Week 65: Service Project and a Screaming Pig!

The Mexico Moon

Hola 

So yeah, this week went pretty well. We started the week off with exchanges with the DL. Our district leader´s name is Elder Arnold and he is super tall. We also always tease him by calling him "Hey Arnold!" like in the tv show. But the exchanges were good. This is the first time that Elder Arnold has been in a branch so he got to know that the work is a little different. Also our district is made up of branches and Elders. I really miss having sisters in the district because they bring alot more order to the meetings. With just Elders it ends up being a lot more joking around. But I have been in districts with just Elders pretty much my whole mission, so I am kind of used to it. 

Then on Thursday we had a branch activity that we organized to clean the casa de oración because the front and back was overgrown by weeds. We had the district president's family come to help and our branch president came with his truck and we filled the entire bed of his truck. So now it looks alot better.

Then on Saturday we killed the District President's pig. Yeah thats right...we killed this huge pig! The president called us in the morning and told us to come over because they were going to kill the pig. Then when we got their he asked us who wanted to do the honors. We were both unsure of who was going to do it. But when they pulled the pig out of the pen it just started screaming! I did not know that pigs could scream so loud! Honestly, it kind of scared me, so I backed out and let my companion attempt to kill it. First Elder Ramirez hit the pig in the head with the back of an axe but he did not do it hard enough so the pig did not die on the first swing. Then the District presidents son took the axe and hit the pig alot harder and it collapsed on the ground, but it still wasnt dead.  I'll spare you the rest of the details, but Elder Ramirez and the District President's two sons all helped to kill the pig. Then for the next few days we were always invited over to help eat it. 

But on a happier note, we now have 6 hours of church. We start in the morning in Rosales and at 3 in the afternoon in 4 milpas. It was the first Sunday that I wasnt going to have to speak in church. But when the Branch president was announcing the speakers he looked right at me and said "we will also here a message from Elder Snyder about baptism." So I had to prepare my talk while the other speakers were speaking. They only gave me like 15 minutes to prepare but I am kind of used to speaking each sunday so it was not to difficult. But I know that the Lord helped me alot because I could just feel the right words come to my mind as I was speaking. It was a pretty cool feeling. Then we ate lunch with the branch presidents family and then we went to 4 milpas to start the next meeting. 

We also had an investigator in each meeting so that was a plus. I dont know if it is just me being excited about the investigators or that I can feel the spirit alot stronger when there is an investigator present at church. Yussen is one of our investigators. He is the boyfriend of one of the members in Rosales. He is 24 and he is really smart. He is studying a second career right now. He has always wanted to listen to the missionaries but the missionaries in mochis haven't been able to follow up on our references, so we decided to teach him in the house of his girlfriend. He is really awesome, he has already read the book of mormon because his girlfriend gave it to him about a year ago and he has a baptismal date for 22 of october. 

We also had another investigator in 4 milpas. Her name is Dolores and this is the first time she has gone to church and she came because the schedule changed from 10 to 3. But we think that she felt the spirit. We have been trying to get her to church for quite a while so we hope she will start to progress a little more quickly. 

But that is about it. Not to much this week but still many adventures in 4 milpas. And we heard that another hurricane is coming so I hope that does not mess things up for us too much. 

Love you thanks so much for all the advice and keeping me updated. Have a great week. 

Con Amor 

Elder Snyder

Our Service Project: Clearing all the overgrown weeds from our little Casa de Oración.

Week 64: District Conference in El Fuerte and a Hurricane

Riding in the back of a truck to get to our Saturday priesthood meeting for District Conference.

Hola!

Well this week a ton of things happened. On tuesday we were hit by a hurricane in los mochis durning our district meeting. And we had to go to downtown to pick up the results of a medical test for Elder Ramirez. But all of the streets in mochis were flooded. All the streets were like rivers. So we started out climbing over cars, riding in the back of trucks to avoid getting our shoes soaked, but in the end we had to walk through all of the water :( . I put a bunch of videos on dropbox so I hope that you can all watch them. 

Then this week we spent pretty much the whole time helping the members to get ready for the district conference in El Fuerte, which is like 1 and half hours from where we are. So everyone needed all lot of faith in order to attend. So we hardly had time to visit our investigators. But we had a miracle. We were able to help like 60 people attend the conference. That is more people than we have ever had in any of our sacrament meetings. We had many inactives and less actives attend. It was pretty great. We filled the bus so much that there was not enough room for everyone (us) to sit. 

On Saturday we went to the Saturday session of priesthood. It was pretty interesting because we had quite a few people from the branch, but only one person in the the branch has a car. So we all had to fit into his truck. So we had 6 (very large men) inside the truck and 5 people (including us) in the bed. So we had like an hour ride in the back of a truck to get to El Fuerte. It was pretty funny when we arrived and we saw President Myers and his family in their car changing their clothes. And when they saw us arriving in the back of a truck they just smiled and asked how everything was going (because they know that we dont have that many options). 

And this week, our new branch president has started making changes. He is giving everyone a calling. He has been visiting the members. He is going to give us a mission leader (Finally!!!!!!). We are finally going to have branch counsel. And we are changing the time of the branch and the extension so that we can attend the 2 meetings. In Rosales it is going to start at 9 and in 4 milpas it is going to start at 3. We are going to be like the catholics and have mutiple meetings one the same day haha. 

But that is about it for all the things that happened this week. I love you so much. Miss you alot. cant wait until christmas :) 

te amo

Elder Snyder

Elder Wahlstrom and I…He's such a great guy and one of the hardest working missionaries I know. 

Week 63: Zone Conference and Salmanila (or however you spell it)

Zone Conference Games

Hola!

This week didnt go too well because my companion got sick. He has been sick since the last Sunday. So in the beginning of the week we could not work as hard as we would have liked. And on Thursday, after our zone conference we went to the hospital to get him checked out. So then they told him that he should not have been out working and now he needs to rest for 7 days. So we didnt leave for one day and the rest we just took them really easy so we didnt really do much as far as our indicators are concerned. And today we went to the hospital again for a follow up appointment. They said that he has Salmanila (or however you spell it). And tomorrow we have to go back to the hospital in the morning so that he can have tests done. Hopefully he gets better soon. 

So we had a zone conference. And it was pretty awesome once again. I love President Myers and his wife. They talked about how to teach with the spirit and what we need to do. They showed us alot of ways that we can use to teach better. One of the things that they showed was that when we are sharing something important like the first vision, we need to talk alot slower so that the people can concentrate on the words and what they are feeling. Also that when we share our testimonies, we dont need to use a bunch of words. It should just be a simple and powerful testimony. Then we had a practice using all the things that we had learned and I could definitely feel a difference. 

This week we have a district conference, and we are really excited because we get to travel to El Fuerte. And I believe that a district conference is like a stake conference only for branches. I will be sure to let you all know how it goes. 

This sunday was a little sad because only 11 people came to church this week. And after sacrament meeting the other half went home. :( We only had 5 people for our 2nd hour and one of them was Maria our recent convert. Hopefully everything will get better with our new branch president. But after church we had a great experience when we brought the sacrament to an elderly member that could not attend. We got to her house and she didnt have any bread so we had to use a tortilla. :) But we could tell that she was so grateful for our visit. She had tears in her eyes after we had blessed and given her the sacrament. It really helped to strengthen my testimony of the sacrament and how valuable it is. I wish I would have had a better attitude when I was a priest and had the prevelige of bringing the sacrament to the people who were not able to partake of it at church. 

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

Con Amor

Elder Snyder

Week 62: An Iguana, A Giant Toad, and the Most Humble, Faithful Saints I've Ever Met

Hey

Thanks so much for your letter. I love hearing about what is going on at home. And believe it or not I was really interested in your washing machine story. Because I finally understand what it is like to have a crappy washing machine. We finally got our washing machine repaired. And it is not even ours, we rent it for 100 pesos each week. For the past 2 or 3 weeks the washing machine would not suck out the water, so every cycle we had to drop the hose, let gravity take out the water, then put the hose back in place and fill it up again. On top of that it still shocks us from time to time, but here in Mexico, we have limited options. :)

Oh and that picture I sent last week that you thought was "the District Presidents family" is actually a picture of another one of the families in the extension. The mom is a single mother of 5 children, 4 girls and 1 little boy. Her husband is in prision and never accepted the gospel. They are probably the poorest people I have ever met, but they are always so happy. Their house does not have power or water, half of the kids sleep on the floor, half of the house has no floor, and they feed us every saturday, even if their mom is at work. Also she is having a really hard time with her oldest daughter... So many trials for this poor little family, but they make the long 25 minute walk to the casa de oración in the hot sun every Sunday. 

Also this week they released our branch president. Noooooo! We were so worried because the District president said they were thinking of putting us in charge of the branch and the extension. But we are very happy with the new results. They have called the district president's counselor to be the new branch president. It is kind of hard for the district president because now he does not have any counselors, but it works out for us. Because the new president already has ideas of how to help the branch (that is because he has lots of experience: he has been the branch president of rosales, the district president, the branch president of rosales again, then a counselor in the district presidency, and he is again branch president).

This week we did a lot of work with less actives. Because in the branches, the members can be active members one week and then inactive the next…so many surprises in the branches out here. We dont have too many investigators progressing right now, but we know that will all change. All the recent converts here have been references from members, and in this branch, I have never seen members so excited to invite their friends to listen to us or to give a book of mormon to someone. For people that have so little, they truly understand the importance of sharing the best thing they have: their happiness by living the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Other than that nothing too interesting happened this week. But I will give you a list of all the things that to us are kind of normal, but to everyone else is not. 

They cut the water one day, so we had to shower with the water that we had saved in buckets.

We found an iguana at the house of one of the recent converts here in the area. 

We found the world's largest toad!

 And we chased a giant lizard to the edge of a dam and when it realized that it could not escape, it made an elegant swan dive into the water and disappeared. 

But that is all. Love you all so much too. Elder Ramírez is getting ready to go home and it makes me start thinking what it is going to be like to get home... what it is going to be like to see everyone in the airport, and most of all I am looking forward to the moment when I see you mom, and I get to give you a great big hug. Miss you so much also. Maybe not as much as you miss me ;) but I still miss you a lot. Time really does go by fast in the mission. Already a year down and a little less than a year left. Pretty crazy. 

Love you all so much!

Con Amor

Elder Snyder

P.S. If you want I can buy shirts here in mexico. They are cheaper here I think. But if not I would love some more long sleeve shirts. That way I dont have to worry about putting on sunscreen haha. 

Also if it is possible, I was wondering if you could send me a bunch of the cheap CTR rings in spanish to give out to the kids here. Also they make wrist bands of CTR in spanish that are pretty cool. One of the missionaries here has them and we are always asking him for some so that we can give them out to people.  

Did you see my shirt burning video?

Week 61: Maria's Baptism and Transfers!

Maria's Baptism

Hey

Well we had transfers and to answer the question that everyone has been waiting for, I am going to finish the mission of Elder Ramirez. In other words, we stayed the same. And this is the last transfer for Elder Ramirez, so I am going to be here in 4 Milpas for at least 3 more months. But these last 3 months have gone by super fast. 

I also have some very good news. Maria was baptized and comfirmed this week. wooooooo! It truly was a miracle. Thank you so much for all the people that prayed for her. This week when we met with her she said that she still was having trouble receiving a testimony that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. Then we met with her again on Wednesday and still we did not see much progress. So we thought, we are just going to have her baptismal interview and see how things go. So on thursday we had intercambios with our DL and he was able to do the interview. And I was honestly so nervous because I had no idea what was going to happen. Then when I came back into the room our DL said to me, "Maria has a question for you." And I just thought, "oh no, she still has doubts about Joseph Smith." Then our DL said, "Maria wants to know what time her baptism is on Saturday." It was such a miracle. Thanks again to everyone back home who prayed for her and helped her to have the courage to make this decision. 

So Maria wanted to have her baptism at 11 in the morning. So my companion and I had to go to the casa de oración at 6 to start filling up the font. Then we went home, showered, and got ready for the day. It takes like 3 hours to fill up the font, so we went back to the casa de oración at 9. But when we went to go check on the font the entire back room was flooded! The font had overflowed and was spilling water all over the place! So to start, we turned off the water and used the hose to start a siphon to take all the excess water out of the font. Then we had to deal with the room that had about a half inch of water in it. This room is the lowest room in the house and you have to go up two steps to go out the backdoor, so we could not just sweep the water out of the room. So Elder Ramírez grabbed the dust pan (for those of you who don't know, the dust pans here in Mexico are metal boxes cut in half diagonally and attached to a wooden stick. It looks kind of like a huge golf club.) And with the dust pan, he started to golf all the water out of the back room. So we kind of had a system going where one person would sweep the water in front of the door and the person with the dust pan would golf all the water out. Then after about a half hour of that, with mops and fans we were able to dry the rest. 

Then we had problems finding someone who could baptize Maria. Obviously, we could do it but we wanted someone from the branch to do it because the missionaries come and go, but the members are always there to love and support. But everyone in Rosales told us that they were not going to be able to come (ahhhh) and one of the priests here has not come to church in 4 weeks. So we asked the District President to do the baptism, but he called us like 20 minutes before to tell us that he could not find his white pants. So after all that, I ended up being the one who got to baptize her. We were also so happy because when she showed up we could tell that she was excited for her baptism. So everything turned out okay. 

Then on Sunday, she was comfirmed by the district president. We are so lucky to have the District president in our area because his family is the only family that comes every Sunday. But when we were sustaining Maria, the President stood up and taught us a very important lesson about what it means to sustain someone. He said that sustaining does not mean that we simply agree with what is happening, but that we are comitting to act. He basically said everything that Alma taught in Mosiah 18. That by sustaining Maria, we are willing to bear her burdens so that they may be light, mourn when she mourns, comfort her when she is in need of comfort, and be there for her at all times and at all places. He reminded us of the covenant that we all made when we were baptized and that is what it means to sustain someone. Also he taught me a very important lesson of what to do when members do not come to church. I used to always think that if active members miss a day of church that it does not matter. That we dont have to worry because they will come next week and I dont want to bother them. But he taught us that if someone does not come one sunday, it is because something is wrong. They did not come because something happened. And it is our job to be worried and find out if everything is all right. 

But this week and transfer went by really quickly. Oh and I almost forgot. It has been raining here all week and I dont know if any of you remember, but we dont have any paved roads here!!! So we have been having alot of fun walking and riding our bikes in the mud. We have to rinse all the mud off of our pants at night so that we can use them again the next day. Also I have given up keeping my shoes clean but Elder Ramirez has not quit yet haha. 

Love you all so much. Thanks so much for all your prayers. They really do help. This baptism would not have been possible if not for all of your faith and prayers. 

con amor

Elder Snyder

A Family in our branch extension. 

As we were cleaning the house today…this is what I found. :)

Week 60: A new family and a baptism this Saturday, hopefully!

Hey 

So, we still have a baptism planned for this Saturday…the day before transfers. We really hope that M. gets baptized. She comes to church more often than many of the members sometimes. She accepts all the commandments and the book of mormon and everything. The only problem is that she does not want to commit herself completely. She has a fear that she wont be able to fufill what is required after she is baptized. And she uses the excuse alot that she doesnt know why she has to be baptized again, even though we have explained it 100 different times in 100 different ways. She just needs a little inspiration to know that it is the right thing to do. 

I love President Myers more and more. This week we had our zone conference with him and a lot of things have changed in the mission. First, we are not going to have zone meetings anymore, which were like zone conferences only without the president. And I believe that is because in this mission, sometimes when the zone leaders are in charge, things don't always get communicated properly. So that is all going to be solved with the president in every meeting. Also we are now allowed to drink soda again. Woooooooo! I am so happy about this because sometimes soda is all people have and it was really hard to turn down their kindness. Yeah, president Myers says that the soda rule is not important to him. He just doesnt want us to drink water from the tap (like all the missionaries do in mochis). He says that he doesnt want to make a rule for everything that we can and cant do. He wants us to use our agency and follow the promptings of the spirit. 

But our Zone Conference was super fun. In the morning we played water balloon volleyball. Me and my companion brought our matching shirts. Then we had our normal meeting. It was also cool because President Myers called Elder Ramirez and I up to the front because he wanted to tell everyone how he first met us. He told everyone about how Monday night he was in his counselor´s truck in 4 milpas, when his counselor said, "look there are the missionaries." then he saw Elder Ramirez and I racing by on our bikes because we had to pay our rent. Then his councelor called us over to his truck and Pres. Myers got out of the car and gave us a big hug. Then the president told everyone that he felt like we had just gotten out of the shower because we were so soaked in sweat. Pretty nasty. It was pretty funny. 

Well this week we found a family of investigators!!!! We almost could not believe it because Elder Ramirez and I have not taught an entire family in a while. They seem really awesome. They live right in front of the Catholic church. haha. But we are not to worried, we have the truth. :) We hope they progress because their family has 2 sons and they both are like 20 years old. So we are hoping to get some future priesthood here in the branch extention. 

Love you all,

Elder Snyder

Check out the neck tan line! haha!

Week 59: Never a calm week in 4 Milpas!

This picture is kind of blurry, but this is a huge bug in my hand.

Hey

So, this week was another interesting one. We can never have a calm week! So to start off we when to Mochis on our pday to buy food and to take out money from the bank. But they did not deposit all of our money, so we decided to wait for the zone meeting to take out all of our money. So we went to Walmart and Sams and bought our things with the money we had left over, and when we got back home we realized that we only had enought money to buy water and the bus ride back to mochis. But then the zone leaders called and said that we were not going to have the zone meeting this week. So we had to go almost the whole week without money. On Friday, we learned from our DL that there is an atm in Mochicauhi, so we went there because our landlord was bugging us for the rent and we needed money. So that was a little challenge we had. 

So this sunday many things happened. There were very few that attended church this week. There were 3 families that came, and 1 of the 3 are investigators. It was Trini and her family. She is pretty much more active than the members here. And it was testimony meeting and Trini and her mom (who is not a member either) both shared their testimonies haha. But we are pretty sure that Maria (trini´s mom) is going to get baptized this 20th of August. She does not have any major obsticles that keep her from getting baptized.

So then later that night, we found out that the branch president in Rosales wants to throw in the towel. That he asked president Myers if he can be released from his office. And it is really sad because there is no one else in Rosales that is qualified enough to be branch president. But we are going to see what happens. 

I would like to share the testimony of the district president that was in our meeting  here in 4 milpas. He told us that his whole life he has never had anything. That at age 9, he had to start working because their was no one in his family that could provide. And that many of his brothers and sisters have died. He said that without the gospel he would have absolutely nothing in his life. That he would never have been able to find his purpose and happiness in life if it had not been for the gospel, and that now he has a large family through the church. Then he started to name all of the little branches in the district and said that all of the members are his family and that he loves each and every one of them so much. 

And it is truly amazing that here in 4 Milpas, where the people have almost nothing, yet they feel so rich and happy with the gospel. I have seen how priceless it is to obtain knowledge in this life. And how this knowledge helps us so much to progress in this life. We have so many investigators that do not know how to read and it is really hard for them to pay attention. It really is an impeeding factor in their spiritual progress. I know that the promise in Matthew is fulfilled here, "where there are 2 or 3 gathered in my name, there I am."

Thanks so much for your letters and the pics 

Love you all so much

Elder Snyder