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