Week 94

This week was pretty great! We’ve had some great experiences and have been working on helping the ward and future missionaries by recreating a list of all the members with simple and helpful information. For example, we have over 800 members in our area. Not all of them are still living or currently living here, contact info has been changed... etc. so we’ve been reaching out to members and trying to find them all to make it clear where people are and how we can continue to help them each make it to church or have their records moved to their local church.

Wednesday, January 10, 2018
We visited Brother C just to share a brief message and get to know him a little more. We shared a video of the Last Supper and talked about the sacrament and focused on why it’s important to each of us. It was great to hear his response in making it clear that it’s personal and is similar but different for everyone. We had a great visit with him. He’s been returning to activity recently so it’s been great to have him around at church more.

After meeting with Brother C we decided to go to another place in our area close by to look up some members and make contact with them. We felt to look up this guy named M, he lived in one of the apartments underground behind the building so it took a little bit to find it. We then gave him a call, while I was on the phone with him and trying to communicate with M (who speaks mostly Spanish) my companion met this young lady opening the gate to where we needed access to get to find M’s door. While he was talking to her he was able to find that she was interested in coming to church and they exchanged information. Meanwhile I was still trying to let M know we were coming by to visit. On the phone he said he wasn’t home, but we tried to knock his door anyway. He opened the door and he was home! He invited us in and we did our best together to speak with him. We sat on his couch and Elder Stokes offered a simple sweet prayer in the little Spanish he knew. We then shared a video in Spanish and testified of it. We invited him to allow the Spanish missionaries to stop by, he agreed and set a time for them to come tomorrow.

Thursday, January 11, 2018
We’ve been meeting with a young converts younger brother. A, he’s 14 and has shared with us his interest in being baptized. He’s young and doesn’t understand much of the commitment of baptism but we’ve been working with him to learn. We had a great little discussion on the Book of Mormon and it’s importance. We left him with a little assignment to read the introduction. We then scheduled another time to come back and talk about it. He also said he would come to church on Sunday.

Later that evening we visited a man named N, he is from Africa and was interested in receiving a Bible. I had called him some time earlier in the day or even yesterday and set the appointment. Soon before we arrived at his apartment I realized I didn’t pack a Bible with me. So we got to his door, he invited us in. We talked about what inspired him to order a Bible, he shared with us why and we then talked about the Book of Mormon. We gave him a copy and told him we would come back and deliver a Bible. We ended up teaching him the whole Restoration very briefly and setting a return appointment. We will see how he feels about the Book of Mormon and find whether he has real intent to continue learning.

Friday , January 12, 2018
Today was a special day and one to remember. We had the opportunity to watch at the chapel the funeral of President Thomas S. Monson. It was really neat! The speakers were great and I just loved hearing about their experiences serving with President Monson and testifying of how Christ leads His church.

After the funeral we stuck around waiting for a guy named C. He is one of our recent Bible & Book of Mormon referrals. We met at the church in a classroom, we opened up with a prayer and then we asked some questions to get to know him and find out why he felt to request the scriptures. He then spent the next half hour sharing with us his life story. Which was just, wow. It was so personal and he said he had never opened up to anyone about his life. We testified to him of the love his father in Heaven has for him and scheduled another day to meet and he committed to come to church on Sunday.

Saturday, January 13, 2018
Today we had correlation for the first time in about a month since our ward mission leader had been gone in Utah for the holidays.

Early that afternoon we went to Bishop Ferguson’s and visited with him for a bit. We wanted to speak with him about his goals this New Year for the ward and how we can help him to achieve them. It was a pretty great meeting as helped us make a plan to know where we should focus.

Later in the evening one of the members, Frank brought us dinner at the church, a box of pizza for each of us. It was very nice of him!

Sunday, January 14, 2018
Elder stokes gave a talk today, his topic was focused toward general conference and the importance of reviewing the messages given. We are led by a prophet today and how important it is that we not only read the scriptures of old (because they were written for our day) but how important it is that we listen to the current prophet today and what they have to teach us. We should most definitely be viewing conference both times a year but also in between, be reviewing and studying them.

Later that evening we met with a man named S, he was a referral from the sisters in Manhattan. They met him while they were meeting with one of their investigators. Right after a lesson S walked into the room and they met him and talked to him. He’s recently become sober and is working on changing more in his life to follow God. He told the sisters he would love to meet with us. So we met with him that evening and he told us his story about he was and what led him to make changes in his life.

We introduced the Book of Mormon and taught him a little bit about it. We were running short on time and set an appointment to come back next Sunday.

I find it so amazing how people we don’t know are so comfortable telling us their lives to the very details without us even asking them too because they recognize us as Christ’s representatives.

Monday, January 15, 2018
After district meeting we went on a split with Zone leaders and Elder Murset and I met M & M. They are members who haven’t been to church in some time. We talked a bit and got to know them. We asked what they remember about their baptism. They both said they were baptized at 16 and 14 (they are now 31 and 29) and they were very nervous, but excited. They said in the moment they were baptized they recognized the spirit strongly. We asked them if they had felt that way recently? One of them made a face and said naa it’s been a while. While the other one said yea, whenever I feel down and I open up the scriptures or pray, I feel the spirit. It was a nice experience and they enjoyed being with us, as did we with them.

Tuesday, January 16, 2018
We had a great experience this evening!

We had just stepped out of an appointment when I answered the phone to a call from President Smith last night. After ending the conversation with him, I felt great about the decision I made to just wait and hear from my family later about Josh’s mission call and was determined to find a miracle. Very soon after my call with President, Elder Stokes and I found ourselves on a train ride to deliver a Bible; while on the train we met a man named R, he actually started the conversation. “You both are getting off at Kingsbridge right?” We replied saying “actually we are going to deliver a Bible to someone, but we do have a church over on Kingsbridge.” He said “yea I know, I had a friend drag me there a few times in the past to play basketball and stuff, I’ve never gone there for the right reasons though, just to play basketball and goof around with some friends. But hey, take down my number so we can get together another time, maybe sit down and talk more about what the church is like, I’m interested in learning.”

I just love that! Had I made a different decision on the phone that night, Elder Stokes and I would have missed that opportunity.

Grateful for these wonderful experiences that I’m having here in NY and pray that I may “Never slow down and Never stop”.

Patience. Love. Faith
Much love,

Elder Newbold