Week 36: Shmoodies for the Mitchinaries!

Action Shot!

Hellllllooooooo!!!!!!!

For some reason this was the longest week ever. It might be because with more than double the amount of area we cover, we actually have a lot to do to fill our time. And with having a car I find myself thinking about how we can use our time wisely instead of just using our time. 

The East stake is proving to be super dope though. Everyone seems to be really excited about having Elders again in their stake for some reason. Everyone has been so helpful with getting us caught up about stuff. We went to one of our Bishops' house just to say hi and maybe talk about some of the people we're working with in his ward, and he comes out and he's like, "Elders! You guys are new! Let's go for a drive and I'll show you around and tell you about everyone!" And then he got us drinks at Sonic when we were done. Absolute legend. 

We did have Zone Conference this week which was awesome. President Treadway gave an excellent training about having patience, and invited us to read every scripture in the Topical Guide about patience. Then his counselors in the mission presidency gave some trainings along with Sister Treadway and everyone did fantastic. We had lunch, then I played the mission song for all the missionaries to sing. The UOM has this special song that was written just for the mission, and it's kinda cringy but like also slapsss, so it was really fun playing for like 4 zones worth of missionaries. We learned a lot about teaching from the Book of Mormon which was awesome. I think the Book of Mormon is really where it's at. It is so true and so clear, and the more I read it the more I love and appreciate it. 

We're teaching a kid named Simon who is super smart. We taught him the Plan of Salvation and he had so many awesome questions and I was like, "Bruh I would not have thought of that at your age." He's not shy like at all so he'll actually like talk to us. He pays attention really well too. In the UOM you do a lot of teaching kids, and now that I've been around the block here I've taught a lot of kids, and the kids like Simon are few and far between so I just really appreciate our lessons with him. 

We also found out that this smoothie place like right by our house gives missionaries 50% off!! Since we discovered that, we've been a bunch of times. It slaps. For those of you in the Utah area, hit up Roxberry please. There's a couple of them around here. 

Oh, forgot to mention this last week, but now that we cover our landlords' ward, we got to go to their baby blessing last Sunday! 

LAST THING: Something I've learned from President Treadway's invitation to study patience has made me learn that patience is so much more in depth than I thought. I've learned more about what patience is, how it works, what it can do for us, and how we can have more of it. Patience combined with faith brings hope. 

I love you all!!

Elder Snyder

Hi! Welcome to Chili's

View from the Lehi Tech Apartments...now in our new area

Lamborghini mercy (this was at church)

Week 35: Whitewashing: Round 2!!

Our last District Council with the Sisters before they left for Brasil.

This has been a WEEK y'all. It feels like a bajillion years since last time I wrote. 

The whitewashing of the Lehi East stake has been a wild ride so far. Before the Sisters who's stake we got left for Brazil, we did get to meet with them a little bit to discuss the people they (we) are teaching, the people they are trying to start teaching, all of these people's friends in their wards, as well as just other cool people to know about. We did get to be introduced to some of these people by the Sisters before they left, but there was no way to get to meet all of them or even discuss all of them. On the morning that they left one of them just texted us a FAT paragraph about everyone else and I was like bruh

We are gonna be kickin it up like 10 notches now with what we're doing. We are finally gonna be going offfff. Once we got the new stake's Area Book combined with ours on their phones I was just like, "There's so many nonmembers!" and a lot of them have already been hit up by the Sisters. They really tore it up around here. 

We are just really excited to get out and start meeting people. It sounds like some of our investigators are excited to meet us too! Absorbing another area is like having a transfer mid-transfer, and it's kinda insane how much quicker of a pace we'll need to be working now. 

Probably the most exciting thing this week was finding out that we were actually gonna be getting a car!! I've never had a car on my mission, and it took some mental adjusting to not really have to factor in so much travel time anymore since we're not biking or walking anymore. As I was driving through one of our old wards I was reflecting on the glow-up I've had here, and how I used to bike these streets in the snow in like 29 degree weather and now I drive them with the windows down in the 64 degree Utah spring. 

Not really many specific things to report on, but it really has been kind of an insane week. Transfers are only 2 weeks away and this has been the fastest transfer of my mission. Also during this week I saw on my Google Photos that a year ago this week I opened my mission call. In comparison to any given year-long period in my life, this has been the most different of them all. Different in that I'm doing something now that no other part of my life has been like, and it has been such an amazing experience. It really has just flown by, and so that's we need to spend all of our precious time doing exactly what the Lord wants us to do, to the fullest extent that we can. 

I love you all!

Elder Snyder

Hot air balloon we always see on Saturday mornings

Some of our Ward Mission Leader's cars that he thought we'd want to see.

Week 34: 8 Months, 60 Degrees, and 12 new wards!

District Lunch after P-day Pickleball

Hey everyone!!

Hope yall had a highly interesting week. In some ways I did at least.

This week was spring break in the Alpine School District, and I think this is the first time in my life whe spring break is over. It has kinda sucked honestly having like literally everyone go out of town. The weather has still been great (see subject line) but there have been far less people outside to just talk to because literally everyone was just big gone. People are coming back now though which is great. 

We also got an email from President Treadway this week about how the Utah County mask mandate was lifted on April 10th. He said 2 weeks after we all get our second vaccine dose (in 3 weeks from today), we don't have to wear our masks anymore! I've worn a mask for like my entire mission so far, which I haven't really minded honestly, but thinking about that going away kinda blew my mind.

Today is also my 8-month mark on my mission. It has seriously been some of the most interesting months of my entire life, mostly because it is so unlike anything that I've ever done before. Sometimes it feels like I've been doing this my entire life, especially now so that I'm training. Missionaries keep track of time better than most people too, so when I can recall things that happened like 2 transfers ago I'm like, "Bruh I'm getting old." When Elder Phelps asks me, "How do you know so many people in the mission?" I say, "Cuz I been around the block dawg." That's part of what makes the mission fun. When you can kick it with old homies at zone conference, or even at WalMart, it just makes things more fun. 

Speaking of kickin it, that's what I did in my interview with President Treadway last Saturday. Now that I been around the block in the UOM, President and I already know each other pretty well. The sad part of that is that President Treadway is finishing his mission at the end of next transfer so we'll be getting a new guy. 

President Treadway told me that he has heard about as much about the Philippines as I have, which is nothing. Things might be changing with us missionaries and the Philippines getting vaccinated, but we will just have to see. But he also said that all the people that are going to their original assignments, in places like Brazil, Chile, Japan, some parts of Europe, are all pretty locked down. It really made me think about if I'd rather be quarantined in the Philippines or in 5 weeks not even have to wear a mask in Utah? I really do like it here in the Orem mission. I've made a lot of awesome friends and have had a lot of great experiences that I wouldn't have had otherwise. 

President Treadway also told me in our interview that since the Sisters in our district are both going to Brazil on Friday, we would be getting their area!! We'll be getting a whole other stake (the Lehi East stake), with TWELVE more wards! I'm honestly really excited because we will actually have people to teach now. And it's not a complete whitewash either because the Sisters know they're getting whitewashed out so we can do some combined lessons with some of the people they're teaching so that transition can be better. We'll have a grand total of 20 wards that we will most likely be covering on bikes. LET'S GOOOOOO!!

Love you all gtg 

Elder Snyder 

This girl was taking pics with the sunset for her birthday and when we walked by she asked if she could get one with us. 

Exchanges with Elder Stratton

A girl saw us walking and asked if she could buy us dinner and this was it. 

Suns out, Guns out (If I had guns. haha!)

Week 33: GENCON

Views!

Kamusta kamo

This was an overall good week. Obviously, the mission isn't all fun and there is a lot of hard work involved, but there are great moments that happen amidst all of the hard work that make it a great work (see what I did there hehe....).

One great moment that happened this week was Elder Phelps and I had just picked up our dinner from somebody and were about to eat it at the church building when we thought of a couple more houses we could knock before eating. So we put our dinners in the fridge and then went back out. No one even came to the door at any of these places, but on the way back to the church building we ran into a lady that we knew from one of our wards and as we were talking to her she offered to make us dinner the next day! If we hadn't gone back out, we would not have secured some delicious pulled-pork sandwiches. Blessings!

Another LIT story is that as Elder Phelps and I were out just walking around, I was gonna walk one way but Elder Phelps suggested a different way, so I thought, "Why not?" As we're walking down this street, we see a small fire in someone's garage! Elder Phelps knocked their front door and I whipped out LDS Tools to call the mom (because we knew they were members hehe). After no answer from both, we started knocking neighbors, and still NOTHING. I called the mom back, and Sister Kitchen finally picked up and I told her there was something on fire in her garage. She came outside and then went and got their fire extinguisher, but Elder Phelps just went and got the front yard hose and put it out. One of their neighbors who had also seen the fire then came over, and then told us that she had already called 9-1-1. In a matter of minutes, there were 7 firetrucks in front of their house, along with most of the neighborhood, only to find out that Elder Phelps had already put out the fire. Turns out, one of the Kitchen kids had left a lighter in a bucket full of rags and it had somehow ignited. There was no damage to the car or the garage either, so everything turned out okay. But that was pretty awesome not gonna lie, seeing Elder Phelps put out the Kitchen fire! (see what I did there too....)

Something cool that happened this week was last night we were chilling at the same view spot in our area and this old lady pulls up and talks to us for a little bit then drives away. Then this high school-age guy pulls over and starts talking to us too, but he had some genuine concerns. He just wanted to know what we had to say about gaining a testimony because he said he'd been working on that a lot lately. We tried the best we could to give him advice, and we gave him a Book of Mormon too which he really appreciated. As we were wrapping up with him, the same old lady comes BACK. She gets out of her car, walks up to us, whips out these little blue cards with the lyrics to a song she wrote about Utah Valley, then proceeds to SING the entire thing for us. She offered us more cards too which I gladly accepted. It was one of the weirdest, funniest things that has ever happened to me.   

General Conference was excellent though. We ended up watching with our landlords which was really fun. I loved President Nelson's talk on increasing our faith. One of my favorite suggestions he offered for increasing our faith was to imagine what we think we would be able to do if we had more faith, and then do those things. As a missionary, I can definitely think of those kinds of things, so it's awesome having such a clear suggestion for how I can increase my faith. Thanks, President Nelson! We are so blessed to have a living prophet in the world today. 

I also became an uncle this week! My first nephew's name is Leo and I can't wait to see him one day (when my mission is over in about 16 months....).

I also found out that Elder Sherrod, my second companion (the one with the kendamas), is going to his original assignment in Cambodia!! I'm soooo happy for him because he has been here in the UOM for all of COVID, so a good minute. I got to see him probably one last time this morning when the whole mission was getting vaccinated at the Orem Walmart. 

Anyway, I hope all of you have an amazing week! 

Elder Snyder

Elder Phelps expounding the word.

Finally took this picture

Me with my nephew!

Got to see Elder Sherrod again!

GenCon Breakfast Day 1

GenCon Breakfast Day 2

Firefighter Phelps