Week 50: Life in a Pueblo

Welcome to 4 Milpas!! 

Hola!

Well I dont have too much time to write because we arrived a little late to our cyber, but I will try to answer your questions and explain what happened this week the best that I can. So 4 milpas is the name of the branch extension where I live. There are no paved roads and there are no stores. It is kind of crazy because if we need something, we have to wait until monday til we can go to los Mochis to get it and los Mochis is like an hour away by bus! So we have to plan our pdays very effectively. haha. :)

Our area is very big. We have to cover 5 small little towns and some of the towns are like 40 minutes away riding my bike. So lets talk about my bike... 

Well, I have to say that having a bike has its advantages and disadvantages. One of the advantages that you can all imagine is that it is much easier to travel. Also your sweat actually starts to dry with all the wind. haha!  And the disadvantages is that my bike is a piece of crap! It does not have shocks and all of the roads have a ton of loose rocks and my first day I popped the tire returning home. But luckily someone gave us a ride back to 4 milpas so that was very nice. But to start, my bike seat was absolutely terrible. It was super hard and with my lack of booty, my bum was hurting by the end of the day. So the next day we went to the bike shop and I bought a new bike seat. I bought the one that is for fat people. It is super big and wide and is very soft. And it has shocks so now all the bouncing isnt too much of a problem. But the other problem is that the pedel was kind of broken. But it still worked, so I didnt worry too much about it. We took it to someone in the morning to check it. And they said that I had to get a new one but that it would probably last for the week. Well that day we had to go to one of the farthest towns in our area. So we had like 2 km left to get to our comida (dinner appointment) and my companion asked, "is your bike still at 100" and I responded, "I think so." Then directly one minute after this short conversation, I said to my companion, "My bike is no longer at 100." My pedel arm had fallen off my bike and we were still like 2 km from the comida. So we had to walk the rest with my broken bike. Then we fixed it and got back home. Today when we were riding our bikes some screw broke in one of my gears so I had to buy a whole new set of gears. It is getting fixed right now. 

There is some guy who lives kind of close to our house that fixes our bikes. His name is Scooby. Like Scooby Doo. I think they call him that because he is always smoking weed. But he always fixes our bikes for us. 

I want to say more, but unfortunately I don't have much time. But I do want to talk about what happened this past sunday. So the church building is a "casa de oración" or house of prayer. It is a little building where we meet for church. We had an attendance of 25 people this sunday, which is a new record I think. But there is not that many people with the priesthood here. But this sunday was the first sunday that the missionaries did not have to bless and pass the sacrament. We had a new convert bless the sacrament for the first time and he did a great job. He is 16 years old. And we had another member who is 13 years old pass the sacrament to everyone. And at the end, we were short one cup of water. So we had to bless the water one more time, so that everyone could partake of the sacrament. But this taught me a big lesson of the importance of taking the sacrament. It is so important that everyone takes it each week, that we will bless it again if necessary so that everyone can partake of it. And it is such a blessing that we can take the sacrament each week so that we can be cleansed of our sins.

Well we need to go, but I just want to tell everyone that I love you all so much. 

Love 

Elder Snyder

P.S.  Also we dont have a working AC so one of these pictures is our invented AC. We are trying to find someone to fix our AC but it is really difficult to find someone in these pueblos that know how to fix AC. And it has been really difficult to sleep these last couple days because it is starting to get really hot here. 

My Bike

With my trainer Elder Lowry…we're in the same District.

Opening my Bday package! Here's my new glasses. 

Our attempt at an AC

Week 49: Transfers - It's Pueblo Time!

Hello everyone!

It feels really good to finally be 20. Even though it feels like nothing has changed other than the fact that I speak spanish. I loved the video that you sent me. It made me laugh that you still have that sign of we love Elder Snyder and that on the back you made a feliz cumpleaños sign. 

Well my Bday in Sochiloa was really uneventful. The morning didnt start off too well when we arrived at church to only see 11 people there. The bishop had to wait like 15 minutes to start the meeting because there wasnt enough people with the priesthood there. But at the end of the meeting there were about 50 people that came. Also we were really happy because our investigator, Luis, came. He is dating one of the youth in the ward and he is excited to get baptized. We just hope that his dad lets him get baptized. But none of the members knew that it was my birthday, but all of our investigators invited us over to have cake next saturday. 

But to answer the big question about transfers... both Elder Tellez and I got transferred!! They sent hermanas to Sochiloa and they kicked us out.  And they sent Elder Tellez to the ward that is across the street, so he will still be able to teach the salazar family. I know that they are going to get baptized. but anyways, as for me, I have been sent to a Pueblo. haha. I was honestly really scared, but now I am pretty excited. My companion is Elder Ramirez. He is from MexiCali and he has been on the mission for a while now. He only has like 3 or 4 transfers left. I am in a pueblo that is like an hour away from los mochis...So yes, I have returned to my home in Mochis. But there is literally not much here. There are no big stores. only little tiendas. My companion told me that we go to mochis about once a month on pday to buy a bunch of food in Walmart or Sams. 

But the name of the pueblo is Cuatro Milpas. And our area is huge. So to compensate, we have bikes and my companion tells me that we have some investigators that live like an hour bike ride away. But it is going to be really interesting to be here. I will need to learn how to work in a pueblo because it is not the same as a ward. My companion says that here we have to do everything. We assign the talks at church, and when the people dont show up, we give the talks, and we teach the class in sunday school too. Also there is no 3rd hour of church because there are not enough people for the other organizations. But I know that I am going to learn so many things here.

It is also starting to get hot, so I am going to start to smell worse. :( But such is the life of a missionary in ciudad Obregón. 

That is exciting about Aubrey's mission call. She is going to have fun learning a new language. Those days were honestly the most humbling days of my life. I am very happy that they are over. Oh and I think that I am in the same district as Elder Lowry. 

I also recieved Omas bday package. I am super excited about the new socks. I need more. You can never have too many socks on the mission. Also for the 20 bucks. That will be helpful. 

But a lot of crazy thinks are happening. I am in a pueblo, we are changing mission presidents this month, and my friend Elder Wilkinson from my district in the CCM just became an AP.

I am going to be needing a lot of your prayers this transfer, but I am excited for the new things that I am going to learn with this experience.

Con Mucho Amor

Elder Snyder

Week 48: Attack of the Churches

This week was kind of rough for us. This entire week we tried to meet with the Salazar family and we went by everyday of the week and they were never home. Then she called us and the first thing she said was thanks for everything, but I dont want to get baptized... we dont want to continue. My companion had the phone at this moment, but it was on speaker so we were both listening. And my companion asked why she all of a sudden had a change of heart after she had been receiving answers to her prayers. And she gave an excuse that the devil is what is stopping her. But we heard that her mom has been calling her all week telling her lies about the church and that she needs to return to the Catholic faith. We have a FHE planned with them today and we hope that we can listen to her and clear away all the doubts that she may have. 

Also, I have not said too much about this because I did not think that it was too significant but Elder Tellez and I have both realized that this keeps happening to us. So pretty much every week we have been attacked by someone of another faith telling us that our church is false for x reason. We have been attacked by Ex-Mormons that tell us all the lies of anti-mormonism, by catholics, by apostolicas, and last monday Elder tellez said, " the only group that has not attacked us are the Jehovas witnesses." Then what do you know, the next hour we were contacting some guy, when this JW appears from behind us and starts to contend with us saying that we dont teach about Jesus Christ. Then Elder Tellez said, " Well when was the last time that you came to our church" then he just stayed quite. Then he told us that we teach about the Premortal exsistence and he told us that the Bible never talks about a premortal exsistance. So then we read Jeramiah 1:5 that says that, "before I formed you in the belly I knew thee." Then this JW said that it does not mean that Jehovah knew Jeramiah in a premortal exsistance. Then Elder Tellez said," oh, then where the heck did he know him". It was really funny... I just started to laugh out loud. But we really hate contending with people, but it keeps happening. They just come out of nowhere and attack some aspect of the church and we feel obligated to defend our religion. I am glad that I have a testimony and a knowledge sufficient of the scriptures to be 100%  sure of what I am talking about. 

On sunday none of our investigators went to church, but we have a new investigator that did go. He is a friend of a recent convert in the ward and he has had missionaries before, but he moved away. But now he is back, so we are going to see how it goes with him. 

On Friday, we had another zone conference. And the president showed us a video that was super funny. My companion and I were laughing the entire video. It is the Missionary Parody of the Adele song "Hello". Honestly it is one of the funniest things that I have seen since I have been on my mission. Any missionary or return missionary will appreciate it. 

So this entire week we have been contacting people that live at the very end of our area because the people that live close to us do not seem to be interested in anything that we say. We will contact a bunch of people, but they all say that they dont want us to come by. So we decided to change where we work. So now we walk to the complete oposite side of our area to contact. It is about 40 minutes away if we are walking at missionary pace. But this other area, the people are much more willing to accept us. Yesterday Elder Tellez and I were super excited because we found a super awesome family that is literally the last house on the last street of our area. But they are super awesome and we think that they have a lot of potential to progress. 

Well it is the last week before cambios. This transfer went by super fast. I really like my area and my companion, so we will see what happens next week. Oh and the president told us that the mission is going to recieve 30 sister missionaries!!! that is insane. There are only 45 sister missionaries in our mission right now. It is going to be so great to have more sister missionaries... the only bad thing is that they are going to start sending more missionaries to pueblos. 

Well that is about all for this week. I hope that you have a great time celebrating my BDay. haha. :)  I am super excited to be 20 finally. It is going to feel so great to tell everyone that I am 20 instead of 19. And it is crazy to think that this will be my first Bday away from all of you guys and that I almost have a year in the mission field. The time goes by so dang fast. I still feel like I have so many things that I need to do before my mission ends. 

Love you

Con Amor

Elder Snyder

P.S. check out the video

Week 47: 100 degrees this week!!

My District

Hi 

Well it is getting very hot. I am starting to remember what it was like when I first got here. But I am still scared because it is only going to get a lot hotter!!!  :(

Well this week was interesting. All of our investigators that had attended church before did not go, and all the people who had not attended, went to church. So it was pretty interesting. 

The Salazar family wants to change their house for a house that costs less to rent. And they found a house, the only problem is that it has been abandoned for years. So, they called us on Saturday and asked us if we could help them clean. So we spent all morning on Saturday cleaning the house and the yard. Then when we called at night to organize a ride to go to church they told us that they were not going to go because everyone was super tired from working. So we were super sad when they didnt come to church.

But we had two new people come to church. We had this one old man whose name is Martin come to church. We have been teaching him... the only problem is that he had an accident a few years ago so his learning comprension is a little slow. But he was super excited to come to church with us. We just hope that we can get his wife Maria to come too. Maria always says that she does not have enough time right now, but she is really happy that we are coming to visit her husband. We hope that we can start teaching her soon, so that they can progress together. 

And we had another new investigator come to church. He is a friend of a member. He is 17 years old and he said that he wanted to learn more about the church. He told us that he is catholic and he believes in God, but he just does not agree with a few things in the Catholic church. So we taught him about the restoration of the Gospel and how the Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ. He told us that he was planning on going to church with this family that he is friends with and yesterday he came. He then told us after church that he really liked everything and that he felt something different here. We hope that we can continue teaching him. The only problem is that his family is very Catholic and they may not let him get baptized until he is 18, but he is an awesome guy.

Well aside from it being very hot not too much has changed. Today we did not do anything really special. We just went to downtown and looked at all the little shops. The sad thing is that there is absolutely nothing to do here on Pdays. All museums are closed on mondays and everything else is prohibited by the mission. So we continue looking for new things that we can do each week besides just going to the store and looking at things. 

Well, I loved hearing about your week. I hope that everything is going well back home. I love you all so much. 

con Amor 

Elder Snyder

Morning basketball

These little plates of food are from Martin's wife. She has her own business where she cooks household meals and all the extras she brings home. And now every time we visit she sends us home with a bunch of food. Haha…it is awesome because our dinner is a lot healthier now.  

Week 46: Skyping and smiling!

Well I loved every moment of the skype call. After I finished calling, my mouth was so tired from smiling for an hour straight. haha! It was pretty cool that you could hook up the skype to the TV and it really was awesome to get to see everyone.  And you dont have to worry about me being homesick. I have been very blessed that it isnt really an issue for me. I love being here in Mexico sharing the gospel. I wish that I was having a little bit more success, but I am still super happy regardless. 

Here on the mission I feel like I have discovered a new part of my life that I did not know existed. The only thing I can think about is how I can share the gospel with these people and help our investigators to see the importance of baptism. I feel like I have discovered a whole new purpose to my life. 

Well our ward mission leader is ... inactive. I have never met him before, so we kind of work alone in our ward. Elder Tellez told me that he is like 20 years old and he was going to go on a mission but his stake president told him that he could not go for health reasons. We have started talking with the members more, so we are becoming friends and we hope that they will help us later on. 

I spoke in church on Sunday. I think the ward asks the missionaries to speak every time a new one arrives, so I dont think that I will be speaking again, or at least for a little while. But I actually really like speaking in church now. I get kind of excited that I can teach the ward members and the investigators. 

But everything is going well here in the mission. Keep praying for us and the Salazar family. They are awesome and we need all the help that we can get. We want them to get baptized before the end of the month. But we are going to need a lot of miracles for that to happen. 

Well i love you all so much. Thanks for everything.

Te amo

Week 45: One more week till Mother's day!

Bueno!!!

Well I am super excited for mothers day as well. We will be calling on Sunday, not Tuesday, so we'll have to figure out a time. And that is pretty cool that you got to see my area on Google maps. Our house is pretty much in the corner of our area so we have to walk pretty far to visit some people. But I really like my area, only in Obregón there is a lot of dust. 

So to start off this week we rented a washing machine. Last week we could not find a single member who was home that could let us use their washing machine and we had about two weeks worth of dirty laundry so we had a ton of clothes to wash. Also all of the places that wash your clothes for you are super expensive. So we ended up looking for someone who rents washing machines. We saw a house that had a bunch of washing machines on his porch and asked if he would rent us one. Then after a  bit of bargaining, we got the washing machine for super cheap for the whole month. So we are super stoked. We have been using it pretty much every day haha. 

Well this week we had intercambios and I was so happy when it ended. I went with one of the weirdest people I have ever met in my life. I feel bad for his companion because he is going to develop the patience of the Savior. I barely lasted a day with him, I dont know how his companion is going to last. 

Also this week I did something that I have never done before in my life. I played the piano in sacrament meeting. No one in our ward plays the piano, so I offered to play this sunday. And lets just say that it didnt go as well as I would have hoped. haha. I made quite a few mistakes. I think it had alot to do with not having practiced to much on the keyboard they have at the church. But it turned out alright. I dont think they are going to ask me to play next week or the week after that, but I am going to keep practicing. 

This week we also had another miracle happen. We had a family come to church!!!! A mother, a father, and their 3 kids. They are friends of a recent convert in the church. And she invited them to come. We have not taught them yet but we have a FHE planned with them tonight. I hope that everything goes well and that they can accept the gospel. We have been praying for a miracle that we can have 4 baptisms in May and we feel like this family could be the answer. 

Love you so much 

Let me know what times would be best to call you guys. :)

Elder Snyder

Our Kitchen

The washing machine I rented. Best decision ever. 

Week 44: First week in Sochiloa, Obregon

Hello. 

Well this week was super exciting and yes, Elly is right, you pronounce Elder Tellez´s name like Teyez. He does speak English...After high school he went to san antonio in texas to study english, so he speaks pretty well. Also I dont know if you know, but Mothers day in Mexico is always May 10th. So I am not to sure about when we can call, but I am pretty sure that that day falls on a Tuesday. But in the next zone conference I know that they are going to talk about that.

So, this week was very interesting. First of all, our house is super close to everything. We have a little store that is right in front of our house and we also have a hot dog stand that sells hot dogs for 11 pesos right in front of the house too. We are about 15 minutes away from the mission offices by bus and we live close to the Church. So you know what that means...every morning at 6:00, its Sochiloa A Elders Vs. Sochiloa B Elders at the church. It is super fun. We play basketball for like a half hour or so in the morning, then we shower and eat and study and do all the other fun things that missionaries do. 

Well I feel like we are pretty much starting from scratch here in Sochiloa. Elder Tellez and I started our transfer together with a prayer and a fast that we are going to work as hard as we can and we have asked the Lord to help us find the people that he is preparing to be baptized. We have done alot of walking this week. Probably more than I have ever done in my entire mission. We walked so much that I have started to get blisters. In this area there are hardly any people outside, so when we see someone we take advantage. But we have recieved alot of references this week. We want to start working with the members more in this ward, so we have made plans to make our pastel de galletas marías (the lime cakes) to give to some of the members. Hopefully, we can excite them with the work and they will have more desires to look for people that we can teach and come with us to teach.  Oh, I am the only gringo in the ward haha. So this will be a new experience, but all of the ward members have told me that I speak really good Spanish, but I also think that they just have not had an american in their ward for quite some time haha.

One of the miracles that happened this week was that we were walking (big surprise, I know) and we were so tired of walking that we decided to sit down and rest in front of a house. Then an old woman opened the door to the house and we started to talk to her. She then told us that she was a member of the church and has been inactive for many years due to her health. So she invited us in and we talked for a little bit, then she asked if we could give her a blessing. We then gave her a blessing and she told us that she almost never gets up to check to see who is outside of the house. The chances that we were at that house at that time of day and we decided to stop and rest there are pretty much impossible. And it was so amazing how the Lord puts worthy priesthood holders in the paths of the people who need our priesthood service.

Well I dont have any pictures of the house. Sorry! We had such a busy day today that there was not even time to take pictures. We spent most of the morning cleaning and looking for a member that could help us wash our clothes. Also the assistants called us yesterday and told us that we were going to have interviews with the president today so that only complicated our busy schedule. And when we arrived at the mission offices for our interviews, the president told us that he didnt have us scheduled for interviews. Turns out the APs made a mistake, but the president was like "oh well, I still want to talk with you." He told us that he knew that we were companions in Libertad and that He knows that Sochiloa needs our help. He asked us what we are doing right now and what our goals are for the area. All and all it was a pretty cool talk/interview. 

Then we went shopping. And at the beginning of transfers everyone goes crazy with buying things, because everyone wants to buy things that will last 6 weeks. So we got together with the Sochiloa B Elders to go shopping. Also it turns out that Walmart and Sams are right next to each other like they are in Los Mochis so that was good. So we bought all of our things in bulk at Sams, then all the other things that we needed at Walmart. We ended up getting so many things that we need for our house and food that we wanted to eat for the week. But luckily we planned ahead to call a taxi. So right when we finished shopping, our taxi pulled up and me and Elder Tellez and the Sochiloa B Elders loaded the car and went to our houses. It was so nice to not have to deal with the struggle of taking the bus. And it saves so much time. 

But that is pretty much all that happened this week. I promise that I will send pictures next week. We are still in the process of cleaning. And there was no time to take pictures. But I will take pictures of the house and our morning Basketball games. We could really use your prayers to help us find new people to teach. Also I really do not want to walk as much as we walked last week. Haha!

Love you so much.

Elder Snyder