July 21st - 2 baptisms!

July 21, 2014

hey hey! this week was pretty dang sweet!

This week has been all about the baptisms coming up. We've been planning and coordinating the baptisms for "N and "P" (sisters), as well as for the baptism for the "M" family on the 26th. You'd be surprised how much work goes into these things! Baptisms are a really really good opportunity to share the gospel, because a lot of non member friends come to them. we try to make them as good as we can and also invite as many people as we can to these baptisms.

On saturday, we were able to hold the baptism for N and P, and their grandpa was able to baptize them. it was super cool. he's been a member for about 3  years or so, so it was very cool that he was able to baptize his granddaughters. super powerful baptism, the spirit was very strong. the sisters who initially found the girls and taught them were also able to make it to the baptism, so that was super super cool! I've been very, very blessed to see a lot of success on my mission so far. i don't konw why i have, i'm not really sure what determines how much success you see on your mission, but the Lord has seen it fit for me to have quite a bit, and i'm very grateful for that. stay tuned for next weeks baptism for the "M" family; we're SUPPPPERRR excited for that one! it's the biggest baptism in the mission for the month of july, so we're super super excited.  Even President Slaughter is coming to that one! :)

Side note, we had a crazy crazy thunderstorm/rainstorm thursday night. like, insane. i didn't realize how mild of weather i had back home till i came here. they have all the extremes it seems like, at least to me ahha. i went to bed early that night cuz i was exhausted, and at like 2 am i woke up to our apartment shaking because of how loud the lightning strikes were. it was shaking the apartment! absolutely insane. coudln't get back to bed for like 30 minutes at least because they were so loud. oh, and it just dumped rain that night too. we woke up and tons of stuff was flooded haha. just absolutely insane, super cool rainstorm. one bad note - the storm ruined our air conditioning. we haven't had A/C since the storm, and it SUCKS haha.  The tempers are as high as the temperature in the apartment, tell you what. haha just kidding..sort of. nobody is mad at each other, just easily frustrated and kind of mad, period. like this morning i woke up and it was 90 degrees in the apartment, and i didn't sleep much last night, and i woke up at like 530 to work out and i wasn't in the greatest mood. i had to work out really hard to get it all outta me haha :D

anyways hope y'all are having a great week! love you! seeya!

July 14th - Knocking on doors...

hey!

Good week in the life of Elder Snow!

This week, we had a lesson with a part member family, the"S"  family.  Brother "S"  is a return missionary who has a super sweet testimony, they've just been struggling a bit. We haven't been able to get over there for a lesson, but he asked us to come over last wednesday and we had a lesson with the whole family! They are a blended family with 7 kids, and they're only in their 30's!  it's crazy. we had a lesson with all of em! it was a really really good lesson, we brought our ward mission leader and he just killed it the whole time; it really helped the lesson out and helped with fellowship. Brother "S" after a little bit just straight up asked "elders, we wanted to see if you guys could share a message on bullying." We ended up scratching the lesson plan and showed the mormon message about bullying. The kids were all into it, and we taught about our heavenly father's love for each and every one of us. It must have hit em all pretty good, because after we said the closing prayer they all started apologizing to each other and giving each other hugs for not being nice, hahaha it was great! we're meeting with them again this Tuesday!

 

This week we also had the baptismal interviews with the "M" family! they're good to go for the 26h of july! we're super super excited! ahhh man i can't wait to get that picture with all of them dressed in white, super stoked!

other than that we've been working real hard to build up our teaching pool because so many people are getting baptized, we won't have anyone to teach after they're baptized! we're doing a lot of finding, knocking doors and looking for the elect. hard work, but it's worth it!

the past couple weeks i've been in a little slump, i realized it's because i've been slacking on my fitness goals. so the fire has been rekindled (agaaaaaaaaaaain) to get ripped! haah i know i keep saying that, but man it's hard to do on the mission. working hard, hopefully i look better when i get home than when i left :D

love you all! have a great week! seeya!

July 7th, 2014 - Happy 4th of July

JULY 7, 2014

 

hey!

so we had a pretty dang good week this week.  Although we didn't teach a lot of lessons, we definitely had a lot of success! This week, we set a date with the "M" family for 26th of July. ALL of them are going to be baptized! we're so excited! everyone is finally ready, and they can't wait to be baptized. They even have their friends coming in from Virginia to see the baptism; they are the people who introduced them to the church.  Super super cool! They are so ready.  I'll be able to see them through the temple next year! how awesome is that? Man, I can't even explain to you how stoked I am for this baptism.

Ihad an epiphany this week. I probably should have known this before, but it just took me a little while to understand it. So on the 4th of July, I'm not gonna lie, i was not in the greatest mood. the 4th is literally one of my favorite days of the year back home. i love being in a swim suit all day swimming at grandmommy's house, eating burgers and homemade ice cream, hanging out with friends and family all day, and watching the fireworks over at the park, RIGHT underneath where they shoot them off. Seriously, it's like the best day ever. You can literally FEEL the patriotism in the air. it feels different when you walk outside on the fourth of july, it just does. i can't explain it, it's just different. 

 

So, when i walked outside to go out to work on the 4th, I could feel the same thing - only thing that's different is that i was a missionary and i can't do all those things anymore. it made me kinda sad, and it just got worse and worse as we were riding the bikes. everyone was out, bunch of kids and young adults driving around having fun listening to music all loud, and we got made fun of quite a bit. lots of honking, lots of pointing and laughing, and that sort of thing. you kind of get used to it on the mission, because lets get real, we look super weird riding bikes in church clothes...but it kinda got to me on the 4th of july because i was already a little upset. and we had 0 success. 

 

So the point is, i didn't want to work at all. like, NOT IN THE SLIGHTEST. all i wanted to do was go swimming and eat homemade ice cream. and what made it worse is that i felt bad for feeling that way, if that makes sense. I was like "man, i'm a missionary, i should love doing this work right now, even if it IS the 4th of july." i was upset that i didn't want to work. but i kept working. and when i went in that night, i got my epiphany.

 

I realized something...it's completely okay to not want to do things. it's okay to not like certain aspects of the gospel. it's okay to struggle with some things and wish you didn't have to do it sometimes. even Christ when he was in the Garden of Gethsemane asked for the cup to pass from him. he didn't want to suffer anymore, he wanted to quit. but he said "not my will be done, but thine." he submitted to the will of the Father. we all have opportunities to do the same. there are many times when we don't want to do things, but we still do it. We swallow up any sort of pride we have, and we just submit our will to our Father. this isn't doctrine here, but i think that He is more happy in that moment, that moment where you chose to be obedient to him EVEN THOUGH you didn't want to be, than in moments where it's easy to be obedient, where it's easy to do the things he's asked. i finally realized it's okay not to be perfect, it's okay that sometimes i hate riding the bike in 100 degree weather (okay, all the time. i don't like riding the bike haha). but i'm still gonna do it anyways, and i know that my Heavenly Father is proud of me for doing that.

sorry for the little bit more solemn letter this week, but i thought i'd just share that with you. love you all, have a great week, and keep doing good! seeya!

Elder Snow
ps - here's some pictures of me on the fourth of july haha.

THE TEMPLE WAS AMAZING...6/30/14

JUNE 30, 2014

gonna be honest with ya, not a ton happened this week. it was pretty slow with transfers and stuff, and we had this weird thing go on with being in a trio for 3 days with Elder Blakely because his companion went home. So, we actually worked in TWO areas from monday-thursday morning, so we taught quite a few lessons in spanish this week! It was pretty interesting...i didn't understand a whole lot haha. by the way, my trainer, elder wright, finished his mission last week! he's gone, he's back home in idaho, how crazy is that?!! ahhhh

okay, so the coolest thing ever happened this week. although just about all our lessons cancelled, and the "M" family was out of town so we couldn't teach them, this made everything alright....

I was sitting in the chapel yesterday and the meeting is about to start in like 5 minutes, and as i'm sitting there, i look over at the door and see BROTHER JUSTIN KENDALL WALKING THROUGH THE DOOR! I did a double take and was like no way, no way, there's no way that's brother kendall. so i freaked out and jumped up and ran towards him and gave him a big hug and he was like "oh man, we were definitely steered here; we weren't even going to come to this building, but we couldn't find the other building so we ended up here!" (or something like that). so we chatted for a bit and talked, and then sister kendall and the kids walked in after that! man it was so cool to talk to them. They were saying they were thinking about moving to this part of San Antonio, not necessarily the Parkwood ward, but somewhere around there. I was definitely trying to sell them on moving into my ward haha. they're so great. just imagine, any of you return missionaries reading this...imagine your favorite member family from your first area of your mission just walking through the doors of your chapel when you're serving in an area like 40 miles away, and you hadn't even talked to them in months. it was the most mindblowing thing ever, i couldn't believe it happened haha. so so cool.

this week on wednesday i had the opportunity to go to the temple..all i can say it was amazing. the new video was incredible. i just, ahh. i learned so much and it's just the spiritual recharge i needed. after a while of being on the mission and being exhausted and doing the same thing, sometimes it gets hard. but after going to the temple it rekindled the fire i needed...it was so great. i'm so grateful that i live near the temple so that i was able to attend it.

thank you guys so much for all your support and letters! i love you all, have a great week!

seeya!

BEST NUMBERS IN THE ZONE...

JUNE 23, 2014

hey hey! This was a FANTASTIC week everyone, my goodness. We're absolutely killing it!

First things first, we got transfer calls yesterday. Elder Vega and I are both staying! woohoo! what a relief. I totally figured i'd be getting transferred every 6 weeks the rest of my mission after last time haha. i'm glad we're staying together though, we are working super well together, and i'm learning a ton from elder vega. it's been a fantastic transfer, and i can't wait to continue working with elder vega these next 6 weeks!

So, we had the best numbers in the zone this week! elder vega and I worked are frikken butts off, and it paid off. We got personal calls from the assistants to the president telling us how proud they were of us and our hard work. it was awesome! we're just killing it right now, we're so blessed to be in Parkwood. There is so much going on, it's awesome. i love it.

This past Tuesday, we had the opportunity to go on an exchange with Elder Jackson, one of the AP's (assistants to the president) in our mission. He's actually from Encinitas; I've talked with him before. he's suuuuuuuuper legit. he went to LCC high school and he's gonna go to the university of utah on a football scholorship after the mission. he's basically perfect. super handsome, super ripped, and a stud missionary. he taught us so much on that exchange, he really changed the way we worked and helped us improve as missionaries. fantastic fantastic exchange.

so elder vega and i have been working real hard on our personal goals, one of mine being that i want to be super ripped. so we've been going super hard! i'm down to like 178 pounds now. i'm running a few miles every morning, lifting weights 3 times a week with elder vega, and biking a tooooooon for the missionary work. i think i've put on like 5-10 pounds of weight in my legs alone from the bike. my legs are getting really big. like, i thought i was good in memorial..but being in a FULL bike area has made it even better haha. super cool! gonna keep eating good and working hard, hopefully i'll be shredded in a few months haha.

we had some great lessons with “J” this week. although he can't be baptized for a little while, he's progressing like crazy and can't wait to be baptized.  We had two very powerful lessons with them this week. Our last one, we watched the talk "i will not fail thee, nor forsake thee" by president monson, then we talked for a little bit about the enabling power of the atonement and how christ is always on our side. then we sang "i need thee every hour" and we prayed and left. Sister “B” was in tears. she texted us later thanking us profusely for coming over and for the "inspired message" we shared with them. it's incredible being able to influence people's lives positively guys, honestly. it's so great. there's no greater feeling.

oooooookay, funny story for you guys. LAST saturday (not the one we just had, the one before) we knocked the door of a guy named AB, a former investigator. He answered the door and seemed like this sweet sweet old man who told us that he just had gone through chemotherapy, so he asked us to come back the next saturday at 4 o clock. So, we just stopped by this past saturday (two days ago), and this time when he answered the door, he was in a flippin suit, not pajamas this time.  He sits us down, tell us he's a 7th Day Adventist, and then says he has a lot of questions for us. So, we pray, and we start to talk. He tells us he's a bible teacher for his church, and he has a PHD in bible studies.

As soon as he said that i was just like "ohhhhhhhh man i'm in for it, i'm sooooo in for it right now, this guy is gonna try to bash me" annnnnnnd i was right. haha.

He just kept asking questions without letting us answer, and he started talking about adam and eve and stuff, and i told him we'd love to answer his questions using BOTH the book of mormon and bible, and he was just like "no. i want you to prove that mormonism is true using ONLY the bible." and i said "sir, i won't do that. Our special message is that the gospel has been restored, and that we can obtain this knowledge by studying and praying about the book of mormon, which contains many precious truths lost in the bible." and he said "so you're telling me that the bible doesn't have EVERYTHING i need for my salvation?" and i said "sir, i believe that if the bible had everything i needed for my salvation, i wouldn't need the book of mormon." and he pretty much freaked out haha. we basically just testified to the guy, and i refused to bash back with him. he was throwing out scriptures, but i wasn't gonna fall into that trap; i wasn't gonna bash. He pretty much told me he wasn't gonna read the book of mormon because he's already read from it and knows it's not true.

Then, he said "you guys need to study the bible. like, you need to actually read the bible. i know your church says you can't read from the bible except for a certain verses that help prove your point, but i invite you to ACTUALLY read the bible for yourselves to know if what you're preaching is really the truth." and i said "sir i've read the bible, and i've read the book of mormon. i know them BOTH to be the word of God, and nothing in either the book of mormon or the bible contradicts each other. however, we'll do that. we'll be better students of the bible, because you're absolutely right - i study the book of mormon more than i study the bible. can we offer an invitation to you as well?" and he said sure, so i said "we invite you to read Ezekiel 37, and also to continue to read the book of mormon and pray to know of it's truth. will you do that for us?" and he said "you know what, i will. why don't you guys leave me with one of those pamphlets every week as well, and i'll do all the studies in the back of them and compare them with what i believe in the bible, and we can talk about it every saturday at 4:30." hahahhah so after all that, after him bashing us like crazy, he committed to read the book of mormon and all the pamphlets and study the extra sections in the back. the only thing he wants us to do is study the bible more. psh, i'll take that deal any day. so i started reading the bible again, and it's been great! instead of reading ALL book of mormon all day, i read half and half. it's improved my studies a lot!

That's all i got for you guys this week! have a fantastic week! love you!