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