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| Me and Elder Toro at the Temple |
This was another crazy week. Every night when I write in my journal and think over the day I think, "Wow, that all happened today?"
On Tuesday, I was finally able to return to Don Joaquin's. Back in like February, President Evanson made a rule of no getting food outside your zone, so since then certain zones have had monopolies on some of the best places in the mission. My old zone in Orem, the Cherry Hill zone, had Leatherby's on lock. I'm now in the Pleasant Grove zone, so we have the Lindon Don Joaquin's. Pretty epic.
We visited Marianne a lot this week. She's doing much better. She is the sweetest old lady. We told her that once she hasn't smoked for 2 weeks she can get baptized, and she took it really well. We shared 2 Nephi 26: 24 & 33 with her and she thought it was beautiful. That's because it really is. Our Savior denying none that come unto him is a beautiful teaching, and that all are accepted and improved when we follow him. She came to church on Sunday too, and as we were pushing her back to her room in her wheelchair, she was looking at all the other residents at the care center in their rooms as we passed by and said, "All these people that don't go to church. I love church!"
I went on exchanges with E. Toro this week! It was so fun to be comps with him again. He's still his hilarious self, but I was so impressed with the missionary he has become. I was training him around this time a year ago, and he has come so far. He used to be really quiet around other people, but now he's so much more comfortable talking to people. He's really improved with teaching people, and he's really good at inviting the Spirit with his teaching. It was so cool to see. It was a proud dad moment for sure.
On the exchange E. Toro and I met with a guy named Fernando. He just got passed off to us because we're whitewashing a stake right now too, so we were both meeting him for the first time. He's kinda the same situation as Ryan who I was teaching in my last area. He's been dating a girl named Shantel for like 2 years, then she invited him to meet with the missionaries, which started only a few weeks ago. He really wants to know if the Book of Mormon is true, and he and Shantel read it together every night, and he goes to church with her like every Sunday. He's really got a lot of potential. We always meet with him at the park by the temple too so that's cool.
We also started teaching a guy named Juan Carlos. One of our Bishops told us that he'd come to church last Sunday and came up and introduced himself to him. We went by his house to talk to him, and he came to church again! He is from Peru, and he's lived in UT for about 10 years. He said he has lots of friends who are members, but that he grew up Catholic. He has been comparing the Catholic church to our church a lot, and he likes how in our church anyone can speak in church, babies don't get baptized, and kids worship with their families in church. We sat down with him after sacrament meeting and I asked him if he wanted to become a member of the church, and he very affirmatively said, "I think so." We told him we could teach him everything he'd need to know to make that decision. We also told him about Spanish speaking missionaries and Spanish wards and asked if he'd prefer that, and he said, "Well I'm trying to perfect my English, so I think I should do this in English. I don't need to go to church in Spanish, cuz I already speak Spanish!"
Sunday we had lots of people come to church. We were bouncing around between lots of sacrament meetings so we could try to see everyone and invite more people between the meetings, so we ended up going to 5 sacrament meetings. We were speaking in a 9am ward too haha.
Pday today was good. Continuing my food review of the Utah Orem mission, next stop is Hruska's Kolaches, on Main St in American Fork. If you don't know what a kolache (cuh-law-chee) is, it's a really yummy food originally from the Czech Republic. It's also very popular in the state of Texas. Elder Barney would rave about kolaches. It's like a ball of bread filled with all sorts of things, and they have sweet and savory kolaches. Things like ham, cheese, bacon, sausage, eggs, but also strawberries, cream, Nutella, and the like. They weren't super cheap, but they're very delicious. The bread is really really good. We met a lady from Texas there and she said Hruska's are better than any she had in Texas. They're only open from 6:30am to 12 noon, but it's worth it. It's so good. We also played pickleball for 3 hours.
There's so much going on here, and so much to do. Sometimes I feel like there's not enough time and I wish I could be here for longer. But that's the thing about missionary work. It has been going on long before me, and it will continue to push onward long after me. It's the most important work in the world, and I really have had a front-row seat for the last little bit. It's been such a blessing.
Love you all!
Elder Snyder
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| The folks |
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| Hruska's |
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| Cool Pipe Organ |
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| Smoky Sunset |
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| You see the temple everywhere here! |
