Week 45: Choir Week

Singing at the New Mission Presidents Seminar

Hows the stuff my people,

This was such a long week but only because every day was packed. 

Tuesday and Wednesday there were big meetings for the northern and southern halves of the mission so President and Sister Treadway and all the office staff could give talks and say goodbye to everyone, and to add the already busy week of everyone singing in the choir for the New Mission Presidents' Seminar, President Treadway asked us to sing at both of those meetings. It was fun though because I got to go to both and sing at both. I got to see like all the mission homies from like my whole mission so far (that are still here). 

President and Sister Treadway both gave excellent talks about how to keep growing your testimony after your mission and about how much your life can be blessed because of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was an emotional experience for everyone, but it was so great to hear from them both one last time. They're off to bigger and better things and I'm so glad I got to know them during these last 10 months or so. Our new mission president, President Evanson, actually came in today. We get to meet him tomorrow at another big mission meeting. 

Anyway, last Thursday, Friday, and Saturday I got up at 4:40 every morning to get picked up at 5:30 to get to Lehi by 6 to get picked by a bus with all the Provo mission homies to head to Salt Lake City. Lots of early mornings, but it was so fun. I love bus rides. Every morning we would come in and stage/warm-up on stage in the smaller theater in the Conference Center (where they've been doing General Conference the last few times). Then we'd leave and hang out in the foyer where they always had breakfast for us, then we'd line up right as it was starting and then file in and line up on stage and sing. 

They actually had a bunch general authorities sitting in the audience, and the whole First Presidency and the Quorum of the 12 Apostles sat in chairs behind us. We did not get to meet anyone or shake any hands, but it was still so cool to be able to invite the Spirit into the meeting each day through music. This was such an unforgettable experience. When I got my reassignment to the Utah Orem mission, I would've never thought in a million years I'd be able to do something like this. I'm just so grateful. 

The second 2 days we walked around Temple Square a bit and took some group pics. It was fun because there were some kids in the choir that had never been there before, so it was their first times seeing the Salt Lake temple and the Conference Center. We got featured in the Church News about the whole seminar too. But for each of these performances though I was back at my apartment by 10 am, and then we'd have a whole day of work ahead of us. 

We've been teaching a kid named Andrew ever since I came into this area, and he's been so close to being baptized this whole time. His family just kept running into complications with planning the baptism and stuff. But last night his mom texted us and said they wanted to do the baptism this Sunday, the 4th of July! Big hypeeeee!!

For pday today we went to the Orem temple construction site! It's only like a 15 minute bike ride from our apartment, and there is a full-time misisonary senior couple that run a kind of visitors center. They showed us a big slideshow of how they'e been building it so far, and we took some pictures, and it was really cool! If you ever find yourself with a free afternoon or something, go check it out! If the construction can stay on schedule, it should be completed around the end of 2022, so when I'm off my mission and back at BYU I can pull up to that open house dedication!

The work is hard but the work is good. Enjoy the small things so you aren't just waiting for the big things. If you condition your happiness on certian events, then you'll always be chasing the next thing. I'm reminded of a quote from the movie Cool Runnings that says, "A gold medal is a great thing. But if you're not enough without it, you'll never be enough with it." On the mission baptisms are great, finding new people to teach is great, but they work the same way. 

Anyways love yall

Elder Snyder

Pictures at Temple Square with the Choir

At the Conference Center

Boolin' around Temple Square with Elder Darrington

The bus ride up to the Conference Center in Salt Lake

Waiting in the hall before we sang

At the Orem Temple Site for Pday

Also found time to go to Texas Roadhouse this week.

Me with Ricky Bobby

Pretty Utah

Week 44: Training Again!

Me and Elder Toro

What is popping?

This was an epic week. It felt really long just because lots of stuff changed during the week. 

Elder Thomas is now off to another part of Orem, and now I am training Elder Toro! He's from Orlando, Florida and he's originally called to the UOM!! Let's gooo! He's hilarious and he came ready to work and willing to learn. He's great. And the Vineyard stake is happy to have him too. 

Since Elder Ames is AP now, our new roommate is Elder Stubbart. He was also trained by Elder Sherrod so he's kinda like my mission brother. We hit it off from the start sharing stories about our great father whom we love dearly. On my first day with Elder Toro, his bike was having some issues so I had him ride mine and I borrowed Elder Stubbart's bike (which is really nice haha). At the end of the night we stopped by Maverick and I got Elder Stubbart a Goji Citrus Strawberry Mountain Dew to say "sorry for not asking to ride your bike" and he was like "You can ride it for the whole transfer now that I'm in a car!" Big dubsssss 

We still be playing pickleball every morning and I'm falling in love. I already loved it, but now I'm addicted. I frequently find myself thinking about pickleball when I'm not playing it, haha. We played today for like an hour and a half today when it was like 95 degrees out. Grind don't stop!

Sunday was great too. Sley and her sister came to church, and there were people sitting with them, talking to them, inviting them to Sunday School, and it was great! Sley's sister is a member, and she's a great help in lessons and in helping her come to church.

One of the fun things about training in Utah is that people here eat it up. Whenever Elder Toro tells people that he's only been out like 3 or 4 or 5 days, they light up! One guy in a member message who found out that Elder Toro had only been out 3 days was like, "Elder Snyder, take your new companion somewhere local," and hands me $20! Another guy asked Elder Toro if he was homesick yet and he said, "Well I haven't really had time to think about it because we've been so busy!" Proud dad moment for me right there.

So a couple weeks ago, I volunteered to be in a choir for the UOM thinking it was just gonna be for some of our mission meetings this week for the new mission president or something. Last pday at night we ended up having a Zoom meeting with all the choir members in the UOM, and President Treadway told us that we are actually gonna be performing for the New Mission President's Seminar which is actually being broadcasted around the world from Salt Lake City! We're singing with some missionaries from the Provo mission, and we'll be traveling up to Salt Lake City this coming Thursday, Friday, and Saturday for the performances. Since it's being broadcasted though, we were told there was only gonna be like 15 people in the audience, but those 15 people will be the First Presidency of the Church and the Quorum of the 12 Apostles!!  

We're also gonna be performing for the mission meetings this week, so we have rehearsals and performances pretty much every day this week! It's seriously been so nice to just have a music project again. I've pretty much always had some kind of music performance or competition or whatever to take my mind off of things all growing up, so it's been nice to have all this choir stuff to look forward to!

Anyways, I love you all! The work is going steadily here. As soon as we start finding some more new people to teach (which we will soon!), we will be, as they say, popping off. 

Keep popping off!

Elder Snyder

Elder Wade and I sang together in BYU Men's Chorus, and he's reassigned to the Provo mission, and now we're singing together again on our missions.

Another cool sunset

Utah Summerz

 

Week 43: The Most Beautiful Float

So this week was a banger so I'm just gonna get started.

It's been dummy hot so I've decided I'm never gonna turn down water when somebody offers us water. 

I fell on my bike last Monday after pday was over. My chain got cinched between the smallest front gear and the bike frame so I tipped to the side and slid to a stop whilst on the bike. It's hard to imagine I know, but that's the best I can do. A lot of that description came from Elder Thomas actually. It happened while trying to hop over speed bumps so we could pass the YSA sister missionaries in their car so it was the perfect time to crash. Myself and my bike were generally unharmed. Overall, it was epic. 

I also am now a proud owner of a Maverick Adventure Card. I can now get any size fountain drink for $0.85 and get rewards that go towards other discounts. Pretty epic. 

We went on exchanges this week and I brought Elder Jenks to the epic Vineyard stake. Great day of booling out and biking around. We knocked on this one door and the lady just said, "Oh we used to be Mormon but now we're atheist," and before we could ask her why they're atheist (cuz that's what ya do) she started to close the door so we just said "have a nice day" to which she replied "pasta lasagna." Needless to say, we were confused. 

Saturday was legendary. The missionaries of the Orem zone got to be in the Orem Summerfest parade! They had us carrying banners for the prize-winning floats, and Elder Thomas and I carried the banner for "Most Beautiful Float" because we're the most beautiful. It was so lit because people cheered more for us than the actual float haha. People would yell "Do a spin!" and then Elder Thomas and I would be like "You guys wanna see a spin?" and then they'd start cheering more and we legit would just run in a circle and they'd go nuts. Literally only in a Utah mission would this ever happen. 

My family also happened to be in town for my nephew's baby blessing the following day, so they turned up to the parade and brought my whole extended family too. That was pretty dope to see them on the side as we walked through the parade. There was also a firework show after the parade that we got to watch too. It was kinda one of the most legendary nights ever. 

We also had transfer calls last night! Elder Ames, one of our roommates, is now AP so our new roomie is Elder Stubbart, who was also trained by Elder Sherrod and is also skilled in the ways of kendamas. Elder Thomas is sadly being transferred to the Cherry Hill stake in Orem, and I will be training again! This really is my second chance at fatherhood because now I actually know what I'm doing haha. I really will miss Elder Thomas, but I am also excited for this next transfer! 

On the real though, I've found there is so much more joy to be found in life than there first appears. If you make the effort to look for the ways you can enjoy life, then you will enjoy life on a whole other level. Some missionaries take themselves very seriously and are really hard on themselves, but really all it takes (for non-missionaries too) is to stop worrying about things you can't control and just being like "haha okay" when things don't go great. When I stopped caring so much about what other people thought and started just being myself all the time, I found myself being a lot happier about myself and my life. 

Pasta lasagna!

Elder Snyder

Ran into some BYU drumline homies at the parade!

Meeting my cute nephew for the first time at the parade

Epic View - Fireworks AND Chick-fil-A

Elder Thomas and I in the Parade

Jammin with the BYU Drumline Homies

Exchanges with Elder Jenks and "ded snek"

Pday golfing with the boys

With Elder Jenks

The District at Brooker's Ice Cream

Week 42: We Met Henry Eyring?!?!?1

David's Baptism

What is up y'all?

I've had an excellent week. Truly magnificent. Lots of great things happening in good old Vineyard. It was dummy hot this week too. High 90s all week. We look like ballers biking in the heat though.  

David did in fact get baptized last Wednesday! It was a really great service and everything went very smooth. When we talked to him a couple days later in another lesson with him, he said that it was all very reaffirming. He said he believed it was all true before before he got baptized, but that actually getting baptized made him feel so much better about it all. He's so solid and we're really excited to keep working with him. 

We also had Zone Conference this week! It was seriously so legendary getting to see all the homies again. Old comps, old district members, old comps' new comps, and new people too. Zone Conferences in the UOM are split up by northern and southern halves of the mission, and this was my first ever ZC in the southern half, so lots of new people! It was also President Treadway's last ZC before he and Sister Treadway finish their mission, so it was a little sad. It sounds like there's gonna be lots of other meetings/conferences this month to transition into the new mission president though. My new mission president will be President Evanson, and he's from Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada. He also sounds really awesome. 

President Treadway put out a new member mission for us to start sharing, which was awesome because we've had the last one for like 5 months. It talks a lot about being guided by the Spirit and how sharing the gospel can be as simple as being at the right place at the right time. There's a story about Jesus travelling 32 miles in a day to city called Nain to raise the son of a widow from the dead, and how he really was at the right place at the right time. It's found in Luke 7, and if you want to do your own research, then you can find out that Nain is about 31.7 miles from Capernaum in Israel. 

Also, we met Henry Eyring! Unfortunately, not the one you're probably thinking of. His grandson, Henry C. Eyring, just moved into our stake with his wife and kids, and we have a member message with them on Sunday. So yes, the subject line of my email was in fact, clickbait....

The other people we're teaching are doing great too. Sley told us that she wants to join the church but just doesn't know how! Since she's from Haiti she asked for a Book of Mormon in French and in Creole. She's making a lot of good progress and it's been really cool getting to teach her. 

Also, if any of you could pray for my Grandpa Snyder, that would be great. He just got diagnosed with stage 4 liver cancer that seems pretty serious, so any prayers would mean a lot. 

Anyway, thanks so much for reading my emails! The mission is hard and it's pretty repetitive, but weeks like these can be real standouts that make it all worth it. I know that following Jesus Christ and being a member of His true church is the only way to have lasting happiness in life. There is so much to be gained and enjoyed in life, and the only way to have the most complete joy possible is through faith in Jesus Christ and living how He wants us to live. The knowledge and actions that come with that are how we can find enduring joy in our lives. I am so grateful to have been blessed with the gospel in my life, and to now have the opportunity to help others to have the same blessings.

I love you all!

Elder Snyder 

David was baptized by Chad, who first taught David when he was on his mission.

Sunset

I saw Dakota Pierce at Costco today

Biking through hail a few weeks ago