Week 13 October 23-29 English Classes

Hey Everyone,

So, this week has been pretty crazy! We have started to teach English classes for Guerrero and Tecomatalan. We hold them each Tuesday and Thursday. We will be doing so for the next several weeks. They have been going really great and have been fairly successful! Last Thursday I had 30 people come, 14 of which were nonmembers! Slowly but surely, I have been trying to figure out how to teach English. It definitely is a bigger bite than I wanted to take, but I’m figuring it out! And it is going pretty great!

I left my camera at home, so I don’t have any pictures. But next week I’ll send them all!

So, we went to a member’s house on Friday for lunch and it was an adventure. She lived 30 minutes away by bike in the middle of nowhere. When we were riding to her house, a huge snake almost tried to bite me, but Elder Cruz freaked out and I was able to get away hahaha. It was black and orange and looked so creepy. It was a little bit longer than my arm. We decided to ride our bikes from that point on. Anyways when we went to the members house we had great Mole Rojo. It was super good, you should all try it. I think Red Iguana has it! This woman was very sweet and talked about how her son had passed away, but instead of falling into her own sorrow she looked outward and upward and started to help other people. She developed a passion for making her own things and teaching others to do the same. She was very sweet and really taught me to always keep learning and improving. She reminded me that that is exactly what our gospel is about, always improving, always trying harder to be a little better. It was sweet to feel the spirit of her home. After the comida (food) we went to the capilla (chapel) to set up our acitividad missional (missionary activity). We made a scripture scavenger hunt to lead 4 teams all around the building. The activity was to teach team building and how we are all trying to reach the same goal of salvation. We need to help others to achieve that goal as well. It took us about an hour and a half to hide all the cards. When we had finished, 20 minutes before we needed to start, Elder Cruz realized he mixed up the cards and none of the clues were in the right spot. The WML and I had to re-find all the cards we hid and then hide them again. It took an hour to find and redistribute them again. Luckily everyone here in Mexico comes 40 minutes late to every activity so it ended up working perfectly! The Lord truly helped us find all the papers again.

Today for our district activity we tried to make pizza roles we had all the ingredients but the ovens here in Mexico just aren´t the same.  It took forever to cook and ended up not being that great. But we had a ton of fun playing capture the flag.

The mission field is awesome and full of surprises! I have never felt so much closer to God. I know he loves each and every one of us and wants to help us with our trials

Love you all,

Elder Snow.

Week 12 October 16-22 Sangre y piña coladas

HI FAM!!!!

how is everybody????!! love you all!!!!

This week was an adventure! On Tuesday, we were meeting with two investigators that have been progressing quite nicely we asked them to be baptized! Both responded with a yes and have been attending several church activities! It is a father and son (Jose Luis Leocadio Hernandez and Cristian) they have been making church a priority in their life and it is so cool to see how it blesses them with their lives. Cristian is going to be baptized next Saturday, hopefully, but his father needs to be divorced then get married again to be baptized. It will be difficult but with the Lord all things are possible. Serving a mission is truly such an amazing way to become closer to God and help others have this joy and peace. I know that this church is the true church of Jesus Christ. That Heavenly Father loves each and every single person here on earth, and that the gospel can help every one of them. If you need help in your life to remember God is there for you and he wants to help you. Learn how to receive personal revelation. It can be such a great help in your life.

So, on Friday we had to clean out the font to prepare for a baptism from San Augustine (Shania). The font here in Guerrero has not been used in over a year in a half. Elder Cruz and I started to clean it and we found several spiders including a tarantula the size of my fist! It freaked me out. We tried to clean the best we could with just water, but we couldn’t get all the stains out or even most of the stains. So, we had to start filling it, so it would be ready for the baptism. While Elder Cruz cleaned, I also worked on activities for my English class that I will be giving tomorrow. I am super excited to start teaching English, hopefully, we will be getting new investigators from it! Anyways the baptism was extremely cool. Before we opened the font, we knew that it would not look super good, so we added blue fish dye to the water to make the water look better, but it still looked a little dirty. We had the ordinance and I was able to be a witness for it. It was so cool to be a part of that ordinance. After Shania was baptized, I introduced her to Jose and Cristian. As I was talking with Cristian, I tried to listen to what Jose and Shania were talking about and I heard her say, “When I was baptized, I saw a blue light.” It took all my strength to not start laughing. I’m pretty sure she saw the blue dye....... hahaha but yeah.

Now there is a reason for why in the white handbook it says you should not fool around. While we were doing companion study we both had to go to the bathroom. Elder Cruz and I started to race to the bathroom. He, being closer, made it first to the bathroom and started to close the door. When he closed the door, I put my hands up to push back on the door. What I forgot is that there is a glass pane on this door, and my hand went straight through it. As my hand went through it my hand got a little cut up. But I am totally fine! Thanks for all the love and support you guys are great!!!!!

Love you all!

Elder Snow

 

Week 11 October 9-15, 2018 Intercambios

Hi Everyone!

This past week was great, it was a lot calmer, which has been very nice! On Tuesday and Wednesday, we went on companion exchanges with two elders in our district. On Tuesday, I stayed in Guerrero with Elder Gonzalez, and Wednesday, I stayed here with Elder Ponce. They are both nice missionaries, and both are from Mexico! It was nice to see different forms of teaching and contacting!

So, this week my companion was "sick" for most of the day on Friday. So, we didn’t make our goal of fifteen contacts daily and only got 3. It was really frustrating to me so on Saturday, I wanted to make up the difference, we ended up doing 40 contacts and me making up 30 of the contacts haha. I was a little overzealous. Guerrero needs some help in the interest category. Everyone here is very devout Catholic or drunk. It is very hard to teach these categories.

Every day, except Mondays, we go and eat at a member’s house. The sisters here are amazing, but sometimes they forget that we are humans and can’t eat as much as fifteen whole cows. Meals usually begin with Hot rice or Hot noodles in ketchup water, then we eat chicken (usually chicken) cooked in a spicy temperature wise Hot red sauce, or sometimes we eat other meat, but on rare occasions, (barbacoa, carnitas, and chorizo). Also, with the meals, we are served with either apple soda (manzanita) or fruit puree water (Floaties and everything).

Honestly, I can´t complain the food is really good, but with hot food and the hot sun mixed with carbonation, being overstuffed and spiciness, you can see why my American stomach begins to have issues hahaha.

Anyways I had a really great experience during one of my personal studies this week. I have been trying to study the topical guide scriptures on Jesus. It has been so cool too, little by little, come to know more about Christ, his life, and how he is our mediator between God. Because of Christ´s atonement, we come to know him and because we come to know him, we come to Know our Heavenly Father. This past Sunday, the primary had a program during sacrament and the theme of it was I am a child of God. It was cool to see how similar everything is between Utah programs and Mexico Programs. The children still act like the children in Utah, just they speak Spanish. It was cool to hear them sing about how we truly are children of a loving Heavenly Father. This fact is just so amazing. God loves each and every one of us with such an infinite and wholesome love. He truly wants us to be not just happy but joyful. I know that He knows me and that He knows you too. He has given us commandments to protect us, to help us find the best way back to him because we truly are His children. Love you all and God loves you all!

Elder Snow!

Week 10 October 2-8, 2018 Fecha Bautismal & General Conference

HI EVERYONE!!

 So, this past week has been full of adventures! Today we were able to hike a cliff called Frailes (the monks), it was super awesome and cool! The rocks were huge (but sadly my camera died so I have no way of getting pictures of it). 

{(I, the mom found these on his hard drive so maybe he actually does have pictures)}

This week has had its ups and downs, as well. We had our bikes break three different times, on the same day we both got flat tires. During intercambios (splits) the Elder that borrowed my bike complete broke-off the hand breaks it kind of sucked! I was able to do two different set of intercambios with our zone leaders, Elder Gledhill, and Elder Dale. It was really fun to serve in Tepa as well, we were also able to go see general conference in a chapel in tepa so that I could watch it in English and that my companion could watch it in Spanish.  It was such an amazing to time receive both personal revelation as well as revelation for the entire church! If you haven´t seen it go watch it with a question in mind!! I really loved Elder Hollands talk!

So, we are going to have to drop the Lopez family because they don´t want to hear any more about the gospel. It was really hard to have that happen. But after we were told they didn’t want to have us visit, we had an amazing lesson on the restoration with Anselmo, He is a fifty-year-old man that looks thirty and just came out of an 80´s rock movie. During the lesson, we asked him to be baptized on the 27th of October! It was a really amazing spiritual lesson, but I was still a little heartbroken about what happened with the Lopez family. 

While I was on intercambios con Elder Gledhill I had an awesome experience with this old lady. We decided to go visit one of their investigators but they weren´t home. So, as we looked around we tried to figure out what we should do instead. I looked across the street and saw this old Hermana that appeared very catholic, I decided to give it a try. I knocked on the door and Elder Gledhill said you do this one your own. So, I kind of did. She told us that she did not want to change her religion or listen to us because she knew that she didn´t want it. I asked her how she could know she didn´t want something if she never tries it. As we were talking she slowly opened her semi-closed door more and more. Finally, a truck passed by very close and the sidewalks here are more like fat curbs, so she invited us to come in and talk to her. She told us about her beliefs and she talked about Adam and Eve, so I slyly twisted the conversation to talk about how the fall was essential to the plan of God and then taught her about the plan of salvation. I felt bad the entire time because every time I looked to pass off the lesson to Elder Gledhill he never looked back. Turns out he wanted to see how I teach so he kindly let me teach by myself.  As I taught the Hermana. the spirit testified to her of the truth and the lesson was going very well until.... Her Borracho (drunk) Husband entered the room. He was hammered, his speech was completely slurred, and I could not understand one word. He kept smacking his fist into his other hand and raised his voice. I thought he wanted to hit me. We calmly explained to him that we were only sharing a message to strengthen their faith and we kept hoping he would leave. After 10 minutes we realized he wasn’t going to leave us alone. We told them we would love to come back next week and talk more. They agreed, and the Hermana appeared to be happy we could continue the lesson at a later time. When we said goodbye, we did a Mexican farewell where you shake hands, hug and pat the back of the person you are saluting, and then finish with a shake again. When he shook our hands, he tried to squeeze as hard as he could, which was not very hard, and pat our backs. It was basically a five star when he "patted" our backs. Haha but yeah that was my week.

Love, Elder Snow

I taught my kids how to do the "Blood" sign years ago.  I never expected JJ to one day flash this sign in Mexico.

The Photoshoot