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