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