A Weekend in Holland

Good afternoon, everyone!!!!

This week was AWESOME! Not too much happened, but it was just an
incredible week.

We had an amazing lesson with our investigator, Nicole! We focused on
recognizing and understanding the spirit. We did the lesson in the
chapel with Sister Rivas. Nicole said that she is really understanding
the spirit and feeling it work in her life. Reading the Book of Mormon
brings her so much joy in her life. We felt the spirit so strongly as
we testified to her of the power and reality of the Holy Ghost. It was
absolutely incredible! :)

Elder Holland came to our mission-wide conference yesterday, so that
was exciting.

Stake Conference was yesterday, and our ward mission leader was
released. We have no clue who the new ward mission leader will be. As
a "goodbye present" our ward mission leader, Brother Margiotta, took
us for a ride in his brand new Tesla! It was SO cool!

Anyway, I guess I will talk a little bit more about Elder Holland :)
it was just the most spiritual meeting of my entire life!!!! There are
honestly no words that can explain how amazing it was! He asked that
all 200 of us missionaries could take a picture with him and then all
shake his hand and tell him our name and where we are from. When he
started speaking to us, he said that it is extremely important that he
shake all of our hands. He said that he doesn't do it to be personable
or anything like that. He needs to do it so he can interview each and
every one of us individually. He said that he literally looks into our
eyes and into our souls and is able to know everything about who we
are. It was incredible. He told us that he has a nasty reputation for
going around and rebuking missions and yelling at them to be better
haha. Then, he said that our mission has such an amazing spirit (HE
felt OUR spirit when he entered the room) that he did not have to do
any rebuking at all. "3 or 4 or 5 of you may need some help, but
everyone here deserves to be here. Thank you all for being so worthy
to be serving a mission." He talked to us about the Restoration (which
was INCREDIBLE!) and he talked about how a mission is a life-long
thing. "YOU CAN'T GO BACK!" He is truly and apostle called of God. He
has undeniable power of the spirit. He is amazing :) the gospel is
amazing!

Well, that's it for this week! I love you all!
Elder Snell

Manhattan Temple!!!

Found this while knocking...

Inside the Tesla!

Tight parking for the mission-wide conference

Killer Clowns from Suffolk County

Happy Columbus Day!

This week has been pretty busy! However, most of it isn't really email worthy, so I am just going to write the interesting stuff :)

We taught about 4-5 lessons a day this week, so we have been running, well...driving, all over our area! It is so much fun, though :) My mind is a

little all over the place today, so forgive me for the scatter-brained
nature of this email.

GUESS WHAT!! We have a mission-wide conference this coming up Sunday
in Woodside, Queens. There has been a lot of talk/gossip about what
the meeting is for. I am about 98.2% convinced that Elder Jeffrey R. Holland is
coming to speak to the mission!!!! AHHHH!! How exciting is
that?????????? I am pretty excited!

So, now for the weird stuff... hahaha almost everyone we have talked
to this week has mentioned something about this. There are people
dressing up as clowns trying to scare the living daylights out of
everyone. They are carrying weapons and scaring small children as well
as large and not-so-large adults. I haven't seen any, but it sounds
really creepy... so, here is the creepiest/scariest part... here, on
the island, in Suffolk County, (Suffolk County covers half of my area
and the eastern part of Long Island) one of said clowns killed a small
child! Ah! Not cool! Everyone here is now afraid of clowns... it's
very creepy.

Alright, new story! So, we were on our way to visit Chris and Nadia at the Budget Inn. We texted and asked if we could come over, but Chris said he was at King Kullen and we could meet him there. We were already parked at the Budget Inn, so we decided to make the mile and a half hike down to the grocery store to meet Chris half way. On the way there, we ran into a friendly black couple, Darrell & Tamika. We gave them our card and told them to call us if they are further interested in our message. We walked on, found Chris, and walked back. When we got to the Budget Inn, we saw Darrell & Tamika. Turns out, they live there too! We gave them a Restoration pamphlet to read. They then went over to the nearby picnic table and began reading. We finished up with Chris, and went over to Darrell & Tamika to teach them the Restoration. The spirit was strong as we taught, and they understood everything very well. We gave them both a Book of Mormon and invited them to be baptized. They both eagerly said YES!!!! We went back the next day, and they agreed to be baptized on November 12! Yay!

Nicole came to church for the first time yesterday! It was Fast & Testimony meeting, so the spirit was extra strong as the members went up to the pulpit to bear their testimonies. Nicole absolutely loved church, and agreed to come back as much as she could.

Do you remember Brother Mansuetto? He has been in the hospital since July 19th! He finally was able to come home yesterday! We have been doing service at their house for a few weeks now, so we have come to know the Mansuetto's pretty well! They are the best!

Alright, that's about it! I hope you all have an amazing week! Love you all!

Elder Snell

Video Chat with Gary

"The sluggard will not plow by reason of the [m]old..."

Hi everyone!

        I hope your week has been as exciting as mine has hahaha. Oh my
goodness, it has been eventful.

        So, the above quote if from Proverbs 20: 4. I did have to revise it
just a little to fit with the content of this email :)

        Here we go. So, on Thursday we (the elders in my district + Elder
Portlock) were asked by a family in our ward if we could help them out
with some packing. They are not physically capable of packing,
themselves, so we were happy to help them out :) anyways, 4 years ago,
this family was one of the many who had some complications due to
hurricane Sandy. The basement in which they live was flooded. Instead
of attempting to clear out their wet and soiled belongings, they
decided to horde them in the back bedroom...for 4 years... Their
landlord just recently found out about it, and gave them so many
opportunities to leave and she would take care of it. The family never
took the landlord up on her generous offers, so they are now being
evicted. Bishop heard that they asked us to come help them pack, so he
bought us face masks knowing of the hazardous living situation
(picture posted below). So, the day comes, and we have our masks on,
ready to get to work. Just as we were about to go down to the
basement, we hear the nastiest coughing fit ever! We were all pretty
scared. The landlord happened to be there that day and offered us
gloves. We accepted them and made our way down to the basement. The
smell was absolutely putrid. When we got down there, the family got
pretty offended that we had the masks saying, "We've lived here for 9
years, and we're not dead!" We got to work making and packing boxes
while the family watched and Elder Portlock and Elder McCleary were
talking with the landlord. After some time, Elder McCleary came down
the stairs and said that the landlord doesn't want us getting sick and
invited us to leave. The daughter of the family lost all control of
herself and started screaming and cursing and hurling items. Major
scene. Let's just say that we got out of there before the cops showed
up... haha Hopefully I got everything that happened in that story. It
was definitely an experience hahahaha super funny to talk about! It
was very fun!

        So, our MegaZone conference was on Friday! In preparation for it,
Sister Reynolds (President's wife) asked everyone to prepare a short
talk about diligence and send them to her 3 days before the meeting. I
also had one week to prepare a musical number for the conference. Half
way through the conference, Sister Reynolds asked three missionaries
to come up to the pulpit and share their talks with the two zones. I
was one of the three missionaries who got to share their talks! I
worked hard on preparing it, and was grateful for the opportunity to
share it with everyone else :) the musical number went very well as! I
accompanied a couple sister and elders as they sang the EFY Medley for
"As Sisters in Zion/We'll Bring the World His Truth".

        One last story: Elder Jensen and I got a media request for a Book of
Mormon from the Huntington Hospital. "Awesome!", we thought, "we will
go teach a lesson to someone who has been humbled and in need of the
gospel!" We get there and are told the patient is on floor 5N -- the
psychiatric unit. We took the elevator up to the 5 floor and entered
the psychiatric unit of the hospital. Turns out that the patient in
the the psych ward was baptized into the Church when she was 8 and
later baptized Catholic. She wanted to come back to the LDS Church and
was grateful that we took the time to come see her in the Psych ward!
It was awesome!

        General Conference was pretty much the greatest thing EVER!!! My
district watched it in the chapel with only a couple other members who
didn't have TV's and the spirit in that chapel was SO strong. Heavenly
Father knows each and everyone of us individually and answers our
prayers. I learned so much from General Conference and were direct
answers to all of my questions and prayers. I love this gospel!

That's it for this week! I love you all!
Elder Snell

Ready to tackle some mold!

I made this salsa from scratch for Conference. 

Skype Lesson with Richard

The friendliest bird I have ever met :)

Ready for Conference to begin in 5 minutes. Our investigators couldn't make it, but most of them did watch a session at home :)

Cigarettes and Oversized Houses

Email from 9/26/2016

Hello, everyone!

This week has been awesome! So much has happened, it is ridiculous! I will spare you the boring stuff, though, and get to the meat and potatoes of what happened this week.

So, the first thing that should probably be noted, is that transfers were on Tuesday. I am happy to inform you that the Plainview District remained exactly the same for another 6 weeks! Yay! The only super exciting thing that happened as a result of transfers is that Elder Mullen (MTC friend) is now in my zone! His district was moved into Zone 8, and I am super excited about it! 

Oh! Last week, Elder McCleary and I went on an exchange. We met a woman named Renae. She has a severe smoking problem, but has an interest in the Church. We explained to her that she needs quit smoking for her family and her own health. The spirit was really strong and our meeting ended in us taking an entire pack and a large baggie of cigarettes. We then went to the dumpster in the back of the church parking lot and broke each individual cigarette! It was very exciting hahaha!

Sister Nash and Sister Tarnasky (the sister training leaders for our zone)(they are also in my district) had a baptism on Saturday for their wonderful investigator, Katia. Baptisms are the perfect thing to have investigators come to, so Elder Jensen and I invited all of our investigators to come. Nicole was the only one who make it, but that is still awesome considering she is never able to make it to church due to her job. During the baptismal service, the spirit was incredible! I could feel the spirit coursing through me and I knew that Nicole was feeling it as well. Right after the service, I asked Nicole what her thoughts were about the baptism. All she could say was, "WOW.......I have seen tons of catholic baptisms, but this one was just.....wow.." I know that this is the true church of Jesus Christ. The spirits mission is to testify of truth, and it was testifying, alright! I feel so blessed to be apart of such a divine work. I love this church, I love our Savior, and I love being a missionary! Right after the baptism, we had Sister Ní Lochlainn help Nicole with some family history. Nicole has never even met her father before. Sister Ní Lochlainn was able (through some research) to find Nicole's father's address and phone number! She also found the same information for her grandfather and great-grandfather! They were then able to put the information into Family Search and literally built her family tree from scratch. It was incredible to see Nicole so happy to find her dad.

So, we had one of the best lessons ever, yesterday! It was with a guy named Michael. He lives behind the Mansuetto's house in the pool house they rent out to him. We brought Brother Mills (from the stake high council) with us. We were also able to use Skype to have Brother Mansuetto (who is still in the hospital) at the lesson as well! The spirit was touching the hearts of everyone in the room. It was an amazing experience to be apart of!

Alright, last thing. I promise! We went to the Westbury Mansion today for our district activity! It was so cool, a big, and beautiful, and fun! Hahaha! I will put pictures and videos of it on my email. Tons of fun! 

I think that's it for this week. I love you all! 

Elder Snell

Let Us All Press On!

Letter from Sept 19, 2016

Hello, my friends!

I hope this week has been super good for all of you!

So, I have decided that I need to find a way to make my emails more
interesting. Seeing that I have no creative ideas, I am asking all of
you if you have any ideas for something I can do to spice things up a
bit! Let me know what you come up with (for the sake of your own
reading enjoyment). The purpose of my letters isn't to entertain, but
I know it is nice if they aren't deathly boring.

Anyway, here are some things that happened this week!

Nothing really email-worthy really happened until around Thursday.
Elder Portlock (a church service missionary) asked if he could come on
an "exchange" with Elder Jensen and I on Thursday through Friday.
President Reynolds said that it would be fine. Elder Portlock was so
excited, because he had never really gone out with proselyting
missionaries before. Both days were very interesting. First, we went
to visit Charlie. We started talking with him, and he asked about
about the way we, as missionaries, live. Elder Portlock tried to
explain, and the whole discussion turned into an argument between
Charlie and Elder Portlock. It was very weird... Anyway, after that,
we went to knock doors in Huntington. While we were knocking, I heard
a marching band playing at a football game! I got super excited! It
made my night!

The next day, we taught some really good lessons where the spirit was
so strong! It was incredible! After those lessons, I felt like we
needed to go visit Brother Mansuetto, who is still in the hospital.
When we got there, Brother Mansuetto's face lit up! Sister Mansuetto
told us that he was getting really depressed that day, so us being
there was an answer to her prayers. We gave Brother Mansuetto a
blessing. The spirit was really strong and I know that he will heal
and be able to walk again. We also went back on Sunday to take him the
Sacrament. He was so much happier! I love how the spirit works to help
others!

So, Gary and Chris both came to church yesterday! I love having new
people at church! The members get really excited about missionary work
when they see new faces. Our ward mission leader, Brother Margiotta,
expressed to the Ward how hard we are working and also sent around a
calendar for members to sign up to feed us dinner. We now have over 20
dinner appointments scheduled for the rest of September and October! I
am so excited to meet all of them and see if they have friends we can
bring closer unto to Christ. Chris and Gary are both on date for
baptism! They are super solid, so I don't have too many worries about
them falling through. Chris's word of wisdom problems weren't as bad
as their neighbor made them sound, so that was a relief!

So, transfer calls were this morning! I am happy to say that the
Plainview District will be staying exactly the same for another 6
weeks! I love my district!

I love you all!

Have an incredible week!

Elder Snell
:{D


Elder McCleary's grilled cheese

Elder McCleary's Grilled Cheese! Yum!

Hair Cutting Activity!

We're Going On A Squirrel Hunt to See What We Can Find

Email from 9/12/16. Sorry for the Late Post.....

Hello everyone!

I hope you all had an amazing week! This week has been up and down for
me. A lot happened! Most of it was good though, so don't worry too
much.

First story. Last Monday, Elder Jensen and I decided to go do some
look ups. We both felt that we needed to go visit this one specific
person. We parked down the street a little bit and walked up to the
house. Turns out, they moved about a year ago...so we start walking
back to the car wondering why we felt that person was so important.
While we were walking, we see someone standing half way out of his
front door holding a broomstick and another large man standing on the
furniture in their tiny front room. The man inside looked like he was
struggling with something, so we decided to go talk to them and offer
any assistance they could use. We approach them and ask what they are
doing. They said that two squirrels had gotten into their front room.
They accidentally killed the mother, and the other squirrel was hiding
under their small bookcase. The larger man, in an attempt to find the
squirrel, started hitting everything very forcefully with his heavy
stick. He saw the squirrel, got scared, and handed me his stick, so I
then proceeded to find this squirrel. I found it and it started
yelling at me hahaha. I pulled the bookcase away from it and it ran
out of the house. It was a party! One of the guys thanked us and said
there is no way that they would've found that squirrel and gotten it
out without us. We gave him our card and got his address to go visit
him later. I know it is a little strange, but it was a testimony
builder to me that the Lord puts us in the right place at the right
moment.

I'm not sure if I talked about this last week, but Frank Mansuetto is
still in the hospital. He is definitely getting better, but he still
has quite a way to go. We go over to his house to do yard work for his
wife each week. She makes us lunch each time we go and is probably one
of the nicest ladies you will ever meet. Frank has an I'm a Mormon
video. I will attach it to this email. You should watch it! Frank is
such a cool guy and has a really cool story about how he found the
gospel!

So, sad stuff...turns out that Chris & Nadia used to have some serious
Word of Wisdom problems. They overcame their issues, but as of
recently, they have been hit with trial after trial. Sadly, they
turned back to their old ways. Their neighbor stopped us and told us
all these terrible things they have done to her...The adversary is
working hard on Chris & Nadia. We haven't given up on them yet, and
hopefully they haven't given up on themselves. They keep blowing us
off with our appointments, so hopefully we won't have to drop them...

About three weeks ago, some guy walked into the chapel right after our
sacrament meeting. He looked a little lost, so I went over to him to
see how I could help him. He said he was looking for the missionaries
because he wanted to be baptized! He is YSA age, so we had to give him
to Sister Nash and Sister Tarnasky. Matt was baptized on Saturday and
confirmed yesterday! The sisters and I did a musical number at his
baptism. It was a beautiful baptismal service. We also had Gary (an
investigator) come to church with us yesterday! He said he really
enjoyed it and would love to come every week! I love doing missionary
work! It is often times very hard, but it is SO worth it!

I love you all!

Elder Snell

Splits with Elder Portlock (service missionary) and Josh (YSA member)

Earthquakes, Hurricanes, and Liars

Happy Labor Day, everyone!

It's been an exciting week! We had Trainer/Trainee meeting on Wednesday. Elder Barker and Elder Mullen were there, so we had a lot of fun talking about our areas and each other's companion. After the meeting, I took a driving test and passed! Yay! Now we can actually go on an exchange with the other Elders in my district. Trainer/Trainee meeting was in Rego, Queens. It was so much fun to go into the city! It felt like there was an earthquake every 5 minutes when the Long Island Railroad train would pass by. It's weird when your sitting there and the church building starts rumbling! Traffic was terrible trying to get back home, though! 

Thursday was our exchange with the Zone Leaders! They are Spanish speaking, so I spent the day with Elder Moe in Brentwood visiting people who only speak Spanish. It was kind of fun watching Elder Moe have a conversation while I have no clue what is even happening. He would occasionally fill me in on what has happened and then ask me to bear my testimony which he then translated. We went to a Spanish member's home to give her a blessing, then she made us dinner. Spanish people make you eat SO much food! If they ask if you want seconds, you have to say yes or else they get offended. At least the food was good, right? Haha. After we ate, we (it was really just Elder Moe) shared a message about the Book of Mormon. We then went to a busy area to do some street contacting and plant some seeds. We stopped a guy in front of an MMA studio and Elder Moe taught him the Restoration. I had no clue what they were saying, so I ended up watching a couple grown men wrestle and punch suspended bags of sand. It was weird...but Elder Moe's conversation ended with getting the man's number and setting up a return appointment, so that's pretty exciting! I did learn how to introduce ourselves as missionaries in Spanish, though!

I think I mentioned Chris & Nadia last week. They are the couple that we have on date to be baptized. Anyway, they came to church yesterday! I was SO excited to see them there! The Ward absolutely loved them! The members here are super cool and excited about missionary work. The majority of them are converts themselves, so a bunch of members were constantly coming up to Chris & Nadia to introduce themselves and to get to know them. Chris & Nadia loved church and said they felt the spirit constantly while they were  cant wait to be baptized. I love this Ward! 

Last thing for this week: we got hurricane and flash flood warnings for Saturday-Tuesday. President told everyone to refuel our cars and go buy some food supplies to last a week or so. We did all of that and were completely ready for a hurricane. We wake up the next day (Sunday) and Che k the weather forecast: 0% of rain for the entire week. I don't know what the weather man did to Mother Nature, but she really must find joy in making him a liar! Hahaha

Anyway, I think that's it for this week. I don't have a quote for this week, but I do have a challenge for all of you. Please let me know how this goes for you!

Challenge: Invite a non-member friend to go to church with you. 

Don't ever pass up the opportunity to be a blessing for someone else! You won't regret it! I promise. 

I love you all!

Elder Snell

Catching up with his MTC group, Elder Barker, Elder Mullen and Elder McCleary

"Light" Traffic In Queens

Elder Jensen's way of cooking without Milk

Elder Jensen Feeding their pet Chester