May 1, 2012

Hey Family!

 

Things are as usual, going well. I went on exchanges with our district leader, elder goulding, last wed. That was super cool! Exchanges are fun, but that last one, we saw a ton of miracles! Every where we went, every person that we talked to was either nice, or they were interested in having us come back and have a lesson. There had to be at least 8 people that told us to come back in a span of 5 hours. We helped this lady move in some of her furniture into her house. She then paid for our lunch at this sweet Mexican market. It was dang good! The mexican food is sooo good down here.

 

Lately I've been learning/ studying about something called eternal rounds. A bit of an explanation: There are certain principles that we teach/ use in teaching investigators that apply to almost everything in our daily lives. You can in a sense call everything an investigator that has some sort of concern that you need to help resolve. Every day has a problem, and every week also has a problem. We have to figure out what that is and overcome it. By so doing, we are happy, everyone is happy, and we always know what we need to work on every day. That goes along with setting goals too. So I'm basically realizing that things here on the mission will work out in the real world as well. They are eternal principles that have always been used and will always continue to be used.

 

We didn't tract quite as much this week as last. We've done a lot of work in the Fallbrook area, going by and visiting Less-Actives. It's a mighty long drive over there! About 20 min... But thats super long for a missionary! Fallbrook looks kinda ugly. It has a bunch of trees and bushes and stuff. I kinda looks like Krupp. Back in the forest part. Here is a little more dense though. So it's cool.

 

One of the sisters in our vista 9th ward was giving her farewell talk on sunday. It brought me back to my farewell talk. I am soooo glad that none of you guys decided to come up and sing a song right before I spoke. That would not have been good! I would not have been a man after something like that. Because I wasn't after this sister leaving on her mission had her sister sing. Music really does and can touch your heart more then anything else. It's kinda stupid! But it's very good at the same time.

 

The whole service was dang good! They talked a lot about charity and service. Charity is built as we act upon it. We look past the negative influences of others and see that person as they truly are. We see they truly as a son or daughter of god with the greatest potential to become something truly extraordinary. I often think that I forget about that. I forget that everyone has the divine ability to become an eternal, glorious, exalted being that has the ability to progress eternally. We have to see that in everyone and treat them as such. That pretty hard when someone yells at you and calls you stupid. But that's what we have to do in order to have the greatest of all gifts, Charity. We act.  

 

Theres my little spill for the day. Hope things are all well!

April 23, 2012

Hey everyone! It is just super weird to me to now be 20 yrs old. I remember when each of you became as old as I am now, and i thought you guys were adults and super old. I don't feel completely like an adult, and I totally feel old!!! Well, not really. Next year I will officially be old. I will be able to purchase beer! ya....

 

Not too much happened on my birthday. I gave a training at district meeting. We talked to a bunch of people. We had dinner at a members house, although they didn't know it was my birth day, which is a good thing! I don't like to make a big fuss about it. I went to FHE with the singles ward. An inactive came, so that was sweet! Pres. Cook gave me a call at 10:29 and sang to me! I about got to chastise him for calling too late! I got my package! I love my new pants, tie, and the music! Thanks kristie for the Jamba juice cards! Other then that, it was a regular joe shmo day.

 

Yesterday I had a 8 yr old black kid yell at me. It was super funny!! We were walking by him, I said hi, he turned and yelled with a scowl, " You better not come over and talk to me..... strangers!!" His mom must have taught well, i thought. We walked away, and then he shouted at us again and said,"You better not come back over here you white boy!!" He said some other things too. Man, if that little kid had said that to the wrong person, he would have had his head ripped off! Talk about a racial profile right there. Anywise, it was super funny.

 

Other then that, Things are good. We've found a few people to teach. This one guy got reffered to us by the 1st ward. His name is Jerzhia. It sounded like they had an awesome lesson because they set a bapt. date with him and stuff. Well we went over and came to find out that it was way cooler then that. He is definitely excited about the gosple, he wants to be baptized, he read the WHOLE book of mormon And index in a day and a half..... Crazy!!! He knows that it is true! But it blew my mind. I have never seen some one read that fast. I had to make  sure he actually read it, so we asked him something about if he understood it all or something, and he fliped to the end of alma, read a verse that he went right to, and asked us what a judgement seat ment. Crazy stuff! He has comitted to be baptized on may 5th.

 

_Elder Snedaker

April 17, 2012

I don't know if I told you guys or not, but I had the sweet opportunity to meet Elder Russle M. Nielson last saturday. He was down here for some bishops meeting, and he decided to meet with all of the california carlsbad mission as well. He is super cool! But most importantly, I know that he is not just a normal man. While he was talking with us, the thoughts just came coming to my head that there is no way that he is a real person! No one can be that good, that in tune with the spirit, and then that old and remember the things that he did. When he got up to talk, I don't think that he even prepared anything, but he gave the most profound talk that was directed right toward me. And, i'm assuming, to every missionary in the building.

 

He talked about a lot of things. One of the biggest was about the atonement/repentance. Repentance by definition in some other language means to change the way you act, feel, thoughts, and even as small as the way you breath. It's like that mighty change of heart that it talks about all through the scriptures. And then he said something that really struck me, and has continued to strike me to this day for how many times that it has been brought up. We are doing great, we are doing what we are supposed to do, but we have to Change. We have to listen to what was taught, and we must act upon those words. We cannot continue in the same direction that we came to the meeting in, otherwise how good are we? We have to be higher than we were just a few minutes ago.

 

That was repeated very, very strongly to me at district meeting last Wednesday in a way that I cannot doubt that god wants me to change. Then even today, we went to the sandiego temple. I realized some of the promises that I have covenanted to do. One of them being following All of his commandments. If we look at it this way, every single prompting from the holy ghost is a commandment. If I don't do that, I am basically braking my promise that I made with god. That really blew me away today, it was quite overwhelming. I felt that that task is almost imposable. But as always, god let me know that all these things that he asks us to do are for our benefit, and will bring us the Most joy if we follow everything that he asks. He also will never leave us alone. We have someone that has been through all of our experiences before. We have so many tools and ways to accomplish all that he commands, we just have to do as king Benjamin said and act upon our faith.

April 10, 2012

Happy Easter to everyone!!! It was pretty great this year!

 

Guess where I've been moved too?? I've been sent back to good old vista!!! A different ward. The 9th and 6th YSA wards. Vista 3rd is still in my district, and at one point I will be going on exchanges to that ward. It has been super cool to see a bunch of the people from that old ward! On sunday and tuesday it was soo awesome to see those people again. They seem to all be doing really good. They remember me, which kinda surprises me for how quite i was. In a few hours we will be going to the gym to "hang out" with some of the youth from the 3 and 9 wards.

 

My new companion is Elder Kempton. He is as well an ineresting guy. He reminds me a lot of elder Barlow. He has a very loud personality and loves to talk. He talks too much some times, which can be annoying. I know a lot more this time around about how to deal with a companion that talks a bunch, so all will be well.

He has been out for about 5 months, I'm his 2nd companion, or I guess you could call me his "greenie buster". He is from Colorado. He is a really good elder, even with his talking, and really has a desire to be out here. He is absolutly way better than I was at his age in the mission.

 

Our wards seem really good. I'm a big fan of Bishop Allen in the 9th ward. He loves Idaho and seems to think that southern Idaho is the backbone of the church, or it's the closest thing to Zion. Ya, so he and I got off to a good start. He loves the church and is really missionary minded, which is what this ward needs right now. The 9th ward is a small, older ward, that needs to get moving in the missionary mode.

 

Elder Free and Kempton did a lot of work in this area and set the tone out here. There is a lot of things to do, and little time to do those things in. I think the wards are getting the sense of that from what those two elders did. There were 4 baptisms into the 6th YSA ward the saturday before I got here. Things area going great here. We share the YSA ward with the sisters. The YSA ward is a new thing for me, but it seems pretty awesome.

 

I was able to see conference in Carlsbad. It was as awesome as ever! Many, many great talks were given. I felt like I received a lot of guidance! I just need to go back and review some things and put them into action.

 

We actually have the sweet opportunity of having Elder Neilson come and do a mission tore this coming saturday! It is so cool to have conference, easter, and now to shake hands with and listen too and apostle of god! I am sooo excited for this! It will be awesome.

April 3, 2012

Everything else is goings really good. I just found out Saturday that I will be getting transferred again! They are actually taking out the elders in this area and leaving it to the sisters. It's pretty sweet!... We have had to do sooo much cleaning and updating and packing, it's not even funny! They are probably going to be getting rid of our apartment too, so everything has to go. When president Cook called me on Saturday he told me a little about my new area. He said that I will continue to be a Senior comp., now with a junior comp., and that I would get to drive!! If we even have a car. I had to beg him to let me drive... Well, I guess I just asked and he said yes, if I was a safe enough driver. I told him that I haven't driven in about a year, so he better worry about me! Fortunately, he will still let me drive. The ward has a sweet bishop, and was a split ward, like here, a little while ago. 

 

It should be great! I'm excited for it! I think that I will miss elder soderberg. We had some awesome times together, and saw a lot of miracles. So ya, next time I right I will be somewhere else. Probably not by the beach.....

 

-Elder Snedaker 

March 27, 2012

This week was pretty cool. We were able to have another lesson with that same guy that I told you guys about last week. The lesson went great! I hope think that we were able to really help him out. What was really cool though was right after that lesson. We were just walking down the hall and found a kid sitting in on of the chairs. We started to talk to him. He told us that he was there just to think about things. To make a long story short, he is a member in one of the vista wards and was there dropping off his girlfriend at school.

 

He told us he was going though some hard times, and we were able to help him out. We read out of the Book of Mormon, asked him to read a chapter when he got home, and said a prayer with him. The spirit was super strong! The coolest part of all though is that he said that he was walking by the church, and he just felt that he needed to come into the church. The door was unlocked for some reason, but it was locked when we checked it right afterwards. And we just so happened to be there, and we were able to help him. Miracle! It was pretty sweet.

 

General conference is going to be soooo cool!!! I am even more excited for it this time around! It is so wonderful to hear from those leaders of our church. I will be really happy to recive that spiritual boost. We will hopefully be able to get a few of our investigators to that. Along with that, transfers are coming up in a week from today, so I'll let you guys know how that goes next week.

 

The ward is still doing good. I've met quite a few of them now, but I can not for the life of me remember their names... I still have a terrible memory for names.

 

It rained this past weekend which was pretty miserable. We didn't have a car on Sunday, and we didn't have any set appointments, so we were out in the rain for most of the day. It just makes you appreciate the beautiful days that we have here. 

 

Other then that... Well, I finally played settlers again today! It's been quite a while sense I've played that! It was really intense, and no one won... It was taking up too much time, and we had to come e-mail, so ya no one won. Everyone was super close though.

 

Love Elder Snedaker

March 18, 2012

My St. Patrick's Day was pretty cool down here! You know why? Because it was raining! The whole day! And we were biking it in the rain most of the day! I think that this was the first time that I have actually biked in the rain sense I've been on my mission. But ya, it was super sweet. We were pretty cold all day long, and really, really wet. Today is really nice though! It's back up to our nice lower 70's with no clouds.

Even with the rain, we have had an awesome week! We taught more people in the first 3 days last week than any other full week that i've been here in carlsbad. Things are really starting to pick up! We have recently had some pretty sweet miracles this past week that I would like to share with you guys.

Sense I've been here, we have been trying to go by all of the perspective elders. This one guy we tried by was not home, but there were people outside of his house that we talked to that just blew us off. They were moving stuff too, so we guessed that the guy that were were trying to see had moved.

 Well, yesterday we went by just to make sure. We knocked on the door, and some guy answered the door. We asked for the perspective elders name. He told us he was gone. Then there was a short pause and he said, " Wait, are you guys JW's or mormons?" We said that we were mormons. He said, " O.... Ok, sweet! Well come on in, this will be cool!" As he said this, both elder soderburg and I instantly thought, "basher!!" And we really did not want to bash.

So we went in, and he called to someone in the back and told him that his "brothers" where here. The guy in the back walked out, and instantly he was super, super excited about something! We just looked at the guy and saw that he was tall, and had tattoos all over his body. The thoughts that ran through my head were these.

"O, crap! He is totally a basher and he looks like he is going to eat us!!! This is not good! How do I get out of here... Well, I can't... This is not going to be fun..."

The super tattooed guys asks us to sit down and begins to tell us how he has just been baptized and confermed. I thought, " Great, so is it born again, JW, what? You've just been baptized and you want to show your awesomeness by bashing." He kept on talking and happened to mention that he had just recived his Patriaricle Blessing... That stoped me dead in my tracks.

So it turns out that he is a super active, convert of just over a year, newly moved in/ homeless, member that had been really in need of meeting with someone from the church to talk to. He acutally had been praying for some help that day, and then we showed up. To make a long story short, we are teaching him tomorrow, we picked up his friend as a new investigator, and they both are about the coolest people I have ever met!

 _Elder Snedaker

March 13, 2012 -- Part 2

Here are the rest of the pictures. Sorry you will see this e-mail first, but it doesn't really matter. The picture with the family on the couch is the voightlanders. My ward mission leader in vista. Most of these pictures are from temecula. The church building that I went to in Temecula is in here. A sweet house at christmas time! There were soooo many cars that came around to see this house!! The first few pictures are from here in carlsbad. Pictures of the ocean! The super dark one is of the ocean too. It's just about as close as I could get to the ocean with out steping on the beach. I'll have to take another one though so you can actually see it...

 

Some of the other pictures are just random really cool ones that I took on temple trips or whenever I had a few spare minutes. The picture with the building that has the bronze dome on top is actually the Temecula stake center. It looks kinda like a Islamic temple or something.

 

So ya, sorry it has taken me sooo long to send you guys some more pictures!! I feel super bad that I haven't done it yet. The past few weeks the computers haven't been able to let me send pictures. I have some more to send, but that will have to wait for another day. Sorry this letter is super short, but everything is going good, and the work is picking back up. We picked up a kid named jeffery last week. He had been taught before by some missionaries in the past. He had even wanted to be baptized at one point! But his parents wouldn't let him and he kinda drifted off... But we found him and we are teaching him, and he is really wanting to get back into church and stuff!

 

-Elder Snedaker

 

 

March 13, 2012

Hey!! How is it going! These are the first pictures, the next e-mail has some more, and also my letter. Most of the pictures are from temecula. The first set of pictures is with elder tippetts. The next is elder allen with the blonde hair. And last is my current companion, elder soderberg. The Robinsons you guys should know who they are. The one with all of the kids is the Blakes. The bald guy is the nixions, a sweet member that was less-active for a time. The one with all of the dogs is the Pickrons. And... the one with the black people are newly baptized right when I came into temecula. The hernandez fam. Hopefully that all makes sense!! Let me know if it does not.

March 6, 2012

Carlsbad  is good. Like I said last time, the weather is amazing. I can see the ocean almost every day. I really need to take a picture of it sometime. We have a bunch of stores and a mall in our area, which is really nice. There are a TON of hills in this area, so am going to be a beast!

 

My comp. Elder Soderberg is really cool, and we get along well. He is from salt lake area. 4 siblings, he is the oldest, he mostly has sisters. He wants to be design buildings.Senior and junior companions dont really mean too much at all anymore. We are both seniors, so we don't put  one above the other. Which should never happen by the way.

 

The area is in short supply of investigators, which is hopefully going to change soon.The people here are from all over the place. There is no one particular race/ethnicity/or whatever here. Its a huge melting pot. I've found that people are way different andless talkative here than in temecula. So it takes a little more of an aggressive approch to get people to talk to you. That is way good for me though. It makes me get that much more out of my comfort zone. It's good stuff. I've just kinda realized how far I have progressed out here. I'm not the same little 19 year old that you guys saw last while I was back home. I am not that shy little kid anymore. I guess thats what a mission will do for ya. Thats what 9-10 months will do for ya.

 

This past week I went on exchanges twice. Once with our district leader, Elder Stubs, and then with his companion, Elder Hensly. They are both really cool and I will get along with them really well. those exchanges were both really, really good! The spirit was super strong during the whole time, and I feel like I receved revelation on what we need to do to get this area going. We are going to be going by all of the ward council members and teach them and specifically help them out with their missionary work. The last thing  deals with contacting. We are going to make sure that all of our contacts with people end with a invitation for them to do something. So far, I have really liked the results of us doing these things.

 

I've recently been very, very interested it the words "trust in the lord". I wanted to ask you guys to let me know what you guys think that means. If thats from a talk, lesson, object, scripture, or whatever, let me know what you guys think about those words. I've been finding that trust is intertwined into faith, and then hope. So anything with those would be great as well. Just do it in your spare time though, it's not super important, but I want to know more about this trust.

February 27, 2012

Today I am writing to you guys from a place called Carlsbad. It is right on the ocean! Its pretty sweet. I got transfered to the carlsbad 1st ward which has the carlsbad stake center in it which is where all of the transfers happen. So it was a nice 5 min drive to our apartment from the stake center. The mission home is in my area, so that means that Pres. Cook lives in my area. Pretty cool!

 

My new companion is elder Soderberg. He came out with me on the mission, but was in a different mtc district. So I kinda knew him before. I felt pretty stupid when we were talking with our ward mission leader and didn't realize that me and elder Soderberg came out at the same time. They both just laughed, so its all good. He is from the Salt lake area. He is the oldest of 5. He is really cool. Our personalities match pretty good, so we are going to get along just fine. We will probably be stuck together for at least two transfers, so it will be good.

 

 Up to this point, I've found carlsbad to be a pretty interesting place. It is a lot different than the past 2 areas that i have served. There are not quite as many families here as temecula was. It's a little rougher, but not bad. The people are not quite as friendly here, and they are way wierder than in temecula. I will totally have some funny stories when i get back. This really is not that rich of an area, but it costs a bunch to live out here. Its almost like a rich/rundown area. So the people area a little bit more pridefull. It will be really good though! The ward is Amazing! My companion is cool, and we are going to do way good here! And most importantly, the weather is really, really good.

 

Other than that... Not too much else that I can think of has happened. I've just met a lot of people and getting to know the area.

 

I plan on sending pictures next week.... Sorry! I've been severally slacking in that area.

 

-Elder Snedaker