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.
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.
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
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| The Fajitas that Elder Newbold made! |
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
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