Week 20: The Hand of God

A very hectic street contact

Hi

Ok this week was actually insane. So it was my first full week of parenthood and it went pretty well but solely thanks to the hand of God in the missionary work here in Copán.

My companion and I are getting along quite well despite the language barrier. We definitely have our differences but every disagreement is an opportunity to exercise patience, humility, and love.

Ok so… miracles. Due to some complicated family circumstances, a 13 year-old girl named Rebeca is now living in the house of some of the most active members in the branch. At church, she approached US before we could and told us she wanted to learn more about our church. A couple days later, we went to her house and started by asking her what she wanted to learn/what were her expectations. She then proceeded to fulfill every missionary's wildest dreams and say “I want to learn about baptism.” My companion and I were like “Yeah we can teach you about that” absolutely flipping out on the inside. Over the next few days we taught her everything and she already has such a strong testimony and desire to follow Jesus Christ in her life. We taught the youth class in church yesterday and she was participating the more than everyone else. We also asked her when she would like to be baptized and she said as soon as possible so we set a date for this Saturday! Her mom who lives in the United States and is not a member is a little hesitant to give permission for her baptism because the process was quite fast so please pray that her heart can be softened so Rebeca can receive all the blessings of baptism soon!

This week we also saw miracles in our other lessons and I honestly don't know if I have felt the Spirit this strong on my mission. Maybe it's because I'm actually really trying to pay attention to every word because I have to now haha but seriously there is so much power in listening and then waiting. Waiting for the Spirit to give you the words and questions that are necessary and also waiting to allow the person to think and recognize the Spirit.

Other stuff:

---Probably had one of the hardest and most frustrating days on the mission this week but it don't matter.

---Drank about 2 liters of Coke yesterday. I'm committing to a soda fast because I'm scared.

---Spanish is improving a ton and I kind of have my personality in Spanish now and it's really fun.

---Don't eat bananas and drink Coke at the same time.

---Played fútbol and I think I missed 8 wide open goals from 5 feet away but it's chill because I always have an excuse because of my skin color!🥳

Missions are an interesting thing. First of all, time absolutely flies. My whole life I've looked ahead to my mission as the time to really become the man I want to be and change. As time keeps ticking, I have realized that I am going to blink and my mission will be over. This thought honestly brought me a lot of fear because I felt like I haven't really changed that much. However, I looked back to the Elder Snyder I was when I first started my mission and the growth I can see from that me to who I am now is incredible. However, the key factor in that change was not the number of baptisms I have had (0 lol) or the leadership assignments I have received. It's Christ and His Atonement. It's the scriptures. It's praying with trust and with complete honesty. It's sweating and trudging through mud and rivers in the street to share this message. The most beautiful thing about this is that all of us can do these things every day (minus the last part) and we will experience change. Change we are proud of and change our Heavenly Father is proud of.

Love you all so much and your prayers are being answered! Thank you!!

Élder Snyder

Sorry took like no pictures this week

Cool lights in the city square

Pretty sure this is the only Porsche in Honduras