Week 24

March 23, 2016
Wednesday, Day 162
Day 149 in NY

PDAY!
Another easy day, we finished our shopping and laundry came home and I cut my hair. After I cut my hair we had the meeting with the Property manager. We were preparing ourselves to take some heat from this guy.

A couple of weeks ago, Elder Davis and I, walking out of our apartment saw a note on the ground. In a hurry I picked it up and set it inside on the table and went on our way. When we came home later that night around 9 pm Elder Bell and Elder West told us we needed to pick a day to meet with Orlando, the property manager. We asked what for and they responded that he left us a note with his name and number on it. "Elders, please call me immediately when you get in." (That was the note we saw on the ground). From my last experience with Orlando; he was yelling on the phone about something completely unnecessary. I was on a split with Elder Buckley and he answered he phone and that was my first "encounter" with Orlando. That being my first encounter with him, it didn't leave a good impression in my eyes. So I was expecting this guy to show up with some attitude about something ridiculous and because previous Elders hadn't warned us of certain things we were gonna take the heat for it.
2 WEEKS AGO, SUNDAY:
Well 5 O'clock hits and we are all sitting at the table in the front ready for him. A few minutes and there's no knock at the door. So we waited and waited... Then we texted him and waited some more. Well after us siting around for an hour waiting for this guy. No response or communication to us was received to make us aware that he wasn't going to keep his commitment of meeting with us. Even after he was the one to tell us Sunday was his day off and that he wanted to meet at 5. Time was wasted, patience was lost, and we left the apartment to continue our day. Very irritated at the fact that we could have been out teaching and that the Lord’s time was wasted, a bad impression of this guy was left in our thoughts.
YESTERDAY:
We receive a text from Orlando, about 2 weeks later this guy finally gets in contact with us. Well, his message said he needed to meet with us tomorrow at 5pm. Of course I'm upset at this guy because of the time we wasted and the fact that he wants to waste time out of our Pday to discuss some of his issues. Trying to have a good attitude and give him a second chance Elder Davis and I along with the ASL Elders, agree to meet with him.
TODAY:
I finish my haircut, cleaned up, and got ready. Again, we all waited around for Orlando. The knock at the door finally came soon after 5 and we let him in. Never meeting him before we all introduced ourselves and went on to a discussion. Putting aside all past impressions of this guy, he was much more professional than we anticipated him to be. He was very nice and it wasn't a bad meeting. He just wanted to make us aware of some garbage rules, because the Bronx or NYC doesn't do garbage cans, you just leave the trash bags on the sidewalk. So he went over what was needed to be done each day for trash pick up so that we don't get fined for doing something wrong. Completely unexpected, but all in all it was good, nothing to be worried about.

March 24, 2016
Thursday, Day 163
Day 150 in NY

NO SPITTING PLEASE:
What happened this morning was not at all expected... Only have I heard of experiences like this... Never do I hope for this to happen to anyone.

Looking back, right after this experience, all I could help myself to do was laugh about what had just happened... It wasn't funny AT ALL, but to keep my self-sane in front of the people on the train and from getting even more upset about it I had to just laugh.

(The quotations will show what's being said, but exact quotes will not be written, due to extreme profanity).
Alrighty, story time…
Elder Davis and I were sitting across from each other on the train heading to the church for a meeting at about 9:40 AM. This is the first time we have left the apartment today and we just left about 10 minutes ago. Talking to each other on the train ride, a man grabs our attention with the common question "are y'all Mormons?" (Anytime this phrase is said, the next thing to happen, in most cases, is completely unpredictable).

We responded "yes". Pointing at me but speaking to my companion he says "I can see why he, is a Mormon, but you?! What were you thinking!!?? Do you even know the history of your religion??!! How could you do that?!"

In between each question being yelled at Elder Davis, Elder Davis would respond with the question "what do you know?"

The man, never taking a second to even respond to his question, went on and on, cussing and screaming about how he made a mistake to join the LDS church. While the man went on making no sense, I looked at Elder Davis and just said "don't worry about it, this won't get anywhere. He's not taking the time to answer you. Let's just switch carts."

So, as I stood up, the man charged toward me, stopped at my face, and began cussing me out "I don't need your smart A comments! I'm not even talking to you..." (Pointing at Elder Davis he said) "I'm talking to my brother!"

Holding back from completely decking this guy, the consequences appeared in my mind and all I could say was "sir, you need to take a step back." And Elder Davis immediately stood up and placed his arm between us. Pushing back the other guy. At this point he's still going off, but now he's got his hand in my face… "Sir, get your hand out of my face. I'm not talking to you." With the plan to just get off with Elder Davis and move to the next cart when we stop, we made our way to the doors. He followed and yelled, "No, I'm getting off here this is my stop!"…"Okay, get off then." The doors open, he steps off. I turn around and so did he... Thankfully I turned around because he ended up spitting on the back of my head before he left. I thank Heavenly Father for letting me walk away because if it went my way, this would be a story you would have heard in person a lot sooner.

***I had immediately emailed Tyler back after reading this portion of his email, telling him how proud I was that he was able to walk away even though he was tempted to do more, and that it showed so much growth and maturity on his part and that I was so grateful that Heavenly Father is always watching over and protecting his missionaries. This was the reply I received from him….

Mom,
Heavenly Father is definitely always right there with us in His work. It's situations like this you immediately have to "forget yourself" and do what the Savior would do and just take it. It's not at all what I wanted to do at first, but as the situation got worse and I realized the outcome could have been all of us arrested and sent home. I instantly thought of Jesus Christ and the horrible things he went through, willing to take the heat. So allowing this man to say what he wanted and spit on me was absolutely nothing compared to everything Jesus did for us.
As a mother I could only imagine how much you worry day to day, and hearing stories like this may not help you ease your conscience but just know, with out a doubt, Heavenly Father will have his hand in our life to protect us. My patriarchal blessing tells me I have Angels charged over me since I was sent down to earth. As long as I do my best to be obedient, He will protect me.
I love you so much, don't worry about me. ***


March 25, 2016
Friday, Day 164
Day 151 in NY

LEGIT REFERRALS:
We received two referrals this week, both turned out to be super legit. The first guy we looked up was Eric A. He ordered a Bible, at the moment we are still waiting on Salt Lake City to send the mission more Bibles, so standing at the door we explained who we were and what we were doing. Before we finished he invited us to come in. So we came in and we had a little discussion. We asked him what interested him in requesting a free Bible. He said that he was just on some app and it came up as an ad so he followed the link and ordered one, he said he only has the Old Testament and he wanted the combination of both the Old and New Testament. We informed him that we don't have any Bibles at the moment but we do have this book called the Book of Mormon. Have you heard of the Book of Mormon? He said that he hasn't so we explained it. While explaining it he had some questions. One of his questions, which is a common misunderstanding, was about Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith was a Prophet, he was the Prophet of the Restoration of The Gospel of Jesus Christ, and he is not someone we worship. We believe in God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. He took that very easy and understood quickly. He had a few more simple questions and after a few minutes we explained and resolved his few concerns. We invited him to read the Book of Mormon and to meet with us again. He said he would like that so we scheduled to come back on March 30th.

At the end of the day we looked up our other referral, Nelson R. This guy is also is super legit!! He came to the door and we introduced ourselves. We probably talked for about 20 minutes at the door. He studies different Bibles to of the interest of wanting to know which he best agrees with. So we explained the Kings James Version and then of course introduce the Book of Mormon and he loved
that, he asked how much it was, we laughed and handed it to him saying, "it's all yours, it's free". He was really interested, we shared the #Hallelujah video with him and he loved that. He told us to give him a call and see when he will be around to stop by again.

March 26, 2016
Saturday, Day 165
Day 152 in NY

APF:
Today we had an APF (Area Proselyting Focus). We went to Metropolitan Oval and spread out. There was a good amount of people but everyone was sitting close to each other on benches so it was weird going up to each person asking to if they'd like to see an Easter video about Jesus Christ, as we went down the line of benches each person responded, no. It wasn't as successful or in other words as productive as we expected but the time that we were there we met this lady named Georgia. She has a cousin who's Mormon and he's talked to her about it a little bit. While talking to her she said "you know what's funny, just as you both walked up I was praying to God for help and then you showed up." We felt that it was of course no coincidence. There's no such thing as coincidences, so with Elder Davis with me along with the spirit we testified to her that there is a reason to every thing and that Heavenly Father sent us here toady at this time to help you. She seemed to agree and we talked and shared with her a message of Jesus Christ along with the #Hallelujah video. We invited her to church and she said that she would love to come but she was still figuring out if her and her kids were going to be together on that day or not. So we left her with the invitation and our card.

March 27, 2016
Sunday, Day 166
Day 153 in NY

EASTER SUNDAY:
Had a great Easter Sabbath day. The Sisters in our ward, Sister Zelaya and Sister Gardner both gave some really awesome talks. They both expressed their love for the Savior and their talks were given about his life. It was so great to be able to hear about the Savior, Jesus Christ's life. From the time He was a child He was teaching people, He was serving others, and was of course just a perfect example.

One of my favorite scriptures of Jesus is in Luke 2:41-52. In these scriptures it talks about how every year Mary and Joseph would go to Jerusalem at the feast of the Passover. At this time Jesus was twelve years old. And in verse 43 it says "And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and his mother knew not of it. Verse 46 "And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions."

Jesus had stayed behind to teach, to listen to them that had questions and such and he responded with questions and answers. And in verses 48 and 49 "And when they saw him, they were amazed: and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. And he said unto them, how is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?"

Jesus' mother says, son why haven't you been with us, your father and I were looking for you with sadness for we knew not where you were. And Jesus responds, saying something like, have you thought that maybe I was doing the business of my Father?

And in the next verse 50 "And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them."

His parents understood not what Jesus meant by, I'm doing my Fathers will. They knew not what he was doing or what it was he said.

But as Jesus listened and talked to people, in verse 52 "And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man."

Jesus, from the time it's recorded, at the age of twelve, he was doing the will of the Father. I love Easter so much more this year because of the Love I have developed for MY Savior Jesus Christ, my Jesus, has always been serving people and being the perfect example. He is love, He is charity, and He is My Jesus. 2 Nephi 33:6 "I glory in plainness; I glory in truth; I glory in my Jesus, for he hath redeemed my soul from hell."

I invite ALL, to make the Savior, Jesus Christ, personal to you. Have charity for all, love all, and follow our perfect example, Jesus Christ.

March 28, 2016
Monday, Day 167
Day 154 in NY

USING THE SUPERNAL GIFT OF PRAYER:
This morning I studied the talk Richard G. Scott gave in the April 2007 General Conference. What a talk! This talk definitely opened my eyes to prayer. Prayer is a celestial gift. A literal Heavenly gift, from our Heavenly Father. He, our Heavenly Father, commands “Thou shalt pray vocally as well as in thy heart; yea, before the world as well as in secret, in public as well as in private.” Not only are we commanded to pray, but to pray often, and we are given the chance to pray anywhere and at anytime.

"A key to improved prayer is to learn to ask the right questions." Like (what does He want for me?)

"Heavenly Father will give us gentle promptings that require us to think, exercise faith, work, at times struggle, then act...It will come a piece at a time, in packets, so that you will grow in capacity."
This talk reminded me of a Mormon Message -Patterns of light: Spirit of Revelation. Prayer is our way of communicating with our Heavenly Father and through revelation our Heavenly Father communicates with us. Whether you’re unsure of how to look for answers to prayers or not this Mormon message is one to watch and really study.

March 29, 2016
Tuesday, Day 168
Day 155 in NY

SPLIT:
Elder Casper came to our area and Elder Davis switched with him and was in Co-op city with Elder Clark. During nightly planning Elder Casper and I were setting goals. We wanted to set a goal of how many cards we could pass out in the day. We had a stack of #Hallelujah cards on the desk, so we counted them up and it was 78 cards. We made the goal to pass out all 78. As we did this through out the day, we gave out many, many cards and received a lot of no's from people we tried giving cards to. Some people stopped through out the day and we shared the video with them. It was about 7:45 PM that we were coming close to the end of our split. We were on our way to the church to un-split and about 2 blocks from the church we gave out our 78th card! Feeling great about achieving our goal, we wanted to exceed our goal. I reached into my packet and grabbed my notepad and in my note pad was a few extra #Hallelujah cards stuffed into pages. Before we got to the church we gave out the last 6 cards we had and exceeded our goal, and reached 84 cards. When you really set righteous goals that will make you stretch, you will achieve great things. We definitely did our best and Heavenly Father blessed us with enough cards to exceed the high goal we set.


Hope all is well back home! Love you all and hope your Easter meant more to you than the satisfaction of a belly full of candy! Thank you all for the updates and emails! Till next week!

Patience. Love. Faith

Much love,
Elder Newbold

Week 23

March 16, 2016
Wednesday, Day 155
Day 142 in NY

PDAY!
I should start charging people haha! After laundry and groceries, we came back to the apartment and I began emailing.. The other day Elder Casper asked if I could cut his hair. So he and his companion came over around 1:30. After him, I cut Elder Bells hair, because he asked me yesterday if I could. I was planning on cutting my own hair, but I didn't have time. So I will cut it next week and Elder West said yea me too. Haha! Serving my fellow Elders and saving money,cutting hair! It's a win win!

OOPS:
Got so caught up in cutting hair and finishing my emails that I forgot to eat lunch and dinner! Not sure how that happened, so I grabbed some crackers and headed out the door at 6pm to visit Brother Ford. When we met with Brother Ford, we discussed the Priesthood with him. We talked about the importance of it and the blessings from it. We shared with him the video "The power of God."

COPS:
When we left Brother Fords, we thought we should stop by an investigators home. Walked into the building, got in the elevator, went up to the floor she stays at, knocked on the door, and she answered. She said she was making dinner so she was busy, but it looked like she was telling us to come in... So I asked if her brother was home, well instead of answering me she left the door and went to get him and she didn't come back, but Jason, her brother came to the door, said he just woke up. We just told him we wanted to show them both a video. But he was sleeping and she was cooking so they told us
to come back. Not that any of that was important or at all did it pertain to cops… But as we left the building, we walked past 2 guys who said, "they are everywhere, cops are circling the block" as they hurried into the apartment. As we made our way out, a few cop cars made their way around the block. It just makes me laugh at how scared the people here are of the cops and they know that they are doing illegal things, yet they do it anyway.

I think I forgot to mention it a couple of weeks ago, but we were walking up to the same apartment building and there was a group of teenagers gathered in the lobby. As we stood in the window knocking to get their attention to open the door, they all flipped out, none of them came to the door. But as a lady came from behind us and unlocked the door a kid came running out the door and ran into this lady. After she gave him a few words of her own.. We went into the building where about 8
teenagers gathered, all staring with frightened faces at us as we walked by. Getting into the elevator, the kid that ran outside said "Bro I thought y'all were cops." Responding I said "why are you afraid of the cops?" His idiotic response was "cause we be doin illegal stuff" the few, simple words of wisdom I gave him were, "maybe you shouldn't be doing it if it's illegal".

March 17, 2016
Thursday, Day 156
Day 143 in NY

INTERVIEWS WITH PRESIDENT:
Today was a great day! We had interviews at the church with President Smith. Every time I've been in an interview with President Smith he says something very similar in each one. While I’ve been in interviews with him, he has said something along the lines of "I need you as a leader in this mission, Keep doing your best to be obedient and an example."

The first time he said this it wasn't as clear to me, maybe because as a brand new missionary he didn't want to overwhelm me with the idea of being called to a leader position. I don't know. In my 2nd interview with him again he said something to me like, Elder Newbold I need you to be a leader. Well at that point I think I caught on and was starting to think I'd be called to some calling in the mission.

Well just a couple months later is when I received the phone call that the Lord was calling me to be a trainer. In this most recent interview, today, once again, he said, I need you to be a leader in the mission. Are you willing and ready to be able to accept a calling from the Lord at any time? If He came up from behind you and placed his hand on your shoulder and asked you to be a leader would you accept it? My response, without hesitation was, Absolutely!

So, keeping in mind that the last time he said that, it wasn't long before I accepted the call to be a trainer. I'm not expecting him to call me by the end of this cycle to recall me to anything, but I'm on
my toes ready when the Lord knows it's best.

ZONE STUDY:
Man this was great!! I've never been a part of or really even heard of a zone study till just a few days ago. After President got through most of the interviews we began our zone study. In preparation for this we studied Preach My Gospel pages 39-40 & 110-111 and studied from the Book of Mormon as well.

Something that stood out to me in this discussion was really what President focused on for part of the study. He talked about never looking back. Which reminded me of a Mormon message video, "New Years: Look not behind thee". The past is the past and we MUST leave it behind us. We are human; we have memories, and not always are we capable of forgetting something that happened in our life. But through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, it can be forgotten and moved past; we need not to look behind. We must forgive and forget, and be forgiven and move on. The memories we have of experiences in our life are great! Whether they are good or bad. With out evil, we know not good.

Genesis 3:5
5 "For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."

This scripture in the Old Testament is referring to Adam and Eve partaking of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But what I also have understood from it, when relating it to my self personally is that without our bad experiences in life, the wrong decisions and choices we've made, we would not be able to know for ourselves what's good and bad. People have told us, our parents have warned us. But we chose not to listen, we made our own choices and we need to pray for forgiveness and move on. Our Heavenly Father loves us so much!! He really does loves us and He wants to forgive us, but in order to be forgiven we need to make the steps first and as we take those steps, he will have forgiven us much faster than we will forgive ourselves. So look not behind thee, know that you can be forgiven, and move on in life making positive and righteous decisions.

March 18, 2016
Friday, Day 157
Day 144 in NY

ONE OF THOSE DAYS:
It's true, it happens more often than we would like. But it helps us realize we need to be more prepared and accountable. Not the best day, we taught 2 lessons. And they weren't until the last 2 hours of the day. But they were great and it made our day feel more successful. We had a well planned out day. Had about 4 set appointments and a lot of finding events. Our first 2 appointments of the day fell through, we called to confirm our first appointment and they told us they were tired and didn't get any sleep. When we went to go to our next appointment, we text Divine and asked her if she was still available at 6, she responded yes. When we got there... We knocked and knocked and knocked... And no answer, then we called and again no answer...

Then later in the night around 8pm, we were walking to an apartment building to do some look-ups and we ran into this guy AC. At first we just walked by and said hello. But after we passed him we heard something so we turned around and he had said something so we walked back towards him and he asked, "what y'all do?" We told him we are missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, we invite others to learn more about Jesus Christ and help them develop a relationship with him and our Heavenly Father. He seemed interested or more desperate for some help. But either way we were willing to help him. He said he's Muslim and that he's just looking for a new life... Which was perfect to what our focus message is this month. Finding New Life through Jesus Christ. So we talked and showed him the new Easter video #HALLELUJAH. He really liked it. We exchanged information and told him we would love to come by and talk more.

March 19, 2016
Saturday, Day 158
Day 145 in NY

APF: (Area Proselyting Focus)
Super legit! We met up at the church to have a meeting before our APF. We talked about goals and accountability. We wrote our goals up on the board of what we wanted to achieve in the time we were out talking to people. Not taking into account the amount of time we were given, we set some high goals. The Sisters had taken time to make these sweet signs to grab attention. Which they did! It was so inspired! At first, I honestly pre-judged the idea. I saw the signs they made and made the silent comment to myself that they probably wasted a lot of time and money making them. After putting the sings into action we didn't achieve our goals but we did get a lot done in the time we had. Our efforts combined with Elder Casper and Elder Clark and Elder Davis's and I, we had shown the #HALLELUJAH video 15 times, received 5 peoples contact information, and gave 9 people a Book of Mormon.

ELSA:
On our way back to the church after our time came to an end we were holding the sign up on the platform of the train and across the tracks a lady stood there looking at the sign and she shouted to us "Is that about Jesus" we shouted back "yes" and she gave us a thumbs up! I felt that someone needed to go talk to her. Since I was holding up the sign I naturally just told the other Elders to go, but quickly changed my mind. Having 3 minutes until our train arrived Elder Davis and I pushed the sign over to Elder Casper and Elder Clark and we ran down the stairs and across to the other side of the tracks where the lady stood. I clicked on my speaker and pulled up the video. We introduced ourselves and we showed her the video. She was wearing sunglasses, but she took them off during the video because she began to cry. The Spirit was strong and she, after the video, expressed her gratitude and love for the Savior. She bore her testimony to us about the Savior and how through him she's finding new life. She shared with us her plans to come to New York and get a job, go to school, and start a life here. She said she had been robbed and all these things had happened since she'd been here and she told us that Jesus had a plan for her. She said she's moving back to San Diego, California to pick up her new life and try again. With our time running short, our train came and left, and with very little time left with her we got her number and she quickly boarded her train… Making our way back to the other side of the tracks to wait for the next train. The misjudgment I made about the signs was proven to me, that it was inspired for the Sisters to make them. We sent a text to Elsa and asked if she would be interested in having the missionaries meet with her. She agreed and we hope to get her address soon to send some to her.

March 20, 2016
Sunday, Day 159
Day 146 in NY

ISAEL:
So we've been going through and cleaning out our area book. We found this less active member Isael. We stopped by his house a few days ago and told him we were trying to get to know the members and he let us in. He said he hadn't been to church in about 8 months. We asked if there was any particular reason, he said that, that was a question he asked himself often but could never answer. He said that he never had a doubt that the church was true or that he regretted being baptized. But he told us he just doesn't know why he just stopped going one day. Well we talked and go to know him and he has a great testimony of the church and he wants to come back, but he expressed his fear of being embarrassed of what the members might think if he showed up one day after not being there for so long. We expressed the love we developed for him as we talked and explained to him that the members won’t do anything or say anything to you for not being at church for so long. We told him that they might ask where he's been out of care of missing him for so long but that there's nothing to worry about. He felt comfortable with that and said he'd like to come with us. So this morning we got up called Isael and it turns out he was already up and getting ready. We too got ready and headed over to his place. We met him outside and walked to the BX4 bus and took it over to the church. We got Isael to church! It was awesome.

ELDER BRO'S FUNNY STORY:
First things first, Elder Davis, talking to me has said "Elder, Bro...." So it's kind of a nickname now. "Elder, Bro". So I’m Elder, Bro and here's my funny story. Isael came to church! We sat in the back rows because that's just where he sat down with his walker, so we sat in the row in front of him with an empty seat between Elder Davis and I. Well after the sacrament was passed... "Someone" (Isael) behind us fell asleep... and began to snore pretty loud… Elder Davis reached back and tapped on
his leg and he woke up. Sweet awesome, he's awake. No more snoring, problem fixed! Nope, just kidding, here comes round 2. He starts snoring again so, one again Elder Davis reached back and woke him up. Once, okay no big deal. Twice, okay that's funny, but really he needs to stay awake, because people keep looking back at us. Alright, alright, he's awake. No worries… But round 3 begins! Elder Davis gives me the "it's your turn" look. So I reach back, tapping him and dropping my pen a couple times on his led and whispering "Isael, Isael wake up." Again he wakes up. Okay no more right, 3rd times a charm? Wrong! Well time after time, switching off waking Isael up during sacrament, it became a real irritant... I'll be honest; I wasn't enjoying church so far... Well, sacrament meeting ends and we get ready for our gospel principles class, everyone's up and moving around so Isael is awake and that's awesome! We begin the class and not to long into the lesson the snoring once again begins. At this point, again I'm trying to have a good attitude towards the situation. We tell him to wake up and stay awake but that doesn't seem to work well at all but we want him at church so we don't want to do anything or say anything to ruin his experience. Well his sleep at this point. Lol! So for the final round, towards the end of class, the snoring continued. Between Elder Davis and I was an empty seat. On the seat sat 2 Hymn books... Now, I know this isn't the best idea. Well not a great idea at all. But my level of annoyance was at its peak… I placed my hand on the top hymnbook and just kind of, (maybe more forceful than anticipated) the book was tossed back into the chair behind us where Isael was sitting. Casually I reached back to pick up the book as Isael woke up and stayed awake for the remaining time.

Hearing the story is much funnier than reading about it. Because reading it, gives it a more rough idea of what happened. Elder Davis of course was laughing at the situation; unaware of my intentions with the book he thought it just fell off the chair.

ANOTHER ONE OF THOSE DAYS:
1 lesson was taught today; the only person that didn't fall through on us was Ricky. Always-faithful Uncle Ricky! Everything else didn't go as planned but a good day over all!

March 21, 2016
Monday, Day 160
Day 147 in NY

16 FINDING EVENTS:
Today we had planned to go look up a lot of people... We planned in 16 finding events and 3 were men... We don't teach very many men. There are so many women in our area. So we had just today 13 women we planned to go see.

MIRACLE:
Our first miracle for the day was when we went to look up this lady who had been taught by missionaries in the past. When we knocked on the door she answered and slowly but surely expressed other gratitude for coming by. She loved the missionaries and all that she was learning she was really interested and slowly they just stopped visiting her. Through time, as transfers happened she was just put on the bottom of the pile and we finally found her. She told us she would love to have us over. So we shared a quick message with the #HALLELUJAH video and told her we would keep in contact to set up another appointment.

MIRACLE #2: HOW DO THEY KNOW?!
It was about 8:45pm and Elder Davis and I were out walking with this guy we met a little while ago and this lady from across the street yelled out and said, "Are you Mormons?" May I remind you it's dark outside, there aren't many lights out, and we are wearing black jackets and dark slacks. How people can tell who we are amazes me! We stopped and she came to us, she asked if we had pictures of Jesus we said of course and gave her a few. She said she would put them up in her home. We talked for a little bit and she told us she met with missionaries before and she would love to meet again. We got her information and we continued on our way with Amaney, the guy we were walking with. After we parted ways with Amaney, we headed home but on our way went to see if we could find that lady's apartment. We saw her on the steps out front smoking so we stopped and talked some more. We then shared the #HALLELUJAH video and headed back home.

March 22, 2016
Tuesday, Day 161
Day 148 in NY

ROY:
Belgium missionaries... One of the members in our ward called us and asked how we were doing. We told him we were well and he said good, good, I just wanted to inform you about what happened in Belgium. A couple missionaries had been injured in an explosion. Obviously we don't watch the news and whatever so we don't know what happened but that's our brief summary of what we were told..

ORLANDO:
We've got this property manager who I guess has "big problems" with missionaries. He's been renting this apartment for years to the mission. And he called us and while we were in a lesson and text us that he needed to speak with us immediately. Well the last time he said that we set apart time, rescheduled appointments just to meet with him and he never showed up. I've never met this guy, but he already bugs us because he tells us he has problems with us because of certain things that we are still unaware of. So tomorrow, PDAY, we are taking time out of our preparation day to meet with this dude. Hope all goes well, because while we were on our way to another appointment the ASL Elders called him for us and talked to him. They said he didn't sound happy and again he wants to meet with us. When he never showed up to the first time he set up with us.

Well to end on a good note.

I love NEW YORK! What a blessing it is to be serving the Lord here, having the opportunity to be on a mission, strengthening my own testimony as I assist in helping others find and strengthen their own
testimonies!

Happy Easter! Watch and share #HALLELUJAH Love you all so much! Pray for the missionaries and their families in Belgium. Elder Davis and I are doing well! Till next week!

Patience. Love. Faith

Much love,
Elder Newbold

Homemade Strawberry Jam! I love Sister Smith!

This dog was Massive! Probably should have asked the owner
if it was a nice dog before I stick my
hand out to pet it.. Fortunately nothing happened.
But this dog easily could have took my whole arm off!
My head could've fit in its mouth. 

APF Miracle Sign

After he cut his own hair! He's getting pretty good!

Elder Newbold has always loved graffiti!

No caption needed! Ha ha!

The burgers I made.
I used the visa gift card grandma gave
me to pay for the ingredients
since I have no money haha!
Don't worry I'm surviving! 

Week 22

March 7, 2016
Monday, Day 146
Day 133 in NY

SPLIT:
After district meeting. Elder Davis and I split with Elder Casper and Elder Clark. Elder Clark is the new missionary in our district. He's from Idaho. Elder Clark and I were together and Elder Davis was with Elder Casper in the Co-op city area. Before we split up and went to our areas, we all went over to Cross Bronx Pizza and grabbed a slice, since Elder Clark hadn't been yet. We talked with Joe for a bit while he made our pizza. Joes super awesome, he's been working there over 20 years. I think he likes the missionaries; he's always giving me little discounts on my pizza. About 10 minutes later we grabbed our pizza and headed back to the church, we ate and then we went back to our areas.

BEGINNING TO END:
When we got back to our area, Elder Clark and I started 12 weeks. Around 4PM we left and went to go see one of our investigators from a while ago, Nelson Gomez. We haven't met with him for a while, because the last time we did we sent him over to the Spanish missionaries since he seems to understand more Spanish. One of Nelsons employees, Will, was at the train station the other day and ran into our sister missionaries. They showed him a couple videos and that was that, they got his name and where he works. So when they told us that they met Will, I was pumped cause I already knew him from teaching Nelson. When we got to Hunts Point and checked on Nelson, we saw Will riding around on a hover board out on the street. Before we left, I yelled out "Aye Will, come 'ere!" He rides into the garage right next to me and he hops off and stands between Elder Davis and I with Nelson on my left. I pulled out my iPad and my speaker and played the Mormon message "Daily Bread: Pattern". It's an awesome video that tells us that our body needs sustenance, such as food and water to make ourselves well. But our soul also needs sustenance, such as spiritual readings and Church. As our bodies are starved or dehydrated we desire sustenance to fill those feelings of absence. The same goes for our spirit, when we have withdrawn ourselves from regular doses of spirituality we become weak spiritually. Our spirit is starved and it too desires to be filled of its absence. After the video we invited them to take care of themselves to feed their bodies and souls.

When we left we headed back to the 6 train from Hunts Point, uptown to 149th St. From there we walked to this lady's home. The lady's name is Marissa. She was a referral we received from another set of missionaries from Florida. The missionaries in Florida had been teaching her and her family. They sent her information to us because she moved. When we looked her up she was home with her 2 little boys. She's a married woman, they have a 7 year old boy, a 2 year old boy, and one on the way.
That was an awesome conversation starter because I immediately thought of Courtney and was just like, oh how awesome! Congratulations! My Sister is pregnant also! It's crazy because when I get home her baby girl will be about a year and half. She was like wow! That is crazy! So that was a fun conversation, her kid was at the door too and just loved talking to me too, asking questions and throwing out random sentences to get my attention on him haha. Hope to get back over there soon.

This split was a miracle day. Elder Clark has been out in the mission field 1 week and he had only 4 lessons taught in his area, that whole week... So when he came with me to my area I took him out and we went and taught 5 lessons in a day. The whole time he was like "holy cow! We taught more lessons in a day then I've taught in a week!" It was a great experience for the both of us, I was so grateful to have been able to share that experience with him.

March 8, 2016
Tuesday, Day 147
Day 134 in NY

UPDATES:
Not always but every now and then, when we go to see Ricky he tells me about what my family has been doing all week. He's on Facebook a lot I guess so he sees what everyone's doing and he gives me an update! Haha I love it! He will tell me about it as if he was just on the phone with them it's great! It's almost like he's apart of the family and just knows what's going on.

MEETING UP... ON A TUESDAY:

Since our ward mission leader is going to Washington, he won't be here on Thursday for our regular correlation meeting so we had an early one today. And instead of having it in the morning we had it around 2:30 PM... I don't know what happened to us that day, but it was as if we walked into a room of laughing gas… (I am not a morning person, so usually in the morning at 10:30, when we have our meeting, I don't say much. But I guess since I was already awake and it was the middle of the day, we all were just having too good of a time! Jokes were told and things that weren't even funny were said and we were all laughing!

2ND CHANCES:
So we met the sister of one of our investigators earlier last week. We met briefly and I didn't even catch her name. But we went to go look this investigator up and her sister answered the door, we had a nice quick "reunion" if you want to call it that and we introduced ourselves fully this time. We asked about her religious background and she said that she wouldn't mind meeting with us. We got her number and we told her we would send daily scriptures to her. Before we left we showed her a Mormon message-Daily bread: Pattern. She liked it and we tried to set up a next appointment, she told us that she's not always there because she works and what not... But we told her we would stay in contact to let her know when we plan on stopping by to see her sister, so she could plan on being there. That makes a potential investigator, but we will see if it becomes a real interest of hers.

NANCY:
There's this lady Elder Tabor and I met a little while back, she was a referral from a member in another stake somewhere. She had been and still is, in and out of the hospital daily going through her chemotherapy. Every now and then we would stop by to see if she's home, more often then not she wouldn't be but the times that she was home she was exhausted from her treatments, and we could see her exhaustion, so we always made her aware of the time that we wanted to take from her. We would let her know that we understand she's going through a lot and that we don't want to take much time but that we just want to share something with her that we know will be uplifting and every time…
Every time, she is much happier then she was when she first opened the door. No matter how exhausted she may be, since the first time we stopped by she has always allowed us to take a few minutes to testify of our Savior and she's never turned us away. She is just the sweetest, she always tells us how much she really appreciates us coming by, calling her during the week to check on her,
and sharing uplifting messages with her. She's also in the process of trying to find a new apartment so we told her when she does we would be more than willing to load her trailer or U-haul. I know she sees the light of Christ when we visit her and she knows that we care about her.

March 9, 2016
Wednesday, Day 148
Day 135 in NY

PDAY
After our studies, we go on with our day. We do laundry and in between loads we grocery shop. After a long day of chores and preparing ourselves for the week we began our evening with visiting Brother Ford.

BROTHER FORD:
This is one man you absolutely have to meet. One of my favorite things that he has said after saying something somewhat intelligent is "...Don't take my word for it, I'm nuts!" He is absolutely hilarious! He just says the funniest things! And the way he says things just makes everything so much better!

RICHARD:
The father/husband of the Nation family. We stopped by to see if the Nation family was home. They hadn't been answering our phone calls or getting back to us. Since they don't live far from Brother Ford, we stopped by. Richard answered the door, when the door opened I noticed the huge blow up mattress in the living room, immediately we could tell they were busy with company staying the night. I guess they were babysitting again or something. Richard had told us they were busy, so we just asked for a few minutes of his time. We started asking them if they had been reading and praying as a family. He gave his usual answer, "well I can't speak for them, but I haven't been reading. I won't lie to you." It's a funny answer because he didn't answer our question directly. I mean obviously from his response, they aren't reading together. But he doesn't just flat out tell us. We hope that they soon recognize fully, the importance of our visits. We hope to see them progress someday soon.

RICKY:
At the end of the night like usual, we ended on visiting Ricky! I absolutely love Ricky! I mean, I'm not picking favorites, but I wish I had the same love that I have for Ricky, for every one else I meet and teach. Since the first day I met Ricky, I was so easily able to love him. I have sincere love for this man. He's become an uncle to me. Every night I leave his house I say "I love you Uncle Ricky." And he says, "I love you too, now watch your step out there." Uncle Ricky and I have some big plans for after my mission. We've been planning this for months! I believe that he's already been saving money weekly to afford our trip. But when I come home from my mission, I'm going to fly back out to NY or something, then Ricky and I will take our time driving back to California.

I don't remember when, but sometime in his life his leg was amputated... So he has a prosthetic right leg. Beside it being a trial itself, Ricky LOVED driving and with out a right leg he can't drive a regular car. He wants to take classes to be able to drive left footed. (I guess there are cars made for people with functional left feet, so the pedals are fixed to where the left foot can "comfortably" be used to push the brake and gas). Either that, or possibly having to get a car with a hand pedal for gassing. When Ricky was able to drive he told me about all the things he would do, the places he would go. He says that he would just fill up and drive and drive and drive. He just loved to get out and see places. I told him when I return from my mission I will take him places. So that's something we both look forward to. Driving from NYC to California, stopping along the way, seeing places we both haven't seen yet.

March 10, 2016
Thursday, Day 149
Day 136 in NY

SAD TEXTS:
This morning we received a text from an investigator we started meeting with again… Elder Tabor and I met him a while back, also a referral. He ordered a Bible, so we met him when we delivered it to him. His name is John, he's a junior in High school, and he claimed to be very interested.

Well the text we received said something like this; Hey Elders, my family and I would appreciate if you wouldn't come to our home anymore. We haven't felt the Holy Ghost and I don't want to become a Mormon any longer, we would just like it if you didn't come back.

Well I'm sure you’re feeling at least a little bit of the way I felt... It's not the greatest thing in the world when you receive a text like that from someone who really was interested and he claims to not have felt the spirit. Sadly, we believe that he and his family weren't actually reading from and praying about the Book of Mormon. We invited him to read and pray about the Book of Mormon and the last time we went to see him he told us he hadn't read the Book of Mormon. It's sad to see him drop us like this, but we've done what we could, and we just hope he finds interest in the church again.

GOTTA BE newBOLD:
It's become very clear to see that the only way to make it or break it with people is by being bold. If you’re short with them they have too much room to get lost in.

Elder Davis and I are in the process of clearing out our area book. We are calling people daily; members, less actives, potentials, progressing investigators, new investigators, and so on…
While we were on a split the other day, Elder Clark and I looked up this guy who ordered a Bible. Since we are out of Bibles... (Which I don't understand how) we've been giving out more Books of Mormon instead. So we got to this guys apartment, went up to his floor, knocked on the door, and this lady answers, opening the door just enough to see her. We asked if Melton was home. He heard us and said come on in; we came in, and went to his room where he sat in his wheel chair. We introduced ourselves and confirmed that he ordered a Bible, he said yes. So we talked about how he found the website Mormon.org he said he saw it as an ad somewhere. We told him we didn't have any Bibles at the moment but we introduced him to the Book of Mormon and he agreed to take it. We invited him to read it and we set up another time to come by. He said come by the same time next week. Today was that day; Elder Davis and I came by to see Melton. We knocked another lady answered the door and Melton was behind her in his wheelchair watching TV. Both Elder Davis and I could see very clearly what he was doing. Watching TV, he wasn't busy at all. But when he saw us he faced the door and said "come back later, I'm busy. Give me a call before you come." Now, I've heard this too many times, I know what that means... He wants us to leave because he's not interested and instead of telling us he's not interested he wants us to call ahead of time so he can give an excuse. I replied, "Okay, well, are you even interested at all? Because I don't want to waste your time and I don't want to waste our time." He simply replied "No... Not really." I said, "Okay thank you, have a blessed night!" And we went on with our night.

We get a lot of people like this, where they really only want a Bible or a Book of Mormon but they really aren't interested in having us come by. So instead of telling us that, they set appointments with us on days they aren't home. In this case Melton is confined to his wheelchair and home. So he's not going anywhere, so I knew we would be getting excuse after excuse from him and we have other people we could be teaching. So we set it straight by making sure he was interested or not. And that's how it's done!

MAKING FRIENDS:
Walking home from an appointment, we were stopped by a group of kids chill in out on the steps of an apartment building. "Are y'all customer service?" Elder Davis and I were like "naaa we are missionaries". So we stopped and talked for about 40 minutes with them. There were 6 kids, a 19-year-old girl (this girl had a kid in a stroller, and she was trying to get my number lol, I said you got my card it's on there). Then there was a 17-year-old girl who was pregnant with her 15-year-old boy friend. One of the other boys was 15 and their friend who was about 18. The whole time we were talking, they would ask questions all over the place. We told them who we are, where we are from, what we are doing. "No we don't get paid, we pay to do this." In between 3 different conversations Elder Davis and I were having with these kids, we just bore testimony on simple principles of the gospel. It was super great; they were calling us their homies. One of the kids was looking at the Jesus pass along cards we gave him and he asked "where do I get my free Finding Faith in Jesus Christ DVD." We told him we would bring it in a couple days. They were some pretty cool kids. A couple of the kids were siblings and their mom was not a religious person at all. She apparently hates "Jesus People" they say if she walked into a church it would burn down around her. Which is very extreme, that obviously wouldn't happen.

SISTER GARDNER:
Received a call from Sister Gardner, a senior couple missionary. She called us later at night making us aware that because Elder Davis came 2 weeks late he missed the new missionary meeting. So she told us we would need to show up to Scarsdale for the meeting tomorrow morning.

March 11, 2016
Friday, Day 150
Day 137 in NY

NEW MISSIONARY MEETING:
Woke up at 4:30 and got ready quickly but quietly so that we don't wake the other Elders. We prayed at the door and left the apartment. We took the 6 train over to Harlem-125th station. We got there about 30 minutes early, so we got our tickets and waited in the station till about 5 minutes before our train arrived. Then we went up the stairs to the platform and got on the train and we took the "fancy train" to Scarsdale. From there we waited for the Office Elders to come by with the van and pick us up. When they got there, they then drove us to the Scarsdale Chapel, which is the church right behind the Mission Home.

While the New missionaries, "New" lol, Elder Davis at this point isn't so new; he's been out 6 weeks! (Man time has FLOWN by) so while the New missionaries have their Tiwi/Driving instructions, we, the trainers have a training from President, Sister Smith, and one of the APs. It was, as always, so awesome! President Smith was asking about miracles and one of the Elders raised his hand and shared an experience that him and his companion had. They did this thing called "prayer tracting". (So here in NY tracting isn't too affective, well at least in The Bronx it's not… So when we go to an appointment or after we go to look someone up, if they are home, perfect, after the lesson we go tract that apartment floor). The experience these two Elders had was one I'd never heard of. They had gone to look up an investigator and this investigator wasn't home. So they decided to prayer tract. They chose one of the doors on the floor and knocked on it. A college girl opened the door and they introduced themselves "Hi, we are the missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Could we have a prayer with you?" If you’re lucky, you'll get the response she gave, "yea sure." These two Elders asked her the question "what specifically could we pray for?" She responded, "well I'm in college and I have some tests coming up and I would like to do well on those." As one of these Elders prayed specifically to the needs of this young lady, she was touched. After the prayer they asked her "how do you feel?" She said, "I feel much better, I feel at peace with the tests coming up. Thank you". (Now keep in mind this is the first time they have met this girl). The Elder that had prayed for this girl, then sad this, "Will you follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone who holds the proper priesthood authority of God." The end of this story is unknown to me, but I believe that they did schedule another appointment to meet with her.

But how amazing is that?! To just simply take the time to understand the needs of someone and pray for them specifically, then directed by thee spirit to invite her to be baptized.

LOVETH:
Well, the experience above inspired me so much I wanted to get a feel for it and try it. So after the meeting I told Elder Davis about it because he wasn't in that part of our meeting. I told him when we go to visit Loveth we will try it. So we stopped by Loveth’s and she was home so after seeing how she was doing and making arrangements to see her again, I asked her if we could have a prayer before we left. She agreed and I asked her what we could pray for, she responded with "I want to find peace in my marriage." So standing at the doorway, in the hall of the apartment floor. We bowed our heads and I began to pray, I personally felt good about it and when we were done she said that she felt good as well. (We had met with her a few times previous and she hasn't made any attempt to attended church and I didn't feel it right to invite her to be baptized but the experience was great).

March 12, 2016
Saturday, Day 151
Day 138 in NY

WHITE PEOPLE:
Last night we got a call from the Spanish Elders, they had a referral for us. They were out last night walking home and this guy approached them. I guess he's had some incidents in his life that has made him come to the realization he needs to find a church. So he started talking to them and the Spanish Elders said he was pretty legit. So we got ahold of him this morning, his name is Kenneth, and he said he desired to meet with us. So we met up with him and his wife. We hadn't met them before so we didn't know what they looked like. When we met them we were surprised to see that they were white. They currently live in a shelter, so we met at a McDonalds. We sat down, talked, and got to know them a bit. They did seem super legit, very interested. We talked about them coming to church and they agreed strongly, we showed them routes to get to church and we had it all planned out. They said that they would see us at church tomorrow. We shared the Book of Mormon with them and gave them a copy. We invited them to read and pray about it. Then we ended our discussion in a prayer and left.

CONCLUSION:
The rest of our evening was good, we went and looked up some people and taught a few more lessons!

March 13, 2016
Sunday, Day 152
Day 139 in NY

SABBATH DAY:
Went to church and as always it was great! After church Brother Ford asked if we could go with him to his home teaching appointment. So we went with him and shared the New Easter video #Hallelujah.

#Hallelujah Look it up!!! Watch it. Share it. Share it. & Share it! Go on Mormon.org or look it up on the Gospel Library app.

March 14, 2016
Monday, Day 153
Day 140 in NY

HIGHLIGHT:
While I was in the Spanish program for two weeks I met this member family and they love the missionaries. So walking on the street the other day they stopped Elder Davis and I, why we hadn't visited them. We told her we hadn't scheduled anything, so she told us to come over for dinner with the Spanish Elders! So we did we went over at 7:30 and waited for the Spanish Elders. While we were waiting, for the first time ever... Someone who wanted to talk to me like I was nothing actually did it to my face.

People in the Bronx have no courage, in all honesty, MOST of the time the people are under the influence of something. And when they are, they go off about unimportant things that they believe are very important. Well, I've had multiple experiences where people have wanted to say something to me. But instead of speaking to me face to face, which I so strongly prefer. They talk to my companion to tell me whatever it is, they go on a rant about.

So this lady comes out of the elevator cussing up a storm about how she lost her money and her weed. Her friends next to her said "yo, shut up, there are missionaries behind you. They don't want to hear about your problems." The lady then went off about how she doesn't give a dang and this and
that. So I reached out and gave her friend a Jesus pass along card. Well the lady in a bad mood didn't like that. (So you have to know that everyone I'm around is black. Even my companion, so it's actually really weird talking to white people when you see them because it's rare). As this lady sees the picture of Jesus she just starts screaming about how Jesus is black, and to my companion she says "don't let him (pointing at me) fool you, Jesus is your color not his. I simply said, "Have you seen Jesus?" She honestly replied "no". I said, "then how do you know what color he is?" (Obviously she's racist and didn't want to say anything nice to me. Which is fine with me). She said, "It's a fact! That's how I know!" I told her, it's not a fact, and I went on to say that "Jesus was a Jew and the Jews were darker then me but they were lighter than you." Of course then my companion backed me up, Elder Davis is black and he doesn't believe in a black Jesus, so he went on to explain some more. Then her attitude was sweet to him, but with me haha! She had nothing good to say the whole time. So I'm getting yelled at, I'm being told that I can't be calling my self an Elder because I don't know anything. Ya-da-ya-da. Blah- blah- blah. After we made our points, we just explained that our purpose as missionaries is just to invite others to follow Christ; we aren't here to teach deep doctrine or to teach people about the color of Jesus Christ. Because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what color Jesus is, he's our Savior and if we love him for who he is and what he has done, it doesn't matter what his skin color is. He could be purple for all I care. Jesus Christ is my Savior and has died for me and for you.

What a night that was. I mean besides the points she was trying to make, weren't valid whatsoever, she was drinking her alcohol from the party she just stepped out of and wasn't at all straight in the mind. Elder Davis and I were trying our best the whole time to keep our chill, but at the same time Elder Davis is busting up laughing! Lol

March 15, 2016
Tuesday, Day 154
Day 141 in NY

LOOK UP:
Like I mentioned before we have been trying to clean up our area book. So we have been calling investigators and less actives. Well, we decided today we were going to look up this less active, named Isael. When we got to his door and knocked, he opened up, we introduced our selves and told him we were kind of new to the area and just wanted to get to know the members. He then let us in and he began to tell us about how he got into the church and how he decided to be baptized. Which were some pretty cool stories. He told us he wasn't too sure why he stopped coming to church. But he did say, because he hasn't come in so long he would feel embarrassed to show up because he's afraid of what the members will say. We told him that the members would welcome him like he never left. He felt comforted by that and told us he wants to come to church. We told him we could come by and get him on Sunday morning before church and go with him since he's shy. As we talked about all the people and members he remembers, we feel that once he comes on Sunday he will be able to come to church on his own, often with out us. We may have found us a solid reactivation! We are super stoked to have someone so solid want to come back to church.



Well that's it for this week! Hope that's entertaining enough for you all! I don't like reading so I'm glad I have big fans that will read for me and correct my spelling or grammar errors! Love you mom and dad, haha.

Love you all. The Gospel has been restored and our Savior lives! #HALLELUJAH #FINDNEWLIFE #MORMON.ORG


Till next week!

Patience. Love. Faith

Much love,
Elder Newbold

Elder Newbold and Elder Davis

Standing on a rooftop

Eating crickets

New Missionary training for Elder Davis

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