A Challenge To Be Grateful For!

Although we may not be able to swing from webs off of buildings and climb skyscrapers, we are still here for the same intentions: Help others have better lives. When you think of what the effects of misionary work are, you come out to help others come unto Christ, yes, but doing so leads to a happier life! 

 

     This week we have been focusing on being grateful for anything and everything. There was a gratitude challenge issued in the December 2011 Ensign by President Eyring and it is garunteed to make your day/week/year go a billion times better! I challenged our district this week to take the challenge and then report on how your week went during district meetings. THus far, my week has been greately improved since last week. Oh, the changes you will see in your life when you focus on what you are grateful to have than to sulk on what you don't. I challenge you to take up the gauntlet and Be HAPPY!

 

The Challenge is this:

1.Write 10 physical abilities you are grateful for.

2.Write 10 material possessions you are grateful for.

3.Write 10 living people you are grateful for.

4.Write 10 deceased people you are grateful for.

5.Write 10 things about nature you are grateful for.

6.Write 10 things about today you are grateful for.

7.Write 10 places on earth you are grateful for.

8.Write 10 modern inventions you are grateful for.

9.Write 10 foods you are grateful for.

10.Write 10 things about the gospel you are grateful for.

When we make a list like this, we discover that a list of 100 doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of all the things God has given us.

 

     Take it! You will feel an increase of happiness in your life! Remember that Gratitude is a Choice.

 

     As for other news in the mission, Harrison Trinca is going to be baptized this saturday!!! We are super stoaked for him! He has come a ways and has learned a lot! A total of three weeks of meeting with him and now he is super prepared for baptism. If you want to know what Harrison was like to teach, read this scripture.

16 Therefore, blessed are they who humble‍ themselves without being compelled‍ to be humble; or rather, in other words, blessed is he that believeth in the word of God, and is baptized without stubbornness‍ of heart, yea, without being brought to know the word, or even compelled to know, before they will believe.      

~ Alma 32:16

 So Prepared!!! It is always a fresh breath of air to go and teach him. We have a lesson with him tonight and on Wednesday and then he will be baptized on Saturday, November 29th! I am SOOO Excited! We have to be at the church at 06:00 to fill the font because it takes three hours to fill and there is a childs baptism before Harrison's. Wish us luck!

 

     That, my friends, is my week for you! I love hearing about others reading my emails. Makes me feel that I am loved and not insignificant. :P Thanks for all of your support! Love ya!

 

Stay Stellar!

~ Elder Zac Snell

Deny Everything!

    Heyzhloh, Everyone!!!! I am terribly sorry for the lack of a long email last week. If you didn't get the full one last week, Email me and I will get it to you as soon as I can!

 

     I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!!!!! We have an investigator named Harrison and we have been teaching him for about 2 weeks now and he is super solid! Everytime we come out from teaching him a lesson, we are always sailing on Cloud 9. He just loves the Gospel and anything we teach him! If any of you are familiar with the promise that Presidnet Eyring said in Preach My Gospel about finding the prepared, you know that it works. the promise states that the Lord will place prepared people in the paths of his prepared servants! We have been working on preparing ourselvs so this very thing can happen and guess what!? IT DID!!!! Harrison has a date for Baptism. November 29th. He is really excited to be baptized. One time when we were teaching him about baptism, he straight up said, "Sweet! Let's do it right now!" He is SO PREPARED!!! It is like a breath of fresh air when we teach him.

 

     Now about the title. DENY EVERYTHING. This is the "slogan", if you will, of the spies. If you were uninformed of what last Preparation day was about, then this is it. This was one of the coolest museums I have gone to. It is pretty interactive and fun! You start in this elevator filled with lights that change colors and you totally feel like a spy going up it. It takes you to the breifing room where you get your new identity. You have to memorize the facts so you can get out of the museum at the end. My name was Colin Walker, an Art Student in Turkey. There was a ton more information, but that is all that I remember. In the breifing room, it goes over the benifits and risks of becoming a spy. Pretty sweet if you ask me. After the Brefing, you are free to explore the museum and learn as much as you can about being a spy. You even crawl through ventelation shafts to spy on other people. You wiill listen into converstaions going on in the museum of other "beginner spies" and find out their dirty secrets. All of which is Super stellar! There was an epic James Bond floor that had all of his adventures and details on the bad guys. You can test your hanging abilities and pretend as if you are hanging off a helicopter. I hung on for 1 minute. I beat James Bond's time. Killer on the forearms, though. But the thing that you are to remember the most is to deny EVERYTHING! I would deffinately go to the museum again.

 

     The work here in McLean has been going swimmingly. The momentum of awesomeness is just picking up and everyone is excited to be missionaries. The ward is being super active in missionary work too. We had two non-members there who we weren't even teaching! I love our ward! Of course, something that everyone always dreads/ looks forward too is Transfers. This Thursday is Transfers and we will get calls for what will happen tomorrow night. My prediction is that Elder Rickertsen and I are going to stay together for one more transfer and then I am going to leave the next. Our roommates won't have the same fate. Elder Annis is subject to leave, so I will have a new roommate soon. I really like Elder Annis, so it will be sad to see him go.

 

     Well, I believe that is it for this week. Nothing that was super crazy, but still an awesome week. Thanks to everyone who reads these emails. I know that they can be boring sometimes, but they are better when I read them, trust me. :P Oh, also tomorrow is my 14 month mark! Crazy how fast time flies!

 

Love you all! Live Life to the Fullest!!!

 

  ~ Elder Zac Snell :)

Something Smells Stanfordy

This is all we got this week........LOL. That's ok. We had fun celebrating Stanford day yesterday too. For those who don't know Stanford, he is a neighbor that my kids have tormented for years ;) Zac was right about a pinata being smashed. I'll include the pics. I will forward the videos he sent this week as well. It's good to see that he hasn't lost his sense of humor and Happiness. Love this kid!!!!

 First off, I want to wish everyone a very Stanfordly Stanford, Stanford Day! This awesome holiday was on 11/9. I participated the best I could, but I knew somewhere in the world there was a pinata being smashed in the Stanford Home.

     Anyways, Besides the awesomeness of Stanford day,

The REST OF THE EMAIL came the next week....................

 First off, I want to wish everyone a very Stanfordly Stanford, Stanford Day! This awesome holiday was on 11/9. I participated the best I could, but I knew somewhere in the world there was a pinata being smashed in the Stanford Home.

Anyways, Besides the awesomeness of Stanford day, we had a pretty Stanford week. We found a super solid investigator who has been friends with members for a while. He is 18 and has been to church for the past 2 months. HE IS SO PREPARED!!!!! His name is Harrison.

Last Preparation day was Stanford, as well! We went to Arlington to see the Cemetary and if you want to see how files should look, go there! The Diagonals are insane! We saw the changing of the Guards and the toomb of JFK. Way coolieo! It is a must see type of thing. I took tons of pictures and they are all on my camera, so i will upload them later.

I wish I had more time to write about this week. sorry it is so short. We going to the Spy Museum in DC. Pictures and a long description will follow in the next email. I will include a video and pictures to tell stories of awesomeness from this week. the video is of an epic battle to use the car on sunday. the pictures are of Stanford Day. Elder Annis joined in on the fun.

THanks for all the support I get from you all.

Elder Snell with a Stanford Hair do

Not sure what facial of Stanford's this is but hey, it's working

The things Stanford puts up with......

I have to add Lynette was a great sport too!!!!

Did I mention who cleaned it all up. Yep, I helped :)

Being Stanford and the mess of the Pinata! I'm sure they will continue to enjoy the glitter and beads that spewed out all over the basement. I''m glad they haven't disowned us as friends. 

Friendly Suprises!

Not too long of an email today because of the epic things we have planned today, but I will recap for all of those there that were there with me in spirit.

     Monday: we had Elder Kapishka come talk to the Misson. for more information on that, see my last email.

     Tuseday: Preparation day for us. We didn't do much concidering that we didn't have any time to plan because they cancled district meetings. We resorted to a zone game of Basket ball. of course, i did my best and still didn't win because I was up against super tall people, but I was faster than them all. I counted it as a win in my book.

     Wednesday: This day was our one of our two full work days concidering that we had someting else going on every other day. So, I decided that it would be an excellent day for an exchange. I had Elder Rickertsen stay in our area to go and teach Michael Scott with Elder Annis. I went to Elder Wagner's area and did a lot of checking up on potentials and tracting. We check up on one potential and then knock five houses next to it. This makes our nights much more effective.

     Thursday: This was weekly planning day. We sat down and talked about all the people in our area after that, we checked up on some potentials. Huzzah!

      Friday: HALLOWEEN!!!! I love Halloween on my mission because we get to watch two movies! But to kick off the day, we had a Zone Confrence. President and Sister Riggs came and talked to us for about eight hours. We learned a lot about using the spirit and having the spirit use you. There was a big focus on the Atonement of Jesus Christ and that it is the Why of missionary work. I had fun. I think that this was my fourth or fifth zone confrence on my mission. That made me feel older. The two movies we watched were Frozen and Planes. I loved Frozen! Sang with it through the whole movie. Planes was alright. good stories, but they both seemed like they rushed the plot a whole ton. oh, p.s. I got a package form the Pages this day. Thank You!!!!!!

     Saturday: this was our other work day. We talked to Michael Scott and made sure that he was coming to church, which he did! We also went around and talked to a bunch of Less active members. oh, and don't forget checking up on potential investigators. that is always important to do.

     Sunday: This day made my life. First off, we got to sleep in for one extra hour because of Daylight Savings. Next, Michael came to chuch! And if that wasn't cool enough, I got an unsuspected package from a friend. Sacrament meeting just ended and I go out into the isle to talk to a member and from behind me, i hear a familiar voice say "Hi, Zac." I nearly ignore it because I havn't heard my name been spoken since I was home. After about a second or two, I register that it was my name that the familiar voice was asking for. I turn around an see my old Young Men's President and Scout Master, James Burton. He scared the Heck out of me! it was like two very different worlds collided and became the same world. I hugged him, of course and got super excited! I then introduced him to Michael Scott and my Companion. Anyways, Long story short, the only think keeping me from screaming was the fact that I was in the Chapel. :)

     Well, I guess that it was a longer email after all.... Shows what I know. anyways, Congrats to the Davis High Marching band for their awesome performance at BOA! Hope they have a fun time in Cali! Happy birthday to Elder Jake Lueckler!!! his birthday is tomorrow! Love you, Bro!

Thanks Everyone for all your support! I love you all!

To infinity and beyond!

~ Elder Zac Snell :)

-=iii=<{

"Stop Hunger NOW" Interfaith Service Project. A sister sent this pic to me and said that Elder Snell is Always Smiling!!!! Elder Snell led the effort to get missionaries from his Zone to attend. 

Elder Snell and Elder Rickertson for Halloween- Secret Agents

Elder Snell and Brother Burton

P.U.B.S and Love

You may be wondering why I am emailing on a Wednesday when I usually email on a Tuesday. Well, the reason is this; There was a trainee meeting at the Ox Road Chaple, so while Elder Rickertsen was there, I was on an exchange with Elder Heart in Arlington because he is training as well. We weren't able to get a whole lot done during the exchange, but that is mainly because it was the morning and we usually just do on-line stuff then. So I was with him for about three hours and then their meeting was over. During lunch with Elder Heart, we did go to Cafe Rio! That made the day, right there. The people that work there really like the missionaries (as you can tell, Cafe Rio is a mission favorite). Because they like us so much and we always go there, they gave us a sweet discount! I was pretty stoaked! $4.99 for a Sweet pork Burito! Anyways, that was definately a highlight. After Lunch was over, Elder Rickertsen and Elder Lee met us back at their apartment. Oh!!!!! I should probably mention how we got to Arlington in the first place. THEY GAVE US A CAR!!! As awesome as it was to have been on bike for an enitre year of my mission, it is nice to be able to use a car to get to appointments.

     Alright, now moving on to the rest of the week.There have been a ton of fall-through appointments, but we are keeping our heads up and looking forward to a brighter tomorrow. Elder Rickertsen is getting better at door approaches. We have done a ton of tracting. I have come to really enjoy tracting. I think it is fun to talk to all sorts of new people. Anyways... We had an awesome finding excperience the other night. there is this street that we always accidently turn down and we have to go down the coldesac to get out, but we always are accidently turning down it. we had some down time (an Hour) because of fallthrough appointments and decided to go tract there. It went marvelously! I love those times where you know that you are in the right spot at the right time because the spirit prompted you to be there. While there, we found a member's house, Got atleast 2 return appointments and recieved an invitation to a bible study group that some people from McLean Bible are putting together. The guys name was Zach, so we had that in common. AH!!!! Such an awesome night of finding! One guy's name is Gauge and we plan to teach him really soon, so if you could pray for him, that would be super appreciated.

     And now, the moment you have been waiting for and the answer to the question that everyone has been asking. What is with the title? Pubs and Love? uh...... do I really want to know? yes, yes you do.

P - Pray

U - Use Scriptures

B - Bear Testimony

S - Share Experiences

 and show LOVE to them and the Savior.

all these things are ways to invite the spirit into lessons. they work super well, so if you ever need a little outline for giving a talk or home teaching, this came straight out of PMG, so it should do the trick. This is what I taught durring District meetings yesterday. it seemed to be a good topic to teach about, so I am only hoping that people use it.

     That's about all. Be sure to check out my the DropBox because there are some phots and a recording. Thanks for all you guys do for me and I love you all!

     ~ Elder Zac Snell :)

     -=iii=<{

 

The Green Grass Grows All Around

Here we go. I'm gonna checka my e-mails. Oh boy! I have some new
emails to read and one to type up. Let's get started! So, this week
began a new transfer. The transfer meeting was on Thursday and it was
epic! Here's why. I went early for the Trainer's meeting and I learned
how to do just that. It was really great and I learned a lot. That
meeting started at 8:30 and the new missionaries came in around 9:45
by ten, we were all separated out and paired up with our new
companion. I was paired with an Elder from California. He lives a
little north of Sacramento , but went to school at BYU-I. His name is
Elder Rickertsen. He is a great, hard working guy and I am excited to
be companions with him. After being paired up, we had lunch they was
provided by the office missionaries, then went into the cultural hall
where everyone else was seated. We then proceeded to watch Meet The
Mormons. That movie was awesome! I really liked it. I hope that you
guys back home went and watched it. Very well done! After the movie we
began the transfer meeting in the chapel. When it came to when Elder
Rickertsen and I stand up and hug each other, we did and everyone
laughed because of the ironic height difference. Haha! Fun transfer
meeting over all.

    The rest of the week has been pretty great! We found a new
investigator named Steve. He is a cool guy. He was in the military, so
I helped for me to have served in Ft. Belvoir before here. Elder
Rickertsen is doing great. He invited Michael to be baptized the first
time he met him. He is doing good at door approaches as well. Came
pre-trained, he did. I am excited to have him as a companion.

    That's about all for this week. Each week has felt like it just
goes faster and faster. Holy cow! Oh! I also forgot to mention that it
is Elder Rickertsen's birthday on the 16th! I don't know how exactly
we will celebrate it out here, but if am pretty sure we will find a
way!

Love you all!
    ~ Elder Zac Snell

Huzzah For Preparation!

 Alrighty then! This week has been rather fun and stressful! Let's start from the beginning of the week. District Meetings: This week I was really excited to talk to our district about becoming a Consecrated missionary. I also wanted to focus on an importance of having an investigator come to the home of a member for a lesson, in this case, General Confrence! We had the zone portion first and as I turned around at the begining of the meetings, my eyes caught glimpse of something that scares most district leaders around this time... Sister Riggs! She had chose to attend our Zone's meetings that day. The Zone Leaders finished their address to us about what gets us pumped to do missionary work, and dismissed us to our individual districts. I began to head out, but not fast enough, heh.... I hear the phrase that some fear: "I am going to Elder Snell's District meetings." I let out a huge smile as I realized that she would come to my district meeting. Nervous? Actually, not as nervous as I probably should have been. I felt prepared for this one and was just glad that she chose to come to one that I knew for sure would bee good. So, we continue as I teach, the District is very attentive and participates well. Over all, it was a success in my eyes. After the meeting ended, Sister Riggs says, "Elder Snell, Elder Johnson (Zone Leader who also joined in on my district meeting), Will you come talk with me out in the hall?" It was then when my heart sank.... I agreed and quietly shuffled out into the hall and into another room. She then told me that I had a really good district meeting and that she was impressed. I was smiling, of course. After the praise, we talked about some of the things we talked about durring the Leadership Portion of the Meeting prior to the Zone Portion. We probably talked for about fifteen minutes. Anyways, long story short, there are some problems that we need to fix in my district.... 

     Later in the week, we made our usual rounds to people we teach. One of my favorite people to teach is Michael Scott. No, he doesn't know why his name is funny. He is a really solid guy and only needs to stop drinking Coffee to be baptized. Our other friend that we are teaching is Geoff. He is a retired captian for the navy. Way nice guy. I don't think he is going to be baptized in the near future due to some addictions, but I know that with the Lord's help, he can overcome all trials. Please pray for my friends which we are teaching!

     Today (Monday), We took a V.I.P. tour of the Capitol of the USA and it was EPIC!!!! The other Elder's in our appartment have a member who is an intern there and he hooked us up! I have pictures, but I will just need to upload them a later time. It was way fun. I stood on the star where George Washington was supposed to be burried. That building has some amazing history in it.

     Transfers is thursday and I am forsure staying and Elder Cline is most likely leaving. We will be attending the meeting anyways because we are all going to watch Meet the Mormons! I can't wait for that! I hope you all have an EPIC rest of your weeks! Hope yiou enjoyed confrence. I know I did! Love you all!

     ~ Elder Zac Snell :)