Week 49

September 14, 2016

Wednesday, Day 337

Day 324 in NY

Pday!

We once again had plans that did not follow through. We were planning on going to the 87th St chapel, which we did. Elders Nielsen & Gonzalez went to get haircuts at the chapel, Elder Gentry and I went to Best Buy to check out the speakers because he likes mine so much. Within about 10 minutes we found them and he bought himself one too. Then we went to the chapel and emailed and then we went to Chipotle and came back to the church to eat it. When we finished we left and went home and just hung out till Pday ended. We left the apartment and went over to the S’s family and visited them for a bit, we shared a message with M and then came home, before we came up to our room we went up to an investigators home, named P. We just wanted to stop by and see when we could set an appointment with her, when she opened the door there were boxes everywhere, she said right now wasn't a good time. But we thought it was the perfect time, we asked if she needed help, she didn't turn us away, she immediately let us in and she explained that she needs to assemble 4 cribs, she had done 1 ½ her self but was doing it alone. We got straight to it, we finished the cribs in about 30 minutes and while there we talked about her experience with past missionaries, she enjoyed their visits, she even had some questions for us. We talked about tithing and set an appointment to come back and discuss more. We left and went down to our floor and were home before 9:30!

September 15, 2016

Thursday, Day 338

Day 325 in NY

After weekly planning we made our way to M’s and met some guy by the bus stop. After talking to him we got on the bus and made our way to M’s. Then made our way home for a pit stop before going over to the Ds’ for dinner and a message then coming back to our building to see someone there and then we came home.

September 16, 2016

Friday, Day 339

Day 326 in NY

Woke up this morning and split with the Zone Leaders. I went to the Spanish program area with Elder Gonzalez and Elder Gentry stayed in our area and took the lead with Elder Nielsen. We had planned a pretty full day for them. Elder Gonzalez and I went after lunch to do some look ups. After knocking a few doors we left the building and noticed this lady carrying this awkward/heavy looking case. We approached her and asked if we could help her out. With bags in her other hand her shoulders shrunk and she willingly accepted our request to help her.  Elder Gonzalez reached forward and grabbed the case she carried. I offered to take a bag from her but she insisted she could carry it. We walked alongside with her, not knowing where she was going, but we followed anyway. After about 20 minutes of walking the opposite direction we stopped at her building. She wasn't very interested in religion, although she had grown up with a lot of LDS people. When we left her we went to do some service at a food pantry. We helped stock shelves and unload trucks. By the time we finished there it was dinnertime, so home we went. We went back out and had a lesson and came back home for curfew and ended the split.

September 17, 2016

Saturday, Day 340

Day 327 in NY

This morning we were given the assignment to watch over the church building while a funeral lunch occurred. We didn't know who these people were, but they had asked to use the building for their lunch gathering and as the rules state, there must be a priesthood holder while activities are being held at the church, or something like that.  I like to think it was less of the idea that we would be good for it, so that people could be familiar with us and our church and more of the idea that it's a Saturday morning and people are lazy. But again I realized we don't have many members and at that any that are willing to help. So Elder Gentry and I showed up to represent the church members and the bishopric counselors came to. Afterward Elder Gentry and I talked about it, we felt unneeded. But hopefully we were helpful in someway, other than just carrying their food into the building lol.

September 18, 2016

Sunday, Day 341

Day 328 in NY

Today we had stake conference. When we left the apartment, the sky was covered in dark clouds and I voiced to my companion "I'm going to be pissed if it starts raining". Having no wifi to be able to check the weather each morning before leaving, we walked out in our suits and without umbrellas... it was at that moment that I realized or again it was proven to me that we do make the decision for how our attitude is expressed. If it's something I can't change, why have a bad attitude about it? We can choose to be happy in different or challenging situations.  Honestly I don't remember much about stake conference, the only thing I took from this conference was what President Smith said at the very end of his talk, "may we always be worthy". I felt those words. I didn't just hear them, but I really felt them.

September 19, 2016

Monday, Day 342

Day 329 in NY

Elder Gentry had his interview but I had not. So we went to Scarsdale to meet with President Smith at the Scarsdale chapel, in the stake president’s office. We talked and had an awesome interview. Not realizing it till we closed in prayer and I left the room that I was in there much longer than expected.  After our interviews we went home for dinner. It wasn't till about 6 that we finished our interviews and were on our way home. We got a text from Elder Nielsen and Elder Gonzalez, just asking when we would be back because they wanted to get pizza with us. We got off the train, walked up the block and met them at 2Bros where we grabbed a pizza and went to the church to eat. Interviews took up most of our day so we went home after dinner and prepared for tomorrow.

September 20, 2016

Tuesday, Day 343

Day 330 in NY

Woke up this morning not feeling to well. But I love helping people! So we went to do some service over at the food pantry this morning. When we got home we cleaned up, had lunch, 12 week, and then we met up with Josh to come out and teach a few lessons with us. We visited T, a less active who we read the scriptures with because he has a hard time reading alone and understanding. We read 1 Nephi 4 and discussed it. After meeting with T we met with D, he wasn't very decent at the moment lol so we quickly followed up with him at the door about his praying and his reading and we set a time to come back. We were expecting to meet with D much longer hen a few minutes, so we had open time, we quickly decided to start knocking doors and found this lady named M.  I knocked the door and introduced ourselves and told her we have a message about Jesus Christ we would love to share with her, she tried to tell us she was too busy, but that wasn't true and Josh noticed a picture behind her of a young lady, he looked at her and said "is that you? In that beautiful picture?" That surprised her and she said no it's my daughter, we talked a little bit about her family and she started to open the door a little wider and had a smile on her face.

We talked about this message we wanted to share with her. We played the Hallelujah video and let the Spirit settle in her heart. We asked about her religion and if she reads the scriptures, she said that she reads from the Bible every morning when she wakes up. We were impressed by her commitment and invited her to read the Book of Mormon. It was such an awesome experience! Members are missionaries and the work can NOT move forward without them!

Week 48

September 7, 2016

Wednesday, Day 330

Day 317 in NY

Pday!

We went to China town after doing laundry and shopping! While in China town we went to Ho Won Bake Shoppe and got pork buns! We took our buns and went down a few blocks to the China town meetinghouse.  After eating our buns we went to little Italy and checked it out. We kind of circled around and headed back to our side of the island and went to the church where we finished emails. I'm writing this a week later. So I can't remember everything we did but that's basically it.

September 8, 2016

Thursday, Day 331

Day 318 in NY

Not much more happened this Thursday than any other Thursday. Weekly planning and some planned appointments. When we were last on a split the Elders taught some new kid that the Sisters passed over to us. We went and visited him then M, then we called DL, and shared a message with him on the phone, and then we went to the D's family. We had dinner with them and shared a message and rushed home to on time!

September 9, 2016

Friday, Day 332

Day 319 in NY

Went about our daily routine. Studies, make daily contact with investigators, lunch, 12 week, then we left the apartment and went to see W. After a brief visit with W we walked down the hall 10 steps and met with T. We read the Book of Mormon with him and helped him understand 3 Nephi. When we left, we went over to see P.  His apartment was HOT!! I guess they were doing extermination so he had his couch sitting in this tent like thing. I don't know what was going on but it was just blazing hot. We talked about reading and then focused on the Sacrament and part of the word of wisdom. After P we went to see Sister R and then N. When we finished up with N on the east side of the island, around 5:30 traffic is a nightmare. So we walked from the east side to the west side and made it home for dinner almost 2 hours later. It was about a 3-mile speed walk. We had dinner and when we finished dinner we had just under an hour left before 9 so we called some people and tried to set some appointments up.

September 10, 2016

Saturday, Day 333

Day 320 in NY

After studies while we made some phone calls, we went through our area book to see if there was anyone we felt impressed to call. We came across the name T H and decided to call him. He answered and we took what we knew from his Bio and asked him about family history, he expressed his interest in doing family history, so we told him we would get in contact with him once we could get someone who's in charge of it to help him out with it. We think it should be a great opportunity!  After making that call I thought, how cool would it be if we could get some members who know how to work it all to have like a hands on class, where we could being investigators to it and they can be taught how to search for names and stuff like that. Our first appointment of the day was with T B. We read in 3 Nephi 21 and he had some questions that we could answer a little bit. He also had questions about the priesthood and we kind of jumped around quite a bit in this visit with questions. We stopped him and said we would like to start over. We asked him if during our next visit we could teach him from the beginning of the Restoration. He said he would really like that since the 1st missionaries never did that. After that visit, we stopped by and looked up a referral then went over to M. Then we made our way to Sister D's for dinner. She's just the greatest, a missionary that served here 20 years ago came to visit NY with his wife and they came to church to see her. After an awesome dinner with Sister D and short message, we left her place and went to go see D. We talked about church and focused on the Sacrament. We read 3 Nephi 18:7 and talked about remembering Christ. It was short and sweet with him, we looked up a couple people in the building before ending our night at B's. We also thought it would be great to share the scripture 3 Nephi 18:7 with him and talk about the Sacrament so we did that. I also had found a pamphlet of our church. (One of my first visits with B he asked us about our church and where it was and if we had any black members. He was surprised when we told him our church was here in Harlem and that we have many black members. He couldn't believe it.) So when I found this pamphlet of our church in Harlem, I thought of him and had to bring it to him. It's "The church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Harlem" the pamphlet has black members through out it. It made him laugh that we had something like that. I gave him the pamphlet to keep and it made him happy and he said he'll have to come check out our church. So hopefully one of these days he will come around.

September 11, 2016

Sunday, Day 334

Day 321 in NY

A week or so ago when we had our zone study with president, we had interviews scheduled that day as well. Things didn't work out the way we all had planned and the study went over time and the interviews all got pushed back. So by the time he got to us it was later than he planned for so he said we could reschedule. We waited to hear back from him about when we would have our interviews and last night he said Sunday evening would work.  We left church around 3pm got home about 35 minutes later. We had lunch for about an hour then planned to take the metro north train to Scarsdale, lucky enough for us, our zone leaders were going on a split with the APs so Elder N was getting picked up by Elder McB so we asked for a ride up to Scarsdale. We hopped in the back seat and about 40 minutes later we were at the mission home. Our interviews weren't for another 45 minutes so we waited in the chapel of the church just behind the mission home. President Smith was on his way home from another meeting.  When he finished up he met us at the chapel a little later than hoped for and Elder G went in first and came out also a little later than hoped for. And with a schedule like President Smiths there's not much time to push around, after the time he planned for our interviews he had a Skype lesson with a kid from Texas and Elders N & McB. So with all the time getting pushed around he didn't have time for my interview. Which was fine, so we walked back up the driveway to Presidents home and Sister Smith drove us to the train station where we bought our tickets home. We rode the train for about 45 minutes and then caught a couple buses till we made it home another 30 minutes later. We made it home around 8:45 and stood out side our building trying to sync our area books. While Elder G and I were doing that, Elder M and Elder G did some contacting, they handed out 2 1/2 copies of the Book of Mormon, I say 2 1/2 because one of the copies they tried giving to someone I stepped in place of Elder M and finished off the contact with this man

that he started. The story is…They approached this guy and tried to teach him about the Book of Mormon, shortly after, a lady walked by and disrupted the conversation, now this man they were talking to is turned around and talking to this woman. Elder M, signaling me to come take his spot while I was syncing, I walk over to him and a Elder G and he says to me, while handing me the Book of Mormon, "he's intoxicated he won't even know we switched". I grab the Book of Mormon and whispered to Elder G "where'd you leave off?" He said we just barely began teaching him about the Book of Mormon. This intoxicated man then turns around and continues on with the conversation they left off with. I immediately go into teaching the Book of Mormon and was shortly after successful in placing it with him. We invited him to read it and to tell us what he thinks about it. We finished our brief lesson with him and he never knew we switched spots. It was the funniest thing! We turned around and walked into our building and went home.

September 12, 2016

Monday, Day 335

Day 322 in NY

We had a great District Meeting, the missionaries kept a great discussion going about our goals and what we want to accomplish together.  After district meeting we were supposed to have a pass off lesson with Sisters R & R with their investigator and our member J, but their investigator canceled and J showed up so we took him out to go tracting. J is super legit! I wanna say that he said he's been home for 2 years now, he's married as of 2 months ago, and served a mission in Texas, Spanish speaking (which he didn't tell us). We planned going to a specific building to look someone up, but no one was there so we started tracting the floor. When we got to a door where someone spoke Spanish we usually introduced ourselves in Spanish and if they were interested we would do our best to inform them that we have Spanish missionaries that could come visit them, if not we would just leave. Well instead of us introducing ourselves J starts speaking Spanish out of the blue and has a great conversation with a lady. We gave her a card with our information on it and it was super awesome! (It was then we found out he served a Spanish speaking mission). Surprised we complimented him and he said that was the first time he had spoke in Spanish since he had been home! How crazy!  So we continued on, by the end of our hour tracting we had tracted 2 floors and taught 3 lessons with J. He said he had a blast; we were the first missionaries since he had been home from his mission that he could go out and work with. Where he's from in Utah missionaries aren't seen much in the Ward so he never had contact with any. We walked and talked with him for sometime as we made our way to M’s. When we got to our bus stop we split ways. We spent close to an hour with M talking about the priesthood. Then it took us an hour to get home, when we got home we had time just for dinner and 12 week. Then we had nightly planning and got ourselves ready for tomorrow.

September 13, 2016

Tuesday, Day 336

Day 323 in NY

This morning we went to the food pantry and helped out for a few hours till about 1:30. When we got home we got cleaned up, ate lunch, did companionship study, then traveled to the east side to meet the Sisters for a pass off lesson. We got there knocked on the door with the address given and it was a Hispanic lady and she said that there was no B living here. So it turns out he gave the Sisters the wrong address. So we went to the church and did some online proselyting and called some people before going over to R and D's for dinner. It was an awesome dinner experience! Ha ha, for the first time ever, they tried grilling burgers and hotdogs. We went upstairs to the top of their building, grilled and had dinner up there. It was just so funny! D was making hilarious comments about never doing this again while smoke was just attacking his face. They made enough for us all to eat like pigs, since R didn't want any burgers I ended up eating 3 burgers and 2 hot dogs. #TheBlessingOfAMissionaryStomach  When we finished we then focused all our attention on the lesson we had planned. We taught D the Restoration, I started off and we taught so great together. Elder G is really starting to get the hang of it. He did an awesome job as we followed the spirit teaching each point in the restoration. With full stomachs and soul fed spiritually we carried our heavy bodies to the bus stop where we saw no bus in sight. It being to close to curfew and knowing even if a bus did come we would be too late. I flagged down a taxi and we headed home. Making it home to our bundling at 9:30, but then making it in just after 9:33.

Sorry it's taken me so long to get these journal emails finished... A lot has been on my plate and I haven't made time to get them done like I should. Thanks for your patience, love y'all!