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| Elder Parker and I with the Gail Halvorsen, "The Candy Bomber" |
Hey everybody!
Food places: Don Joaquin's (yup), Chick-fil-a (now with peppermint milkshakes), Chipotle (still aight honestly), and Jersey Mike's (Elder Parker's first time!).
Now that those are out of the way, this was actually a really epic week, even though it was actually pretty uneventful. We finally got to start teaching our investigators again this week haha. We just haven't been able to meet with anyone until this week I guess. Wednesday we met with Burgess and Bruce. Burgess is super chill, and he wants to read the Book of Mormon, but I don't think he really is that interested in joining the Church. He said he enjoys the company though, so we'll just have to see what the future holds for him. Bruce on the other hand has told us multiple times though that he really does not see himself joining the Church for lots of reasons, but he likes meeting with us too. We basically had a drop lessons with Bruce, which is when you kinda let them know they aren't really progressing and you probably aren't going to be coming by anymore, and he totally understood actually. He said he still wants to read the whole Book of Mormon though, and that he would hit us up if he had any questions about his reading.
What's interesting about Bruce is that according to Elder Ropka, before he was meeting with the missionaries he and his wife didn't go to church and he was not reading the scriptures. But now he and his wife actively go to a nondenominational church in Draper (which is pretty popular among the Suncrest nonmembers), and he reads the Bible and the Book of Mormon regularly. It's definitly a step in the right direction.
We had 2 exchanges this week too. Both times Elder Parker went to a different area and I stayed in Suncrest. It was fun showing other missionaries around, and it gave me time to plan Elder Parker's birthday surprise haha. His birthday is the 21st, so on these exchanges we would stop by all the homie members and plan fun things for his birthday. One of these days we had dinner with a Puerto Rican family that had 12 kids! They actually knew Elder Toro's family too because they used to live in Orlando!
Saturday was fun because we had a lesson with David in the morning, a comp study with another companionship in the afternoon, and then nothing all evening! We knocked lots of doors, members and nonmembers, trying to see who we could talk to. We talked to plenty of people, but got in ZERO doors all night. Some of you fellow missionaries or returned missionaries may be laughing at this because this probably happened to you a lot more, but it was a long night haha.
That night we did try to talk to one lady who we've been trying to meet with who lives in the basement of an active lady in the ward, but her landlord (the active lady) said she was busy when we went by. Up the street we saw one of our Elders quorum presidents outside, and we told him we tried stopping by, he goes to his garage and hands us a broken chair leg and said, "Go back and give this directly to her. Tell her it's from me and she'll know what it's for." So we went back about 10 minutes after we were just there, and the landlord answered the door very confusedly, to which led to more confusion when we told her we had a broken chair leg for her tenant in the basement. She called her up though, and when we gave it to her she was very thankful, and then we set up an appointment with her for Tuesday night! As weird as it was, it worked!
On Sunday, the Suncrest stake put on a big fireside for Veteran's Day and it was actually really awesome. Gail Halvorsen, the Candy Bomber, was one of the speakers! His son actually lives in the Suncrest stake, and we had dinner with him the other day, so I'm sure that connection helped in getting him to come. There were other speakers that were really good, and then we watched the section from "Meet the Mormons" about the Candy Bomber, and then he spoke for like 2 minutes and I didn't understand most of it haha. He's like 102 or something. Elder Parker and I got to meet him afterward though! We had 2 of the people we're teaching come too!
Pday today was epic because it was go go go. We finished our grocery shopping by 7:45 and then played pickleball for two and a half hours. One of the guys in Suncrest that we've been playing with reserved a church building in Highland with THREE indoor courts, and he got it for every Monday at 8 through MARCH! Let's goooooo. Then we went shopping some more, then ran to the mission office, then played volleyball with another district. It was epic.
The last few weeks have shown me that I really do love being a missionary. It's too much fun. What's crazy is I can see the days, weeks, and transfers passing quickly, and it feels like this all is just slipping away! I'm happy to be the Lord's servant and respresentative, and I'm happy to be doing it here in the best place ever!
I love you all!
Elder Snyder
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