Didn't Even Have Time to Think of A Subject..

Hey, everyone! :)

Wow, I am really good at procrastinating this whole emailing thing hahaha. I will try to cram what I can in the email within the 15 minutes I have left. "We have our heading. Here we GOOOOOOO!"

This week has been such an amazing blessing! I have grown so much this week alone and my testimony of the gospel has been strengthened tenfold! I love the Lord so much for the incredible things I have been blessed with. I am definitely not deserving of what He has given me, but I am truly grateful for it.

So, the best part of this week has been teaching Jacob! Jacob is Happy and Mikee's 10 year old brother. He is literally one of my most favorite people on the planet. Jacob was told by a pastor that his sisters were following Lucifer and that they don't love God. He wasn't very happy with that, so Jacob decided to investigate the truth for himself. He asked Happy and Mikee if he could come to their next lesson with the missionaries to learn for himself where the truth is. We met with Jacob on Tuesday morning where we taught him the Restoration. We first talked all about how much God loves him and knows him. Jacob loves Heavenly Father so much and said that he knows that because He gave him such an amazing family. We talked about how by following Jesus Christ, we can live with our families forever. He loved that! We talked about prayer and how it helps us get closer to God. We talked a lot about how we can receive answers to our prayers from the Holy Ghost. Jacob absolutely loved what we shared with him about all of that and about Joseph Smith asking God which church was true. 

A couple days later, we had another lesson with Jacob where we gave him the Children's Book of Mormon. As of right now, just under a week later, he has read the entire thing and has all the stories memorized! His favorite story is Korihor! I love him so much! Jacob even invited 2 of his friends to one of our lessons where we taught the Plan of Salvation! They all loved it and after we finished talking about the kingdoms of glory, Jacob asked if HE could teach his friends about the Restoration of the gospel through Joseph Smith. That was an incredible moment. 

Jacob came to church yesterday and LOVED it so much! He retaught ME the Plan of Salvation during sacrament meeting hahaha. At the end of church he hugged us goodbye about 6 or 7 times. I love him so much! I am praying so hard that his Mom will have her heart softened to the gospel and desire to learn for herself some day. 

I love you all so much! A lot more happened this week, but time is super super super short. Have an amazing week!

Elder Snell

P.S. I will send pictures next week. Sorry! Just know that Jacob is the cutest little Filipino boy you will ever meet! 

Happy Day for Happy & Mikee!!

August 21st, 2017

Hello, Friends! :)

Wow, this week was a busy one! I doubt I am going to be able to fit it all in one email. So, I have decided that I will attempt to pick out the best/most important parts for you to read. I will try to keep this short and to the point :) oh...also, I just realized I left some stuff out of my email from last week, so I will shortly explain that stuff as well. Alright, here we go :)

Stuff from Last Week

Last Friday, we had a baptism for Daniella (YSA Sister's investigator)!!! WAHOO!! It was super awesome to see the branch pull together to make her baptismal service a very special event for her. Every part of the program was taken care of by the members. John Howard conducted and baptized, Faith and Annie did a musical number, Martin gave the talk on baptism, etc. It was fantastic! 

Mikee & Happy's younger brother turned 10 last week and they invited us to come get some food for his birthday party. We stopped by for a bit and they had a TON of food!!! They legit ordered an entire pig and had tray after tray of Filipino food. It was delicious! One of the dishes (not as delicious as others...) was pork chunks soaked in pig blood... it was interesting hahaha.

Okay, I think that's all I missed from last week so we can now move onto this past week :)

Baptism for Happy & Mikee

That's right! Happy and Mikee were baptized into the YSA this past Friday!!!!!! They are literally some of my most favorite people out here. Their conversion process has been amazing. Their Mom does not support them at all. Despite their family issues, they pressed forward and were still baptized and confirmed because they knew it was true and what God wanted them to do. Mikee asked me if I would baptize her and Happy asked me to confirm her. I am super humbled and grateful that they would ask me to do that for them :) They truly love the gospel and it has definitely changed their lives forever. 

YSA Activity at Flushing Meadows Park

Saturday was probably the most fun I have had on my mission!!! We had a super amazing activity at Flushing Meadows park and a TON of people came including a couple of our investigators and a few of our less active members! We we split up into teams and played a bunch of different games including a sack race, tug-of-war, water balloon fight, ultimate frisbee, and all that jazz! Sadly, my team didn't win, but it was SO FUN!!!  I love the Queens YSA so much! The members did such an amazing job fellowshipping the people we brought. Our investigators and less actives said they felt like they had just been adopted into a large family where everyone is their own age. Truly an incredible thing to have people outside the church feel the love of our Savior through the members of His church. 

Transfers are Tomorrow

Well, it has already been 6 weeks! I can't believe how fast this transfer just flew by! Crazy! AAAAAAAAAAANNDDD...........I am staying here in Astoria!! YAY! I love it here :) However, Heavenly Father has decided to keep my streak of "one-and-ones" going on making it so Elder Cubas is OUT! I thought for sure that we would stay together for another transfer, but I guess Heavenly Father wants me to get used to change. Starting next transfer, I will have had 10 companions in 10 transfers! That's insane! I am happy I get to stay here, though!

Miscellaneous Information :)

I found out this week that Brother Havig (member in the family ward) writes lines for Studio C for his job!!!!!!! That sounds like the best job ever!! Hahahaha 

SO many of the members are involved in music as their careers. There are a lot of actors on broadway, stage crew directors, vocal performers, orchestra directors, Play-writes, etc. It is super fun to ask people about their jobs here :) 

Lots of great stuff is taking off here! Found a few great new investigators who are starting to progress. It is awesome to be a part of :)

I love you all! 

Elder Snell

1-3) Mikee & Happy's Baptism
4-5) I found the caterpillar from A Bug's Life!!
6-7) We found this guy outside while we were knocking one night!
8 Last district picture!
10-25) YSA activity in Flushing Meadows Park and the Unisphere!!!!
26) I ran into Tony and Aira (recent convert and member) from Rego
Park while we were walking home last night!!!!!!!!!!

You Can't Believe Everything You Find On The Internet

Hey, Everyone!!!! :)

I apologize for the super lame email this week. I super procrastinated
because we had a breakfast party for Elder Nixon who is going home
today. It has bee tons and tons of fun and I forgot to write my weekly
email....

I will share a super quick story, though! So, earlier this week we got
a Large Print Bible referral from Mormon.org for Vashti. We went to
her house and she invited us in to talk more about Christ with her and
her son. It was such an amazing lesson, and she absolutely loved the
message of the Restoration! Vashti accepted to read the Book of Mormon
and come to church. It was awesome! I already love her so much. SO
prepared! However, a couple days ago we got a text from Vashti that
was super heartbreaking... Basically, she searched up the LDS church
online and found a TON of anti-Mormon information and told us she does
not feel comfortable following our religion. Vashti won't respond to
us anymore and it is super sad, especially because I know she felt the
spirit while we were testifying to her of the Restoration of Christ's
gospel. At least we were able to plant a pretty good seed! Vashti will
come around at some point :)

The YSA sisters had a baptism Friday!!! WAHOO!!! It is super
amazing to see the missionary work here growing day by day. It has
been a slow process, but it is definitely growing :) Happy and Mikee
are getting baptized this Friday too!!! I am so excited for
them :)

Well, that's about all I have time for. I hope you know how much I
truly love you all. Have such an amazing week!

Elder Snell



There are a ton of Spanish Women who set up small little grills on the
street (often times on a shopping cart) and they make AMAZING meat
kabobs!

Air Conditioning: A Modern Miracle

Hey Everyone :) :)

This week was amazing!!! I just got back from the temple a little bit
ago, so I don't have a lot of time to write. I will try to be super
quick though hahaha

First off, exactly one year ago from today, I hit the mission field!
August 9th was the day I got Elder Jensen as my trainer and started
off in Plainview! Crazy how time flies (I feel like I say that every
week)!

I guess I will just tell you a little bit about the pictures :)

I got the first two from someone else, but I took the rest of the
pictures of Manhattan!! Orfatt, recent convert here who Elder Jensen
(my trainer) baptized, lives right next to the East River, overlooking
Manhattan! He invited us over to his place for a lesson (which we had
on the roof top of his 35 story apartment! He also showed us around
the park next to his place. It was awesome! I got some really sweet
pictures, too!! :)

The next grouping of pictures is from my exchange with the Assistants on Monday
 and yesterday. I was with Elder Brown for the exchange. It
was amazing! We had a pretty solid lesson with their investigator,
Hope. Theses adorable kids wanted to sit right between Elder Brown and
I during the entire lesson! They were SO cute! Definitely one of my
favorite exchanges I have been on.

Best for last: I went to the Manhattan Temple today! It was so amazing
to be in the temple again. I have really missed that place. Elder Jensen joined us on
our temple trip! We talked the whole time. It was really cool to sit
with him during the session and in the Celestial room. I love him to
death and can't believe it has already been a year from today that we
met!!! I am going to miss him tons! I feel like he's my brother :)
well, another exciting thing about the temple was that the air
condition was super broken! As we were walking into our session room,
the temple workers passed out envelopes for us to use to fan ourselves
during the session! After our session, the officiator told us that it
was 92 degrees in the room we were in! Crazy hot!!! Everyone was
sweating hahaha! Definitely a first for me. I love the temple SO
much!! I am so grateful for the opportunity to go to the house of the
Lord! I am also super grateful for the miracle of air conditioning.

Well, that's about all I have time to write this week. A ton more
happened, though! Haha oh well..

I love you all and hope you have an amazing week!

Elder Snell