A + B + C = 35

This was another fantastic week, let me tell you!  My Texas accent is getting a lot better (not on purpose; it just slips out sometimes) and we've had lots of work to do, so I have no complaints!

This week, Elder Montgomery and I were trying to get by a lot of former investigators and potential investigators to see if anyone would be interested in the hearing gospel.

One day, as we were doing this, we came across a man who was washing his car outside, and we decided to go try to talk to him.  We're like "hello!!" (I try to act as weird and awkward as I can when I introduce myself to people, that way the only direction i can go from there is up). We both waved at the guy. He smiles and says something Spanish.  So we're like, ah man, this guy isn't interested, he's doing the whole "I don't speak English" thing. So, we start talking to him in spanish (let's get real, it was mostly Elder Montgomery in Spanish.  All I told him was that I had been to Mexico City once).  We find out he's actually legitimately from Mexico, and doesn't know any English haha. 

So, we ask him if we can share a message and he's like "sure, do you have a couple minutes?  I gotta finish washing my car" so we're like "yeah sure, can we help?" So, we helped him wash his car. Afterwards, he invited us inside, and we taught the restoration to his whole family in Spanish! Okay, it was still mostly Elder Montgomery, but I totally nailed the first vision and Joseph Smith story in Spanish, so I still helped haha.

We invited them to be baptized and they accepted! How crazy is that? They seemed sincere and really wanted to learn. They were going back to Mexico the next day, so we sent a referral, and we also told the Spanish elders in our area (I'm English right now so I’m supposed to refer them). It was nuts though!  Totally a miracle; I've never had someone be like "oh yeah come on in, oh yes I'd love to be baptized!" It was almost like it wasn't real haha, so so cool.

Also this week, we have been trying to stop by this member referral, a lady named “N.”  We've tried 6 or 7 times, and so Saturday we're like "okay, we're going try her ONE MORE time today, and if she doesn't answer, we're going to quit trying.

So we get there, knock the door, no answer.  So we're thinking, "alright, guess it wasn't meant to be!" And, as we're about to turn and walk away, she opens the door. She was so ridiculously nice. We had such a great time chatting with her on her doorstep, and we asked if we could come in and share a message and she was totally willing to hear our message! But, there wasn't a man there, so we couldn't go in, so we set a return appointment for Thursday at 6 because her son will be there.  I feel real good about it; we're super excited to teach her!

Alright last miracle moment.  We have been trying to get in to teach the “B” family since we got here, and it’s just never worked out. They really didn't seem interested so they were like the last people on our priority list, to be honest with you. We went over there on Saturday night, with the plan to teach part of the restoration, and drop talk them.  We legitimately were going to tell them that we loved them, but that we were super busy and wouldn't be able to come over anymore unless they were willing to act. 

But, the lesson took a different spin, and she told us that she was looking for the truth so hard, but she hadn't found it yet, and she didn't know if we were right. Then I asked her "Well, have you actually put in the effort to know? Have you actually picked up the Book of Mormon, read from it, and prayed with real intent, having faith in Christ, to know if these things are true?  Because that's the ONLY way you'll ever know." And, we testified of it's truth.

She kind of looked at us, looked down, and looked at us again and said "you know, you're right. I haven't put in the effort; I haven't gone to church; I haven't read the book and I haven't prayed about it. You're right." She said she would come to church on Sunday with her husband.

We walked out of there kind of thinking, okay we didn't drop them yet, so if they don't come to church they were just yanking our chain and are not being serious about it. When we arrived at church the next day, we didn’t see them and we were like "ah, yep, she didn't really mean it."

Then, after about 10 minutes of getting started they walked in! Seriously, our jaws DROPPED.  They've been taught for like 2 years, and they've NEVER come to church. We talked to them afterwards, and she tells us how she was feeling terrible that morning and wasn't going to come (she has lots of health issues), and she opened the Book of Mormon to read and the first verse she read said she needed to "go" do something.  She took that as her sign to come to church.  So, she came with her husband, and she was using a cane and everything because she was in so much pain, and they LOVED it. They're coming next week to stake conference, and we're going to see them again on Tuesday! so crazy, if that's not a miracle, I don't know what is.

Our mission president had just told us earlier in the week, "sometimes, when you do missionary work, A+B+C= 35." he meant like, you can work so hard doing one thing, and the Lord recognizes your hard work, so he blesses you. It may not mean that he'll bless you by having someone let you come in while you're knocking, but because you worked hard knocking doors, out of nowhere, some other miracle may happen. So, we were blessed for working hard, and we couldn't be more excited!

Last little bit. I decided that I'm done being a fat missionary. Wednesday night, Elder Montgomery and I decided we were going to go HARD on working out in the morning and dieting really good. So, we weighed ourselves, took measurements of how fat we were, and took before pictures and we're going to be doing that every Wednesday for the next 6 weeks.  I weighed in at 195 pounds. I KNOW. UNREAL. So fat, it's ridiculous. But just since last wednesday, I've gotten down to about 187.8 pounds. We're going hard! So before you know it, i'm going to be ripped to shreds as a missionary, it's gonna be great! ahha

Anyway, I hope you all have a great week. love you!

Elder Snow

HAPPY EASTER!

April 21, 2014

Note: See the diffuser mist in the background? Yep proud mama!

Alrighty then! Another week flying by - my goodness. I'm just about half way done with this transfer here in SA 1st ward; how crazy is that? Geeze haha. Well, this week was a very successful and fun week, so here we go!

Elder Montgomery and I really wanted to organize our area a little better this week, so we put in a ton of time reorganizing the area book, buying boards and velcro and putting them on the walls, deciding how to most effectively utilize the board, etc etc. We actually had to spend a whole day inside one day just doing all that stuff.  It was rough. It’s hard staying in the apartment all day when you're used to being outside knocking doors or visiting people, talking to people or whatever.  Staying inside and doing "paperwork," more or less, was difficult. But, that's okay; it's helped us tremendously throughout the week, so it was definitely worth it. 

Ward Boundaries - HUGE area!

This week, we found an absolute golden investigator that we are so excited about! He lives in a town called Elmendorf, which is out in the country! We cover a huge area, so he lives kind of far away. But that's alright! He's super super cool. He was being taught by the missionaries in the past, but had completely lost contact for some reason.  He just called us out of the blue.  Long story short, he had us come over, and it was awesome!   He's basically been taught everything already by the online missionaries.  He talks to sisters in Salt Lake every day on the phone and online. He knows everything and has a super strong testimony that it's true. His only issue is getting a ride to church; he needs to come to church 3 times before he can be baptized, and he wants to come SOOO bad.  It took us a lot of phone calls and a lot of work, but we found a family that sort of lives in the same area that's willing to give him a ride to church, so we're super excited!  He should be baptized for the 17th of May, we can't wait!

Speaking of baptisms, remember that lesson I taught in Spanish last week, on our exchanges? Remember how he invited me to his baptism? Well, we went, and it was fantastic! I don't know why “R” likes me so much. I can't even really understand what he says most of the time, but he was super excited when I made it to his baptism. It was a super cool experience. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures with him because I had to leave the service a little early because of an appointment we had. But all in all it was a great experience! 

Also on the topic of baptisms, all of my old investigators from New Braunfels should be getting baptized super soon! “S” is getting baptized THIS SATURDAY, which is super sweet, and “S&J” are being baptized on the 3rd of May. Also, “S” is going to be baptized the 17th of may. How awesome is that? I asked president if I could go see them, and he said yes! I'm super excited; I can't wait to go and see all of those. Elder Swonson lucked out; all he had to do was reap the benefits of my old area. haha just kidding; I’m actually really excited for him :D

My Easter was pretty fantastic. I actually had the opportunity to sing a special musical number during sacrament meeting with my district.  Again, I'm in a very good “singing” district, so all I had to do was sing quietly and it sounded great. But, no it went fantastic! We sang "Come Thou Fount" and everyone sang parts and it was seriously awesome.  People were crying.  SO many people came up to us throughout church and told us how great it was; it was a very cool experience. 

The temple president actually was there and spoke in sacrament, and throughout church he kept coming up to us and telling us how great we did. Man, it was such a cool experience.

Then, later that night we were able to hear where Elder Montgomery's younger brother is going to serve his mission, from Sister Heifner. He's going to Salt Lake City south mission, Spanish speaking! How awesome is that?! He's going baptize like crazy up there :D

Last but not least:  I don't think I’ve mentioned the dogs here in the south side of San Antonio. I'm not really sure WHY it's like this, but there are tons of wild dogs in my area. It's so weird. Some big ones too!  They just cruise around the streets, but they're especially in the more ghetto areas. We carry around dog treats with us, and pepper spray, every time we get out of the car. I've only had to use a couple dog treats though; never had to use the spray. Almost all of them are super nice. They kinda just follow you around and knock doors with you and protect you, it's funny. I only had to use a dog treat when I was distracting someone’s dog that didn't seem very nice, so I could knock on the owner’s door, that's about it. 

Anyway, that's it for me this week; hope you all had a great Easter week! 
  

"Jesus is the Son of God, our Savior and Redeemer. Because of Him, death is not the end, and life takes on new meaning. We can change, we can start over—and we can live again with God. This Easter, celebrate His life and discover all that’s possible because of Him."  http://easter.mormon.org/

 

Love,

Elder Snow

LOVING THE NEW AREA!

April 14, 2014

okay, so here's what's been going on this week!

I’ll be honest with you, this week was slow as far as "numbers" go in the mission field.  We barely got in anywhere and barely had any doors open. But man, let me tell you, I had so much fun this week.  Elder Montgomery and I have been just having so much fun.  We've been working hard and doing our thing, and although we haven't seen any immediate success really, that's alright. We're having fun working hard.

This week we had the opportunity to help one of our investigator families, move from one house to the other. We had a lot of work to do!  We went over like 4 or 5 times this week to help for hours each time.  It's been a huge project. We even went this morning, in fact, to do more…IN the pouring rain!  But, it's been good; we're starting to build a really good relationship with them and it's just amazing to see what you can do through just serving people. They should be finished up today, so we're hoping to start teaching them again this upcoming week.  They seem very receptive.  They have some work to do, but they have a desire to be baptized, so we're hoping for the best!

This week, during two dinner appointments, and I had this grand idea to not JUST read scriptures at dinner appointments, but also to sing a song to invite the spirit.  So we shared a scripture that kind of had to do with the song, and then we would talk about it. Oh man, it's been working miracles, let me tell you. Elder Montgomery is a pretty dang good singer, and I'm apparently not too bad either.  The two times we've done it at dinners, we've had people in tears and just handing us referrals. It's been amazing.

We're also starting to open some of our lessons or spiritual thoughts to less active members with songs as well, and they're also loving it. We had dinner last night, and the family gave us a referral afterwards and literally told us "you only have our permission to visit this person if you sing to her. She would absolutely love to have you sing to her. But next time, sing all 4 verses!" hahah It was great. It really has been working miracles; it's been so much fun. I was only going do it a couple times, but now Elder Montgomery LOVES it, so we're doing it all the time now ahah. it's fun.

Okay, so the major part of my week - the big thing that happened, was.......I went on my first REAL exchange. Oh man, it was terrifying. Elder Tapia (our district leader) went with Elder Montgomery, and I went with Elder Sioka (the samoan guy). Elder Sioka and I had a blast.

Two interesting things happened on my exchange – 1). I was able to DRIVE ALL DAY, which was awesome. I was allowed to do that because Elder Sioka isn't allowed to drive in the US because he's from samoa and yeah I don't know why, but he's not allowed to drive.

AND 2) I went to a SPANISH AREA. Oh man, it was terrifying. Elder Sioka’s Spanish is even worse than mine, and we had to teach in Spanish all day. It was so so so scary haha. We seriously had like ZERO success all day long UNTIL our lesson with their most golden investigator at 7 o clock that night.  We got to his house, and we were supposed to teach the plan of salvation. let me tell you, I have NO IDEA how he understood what we were saying, but we taught the entire lesson, it was crazy. He understood all of it. We were just doing our best, and I was really trying hard to just throw words out there and go for it and have him correct me if I was wrong, and it went really well. He really liked me too actually; he invited me to his baptism on the 19th of April! So, that’s this Saturday!

He told me he liked me a lot better than Elder Tapia, but he was just joking around haha. But, I saw him come out of church yesterday (we share the building with the Spanish branch). He saw me and ran up to me and gave me a big hug and was like trying to talk to me hahah. I couldn't say a whole lot back, but it was still cool. So I'm going to a baptism this Saturday. Super cool! Elder Sioka and I had such a good time, though, too. I hope you enjoy the pictures of us haha.

Other cool notes about this week – S & J, (the family I was teaching in New Braunfels) has a set date for the 26th of April! I'm super excited! I'm going to go up to see that baptism for sure. Also, one of my old investigators from New Braunfels, is set for the 26th of April, as well! So, I should be having 3 of my old investigators I taught be baptized in the upcoming 2 weeks. Super exciting stuff!

Another side note - Elder Montgomery has caught me multiple times this week slip into a somewhat southern accent. I didn't even notice. Oh man it was so sad to hear. I've also caught myself say y'all 4 times in the past 2 days. I am a dang redneck now!

Well. I hope Y’ALL have a great week this week! (see what I did there?) seeya! 

Love,

Elder Snow

Transferred to San Antonio

APRIL 7, 2014

Well, I’ve been transferred!  The new area is San Antonio 1st ward. I think I'm in the east side of San Antonio. I live in a SUPER nice apartment; I love it!  I live with Elder Montgomery (my new companion), Elder Miller, and...ELDER GRAY…again! hahahah He became Elder Miller’s comp so we live together now again. 

In our apartment complex, there are 10 missionaries in total, including us.  There are a couple senior missionaries, two sisters (but they're in a different district).  In the next building over, are 2 other elders, IN OUR DISTRICT, named elder Tapia and Elder Sioka.  Elder Tapia is actually from Mexico, but he moved to Utah when he was 7; He’s fluent in Spanish. Elder Sioka is from West Samoa, not American Samoa.  He didn't even know English before his mission...and he's called to speak SPANISH.  So, he had to learn English in the MTC, and now he's in his first Spanish area.  He's a stud.  He's officially my best friend.  He said he wanted to move back to the US after his mission, and I told him he could live with me. He’s a convert. He's so funny. Elder Sioka and Tapia come over every night and every day during Spanish study, and Elder Tapia helps us all with our Spanish.

My new companion is Elder Montgomery.  He has only been out for 10 months, but his Spanish is super super good though.  He's freaking huge. He's 6 foot 8;  I'm 5 foot 8.  He hits his head on doorways. He's a basketball stud too, and a super cool guy.  Believe it or not, he's the 2nd tallest in the TSAM.  There's one other guy that is actually taller.

My apartment is REALLY nice. It's kind of weird, because my area is somewhat ghetto. It seems totally safe and fine, though.  It's actually pretty fun. I get to meet all kinds of fun people.

So, I have to tell you something you probably won't like.  On my way to transfer meeting, we had our bikes on the rack in the back, and the bike rack flew off while we were on the freeway.  Basically, my bike is totaled. Mine is in the worst shape of all 3 of them.  At least I am in a car area this transfer, until we figure out what to do.

The text you received on Thursday night was from Sister Heifner.  She is GREAT!  She is super nice; She’s only been a member for 4 years, and she's such a stud. They're ward missionaries, and she and her husband do more as ward missionaries than missionaries do!  If we have any questions about our area, we can ask her.  She's fantastic!

Well, that's all for now.  I'm just getting settled in.  Will have more next week!

Here’s my new address:

3903 southeast military #10104, San Antonio, Texas 78223.

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Snow

GETTING TRANSFERRED!!

MARCH 31, 2014

Hello! Well, another week gone by;  it's crazy.  Guess what? On Thursday, I'm 1/4 of the way done with the mission, how insane is that? Time is flyiiiiiiiiiiiing by! 

Well, this week has been a great LAST week in New Braunfels (yep, you heard me right: LAST WEEK). I AM GETTING TRANSFERRED! We got calls last night and both Elder Wride AND I are leaving.  So crazy.  We’re getting doubled out.  I would be lying if I told you I wasn't bummed.  Sleeping last night was a little rough.   My mind was racing, trying to think of all the work we're going have to do to get this area prepped for Elder Swonson and his new companion (don't know who it is yet).  It's going to be tough, but I do feel that my work in this area is finished, for the time being.  I've felt like I've accomplished a lot here, and this has been the perfect starting area for me, so I am eternally grateful for the opportunity I have had to serve in the New Braunfels, Memorial Area.  For the rest of this week, up until Thursday, we will be working hard to prep the area, and then working hard packing up all our stuff and heading out!

The major cool thing that happened this week was the baptism for "A." It happened!  It’s been in the making since December, and we finally made it happen.  I couldn't be happier.  The service was beautiful, and so powerful.  The spirit was so strong.  I had the awesome opportunity to baptize Austin, and Elder Wride was able to confirm him a member of the church. Brother Rice, gave the talk on baptism.  It was so, so powerful.  Brother Rice is a big strong guy, super funny, super awesome.  He got up there and just broke down.  He is so proud of the decision Austin made to follow our Savior, and although he had a whole talk prepared, all he could get out was a few words about baptism, how proud he was of Austin, and how much he loved him.  It was so powerful.  Austin's older sister gave the talk on the Holy Ghost, and she absolutely killed it.  She's like 16 and she really really wanted to be a part of the baptism.  She had been prepping for her talk for the whole week leading up to the baptism.  She killed it!  She bore her testimony at the end, and she also broke down a bit.  It was just incredible how the spirit filled the room during the times of silence while she was trying to get out the words she wanted to say to her brother.  It was so powerful, so so powerful.  I had a fantastic time.

As far as the ordinance, it went smooth as can be. I performed the baptism by water, and Elder Wride gave a very, very powerful confirmation blessing afterwards. Words can't describe the feeling that was in the room at that time.  I wish I could just explain it to you, but it doesn't seem quite the same if you weren't there.  I was just a fantastic experience.

After the baptism, we had dinner at the Rice family home.  It was awesome.  There was lots of good food and great times.  We got to spend a little time with them, chat and have some fun.  I got to play in the back yard with the 5-year-old sister (who has a big crush on me), and then at the end I showed the rice family some pictures of me before I was a missionary. They seemed to have fun looking at pre-elder snow pictures.  Brother Rice told us lots of stories about when he was on his mission, and before we knew it, it was time for us to go home. We said our goodbyes and headed home. It was really a great day, by far one of the best on my mission.

Those are the big things that happened this week. I hope everyone is doing great, stay safe, stay good, and have a great week! love you!

Elder Mason Snow