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