This week flew by, crazy fast! Like, whoa! I feel like I was just sitting at this computer yesterday writing. If this is how fast my whole mission is going to be, I’m going to be back home before you know it!
I remember when I was back home, I used to tell everyone that returned missionaries were always super weird and nerdy, and that I was NEVER going to be THAT guy! But, maaaaaaaaaaaann, I am such a freakin’ nerd now. I hate it, and I LOVE it. I totally keep a pen and mini cuaderno (notebook, see how good my Spanish is getting?) in my front pocket of my shirt. I laugh my butt off at church jokes, now. Seriously...these are jokes that I would hear back home, and I would stare blankly at the person who told it to me because they were so lame, and now I crack up about it because that’s just the kind of humor that you have here. What has ALSO contributed to my nerdiness is that I SANG IN A SPECIAL MUSICAL NUMBER ON SUNDAY!
Yes, ME. Mason Snow. I sang. In. A. Musical. Number. What have I become??!
Actually, it went GREAT. My district was singing, and I told them I REFUSED to sing. However, they were splitting the whole song into parts (I told you my district is really good at singing): bass, tenor, alto, soprano, melody and harmony and all that jazz, (whatever it is), and they only had one person singing melody. They needed me to sing because all I CAN do is sing melody. So, I was like ahhhhh fine, I’ll do it. And, it seriously went great. We sang “God the Eternal Father” to the tune of “If you can Hie to Kolob.” We did some stuff where we would sing melody the first verse, then break into parts for verse two, then verse three was really quiet and the last word of verse three crescendo into the last verse, and we sang it really loud. And, NO JOKE, everyone in that meeting cried. I was blown away by how well it went. All the elders came up to us afterwards, one of them being this big, bad football player guy named Elder Whirley (he cried the most), telling us how amazing we did. Also, two people from the MTC presidency were there, and they asked us to sing in the devotional this Sunday. So, I guess I’m performing with my district in front of a couple hundred missionaries Sunday. I told you I’m a nerd now.
I wouldn’t say I studied a ton of Spanish, this week, because I’ve been super committed to reading as much of the Book of Mormon as I can. Last week, I was only 30 pages in (1st Nephi), and now, a week later, I’m in Alma. That might not sound THAT impressive, but considering how I’ve struggled in the past, I’m proud of myself. I don’t get a lot of time to just study for myself, either. Most of my time is spent studying scriptures for my investigators. Once you get passed 2nd Nephi, where Nephi gets old and starts prophesying like frikken Isaiah, it actually gets really interesting!
As far as my investigators (actors) are going, my companion and I are doing well, and our investigators LOVE us. Hermano Guiterrez (he plays Juan) straight up told Elder Odle and I that we are his favorite companionship. I think its because we work so well together. Our Spanish speaking skills are similar, we are both proficient at it, not amazing, but we’re not horrible, so we can actually take turns teaching - which really helps with inviting the spirit. Most of the other companionships have somebody who is decent and somebody who is terrible at Spanish, so one person does 90 percent of the talking. Elder Odle and I study the topic we want to teach, pray before we go in there, and do our best to rely on the spirit and have it guide how our lessons are going to go. Juan is getting *baptized* (not really, as it’s acting) on November 30th. And, we are FINALLY starting to break through the impenetrable fortress, our investigator - “Judit” (played by Hermana Nishygushi).
OH, mom you’ll love this. I am basically like a witch doctor on campus now. EVERYONE comes to me for all his or her problems, and I heal them up with your oils. I’m getting pretty good at it, too. Elder Cook had really bad stomach problems one week, and I hooked him up with some Digestzen and On Guard. He was better like 3 hours later. I fixed Elder Odle’s foot when he cut it during volleyball, and I actually healed Hermana Nishygushi one day. She was SUPER sick and throwing up and she came to class and looked terrible. So, I asked her if she was alright, and she said she had been throwing up all day. I told her to wait a sec, and I ran back to the room and got some stuff and gave it to her. She was literally better within 45 minutes. Your dumb oils work. You can save your “ I told you Sos” for when I get back.
OH MAN I TOTALLY REMEMBERED SOMETHING:
Yesterday we were at gym, playing soccer on one of the basketball courts (Mexico is weird, the basketball courts have soccer goals as well). Elder Hendricks was kinda standing in the middle of the court, not doing anything (He’s the least coordinated person I’ve ever met). He turned around just as someone (one of the Mexican soccer players) kicked this soccer ball crazy hard, and it hit Elder Hendricks SQUARE in the boys. I’ve never laughed so hard, and felt so bad for laughing, in my entire life. He just dropped, and we carried him off the court into the grass. He literally just laid there for a 1.5 hour. He was in tears; I felt SO bad. I’ve never seen somebody get hit so hard there in my entire life. SO GUESS WHAT I DID MOM? I gave him some of that Immortelle stuff to help with the bruising. hahahahahhaha. Even though that story is probably not appropriate, it was hilarious, so you better keep this in the letter.
Today I went to the temple, which was all in Spanish, of course. I probably understood about 60 percent of what was said, but it was still pretty cool. However, some of the parts I just straight up laughed, though, when I didn’t mean to. It’s just because I’m so used to it in English and Spanish sounds funny sometimes. So, it would catch me off guard and I would giggle, which probably wasn’t wise because the MTC president happened to come to our session. But it’s ok, he likes me a lot. But, what I wanted to tell you is that I did a backflip, in my grey suit, on the front grass to the temple, and I got it on video. I’ll try to send it to you; it was super cool. It was a beautiful day today, and a super nice shot with the temple in the background. And, then there’s me, Mr. Missionary, doing a backflip in my suit haha. Link to the video
I did give away my first tie, two days ago. I was a bit bummed because I really liked the tie (don’t worry Amber, it wasn’t the tie you gave me, and it wasn’t the purple one you gave me dad. Those are off limits), but it was still a cool one. I’ve worn it only three times, and every single time I’ve worn it Elder Burdge has told me how much he loves it. This last time, I just took it off and gave it to him. He then got pretty upset, and he wanted to give me one back in return. But, I refused to let him give me one. I just told him to do the same thing for someone else down the road. Go figure, later that night, he was talking to the Latino elders in his dorm, and one of them asked if he wanted to trade ties. As Elder Burge went to trade, he saw that this Latino elder had three ties, so he gave the Latino elder 3 of his ties for one. A 3:1 trade. I was pretty happy about that.
I love you all; you guys should send me some emails and mail to keep me posted with how your life is going! I love to hear what’s going on.
Love you all, peace
Elder Snow
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