Week 52: 1 Year Anniversary!!

HOLA,

Well, I can hardly believe that this week I am going to complete a year! It sure does not feel like it. The time seems to go by so fast. The days are long, but the weeks are super short. And alot shorter when you know Español. :) But this is the week that I burn my shirt. woohoo!

So this week was very stressful. As unofficial branch presidents of 4 milpas, we have many responsiblities. This week we had to plan an activity for the extention, assign people to talk, travel 40 min by bike to prepare some people that are going to be baptized, and many other things. When all in all, everything fell through. We had to cancel the activity because it wasnt planned well enough. We didnt have time to ask people to speak in church, so we both spoke, and the people that we were preparing to be baptized were not ready for last week, so they are going to be baptized this week. But it is okay because all this has taught me the importance of planning. It has also taught me how perfect the plan of salvation is. 

Our Heavenly Father created a perfect plan before we came to earth. He chose a Savior to come to the earth and make it possible for EVERYONE to return to the presence of God. That our time here on earth is to help us learn from our mistakes and to become better and that thanks to the Savior, we can start over. I am so grateful that Our Heavenly Father is a much better planner than I am. :)

Well something really funny happened this week. So I always joke aroung with my companion and complain that my bike has so many "sins" because it is constantly needing repair. So this week my bike decided to get "baptized" and get rid of its sins that have been lingering for so long. So in one of our areas there is a channel that runs along the town. It is like 25 feet wide and there are little bridges that you can use to cross the channels. My companion and I always ride across instead of getting off and walking across. So as we were riding my companion suddenly made a sharp turn and started to cross the bridge. But I was not ready for the turn, so I had to take my feet off the pedals to make the turn. I was then on the little wooden bridge without my feet on the pedals just hoping that my momentum would be enough to carry me across. But my bike started to get closer and closer to the edge. When I realized that I was going to fall in, I was almost at the end of the bridge, so I jumped over my bike and let it fall into the channel. So, I made it across the bridge, but my bike did not!! (My companion was dying of laughter at this moment). But wouldn't you know it, since that moment by bike has been free of "sin," and it hasn't had any mechanical problems. haha! Luckily my bike fell pretty close to the edge, so I was able to drag it out of the channel, but it was a pretty funny experience.

It is also starting to get super hot here. We still dont have AC, and we are waiting for someone that is willing to come all the way out to where we live. We now sleep with 3 fans. One in the window that lets in fresh air, and one fan in front of each bed, But it is still super hot!! We have goals to get it fixed by this week.We are also excited because Arely and Metzly are both going to be baptized this Saturday, so pray that they can be ready and that we can have all the legal issues worked out.

Oh and I almost forgot we have had another major issue this week!! Everyone here in our little pueblo decided that they dont have to pay their water bill and as a result we dont have water. The water system here is different. There are no meters that check how much water you use, so everyone pays the same bill each month because there is one pump that pumps water to all of the houses. So everyone has not been paying their bills for the past few months and the people who run the pumps dont have enough money to pay their electric bill. So the electric company cut off the electricity. And if there is no electricity the pumps dont work. So the water company decided to do something very sneaky. They decided to cut into the wires and steal electricity so that they could run the pumps. But they would only run the pumps in the morning and at night, so that the electric company would not notice. Well, they noticed, and now the pumps are stopped for good and no one has any water. Today we went to Mochis (an hour away by bus) to wash our clothes. Elder Remirez and I both served in Libertad so we went to our friend Hermana Cecy who lent us her washing machine to wash our clothes. We also showered in los mochis at another missionary apartment. Yesterday we went to the channel that is a good walk from the house, filled up buckets with water from the channel, and carried them to the house. And we have used that to go to the bathroom, but we are not sure what we are going to do to shower this week. On sunday, we had to shower with buckets. Luckily, we had water stored in the buckets from earlier because the water comes and goes very often, but now we dont have anything. And it is impossible to wash the dishes right now also. haha. We have no idea when the water will come back, but we hope that it is soon. It is kind of impossible to live without water. So please pray that we will have water soon. Everyone is so unhappy with the water situation here. The government says that it is a violation of human rights to deny us water,  but they still have not done anything about it. 

Well that is that... we dont have water or AC, but the mission is still super awesome and I love it :)

Love you so much

Elder Snyder

Week 51: Life in 4 Milpas

Hola

4 Milpas is pretty awesome. It is alot different than any type of missionary work that I have done so far. We mostly work with the members... trying to reactivate them and to teach their friends. Pretty much everyone here has spoken with the missionaries before, so it is a little hard to find new people to teach. But that is what happens when you are in a small town and the missionaries have been there for 4 years. They have basically spoken with everyone. 

Elder Ramirez and I get along pretty well. He is pretty funny and we both make the same types of jokes. In this area we live in a house. The house is pretty nice and we just finished cleaning it today. It has not been cleaned in a long time, so that is why I have not taken pictures yet, but next week I will send pictures. The only problem here is that they always cut our water. We have no idea why but suddenly when we try to use the washing machine (that we rent) there is no water. Or when we try to use the sink there is no water. So we fill buckets with water, so that we have water to wash our hands and stuff. But it usually goes out during the day and then at night we'll have water again, so it is not a big problem. But today there was no water in the morning, so I took my first shower with a bucket. It was an interesting experience that makes me grateful for shower-heads. We still havent gotten the AC fixed, but Elder Lowry gave us 2 fans that they dont use in their house, so now it is alot easier to sleep at night. But fixing the AC is our number one priority this week!! 

That is so awesome that school is out and it is summer for everyone. I am not too excited about summer because of the heat, but I know that everyone else is. 

So we are 70 percent sure that we are going to have a baptism this week. There are 2 girls that are 9 and 10 years old. Their names are Aureli and Metzly. Their mom is inactive, but we are working on that right now. The problem is that they live like an hour away from our house and their mom is never home, but last week we had some luck and we found her for the first time and we were able to teach her. 

We also have an old investigator that has a baptismal date. She aways attends church, but she has not made the decision to be baptized yet but she has a date for july 9th. Also we just received a reference from the branch that we are part of that someone wants us to come and teach them, so we are really excited to start with them. But we dont have too many details so I will let you know more next week. 

Love you all so much!

Elder Snyder

Elder Ramirez

Elder Lowry and all of his "sons" (the missionaries he has trained). Well, one of them is a "step-son" but it still counts.