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

Week 11 - The Burning of the Shirt!

This week Elder Lowry had his mission B-day where he completed one year of his mission. So, yes, we burned a shirt in honor of his one year mark, but it was so much better than we could have ever imagined. So we went to a member's house to do it, and we dropped the shirt off in the middle of the day and Elder Lowry gave Carlos and Lolita 15 pesos to buy a liter of gasoline. We invited the hermanas in our ward to join us as well. So when we got back to the house at night to commence with the burning, the hermanas and Carlos and Lolita had put the shirt on a broom stick and had stuffed the shirt with newspaper. And it got all decorated like you saw in the picture.  We then poured a bit of gas on the shirt and made a little trail that lead to the shirt so that we could light it. Then when we lit the gas, the most magnificent thing happened. Instead of the shirt just burning, it exploded!! It was literally gone within seconds! 

Also this week, we found a man named Javier. He was sitting in a chair on the corner of a block and we decided to talk to him. He wanted to know if he would be able to see his mother who had passed away again, so we left him with a Plan of Salvation pamphlet and set up an appointment for the next day. The only problem was that he said that his wife is very catholic and that she does not like any other church. But he said that we could meet with him the next day because his wife would be visiting her mom. So we then had a great lesson with him the next day. He asked a bunch of great questions and when we finished our lesson we asked him if he would pray to know if these things are true. He then said, no, that he doesnt need to because he KNOWS these thing that we taught were true. It was so awesome. We then talked a little about the restoration of the gospel and gave him a pamphlet to read. But when we tried to set up another appointment with him, he told us that he didnt want to meet because he didnt want to upset his wife. We then asked him if he would want to meet somewhere else, but he concluded that he would call us when we could teach again if his wife was out. We were both like dang... we were so close. 

I wish that I had more to tell you, but that was basically it. I am so happy that Uncle Chris and family came for a visit. It's about time!!  haha! Thanks so much for the pictures. I loved seeing all the pictures of the family and especially the one of the sunset on the ocean. It just makes me smile for some reason.  It wasnt until I got here and started teaching the plan of salvation that I realized what an amazing gift the plan of happiness is for us. That we can live with our families forever and the happiness and hope it brings us. I just wish that I could say things like this in Spanish when I'm teaching lessons. I hope to be able to communicate my emotions with the people soon because now I just feel like I am saying words and they just nod their head saying yup like they dont really care what I have to say. But I am still trying really hard to learn the language. And I am hoping that it will come with time and prayer.

I hope that everything is going well back home. Tell everyone that I love them so much.

Love

Elder Snyder

Week 10 - Topolobampo and Paul's Baptism

Paul's Baptism

Hola!

So this week was actually pretty fun. 

I got to start of the week by going to Topolobampo for inter cambios (exchanges). And I was super excited to go there because I got to be near the ocean. Topo is a pretty nice pueblo. It is shaped kind of like a bowl. Our house was on one rim of the bowl and our investigators were always on the opposite side of the bowl.

One of the best parts was that I was participating alot more in the lessons because I could actually understand the people of Topo. For some reason all the people there speak very clearly even though it is a very poor pueblo. But it was super fun to be able to live in a different house and be in a different area. The only thing that I did not like were the cucarachas. There were always a bunch of cucarachas in the house and I would always see them at night when I was too tired to kill them. I remember getting a drink and seeing one of them run across the counter at night. But all and all Topo was a lot of fun. It is about 45 minutes from Los Mochis so we had to take two buses to get there. 

This week we had zone meeting and it was awesome because we got to have the mission president at our zone meeting. One of my favorite things about our president is that he knows everyones´ name without having to look at our tags. So he was able to talk to all of us and call us by name, and I was really impressed with that. But our meeting was about how we can teach in the manner of the Lord. I was able to realize that we are Christ's representitives and because we represent Him, we have to try and teach in the way that He would.

So I am alot more confident in my Spanish than I used to be. In zone meeting, I was able to tell everyone what our investigators are stuggling with and afterwards the sisters said that my Spanish is very good. All of them said that I am learning really fast, but I know that I owe all that to the Lord and his help to learn this language.

Elder Lowry gave me some good advice. He said that if I don't know what I am going to say, I should just open my mouth and start talking. Because if I am prompted by the spirit to talk then I will receive help with what I am supposed to say. And I know this is true because I have done it multiple times throughout this week. I can actually understand the people fairly well, at least enough to be able to follow a conversation and ask questions to see if they understand.

We are in the Macapule ward and we have another set of sisters that helps to cover the area of the ward because the boundries are huge. And yes, we do have cell phones. Everyone in the mission has cell phones. It is actually really funny because the people here all have two phones. They have one really cheap one that they use for calling and then they have a smartphone that doesn't have any service but they use it as a computer because it is way cheaper. 

Paul's baptism went really well. However, Elder Lowry and I had to scrub the font before because the last ward that used it didn't empty all the water, so there was mold all over the bottom and it smelled like death. So that took like an hour and then we had to wait for it to fill up before we could continue with our day. But the baptism went well. His brother-in-law baptized him and the only thing that was disappointing was that we put the baptism at 3 so that his mom could come and then the day before, when she was signing his permission to be baptized, she said that she wouldn't be able to come. That night everyone called us asking if we could change the baptism to 5 instead of 3, so we did. And on top of all that, we did not have comida because the sister that was going to feed us was sick. But then we had a little miracle. As we were walking with plans of basically fasting all day, we visited a less active member and as we were leaving she told us to come back to have comida with her. We were so grateful for that.  

Also yesterday, I had to give a talk and because I literally had no time to write it I only had less than half a page of bullet points prepared. But I had faith that I would recieve help in my talk to know what to say. And it was true. I went up and was actually able to give a decent talk to the members. I could tell that I was being inspired with what I should say because I have never spoken that long continuosly in Spanish. :) After my talk, all the ward members said that I did a very good job and Elder Lowry was also impressed. He said that I had said pretty much everything perfect in my talk. 

So, my talk was about "el obra de salvación" or the work of salvation. And it started with preaching the gospel. Now the most obvious part of this is that the missionaries teach. But the point is to recognize that the people in the ward are supposed to be buscadores or searchers to find people for the missionaries to teach. One of our mission rules is that everytime we enter a house we have to ask if their is anyone that they believe should hear this message. Because in all missions the area is too big for the missionaries to find everyone and we need the help of the members. 

The next part was about perfecting the saints and how we need to do all we can to be converted so that we can strengthen others. Especially in Mexico, there are so many people who get baptized, but then later they forget why they got baptized and the feelings they had to know its true, so they fall away. We spend alot of time with the less actives in our ward so whenever you have the opportunity to help strengthen someone... do it. I like to think about the example of the Savior. After he died on the cross...a lot of us forget that for those three days before he was resurrected, he was ministering to the people in the spirit world! He never stops working to do his father's will. He is our inspiration that our work is never finished and that we can always do more. 

And this leads in to the last part of the "obra" which is the work for the dead. To find names and people that need their ordanances done in the temple. Just because we may not think there is work that we can do here there is always work that needs to be done for those that have passed on. 

So that was my talk. I don't really remember everything I said, but it went something like that. I am healthy and well. We are still looking for new invesigators to teach but we know that we are going to find someone this week. I love you all and wish you all the best. 

love 

Elder Snyder

Topolobampo

The apartment with the cucarachas at Topolobampo