Week 20

February 24, 2016
Wednesday, Day 134
Day 121 in NY

PDAY! (10AM-6PM)
After hours, 6:15 PM Elder Davis and I were going over to Brother Fords to help him move all his furniture to the middle of his living room so that the guy coming to paint the apartment could paint the walls. Elder Casper and Elder Nalaza mentioned that their appointments had fallen through so we told them they could come help us. We were probably there for about 2 hours. Brother Ford, he is so great! Haha this man cracks me up. He had a couple turn table record players. Of course I wanted one, so when he happened to say that he will have to find a place for them one day, I told him "I got you Brother Ford." After helping Brother Ford, we shared a quick message and went on our way.

PDAY LESSONS:
After serving Brother Ford, we had another lesson. It was later then we expected it to be and we still had our PDAY/service clothes on... So we made the decision not to waste time and just go how we are to the lesson. The people we visited were less active members. Magdalena and her son Santiago. It was such an awesome lesson, we talked about the scriptures and they had been reading together. It's so awesome to hear that the people you are teaching are progressing and keeping their commitments.

February 25, 2016
Thursday, Day 135
Day 122 in NY

Had ward correlation at the church, got there early so we could be on the conference call with president. President talked about being prepared. He shared some miracles with us that had been noticed and shared by a few missionaries during the past week.

After correlation we came home and had weekly planning! Whoop whoop, always a great time with planning haha. Naa it's not really that fun, but it's just nice to get planning for the week over with, so you know what needs to be done throughout the week.

MISSIONARY WORK:
We went over to teach Ricky and after the lesson with Ricky, I remembered something that I had been meaning to ask him. Across the street from Ricky’s apartment there's a little 2 family apartment building and on the bottom floor we have an investigator named Nancy. We met her during Christmas; sometime in December while we were going around sharing the Savior is born video. She had explained that she had been going through a lot recently because she was in and out of the hospital daily for chemotherapy and that we had made her night because of our visit. So after meeting with Ricky we asked him if he would come with us to be a 3rd male in a lesson with Nancy, he said that he would like to so now we need to just set up an appointment with Nancy.

SPLIT:
Went on a split with Elder Sorensen in his area. Met at the Castle Hill stop and split. Elder Davis and Elder Li went to our area. So that was Elder Davis's first time taking over the area.

February 26, 2016
Friday, Day 136
Day 123 in NY

SPLIT!
HAVE YOU EVER TAUGHT A PASTOR?
Well I have… So, our first appointment of the day was at a church with this pastor of the church. He said that he wanted to be able to answer questions of those in his congregation that ask what we believe. So we taught him about the Book of Mormon and we even gave him one. We did a little bit of How to Begin Teaching, which is something you can read about in PMG. (Preach My Gospel) It was really cool. We thought that we were going to get thrown all this crap about false doctrine and such, because that's usually what happens from pastors or strong believers from other churches. Turns out he really was just interested. I can’t really remember the exact questions he asked, but they were really good questions. After answering his questions and bearing testimony on the things we knew. He asked us to come back and meet with him again.

SERVICE:
Elder Sorensen was telling me about the plans for the day and about all the people I'll meet. He said that they had plans for service, he said it should only take abut an hour and 45 minutes. Elder Sorensen said that the member said we would be "moving" a fireplace. She never mentioned that we would be putting together one. So we put it together and had a blast doing it... We ended being there for about 5 hours... She even fed us so of course that added some time. But over all it was super awesome!! I've never set up a fireplace heater thingy.

The rest of the day went well! Our appointments fell through, during the time of the service we did. So we went around the area and just started looking up people. We ended up teaching like 6 people, so it was a great day!

February 27, 2016
Saturday, Day 137
Day 124 in NY

REFERRAL:
We looked up this lady Denise Scott, when we got to the apartment she sent her older sons down. We talked to them for a bit, their names were Hercules and Donavon. We taught them about the Book of Mormon. Ended up leaving the apartment with 6 less books of Mormon! (One for each of the family members.) Hoping that when we stop by again next Saturday that they will be home and available to teach.

February 28, 2016
Sunday, Day 138
Day 125 in NY

REFERRAL-INVESTIGATOR:
We stopped by this lady that ordered a Bible, she's a single mother with a son who's 4. She said that she's interested in getting into church and finding a religion. She asked the question "what makes our church different then others" we pulled out the Book of Mormon and explained to her what it is. We told her we would love to come back and share more with her about our church. We invited her to come on Sunday and she said she would love to, but probably not this week. We are praying that she is one who has been prepared. We would love to be able to continually meet with her and get her to come to church.

Another slow day but here the good in it!

February 29, 2016
Monday, Day 139
Day 126 in NY

THE BLESSINGS OF THE GOSPEL:
Peace and Joy! Having knowledge of the restored Gospel can and will bring peace and joy to those who learn and apply the teachings. My example for this is, Elder Davis and I called this referral the other day and she was so excited to meet with us. She was referred to us by one of her co-workers who is a member of the church. She wasn't looking for a Bible or anything she just wanted to meet with the Missionaries. We had her planned in to see her on Tuesday of last week. When we stopped by, she didn't answer... We heard a dog barking from inside but no one seemed to be home. So we called her and left a voicemail. We were bummed because we were looking forward to meeting with her.

When Elder Davis called Gladys (the referral) today, her daughter answered the phone, he asked if Gladys was available and Jennifer (the daughter) responded with, "I'm sorry, my mom passed away on Wednesday...” This totally threw us off... We had just talked to this lady a week ago and the day we went to see her she didn't answer and to find out that she had passed away was sad and totally unexpected. But the great part about this experience is that we know where she is. She's being taught the gospel in the spirit world. We are giving the daughter a little time before we go over and visit her to take this opportunity to teach her and help her be comforted.

BUS RIDE:
We were on our way to an appointment and we were on the bus, facing this girl. Elder Davis made eye contact with her so he said hi and it went from there, we introduced ourselves, and asked her a couple questions like, where she was coming from, where she was heading. We talked about the church and she said she was interested in coming to church. We invited her to come to ours and she said she would like to, but that she will let us know, we got her number and hope to be able to meet with her soon.

Teaching people left and right! It's so great! I love my mission! I love being a missionary!

That's all I've had time for this week! Till next to week! Love you all!

Patience. Love. Faith

Much love,
Elder Newbold