Week 82

October 18-25 2017
Day 575-581
Week 7 in Kingsbridge

Looking back our week seemed pretty eventful, let’s see how well I can remember everything!

Last Tuesday night we played basketball, with bishop’s son Antonio, who isn’t a member. Then pday we went to the park across from Yankee stadium and played soccer with all the Elders in the Zone. It was pretty fun; we invited a couple guys who were at the field to play. It felt like maybe 10 minutes into the game an Elder and one of the random guys butted heads and bust the guys lip. After a quick recovery and some spitting of blood we were back on the field playing. It was so weird how it ended tho... in the middle of the game (or so I thought it was the middle of the game) the ball was kicked out of bounds closest to where I was, as I went for the ball and returned everyone was off the field and were packing up their bags to leave... no one said anything, it was like they were robots and at the same time everyone decided they were done. Elder Patterson and I went to the church and played ball with Antonio and the sisters. We played for about 45 minutes and we were exhausted from all the sports we’ve played recently, so we stopped and went home to do laundry and some shopping.





Thursday morning my companion and Elder Matson (one of my roommates) had their “What’s next Meeting” (the meeting that all missionaries going home this cycle attend and ask questions about how they can prepare to adjust to going home). So they went on a split and went to Scarsdale for that, while Elder Clark and I were together and we went out and did some look ups in both our areas. Before we left the house I called a guy we had an appointment with and he answered and said that we could still come over at 12pm so after studies and planning we went straight over to his place. (He was a referral from headquarters, he had gone online and ordered a copy of the Bible). When we got to his apartment we tried buzzing in and no one answered so we thought maybe it doesn’t work. Then the super was just walking by and came to let us in. We went to the referral’s door and knocked, after a second time of knocking someone answered. It wasn’t him tho... it was the brother of our referral and he said that he just left. We told him we had an appointment with his brother at 12, by this time in the conversation it was 12:02pm, he told us when we could come back, we gave him our card and left. Then we did a few more Bible Referral look ups and then went into Elder Clark's area and did the same. We didn’t find anyone we were looking for but we were able to meet some people along the way. Around the time we decided to take lunch our companions text us to let us know the meeting was over. They got home a little after we did, while having lunch. We had a great split and a great day overall.

Friday I had a leadership meeting at the temple. It went longer than we planned but it was a great meeting. Our Zone leaders, Elders Bailey and Murset were asked to teach the Plan of Salvation, as they did I reflected on my life and tried to remember when I first had any connection to understanding the plan of salvation, that I could remember. I was taken back to the time I was about 12 and I was told that a close friend at the time had passed away... I remember being devastated... I went straight to my room and laid on my bed, soon after my mom came to my bed and sat with me and I can’t remember exactly what she said, but I remember being told that he wasn’t gone forever, that he had moved on from his life and was now in a much better place. I don’t know if at that time I had much of an understanding of what that meant, but it was comforting... I found hope in what words my mom shared with me and the feelings I had following her effort to comfort me. As I’ve grown and my understanding increased of the plan of salvation, that memory of mine has been reflected on often and I find much comfort knowing that he along with many others in my family who have passed are not gone, but simply, have “graduated” from this life and have returned to their maker. After the meeting we went to Chick Fil A for lunch and then headed home.

On Saturday we went to the church for missionary correlation, we talked about the people we are working with and 10 missionaries later we concluded with discussing the plans for the baptism tomorrow; the Sisters asked if I could baptize R. After our meeting we went home for lunch and then needed to be back at the church so I could give a young boy, R, an interview for baptism. R is a 9-year-old boy who is the son of a member in our congregation. A year ago he was baptized but recently realized his baptism was never recorded so we didn’t even have his name in the church. The bishop then had the Sisters begin to teach him and prepare him to be baptized again. During his interview I was so impressed with how much R understood, with each question I asked he gave an in-depth response to which it was clear he understood the questions I asked. He is so smart and so ready to be baptized.

Sunday was great! We have 10 missionaries in our ward and 2 of them gave a talk during sacrament, they did great! Elder Matson spoke on diligence and Sister Bandeaux spoke on Christ like attributes. After sacrament we went straight to the baptismal font to begin filling it for the baptism after church. During 3rd hour most of our time was spent in a missionary meeting with our ward mission leader and someone from the stake. They talked about some things they wanted to make sure we were aware of and apply as a unit in this ward. After 3rd hour, I went to the bathroom and changed. Everyone seemed to be a little rushed and so I don’t know how, but we forgot to take a picture with R before the baptism. But it was a great baptism! (The bathroom stall was taken by someone in the beginning so I found a closet to change in, so I walked into the beginning of the baptism a little late, then baptized R, after getting out of the font it took me a while again to change because I had to go to another closet while R changed in the bathroom. So I missed the Sisters teaching the restoration. But it went well from what I hear.) After the baptism it was about 5:30 so we went home for dinner, I made chicken fajitas and made some phone calls.

The Fajitas that Elder Newbold made!

Monday morning I was thrown through a loop. My mind had a lot of things going on. I received a text that morning from the Zone Leaders of things they wanted us to study, for both leadership meeting and for our split today. So I had more I needed to study then I had District Meeting to lead and Elder Richards last minute had an assignment that needed to be taken care of and asked if it could be done during district meeting and I agreed but wasn’t sure how much time we’d have... there was a lot going on and I just wasn’t sure if it would work out. But it did! After district meeting Elder Patterson and I went to a bodega for sandwiches and then to the church to eat. Later the ZLs met up with us and we started our split. I went with Elder Murset into his area. We did some daily contact with his investigators and then we made some phone calls. We had a set appointment with a guy and when we got to his apartment no one answered... we tried calling and couldn’t get ahold of him. We ended up leaving and went around to do some look-ups. We didn’t really have any success in finding anyone that we were looking for, but we both were talking to people on the bus and subway and had some great conversations. Around 5pm we stopped into a place called Checkers and had a quick dinner. Then we went to a member’s house to find out some information about some people and ask a couple questions that Elder Murset had. While there, she fed us! We weren’t expecting food but it’s the Spanish program so of course we are going to get food! She was a sweet lady, her father was home and he’s a funny guy. We had a pretty good split, I felt like although we didn’t have success in finding people today we were successful in keeping our commitment to serve and to try to find.

In my studies Tuesday morning I was studying preach my gospel and decided to read the section “a successful missionary” and I walked away from studies feeling satisfied about the work I’m doing. Although the last few months it’s been hard to find and teach people consistently, my effort to show the Lord my commitment to work no matter the outcome has been enough. In that section I read I was reminded that a successful missionary is measured NOT by the outcome of the effort put forth in the work, but the commitment that a missionary shows in his/her effort to work. It was a great split! When we un-split around 3:30pm Elder Patterson and I were back out the door and continued to work. We had a handful of look-ups to do and then we came home for dinner and went back out find more people! We had some little miracles happen tonight! As we showed the Lord we were willing to work, he blessed us to meet 2 different people at different times. The first guy, E, was a Bible Referral. We made contact with him and talked about why he wanted a Bible, he shared his feelings and experience that led him to request a copy and we gave him a copy. He was pretty happy about it and would like us to come back in a couple weeks. The next guy we met was G, he was found a year ago by some missionaries and he came to church once and enjoyed it, but we aren’t sure what happened for the missionaries to stop meeting with him. We talked about the Book of Mormon and he said the last time he read it was when the missionaries before were here. He then began to tell us what he remembered reading and almost perfectly he recited some scriptures from the first few chapters of Nephi. It was awesome; he said we could come back Friday and discuss more. He expressed to us he recently has been needing some prayers. He said he’s been having strange dreams and wanted some spiritual guidance. We testified of Christ and the peace and guidance we can receive from reading the scriptures and invited him to read and pray daily.

Overall it was a great week and we expect more miracles and we continue to put forth more work!

Patience. Love. Faith

Much love, 

Elder Newbold

Week 81

This week was pretty good! We had the opportunity to give a couple people a blessing. Early this week we had left an appointment with a member and got a call from the Sisters asking if we could come to the church to give a lady named Gift a blessing. We told them we were about 30 mins away but could make it there for the blessing if they couldn’t find anyone closer. After they called a few people and couldn’t find anyone closer so we went to the church and talked to Gift about what was going on; after we gave her a blessing of healing.

It’s the last week of the cycle and we were expecting no changes for us since Elder Patterson only has 1 cycle left. Saturday night we expected transfer calls. As District Leader I get a call from the Zone Leaders informing us of the changes happening in my district. So around 10:15pm we got a call from the APs it was a short call and they told us that we need to move out... not a call we were expecting and not one we were happy about... during call we got a call from the ZLs, when we called them back they told us about the changes happening. Then I called everyone in the district and told them who was leaving and who was staying.

Sunday we went to church and during Sacrament meeting we watched the primary program. Then the Spanish Elders came in and told us someone came to church and so we went out to the hall and talked to this guy. After talking with him for a bit, (not knowing who he was) we found out that he lives in a shelter and was looking for some money to go to an interview tomorrow. We talked to our bishop and I guess the guy didn’t want to wait so when we came back he was gone. We stayed in the back and then noticed that bishop’s wife was gone... we went and found her in the foyer and she was on the phone with her doctor, she was in pain. She has some knee problems and we asked if we could do anything to help. She asked for a blessing, bishop was near by and we grabbed him and he opened up his office and we gave her a blessing.

I enjoyed 3rd hour, we were being taught out of the Teachings of the Presidents, Gordon B. Hinckley chapter 18 and it was about Virtue and what I got from it was simply, we need to overcome the common distractions of the world that society accepts and rise above and strive to be who we are expected to be by our Heavenly Father.

After church we went home and started cleaning up to prepare the apartment for the Sisters that are moving in on Tuesday. Late Sunday night we got a text from the APs it said, Elders please be moved out by tomorrow so the Sisters can just move in Tuesday. We weren’t to happy about these last minute changes... having spent money on groceries and putting money on our laundry card and now having to leave a lot behind.



After District Meeting on Monday we went home and started packing, Elder Richards said he could come by in the afternoon and pick up our stuff and drive it over to our next apartment so we didn’t have to haul it over there by train. Which was so nice! We left the church around 1, after district meeting and went to check out our next apartment, around 1:30 we made it back to our current apartment and began packing. Elder Richards would be over around 4:30 so we quickly packed up and cleaned as much as we could and loaded his car up… we had just enough room to fit with our stuff in the car and he drove us over. Elder Clark and Elder Matson came out side and met us at the car to help load the elevator. We made it all in one trip and began settling in.

Tuesday was a bit odd; waking up in this other apartment was weird, just because of how quick the move was, and it just felt weird. We went out and attempted to contact some referrals and we had a really cool contact with this guy named G. He is Puerto Rican and he was really cool… He opened up a lot to us and shared his life situation and how he is searching for God. He has a strong belief in God, at least in a supreme being. We brought him both a Bible and a Book of Mormon and we testified to him of the knowledge we have that there is a God, that He is our loving Heavenly Father, and that He desires us to be like Him. He asked Elder Patterson how he came to know that and it was a really neat experience, the Spirit was there and it touched G. He had lots of questions and he asked us to come back and begin teaching him more. We shared some scriptures and invited him to read before we come back. We are excited to have someone who has expressed real interest to teach!

Around 7pm we went to the church and played basketball. I’m slowly becoming professional...

Today was pretty great! This morning we went to the park across from Yankee Stadium and played soccer with all the Elders in the Zone. It was pretty fun; we invited a few random people to play with us. It was sweet, one of the randoms was really good and we had a few really good Elders who played soccer before the mission. One of the randoms and one of the Elders hit faces, busting the random kids lip... but they were all good and we kept playing.





Before they all left I had done a couple back flips and the kid we played soccer with came over and asked for some tips, he said he’s not afraid to backflip, he just can’t get his legs around fast enough and he lands on his knees. So I helped him out and he said he would practice. For lunch we went to subway and then went to the church to play basketball with the bishop’s son Antonio, who isn’t a member.

It’s been a good week, with some ups and downs but overall finding G made this week worth it!

Patience. Love. Faith
Much love,

Elder Newbold

Week 80

Last week I don’t know how I forgot to mention, but October 3rd was like one of my favorite days of all time! Why!? Because of my motto “I love helping people” was shown for 12 hours straight. So like 2 weeks ago I got a phone call during my studies one morning from a brother who works in the public affairs office for the church, here in NY. He said that after discussing this particular project with President Smith he said to reach out to me and organize a group of 10 missionaries who could commit to 2 days full of service for a charity group (Catholic Charities). Immediately after receiving this information I recruited 10 missionaries to this project. This project took place this last week, October 3rd and 5th. The 3rd was Prep Day. On both days we would be building a 2,500 sq ft playground at a school called Lawrence F. Hickey Center (it’s a school for kids from the ages of 3-5. Essentially it’s a school where these kids, who are growing up in The Bronx and don’t have safe places to have fun or enjoy a safe clean playground will have safety and fun in this environment). Catholic Charities for this event was sponsored by KaBoom (another group) and The Walt Disney Company. We showed up on the 3rd at 8:30am, they were expecting more people but it was literally all missionaries and maybe just under 10 other volunteers. We showed up with our group of 10 and when we got there another missionary zone were there. For prepping the area to build a playground we unloaded 2 large moving trucks of playground equipment and organized them according to the most efficient way to assemble it. When that was finished there were a handful of other projects that needed prep work. Lots of wood needed to be stenciled and cut for benches, planter boxes, cutout people, and decorations for the schoolyard. We all broke up into groups and went to work. Elder Patterson and I worked with a group of guys and prepped the area for the playground. They had a tractor to dig holes for the playground so we just kept the area in shape as they went. We raked around the dirt while the tires tore up some areas, we dug out some collapsed holes, and filled in some deeper holes...etc. We were there till about 5:30pm or so. We finished all the prep work and would be back on the 5th to build.

Thursday, the 5th, we had to be at the school at 7am. We had volunteered as project leaders so we had a quick leaders meeting before everyone showed up. I volunteered to be the leader of the planter box building team. I had a folder with all the instructions I needed, so I quickly looked over it and prepared to receive my group of helpers. After the opening ceremony we were assigned a group of people to each project. All the members of my team were people who worked with Disney and ABC news members who worked in sales. They all worked so great together, we went over the instructions and they just jumped right into it, we built 7 planter boxes and placed them in their designated areas and then filled them with dirt and top soil. It was pretty fun. Because of the limited tools we had and the size group we all took turns assisting with each box, so it took close to 4 hours. We then had lunch and spread out to help other groups. I hopped around to different projects; I helped most of the remaining time mixing/pouring concrete. By the end of the day, the group of concrete mixers had mixed over 25,000 lbs of concrete! It was such a fun service project! Channel 7 News was there and Catholic Charities hired a videographer and a photographer for both days to capture the project in the making. It was sweet!! The photographer was awesome, we got a chance to talk with him for a bit, the Elders who serve in the same area he lives in got his info and he showed a lot of interest in learning about the gospel, he seemed really prepared. I got his business card and we look forward to seeing his pictures. 

Click here to see the News clip and read the article about this project.


On Friday we did weekly planning and went out for a bit to do some look-ups. We have a pretty filled/messy area book...(meaning there are a lot of people in our records, but we don’t know most of them) so we are in the process of trying to get in contact with all these old investigators to see if anyone is still interested. We’ve found a couple of guys who have shown interest and we’ve set a couple appointments with them but things have popped up for us and them and we haven’t been able to see them yet.

Saturday we met with this guy named Z he is from Africa and he’s pretty cool. This was the second time that we met with him and this time we brought him a French copy of the Book of Mormon. He speaks English but French is his native language and so he doesn’t quite understand the old English in the Book of Mormon, we’ve invited him to read from the French version that way he will understand it better. We had a good lesson with him reviewing the Restoration (since the last time we met was 2 weeks ago) we asked him what he remembered and he actually remembered quite a bit. So we moved forward a little and just focused on the Book of Mormon, we invited him to read it and to pray to know if it’s true.

Throughout the day I sent emails to people in area book regarding their request for Bibles/copies of the Book of Mormon, as well as made some phone calls. Later in the evening we went to visit a blind member, Brother R. We hadn’t seen him in maybe a week and a half, but we had a plan to share a talk from General Conference since he doesn’t get to leave the house and come to church. Well as usual our plans don’t always work out the way that we had planned and I think this time may have to do with the fact that we hadn’t visited him in what might have been 2 weeks... so I guess he had more to talk to us about, lol. He’s an older man, 93. He lives in an apartment, but doesn’t have anyone really to talk to very often so I guess we didn’t come back soon enough to cut his story telling in half for this visit but we sat and we listened, we are sure he needed us there for that reason, but before we left we shared a scripture and then made our way home for the night. He’s a great man with great faith.

Sunday was pretty good; we had an investigator named E show up. We’ve been to his home twice and have shared a couple lessons with him, but we aren’t meeting him regularly because of his CRAZY work schedule. We didn’t even know he would be coming today, he just showed up. So we hope to get in contact with him and be able to see if he’s interested. During sacrament meeting a man stood up to bare his testimony, he explained that he’s just visiting but that he served here in this area over 20 years ago and to see the change has been a great blessing to him. He said that when he was serving here it was only a branch and there wasn’t even a chapel here. It was really cool to hear a little bit about his experience and his testimony. It made me feel good to know that even though there’s a chapel here and it’s now a ward there’s still work to be done and that my efforts here are making a difference.

For district meeting on Monday I asked Sister Bandeaux to give a training on how we can have meaningful studies. She did a great job, we discussed as a district some of the things that we’ve done in the past and the things we are currently doing in our studies to feel like we are having meaningful studies. We talked about the importance of having faith in what you plan to study; in some way what you study each morning (whether you think or not) is applicable to someone you come in contact with.

Tuesday was pretty great too we woke up and during planning just decided we would do a last minute APF. So we called up the other missionaries in our district and invited them to join us. We went to the church and decided we would stand outside and talk to people passing the church and offer to give people chapel tours. The Sisters joined us and went up to the bus stop near the church and talked to people, we talked to a good amount of people and gave a couple Books of Mormon out. The Sisters had some success in bringing people to the chapel for a tour, it was pretty cool. But the weather was pretty hot, we were out I think about an hour and a half and couldn’t take the heat much longer, we both felt dehydrated and decided to clean up. We felt good about it and had a good time talking to people, but we were both ready for lunch and in need of hydration and a quick nap.

Another great week has come and gone... I don’t know where time is going... but we are enjoying the time we have left in the mission and trying to do our best to prep this area for future missionaries, we have so many people on record and we get referrals like crazy here so it just keeps adding up. I’m thankful for the reminder that I was blessed to recognize this Sunday that no effort is wasted, we are all contributing to the work of the Lord and I know that this is truly His work and that His hand is always in it. He’s guiding us to the right people and the right people to us. I know that the church of Jesus Christ has been restored and that we are blessed to have continued revelation through modern prophets. I’m grateful for this knowledge and I know all who seek to obtain this knowledge can, through faith in Jesus Christ.

Patience. Love. Faith
Much love,

Elder Newbold

Week 79

It’s been a good week! Last pday was mediocre; it was raining again so we stayed inside. Thursday was good, we did some weekly planning, called a hand full of people to try and get in contact with to invite them to church and set appointments for the week. It was a bit of a struggle getting in contact with people. We’ve realized before we can go out and do a lot of finding in this area, we need to do some work with our area book as it is. It’s full of people that we don’t teach and neither of us has met. So our goal is to do a lot of contact attempts to get in touch with these people we have in our records and find those who are really interested. We don’t want to continue adding to the mess of people we have. Sometime in the afternoon we went to the church and met with the other elders, Elder Clark and Elder Matson for a split. I went to their area with Elder Matson and Elder Patterson stayed in our area with Elder Clark. We didn’t seem to have to much success with the appointments we had set, they fell through and we attempted to get in contact with some investigators in his area through Facebook and phone and a couple responded but we weren’t able to meet with them that night. Later in the night Elder Matson had challenged me, for I can’t remember what reason, to do 300 push-ups for 30 days. (I know I know, your thinking what the heck is this kid up to? This isn’t gospel related... I know, but it’s what happened okay, bear with me... the miracles will come and the experiences worth sharing are coming) It was about 9pm at the time so I had an hour and a half to knock out 300 push-ups... I thought pshh, that’s too easy... but I proved to myself how out of shape I am... but I did it, I succeeded and before 10:30 I did 300.

Around noon on Friday we unsplit. When we met back up with the Elders we went to Panda for lunch. The other Elders had a great day in their area, they were able to meet with a member we hadn’t been able to visit very much, but they went over and were able to do some service for him. It was great! Slowly but surely making positive progress with him.

We had planned to go back and help Brother Cano with his home. We were on our way and realized we were going the opposite direction. So by the time we had realized it we were too far out of the way, we gave him a call and apologized... he said he was about done for the day anyway and we could come by another time.

This week was a bit slow... unfortunately we aren’t teaching IK anymore... he just isn’t making progress and showing real intent. Other personal reasons have showed that it won’t be good to make time each week to meet with him. He’s a nice kid, just a little confused.

Crazy Story for the week...

GHOSTS live with us. So since I got to this apartment, roughly 3 weeks ago, weird things have happened and noises have been heard. We’ve been making the joke that we have a ghost in our apartment because stuff falls of the counters when they are completely stable where they are, we have a pan that was securely set in our dish rack and all of a sudden at the end of the day we were on the couch talking and we heard this loud (pan hitting the tile) sound. So we got up to see what happened and the pan is on the floor and has a pretty nice bend now. Earlier in my first week here, I can’t remember what happened but other stuff on the counters had made their way to the ground also.

HERE is my crazy story:

So I’m lying in bed, it’s some time after 10:30pm. We have been in bed for a little while now. Elder Patterson is really quick to fall asleep every night while I on the other hand take at least half an hour if I’m lucky to fall asleep each night. So I hear Elder Patterson’s heavy breathing and know he’s sleeping... JUST as I’m on the very peak of falling asleep a very distinct movement was felt from under my bed. Honestly it felt like some one kicked me and it completely woke me up so I (blind as a bat) grab my glasses and look under my bed to catch the little elf that kicked me... but no elf was there. Convinced that he was now hiding, I checked under Elder Patterson’s bed, no elf, and Patterson is sleeping. So I tell myself it must have been a stuck spring in my mattress that decided to spring at that moment. Well again I’m back to the peak of falling asleep and a sock gets thrown at me! For the 2nd time I’m wide awake. This time it’s after 11pm, Patterson is sleeping like a baby and I flip out wondering WHO threw a sock at me hard enough to wake me up. Well it wasn’t Patterson because he woke up the second I shook him, after jumping out of bed, flipping the lights on, and going over to his bedside. He quickly woke and with squinted eyes from the lights being on he, confused as can be, slowly reaches for the sock in my hand and unfolds it from the ball it was rolled into (before it was thrown at me) and says “is that my sock? Bro what are you doing??...” His head falls back to his pillow and back to sleep he went... again, I checked under both our beds, you know... just to make sure the boogieman wasn’t around. Completely disturbed and awake I flip the lights out shut the door to our room and lay back in bed. Finally I’m back to a point where sleep has found me, when all of a sudden my arm gets pulled toward the crack between my bed and the wall, instantly I’m awake again, for the 3rd time... I’m loosing my mind at this point. Something is in my room and wants to play games. Patterson is still sleeping... it’s about 12am and I’m upset I’m not going to get any sleep tonight. Well I again laid my head down and went to sleep... not sure what the time was but for a fourth time I’m awoken by a loud noise it sounded like a hydro flask was thrown at the floor. Well, Patterson has a metal bottle on his windowsill but when I looked it stayed standing on the windowsill with nothing on the ground in our room… tired, confused, upset, I rolled over and on to my knees and voiced to my Heavenly Father my frustration… I’m just trying to sleep and something isn’t letting me. Whatever it is, may it leave, and bless this apartment that it may be a place where we can take safety from the world, a home for the Spirit, and a place of love and peace this I pray for, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. And back to sleep I went and didn’t wake up till 6:30am.

When we both woke up I told Patterson what had happened and if he even remembers me waking him up. He had no idea anything was happening and didn’t remember me waking him up or taking his sock from my hand.

Next week will be a great week!

Patience. Love. Faith
Much love,

Elder Newbold

Week 78

What a week! So much good happened!
Monday the 25th:

We had a great district meeting, Elder Patterson gave a great training covering and reviewing all the points we’ve covered the last few weeks about Inviting people, they make commitments, and we follow up. After our meeting we split with the Zone leaders, I left with Elder Baker to his area, leaving Elder Patterson and Elder Murset to our area. Unfortunately Elder Baker is sick… he’s got a cold so let’s hope I don’t get sick.

We went home for lunch and to have our studies. We talked about the plans we had for today and went out to work. The Zone Leaders are Spanish speaking and I’m not very familiar with their people or area so although we had a few set appointments they fell through and I didn’t even realize it because we had such great back-up plans that we met some people who we talked to and ended up teaching that it made today feel like it went as planned.

Tuesday morning I woke up with my back hurting a bit and I was tired... I started sitting on the bed for studies, then ended up laying down for the rest of studies to stretch my back...

We had a couple look-ups we did this morning before we planned to unsplit. When we finished we hadn’t heard back from the other Elders about when and where we should meet. So we went home, had lunch, and then went to the church to meet the Elders. After contacting some people and having dinner we went to the church to play basketball. When we got there I started feeling a little out of it. I sat out for the first couple games to even the teams and relax. Then I played the last couple games. It’s pretty fun; one of the guys we play with is the son of the wife of our bishop. He’s not a member but he’s really nice and loves basketball so we always have a great time.

Pday was great! We went to the church and played sports all day! We started off playing basketball as a zone. It was all Elders. We played a couple games of basketball, switched up the teams. Then we played a long game of GatorBall and then played a game of 21. When we realized it was 2pm we left for lunch and went home, then we cleaned up and did laundry. At 6pm we left and were on our way to do a look up... we were at the train station and waited for over 15 minutes... I don’t know what it was, but we both felt pain, my head was hurting and his stomach was upset. So we went back home and when we got there one of the guys from maintenance came and knocked on the door, we let him in and he started doing some work on our ceiling in one of the back rooms where there was water damage from the floor above us leaking. So we were then stuck inside till he was done which was till about 9pm. We didn’t know he was coming to do work today so we are glad it all worked out.

We had a sweet experience meeting a guy today down in the basement of our building. We had gone down to get our laundry and when we exited the elevator he was standing there, he said hey you both have mail. Confused, we followed him and didn’t find anything in the pile of boxes where he said he saw 2 boxes for us. (Which doesn’t make sense because we don’t get mail delivered to our apartment address and we don’t give our address out to people, so it must have been a mistake.) But while we were with him, we were talking and we found out he’s a member of our church and that he hasn’t been to church in over 12 years. We talked about General Conference coming up this weekend and invited him to come. He said he works all day Saturday and is going out of state Sunday; but that next Sunday he doesn’t work and that he would like to go with us. What a tender mercy! To be placed in the path of someone from our church family who has been lost for some time.

Thursday was all right we did weekly planning and about sometime in the afternoon my head was hurting again and my headache lasted for some time... I had a runny nose. And all that fun stuff…

Friday I woke up fine, but then all of a sudden it seemed during studies my nose was running again and my head was hurting and as time went on I knew I was getting sick… we stayed in for a bit so I could rest because later this evening we have planned to go out and make an hour effort to find and invite people to come to General Conference. So at 6pm we left and I was feeling worse… I don’t know what it is about General Conference, but the last one I was sick for also! I don’t get it! We went out and again we were blessed to meet a few people who were placed in our path. We met a woman named Anna who is from the D.R. and she is a member, she hasn’t been active in nearly 10 years... she said she even served a mission. We asked what happened? What changed in your life? She said that she got married to a catholic man and since she just hasn’t gone to church. We invited her to General Conference and got her number. We talked to a lot of people today and invited them all to General Conference so we will see how it goes!

Saturday I was feeling crappy, I woke up around 9 and just felt like straight trash... we got ready and went to the church for General Conference at 12-2pm which was awesome, we then had a break for lunch and then watched conference from 4-6pm... By then Elder Patterson was starting to feel a little trashy. We ended up going home to watch the priesthood session, which I absolutely loved. President Erying’s talk hit me hard... I realized I need to have a better outlook on the callings I receive. I believe I trust and respect all the leaders that have had stewardship over me, I feel like I’ve been blessed to have great leaders in my life and have always been so easy to love and trust them. But for myself I always wonder why I receive responsibility and callings when it’s not something I necessarily want... but I always accept it anyway because I believe those are callings that Heavenly Father has inspired others to call me to that position. But while he spoke it just hit me that I need to have more trust in Heavenly Father. If I truly believe that they are inspired callings from him and I trust those that receive that inspiration, then I should respect the callings I receive and do more to be proactive with them to show my appreciation.

Sunday we both woke up feeling at our worst... so we were both home all day watching Conference.

Monday morning I felt just the slightest bit better but Elder Patterson wasn’t feeling too good, but I had meetings to attend. We went to the church for leadership meeting and talked about our districts in the Zone and how they are doing.

District Meeting was solid! I was not feeling too good, but earlier in the week I reached out to Elder and Sister Richards to see if they would be willing to give a training. Elder Richards accepted the opportunity and had prepared a wonderful talk given by Elder Brown was back when, it was on the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and an experience he had with a man during his law career. It was so awesome and was perfect for the theme for today, because right after district meeting we all had interviews with President Smith.

Just before we finished watching/listening to the talk that Elder Richards was playing, President Smith walked in and joined us for the last 15 minutes of our district meeting. After the talk was over it was open to discussion, I said a few things and let everybody share their thoughts on what they just heard or learned from the Spirit. It was really cool to hear what everyone had to say and the Spirit was strong. Just before closing I asked of President Smith if he had anything to add or contribute before I closed this meeting, he stood and spoke for a few minutes and just focused on the Restoration, since that was what we would be talking about today. (We were asked, in preparation for interviews with President, to Study the Restoration and to teach him the last three points of the lesson and invite him to be baptized) so he spoke of some things he has seen in previous interviews with missionaries and gave us some tips to teach. It was pretty awesome. We closed our meeting and we went out to eat at Panda before interviews. Interviews went well, things changed a little bit as I’m sure the Spirit guided, but instead of me role-playing teaching the restoration to President, he said this is your interview. I felt to share with him some spiritual experiences that he and I had together a year ago. The month of September-October a year ago and even 2 years ago were very special to me so I felt to share those with him to rekindle the Spirit we both felt and to remind him of experiences that he may have forgotten.

It’s been a great week! Though we have been inflicted with sickness we made the most of what we could and are grateful for the experiences we were blessed with this week.

Patience. Love. Faith
Much love,

Elder Newbold