Elder Tyler Newbold NY NY North Mission: Week 6

November 18, 2015
Wednesday, Day 36
Day 23 in NY

PDAY! Waddup!

MIXED FEELINGS: (sad/happy/relieved)
During our morning companionship, we were talking about how our days went the other day on our split and about our appointments. Elder Tabor said he met with Brother Ford... He told me that his Aunt had passed away on Sunday morning. As sad as it was to hear that I had just given this poor helpless women a blessing, it was relieving to know that the Lord had plans for her soon. Looking back at the blessing and trying to think of what I said, I remember that I said these words "your Heavenly Father wants you to know that everything will be okay from this point on, that whatever happens he will take care of you and that everything will happen according to his plan". Then the comfort came and helped me realize that she's no longer suffering and she's now being taken care of.

PDAY:
We went and took care of laundry in between washing and drying we went grocery shopping across the street at this place called Deals super legit, everything's super cheap or cheaper than what it usually would be. So sometimes hard to resist buying things just because it's so cheap lol! But we manage haha. Like I said before, I shop with a grocery list and my companion wishes he was organized like me, it's so funny! Then we just stayed home and took care of emailing home and I was 3 days behind in my email journal so I had to finish that before I sent it.

GETTING BEHIND:
Once you get behind it gets tough! It's so hard to catch up. Elder Tabor is about 2 1/2 weeks behind... It sucks! His goal is to get caught up, so I'm going to work on helping him fit in time during lunch and dinner haha.

November 19, 2015
Thursday, Day 37
Day 24 in NY

Today is the one day of the week that we weekly plan, this day isn't too fun, because we are in the house most of the day.. Really the only time during all of this, we leave the house, is during ward correlation before lunch and after dinner.

WEEKLY PLANNING:
We get up, get ready, have our personal study, comp study, then we have ward correlation (where we go to the church and meet to talk with the ward mission leader about how our investigators are doing), by this time its 12 so we have lunch, after our lunch its then 1 o'clock. Then we begin weekly planning which usually takes about 3 hours. This time it took just about 4 hours, because me being me (I'm VERY forgetful, so I need things to be organized.) so during our planning I took time to set up a chart that shows us who our investigators are, our members, less actives, our goals to see who is coming to church, who we need to call and check up on, and so forth. So for about 9 hours of the day we are inside.. Then it's close to dinnertime, so we either set an appointment to go out and see someone during that time, or we decide to eat an early dinner and then go out for the night to our appointments. (But because I'm always hungry I eat before and after.)

BUMMY DAY:
This day usually feels like the longest day, because of our schedule... But after all our planning is done and we are ready to go out we figure out who we are going to look up. So we go to the persons home, and there’s no success.. So we look up names of people that live around and try all of them... again no success... This is what we would do till we had to be back home.

OUR SUCCESS:
Came from inspiration to go look up this lady, she answered her door and we've met her before but she’s been busy with school and what not so we haven't had time to meet up with her. She at this time was in the middle of cooking dinner, so very briefly I gave her a pamphlet of the restoration, I invited her to read it and write down any questions or answers to questions that she may have or find, and when we have time we will come back and talk about it. She agreed to it and we left with that.

MIRACLE:
We were making our way home when this 11-year-old boy, Roscoe, came up to us with a leash in his hand and his pit bull behind him and said "Who are you? What you guys do? I seen you walk around here talking to everyone all the time" We have never seen this kid before, he says he sees us all the time though. He said we've even talked to him before, but we think he talked to the other missionaries in the area. We answered his questions; we are missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We teach people about Jesus Christ and how we can come closer to him and out Heavenly Father. We also teach how we can be happy and bring our families closer together. Immediately he says, "I’m not happy, but I want to be." We started talking to him and listening very closely... It was really weird to hear someone so young say they aren't happy.. We asked him why he thinks he isn't happy, while he responded to our questions and listened to our words, we could tell something wasn't right.. This poor kid wasn't safe... He would look around when talking to us as if he thought someone was watching him... He told us about his family and about himself, he said that his family is apart of gangs, his 18-year-old brother is a gangster and he referred to his brother as "The Devil" saying he just does bad things all the time. He said that if he gets into a fight or kids pick on him, that he has to stand up and fight back, if his family finds out he ran to protect himself he said he'd get a beating. The miracle in all this is that this kid was willing to open his mouth to ask us about what we do, so after we talked to him. I gave him a pamphlet and a Book of Mormon I told him to read this pamphlet, it will tell you how to be happy, if you have any questions you can look at these verses in The Book of Mormon. We got his number and we gave him ours. Feeling scared for this kid, I asked Elder Tabor to stop at this next corner. There we prayed and asked Heavenly Father to protect Roscoe
and to help guide us in a way to help this kid. Then we continued on our way home to retire for the night.

November 20, 2015
Friday, Day 38
Day 25 in NY

Same old, same old, morning routine. I honestly love mornings, I love personal study. I really wish I had more than 1 hour a day to study the scriptures. I could be in them all day.

MIRACLE:
We were out looking up people in the area. We checked out this address that brought us to this apartment complex. Most apartment buildings have a call in gate because the doors to enter are always locked. (It’s just how they monitor who's getting in.) So you push the call button of the room you there to visit. When we got to the door to call in the door was shut but Elder Tabor pushed on it anyway... and it opened! We didn't even think anything of it. We walked in and up the stairs to the room. We knocked on the door and this young looking woman came to the door (she looked about late 20s) we asked if she was the lady whose name is on our area book. She said no, we asked if she knew the lady, she said, "no, we just moved in here, so it must have been the previous owner." We said okay well are you interested in learning more about the message we share of Jesus Christ. She said yes but she was just about to leave, her husband just then came up the stairs and said what’s going on, we explained that we are missionaries and that we'd like to share a message. He accepted but told us that they are busy; they were moving into their new apartment. We offered to help but they said that it's okay, they had other help and most of what they had to do was unpack. The miracle in this is after we got their information and headed out of the building we noticed that the gate we came in through was shut and locked like the first time, but when we turned the handle that’s when we realized that we should NOT have been able to get in. It was meant to be!

1 IN 100:
We went into this project (apartment), and as we got to the door of this girl we were going to see, we saw her getting into the elevator, so we stopped her really quick to see if we could make an appointment, so we did. As we were leaving the floor on our way down to the next floor we squeezed by this man who was sitting at the bottom of the stairs smoking. As we walked by he said "good luck getting anyone to listen to your message!" I stopped and asked why do you say that? He responded, "no one here is religious, they are all crazy crack heads". Elder Tabor said, well we just talked to a lady who's interested, the man responded "1 out of 100 people might listen to you" so I said
“well we just found 1, would you be another?" He said "me, no. I mean I love Jesus but I don't need to hear your message." Then he went on about something about his family, and how they are all trying to get out of here because everyone here is a bunch of crack heads. After he said that, I said well one of the messages we share is about families and how they can come closer to each other and be happier, is that something you'd be interested in? That caught his attention and he agreed to listen, so since we were on our way out and he finished smoking and had to start dinner. We exchanged numbers and information then told him we would keep in contact.

2nd HAND SMOKE:
I’m not a smoker, but everyone in New York is. So there’s a chance I'll come home with 2nd hand smoke lol. But I'd give up my lungs for anyone’s salvation.

SUBWAY EXPERIENCE:
I thought I was getting the whole subway experience from the month I've been here... I was wrong, there was 1 thing I was missing... Pole dancers... Standing opposite to each other, Elder Tabor looks at me and signals me to look through the window of the train cart behind us. So I leaned forward and not to my surprise, but to my surprise, with out watching, but within 5 seconds of looking I caught a full show. These 2 guys were pole dancing! It was hilarious!

CARLITO:
So in my last emails I may have talked about Carlito, Carlito is so legit!! Every time I see him, I picture him in temple clothes! Haha he’s going to get far in this world. I can see him really accepting this Gospel. We went to his store and checked up on him. "His girl" (not sure if its his girl friend, fiancé, or wife.. I don’t think he’s married) She works at this place like a men’s wear house of clothing. In her store, if people pull out the pins and tags to try on clothes, (even if nothings wrong with the clothing) it becomes "damaged clothing" so they collect all that clothing in boxes, when it gets too much her manager tells her to get rid of it. So she takes is home and brings it all to Carlito. So when we got there he told us to go through the box and he let us take all the things that were our size. I got a new white button up shirt, a striped button up shirt (for p-days), and a pair of slacks. Super Dope! He is so awesome! When things are close to expiring or get knocked off the shelves and cant be sold he gives us stuff! The Lord takes care of us!

November 21, 2015
Saturday, Day 39
Day 26 in NY

Elder Tabor and I, after our studies, went to the church for a meeting and then after stayed to have 12 week. During 12 week I was prompted to grab some chalk and walk up to the chalkboard. As I did that Elder Tabor had asked me a question, he said something like "how could you set up someone to ask you a specific question?" So as I stood at the board I started writing things that came to mind. When I was done writing on the chart board I had a whole diagram draw out to answer his question. It was such an inspired answer it was so cool!!

ADVICE:
All who are going on missions, Ask each of your companions this question, "Why did you come out on a mission?" This will hopefully open them up and tell you the truth of why they are here, which will help bring you both closer together in a companionship.

The other piece of advice of many things I could share is, Learn to love everyone. Yes it sounds hard.. and for some it will be, but as long as you tell yourself all the time that you love everyone. It will eventually become true out of habit. Then it will become unconditional for everyone you meet.

November 22, 2015
Sunday, Day 40
Day 27 in NY

Today was a really awesome day... Your prayers worked! Earlier in the week we told Ricky he should come to church because Elder Tabor is giving a talk. He said he would. So that was awesome! Like last time he said he would come he didn't so we were a bit worried he wouldn't show up. We had text him this morning and he didn't respond. So we hurried to get ready and started speed walking to his apartment. When we got to the intersection of where he lives we saw him walking down the sidewalk, he yelled to us "don't you dare cross the street, don't you dare come over here!" He's just funny like that, so we crossed the street to walk with him anyways haha. It was awesome! So Ricky came to church!!

2nd DINNER APPOINTMENT:
After church we were invited to over for dinner by the most awesome couple in the ward, The Fryers. He's been home from his mission for a couple years (he served in Madagascar, he's heard about Chad Burton, Brother Fryer said that when he had just come into the mission that Elder Burton at the time was leaving) so that’s cool! Brother Fryer is about 28 I think he married a Dominican Republic girl he met. They are so awesome! They made the most delicious meal I've had since I've been here!

November 23, 2015
Monday, Day 41
Day 28 in NY

Sorry that each day is getting shorter, I’m just telling the more important events that occur.

FUNERAL:
Today we went to support Carlito, we went with him to a funeral home. His buddy had passed away a few days ago. So he asked us to come with him. We went and were there a couple hours. We just comforted him the whole time we were there. It was an interesting experience. The family of the man that had passed away was Puerto Rican, so they have this tradition where they play instruments and sing prayers around the casket, to make the ceremony a more happy event. Then before we left, Carlito asked me if I would say a prayer with him. So I said of course, thinking just with him and Elder Tabor right there between us 3... I was wrong, he stood up in front of everyone and said can I have everyone’s attention, Elder Newbold is going to have a prayer with us, can we all stand in silence and join him in this prayer for Eugenol Reyes (who was the man that passed)... Holy cow, so I stood up looked at my companion with the expression "oh boy" Elder Tabor smiled and said "you got this" as he laughed to himself.. So I stood in front of maybe 50 people, who I have never me, and offered a prayer.. Then Carlito gave me a hug and thanked me and as we left everyone else shook my hand and thanked me as we left.

November 24, 2015
Tuesday, Day 42
Day 29 in NY

This morning, after all our studies we had to get on a conference call with President Smith and all the other missionaries of the zone, so that was pretty cool. He just spoke and shared experiences that had happened during the week that were miracles to him. Then he bore his testimony and it was really cool. So there’s always something to start off the morning really well!

I can’t really remember much else of what happened yesterday. My mind is so boggled as I’m rushing to write about these last 4 days in the hour and a half of sitting here haha.

Love you all so much, thanks to all those who sent me letters and packages, Happy Thanksgiving to all! Enjoy the week!

Patience. Love. Faith

Much love,
Elder Newbold