Week 77: Christ is Born

Merry Christmas everyone!!

I hope that all of you have had a great Christmas and have had the opportunity to reflect on the reason for the season.

This Christmas has been incredible and I truly love being able to be a missionary in this special time. We held our Christmas multi-zone conferences and it was so awesome to see so many missionaries have some fun playing games but it was even more special to see so many unite in music and messages of Jesus Christ, his humble birth, and his divine life and resurrection. Shoutout to Elder Evanson for agreeing to do a musical number with me and learning the song 13 seconds before it was our turn to perform.

I proceeded to get food poisoning which took me out for a day. We went out working again and I honestly died but it's chill, I slept 12 hours that night and woke up all good. 

We had the privilege to go to the temple with one of my converts here in Primavera, Miriam. We did proxy baptisms and she loved it. She said she felt a love inside of the temple for herself and for others that was unfamiliar. I loved that. The prophet has promised us that if we want to get to know Jesus Christ better, we can find him in the temple. That day, she found him and his love for her in the temple. 

Other (jolly) stuff:

- Wrapped some gifts with Elder Rosales for the office which was a lot of fun.

- Had a Disney watch party because President approved some Disney movies so we took advantage and enjoyed every single one.

I know that Jesus Christ lives. We celebrate this time to celebrate what he did. Because of Him, we can be happy. When we serve others and he served, we can be even happier. That's why I love being a missionary.

With so much love,

Élder Snyder

Week 76: Beyond the Window

Hellooo everyone

I have Pday on Monday today because on Saturday we were traveling and doing training for other missionaries all day (but more on that later).

Had a good week this week and it just does not feel like it's Christmas time. This week we ran it back with more trips visiting other parts of the mission to train the mission on certain aspects of the work. 

I got to do exchanges with the elders of Choloma and it was such a special day. We raced all around the city because they are covering two areas at the moment but we just felt the Spirit all day. We had a lesson focused all on the love of Christ and how he gives us his doctrine because he loves us. We invited the young woman to be baptized and she tearfully said yes. 

We got to travel all the way out to Santa Rosa about 5.5 hours away from San Pedro and it was awesome. There are some incredible missionaries out there holding up the fort. I got to go on mini exchanges with Elder Porter for about an hour and it was so awesome. He is just such a good example to me of positivity. It was also so COLD in Santa Rosa. I know I know, "cold" is not a word heard very often in Honduras but trust me I was shivering all night and that was without air conditioning. 

Elder Cano and I had the privilege of taking a public bus back to San Pedro and it was an experience. Due to the constant and super heavy rain that we have had for about 3 weeks, there was a mudslide that took out like half of the freeway between San Pedro and the countryside. And one fun thing about Honduras is that there are no alternate routes. One road. So we hit some traffic. It took us almost 8 hours to get home but we did it but it really was a great experience. In fact, a pivotal moment in my life.

My whole life, I have always pushed myself to my limits to try to excel in whatever it is that I may be doing. In my time in the office, I have done the same, but just like any human, I fall short basically every day. Perfectionism has always been one of my biggest struggles and I sadly feel much more weight of it in the assignment I am in. I often feel like I have all eyes on me and my example needs to be better. It often causes me to beat myself up pretty bad sometimes... As Elder Cano and I sat on that bus we were a little frustrated because we were not able to visit any of our friends to invite them to church, there was no cell service, and our bus was basically empty so there weren't people to talk with. For a couple days, I had been feeling like I was constantly falling short and this was a moment where I felt it again and could only look out the window. I had the chance to notice the beauty of the world. The powerful rivers, the green mountains, and the thousands of priceless souls going about their unique and special lives. I realized that God truly wants to bless us and wants us to be happy. I realized that He will never use his Gospel against us. He will never try to teach us a lesson through guilt, pain, frustration, etc. He will only teach us through love, patience, encouragement, and miracles. Every time we receive a prompting to improve, to work harder, or to make a change from bad to good, the Lord is not speaking to us because he is disappointed or frustrated. He is telling us that there is a miracle just ahead of us and he is guiding us directly to it. He loves us.

I learned a lot about the nature of God when I took a step back and took a few minutes to open my eyes beyond the window, beyond the numbers, beyond the ticking time, beyond my imperfections. I feel much happier and much more grateful for my mission. It's okay to take time for the details.

With so much love,

Élder Snyder

Week 75: Super Happy Times

What's good everyone

I know this is coming in late but I have permission to send my email in this hour because we lost about 3 hours of our preparation day today because of a meeting we had with Elder Giuffra from the 70. Missionaries from the two missions of the city and all of the local leaders of the church were present and it was a really good training about working with the members so hopefully the members get super hyped to work hard in missionary work! It was also incredible to hear and feel the power of the testimony of a General Authority of the Church.

This week, we went and did more interviews around the mission and it was pretty chill. I got to see and chat with Elder Evanson a lot too so that was a W. Apart from that, we had two mission-wide temple days! We basically organized all of the sessions so it was a little stressful but it was incredible to get to enter the temple and really get instructed on what I can keep improving on. After the temple, us and all of the leaders of the mission had Mission Leadership Council and it was soooo good. We completely changed the daily schedule of our mission and everyone was so excited to start working many more hours outside. I love how our covenants and the promised blessings can help us to make changes in our lives that may cause us to be more physically tired but help us to receive all of the promised blessings of the Lord. I am very excited to work so much more for the rest of my mission.

Other stuff:

- Elder Cano and I started knocking doors in a part of our area that hasn't seen missionaries in years because it is "really dangerous" but we have just been finding ELECT people. The little community is an absolute labyrinth of shacks and it is just so awesome. There is a special spirit in that place and I think it is very ready for a harvest.

- One of the friends of the other elders in the ward just invited us to go eat in the most boujee place in San Pedro and it was incredible. I ate some of the most delicious carne asada of my life and walked through maybe one of the nicest event centers I have seen. Honduras never ceases to surprise me. We also saw some awesome cars there.

- I got to see my recent convert Alejandro from Jardines twice this week! He is the cousin of one of the girls we are currently teaching and we passed by to visit her and Alejandro answered the door. He shared such a great testimony and is such a good influence on his cousin.

I also had the chance to do some incredible exchanges with a new ZL named Elder Angel. We had one of the most incredible days participating in every single aspect of missionary work. We had the opportunity to help a young mother carry her heavy luggage all the way down the mountain and to just chat with her along the way. She is a missionary for a different evangelical church but we just put our differences aside and it was a beautiful moment. After helping her, she just stood there looking at us and said "You guys really are who the Bible teaches us to be. Thank you." Service is just so fulfilling. Find ways to serve everyday and you will maybe be a little more tired but a whole lot happier.

Please pray for our friends Cristopher, Suany, Jeferson, Josue, Nolvia, William, and Jose! They are the elect people we have had the chance to teach recently and they can use all of the help they can get.

With so much love,

Élder Snyder