METRO Blitz!

  Oh goodness! This week has been super packed with awesomeness! I want to start first with those we are teaching. So, Hawah, had been meeting with the missionaries for quite some time now. She is "African Sisters"with another lady we are teaching. Recently, Hawah has been going through some though times and was having trouble finding God's hand in it all. She wants to believe He is helping, but just couldn't see the progression she had made from since we first met with her. The other day, she was a beaming Ray of sunshine! Just glowing with happiness! The previous lesson we had with her, we told her that she has grown a lot and if she read the scriptures, everything would turn out right. It was apparent that this was definitely the case. She then proceeded to tell us that she really wants to be baptized this month and wants to start paying tithing! Ah! I love it when people understand that the Gospel is not restrictive, but a giver of blessings. She really wants those blessings.

     Deairdae (dee-druh), another really nice African Lady, is known for canceling appointments last minute because of either medical reasons or because she is too tired. This week, I had the phone every time she called to cancel but I talked her out of it and for her to let us come do a "bible study" with her. We had an excellent lesson with her and she felt the spirit so strongly that she set a day for her baptismal service! Her day is on April 18th! We are so excited for all those we are teaching and their determination to come closer to the Savior.

     Let me be honest, this week had to of been one of the most stressful of my mission. All the district leaders got together with us and we planned an epic event to take place in a month or so. That month or so was up is week. The plan was to take full advantage of the new Easter video that the Church produced. We would set up a booth at three METRO stops (the METRO is the subway system for DC). We planned to be at King Street, Pentagon City, and Crystal City. We would have he video playing on a laptop or iPad while missionaries would be handing out #BecauseHeLives cards, water bottles with stickers we made, or copies of the Book of Mormon. We would set up the booths right at the top of the escalators or where everyone comes in to the station. 

     Wow, does such an event take tons of time for planning and preparing! We had to go talk to the city about doing this and also the METRO people. After permission was granted, we had to make signs, make stands for said signs, make some phone calls to some very high ranking people, notify the Zone about progress, and collect 5 cases of water bottles per companionship from a bunch of families in the stake. We were able to snag a couple rare items to use for a display from the Temple Visitors Center, so that was a plus and one less set of signs we would have to make. Now, for the water bottle count. We wound up with a total of 2000+. Our first idea to transport them was to use trash bags, but that failed miserably, so we made a quick trip to CostCo and grabbed three shopping cart loads full of empty boxes to use for transporting the water. 

     On Wednesday, the Zone came together to put the stickers on all the water bottles and help load them in boxes. It took 23 missionaries 30 minutes to slap stickers onto them, then pack all the water into boxes. Thursday was the Zone's day to prepare themselves for epic street contacting. While the Zone was out and about, Elder Nielson and I scouted out each METRO Station looking for where the best place to set up was and as well as talk to the METRO officials about talking to people in he METRO station. 

     Friday was the big day. Starting at 07:00, everything was set up at each of the three stations and we began gathering people over to the booths to watch the two minute video before they hurried into the METRO to catch their train. This carried on until 09:00. The rain and wind became such a fighting force that we had to take down and delay till evening. The weather reports were saying that it was going to be even worse of conditions during that time, so we knelt down and prayed our hearts out for better weather conditions. That is where the miracle took place, around 16:00, the skies cleared up and he sun shone through the clouds! Our prayers had been answered! We resumed until sun down, 21:00.

     The same schedule was followed the next day, but less people were there so we took breaks to watch Conference. Goodness, such a fun week! I will include pictures of the event, so be looking out for that. The pictures were taken by the Mission Photographers. They are in our Zone and are really good at what they do. We are hoping to make it into Mormon News Room. Anyways, thanks for reading this really long Email. If you didn't, I don't blame you. It is super long. Haha! Love you all!

Hobey Ho!

     ~ Elder Zac Snell 

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