Week 58: Fall is actually AMAZING!

Temple trip to the Draper Temple

Wuz good yall

Another EPIC week in Suncrest. The fall colors up here are absolutely STUNNING. We have an excellent view of Lone Peak (the mountain) up here and it seems to get more red and orange every day. So I take a lot more pictures now haha. 

Tuesday we had an amazing lesson with David. David kinda told us his whole life story which was super cool. He said he used to be a Wall Street investor, but then moved to China and started a company there. When the company wasn't doing great, he said he was very humbled and went to God with his problems and learned he couldn't do everything alone. He started studying the Bible, met his wife, and found a lot more happiness after that. He and his wife moved out of China a few years ago and wanted to move to Utah because they both like the values of the LDS church, and have even considered joining! My favorite thing he said during the lesson was, "The Book of Mormon is such a relief! I knew I liked the LDS church, but actually reading the Book of Mormon shows me that I like what they believe in too!"

Wednesday we had a mission leadership council (MLC), which was down at the mission office in Lindon and was for all the zone leaders (ZLs) and sister-training-leaders (STLs). It was fun to hang out with some old friends actually, and there was some great informational and inspirational stuff from President and Sister Evanson. The longer they're in the mission, the more I like them actually. 

Thursday we went to the temple! We got to go with the whole Lehi zone, and it was amazing honestly. I hadn't been in about a year, and it was actually only my 2nd time ever doing an endowment. It was seriously so amazing and I'm so happy we got to go. It was an awesome confirmation and reminder to me of what our lives are really about: living worthily now to prepare to live with Heavenly Father forever. President and Sister Evanson were there too which made it even better. 

On Friday we had CDC (combined district council) where we got together with our whole zone and Elder Ropka and I along with the STLs relayed a lot of the stuff that was discussed at MLC (I hope you're keeping up with these acronyms). President and Sister Evanson came too which was cool. I got to lead a role-play about inviting people to be baptized and helping them to see their own readiness to be baptized.

Then Saturday and Sunday were dope too. We got to teach Patrick a bit more. His main thing is he isn't sure about a modern day prophet and the temple too. He said according to his Christian beliefs, those things were done away with after Jesus died. He's gonna watch General Conference with us next weekend though and he'll get to hear the prophet speak live! David didn't make it to church, but we're planning on watching General Conference with him next week too. I'm soooo excited for General Conference!

Quick plug for the fans that like to hear about the food places I go to: Bam Bam's BBQ (down in Orem last pday, very good), Zao (Asian place, one of the owners lives in Suncrest and gives us free meal cards haha, pretty good),  Original Pancake House (always delicious), and The Habit (always delicious). 

For pday today we played some pickleball with our stake high councilor over missionary work, Brother Kennard, and his neighbor Kent, who's not a member. Kent and I almost always play on a team, and today we finally beat Brother Kennard and Elder Ropka. Brother Kennard is a legend though. He's soooo good. Then some homies from our zone came up to Suncrest and we played some Spikeball, which was epic. Then we drove around and ran some errands, then we drove up AF canyon and looked at all the pretty leaves with the zone homies.   

Imma drop a bajillion pics now (the AF canyon pics wont even fit) but thanks for reading all the way to the end if you did! Love you guys! Get hype for GenCon!

Elder Snyder

Views

Golden Hour

The Quick Quack guy gave us shades

Draper Temple

The OG Pancake House

Week 57: hApPy FaLl YaLl

Posterity pic, but also just me with some of my comps

Hey Everyone,

This was a super fast week. Let's get started! 

On any day it's about 7 seven degress cooler up in Suncrest, but it's also a lot windier up here so sometimes it's more. This place has a much shorter fall than the rest of the mission, so bruh moment 

Last pday in the evening, we had a lesson with a guy we're teaching named David. He and his wife moved here to UT last December. He is already very Christian, but he says he is a convert to Christianity. He said earlier in his life he was feeling pretty purposeless, but in (in David's words), "through intense study of the Bible, I came to accept Christ as my Savior, and have felt the Holy Spirit poured over me ever since then." He is very well-versed in the Bible, and is very much a faithful man. He is very open to our message though, and he's liked everything he's heard so far from the missionaries. He's reading the Book of Mormon too, and has a lot of really great questions. He even came to church yesterday, which was his first time coming to our Church. He said he really liked it and that he'll plan on coming next week!

As for some sad news, this week I found out that a big group of Elders that came in with me last October are leaving for their original assignments on the 30th. A lot of them are my friends, including Elder Thomas who I lived in an apartment with and was comps with. They're all going to Mexico, Brazil, Canada, or the Dominican Republic, which is exciting, but I'm sad to be losing some of my really good friends here in this mission. I've realized I need to make friends with people who are younger than me, OGs, or are reassigned from Argentina or Peru cuz they're not going anywhere either haha....

On Wednesday we had a lesson with a guy we're teaching named Chris. He's super chill. He plays pickleball with a lot of the guys in his ward up here. He's very active in a non-denominational Christian church down in the SL valley, but he likes hearing our messages too and he reads the Book of Mormon. I'm not sure how willing he is to like come to our church, but if he wants to meet with us we'll take it haha. He's an optometrist though, and I guess I know a bit more about optometry than most missionaries with my dad being one haha.

That same night we had a lesson with Patrick. He's been meeting with the missionaries ever since Elder Ropka has been in this area. He is also active in another church, but he's read the whole Book of Mormon before and now he's reading it again. In our lesson with him, he just kinda told us that lately he's been looking for basically a purpose in his life again. He told us that all the things that used to make him happy don't really do that for him anymore. He said he feels like he's at like a tipping point with all this. His friend/neighbor, Brother Morrison, comes to all of our lessons with Pat, and told us that he thinks Pat is coming to know that the Church is true but he's just really unsure about the repercussions of that. I'm sure he's worried about what people might think, or about other stuff he's heard about the Church. Pat is a super chill guy, but like he said, I think he's at a tipping point too. 

Thursday I got to do a baptismal interview for a guy named Chris. It was such a cool experience. He said he'd been taught on and off by the missionaries for about 2 years. He also said he's read stuff from LOTS of different religions, but that the Book of Mormon was the only one where he really knew it was true. He said the only thing that was keeping him from getting baptized was the resistance he was getting from his family about joining the Church, and that he used to ignore the missionaries a lot because he was just so conflicted. He said there came a point though where he was just like, "I don't care about any of that anymore," and that was when he told the misssionaries he was ready to be baptized. Hearing him bear his testimony was so cool, and when I asked him what he's most excited about to get baptized, he said "I know getting baptized is just the beginning, and I'm so excited to just keep learning more!"

I also spoke in the Eagle Crest 2nd ward yesterday, and turns out 2 of my dad's cousins are in that ward and texted my dad about it while I was speaking. Then other people came up to me and said they were from the Thousand Oaks area, or that they were friends with people there. So many random small-world things haha. Utah missions be like...

Those were some of the highlights of the week. Other than that just a lot of knocking, doing member messages, and meeting great people. Elder Ropka and I have a lot of fun together, and I can really tell he's helping me become a better missionary. He's also telling me about some of the free or discounted for missionaries food places here that I didn't know, but it's cuz he's been around the block and has seen them all haha.

I started reading the book Saints this week and it's soooooo good. It's helping me grow my testimony of Joseph Smith actually. That man truely devoted all of his time to the building of the kingdom of God. His service and sacrifice can be an example to all people. The book seriously slaps so go read it.  

Love you all!

Elder Snyder

Some good kitty bois

Action Shot

Some more good views

Week 56: The Top of the World

Me and The Salt Lake Valley

Hey everyone!

This has been a crazy week. With getting transferred, and just with my new area in general, it's been a ride. And BYU beat the U for the first time since I can remember! I think if I was at that game, I probably would've cried haha.

Anyway, Draper Suncrest is a whole other world nestled on Traverse Mountain between the Salt Lake valley and UT valley. We have excellent views of both from our area, as well as just great views of Suncrest. There's views everywhere. Somebody told us it's about 2000 feet above the valley, so we live at like 6000 feet. I like getting to drive again, and just in time to get the windows down and thoroughly enjoy the excellent UT fall. Probably the best time of year in this state. But I've heard Suncrest gets pounded with snow in the winter and I'm not excited for that. 

Anyway, my companion is Elder Ropka from Kansas City, Missouri. He's mad chill, and I'm actually the one that replaced him when I came into Eagle Mountain way back in the day. He also used to live in the apartment I just left from too, so I've basically been following him around my entire mission and finally caught up. He's also my mission grandpa (meaning he trained my trainer, Elder Peterson). I also may have forgotten to mention last week that Elder Phelps is training 2 new missionaries (having twins), so I got 2 grandsons in this transfer too! Elder Ropka is probably my most obedient and hardest-working comp I've ever had, which is good for me, and he's going home in October so I just wanna help him finish strong. He's also been here in Suncrest since March, so he knows everyone. 

Our apartment is insane though. We live in a member's basement, and it's pretty boujee. We've got views of the Salt Lake valley, a rain shower, a sauna, and my bed is a queen size bed. So everytime I get frustrated with the work or with my time-consuming ZL responsibilities I have now, I just remember that I sleep in a queen size bed and things could be a lot worse.

Speaking of the work, location is not the only thing that makes Draper Suncrest different from any other area I've served in (or even in the mission). This area is 65% nonmembers. It's like serving anywhere else in the world honestly haha. There are entire streets where it's all nonmembers and it blows my mind. A lot of them don't really want anything to do with the Church, and they probably thought by moving all the way up here they'd be getting away haha. There are 2 church buildings up here though, so I don't know what they were thinking haha. 

That being said, there are plenty of people that are willing to hear about the Church. Legit just on my third day here we knocked a house (which was probably worth a couple million dollars) and the guy said, "Hey we just moved here from Northern CA, and everyone says "oh moving to UT, the Mormons and everything,' but I actually do wanna learn more about the Church. Do you guys have any written stuff like I could read, and then you guys could come back in a few weeks and discuss them with me?" So we gave him like 3 pamphlets and a Book of Mormon and are gonna hopefully meet with him soon!

I haven't really gotten to meet with a lot of our investigators yet, but we've got a lot actually. A lot of them are very smart people, so we have some pretty deep discussions haha. There's a guy named William we're teaching, and he's very much a devoted Catholic, so he recognizes that we really do agree on a lot. His wife is actually a member and was baptized while she was living in the Philippines because that's where she's from. She's not really active though. He's reading the Book of Mormon though, and every time we meet with him we just talk about his reading and teach with it. He's very intellectual though and in my opinion he overthinks a lot of stuff in it haha. 

We're also teaching a man named Brian. He's been around the Church his whole life because he's from UT, but he's honestly had a lot of legit not-great experiences with members of the Church over the years. His wife is an active member, but he is Baptist. They're both wonderful people and I love his thoughts and perspectives on Jesus Christ. He is a very faith-filled man. He also plays the piano and the organ really well and even played all the music for stake conference Saturday night!

This area is a new challenge, but I'm excited. I think I'll have to do a little more defending of the Church here just based on some experiences from the past few days, but it will be fun honestly haha. I know that Jesus is the Christ and that He lives. I know that His gospel is the only source of real TRUTH and light in the darkness our world contains. Thanks to His church, we do not have to discern which voices are correct, nor which we should listen to. The way of the Savior is the only way to navigate our world safely and joyfully.

I love you all! This was a long one, but there's lots of pics! 

Elder Snyder

Thank you Donny's, for everything

Cool rainbow

Welcome to my Crib

View of Suncrest

Deer

Last Maverik trip

Happy Valley

Week 55: The Week of Pizza...and Transfers!

Erick's Baptism!

Ayo wuz good

This week was overall pretty good. Of course, lots of pickleball, especially now that the weather is cooler too. Fall is great in UT! We also had pizza for lunch and/or dinner like 5 times this week. Pretty epic. There is transfer news too, but more on that later...

Tuesday was Don Joaquin's per usual, but when we were there we saw Jason Gray from Studio C! He was wearing a fake mustache but I still recognized him. We went up and said hi after we were done eating and he said, "I didn't dress like this just to come here, we're just filming a commercial." So that was cool.

We also got to start teaching John on Tuesday! He lives in the care center and he is the sweetest old dude ever. He used to live in Park City and just skiied all the time. He's been in a couple different care centers, but he was telling us that he really wants to get out of assisted living and live on his own again in Park City. He is a very faithful man, and he said that losing his leg really brought him closer to God. He has such a firm testimony in God and Jesus Christ and it was so cool getting to talk with him. He said the Elders that were teaching him in his last care center really wanted him to get baptized, but his only concern was that he didn't want to make a promise with God that he didn't feel like he could keep. We're gonna be meeting with him every Tuesday from now on, and he comes to the sacrament meeting in the care center every week too. He's just the best. 

Wednesday we were knocking around in the Vineyard 5th ward townhomes, and unfortunately Henry C. Eyring and his family have already moved out, so we decided to see who the new move-in was. We knocked on the door, and to my surprise, the guy that opened the door was my friend Micheal, my drumline captain from BYU! I also got to see him at the Orem Summerfest parade, but now he lives in my area! We talked for a bit, and it was so good to see an old friend. Elder Toro must've been pretty confused when I hugged a random dude that opened the door though ahaha. 

Thursday was an interesting day. We didn't really have a lot to do, but on our way to knock some more townhomes in the Vineyard 8th ward, I guess I had a prompting to go drop off a note at Adrian's apartment. We hadn't seen him in a while, and we only have his wife Theresa's number, so we decided to change our plans and drop off the note. As we were getting off our bikes, I asked Elder Toro what he thought about doing the note instead of knocking and he said, "I thought the same thing!" After we made the note we biked over to their apartment building, and Adrian and Theresa were getting out of their car! They were right there! Theresa was on her way out, but we went up to the apartment with Adrian and got to talk for a bit. He really liked church when he came, and he said he can really tell that Satan is working on him and Theresa, which is very true! He still very much wants to keep doing what God wants him to do, so we asked how he feels about getting baptized, and he said he wants to get baptized!! He's going on a trip for work to Logan for the next 2 weeks, but when he comes back it's going to be great teaching him!! 

Friday we got to meet with Adbul and Byan again. Abdul made it pretty clear that he has no intention of converting and leaving Islam, but that he is still very much willing to learn about the Church. We taught them the plan of salvation, but we also answered lots of their questions about all kinds of stuff in the Church. They're both very smart and very faithful people, so they had lots of great questions. I learned a lot about Islam too and it was fascinating! Byan still wants to go to a church meeting, but Abdul is still a little hesitant about it. We told them we could give them a private tour of a church building though, and they both really liked that idea! Abdul is gonna be out of town next week, but the following week that should be awesome! 

Saturday was cool because Erick finally got baptized! I have been working with Erick every since I came to this area, and it has been so great. Erick's family is awesome, and through us teaching Erick all this time, they've started coming back to church too! Erick even asked me to baptize him, which was a really cool experience. Elder Toro got to confirm him in sacrament meeting the next day too. President and Sister Evanson came to the baptism too, and when President Evanson saw me dressed in all white to baptize Erick he said, "You look good in white Elder." 

Which brings us to Sunday and transfer news. Rather bittersweetly, my time in (the) Vineyard has come to an end. I have been here all summer and I have seen so much growth in myself from being here. As great of an area as it is, it's still been hard and there have been some very rough days. In the last few days I've truly seen the inspiration behind me being assigned Elder Toro as my companion. Not because I got to be his trainer, but because he has been amazingly patient with me as I have gone through some of the rough days here. Hitting my year mark was sort of like having a mid-life crisis, and Elder Toro never complained got upset with me ever. I've truly been blessed. 

With that, I'm being transferred to..........Draper!! I bet none of you thought that! I doubt you even knew that was in the Orem mission. I'm going to the Draper Suncrest stake, which is those houses way up on the hill behind Alpine. There's actually a road that goes over the mountain there that goes right to the Draper temple, so it's technically in Draper and right on the border of the mission! I will also be a zone leader of the Lehi zone, and my new companion is Elder Ropka, who is actually my mission grandpa haha. This will be his last transfer before going home too. I already asked him if he has a pickleball paddle, which he does, so everything is going to be just fine. 

I love you all and I hope you all have a great week! 

Elder Snyder 

Sign got "rekt"

Elder Toro destroying a "Celeste's Cookie Concoction" at Leatherby's (highly recommend)

Got Raising Cane's dropped off

The "OP" set-up...piano and Mtn Dew

Me and Michael, my drumline captain from BYU

The lady that took this pic bought us pizza

Vineyard looking good on me.