Week 36

June 15, 2016
Wednesday, Day 246
Day 233 in NY

PDAY!
Like every Pday, nothing too special to start off the day, we just went straight down the street and did our laundry, while there I talked to this Jewish lady, she was just asking questions about our church. It all started with "where are all you guys from? Are you part of a school or something?" We responded "no, we are missionaries for our church" she replied "oh okay, yeah I was just wondering, cause every week you guys take up just about all the washers" lol Well, there's 4 of us and we share washers so really we only take up 2 per companionship and there are plenty of washers. After laundry we went out for lunch! It was a great lunch! We went to chipotle! Which wasn't the best idea, I keep telling myself I need to save money. But all I ever do is eat, so, when I'm hungry I eat! I can't help but buy food! After enjoying my last time eating out for the month... Lol we went to TJ-Max where I found a cool little side bag so I bought that and then helped Elder Burton shop for clothes to go home with. He said his grandma gave him some money so he wanted to shop and go home with nice new clothes. So we started looking for shorts and stuff and it was so funny I just felt like a mom shopping for his son. Lol! I'm not much bigger now, but he's a size 28 waist like I was most of my life, so he was telling me how hard it has been shopping for him in his size. It was just so great, I felt like I was at home again. After picking out all these clothes for him, he went and tried them on and came back 15 minutes later with NOTHING in his hands. I said to him "what happened? Did they fit you?" He responded, "Yea they fit, I just didn't like any of them enough to buy." I just laughed out loud thinking how funny it was that we were legit shopping for stuff for him because that's what he wanted to do and by the end of it he wanted nothing. So we went to check out and buy my bag and Elder Richards got some hair gel. On our way out we saw all these fun games that I really wanted to play! They were selling all these lawn games. I saw washer toss in the mix of games and really wanted to get it. After we left TJ-Max we went home to change and get ready to go to the church for basketball. We went there and I ended up just writing my journal emails and sending emails. During this time someone walked in the door and guess who it was! Elder Williams! My MTC companion. He walked in and said to me, I thought you'd be here; I just wanted to stop in and say hi. So I hopped down from the stage and gave him a hug and we chatted for a minute. He had just gotten out of his session in the temple so he wanted to see me before he left back to his area. I thought it was really sweet of him to do that, since I was the only one there he came to see. Maybe I was the only one he knew, but I thought it was super cool because I didn't think I made much of an impact in his mission as I did. Elder Moss was his companion before me and Elder Moss told me that he would talk about me every now and then, which made my heart warm because again, I thought I could have been a better companion for him. But I guess I did my best with him. I love Elder Williams! What a great guy! At the end of the day, Elder Richard’s dad from Utah ordered us a few boxes of pizza for dinner! That was pretty awesome! So thanks to him! After Pday we then met up with Brian and taught him. A great day!

June 16, 2016
Thursday, Day 247
Day 234 in NY

Today was a very slow and uneventful day. I hate saying that but lately it's just been a little slow with the work. We got up this morning and after studies we took some time to once again clean the apartment. After doing somewhat of a "deep cleaning" we had lunch and then went to the church to do our weekly planning. Our apartment doesn't have wifi, so we go to the church to get it. After a few hours of planning we finished and it was probably about 5 by then so we had dinner and went about our evening looking up less actives.

June 17, 2016
Friday, Day 248
Day 235 in NY

Today we had an APF planned with Elders Casper and Casela at the Bethesda fountain. So we met them at the church, we grabbed our world map board, and carried it on over to Central Park. Once we got there we leaned it against a wall and got to work. APFs are probably my favorite proselyting effort. They just make things fun and interesting. Especially with the ideas we have, I mean besides the fact that being in New York there's literally every kind of person here, we get to talk to each person. It's crazy to think I've met people from just about everywhere in the world. I'm sure by the end of my mission I'll have accomplished that. It's really just a great learning experience and "activity" (if you will) that allows us to step out of our comfort zone. Making that step forward, toward someone with a question to ask. "Hey! Where ya from!!??" It's funny to see some reactions as they've watched us approach others and they see us approaching them. Lol it's all just a great experience.

By the time our APF was over and we returned the board back to the church it was time to head home for dinner. We started dinner at 5 and Elder Tatafu just quickly threw together some pasta. During our
dinner, about 15 minutes before we were done we got a phone call... President Smith’s name appears on the screen of the phone and a Elder Tatafu's reaction was priceless! With wide eyes, "Do we answer it?" Lol! "Yes answer it!” He answered the phone and begins with responding, "We are having dinner". Unable to hear the conversation, I'm trying to figure out what's being said from Elder Tatafu's
replies, "uh huh, yea. Okay right now?... Wait say that again? A baptism? We live 11 blocks away. 10 minutes?? It takes us 15. Okay we will run. See you soon president!" My comment to all of this was, "so what's going on?" And Elder Tatafu says, "I don't know, I couldn't really hear him??" I just about died of laughter, with the slightest bit of frustration at the fact of it all, but quickly that was drained out with the humor found in this instant. He had been on the phone with President and what it sounded like to me was a 2-way conversation lol but it ended up being just a one-way conversation! Elder Tatafu is one funny guy!! With what I gathered from the "conversation" was that we needed to be at the church in 10 minutes to help with a baptism. So we dropped our food, prayed at the door, and ran to the church, with a mental battle of confusion at what is possibly going on. Being completely unprepared with whatever may be happening we hurried up to the baptismal font, where we found an empty room with no one there. So we waited a fast minute and President Smith was nowhere to be found. So we headed back downstairs and asked the sisters that were outside where President was and they responded, "right there behind you." I turned around and there he was walking toward the front doors with 2 of his kids and his wife. They asked someone if they could take a picture of us with them. (Still completely confused with no explanation given as to what is going on) we followed President Smith and his family into the temple. Yep, the temple, not the church. So now I'm even more confused, I've got 2 ideas but trying to relate them to what Elder Tatafu was saying on the phone, just wasn't making sense. Still with no direction given I very hesitantly reached for my recommend and handed it forward to the front desk... And that was that. Later we realized and were told by President Smith that there just weren't enough temple workers to help with baptisms and he decided to call us to help them. It was a really neat and spiritual experience to be apart of even though I felt completely out of place and confused in the beginning. After leaving our little session we quickly made our way out and back to work, we went refreshed and motivated to find. With in about 45 seconds of being outside we began talking to this man at the crosswalk, we talked a bit about our church and there wasn't much of a connection there, he was grateful for our conversation but we didn't feel that there was much coming from him. After we made our way to the other side of the crosswalk and began our journey toward home. We then made eye contact with this man and he seemed intrigued, so we turned around and talked to him. He shortly after told us that his sister, just the other day, had a dream about him and that he needed to go to church. He said that running into us was a confirmation of that. So we taught him a bit about our church and the Book of Mormon, we gave him a copy and a restoration pamphlet. Later we got his number and he said we could stay in contact about church. It was a miracle! He's not YSA age so we passed him off to our roommates. But we will see how it all goes! It was a great day for sure!

June 18, 2016
Saturday, Day 249
Day 236 in NY

Crazy day! We went to Central Park for NYC Adventures, it's this year round event that we signed up to do some service at. They have 4 different events each year for different seasons. For summer it was
NYC Adventures. Just like the street games we did last time. We helped out this time at Central Park and it was so awesome! We got to the park about 9am-helped set up and get things ready for the events. We were at the park from 9-5:30pm. We started off as floaters, which means we just hang around and ask different events if they need help with anything, but pretty quickly we got stuck at stations, so we went with it. Elder Tatafu and I started off at a kayaking event; we were just opening up the line to the participants. So we were at the Bethesda fountain letting people into line. Then we got a call from Elder Richards and Elder Burton and they were working at the Adidas events, they asked if we could come help out. So we went over there and it turns out they got help from someone else, so this lady asked us to go help out at the paddle boarding station. So went over there and helped the people in line stay in order and come up to the platform one by one. Citi was one of the sponsors at the park so they gave us a free shirt to wear so that we could rep for them. After about 2 hours of that we got a lunch break and went up to the volunteer tent and ate. Then Elder Richards and Elder Burton called and asked if we could relieve them of their position and trade them so they could get lunch. When Elder Richards saw my Citi shirt he flipped out and wanted one himself so we went to the Adidas station and helped out so that they could trade us at paddle boarding and possibly get a Citi shirt as well… Well, he never got a shirt so I gave him mine. Lol. So funny story! Elder Tatafu and I are just standing in the sun all this time. We were at the Adidas event and all we had to do was get people to sign waivers for the Parkour event they had. So I easily talked to over 400 people in the time I was there and everyone that signed a waiver got a wristband showing that they signed one. At the same time of talking and having people signing waivers I'm putting on wristbands so it was super crazy! After a little bit it started to slow down a little and this mother and daughter came to the table. The mom, probably being in her 40’s, and the daughter, in her late teens early 20s. So, they come up and sign the waiver and we start talking, the mom was asking about the Adidas shoes behind me. I then explained to her that if you demo the shoes during this course, at the end when you bring them back you get a card that will give you 50% off on any online purchase on the Adidas website. She was digg’in it so I told her that John (the Adidas Rep behind me will help her) to the table behind me. At this point the daughter I guess is talking to me a little bit, making little jokes and what not while I'm still helping people with signing waivers. Being as nice as I could without ignoring her I was listening and responding while trying to assist these people with Elder Tatafu. Her mom gets her size in the demo shoes and begins the course. At this point they are now in line and getting ready to begin. I'm occasionally checking their spot in line because I wanted to see this lady do the course lol! Only being able to see her from the first obstacle I then returned to the table and continued on with waivers. At the end of it all, which felt like maybe 30 minutes had gone by, they returned to the table behind me and returned the shoes. They then approached the table I was working at and I felt a tap on my arm so I turn around and for a quick second there was the daughter with a piece of paper in her hand reached toward me. I grab it and said thanks. Returning to my position doing waivers I continued on... When I caught a second when no one was coming to our table I pulled out the little paper she handed me and I laughed out loud! Why? Because I had no idea what else to do! What she handed me was one of the Adidas stickers folded in half with her name and number on it! I didn't know what else to do so I just started laughing, I felt bad I guess cause I can't talk to her. What's even funnier is that after we shut down the Adidas station Elder Tatafu and I went to find Elders Burton and Richards, from a distance we found them at the paddle boarding station and guess who they happened to be talking to? Lol, the same mother and daughter. We decided we would motion Elder Richards to the opposite side of the event to us and then I told him about the girl, he laughed and said that she was just asking about me. She saw me talking to him earlier and thought she could get a little bit of insight on me lol! I don't know, I just thought that it was such a funny experience!

June 19, 2016
Sunday, Day 250
Day 237 in NY

Happy Father's Day!
During church someone said something that I really liked so I thought I'd share it. It was during the third hour and we were talking about how we are all on different levels in the gospel. Someone asked how we can know what we need to do in our life to progress and advance in gospel even though each of our steps and choices would be different. The answer given was just so simple to me and I understood it so well. This is what I took from the response given. "We can pray and pray and pray, to know what our next step in life should be. But what we should be doing is acting. We know what the steps are to progression. Faith, Repentance, Baptism/Sacrament, the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the
end. We need to evaluate our efforts in each of these categories to know what our next step is. If we seek for guidance all our life, we won't get anywhere with out living our life and acting. So, take a step back, are you reading the scriptures? Yes? Okay great, how often? No? Okay start reading them, it doesn't have to be an immediate change where you start doing it everyday, but that choice to start reading. Life isn't a checklist of; okay I have faith in Jesus Christ, check done with that one. But it's a self-evaluation, okay I have faith in Jesus Christ, now what do I need to do to continue exercising my faith? Read the scriptures, pray, and go to church. The simple things done the right way are the things we should be focused on."

That's what I took from our lesson today and it was a great lesson! I'm so grateful for this gospel and the life I have to live and continually become closer to my Father in Heaven and his son Jesus Christ.

June 20, 2016
Monday, Day 251
Day 238 in NY

Today didn't seem to eventful either, we had district meeting and it was good, we reviewed once again the things we learned and have been applying from the meeting with Elder Bennett. It was great to see all the things that everyone had learned and had been applying. It helped me learn that there's more that I could be doing as well. Toward the end of our district meeting Mia our "investigator" showed up and sat in with the rest of our discussion.

After district meeting we went home and had lunch. And after lunch we did some finding, looking up people, and then met with Brian at the church and we had one of our other members, Jake, with us. It was a great and powerful lesson.

June 21, 2016
Tuesday, Day 252
Day 239 in NY

Today I woke up feeling sick, which wasn't fun. We hung around after studies and just tried to relax till the mail arrived. Around 1 we went to the chapel and met the office Elders there. We grabbed our mail and went back to our chapel and then for lunch Elder Richards and Burton and Elder Tatafu and I went to Taco Bell to get free tacos! It was so great! I felt a little better after having a freeze. After lunch we got a text asking us to meet somewhere with a member to give a blessing to his friend. So we headed over to his friends and gave him a blessing. After we went over to a member’s apartment for dinner. Which was super good! Love me some home cooked meals! After an hour of dinner we rushed over to the church to meet with a guy named John, who is interested in the church. It was a great lesson, we taught him more about the Book of Mormon. In 2 weeks, from the 1st time he visited our church, he has read all the way through 2 Nephi. We just invited him to continue on. We think he will continue to come to church and meet with us.
Today was another great day!

Love you all! Hope you've enjoyed your week! Till next week!


Patience. Love. Faith

Much love,
Elder Newbold

Elder Newbold and Elder Tatafu with President Smith and family before entering the temple to help with baptisms