Be Careful Who You Entertain

 Oh boy, this week was a wild one. It might take a while to fully describe the adventure of his week. I will give you a couple highlights.

     First thing I want to talk about, is the metro ride home from the Holocaust Museum. The metro is absolutely packed! It was absolutely no sitting room. It was all standing! We were all back to back, pretty much. It was really funny, because when we stepped inside, we did not have anywhere to hold on. So you could see what would happen when the train started to go. Elder King lost his balance and fell onto me causing me to loose my foothold and plunge backwards into Elder Lee. As if that was bad, we continued the domino effect all the way to the back of the train causing people to fall or loose their balance. Haha! It was a mess, let me tell you that. 

     Next, I would like to tell you about interviews with President Huntsman. They were pretty awesome! All except for the fact that he treated me like I was going home really soon. I didn't really understand why. He asked me how my mission has influenced me and what changes I had made while I was out here. I wasn't really prepared to answer them, but that was his strategy. I feel like I answered them well. I would like to tell you them, but I totally forgot what I said. I will put that in a separate email later. So that was good. There was a Chinese family that came in and wanted to know if Bible studies go on here. We told him we could give them a tour. They love the church and would like to start meeting with missionaries! Thankfully, we have Samantha and speaking missionaries.

     OK. Now for the part that sorta drives me crazy. Elder King and I are going to lunch at IHOP. We start walking in and hear somebody say "Hey are you Jehovah's Witness!?" To that, we are imply that we were Mormon missionaries! He then told us about how he had just lost his job and is looking for just $2 for some food. As he said that, I was reminded of Better Off Dead. Man, that guy would not leave us alone! He followed us into IHOP, sat down with us, and then begin to lecture us on giving to the poor and the needy. His main thing that what he wanted us to take away was too, "be careful who you entertain." He started quoting Bible verses and making us feel guilty. So we offered him some of our food, but he rejected. He then continued to make us feel guilty. Even until he walked out of the building, where he waited for us to walk to dollar tree with him. Upon checking out, we talk to the cashier lady who informed us that that man had worked there and had just been fired because of the problems he caused. Wait, what?!?! She then told us that he was a bad man and we should not be around him. When he asked for the $2, he told us he didn't drink or smoke, but I already walked outside to meet him again, He was smoking! I called him out on his lie, and then he went off on me. "If God didn't want us to smoke it, why did he grow it!?" I then testified of free agency and the gift to choose right from wrong and that there must be opposition in all things. He got really mad that that response. We walked into a local Walgreens where I purchased him some milk and cereal. On our way out, the alarms went off because somebody had something in his pocket. The cashier lady told us to keep going and not to worry about it, but I am pretty positive hat this guy shoplifted..... After receiving his items, he thanked us and then walked away. So there is that story. 

     My birthday was super entertaining! It included a whole bunch of service, singing to the elderly, silly string fight, and light saber duels! Thanks to all those who wished me a happy birthday! I really really appreciated it! And thank you to those who sent me letters and or packages. They made my day! Can't believe I'm already 20… Wow....

     Thanks for reading this rather long message! I have had an excellent week. Tuning next time for even awesome or week. Love you all! Did you IL

     ~ Elder Zac Snell :)

P.S. Be careful who you entertain ;)

Sent from my iPad

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Glen & Cheryl Knutti sent this picture to me  from Centreville Va. They helped Elder Zac Snell celebrate his birthday. So grateful for amazing ward members in his mission. Their 11 year old son said "he's my FAVORITE!" With Elder King- He wasn't too happy that his hair was messed up from the silly string fight they had before the picture. :)

National Yell At The Missionaries Day

July 20, 2015

Hello everybody! And welcome back to the spectacular reading of
other Snell's letters!! Today we are going to learn many great things!
Let us begin.

     So this week who is super awesome! We had a lot of success and a
lot of trying times. I think that everyone just decided that Friday
was going to be yellow the missionaries day! We didn't really approve
of that that happened anyway. We had so many people yell out of their
cars at us. Many things that were yelled were the nicest things to say
to even regular people. I don't know what we did, but maybe I had a
"yell at me if you think I am awesome" tag on my back, so a lot of
people must think I am really awesome. At least eight or nine people
yelled at us from the cars, and then to end it all, someone at the
doorstep yelled some pretty colorful language us! All we were doing
was checking to see if they were still interested in learning about
the gospel. We took that as a no. He almost sic'd his dog on us! The
poor guy was probably having a rough day. We were sure to include him
in our evening prayers.

     So, on Tuesday, we found somebody new to teach! His name is
Hector. He is from Guatemala and has lived in the states for about 43
years. He was referred to us by a member in the Manassas 1st Ward. The
zone leaders called us and told us to get over to the library ASAP for
a lesson with Hector. We sat next to him on the bench at the library
and we talk to him about the gospel! He absolutely loved it! He speaks
pretty good English, but we still had a Spanish translator just in
case. Ha ha. Just a side note, Elder Kings bike was taken away by the
office because he had a loaner bike. So, that leaves us without a
bike. We are now back on foot!  Ever since that lesson with Hector, he
has called us every morning, asked us excellent questions, and has
come to church!  He absolutely loved it! Thanks to our awesome ward
members, he has tons of friends now. He agreed to be baptized and has
a scheduled date for August 8th! We are so stoked for him!

     We had an awesome lesson with all of the prospective 8 year olds
who are going to be baptized soon. We were asked to come and teach
them and their families about baptism. I ought we would be really cool
and do the Soap and Pepper object lesson. This is when you dump pepper
in a bowl of water and you use soap to clear the pepper out of the
middle of the bowl. Turns out, you need the right kind of soap in
order for it to work. So, when we did it  he kids became super excited
to see it and when we tried, nothing happened..... "Try using more
soap," one of the adults said. I took the soap bottle and dumped soap
in the middle and it still didn't work. Epic failure.... Elder King,
being the funny guy he is, quickly added. "They had the wrong
authority." *facepalm* Good one... Haha! I will include a picture of
what the object lesson looked like. It was a great humbling
experience.

     Well, that's all folks! Thanks for tuning in! Just a heads up, I
will be switching my preparation day next week to Tuesday due to a
zone service project we will be doing. So, I will catch you on
Tuesday! Love you all! Have an epic week!

     ~ Elder Zac Snell :)

Sent from my iPad
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Little Bread

Object lesson failure- Pepper and Soap

Tune Up, Listen In, Rip Off

JULY 13TH, 2015

Hey everybody! Elder Snell here! This week was pretty good! As you can see from the title I have lots of fun prepositions this week. See, I think it's funny because, usually it's tuning in, listen up, and… I guess it's rip off. I just didn't get ripped off. It was Elder Kings pants that got ripped off..... More on that towards the end.

     Tune up. So here's the story about this. My bike was giving me troubles with the years, so I decided that it might be worth it to take my bike into the shop! By doing so I had to go without a bike for about three days. Just letting you know, our area is way too small to be on foot, but I think we did a stellar job. Long story short, I got my bike back and it was awesome to ride again! You have no idea how much I missed riding my bike. It's definitely a good thing that I have great shoes to walk in. So there is my tune up story. 

     Listen in. So while we were working on foot, we have to think with a different mindset. Instead of thinking "who can I visit right now?" We have to think "who is in this area?" This is where the listening in part comes into play. Thank goodness we have the spirit with us because they were a lot of appointments that fell through and people nearby who are prepared to be talked to. We ended up tracking for a little bit, and other King probably said the funniest thing at the doorstep. "Now I know Catholics are afraid of pamphlets, but here you go." Probably the best thing I've ever heard said at a door proud! Gotta love my companion.

     Rip off. OK so I didn't get ripped off from my bike. I thought that I would because it was sort of expensive, but it was totally worth it! On the way home I let Elder King try to ride my bike to show him that it felt really good to ride. Apparently his suit pants said otherwise. Well on the bike, his pants tour! This was no ordinary tear down the seam. It ripped his pants right next to his knee into a perfect right angle. He was pretty mad, first off it was his only pair of good suit pants. Second off, it was his favorite pair of pants. Funny thing is, that wasn't the last time he rode my bike. He almost ripped his other suit pants! That is when I decided that he can no longer ride my bike.

     Well, that's about it for this week! Please let me know if you have any questions. Just letting you know, I have dictated this with my voice! So, if there are mistakes, they are the mistakes of Siri. Not of man! Thanks for listening. I know it takes a lot of time to wear ate a lot of words on a computer screen, or phone screen, or android, or any other manner by which you can read this. I love you all! Thanks for your help! Bye!

~ Elder Zac Snell :)

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Pop...........BANG!!!

JULY 6TH, 2014

Sorta cliche title, but I know.... It's the Fourth of July. Is
week was pretty fun. Let me tell ya. I feel like it was thanksgiving
because of how much food we ate over the weekend. We had two dinners
on Saturday. An investigator called us and asked if we wanted to go
over to his Grandma's home and cook up some Korean BBQ. Mmmmm! Super
delicious. He is a really good cook too, so we practically ate like
kings. When we finished that, it was about 1630, so we were taken back
to our house and picked up five minutes later to go to a dinner at the
Brown's house. They had super delicious Turkey burgers! By the time
dinner was over, I was so stuffed! We went back to our apartment and
tried to figure out what to do for the 4th, so I called the Zone
Leaders and they can and picked us up and took us to a battle field in
Manassas. At was really cool and touching at the same time. Sounded
like a war from the past. I will attach a video.

     The work in this area has been a little different from past
areas. Here, we are doing a lot of checking up on recent converts and
Less Active members a lot. Oh! Speaking about that, we were at church
yesterday and we walked into priesthood opening exercises and there
was a guy there who didn't look familiar. He sitting next to our Ward
Mission Leader, so we assumed that it was a friend of his, but we went
up and asked him if he was a member and he said no. He e proceeded to
tell us that his son is a member and he and his wife are looking to be
baptized sometime soon. His wife has taken the missionary lessons
already and all he needs to do is listen... WHERE DID THESE PEOPLE
COME FROM?! Turns out that they lived in Falls Church and they had he
missionaries over often and now they are moving to Centreville and
want to be baptized. This is the part where I looked up and said
"Thank You!" His name is Erick. We haven't met with him yet, but we
will soon. I will keep you updated on him.

     That's it for this week! Thanks for reading! I hope you all had
an epic 4th of July! I know I did! See you next time!

     ~ Elder Zac Snell :)

The Centre of the Mission

JUNE 29, 2015   

  Hola, my awesome subscribers! Thanks for committing yourself to
reading this week's email! So to begin, I would like to give a shout
out to Elder Babb for being an awesome companion in Alexandria. We had
fun and did great work. Sadly, it was time for me to leave the great
Alexandria 2nd ward, but I have been transferred over to another
awesome part of the mission. I am now in Centreville! The Centreville
2nd Ward to be exact. So the story behind it is quite interesting. The
Assistants called me in Alexandria and informed me that I would be
"finish training" a missionary. I excitedly accepted the assignment and
packed up all of my stuff to leave. When I arrived to transfers, I
learned that there were only 2 missionaries being "finish trained", so I
could only go to one of two places, Wakefield or Fort Belvoir. Seeing
that I have already served in Ft. Belvoir, I assumed that I would be
going to Wakefield. Transfers came around and I learned that there was
another missionary assigned to "finish train" in Wakefield. And it came
to pass that I began to be astonished. Hah. I was so confused... There
was no way that I would be sent back to Ft. Belvoir, so I was left in
a stump. At the meeting, they called my name and said I would go to
Centriville to be with Elder King. He had just been "finish trained", so
I guess I was just supposed to go to the trainers meeting for some
reason.... Oh well! We have an excellent ward!
     Elder King is from Oklahoma and loves to play guitar. He is a
stellar missionary and is passionate about the people that we teach. I
am really excited to serve with him.

     So on June 26th, it so happened to be a minor holiday......
NATIONAL CHOCOLATE ECLAIR DAY!!!!! On our way home that night, we biked
over to a 7-11 and I bought us some eclairs! They were superb. Here is
a picture of us eating them.

Elder Snell and Elder King

There's A Storm A Brewin' Annie!

JUNE 22, 2015

   No, the title is not referring to the movie about an orphan girl, but to something much cooler than that..... Anyways, I didn't email last week due to the hectic schedule of getting a Zone Activity started and going. We wrapped up a little later than expected and by that time, we saw that we were out of time to email. So, please accept my apologies.

     Haha! So last Monday, we were just driving down Duke St. And we saw his dude just walking down the street! No hesitation or anything! He reminded me of the gambler dude in A Knight's Tale, if you know what I mean. *FacePalm* So rediculous! Hahaha! It was terrible.

     On a happier note, we had an awesome week! We had a lot happen. We had a lesson with a man from Nigeria and he came to church! He has a really high up apartment, so we asked if we could take pictures off the balcony and he decided to join us. Then he wanted to do a group photo! Haha! I love people! I will have to send it some time. I had to back up my iPad onto a Flashdrive, so it has all my photos from my mission beginning at the time I was in McLean to now. That picture happens to be on at flash drive.... Sorry.... But what I can do is send a picture of our Zone Activity! We played Beach Volleyball again and had a Long jump contest. Elder Babb won because he is pretty much a track star. Excellent form if I might add.

     This past Saturday, our ward had a carnival that the Relief Society put together. Hey asked he missionaries to have a part in it as well, so they asked if we knew how to do any random carnival talents. One of the Sisters knows how to make balloon animals, so she and her companion did that while Elder Babb and I rode Unicycles around. Of course it wouldn't be a party without a water fight, so the kids ended up breaking out into a huge water fight and the everyone decided that it would be funny to throw water at the missionaries in unicycles. We pedaled for our lives! When all was said and done, I was sort of wet and Elder Babb was definitely not wet at all. He hopped of the unicycle and ran while I kept on going. Good times. After the carnival, we headed back to work, but then we received a call about a tornado warning. Ahh! We booked it back to the apartment to safety and started calling everyone making sure they headed back inside. 'Twas an adventure for sure. I have a video during it, but it is too long to send. 

    That is my adventure! I love you all! Tune in next week!

   ~ Elder Zac Snell :)

Sent from my iPad

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