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!