Week 96: 7pm Cage Nightmare Arena Battle for the $10,000 Cash Suitcase Ladder Match

Don't ya just love Utah!

Hey everyone!

So our recent convert Amadeus is legit one of the funniest people I've ever met. It's been so fun to have new member lessons with him for the last few months. The senior couple missionaries in our mission specialize in teaching recent converts, and so we've always down them with this old couple named the Willes. Whenever we'd confirm with Amadeus about a lesson with us and the Willes, Amadeus would always send back some funny thing to confirm, like "7pm Wille Throwdown" or "7pm Wild Wille Mayhem Tournament." Recently he sent the funniest one yet, which was the inspiration for this week's subject line. Amadeus is also a very talented cartoonist, and he actually drew a picture of him in the 7pm Cage Nightmare Arena Battle for the $10,000 Cash Suitcase Ladder Match with the Willes. It is attached, don't worry.

I also went on exchanges this week with Elder Albritton. He is such a homie. I have been his ZL for almost his entire mission. He was in my zone the whole time I was in Lehi, and then he got transferred to the zone I'm currently in at the same time as me. People always mispronounce his name, and he said one time somebody called him Elder Albatron, so naturally I almost exclusively call him that cuz it's hilarious. He is such a good missionary though and it's always fun to hang out with him.

While on exchanges I got to interview a girl named Nadia for baptism. She said she's wanted to join the Church since 2020. She told me she loves serving others, and in her efforts to find more ways to serve people, she basically stumbled upon the Church and liked what she found. She moved to Utah back in 2020, and she was so excited to finally become a member of the Church this week. I told her that serving other people already blesses us so much, but when we covenant to serve other people by being baptized, we can be blessed even more and receive even more opportunities to serve. I think she be an excellent member of the Church.

Thursday we had Zone Conference! It was actually a mission tour with Elder Schmutz (sh-moo-tz) from the Utah Area Presidency. The last mission tour we had back in November was pretty intense, so everyone had definitely buckled up for this one. Thankfully this time around was much better. Elder Schmutz began the meeting by saying, "Well I know you all just met with Elder Bednar last week, and I know I can't top that, so I won't try to." It was a very inspiring and uplifting meeting, and I learned a lot of new stuff about the Holy Ghost. He was a mission president in and the Area President of the Philippines, so he had lots of cool stories to tell about the Filipino members. It was fun to hang with old friends and comps, like Elder Parker and Elder Toro.

After ZC we had a lesson with Nanaka. We taught her the first past of the plan of salvation, and it was really cool because she basically had like no knowledge of it going in. The really cool thing is that she doesn't have any prior knowledge to confuse her. Lots of people I've taught have a hard time comprehending the plan of salvation because a lot of it is really new to them; be it the actual doctrine, or the unique perspectives contained in the Book of Mormon, it's a lot to process. Nanaka thought it was all so fascinating. She is like the best person to teach ever because she just eats it all up, reads the Book of Mormon, and goes to church like every Sunday.

There was also an MLC after the two zone conferences for the mission tour where we met with Elder Schmutz again, and it was also so much better than last mission tour's post-ZC MLC (keeping up with these acronyms?). It was actually a really fun meeting where I got to see a lot of my friends, and we were once again very much uplifted and inspired as leaders. Afterward, we got lunch with Elder Dickemore and his comp Elder Buckley at Cravings.

Elder Barney and I started playing this hilarious game called "If everyone in our zone was..." We'll think of a general group setting, and put everyone in our zone into it based on what they would do in that group. Some examples are "If everyone in our zone was:" on a football team, in a marching band, on a basketball team, a character from The Office, a Chick-fil-a worker, in a rock band, etc. It's so fun, and it really passes the time when we're knocking doors.

I hope everyone had an epic Father's Day! All the youth in the Samoan ward sang a song for Father's Day in sacrament meeting and it was really good. That ward always has the best music.

Lots of things to do still! No time for being trunky!

Love you all!

Elder Snyder