Week 62: My Comp's name is my name!

Mount Timpanogos Temple

What up party people

This week was fast, busy, and as almost always, epic.

Tuesday was the final day Elder Ropka's farewell tour. We delivered mail to almost everyone in the zone in the morning and got to see everyone, and then we met with or stopped by like all of our investigators and ward mission leaders. It also snowed like 4 inches up here. It was so much snow and so early in the season that a bunch of tree branches broke under the snow. I had no idea that that's why trees lose their leaves in the winter until now. One of our stake high councilors over missionary work to us to breakfast at Kneader's that morning too (bottomless French toast....)

Wednesday was transfer day and it was lit. I got to see like everyone I knew in the mission. As I was walking around I was actually feeling overwhelmed about the amount of homies I needed to dab up. My new comp is Elder Parker and he's epic. He's from North Carolina and he's been out the exact same amount of time as me. We started online MTC the same day even. People will say to him a lot, "You don't sound like you're from North Carolina," and he'll say, "It's cuz I grew up in Arizona till I was 9, so as for the North Carolina accent, I can't speak it but I can translate it." He actually lived in the dorm building next to mine at BYU while I was there, and we even have some mutual friends, but we never ran into each other there. He's also originally assigned to the Philippines, but he also doesn't think he's going haha. He was just in Eagle Mountain for 5 transfers, so he's really excited to just be somewhere else!

I've really enjoyed being with Elder Parker so far though. He worked at a Chick-fil-a back home for 2 YEARS, so he loves Chick-fil-a too! It's like being comps with Elder Dieker again, but now we have a car and can actually go! He also loves working out. So we went there on Thursday, and we also went to the temple! One of the kids that he taught in Eagle Mountain that got baptized was going to the temple for the first time with the kids in his ward, so after getting permission from President Evanson, we got to go too!

Friday was dope because we had an MLC breakfast at the mission home, but then that night was pretty legendary. We had a full night of contacting ahead of us, and we ended up meeting a lady named Claudia. She and her family had just moved here from Washington, and even though they already have a church they go to, she wanted to learn more about ours! She gratefully accepted a Book of Mormon and a Restoration pamphlet, and we'll probably go by in a few weeks to talk to her again. Then a little while later, we knocked a door of a guy named Rob who moved here from Arizona about a year and a half ago, and he wanted to learn about the Church too! We set up an appointment with him and we're going back tonight! Then later that night we knocked a member family's door and they invited us in and asked if their daughter had called us. They told us that their daughter and her boyfriend are learning about each other's faiths, so she wants her boyfriend to meet with us at her house! I walked out of that house and I was like, "Bruh what is happening?!?" 

Having a fresh set of eyes on the area is really great because Elder Ropka had been here a longgggg time. I'm really excited to continue working with Elder Parker in Suncrest! He's honestly a really good companion and he's been really helpful. We're going through our investigators and reevaluating their interest levels, because a lot of the people here Elder Ropka had been teaching for a long time and not a whole lot had come from it. So we'll probably stop meeting with some of them, but we'll find new people to teach too!

Pday today we got all our stuff done really early, so we played pickleball at the mission office courts with some friends we ran into there, and then we played pickleball and Spikeball with ours and another district at a park in Lehi. Pretty epic day. If every pday was like that, I'd be fine honestly. 

The mission is so great. I'm realizing how little I really have left. It's already slipping away and it's so weird to think that it will even come to an end eventually. But it will of course, always, be epic.

Love you all!!

Elder Snyder 

 

Selfie in someone's house

Driving above a cloud

Snow damage

More snow damage!

Deer! 

Week 61: Ba-Bye Now, Elder Ropka

Hey everybody!

This was a pretty epic week. Flew by yet again, especially as we knew a transfer call was inevitable because Elder Ropka is going home on Thursday. We stayed really busy though. You know I always leave the transfer news to the end though, so stay tuned for that. 

So we're supposed to go do exchanges with all 4 of the district leaders in our zone, and by this the last week of the transfer we still hadn't done 3 of them, so we did the remaining 3 exchanges in 3 days. And naturally, each of these began with lunch, which leads me to my food places for the week: Zao (solid Asian place, get the bowl w yellow curry sauce), Red8 (also Asian food, the lunch special gets your money's worth, also cheap sushi if you're into that), and BDubs (an epic return). We also went to Don Joaquin's on Tuesday (there's 2 in the mission) and on pday today we went to Black Bear Diner (pretty good). 

We found another new person to teach! Remember that guy I talked to on like my 3rd day in Suncrest that was like, "Yeah I wanna learn about the Church cuz I just moved here from California. You got any written stuff I could read?" We were FINALLY able to get a time to meet with him this week. His name is Ed and turns out, he really isn't that religious at all. He said he grew up a CNE Catholic (Christmas 'n Easter), and he really only has a basic understanding of Christian beliefs, but he himself doesn't necessarily believe in a lot of them. He talked a lot about science and evidence and that sort of thing. We taught him the Restoration, which he was already pretty familiar with from the pamphlet we gave him. At the end of the lesson he basically said he'd let us know the next time he wanted to meet, but that he would like to meet again in the future and attend sacrament meeting too!

We also had a good lesson with Pat this week. His neighbor, Brother Morrison (who is also the ward mission leader), always comes to the lessons and he is not afraid to say what needs to be said haha. He legit asked Pat in the lesson, "Pat, what do you have to lose by joining the Church?" They are like best friends though so they have a lot of fun in our lessons.

We had another great lesson with Brian too. Brain continues to make lots of interesting comments on the gospel and the Book of Mormon, which leads to some pretty deep questions about it all. They're all valid questions though, not just questions being asked for the sake of it. He's a very smart man. What's really cool though is that Brian and Elder Ropka and I always have mutual respect for each other's beliefs. We are all "brothers in Christ," as Brian says. Elder Ropka and I both think that Brian is just one day going to run out of questions and that he'll have to get an answer from the Lord about the truthfulness of everything we've been teaching. Brian and his wife Liz have become such good friends. They even had us over for breakfast on Saturday. They're really gonna miss Elder Ropka, but I'm excited to keep working with them.  

On Thursday night we had dinner with a nonmember family that Elder Ropka is really tight with. They unfortunately had some bad experiences with some members of the Church when they first moved here, so they're not really being taught, but they're always down the feel the missionaries haha. They're from Missouri like Elder Ropka, and they also really love barbeque. They made us brisket which was really yummy. They also love food, and trying new food places too, so all we talked about was just good food places we like here. I told them to try Don Joaquin's, and I really hope they like it. Legit as I named off food places I liked, the mom was writing them down on a notepad!   

We also knocked a door and ended up sharing a member-message with an older lady who lived in the basement of a house. She said her daughter and son-in-law own the house and only live here on vacation, but she just has the basement and lives there year-round. She's an active member, but her son-in-law is not a member. As we talked, she told us that her daughter and son-in-law usually live in LA because they're professional dancers! She said they were both on So You Think You Can Dance, and that her son-in-law is the DJ for the Ellen show! If you know who Twitch from the Ellen show is, well I met his mother-in-law this week. I didn't know who he was honestly, but Elder Ropka was floored haha. 

Sunday was a big day. Elder Ropka and I gave talks, and Elder Ropka basically gave his farewell to the mission and to Suncrest. He talked about how his family used to be inactive, but now here he is finishing a mission. It was a really inspiring message. We also had David, Brian, and Pat come to church! We've also just been visiting people that Elder Ropka wants to say goodbye to, and one family we visited had a cat that climbed on the armrest of the couch and scratched me on the nose! I've got 2 big scratches right on my face now. 

Transfers: My new companion is Elder Parker. He actually came in with me and he is originally assigned to the Philippines. I think he was at BYU while I was there too. I don't really know a lot about him, but he seems really cool. This transfer we are getting 35 new missionaries, so as I've asked around about transfers it seems like everyone is training haha. 

This Thursday Elder Ropka is being permanently transferred to Kansas City, Missouri. It's been great having Elder Ropka and being comps with my mission grandpa. I'm really not the same missionary I was 6 weeks ago, but I've learned a lot this transfer. I've learned that the mission isn't about how much from your pre-mission life you can hold on to and get away with as a missionary, but it's about how much you're willing to let go. It's about how much I can give up to the Lord to be a more consecrated disciple. In foreign missions, you're at least in a completely different part of the world that can help isolate you from normal life, which is another reason why serving in UT is a unique challenge, especially for someone like me. But the mission for me is no longer about who I'm staying, but who I'm becoming. 

Hope everyone has an epic week!

Elder Snyder 

 

I guess they really didn't want missionaries...haha!

Back and Donny's! 

We got snow!

Living in a cloud...check!

Made a snowman

Snowy Mountains

Haven't had a sunset in a while

Week 60: ZONECON

Zone Conference

Hey everybody!

Things are starting to cool off again here in the Happy Valley. There's snow on the tops of the mountains, and Suncrest is probably next. Not looking forward to that, because apparently Suncrest gets like whole FEET of snow in winter. 

We found a new person to teach this week! Her name is Ali, and her and her husband moved to Suncrest about a year ago. She already has so many friends in the neighborhood, and her son plays with all the kids around here too. When we knocked her door, we had a lesson with David to get to but she said we could come back tomorrow. The next day we called one of Ali's neighbors/friends that mentioned to us, Sister Koch, to invite her to come with us to the lesson, and she already knew about our lesson because Ali had told her! We taught the plan of salvation and she really liked it. She grew up Catholic and already has a firm relationship with God and Jesus Christ, but she said she loves learning new things! And according to Sister Koch, Ali could really use the gospel because of some things going on in her life that Ali has told her about. She really wanted to come to church, but she didn't end up making it. We've got another lesson with her this week which should be awesome! It's great finding a new person that comes with built-in fellowshippers!

We got to meet with David twice this week, which was awesome. We talked to him about different commandments, like tithing, fasting, and the Word of Wisdom, and he was already very familiar with all of those things because of his knowledge of the Bible. He really likes the consistency that he sees between the Church and the teachings of the Bible. We even went over the baptismal interview questions with him, and after that he was like, "Okay so all I need to do is get a witness of the Holy Ghost about Joseph Smith and the Restoration." He's confident he can get an answer too because of his conversion experience to Christianity in general. He came to church on Sunday too!

Wednesday we had a super epic zone conference! I got to see and hang out with a lot of old friends, like Elder Dickemore and Elder Dieker. I found out I was playing all the music when they said from the pulpit that I would be doing it haha. All the missonaries that are going home soon get to bear their testimonies, so Elder Ropka got to, but there were some amazing testionies born. One of the first people I met in the UOM, Sister Tia, gave her departing testimony and she said, "You've had eternity to prepare for your mission, and you'll have eternity to reflect on it, but only 2 years or 18 months to actually do it."

President Evanson also gave an amazing opening training about consecration. The more that we can give to the Lord the better. The more that we sacrifice, the humbler we can become and the more dependent we will be on Him. He knows what is best for us and only His will matters. This is how we truly WORSHIP the Father. Our everything is His. It was an amazing zone conference and I felt so uplifted and ready to be a consecrated servant of the Lord! 

On Saturday I went on exchanges with Elder Reed, and I was back on a bike! It was actually really fun and I low key miss biking. I even taught Elder Reed how to ride a bike without hands, which he thought was pretty funny. Elder Reed has only been out for like 3 months and grew up on a cattle ranch in Colorado. He's a total farmer boy which was funny. He said after the mission he just wants to go back and work on the cattle ranch and maybe just be a farmer for the rest of his life. We got along really well because of our mutual love for country music haha.   

On Sunday Patrick came to church! We told him it was gonna be a testimony meeting and he said he likes those, and he actually came! He's been meeting with the missionaries since like March, and this was only his 2nd time coming to church. He's got a lot of kinda nit-picky concerns about the Church, but he's a super chill guy. That night to break our fast we had dinner with an inactive family that Elder Ropka is really good friends with, but they also just love feeding the missionaries. And they went OFF for a kind of send-off for Elder Ropka. They made mashed potatoes, salad, broccoli, steak, and crab legs! I'd never tried a crab leg before, but it was pretty good. 

We are heading into the last week of the transfer brothers and sisters! Next week I'll have news about who my new companion is. Elder Ropka heads back to Kansas City, MO on the 20th, so this is his last full week. This transfer has flown by, but there's still a week left!

I also hit a year of being in the UOM this week! I could not have dreamed of a better place to serve the Lord and His children. I think I like it here too much to ever leave. The gathering of Israel happens everywhere, but people are literally being gathered to Utah nowadays. They think it's for a job, for family, a better house, or maybe they don't have a clue. But we sure know why! 

 

I love you all! Pray that we don't get any snow!

Elder Snyder

Zone Conference lunch

Me and Elder Dieker

Me and Elder Dickemore

Crab legs!

"Smol Dor"

Elder Ropka with Snowy Mt. Timp.

View from our apartment...that inversion tho

Week 59: GENCON

Me and the Zone homies in American Fork Canyon

Hey there!

First off, food places: Zao (again), Chick-fil-a (always epic), Wendy's (just that), DP Cheesesteaks (over-priced), and Shake Shack (dropped off cuz it's not in our mission haha). 

GenCon (General Conference) was this week which was EPIC. It was so cool to hear another set of amazing talks from the prophet and apostles, as well as hear from some new people too. During President Nelson's talk in the Sunday morning session, I was on the edge of my seat thinking he was gonna announce something new. But when he didn't I wasn't disappointed. I kinda realized that maybe that's just what listening to a PROPHET of God feels like. It's exciting and invigorating and you can feel the Spirit testifying of its TRUTH! 

We had a really cool lesson with David during the week where we just read the Book of Mormon, but then we got to watch the Saturday morning session with him too. He really liked it actually! He loved how all the speakers spoke so powerfully. He literally said, "I love powerful sermons." He especially liked Elder Soares' talk that session. It's too bad his wife is basically stuck in China for the next few weeks, or he'd be moving along a lot faster. 

Wednesday we went on exchanges with the APs which was really cool. I went with Elder Gomez to the Traverse Mountain area, and Elder Lake stayed with Elder Ropka in Suncrest. Elder Gomez is super cool. He joined the Church when he was 18 and is the only member of the Church in his family. Then he graduated college from UTEP, and then went on a mission! He's like 25 years old. He is originally called to Peru but got visa-waited after the MTC, and then COVID hit so he's been here ever since. He's super cool and he gave me some realy good advice on becoming a more obedient missionary, and obviously his perspective on that is pretty unique. It was a really fun day too, and we got Chick-fil-a!

After the exchange, Elder Ropka and I had a lesson with Brian. This lesson went a lot better than our last lesson with him because it was so much less of a bash than last time haha. He is a really kind man, just not very open-minded. He is at least willing to meet with us, which is already a milestone because he's lived in UT his entire life and has never met with missionaries. And despite living in UT for so long, he says he's learning lots of new things in our discussion. We talked about the Plan of Salvation and the Spirit was very much present the entire time. His wife is an active member, and he and his wife come to church regularly. He is a very strong Baptist, but I love hearing his perspectives on things. He's very well-versed in the Bible. 

Elder Ropka and I also had a mouse in our apartment this week. Our landlord gave us some traps with some peanut butter, but we both wanted that mouse gone. We tried all sorts of methods to get it to come out from beneath a cabinet or the couch so we could trap it under a tupperware, and once we'd finally done that we slid a trap into his little tupperware. But once we saw the mouse literally walking on the trap and eating the peanut butter off of it, we decided to get a dust pan under the container and launch the mouse into the trees behind our house. End of story.

We actually watched the Sunday afternoon session of GenCon at Brian's house which was awesome. He made lunch for us, and then we all enjoyed the final epic session of GenCon. Brian and his wife are building a house in Kanab, so they go there like every other weekend to go check on it. They wont be moving for the next couple years or so, but Brian invited Elder Ropka and I to come visit him in Kanab when we're both back at BYU and he said he'll take us out in his Razor (which he drives to the church building for our lessons haha)!

I love how President Nelson opened by saying that GenCon is full of divine truth! Real truth! Lots of things have so many different ways to look at things that can make it seem false or inaccurate or biased, but the doctrine of Christ is real, guiding TRUTH in the world that we can all rely on! It is something you can always hold on to, because anything else in the world can change EXCEPT the doctrine of Christ! Our covenants also bind us to Christ and our Father in heaven and give us direct access to the power of the Atonement, by which power we can overcome anything!!

I love you all!

Elder Snyder

Shout out to my Uncle Chris! 

More American Fork Canyon

Playing piano at Brian's house

Church parking lot

Salt Lake Valley at night - Can you find 2 temples in the pic?

Me and Jerry