the right thing to do. We both almost teared up because we love our ward mission leader and his wife so much. Because they dont have very much, but they do everything they can to help us. And so Carlitos told us that he wants it to be a surprise for his parents. So we are planning on getting him ready to be baptized this friday because there is conference this weekend. He has not had all the discussions, but he has attended church a few times with his parents, so we just have to teach all the lessons to him quickly. So our goal is to teach all the lessons with him so that he can be ready for his interview before Friday.  

Oh and we saw the lunar eclipse last night too! It was really weird because before the eclipse happened we were looking at the moon and we were like the moon looks alot bigger tonight.  Then like an hour later someone said hey look an eclipse. And there it was except the moon was a lot smaller. no sé por qué. But that is super cool that you all saw it too. 

Anyway, that was pretty much my week. The language is still a bit of a challege for me. I cannot completely understand what people are saying when they are speaking directly to me and this week Elder Lowry has been trying to get me ready by having me talk on the phone which is pretty hard. I usually just end up passing the phone to him because I dont understand. But the language is coming…very slowly, but surely. I have also started reading Jesus the Christ and it is so awesome. It just really helps you understand so much more who the Savior is and how important his purpose was and is.

Love you all so much and miss our family a lot. But I love my mission, and I am so glad I am called to serve here. 

Love 

Elder Snyder

Week 13 - Rain in Los Mochis and the Best Shrimp Tacos Ever!

Hola

So this week was a little new because we had intercambios with the zone leaders, except this time, I was the one that was staying in our area and elder Lowry was going. I was pretty nervous about it because they only told us the night before. So I had to do the planning and the contacting for two days with one of the new zone leaders. I was mostly worried about the planning because I had never planned before. But it all worked out great. I was with Elder Aleman and he has only been a member for about a year and a half, but he knows so many scriptures. It is kind of amazing. In our lessons, for pretty much everthing he had a scripture he could share and testify of. He is a great missionary, and I am so glad that he is our zone leader. But yeah, I made it through all the planning and we actually had a very successful intercambio. We even found a new investigator. 

It has been raining a lot the past few days, so luckily that means that it has been a lot cooler. But unfortunately because it was raining there were not as many people at church on Sunday. On Saturday night, all of our new investigators told us that they were going to come to church and we had visited 4 less active families who all said that they were going to come to church with us too. We even saved a big row for all of them because we had faith that they were going to show up. But then the time came and not one of them showed up. It was so sad. We hope that it was because of the rain that they didnt come but our goal is for them to come despite the rain. 

I'm not sure what else to talk about, so I am going to tell you about the food. On Sunday, we had the best shrimp tacos of my life. A member in our ward made fryed shrimp and the "salsa" which in Spanish means sauce. (Spanish is very unspecific. For example the drink that is on the table is called agua. It doesnt matter what it is... it could be juice, lemonade or something, but it is always called agua. And if you want just plain water, you have to ask for agua natural.) It was basically pico de gallo with avacados in it and without all the liquid. Oh, it was so good! And she made fry sauce with mayonesa and chipotle. It was all so good!

Sorry, I don't have as much to write. Oh and forgive me for not having any new pictures to send this week. But I am sending pictures of the scripture case that I bought in the CCM. They are pretty sick and I thought that you might like to see them. I love you all so much and I am so grateful for our family. Keep me posted on what everyone is doing. Gracias for all the pictures of everyone. 

Love 

Elder Snyder

Week 12 - Mexico City Temple Rededication and an Earthquake

¡Hola gracias por tus cartas!

Well I have officially finished my primer cambia (first transfer). Me and Elder Lowry are both staying here in Los Mochis Barrio Macapule. I am grateful that I still have more time to train and hopefully I will be able to understand everything by the time it is over.

On sunday it was awesome because we got to see the rededication of the Mexico City temple. It was so awesome because two of my favorite apostles were there, Eyring and Holland. And because they dont speak spanish I got to hear their talks both in spanish and english. It was really awesome. My favorite part was when Elder Holland bore his testimony in Spanish. It was very simple but powerful. It consisted of the spanish that you learn your first week in the CCM. "Sé que Jesucristo vive y esta Iglesia es verdadera..." and a little more but I dont remember. (And he said it with a complete gringo accent so it was pretty cute too.) But I just loved how even an apostle can have a testimony as simple as that and it can still be powerful. It was also really funny at the end when President Eyring was thanking a certain stake in Mexico and right before he was going to say the name of the stake he just stopped and smiled then looked at the translator. Then the translator said the name for him and he just said "gracias" and everyone just started to laugh. 

So this week was a little sad because hermana Pech was finishing her mission and going back home to Yucatan, Mexico. She was one of the sisters in our ward and she was just such a great missionary. She always helped me with my Español and she always had a smile on her face. She would also always make jokes and was laughing all the time. So we became great friends through the district meetings and ward council. So I will miss her... she really was a great missionary. 

This week we have been teaching hermana Mirian. She has 4 kids and they are all very young.  The oldest is 9 I believe and she has already had the missionaries visit her before she moved here. So we have started teaching her, but it is really hard to teach her and involve her kids so that they dont start going crazy and distract her with whatever they are doing. So that is a little difficult. We didnt have sacrament meeting this week because of the temple rededication so she was not able to come to church. It is a little inconvient because here in Mexico the investigators have to attend sacrament meeting 5 times before they can be baptized. Alot of times the president allows them to be baptized after 4 if they are ready but it is really hard to get people to go to church. Especially because the building is so far away and most people dont have cars. So, for a family to go, they have to find a ride or try and get their whole family on a crazy bus to get to church. 

This week was the last district meeting before cambios so me and Elder Lowry decided to wake up early and make french toast for everyone in the district. We got to the church at like 6:30 and we forgot our spatula so we had to use a spoon to flip them all. But in the end it worked out great. Everyone was so grateful and it was so delicious. 

As for the earthquake here, I had no idea we even had one until the sisters told us in the morning. They told us that their beds were completely shaking. But ya, I had no idea. Elder Lowry also told me that all the thunder last night kept him up, and I was like, "uhh it was raining?"

Oh ya funny short story. Me and elder Lowry were taking the bus to the church building the other day and we both got air on the bus. We were sitting in the back of the bus when we hit a bump and I swear I got at least a foot of air from my seat. My legs completely left the ground and my butt was sore for a few minutes after because the landing on my seat was not soft. Mexican buses! 

So ya if you would like to study something this week for me please study the importance of keeping the sabbath day holy and the blessings that we recieve from it. Of course we study this for our investigators, but I would really appreciate your help with this one. :)

Love you all so much. Thanks for all your letters and pictures you send. It is one of the things I look forward to every week. To hear the words of all of you. Take care this week.

Love 

Elder Snyder

Making French Toast with a spoon

Goodbye Sister Pech