OCTOBER 6, 2014

OCTOBER 6, 2014

heyhey! interesting week in the life of elder snow, that's for sure! so, we didn't have a ton happen this week, except for one cool experience with an investigator, which i'll get right into...

There's this guy named "G." He's like..63 years old, looooooooves the missionaries. he has been affiliated with the church since 1986 when he and his wife (mostly his wife) were being taught by the missionaries in california, but he never got baptized. he eventually got divorced, continued to work, and then went back to school to become a catholic priest, believe it or not. 7 years of seminary later, he was a priest. he practiced as a priest for a while, then he retired, and some missionaries knocked into him where he currently lives in the Parkwood area a couple years ago. nobody has really seen any progression with him, but he's just a super nice and charitable guy, so i've been dropping by him every so often since i've been here. he and i have become very good friends, and he has a lot of family in the area, so we've been trying to work with them as well. he's been telling me for a few weeks now that he wanted to see the temple here in San Antonio, and i've been kind of blowing him off because i didn't think it would be the best use of our time. he's already seen like 3 temples, he's already been taught all the lessons, he already knows what we do in temples, what's the point right?

i'm an idiot, i know, but i kind of just never got to it. Well, we got to it this week. we went out to lunch with him tuesday, then we all went to the San Antonio temple together. we walked around the temple and took pictures and all that good stuff, and then we found a shady spot to sit, pulled out a temple pamphlet, and taught him about temple work. the spirit was strong, and it was very peaceful as we were discussing important gospel truths with him. he then started to open up to us, which is not uncommon because we are very close, but he said some things that were very interesting like "there's definitely a different spirit about this place...it feels very peaceful and happy," something along those lines. then, in the MIDDLE OF HIM OPENING UP TO US, my companion cuts him off and says "do you want to touch the temple?" i was dumbfounded. i'm seriously just screaming in my head "What are you thinking? you ruined the moment, he was able to open up to us, you RUINED it!" but i didn't say anything. i kind of just looked down and controlled my rollercoaster of emotions that was currently being battled out in my head, and then "G" said "well sure! i've never touched a temple before!"

I reluctantly got up, and walked with them to a place where we could touch the temple. elder duncan touched the temple and closed his eyes and i was just like "you gotta be kidding me." then, G proceeded to do the same thing. i stood back and let them do their thing. i thought it was a dumb thing to do to be perfectly honest. boy was i wrong. G actually stood there for a good few minutes with his eyes closed and his hand on the temple...and he had one of the most spiritual experiences of his life. we were then able to teach him more about the spirit, how he speaks to us, and how we can recognize spiritual promptings. we told him that one day he would be able to enter the temple, that baptism wasn't the end goal, but that the goal is to go to the temple. we were able to set him with a date of baptism for the 25th of october. he's now a progressing investigator. after 28 years of being affiliated with the church, this is the closest he's ever been to being baptized...and it's all thanks to elder duncan. i thought he was gonna botch it hard, but he ended up being the hero. it was a brilliant idea haha.

anyways, that was my cool experience for the week. general conference was fantastic! i hope you all had as great of a time there as i did. 

have a great week everyone! stay safe, have fun. love you!

SEPTEMBER 29, 2014

SEPTEMBER 29, 2014

heyhey! another sweet week! ...well sorta haha. so i was pretty dang sick last pday, not gonna lie. i wasn't actually able to go out to work until like...Thursday. i was in sick almost all of tuesday, then i got super sick tuesday night so i was in sick all of wednesday resting up. Then Thursday, we had a big huge zone conference thing that was like...7 hours long. it was alright....but we had a super super sweet opportunity to see the "Meet the Mormons" movie before it comes out! man it was incredible! it was such a good movie, like, such a good movie. i'm super excited that the church is releasing it soon to be in theaters. i highly, highly encourage all of you to go and see it, and invite friends with you to see it as well. it's a super good missionary opportunity! and if they're not going to be playing it in a movie theater near you, you can request it to play in theaters near you and they'll do it! it's an incredible movie, i hope you all take the time to see it. super funny and entertaining, but spiritual and informational as well!

The other sweet thing that happened this week was this Saturday...we had another baptism! Sue was baptized in the Alamo 2nd ward. i had the opportunity to actually find, teach, and attend sue's baptism, which is super cool. we've become super good friends with her and Carlie and Ryan, her two fellowshippers who invited her to start coming to church. they're all great. i haven't been able to visit with sue since they put me back in the Parkwood ward, but it was great being able to see her and everyone at the baptism saturday. she asked me to give one of the talks, too. it was way cool. i've never done that before. they didn't give me a topic to talk about, however, so i kinda just stood up there and made it up as i went haha. i talked about the tree of life (lehi's dream, 1 nephi chapter 8, and also chapters 11-14 for nephi's interpretation of the dream) and how she had just entered the gate. i then talked about enduring to the end, and how the iron rod would help her do that. i'm not sure what else i talked about. i felt like it went pretty well. then sue gave her testimony at the end...it was freaking incredible. way way way sweet. i'm so excited for her. she's my 21st baptism! way cool!!!

Sunday night we had the opportunity to teach the Sinclair family again. it was great. super super good lesson. i'm getting to that point in my mission where i actually sorta feel like i know what i'm doing now haha. it's nice. we taught the plan of salvation up until the atonement. sister sinclair had a lot of really good questions. she's a very very intelligent woman, so it's awesome to be able to help guide someone and help them come closer to Christ. she's doing very well. Brother Mati, our ward mission leader, did great in the lesson as well. he committed them to come to church for 4 straight weeks...first general conference, then 3 more weeks, so she can see what a full month of church looks like, with all of the topics and lessons and stuff that we go through. i really feel that if she follows up with that commitment she'll be baptized, so we're super excited to see that one go through. 

that's about it for me this week! hope y'all have a great week! love you!

SEPTEMBER 22, 2014

September 22, 2014

This week was pretty dang interesting! elder funk, mccombs, and I had a lot of fun and saw a lot of success in our last few days together, so that's great. we were able to keep teaching our main investigators, and they're all still set to be baptized so that's awesome :)

So wednesday... i gotta talk about wednesday. Wednesday was flippin LEGIT. So, the alamo 2nd elder always do the "border run," which is the day before transfers. the border is pretty far away, all of those areas and such so what we do is transfer everyone who's going to and from the border the day before transfers. i'm not sure why. but it's sweet. and i was able to go! so me, elder funk, and elder mccombs took all the people going down to the border, dropped them off, and picked up the other ones. it took ALL DAY. it was so much fun, we had a blast. i drove the way back, so that was fun. we just all piled into a big 12 passenger van and had a good time! i got lots of pictures so hopefully y'all enjoy :)

i received my new companion, elder duncan, on thursday. he came down from Austin, so i didn't meet him until like 5 PM thursday, but that was okay. It was nice having a little bit of time with elder mccombs and funk again haha. He's been out about 15, 16 months, but I'm the senior companion, so that's a little weird. iIm not sure why they did that, but it is what it is. The last few days have been a little slow...we didn't have a whole lot going on in parkwood, so we've just been biking, knocking, and walking. It's tough getting back on the bike after having the car for 5 weeks haha. my rear hurts again. that's all right; I'll get used to it. Elder duncan is a hard worker and a good guy..

That's pretty much it for me this week! I'm super sick today - not sure what happened but i think i might have the flu or something...hopefully i get feeling better, i don't know if i'll be able to go out to work tonight. i threw up this morning and have been dizzy and achy all day, so hopefully i'll get better. and yes mom, i've been taking oils haha.

love you all! have a great week! seeya!

SEPTEMBER 15, 2014

SEPTEMBER 15, 2014

We had some pretty awesome lessons with "S" and "M" again! they're both still set to be baptized in the upcoming couple weeks, so we're super super excited about that :)

we got transfer calls last night. flippin nuts. elder funk and elder mccombs are both staying in the alamo 2nd ysa ward, and they will be receiving a new companion. i will be back to covering just the parkwood ward again, and i will be receiving a new companion...and i'm going to be senior companion apparently, so the guy will be younger in the mission than me. i'm not quite sure how i feel about that, not quite sure how i feel about still living with elder funk and mccombs either haha. they're  like...my best friends ever. they're also my companions at the moment. it's gonna be really hard for the next two guys to come in when we've all already been companions, and the fact that me and elder funk have already lived with each other for like 5 months haha. but i think it'll be good. i don't think we have a whole lot of stuff to do in this area...sooooooo i'm probably gonna be knocking a ton of doors. and i'm back to riding a bike. man do i hate the bike haha. it's alright though. we'll survive. 6 months in parkwood, woooooooooooh!

anyways, love you all! have a great week!