Week 22: Christmas Day - Dec 31, 2018

Week 21 Dec 18-24

Week 20: December 11-17, 2018 Fetchin Virgen

Hey Everyone,

So, this past week was the annual celebration of Satan’s (a.k.a. the Virgen de Guadalupe) visit to Juan Pablo. The way we celebrate the Fourth of July is how they celebrate the entire last week. All day and night fireworks go off, let’s just say I HAD to buy earplugs, plus my new comp snores hahah. The mission is an adventure. It has been really interesting seeing people bike from here to the city of Mexico honking horns, and also to see the people carrying giant statues of the Virgen. I never realized how important the commandment of idolatry is until Mexico. It truly is crazy.

So, this Saturday we were able to do a service project as a district in Tecomatlan, the pueblo (city) I live in. We cleaned up the park and cut the bushes, about five thousand, and picked up so much trash, it’s not illegal to throw trash on the ground. The six of us only cleaned up about half the park. It was super fun, we played church music for everyone to hear. Half way through the project we were completely surrounded by 30 Jehovah witness, but luckily none of them tried to contend with us.

This Sunday our mission had a cantata de Navidad (Christmas program) in Pachuca. Luckily, we were able to take an investigator to the program, but they could only drive us back half way to our home. We got off in San Agustine and could not find the bus and the phone was dead, blessedly we were able to find the sisters here and tell us where to go. We got home at 10:25 five minutes before we are supposed to be asleep. It was super awesome, and we were super blessed.

Also, this past week I have been super worried about one of our recent baptisms because he didn’t go to church last week. It worried me a ton. I thought he was maybe dead or had disappeared because no one had seen him, and we couldn't find him anywhere. This Sunday he came to church and we were so happy to see him alive and well. He had to work last Sunday and missed church. But now we are going to make sure he stays active. It really is interesting to have so much love for someone I have only known for a few weeks. If I feel this much love for someone I hardly know, I can only imagine how much love God has for all of us.

Love you all so much! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

sorry my camera reset and deleted all my pictures and everything.............

LOVE ELDER SNOW

Week 19 December 4-10 Training Tr

HOLA TODOS!

This week has been super fun and crazy we focused a lot on contacting because all our seguros (secure contacts) have been baptized so yeah.... But yay for Guerrero. Those two baptisms broke a two-year streak of no baptisms in Guerrero. It has been super strange doing all the reporting because, first of all, I have always watched my previous companion but have never done it myself. I have four hermanas (sisters) in my district and they are all super chido (cool)!  It has also been super strange going from trainee to trainer, but I feel like I have been able to Help Elder Zacarias a ton. The first day we started to contact in a part of our area that we had never contacted before and got 12 Nuevos (new contacts) it was super awesome. Our last 10 contacts were super bad, my companion got some of the worst rejections that I have seen on the mission.  But this week has been super great and Elder Zacarias is so awesome.

I also had a really frustrating moment on Saturday. We were contacting in Santa Cruz a Colonia de Guerrero and we - before we even said anything we were invited into this man’s house and he asked us to teach him what we believed. We taught him the restoration and he really liked what he was hearing. He asked great questions and appeared almost a golden investigator. We explained that the way he could come to know if this was all true was to pray to our Heavenly Father. This question bothered him and made him afraid to know the truth. He literally told us he liked hearing about other religions but now no longer wanted to find more because he was afraid God would be mad with him and that he would have to compromises with God to act on what he learned. He said he wanted to stick his head in the sand and hide from what we were saying. This honestly made me so sad and reminded me of the people of Moses when he put a serpent on the cross and all the people had to do was look to it to be healed. But some people didn´t the same thing happened with this man. He failed to have the faith to believe. I am so grateful to have the faith to ask God anything and have no fear that he will answer with gladness, just because I am asking. I know our Heavenly Father loves each one of His children and only hopes that we can have the faith to follow Him. Just follow Him.

Love you all thanks for all the love support and the Christmas scriptures!

Elder Snow.

Week 18 November 27- December 3, 2018 I'm A Father

HEY EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, this past weekend and week have been crazy busy and went by super-fast! It was the last week of the cycle and that means cambios (companion changes).

 But first off, I finally was able to figure out why I felt prompted to give English classes. Over the entire first cycle I kept feeling the impression that I need to do them. I had absolutely no idea, and we have been trying to figure out ways to make them more effective to help us have more investigators, it has honestly been super stressful, and I felt like it was a waste of time. But, this week, I was able to find out why. An hermana (sister) in our ward told us about another menos active (less active member) that teaches English. We were able to visit her again and help her attend the ward. It may have been a lot of work to get to that point, but she was able to attend church once again after four years. God truly does work in mysterious ways. He wants each of his children to grow closer to him.

The week was super stressful, at the beginning we thought that one of our investigators Fernando, that we were going to lose him because he didn´t attend in G1, but then found out that the member thought it would be funny to joke with us because we were in G2. (G=Guerrero (ward)) Thankfully we were able to visit him and re put a fecha bautismal (baptismal date) for him and he accepted in front of his nonmember friends after we talked about the Book of Mormon. The next day we came again and talked about a few commandments. After the lesson we showed him what the baptismal interview would be like and asked him the questions. We were impressed by his testimony and were shocked by his answer to question four (Have you ever committed a serious crime? If so, are you now on probation or parole? Have you ever participated in an abortion? Have you ever committed a homosexual transgression?)

He had committed a serious sin that could potentially land him in jail for forty years and that he used a false name. We talked and asked him about his repentance and how sinning is a part of our learning, but that God has provided us a way to become clean of our sins. In all honestly, normally I would be disgusted by what this person had done. But I truly have felt the love that Jesus Christ has for his children and how much love he has for them. Despite what he did, all I felt was love for him, and the hope that he could be come clean again. He truly showed sincere repentance and desire to change. We decided to call president for on advice on what we should do about the interview and baptism. He agreed to allow us to let him get baptized if he passed with our Zone leader. Elder Gledhill. We anxiously awaited this interview to decide if Fernando truly is ready to be baptized.

When it came time for the interview, we went to the chapel, and they both went in to the room for the interview. Five minutes later, Elder Gledhill came back and told me Fernando had asked for me to be there to make him feel more comfortable. I was told I could not talk or make movements. But I was able to watch this entire hour and half interview that normally takes 20 minutes. It was honestly such a powerful experience to feel of the spirit and see the atonement of Christ begin to work in this man´s life. Elder Gledhill passed him off and we were able to baptize him this Saturday. Because he used a false name, he didn’t want us to invite anyone to his baptism.

Luckily, we were able to invite him to a super awesome service activity where we made sugar cookie bars from my mom´s blog about 100 cookies and sing Christmas carols in a hospital. It was a super awesome experience and were able to feel the spirit. It was surprisingly good for cooking in the mission field in Mexico.

When we got back, we had the baptism and I was able to perform the ordinance. It was such an amazing feeling to help him grow and help him receive God´s gift to us. We he came out of the water he exclaimed, “I feel like I am floating!” Christ truly does make our burdens light, not matter how much or how bad we have sinned. It truly was so amazing to have this experience.

Also, cambios fue hoy! (companion switches were today) Yesterday I was called around 5pm and told that I would be training and that my son is coming tomorrow! (also, I’m leader de distrito (District Leader) again, but for real this time) My new Child is Elder Zacarias from Cancun Mexico. I´m super excited to fill both roles but I am feeling a little under baked hahah. LOVE YOU ALLL!

Remember Christ in your life and ILLUMINAR EL MUNDO (LIGHT THE WORLD)!

LOVE;

Elder Snow

Using his momma's recipes.

 Elder Snow's first baptism.

 We are so glad his tree made it to him.

 I am assuming this is his new companion.