Week 23: Cold Water for My Broken Corazon

Photo shoot at the only view in our area

SO WUS GOOD YALL

This week has been quite the week. We really are looking for ways to have fun around here because it is sooooo cold nowadays. 

We had Zone Conference this week, but it was all over Zoom, so we actually had Zoom Conference. There were some really good talks from different missionaries throughout the mission, and President and Sister Treadway spoke too and they were great as always. President Treadway spoke on basically his ideas on how to simply live a happy life, and it was cool because it wasn't just about straight missionary work like it normally is. It was kind of sad though because Zone Conference is normally when you get to see all the homies from the mission, but we just sat on our couch and watched it in the living room. In our suits haha. We were okay though, it was still a really great Zone Conference. 

We were finally able to hear back from Maria this week! She has been really busy with her job of course, but she and her new husband now have been looking for a house too, so they've been busy with that. So the only person we're teaching might be moving! Yay! (that is sarcasm, just so we're clear) We're meeting with her tomorrow though so hopefully that will go well. We will just have to see where that goes...

We've been doing a lot of contacting and just knocking doors and meeting people this week, which is always interesting because you never know what you're going to get when you knock a door. We've met a lot of really cool people though and people are usually pretty nice to us. Not a lot of people that are interested in the gospel, but it has been fun. 

So Elder Dieker and I don't actually live in our area, and we have to bike up a fat hill just to get into our area every day. And it has been very cold and snowy the last couple days, and I am shivering sitting in my apartment thinking about biking up that hill later today as I write this. Anyway, Elder Dieker decided to name the hill "Big Donna," and we only refer to the hill as Big Donna now. We also made a scoreboard of us against Big Donna on how many times we have conquered her. Big Donna gets a point when we get a ride into the area from the Elders we live with who have a car. Attached is a picture of us with our scoreboard. 

As for the food this week, we decided to not eat out this week and do our own cooking and that has been fun too. We've been doing a lot of cooking together as a group of 4 elders. Elder Thomas makes some really bomb fried rice, and Elder Dieker and I made fancy nachos too. We did go to In-n-Out today though which was amazing as usual. We do have plans to go to Chick-fil-a this week too....

Lately, I've been thinking about how it's really important to keep in mind that a mission is so much more than just knocking doors, Area Book, and talking to people that don't really want to talk to you. There is so much for us all to learn about the gospel, about Jesus Christ, and about ourselves that I feel like you can really only learn with an experience like this. As a missionary, I really only get a small glimpse into what Jesus' life was like. Jesus spent 100% of his time teaching the gospel and serving others, and I at least am trying to do that to the best of my abilities. Jesus certainly suffered a lot more than I ever will have to, but because of his sacrifice, I am able to be strengthened through the hard things in my life because Jesus has done it all before.  

Anyway, that was kind of the week. For reading to the bottom, you get to hear about the subject line, hehe. So Elder Carlin always plays Christian rap in the car, and he always plays a song that says "cold water for my broken heart" like 98,3347 times. Now, my companion, Elder Dieker, and Elder Thomas are both originally assigned to Spanish speaking missions internationally, so they like to put Spanish words into random sentences to speak some funny Spanglish. So we all like saying "cold water for my broken corazon" all the time just to troll Elder Carlin, haha. Anyway, it really isn't that funny, but that joke has persisted the whole time we've all been together so it at least can last. 

I love you all! Have an awesome week!

Elder Snyder 

More from the photo shoot

The scoreboard against "Big Donna"

Week 22: Just Another Day in Paradise

Kamusta kamo?!? 

Imagine serving your mission in a place named after a major figure from the Book of Mormon. Not a lot of missionaries get to do that I guess, unless you serve in Nephi, UT. haha!

Anyway, this was a good week. Elder Dieker and I are really starting to move past the whole whitewashing thing and are starting to just work now. Crazy to think we've only been here for 3 weeks, but it's also already been 3 weeks. We're halfway through the transfer, which is insane. 

We did a lot of member messages this week, and a lot of contacting too. We got a new member message from President Treadway recently too, and it is really centered on using the Book of Mormon for missionary work. The Book of Mormon really is the Lord's tool for the gathering of Israel in our modern time, and that's why it is so important to use it as much as we can. I love telling people about the Book of Mormon, because it is such a powerful manifestation of the restoration of the gospel. In order for the restoration to really be valid, there had to be something new. There had to be a new thing the Lord could use to distinguish his true church on the earth, and we are blessed to have the Book of Mormon as a means of clarifying truths that were lost over time. 

I know you all saw this coming, but there is a recurring theme in a lot of my emails lately that I have to stick with: food. We went to a lot of the usual places, but also tried some new places too. Don't worry though, this coming we're planning on only eating out once, because we need to save our money a little better haha. We went to Costco a couple times this week for lunch,  Don Joaquin's again, a Thai food place, Chip cookies, this dope chicken place called Super Chix for pday today (shoutout to Brother Cobabe from online MTC for that recommendation), and Domino's for dinner one night too. We actually had a gift card for Domino's but as we were walking in this guy offered to pay for us, and then the manager gave us half off and told us to go crazy haha. We had quite the feast that night. 

Many of you probably heard about the missionary in Arkansas who passed away in a car accident. It was really tragic, and it turns out he was from Lehi, and the funeral service was held at a church building just up the street from where we live. We heard Elder Andersen from the Quorum of the 12 spoke at it too. Anyway, after the funeral they had a procession down 900 North to the Lehi Cemetery, and President Treadway thought it would be cool to have some missionaries along the street at the procession, so the whole Lehi zone got to go to the funeral procession. We just kind of stood out on the street for a bit, but it was still a cool experience to be able to at least be a little part of honoring Elder Jake Smith. 

Also, this week I had an interview with President Treadway, and he said he knows as much as I do about missionaries going to the Philippines, which unfortunately is nothing. We will just have to see how things go in the next couple months as things continue. What a time we live in! We're going on a year of COVID-19, and it has been so interesting thinking about how my life has changed. The Lord has big things in store for us, so we must now more than ever look forward with faith!

Palangga ta kamo gid! God is good!

Elder Snyder 

We saw my Aunt Lisa in the parking lot of Super Chix today!

The haul from Domino's

Chip Cookies

Super Chix sandwich

Week 21: The Land of Milk and Honey

Kamusta kamo?!? This was a pretty baller week. 

I knew whitewashing would probably suck for like the first week, but things are really getting better. Now that we've been meeting with more people and getting to know them and the area some more too, we are really going to get moving now. Also, living with 2 other Elders has been really fun because there's just more people to talk and hang out with. The other Elders' area sounds crazy so it honestly makes me grateful for our haha. It's been fun cooking together and playing games too. And there's more people to convert to kendamas hehe....

Anyway, the main difference that I have noticed about Lehi v. Eagle Mountain is that Lehi actually has food places haha. Eagle Mountain was literally just Subway, Domino's, DQ, and Village Pizza. Not that I'm complaining, because Village was amazing, but Lehi/American Fork in comparison is basically the land of milk and honey. There is every food place imaginable and more, so needless to say we have been partaking of the bounteous fruits of this land. Pictures will be attached haha.

For pday today, we went to one of the greatest food establishments I have ever been to, which is Cravings Bistro in Pleasant Grove. If you haven't been there and you have the means to go, please do. It's a grilled cheese restaurant and it is amazing. My comp and I and the 2 other Elders we live with all thoroughly enjoyed it today.  

Last Tuesday we had a really good meeting with one of the people we're teaching too. Her name is Maria, and she is literally so golden. She kind of impulsively moved to Utah in April and didn't know anyone when she got here, but over time she met some really great people and found that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was what she was really looking for in a church. She wants to get baptized too! We just have a couple more things to talk about with her, but she really is all set and is so ready to take this step! Elder Dieker and I really only get to see this very exciting part of her story, but we are so excited to get to work with her some more! She just has a very busy job as a caretaker, so we don't get to meet with her very often, so please pray for Maria that everything will work out!

Also, this week at our combined district council, we talked about a new way to read the Book of Mormon that we'll be doing as a mission. The goal is to read the whole thing by General Conference in April while focusing on 4 different aspects of Jesus Christ: His character, His doctrine, His love and mercy, and His engagement. It's been pretty cool so far to focus on Christ in the Book of Mormon. 

That's something I've been trying to really emphasize in my missionary work is how Christ is involved in every part of our lives; that He lives and He loves you, and that through Him we can overcome anything in our lives. It is so special that we have this knowledge of the power of Jesus Christ, and that we can learn how to use it every day of our lives. With Jesus Christ, we are never truly alone. So why not believe? Why not believe that your life isn't all on you? Why not believe that you have a loving Father in Heaven who wants to help you with every hard thing you will ever experience, and all you have to do is let Him? Your life is not an endurance contest, and your Heavenly Father never meant it to be just about work or school or money, and full of hardship and disappointment. 2 Nephi 2:25 tells us, "Adam fell that man might be, and men are that they might have JOY." Heavenly Father meant for you to have joy, and it is through Jesus Christ that we are able to have it permanently.      

If you read all that, then thank you. That was basically the week though. Feel free to write me back too!

Palangga ta kamo! 

Elder Snyder

Cravings today (The mac n cheese is bomb too)

Don Joaquin's for Taco Tuesday

The Chick-fil-a carnage (this was the first time having Chick-fil-a since leaving on my mission, so some of you know how cathartic it was for me)

Elder Thomas cooking dinner (spatula in one hand, kendama in the other. heehee)

Week 20: Lehi Boutta Be Litttt!

Kamusta kamo?!?

I've had a good week. Turns out, I may only know how to do missionary work in the Eagle Mountain East Stake! Hahaha, joke lang! There is a little truth to that though, because having a new area, and whitewashing it has made me rethink a thing or two!

Anyway, transfers were last Tuesday and saying goodbye to Elder Sherrod was a sad moment. He and his new comp are gonna tear it up in Eagle Mountain, so I'm excited for them. We'll go surfing sometime post mish, if I ever have to see that boof again. Joke langgggg! Anyway, my new companion is Elder Dieker (pronounced like Dieter in Dieter F. Uchtdorf but with a K hehe) and he's from Eureka, CA! So like opposite ends of CA but it's still cool. He's originally assigned to the Vina del Mar, Chile mission, which is the same mission my sister went to! He went to USU for a year before the mission, so we're the same age pretty much too. And we came into the mission at the same time too, so we've both only been about like 3 months! Turns out we really like the same movies to, especially Harry Potter haha. He's definitely motivated to work too, which is good because neither of us know anyone here haha. 

We live with 2 other elders in our district too, which has been pretty fun so far. We do like combined companionship study sometimes, and we cook together sometimes too. We're also all pretty young in the mission. Elder Thomas started the same day as Elder Dieker and I, and Elder Carlin only started 1 transfer before us. And interestingly enough, I'm the oldest one of the 4 of us, and I techinally started my mission first out of the 4 of us because Elder Carlin is originally assigned here and only had a couple weeks of online MTC. They have a car too so it's been fun having access to a car again and being able to get food a lot haha. Especially because we don't actually live in our area either, and we have to ride up a fat hill everyday just to get into our area, so sometimes they give us a ride too. 

Also, we actually don't live in a basement apt. either, we live in a house! The landlords have the basement which is kinda funny. We go in and out the front door and we park our bikes in the garage too.  

Anyway, probably the coolest thing that happened this week is we had a baptism! The elders that were here before us were teaching a kid named Kallon, and on transfer day they went by to say goodbye, and then the kid said he wanted to get baptized! On New Year's Day! That was on Tuesday, so that night right as we got to our new apt we found out we had a lesson with kid who was on date to be baptized 3 days later. That was a little hectic, but everything worked out and Kallon got baptized on New Year's Day. Elder Dieker did the baptism and I did the confirmation, which was actually a really cool experience.

For pday today, we just did our shopping at WalMart, took a quick trip to Deseret Book, and then got lunch at Mo Bettah's. It's really only a Utah place, but they have like Hawaiian food, and it was basically the exact same thing as Aloha Plate at BYU. It was so amazing. I ate soooo much food. It was a little nostalgic for me too because I thought I wouldn't be able to have Aloha Plate again for so long, and back in March I had to say goodbye to Aloha Plate so suddenly. And on the way out, we saw Brad Wilcox in the parking lot! He told us to hit up President Treadway and tell him to hit him up anytime about doing a devotional or something for the mission haha. 

Oh yeah, New Year's Eve was pretty uneventful. We had to be in by 6, but we did get to see some fireworks too. We did not stay up until midnight either because we are obedient missionaries hehe.

Anyway, that was my week. I really haven't heard anything about the Philippines, but I am still really excited to go someday. I am still studying my Hiligaynon everyday, and I have really been enjoying that too. I think of it as my way of showing the Lord that I am trying to be as ready as I can to go there eventually, and I want to be as prepared as I can be to meet, interact with, and really help the people there.  

Palangga ta kamo! Dapat kamo magpangamuyo para sa Lehi kag para sa Pilipinas palihog! 

I love you all! Please pray for Lehi and for the Philippines!

Elder Snyder 

Kallon's Baptism!!

The boys on New Year's Eve

Me with Brad Wilcox

Killy boi!!