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 :)