Week 41: Guess Who Else Likes Mavrick...

Daily Trip

What up y'all?

This was a fire week. Lots of fun, lots of biking, lots of great weather, and lots of big things!

We had our final interviews with President Treadway this week because he and Sister Treadway are finishing their mission at the end of June. We had a great talk and I'm so glad I got to serve a big chunk of my mission with him. They actually live in Temecula (like 2 hours from me in CA), so I'll have to pay them a visit someday. 

But Elder Thomas told me that in their interview, somehow the fact that we live right by Maverick came up. Elder Thomas speaks a little Spanish because he's supposed to go to the Dominican Republic, and he used to be in a Spanish area, but President Treadway told Elder Thomas (and I quote), "I go to that Maverick almost every day, and every time I go I hear people speaking Spanish. I want you to go to Maverick EVERY DAY and talk to the Spanish speakers and find people to teach even though you guys are English missionaries." So there you have it. Our mission president has now TOLD us to go to Maverick every day. Boom.

We started teaching Erick! His family is pretty active in the church actually, but their son Erick just hasn't gotten baptized yet, so we finally got to meet with him and put him on date for the end of June! The whole family speaks Spanish, but they go to the English ward, but Elder Thomas speaks pretty good Spanish and they speak pretty good English so it all works out. 

David also decided to move up his baptism date to this Wednesday! That's like a month and a half sooner than he was planning for the last couple months. He finally realized that he was ready and I guess he didn't want to wait anymore! He started meeting with missionaries in Montana, but the Elders that taught him in Montana have kept in touch with him since he moved here a couple months ago, and one of the Elders that first started teaching him is now off his mission and is going to be the one to baptize David which is super cool. 

We also got to meet with Sley again. She is from Haiti and she lives with her sister who is a member and they go to the YSA ward pretty regularly. Elder Thomas just straight up asked her if she wanted to join the church and she said she did but just didn't know how! Then he asked her about baptism and she was like, "That would make me really happy." So Sley will hopefully be on date soon too!

All this being said, there were days this week where all we did was knock doors all day and talk to no one, or when they actually do come to the door they're not interested or they've actually left the church already. There were plenty of times where I make eye contact with people on the street and I smile and wave at them and all they do is glare at me. 

The awesome moments are few and far between all the grinding, but those are what make it all worth it! The mission is not all awesome moments, and it's not all about the awesome moments either. It's about who you are becoming by experiencing all the less-awesome moments combined with the awesome moments. 

love yall & 'preciate yall

Elder Snyder 

Me with "Princess"

A member took us golfing today at Sleepy Ridge (the PME golf course in our area)

Elder Thomas with "Snek"

The Orem Temple

Week 40: MAVRICK is Open!

This was a 🔥 week

First of all, the Maverick gas station like 2 seconds from our apartment has been under construction ever since I got here, and there was just a sign on the front door that said "Open on 5/21" so we've been counting down the days. That glorious day finally came this week, and it's been great having a quick stop there every little bit. Their small, medium, and large sodas are all $1! It's like McDonald's! And they have my favorite flavor of Mtn Dew there, which is Goji Citrus Strawberry. If you haven't ever had that flavor, well then you know where to go. 

But like I've said, you learn and change a lot on the mission. Like before the mission, I used to hate all Mtn Dew, and now I LOVE it.

It was our first week of getting to have meals with members! We're allowed to eat outside with people now, and with this one family we had Japanese BBQ. It was this cool hot plate they had on the table and we just cooked everything right there. Chicken, beef, grilled pineapple, zucchini, shrimp, onions, with soy sauce and rice and it was delicious. Another family we ate with lived on the golf course, and then offered to take us golfing on a pday!

A really cool thing that happened this week was our lesson with David. He's been on date for the last couple months for July 17th, and for some reason he's just felt really set on that date. In our lesson we assured him that he really was more ready than he thought, and we went over the baptismal interview questions with him to show him that. It was really cool because he actually got to see exactly what he might still be unsure about, which wasn't a lot, and he realized that he really was more prepared for baptism than he thought! We're gonna follow-up with him about moving the date up this week, but he's so ready to go!

There was one night Elder Thomas and I were deciding what to do with our last couple minutes of the day before we headed home, and this guy pulls over to us in a Tesla Model X and says "Elders, you ever ridden in a Model X before?" I can now answer that question with, "Yeeee." 

Also one of our ward mission leaders, Brother Galamb, is such a baller. He manages an office supplies company by day, but has read every book available about any topic relating to the gospel ever. He's very knowledgeable with ancient scripture, but the coolest thing about him in my opinion is that he's also a DJ. We went to his house to ask him about some stuff in his ward, and he showed us his some of his award-winning remixes and songs. He basically makes rave music but it was so cool. 

Also, we were working on filling out one of our spreadsheets this week (exciting I know), and we decided to just start knocking because we were tired of waiting for the YSA sisters to update them with which houses were YSA. Legit the 2nd door we knock was the YSA Relief Society President, and she knew where ALL the YSA houses were which was litttttt.

Pday today was awesome too. We went shopping, and DI is now open on Mondays so we can finally go on our pdays! We went to some batting cages too. The owner lets missionaries come in anytime for free, so that was fun getting to hit a couple dingers. Then we played Spikeball at the park, then got Swig and then went to The Puppy Store. Yes, they sell puppies and yes, they let you pet them. 

These past few weeks have been epic honestly. You feel the best on your mission when you're working the hardest, and with the weather being great and the area being poppin', we get to work a lot. And teach a lot too! I'm motivated to work harder here because I want to be the missionary this area deserves. 

I love you all!

Elder Snyder

Weekly trip to Taco Bell and UVU

Batting Cages

Brother Galamb got us Blizzards

Got a TONN of crawfish from a Cajun food festival

Peep the drip

There's a really cool echo down here. 

Week 39: Laboring in (the) Vineyard

what's up party people?

This week was awesome! It went by super fast too. I love it here in Vineyard!

We live with 2 other Elders in our apartment, and we actually play pickleball every morning for our exercise. We play some doubles and some singles too. It's a lot of fun. We're getting pretty good at it too. I can beat Elder Ames and Elder Antillon, who are the Elders we live with, but Elder Thomas can still wreck me. I finally invested in a real pickleball paddle today too so now I can really start shredding.

We kinda had a lot of bike troubles this week, but nothing beyond our own abilities. Elder Thomas is now on his 3rd bike since me coming here though haha. His own is in the shop, and the one we borrowed from a member in the meantime got a flat, and now we're using an extra some Elders in our district had. 

Something I never thought I'd do on my mission was make spreadsheets, and this week we made a lot of spreadsheets! There's a lot of townhomes and apartments in our area, and our Area Book app can't always read the addresses very accurately because they're all so close together, so spreadsheets are the move. And they're on Google Sheets so we're gonna share them with the Spanish Elders and the YSA Sisters that also cover our area, so we're gonna get cooking on those. Now you know about one of the ways you can go about finding people to teach in a Utah mission.

As exciting as talking about spreadsheets is, we also had some really good lessons! We're teaching a couple named Brian and Diana, and they moved here from CA almost 2 years ago and are very Christian. Diana is a very faithful woman and sees God in every aspect of her life, and it honestly surprises me how open they are to meeting with us and hearing our message. She has a lot of really good questions for us; not skeptical questions, but like actual things she wonders about. It's really fun getting to teach them. 

One time an Amazon driver stopped us and gave us $40 worth of gift cards to Jimmy John's, and we treated the Elders we live with to Jimmy John's for dinner. I actually would not recommend Jimmy John's. The closest one to us is up in Orem, and there was a Jersey Mike's right across the street and I was like bruh

This next week is gonna be so lit though because we no longer have to wear masks when we go in people's homes, and we can have meals with members again!! I really can't think of anything that COVID is keeping us from doing as missionaries anymore. We're living the life. AND it's almost summer so like it's pretty awesome here now. 

Pday today was fun too. Basically a fat shopping spree at the University Mall, and then a fat lunch at Tucanos! 

The mission is so much fun really and it is so satisfying to come home after a long day of work knowing you did the Lord's work. 

I love you all!

Elder Snyder 

Field Trip to UVU campus to get Taco Bell

Tucanos splurge

Bikinggg

That new bridge at UVU across I-15

Vineyard really is like Eagle Mountain

Burger King Bekfist

Elder Thomas and I with a lot of cars

Grande waters w/ extra ice

Week 38: New Area! New ME!

Down by the Lake

What is up everyone?

So basically Vineyard is lit. I've only been here for like 5 and a half days and it's already amazing. It's honestly just so nice to have a change of scene. I was in Lehi for a very long time, and through some very dark winter days, but now it's spring in Vineyard and it's awesome. 

Elder Thomas and I cover the Vineyard stake and we have 11 wards (so a step down from 20). We live with 2 other Elders, who are actually the zone leaders for a different zone than ours, so we don't really see them a ton but they're both super cool. Our area is super dope too. There's a lot of big houses here like in Lehi, but also lots of new houses, apartments, and townhomes like Eagle Mountain. It's like both my past areas combined. Our area goes all the way down to Utah Lake too! Of all the times I've been to Utah in my entire life, I never actually had gone to Utah Lake until this week! 

Our area also has a really nice golf course, and it's actually the very same golf course where they filmed Provo's Most Eligible! If you don't know what that is, don't worry (seriously), but if you do know what that is and if you know me, you can imagine how excited I was to be in this new area. 

I also love being on a bike again! The weather has been so nice the last couple weeks that I didn't even want to be in a car, and I found myself not getting as hungry as I used to get because we were just driving everywhere. And since I love food so much, this was a serious issue. Now that I'm biking every day, I'm hungrier now! I have also perfected riding my bike without hands. Our area is also FLAT. Other than an overpass over the train tracks to get into our area from our apartment, there are no hills in our area. None. Pretty epic. 

We're also teaching a lot of people too! It's been really cool getting to meet everyone so far. We're teaching a guy named David who is actually on date to be baptized in July, and they've talked to him about moving up the date but he feels really good about July, so we're just reading the Book of Mormon with him every week and answering any questions he has. He's awesome. We're also teaching a family that moved here about a year and a half ago and still don't totally know why. They're very Christian and are very open to learning about the Church and are super nice, so I'm excited to work with them some more too. There's a couple other people we're working with too, but this area is awesome because we don't actually know who lives behind every door! So very unlike Lehi! There's lots of apartments and townhomes and we're excited to at least start finding more people too.

Also COVID is like basically wrapping up for us missionaries here in Utah. We got our 2nd vaccine shots last week, and now in 1 week we no longer have to wear masks when we visit people in their homes! People have been saying my entire mission when I go in their house that I can take my mask off, but now I'll actually be allowed to. AND we will be able to have meals with members outside in a week too! And with the weather getting how it is I think we'll be having lots of barbeque in the future haha. 

So yeah, for those of you that are worried about me getting to the Philippines, don't be. Obviously I'm excited to get there one day, but I've really come to love the UOM. I know COVID is not great in the Philippines right now, but here in the UOM we're doing just fine, so at this point I'd rather be able to do real missionary work and not even have to wear a mask here in Utah than be stuck in an apartment in the Philippines.  

My mom also told me one time that if the Lord needed me to be in the Philippines, there is absolutely nothing that could keep Him from making that happen. So since I'm still in Utah, He still needs me here!

I love you all so much!

Elder Snyder

Goodbye Lehi

Last Texas Roadhouse with the District

My Trainee told them it was my Birthday

PME fan moment

Utah Lake

Week 37: On the Road again...

Hey everyone!! 

Not a lot of time today, but this week was still fun. Even though we were anxiously awaiting our transfer calls all week, we still were able to get a lot of the good work done.

Cutting to the chase really, I'm being transferred! After 3 transfers covering the Cedar Hollow stake, and the last half of the 3rd transfer covering the Cedar Hollow and Lehi East stakes, it is all coming to an end. I'm a little sad because I wanted to spend a little more time with our new stake and all the people we're working with, but I guess the Lord has other things in store for me. 

I'm being transferred to Vineyard! I guess not everyone may know where that is, but it's on the other side of the I-15 from Orem. It's where the new Orem temple is being built. My new companion is Elder Thomas, whom I actually used to live with like a transfer ago, so I already know who my new companion is. I'm also gonna be the district leader, so that will be a new challenge too. I'm excited about it all though. 

I've really learned a lot here in Lehi. I've learned that being a missionary is super challenging in a lot of ways you don't even think would exist before you go on a mission. I've had to learn and correct a lot of things about myself so I can be more Christ-like and therefore a better missionary. I know the Lord knows who I can become and I what I need to learn and do to get there, but I just have to be willing to learn and do all of that! It takes a lot of humility to always put His will over your own, and giving our actual everything to Him is really really difficult. We need only give it all to Him to be the happiest we can be. 

Someday I'll be able to see how all of this comes together. The more hindsight we have the better it is, and someday I'll know why I needed to be in the places I've been and meet the people I've met, and go to the places I'm going and meet the people I'm going to meet. And without going on a mission, none of this happens.

I know the Lord has so much more in store for us than anything we can possibly imagine.

I love you all!

Elder Snyder 

Exchanges with Elder Fawson

Went to Cravings again!

One of the church buildings is really old and has this cool stained glass window

Don't think we're related, but still a cool mailbox