Everything Went Espectacular! - November 7, 2011

Hey FAMLIY!!

Wow!! What an incredible week!! As you will notice from the pictures, we had a wedding and a baptism for Juan and Victoria this week!! Wow, we just saw miracle after miracle in order to have everything go well. There were some difficulties because Victoria is only 16 and neither of her parents are here so we had to get lots of stuff organized and work with a juzgado de paz , don`t know how I would say that in English. But in the end, everything went espectacular! We had lots of help from the members of the ward to set up for the wedding, get the cake, get witnesses for the wedding, all sorts of fun stuff.

Victoria & Juan with Juzgado de Paz

Elder Love, Victoria, Juan & Elder Snow

Letitia, Victoria, Juan, Dario & Jonathan



Victoria, Baby Jonathan & Juan
A very happy day!



And then the baptism was so incredible! It was the first baptism that I`ve had in a good while, so it was just so special. The Spirit that I felt was incredible. I don`t know if I have ever felt that happy in my life. The happiness that you feel in the mission is like nothing else, it makes all the tough times so worth it. Juan and Victoria were both super happy as well. I could tell that they were excited to take that important step of baptism. The next day in church was really special also, because they received the Holy Ghost and their baby, Jonathan, received a child`s blessing. It was a very special day yesterday, also.

In the baptism, Leticia (Victoria`s sister that gave us the referral to teach them) gave a talk during the baptismal service on baptism. It was so great. The spirit was super strong. All in all, it was a great day.

In other news..... I have a new companion. His name is Elder Curtis. He is an absolute stud. This week we got a call from President Callan that there was going to be a special change. Elder Love left to Ka´aguy Rory and he will be serving as the assistant with Elder Durrant. So after the baptism on Saturday night we made the switch and Elder Curtis has been here with me in Costa Bonita since Saturday night. I will really miss Elder Love, he is such a great missionary. I learned a lot from him and he really helped me to become more focused on the mission and to love the people. 

My new companion, Elder Curtis, is from Utah. He was serving in the office as secretary for  a while and just got out, so he is excited to work hard. We are going to see lots of miracles together, I know it.

Other great news, we are planning to have another baptism this week. In the letter last week I wrote a little bit about Manu and Melissa. They are so super prepared! It`s great to see their progress. They are reading the Book of Mormon every day and are understanding it really well. This week Manu made it to church again, he is really excited for his baptism on the 12th. Melissa was sick and didn`t make it to church, so we will probably move her baptismal date back for the 19th. We just have to talk really well with the parents and make sure that they give their permission for them to get baptized. 

Welp, I`m so grateful for all of you! Thanks for writing every week and always being such a great support.

Congrats to Dan and Lauren! So what are the finalist names for the baby girl?  Do I get a vote in this?  Haha just kidding.

I know that this is the work of the Lord.  I am so, so grateful for the happiness that I feel here.  I know that the Church is true and that it changes lives.

I love you all,

Elder Snow

Blessings Come Through Hard Work & Diligence - October 31, 2011

Hey Family! No, I didn`t forget about you. I wrote out the letter last week and tried to send it, but it wouldn`t work. I was out of time so I figured, ehh I`ll just wait. Here is the letter from last week, I am going to write a letter for this week right now. Love ya!

Querida Familia!!!

Hey! It has been really great to hear from you another week. This letter was especially great. I really enjoyed reading about the family history work as well as to read more of Dad`s mission experiences. I really enjoy hearing about your mission experiences, Dad. Thank you for sending them, keep it up! I can tell that your mission was so important to you and it helps me to understand the stud you are today! Haha, I love you!

Today I am writing a little bit later because we had a leadership council this morning. We have them once a month on a Monday morning. This council today was really great. The Spirit was super strong. We talked a lot about the Doctrine of Christ. We read a lot from 2 Nephi 31. It was really great. I love studying the Gospel and the Doctrine of Christ.

The Spirit was very strong during the entire meeting, but especially at the end. In the mission, there are 9 out of the 22 zone leaders that are going home this change, and President Callan asked each of them to bear their testimonies at the end. The love that each missionary expressed for the work was truly amazing. It was so apparent the joy that they have felt in the work and how converted they have become. It made me reflect a lot on my personal conversion to the Gospel. I realize that the Gospel has really saved me. I am so grateful for the mission and the joy that I feel serving.

Elder Love and I have had a great week! We really are working hard. This week we saw many blessings from our diligence. We had several investigators in Sacrament Meeting and we have seen a lot of progress this week. We are hoping for a lot of baptisms in the month of November.

Juan and Victoria are doing very well, we are planning their wedding and baptism for this week. They are super prepared, we are just waiting on Victoria´s mom to get back from a trip so that we can have the wedding and the baptism.

We also have two other investigators that have a baptismal date for the 12th of November. We found them this week while trying to teach a less active member. They are the nephew and niece of a less active member. Their names are Carlos Manuel (14 years old) and Melissa (9 years old). They went to church several times before with their uncle before he became less active. They are reading the Book of Mormon a lot and went to church yesterday. We want to talk more with the parents this week, they are really nice, but haven`t been as receptive as their kids.

I really enjoyed the story that Dad shared about Pilar. I remember you telling me about her a little bit before I came on the mission. That is a really great example of diligence. Even though your companion wasn`t so willing to work, you persevered and saw great miracles. I am very grateful that in my mission I have had great companions that have desires to work. I know that the Lord prepares people for us to teach, and if we are willing to work hard, He will bless us to find them. I have a great testimony that the Gospel answers the questions that so many people have. I really know that the Lord prepared Pilar in that moment and that she was prepared to hear the message. I know that the Book of Mormon is true, It has the answers to the questions of the soul. A couple of weeks ago I started reading the Book of Mormon over again from the beginning. I can`t read it without feeling the Spirit, I know that it is true. It was written for our day. I know it. It gets me excited to go out and work hard in order to help as many people as I can!

Thanks for being so great and for always being a great influence, I love you all so much! Have a great week!

Elder Snow

Worked Until We Dropped - October 24, 2011

Dear Family,

It has been really great to hear from you this week. I really appreciated the news on how things are back in the stake and to hear about your trip to the temple. I could really feel the Spirit reading about how great you felt about going to the temple. I loved Mom`s enthusiasm about the temple work, you are all such studs!

Dad asked about how successful the mission is at getting new converts to the temple soon after their baptisms. I am not really sure on numbers or anything like that. I know that all of the recent converts receive really soon after their baptisms a letter from the temple president and an information thing about Family Search and how to bring their ancestors` names to the temple. One great thing about my ward now in Costa Bonita is that they are really good at making it to the temple often. They have ward temple trips every couple of months and all of the active members go. It is a great blessing for the members here in Asunción to be close to the temple. I remember while I was serving in Santa Rita it was a much more difficult thing to make it to the temple with the recent converts because it is a good distance away.

Speaking of converts, I received a couple of letters from Eduardo Calderón this week. It was really exciting to hear from him. Eduardo is the young man that Elder Bonilla and I baptized in my first change. He really has a great testimony. He wrote me and told me that he is serving right now as a local missionary! He was pretty excited to have his own agenda and Preach My Gospel and everything. He told me that he always likes to bear his testimony about his baptism. It definitely was a good pick me up and gave me more excitement.

This week we weren`t able to have the baptism for Juan and Victoria. It`s kind of a long story. Basically Victoria needs legal permission to get married because she is underage. We tried to go with them and Victoria`s mom to get the permission from a youth judge this week. It didn`t work out, there were some problems because the judges are all on strike right now. I`m not really sure how that works out, but basically they can`t do any legal work right now. Bummer. But we talked with a member whose son got married a while back to someone under 18. He said that they used a juzgado de paz, sorry don`t know what that would be in English. So we are going to try to go with that route. The only problem now is that Victoria´s mom traveled to Ciudad Del Este, and we aren`t sure when she will come back. So.... we are just praying lots, I feel like I say that every week.

We have seen some more progress this week, a couple of members brought friends to church yesterday and the meetings went really well. The members are getting more excited about the work. We just need to get some baptisms and get this place started! Once the members have excitement, we are going to see miracles!!
I`m trying to think what happened this week... I asked Elder Love what we did this week and his answer was ´We just worked until we dropped´ haha. That about sums it up. We are working hard, things are great. Well, I love you all! Have a great week

Love,
Elder Snow

God Inspires His Children - October 17, 2011

Dear Family!

Hey it was especially great to hear from all of you this week! Grandma and Grandpa wrote me as well. I will have to write them another week because this week I don`t have very much time today.

 

Before I forget again (I feel terrible) Happy Birthday to Dan and Kim! I`ve got to be the worst brother ever for forgetting like 2 weeks in a row. But I love you! Mom is right, 17 is really old, I can`t believe that Kim is 17 already. That makes me feel really old.

 

This week is change week also, but there isn`t really any big news. Elder Love and I will be staying together another change as zone leaders here in good ´ole Costa Bonita. The zone is having a lot of changes though and there will be lots of new missionaries in our zone.

 

This week has been really great. We have been seeing lots of great miracles with Juan and Victoria. I don`t remember how well I described Juan and Victoria last time. They are the couple that was the reference from the activity we did with President Callan. They are progressing really well and it has been an incredible testimony to me that God inspires his children to know who is prepared to receive the Gospel. 

 

Juan and Victoria met with missionaries before and were really close to getting baptized, but then they couldn`t get married because Victoria is under age. So Elder Love and I have been trying to figure out what we can do to help them get baptized. We called the judge that works with the mission and she told us about another option that we can do in order for them to get permission to get married. So we are trying to help them get all the things they need together in order to get the permission. 

 

We had a couple of really great lessons with them this week. On Tuesday I think it was, we taught the Restoration. They are reading the Book of Mormon every day and are really receptive and have lots of really good questions. This week we also talked about the Word of Wisdom because Juan smokes and has had trouble in quitting smoking. They committed to live the Word of Wisdom and he hasn`t smoked for about 4 or 5 days now. 

 

If all goes well, they could get baptized this week. We are praying a lot to receive God`s help. I know that he is preparing the way for them to fulfill his commandments, it really has been amazing to see their progress.

 

This past week we weren`t able to have the baptism for Alonso. The divorce papers still haven`t gone through. The lawyer says that any day it should be finalized. So we will just keep praying a lot for them. Other good news is that Daisy had the baby this week! They are already home from the hospital. We visited Alonso, Daisy, Elias, and the new baby yesterday and taught them a little bit. They have been through a lot of trials and are super faithful always. I`ve been very impressed and touched by their example of faith and perseverance.

 

Anyway, I love this work. I`m very grateful for the Spirit and the impressions of the Holy Ghost. Yesterday Elder Love and I gave talks in sacrament meeting and I chose to speak on following the impressions of the Spirit. I love the example of President Monson and how he is always so ready and willing to act on promptings of the Spirit. His talk in General Conference on Sunday morning was incredible. It`s so important to be worthy to receive the  impressions of the Spirit. 

 

Thanks for being so great. I really love you all. I hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Snow

Love the People & Be Willing to Go the Extra MIle - October 10, 2011

Dear Family!

Hey! It was so great to hear from you all. I was excited to get letters from Kim and Melanie also. I love it. You all crack me up, also. It`s kind of awkward, I`m sitting here in an internet place and I keep laughing out loud. Everyone looks at me kind of funny, including Elder Love, jajaja. But that doesn`t stop me.

 

Anyway, it`s been a really great week. We are especially excited because we have seen more progress this week! We had been struggling for a while in getting people to church, but this week we finally broke through a little bit and got more people to attend.

 

This week we had interviews with President Callan on Tuesday. After the zone had all been interviewed, Elder Love and I had the opportunity to teach a couple of lessons with President Callan. After the interview, he drove us back to our area and we made a couple of visits. We did one visit to a recent convert family and did a referral activity with them. Their names are Dario and Leticia. Leticia has been a member for a really long time, but was inactive for a while. Several months ago the missionaries visited them and Dario was baptized. 

 

The referral activity turned out really well and we set up an appointment with Dario and Leticia to teach Leticia´s sister, Victoria, and her boyfriend, Juan. They had received the missionary discussions a while back and were going to get baptized, but in the end weren`t able to because Victoria is underage and they can`t get married without her parent`s permission. The problem is that her dad lives in Argentina, so the missionaries weren`t able to get permission for them to get married and later baptized.  So on Saturday we had a family home evening with Dario and Leticia and they invited Juan and Victoria. It turned out really well, we talked about how the Gospel blesses families. Then the next day Dario and Leticia took them to church. It was really great.

 

The other visit we did with President Callan was to an investigator that we have taught only a few times. She is a single mother named Sister Alfonzo. She has three kids and her youngest son is kind of rebellious. Her husband passed away several years ago. We only had a little bit of time, but we went there and President Callan was teaching some about the Plan of Salvation. The Spirit was incredible, President is a spiritual giant. The next time we visited her she kept talking about how much she enjoyed the visit with President. Sister Alfonzo always feels the Spirit when we visit her but she still doesn`t want to attend church. She is pretty Catholic and says she doesn`t feel the need to change churches. 

We are also pretty excited for this week. If everything goes well, we could have a baptism this week for Alonso. The divorce papers for Daisy are really close to being final so that they can get married and Alonso can get baptized. The other thing that might keep it from happening is that Daisy is like more than 9 months pregnant and the baby still hasn`t been born! So we will see what happens, we will keep praying a lot for them!

Anyway, that is what is going on here. We are working hard and keeping our heads up. I know that the Lord will bless us. In my interview with President Callan I asked him how we could have more success. He talked about really loving the people and being willing to go the second mile. So that`s what I am trying to do. I know that I am working hard and that we have the Spirit with us, but I am determined to work harder to achieve more success.

 

I`m grateful for all of you. Thanks for being such a positive influence!

Love,

Elder Snow

NEW PICTURES

Note from Elder Snow's Mom:  To see pictures of Ivan's baptism, see September 19, 2011 post.

General Conference...Something I Treasure - October 3, 2011

Dear Family!

 

Hey it was great to hear from you and to hear your takes on General Conference. Wow, I loved it. More than ever I felt that this conference was suited just for me and that the Lord was blessing me with exactly what I needed to here. I wished that I had appreciated General Conference more before the mission. Now it is something I treasure.

 

Like Dad guessed, the talks on missionary work I especially loved. Basically the entire Priesthood Session was incredible. So Mom and Dad, you know Elder Waddell, huh? He`s a stud! His talk was so great. The talks by Elder Waddell, Elder Holland, and Elder Yamashita (not gonna lie, I had to look back to remember how to spell his name) were so great. This morning during my personal study I re-studied my notes and made a group of themes that I noticed from conference and set goals on what I am going to do better.

 

A couple of the themes that I really noticed were things such as: Importance of the commandments and following the Spirit, the importance of love, Geneology, the Book of Mormon. I really enjoyed the talks on the importance of the commandments and following the Holy Ghost. I know without a doubt that keeping the commandments and following the Spirit brings true joy. A person will never be so happy as when they do those things. It`s true! I loved President Monson`s talk especially in the Sunday morning session when he told the story of the temple dedication in Germany. At the end of the story, when he mentioned how important it is to be worthy to hear the impressions of the Spirit, there was such a powerful Spirit in the room.  Another one of my favorites was Elder Yamashita`s talk on missionary work. The part when he spoke on the missionary that was conferring the Holy Ghost upon the convert girl and Elder Yamashita really touched me. Love is so important in missionary work. Many times, love for the investigators is what brings the Spirit. I want to do better in this aspect.

 

Well I better get on to another topic, or else I will talk about General Conference forever, bahhh I love it.

 

This week we have found a couple of really great people. We were really excited and preparing to get them to conference, in the end they weren`t able to make it. But we`ll get `em next week! We found one man who is super prepared. His name is Luis Alberto and he was telling us of how he has always been looking for the truth, but he still hasn`t been able to find it. We taught him the Lesson of the Restoration and ended with a kneeling prayer. He felt the Spirit for sure. The only problem is that we can`t find the dang man now! He works a lot so we haven`t been able to visit him a second time. But that is such a witness to me that there are people out there that are looking for the truth but are kept from it only because they know not where to find it! That`s why we have to do like Elder Holland said in Conference and unbind the tongue and talk about the Gospel! Nothing in missionary work will ever happen until we find someone to teach.

 

One cool thing this week is that we were able to bring a less-active member to General Conference. We actually found him while looking for Luis Alberto and knocking some doors in that area. He was baptized 3 or 4 years ago but has been less active ever since. He is 25 years old and he expressed that he still has desires to serve a mission. So we invited him to conference and he came to both sessions on Sunday! He really enjoyed it and committed to come every week. So we are excited about that. Now we just need to find his member record so we can get him with the Priesthood. He was baptized somewhere else so we don`t know where his record is, that`s kind of a struggle with the work here in Paraguay. 

Well Dad had some questions I think...
About Senior couples. I really don`t have that much imput... As far as I know there aren`t any in our mission. I know that there is like a mission nurse or something that is a senior couple. But I think that`s about it. I really don`t know. But I`m sure they are super valuable! Just look at Grandpa Claude and Grandma Coleen, stud missionaries! 

Anywho, I love you all so much! I hope you have a great week and that things are going super great. Love you!

Love,

Elder Snow