Week 53: Arely and Metzly's Baptism

Arely and Metzly Baptism

Hello,

Dont worry I did not die. Sorry to scare you all about the water situation but right after we finished writing, we went outside and saw someone watering their dirt (oh yeah everyone here waters their dirt, it does not make sense because they say that it is so the wind does not pick up so much dust, but that only works for like 5 minutes because afterwards it is dry again.) But after we saw that, we realized that the water was back on. And we are happy because we have had water all this week. :)

Sorry I didnt write yesterday, I had to go to Guaymas to renew my visa. So they got all the missionaries from my generation together for one day. Everyone who did not live in Obregon got on a bus on Sunday, and we traveled to Obregon and stayed at the Asistants´ house. Then monday morning, we got up early to travel to Guaymas which is outside of the mission boarders so it was kind of an adventure. It was also super fun to see everyone from my generation and to ask all of them how it is going. Then afterwards they sent us all back to our areas. We got back to Los Mochis at like 9 at night, and at that time their were no buses to take us to our area, so we stayed with the Elders from Macapule...My very first area. It was a super long day and I was super tired. The house in Macapule is also super small for 2 Elders and with 4 Elders it is just insane. To sleep we pushed the two beds together and we all slept on the 2 beds. 

But I want to tell you all that Arely and Metzly got baptized! I got to baptize Metzly and my companion baptized Arely. (Metzly is the shorter one). But the baptism went really well. We had to go to Los Mochis to baptize them because their is no font in Rosales. But everything went super well. 

I also burned my shirt, but I will send that video next week. It was pretty awesome. 

I hope everyone has a great time in Utah and at the reunion. 

Love you all,

Elder Snyder

The Burning of the Shirt

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.

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.