Kickin' It With Cleveland

OCTOBER 23, 2017

Hey!

So, Elder Fausett has a temple trip tomorrow, so our preparation day has been postponed until then. Thanks for all of your emails :) I will be emailing tomorrow!

Love you all! Have a wonderful Monday 

Elder Snell

OCTOBER 24, 2017

Hello, kindly readers of my weekly emails! :)

Just a few quick things to share with you all this week before I have to get going! It’s been a relatively good week for me. Last week on Tuesday, Elder Fausett and I got to teach early morning seminary! It was super fun! We woke up at 4:30amin order to get over to the church by 5:45. Usually there are supposed to be about 10 kids there, but last week we had 5. It was really neat getting to know the youth of the ward here and being able to get the Seminary feel again! I am really grateful for the time I had in Seminary growing up. It was really interesting to see how much the kids we were teaching didn’t understand about the gospel. It was actually quite unsettling how much they just didn’t really know. Kind of a reality check for me where I realized how important having a sound understanding of the gospel is in life. It is crucial!!! Having a testimony truly is one of the greatest strengths and anchors in this crazy world we live in.

Speaking of crazy world, I as flipped off for the first time in my life the other day! Hahaha! I got on the 7 train, and as I was standing there holding the support pole, I said hello to this gruff looking man in a tank top. His almost immediate response was the finger! I laughed to myself and continued talking to other people on the train. Once we arrived at our stop, I waved to the man and said, “have a nice day :)”. Again, another finger was raised as I’m sure he was trying to say,” why, thank you! You have a wonderful day as well. God bless!” It was super funny, actually! Hahaha

Also on the train this week, we ran into a few people dressed up for NYC Comic Con! It was super fun walking around amongst a bunch of video game and movie characters! 

Elder Fausett and I have been trying to think of better ways we can utilize Facebook and the technology we have been given. So, we decided that we could try and make some quick informational videos to share on Facebook. Elder Lee and Elder Serruto Diaz joined and we took off with it! So far, we have a little over 1.7K views on our videos!!! It’s been really cool seeing them kind of work! Hahaha Elder Lee said that one of his non-member friends from back home saw one of our videos and began to ask some questions about the church. Elder Lee’s friend is now investigating the Church! God is so good and I am so grateful for the many different ways we are able to share the gospel with others!

Our teaching pool has been put at a stand still for the past couple weeks. All of our current investigators have recently started school or picked up a new job or something that has made them extremely busy! Mario is especially a prime example of this busy lifestyle. His work schedule had him working from 3am-5pm!! However, he always finds time to make it to church each and every Sunday! Mario has come to church 9 weeks in a row now! I was talking with him on Sunday, and he mentioned that he told his Mom that he is going to a different church now. His Mom was not too happy about that one...However, Mario told us that he feels so much peace in his life since he has been coming to church and he is thinking he will become a full time member in the near future! I am so excited for him to be baptized and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost!!!! It is really neat to experience a small portion of the love our Heavenly Father has for his children as I teach others here on my mission. I have learned so much about the nature of God over the past little bit and have come to better my personal relaxation ship with Him as a result of it! I love this gospel and I love being a missionary for Him!

I love you all and hope you have an amazing week! Make someone smile today! :)

Elder Snell

P.S. Here’s a picture of me and my new friend. One of our investigators has a pet pigeon  he’s had it for 4 years!!! He found the pigeon with a broken wing being attacked by cats, so he brought it in and nursed it back to health. Once it was healthy again (as healthy as a NYC pigeon can get), he let it go outside. However, it followed him back home! Then, he decided to take it far away and let it go, but it still found it’s way back to his doorstep the next morning. So, he just decided to let it stay Hahahaha I forgot what the pigeon's name is, so I have decided to call him “Cleveland”.

1) Cleveland and Me

2) Comic Con on the train!

3) Elder Fausett locked me between our two front doors hahaha

4)Just decorating for the Holidays! 

Picture Time

OCTOBER 16, 2017

1) My bishop from Rego Park is on this old pass along card!!!

2-7) Amazing sunrise from the other day!

8-10) One of the Sister’s investigators fed us some NICE steaks!!! Rafael is the best!

Forgot this last one! This week, we had our YSA stake conference! It was super cool :) this is a picture of the members of the Queens YSA that made it to the conference.

I love you all and hope you have an week!

Elder Snell

James the Mormon & Lots of Meetings

OCTOBER 8, 2017

Hey Everyone!

I am so so so sorry for being so terrible at emailing you all. My district decided to have a sports preparation day! We played soccer, frisbee, football, chair-soccer, etc. so I neglected to write...

This week we full of a lot of meetings with it being the first week of the transfer. Our Zone's Key Indicators for last month were fairly poor, so we have some really neat ideas for improving them. Remind me to tell you about them next week! I am quite excited for it :) 

I apologize for the terrible email, but I will attach some pictures to make up for the lack of words haha.

I love you all!! Until next week,

Elder Snell

Here are some super cool sunsets! Also, James the Mormon came and visited our Stake!! It was pretty sweet! However, we had a lesson, so we got there in time to take pictures. I don’t really know much about him, but I know he is a rapper of sorts hahaha.

Definitely Halloween time!

Brother Moustakas owns a Porsche!

Love you all!!

2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1.....2!!!!!!!!!!! :)

Hey, Friends :)

I am currently starting this letter while sitting at a all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet! I decided to write my email instead of eat because I am not hungry, and this place is pretty sketchy and I figured it wouldn’t be worth it hahaha. Gotta love New York! 

So, we had transfer calls this morning! I can’t believe this transfer is already over. It’s been a super fast one! Elder Fausett is breaking my streak of one-and-done’s with my companions! I am pretty happy about that one. It has been weird only being with my companions for only one transfer, so I am excited to be able for Elder Fausett and I to stay together! 

Alright, I am back from the restaurant! Hopefully I will be able to get some writing done hahaha.

This week was pretty good, but it was a little disappointing... We had 18 set lessons scheduled with our investigators for this past week. I was so hyped to be able to see most of the people we are working with consistently this week and see some people we have found over the past few weeks. However, every single appointment scheduled cancelled on us....... So this week was a lot of grinding with street contacting, knocking, and making calls/Video chats. Sadly, we weren’t able to find any new investigators this week, but I trust that the Lord is trying to teach us something :) I love Heavenly Father and I love being a part of His work! I am so grateful that He loves us enough to allow as imperfect of a person as I am to be an instrument in His hands. Over this last transfer, I would have to say that one of the biggest lessons I have learned is how to submit my will to the Father’s. I have had a ton of super awesome plans fall through only to be replaced with real faith-building experiences. I am so grateful to my Heavenly Father for loving me enough to cut me down :) He truly does know us perfectly, and just as we learned in General Conference, we sometimes need to have the “faith to not be healed”. 

That’s really all I have time to talk about today! Super quick summary of the week:

• General Conference was amazing!!! I would love to hear what your thoughts are about it! What did the Lord teach you? What stood out to you? What difference did thisConference make in your life? What difference will this Conference make in your life?
• Exchange with Elder Afoa!! I was really fun to be back with one of my old companions, even if it was just for a day! I love Elder Afoa! He is going to be such an incredible district leader this coming transfer!!

I love you all! Please let me know what I can do for you :) I pray that you will continue to come closer to the Lord this week :)

Love ya!

Elder Snell

P.S. I totally forgot to talk about the Balut we ate a couple weeks ago! It is a partially developed duck embryo! It was actually not that bad, but I don’t think I will want to eat it again hahaha. Check out my email from last week for the pictures :) 

P.P.S. I apologize for the lack of pictures...

Lots of stuff!

Sept 25, 2017

Hello, Everyone! :)

I guess I should start this week’s email by apologizing to those who were led to imagine what terrible things could have happened to me that would cause me to not be able to write you all an email last week. My Mom has “rebuked” me and I have repented!

This week was super busy, fairly long, and flat-out fantastic (and insane)! We had two exchanges this week; one with Elder Meliza and Elder Bodily, and one with Elder Weisler (one of the Assistants). My exchange with Elder Bodily has easily got to be my favorite exchange I have been on. Elder Bodily has been in the mission field for 5 weeks now and is killing it! He is extremely intelligent and very fun to be around. Well, to start out our exchange, we had planned to go visit a few of our less-actives we are working with. We started out with visiting Nelly, a convert as of two years who had a minor issue with keeping a commandment and got offended when the bishop asked to talk with her and counseled with her about how she can start keeping the commandment. Her being offended led to her not wanting anything to do with the Church for a while. However, she is somewhat close to coming back again! So there is still hope! :) Anyway, she was the only one home, so she grabbed a chair from inside and sat right inside the door while Elder Bodily and I had a lesson with her from standing outside. Nelly said that she will try to make it to church soon, so that is pretty good.

After we finished with Nelly, I had the impression that I needed to take Elder Bodily knocking (which, sadly, is something not too many missionaries do in the city...). I had him chose a less-active we could look up and then we would knock their street. The less-active sadly wasn’t home, but I knew that is not what the Lord had brought us to that location for. As we left the front porch, I made my way over to the next house. Elder Bodily asked me what I was doing and if I knew who lived there. Apparently, he hadn’t had the chance to do any finding yet! I got super excited and super determined to help Elder Bodily have some really incredible experiences that day. He didn’t feel comfortable doing the first door, so I told him I would go first :) No body answered the door. We moved on to the next. As we were walking up to the door, some 6 year old kids passed us riding some scooters. Not entirely sure why, but I yelled after them and asked if they lived in the first house we knocked. To my surprise, they said yes! I asked if they could run inside and get their mom for us. The little kids happily ran inside and sent their mom out to talk with us. The mom came out and we had a wonderful conversation with her where we were able to teach her the message of the Restoration. She was excited to be able to read the Book of Mormon and said she will definitely ask her husband if we can come over again for another lesson. After we set a return appointment and said a prayer with her, we walked on to the next house. It was Elder Bodily’s turn. He asked me if how the last door went was how knocking usually goes. I told him it wasn’t the most common thing haha :) Well, he nervously knocked on the door. No answer. We moved on to the next door. A kind looking lady in her lower 30s came to the door. Elder Bodily introduced himself to which the lady responded, “Ah, No! I’m an Atheist”, then slammed the door. Elder Bodily came down from the steps and jokingly I said, “that’s more like how it usually goes.” He thought it was funny and was super excited to get the next one! He confidently walked up to the third door for the day and knocked. A 15 year old girl came to the door and they started to have a conversation. As they were talking, the rest of the girl’s family came home from a walk. We now had the attention of a church-going family of 5! I got excited! They were fantastic! We ended up talking with them for a good hour and a half. They asked us what set our church apart from the other churches around the area. As we shared the message of the Restoration, the spirit definitely touched their hearts and they loved what we had to share with them. Elder Bodily had never taught the restoration yet in the field, so he was really excited about it! He did such an incredible job! If he wasn’t there, we definitely would not have found this wonderful family! I got their phone numbers and set up a return appointment. They also said that they would love to come to church with us someday! Heavenly Father led us to find 7 new investigators that day including a new investigators for Elder Bodily and Elder Meliza’s Spanish pool. I am so grateful for the guidance the Lord gives us in doing His work! As you give yourself to Him, He really does use us as an instrument in His hands!

There have been a ton of other incredible things that have happened over the past week. Our new investigator, Mario, has now been to church 6 times! He was invited to church by his friend in the ward, Gabby, and we now have been able to teach him about the restoration of the gospel and the Book of Mormon. Mario also expressed that he feels an incredible and noticeable difference in his life as a result of coming to church regularly! I wish all members understood the impact they can make on their friends and their ward just by inviting them to learn about the gospel. 

One last event this week: Mikee and Happy have been experiencing a lot of adversity from their Mom at home. Yesterday, there was a baptism in the family ward that they really wanted Jacob to be able to see. They asked their mom if they could bring him. She said absolutely not, which started a heated argument. It escalated to the point of the Mom kicking Happy and Mikee out of the house. Mikee and Happy then packed their bags and got ready to live who knows where... Jacob really wanted to come to church and is really upset with his mom for not letting him go, so he decided to pack up his bags as well and leave with his older sisters. We were still at church for the family ward when we got a text from the YSA sisters saying they needed us ASAP. We ran out of church to go help Happy, Mikee, and Jacob. They stayed at the church for some time, watched the baptism, went with some members to a post-baptism BBQ, and eventually we convinced them that they need to go home and make things right with their mom. It was a crazy day full of confusion and lots of emotions from everyone. When they got home, their mom apologized for causing them to have a split family and for kicking them out. From what we have heard from Mikee, everything is okay for now. Keep them in your prayers, though! They definitely need the strength to mend their family bonds :) Heavenly Father definitely had His hand in the situation that day, though! When Mikee, Happy, and Jacob finally when home, their Mom wasn’t home. She had decided to go cool off around the city and texted the girls saying she was sorry.

Lots of miracles this week, that’s for sure! Sadly, we will be taking a break with teaching Jacob for a little bit just to prevent any more blow ups within their family. I have full confidence that Heavenly Father will continue to prepare their Mom’s heart for the gospel. 

I love you all and hope you have had an amazing couple of week! Let me know if there is ever anything I can do for you :) Have a good one!

Elder Snell