Week 78: Winter Is Actually Over

My Epic Zone #brozone

Hey everyone!

This was another crazy week, but an epic one. It really isn't very cold anymore which is really nice. This has been such a great winter for someone from California haha. It was like mid-50s and sunny all week, and we even rolled the windows down a lot.

Tuesday we had a really good lesson with Mike. Mike really wants to know if the Church is true and if it's the right thing to pursue, so he is actually really diligent about reading the scriptures, asking in prayer, and going to church. We always bring Blake to our lessons too which is really cool because he only got baptized like 3 weeks ago. We told Mike that instead of praying and asking for just an answer, he should ask if the Book of Mormon is true and if Joseph Smith was a prophet. He really liked that approach because it's much more specific, and we pointed out that the story of Joseph Smith shows us that God answers prayers. Blake put it really well in a way that spoke to Mike a lot, and he said, "If God could answer the prayer of a 14-year-old boy like Joseph, why couldn't he answer one for a 25-year-old guy like me?"

We also had a good lesson with Ian that night. He's a lot younger than most of the people we teach, but really is a great guy. We read the first couple verses of Enos, and when we invited him to read the rest he said he actually was excited to read it! He doesn't really have any kind of religious background or belief in God, but he's really open to it. Or at least was hehe. A couple days later he texted us and said he didn't think any of it was really for him, so we're not really teaching him anymore. I'm sure someday down the road he'll talk to the missionaries again, and hopefully remember the things he felt with us.

Zone Conference was super fun, but it was a crazy day. There were so many kids leaving for their OGs that day that they basically had mini transfers that morning. We were scrambling around moving people's stuff, and then we were understandably late to Zone Conference. Our mission is so young now so everyone is just kinda figuring things out, but it's fun to be around young missionaries all the time. Almost everyone I came in with or around have gone to their OGs, so the mission legit is sooo young. To give you an example, there's 20 missionaries in my zone and 15 of them have been out less than 8 months, including my new companion! The night after Zone Conference we took Elder Burris to the mission home, and there were so many missionaries there dropping off other missionaries. We all hung out for a while which was really fun.

My new companion is Elder Barney, from The Colony, Texas. He's been out like 7 months but he's a pretty awesome missionary. He teaches very well and is super talkative and outgoing. He got transferred from within the zone so I already knew him pretty well, and the area he just got transferred from was the UVU YSA 3rd stake, so getting transferred to my area (the YSA 1st stake) was no big deal for him. This is actually his 3rd YSA area on his mission. One of our roommates got transferred too, and the new missionary that just got transferred here has a full-size keyboard, so now we have a piano in our apartment!

We had a great lesson with Kyle Saturday night about the plan of salvation. We also got to find out a little more about his own spirituality too. We asked him what believing in Jesus Christ means to him, and he said "Actually I don't know, I've never been asked that." We got to teach and bear testimony of faith in Jesus Christ a lot too. Kyle is so fun to meet with. He unfortunately didn't come to church the next day (or anyone we're teaching) but it was still an eventful Sunday.....

We had a meeting at 7:30am on Sunday, and when we got to our car there was a boot on the tire! We missed the meeting, got a ride to a church building with computers to pay to get it taken off, and then another ride to church, and then another ride back to our car, and we made to our 10:30 sacrament meeting on time! Between Elder Barney and I it was only like $30 each to get it removed. It just wouldn't be serving in Vineyard with a car without having some kind of parking mishap.

I also hit 18 months on my mission this week. I love my mission so much. It's so much fun, I've made so many friends, I've learned so many things, and I've grown and changed so much. I love Utah more now than I ever thought I could or would. I just love it here. I've learned so much about my testimony and about lifelong discipleship, and it's honestly just been such a good time. I'm honestly relieved to have another 6 months (or 4 transfers how I think of it now), because I really am gonna miss it a lot come this summer.

Love you all!

Elder Snyder