Week 96 FINAL 3

January 24, 2018
Wednesday evening after all preparations were made we had an appointment set with a single lady from our ward so we had planned to have this awesome member Brother W come with us so we could go in and meet with her. On our way there we called to make sure she was still expecting us. When she answered she apologized and said her family had just shown up and surprised her from out of state so she asked to reschedule. Brother W had already made it there before us and was waiting. When we got there we told him she had rescheduled and that we had a few people in the area we could look up instead. After trying to find an apartment of a member, we soon found it didn’t exist. We then went and looked up another member and found that they had moved at least 5 years ago. We then decided we would stop by a potential investigator we’ve had trouble getting in contact with. Soon after knocking the door we were let in and met D, our investigator and his wife and daughter. We taught them about the Book of Mormon and Brother W was so awesome and was able to relate to them by sharing his experience of when the missionaries 1st found him and invited him to read from the Book of Mormon when he was 16. His life has changed from that moment. It was really neat to hear him testify to this family about his experience.

January 25, 2018
Thursday, we did our weekly planning and then all our appointments fell through and so we did a lot of contacting and calling people.

January 26, 2018
Friday morning we met with D, he is so awesome! He’s just so willing to learn and live the gospel. We are aware that a family from his country loves 5 minutes from him and they are members of the church but attend the Inwood ward, in Manhattan. Our goal is to get them introduced to each other so D can make a friend in the church and have someone to relate to. The problem right now is their work schedules are about the opposite, when one of them works the other has off and is sleeping. We have some options we are considering to help D continue learning in a better way.

January 27, 2018Saturday after correlation we went to A’s home to meet with him. We had a great lesson with him, teaching him about the plan of salvation. E, his older brother who is a member, came in a few minutes into the lesson and helped A understand some things, and then he left and came back again at the end and testified more about the plan of salvation. It was really sweet to see him be apart of helping his brother understand the teachings.

E leaves in 4 days to Florida to go to school and work. But after a conversation E and I had after a family home evening this week he came to me at the very end of meeting with A and told me he was praying about serving a mission. We talked a little more about a mission and we headed out to our next appointment.

Our next appointment fell through and on our way to our final set appointment we received a text that he needed to reschedule because an emergency with work came up. We were very close to his home and decided we would stop by, I could use the bathroom and Elder Stokes would have an opportunity to talk to him for a few seconds. When finished I joined them in his room and was able to reschedule a day to meet.

January 28, 2018
Sunday was great! We had a great Sabbath; unfortunately our appointments were falling through again so we decided to just street contact for a while. We stuck around a particular spot on Grand Concourse and talked to everyone that walked by. After some time we met this guy named S he seemed a little interested in our message. We talked about church and the importance of it; he said he had been thinking about going to church a little more often. We invited him and will hopefully see him around soon. We took down his information and hope to meet sometime soon.

January 29, 2018
This morning we went to the church for leadership and district meeting, which were great. I gave a spiritual thought in leadership meeting. What I shared was this, “Attaining what the Apostle Paul described as “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13) requires far more than acquiring knowledge. It is not even enough for us to be convinced of the gospel; we must act and think so that we are converted by it. In contrast to the institutions of the world, which teach us to know something, the plan of salvation and the gospel of Jesus Christ challenge us to become something.”
(General Conference April 2017 - Elder Dallin H. Oaks)

We need to stand above the world and it’s teachings of thinking it’s everything to KNOW something and do as Christ invites us and BECOME something.

Later this evening before FHE started we met with this kid named K who the sisters have been visiting, we went and played some basketball in the gym while we waited for FHE to start. E and A came a few minutes after we started, we listened to the message shared by Elder Richards and then played a quick game. A ball was passed around the room and who ever caught it had to say a name of a person in either the Bible or Book of Mormon, without repeating any names. After the game we had treats and mingled with each of our investigators and members.

January 30, 2018
This morning right after our studies we went down the street a couple blocks and helped Sister M move from her apartment to her new apartment. We did 3 loads with the large mission van, it took us about 4 hours. We had to go up her 2 story walk up and get everything from inside, outside to the van, then walk and meet the van at her other apartment 10 minutes away and unload the van and carry everything into her other apartment on the 2nd floor. Afterward she took us down the street to Little Cesar’s pizza and got some food and took it to the church for lunch. We shared a large pizza, crazy bread, and a 2-liter and waited for Emmanuel, our investigator to come to the church so we could meet during his break from work.

A very simple experience but an important lesson was learned. Before we left Little Cesar’s we called E to see how he was doing and confirm our appointment at the church, he said it would still work great, we told him we would be at the church in about 6 minutes. We quickly walked and found an open from where we started our lunch it was 2:20pm and we started eating. Assuming when E, got to the church would either ring the bell or call us to let him in, we continued eating. Twice that I recall during our lunch I had the thought, E is at the door, but I then thought well if that’s true, he will call or ring the bell. Again this same thing went through my mind and I decided I would check, to my surprise E had been standing at the front of the church.

It wasn’t anything major, we had a very limited amount of time with E, because he only has an hour break and we were already 30 minutes into his break. But with the simplest thing, the Spirit places in my mind, E is at the door. When I came to the realization that he may actually be at the door and the Spirit was trying to tell me so, I stood and went out to check and there he was.

Again, a simple experience with an important lesson learned. I am never to assume others choices. “Let the Holy Spirit Guide.”


I’m grateful for the experiences I have been blessed with in my service to the Lord Jesus Christ. I’m grateful to be able to recognize even the simplest promptings of the Holy Ghost and I know these simple moments are but practice for larger and more significant opportunities of service in the future. Christ led His church in His ministry and He leads His church today.

May I invite you all to never allow yourselves to be too busy to recognize the promptings of the Spirit.

Have a wonderful week!
Patience. Love. Faith

Much love,

Elder Newbold

Week 93

Well I’ve got to be honest, the closer I get to coming home the less motivation there is in me to write home... I love you all dearly and am so grateful for the letters, emails, and support. I appreciate ALL who have sent me packages and letters during the holidays. As much as I would love to reach out to you individually, with the time I’m limited to it may not happen while here in NY. So I thank you all and I truly appreciate your support and kindness!

With that being said, it’s been a wonderful week! They all have been and I know they all will continue to be wonderful, I’m doing my absolute best each day and we see the success and miracles from our obedience. I do apologize in advance, I do not plan on writing too much today.

A lot has happened this week just as you’ve seen in the last handful of weeks but I’ll just write about a couple highlights.

Last Wednesday night we experienced a wonderful miracle. We had been doing some look ups around the area by our church. When leaving a building Elder Stokes said, “Who’s H W”? I explained that he’s a member we’ve been trying to get in touch with since Elder Davis came to the area and prior to our efforts Elder Richards had been trying since early April of 2017. We hadn’t had any success trying to find him, but we decided to try anyway. We got to his building and stood outside, we waited for someone to let us in. In the past we’ve usually waited for about 2 minutes or so until someone either walked in or out and we could then get in. So we waited and maybe it was just over 2 minutes but before we decided to leave I said “we will give it another 30 seconds” (I don’t know why I said that, but I did) Elder Stokes actually started to count aloud, “30, 29, 28, 27 ... 10...” then he stopped at 10... in the moment we weren’t sure why, but looking back we felt that we were both stopped in time, we didn’t leave, we stopped counting, we just waited. And what might actually have been a couple minutes later, felt like 10 seconds. But all of a sudden, someone came waking up the street and into this building, without hesitation we followed in behind. We knocked Hubert’s door and found very quickly that he was home! He opened the door and said, “come in” as if he was expecting us. We walked into his living room and sat on the couch. He sat with us and we had just the best time with him. We learned so much about him. He got so excited to talk about when he served a mission in Manchester England. He went to find his mission photo album. He sat between us on the couch and just went through and talked about nearly every photo. It was so cool to watch his excitement about his experiences.

We’ve had a handful of meetings this week. On Friday last week we had MLC and met as the mission leadership. We met in the Scarsdale chapel and discussed the needs of our zones and what we could do to help the missionaries and the areas we are serving.

Saturday morning we went to the church for the baptism of B. He’s a guy our roommates have been working with for about 8 weeks. He is so awesome!

Sunday was great! Other than the fact that our chapel was 25°! The heater in the chapel broke but everywhere else it was working.

Monday was great as well! We had district meeting in the morning and then Elder Clark and I went on a split and went up to Scarsdale for our “What’s Next Meeting”. As we sat around the living room of the mission home President leaned over to me and asked if I would conduct this meeting. He left and came back a few minutes later. In that time I picked someone to play the piano, a hymn to sing, and a prayer to be given and I conducted the meeting. It was pretty sweet! Not too many people came with questions to ask. So it wasn’t as focused in too many different topics but the first thing that was brought up was dating. Missionaries asked questions about dating. We came prepared by studying a talk called Meeting the Challenges of Today’s World and we focused on the future events of our lives; dating, career, schooling, marriage, finances, etc. it was pretty cool to be able to hear from President and Sister Smith about their experiences and what council we received from them as we discussed these nearing events in our lives.

After the meeting I went to the garage of the mission home to get my shoes, when I came back in President asked if I would conduct Zone Conference tomorrow.

Tuesday we had Zone Conference! It was a pretty great meeting and I can’t believe it was my last one. It was special to me, I felt more involved and willing to participate than usual. I wanted to make it a great one.

In the beginning I stood and welcomed the missionaries, recognized President Smith who was presiding in the meeting and Sister Smith’s presence. I informed everyone of the first few items of the agenda for this meeting and we went about it. It was such a great meeting, the Spirit was very recognizable and a lot was learned. Elder Stokes and I were asked on the spot by Elder Chaz, Davis and Elder Aurich to participate in doing a role-play with them during the conference. It was a pretty good role-play for having no preparation. I feel like this conference proved to me my growth since serving as a full time missionary. It was definitely a meeting I will remember.

We’ve been so blessed this week and I’ve recognized through practicing this and doing my best, “ALL blessings are predicated off of obedience.”  As we strive our best to be obedient and as we are obedient, we are blessed. That’s inspired me to be obedient and continually strive to be more obedient. 

I’m truly grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Grateful for the wonderful privilege it has been to serve in the Lord’s Vineyard. My time is coming quickly to an end as a full time missionary, so I will be doing ALL that I can to be my best.

Hope this was enough for you all to make it to next week! Ha ha love you all!

Patience. Love. Faith

Much love, 

Elder Newbold 

Week 92

What a fast cycle it’s been! It felt like Elder Davis and I were only on a 2-hour split. It’s crazy to look back and think it’s been 5 weeks and how much we accomplished together in that time.

December 27th, we met with this guy named K. The Spanish Sisters ran into him some time recently and they sent us over to meet with him. He met some missionaries in the past and looked forward to meeting with us. We came by around 6:30pm and talked to him a bit, he told us that he enjoyed meeting with the missionaries before. We simply taught a short version of the Restoration since he was starting his online course soon. As we came to the conclusion of our discussion, he said, “I look forward to meeting with you next week”, before we even talked about scheduling another appointment. He seems like he has potential to progress and continue learning.

Later that evening we went to M’s home and visited with he and his wife G. M again asked how we came to know Joseph Smith was a true prophet. We talked about the spirit and shared our experiences of how we’ve come to know the truth of the things we know. We invited G to sit with M and read the Book of Mormon together then to kneel and pray about it. They accepted and we told them we would follow up the next visit.

On the 28th we just met with D early in the morning. We shared a message with him and focused on committing him to read the Book of Mormon daily and as he does Heavenly Father will bless him to be able to understand English and the scriptures. He committed to do so and we invited him to be baptized on February 10th.

We came home and did weekly planning and then went out and visited members and others around the area.

Friday the 29th we went to M’s again and met with him. We followed up with him and his wife reading together. He said they read together and they prayed and they had a neat experience. He really enjoyed that with his wife, he said they haven’t done that before.
Well about half way into our visit, P (M’s Mom) came in and had all these other unrelated questions and misconceptions about the church and so we helped her understand those and then tried to gain control of the environment.
M’s wife had called while we were speaking and he was getting a little upset because P was interrupting him on the phone... so things got a little out of hand. We finally were able to gain control enough to say a prayer and get out.

When we returned home that night we received a text from President informing Elder Davis that he has felt that he and Elder Pina should go on a split tomorrow for a special assignment. We weren’t given much information then but were told we would receive a call tomorrow from someone who would give us further information.

On the 30th we went about the day and around 3pm I split with Elders Clark and Windsor. Elder Davis split with another Elder and went to Harlem for a commercial the church is making. I don’t want to share too much about it, but one day I’m sure we will see it completed but he said he thought it was really cool.

When he finished they came back to the church around 6pm and we went home to eat and then went to P’s to visit him. When we showed up he seemed really out of it and we noticed just above his eyebrow his head was split and had a nice cut parallel to his nose and a couple teeth missing. The blood looked recent like it must have happened earlier that day. We asked him about it and he didn’t say anything, we asked if he had fallen or something and then he hesitated to respond and then said he fell and hit his head on the table. He wasn’t really in the right state of mind to speak to him. So we prayed with him and we left.

Sunday the 31st we received a call from the Spanish Elders saying they met with a kid who wanted to be baptized, he even set his own date to be baptized. We messaged him and invited him to church but he couldn’t come, his mom needed his help with setting up a party for New Years.

Elder Davis was giving a talk on one of our favorite topics! REPENTANCE! He gave a great talk and we had a couple investigators show up during it.

After the sacrament meeting we came down from the stand and talked with some members, the Ardinez family invited us over that night for dinner. (Since it’s New Years Eve and The Bronx gets a bit crazy. We’ve been asked to be in a couple hours earlier tonight to avoid getting caught up with the partiers.)

After church we came straight home and changed out of our suits and got on our coats and dressed warm to go back out, we did a couple look ups and then went to the Ardinez families home. This family is so great! They are from the Philippines and are just so sweet. They have 3 boys and 2 twin girls. For dinner they cooked a lot of food! Since it was New Years they went big. The entire dinner table was covered in food. Everyone ate either on the floor or the couch. Elder Davis and I were fed 6 difference typed of meat! Chicken, goat, pig feet, beef, liver, fish, and tripe, along with all the meat we had Filipino spaghetti and rice. Elder Davis is a pretty fast eater so he finished pretty quickly and was sitting around. While I was finishing up and trying to hurry so we could leave. They thought it would be fun if Elder Davis sang karaoke while I finished eating... to save him from doing that I tried to eat as fast as possible. I finished and we ended up having to sing, “imagine”. Then we fast walked home!

Monday, the 1st of the New Year, Elder Davis was taken from me by the assistants at 8am and I spent the rest of the day with Elders Clark and Windsor in a trio till transfers. We spent all day in their area.

Tuesday the 2nd was transfers. We went to meet with D that morning and taught him the rest of the Plan of Salvation. Then we went to Inwood for transfers. My new companion by the way is Elder Stokes! (He was trained by Elder Davis!) We are gonna rock this area! After transfers we had enough time to get home have lunch and head to the church for district meeting at 2:30. After district meeting we went home for dinner around 5pm and then headed out for the night. We had an awesome experience looking up people. We met this lady J who hasn’t been attending church for the last year. She explained why and we testified to her how personal salvation is and that when we attend church it must be for ourselves and not for anyone else. The Savior knows us personally and we must strive to know him personally and to accomplish that we must attend church to partake of the sacrament. It was a neat experience to stand there in her doorway and testify to this daughter of God.

We look forward to this wonderful last cycle together!!


Elder Stoker and Elder Newbold serving their last cycle together.

Patience. Love. Faith
Much love,
Elder Newbold

Week 91

This week was pretty special! We had an awesome time together!

On December 22nd we had an APF to “Light The Bronx”. Elder and Sister Richards made a lot of hot chocolate for us. We had hot chocolate in big orange Gatorade coolers and we brought them out to the front of the church doors where we had signs that said “Free Hot Chocolate”.

We had a TV playing the Light The World video in the front as well and we were outside finding people to bring in. We found a few awesome people. One of the guys we found was D, he was just walking past the church and almost didn’t come in but he did and he got some hot chocolate and we gave him a chapel tour! It was awesome, while we stood in front of the baptismal font he said, “it’s funny, my mom was just talking to me about getting baptized the other day and now here I am”. He was a pretty cool guy.

We also met this guy named T, he was walking by the church and noticed us and said “you guys took me on my first camping trip!” He stopped and we went into the church, he explained that when he was living in Georgia His friends who are members of the church took him on a camping trip with the scouts to North Carolina. Then later on when he was 13 he was baptized with his grandma and his brother since his move to New York with his mom. He hasn’t been around to church since he’s been in New York. But he said when he comes back from being upstate for the holidays he will start coming back to church now that he knows where we are. Throughout the time we were there we ended up finding a lot of people who were interested and we gave out a lot of copies of the Book of Mormon that we had wrapped up under a Christmas tree in the foyer. It was pretty awesome!

Later that evening I had my interview with President, which was pretty special.

December 23rd we had another APF. We went to Fordham plaza and set up a couple large tables and did free gift-wrapping for people. Today it was pouring rain all morning and we were afraid it wouldn’t be dry enough to gift-wrap. But we all prayed for the weather to be well enough to do it and while we set up the rain lightened up till it stopped soon after we started. We had a hand full of missionaries wrapping gifts while others were making contact with those in line. It was really special. We talked to a lot of people and so many are just so sweet and nice this time of year. I handed out a few copies of the Book of Mormon while people waited in line. The copies were also gift-wrapped and we gave them as gifts and explained what they were. When we finished and packed up the rain started again.

Our last stop for the night was Bishop’s. We just stopped in and planned to ask him about his plans and goals for the ward. But when we got there we met bishop’s stepson, N, who isn’t a member. We introduced ourselves and spoke with him for most of our visit. He expressed an interest and even a bit interest to be baptized and join a church one-day. We introduced him to the Book of Mormon and gave him a copy to read for himself. He accepted it and said he would read it.

December 24th was a very special day for Elder Davis and I. This morning we went to meet with one of our investigators, M, just to ride with him to church since he didn’t know how to get there.

When we got to his house his mom P was just walking in and we invited her to come to church with us. She wanted to but she was hesitant because she had just got home and wasn’t ready for the day. After a few minutes of standing around she decided she would come. (Now P is a character, but she is such a sweet and wonderful lady.) We had quite the conversation with her on the way to the church.

We also had 4 other investigators come to church! We had 6 total and it was awesome! The chapel was full! Before each of them left we spoke to them about how they enjoyed the service, they individually told us they loved it and would be back next week! We pray that they will remember this experience and come back often!

In the evening of Christmas Eve we had a little Family Home Evening event opened up to single people who would be alone on Christmas. We had dinner and sang songs together and then did a Christmas nativity. Elder Davis and I were shepherds. It was a pretty great Christmas Eve.

December 25th Merry Christmas!! How crazy is it that it’s already come and gone! I sure did have an amazing day! We left the apartment that morning after studies and within the first 30 minutes the Spirit led us to a nearby park where we met M. M is a single man from Mexico, he was sitting in 25° weather on a bench, in an empty park, alone. He said he had no plans for Christmas because he had no family. After a minute of speaking to him and bearing testimony to him of the love Heavenly Father has for him and that we are all family we shared with him the Christmas video, Light The World. We then introduced the Book of Mormon and gave him a gift-wrapped copy in Spanish. We exchanged contact information and wished him well on Christmas. We sent his contact information to the Spanish Elders and we walked away. We ended up by a restroom and saw a man brushing his teeth. We went inside and began talking to him. His name was A. While talking to him he told us that he had met with some missionaries before and attended church in Florida, years ago. We invited him to join us this coming Sunday, he said he would love to. We got his number and shortly after left the bathroom. Leaving the bathroom and heading towards the east side of the park to go back to the main road we turned around and looked back to find M reading the Book of Mormon, he looked up and saw us walking away, in his hand he lifted up the gold wrapping paper that previously covered the Book of Mormon and waved it in the air to us.

I don’t believe in coincidences, the Lord for a surety led us to that park and there we were able to bless the lives of those two men who were alone on Christmas Day. It was a special day.

After our park miracles, we went to meet with J to go to the nursing home where his mom was. We had with us President Smith and his family, Sister Muti and Sister Ståhle. We went to his mother’s room and wheeled her to the lunchroom where some others were gathered and we sang some Christmas songs together.

Later that evening we spent some time calling home and talking to our wonderful families! It was so great to see and talk to them!

When we came back in that night we got a phone call from the Spanish Elders, they said they called M and he answered. They said he told them that he began reading the Book of Mormon and loved it, it helped him keep his mind off of drinking alcohol which was awesome, because he has been sober for 3 months now and has tried quitting. They set an appointment to meet with him the next day.

We truly have been so blessed this Christmas with all that we’ve done and have seen. Miracles have NOT ceased. The Savior Lives and He Loves us. I know that the Book of Mormon is true. It is divine and it is scripture. It testifies of the Savior Jesus Christ and is proof of His earthly ministers while here in the Americas. I invite all to give heed to the scriptures and the special witnesses of Him who lives.

Patience. Love. Faith
Much love,

Elder Newbold

Week 86 and 87

WEEK 86

Sorry about last week, I didn’t have much to talk about. I couldn’t remember anything. But the only thing at this point that I can remember is sometime last week someone found access to my church fund debit card and emptied out my account… I called the office; they canceled my card and were able to refund it all. I cut my card and have to wait 2 weeks to get a new one… so in the mean time I am literally living the life of a man with no money! #LoveBeingPoor

Thankfully they were able to add my money to my companion’s card and we could access it. But it wasn’t much, it was towards the end of the month and I didn’t have much anyway.

On pday we went to Manhattan and had a great time! We ended up splitting with some Elders! I got to be with Elder Gentry, we decided to go visit Michael S. who we taught together in Harlem over a year ago! It was awesome to catch up with him.


WEEK 87
This week has been pretty crazy! It’s the week of transfers!

Thanksgiving was great we spent our evening and dinner with our bishop, his wife, and their son A. They had a wonderful meal prepared, it was way good! We spent some time visiting some members and we were actually able to meet with Brother C, a member who hasn’t been to church for some time... He used to be in the Bishopric and then I guess when the Bishopric was changed he left and hadn’t been back since. We were able to meet with him twice in the week. We went over to do some service. And then Elder Patterson was giving a farewell talk on Sunday so we invited him to that and he came! It was so awesome! We walked into the chapel and there he was! It was so awesome! People and missionaries have been working with him for a while trying to get him back to church.

Sunday and Monday were packing days. Elder Patterson was packing up all he had and getting his suitcases to the right weight.

Tuesday morning we got up and went to the Inwood chapel with Patterson’s luggage. Around 12:30 missionaries started showing up for transfers.

Soon after Elder Davis arrived to the Inwood chapel we decided we would go and contact some people around the block, before the UHAUL showed up with his luggage. With-in about the first 10 minutes the first 2 people we approached shut us down. As we made our way back around the block where we started we came across this man walking our direction. His name is B, he stopped and we introduced ourselves. When he told us he was on his lunch break we told him we would walk and talk with him. So we walked and talked and taught him about the Book of Mormon, we offered him a copy and he accepted it. We told him that as representatives of Jesus Christ we visit with people and teach them how they can follow the Savior. He accepted our invitation to have us over to share a message with he and his family. As we quickly exchanged information before letting him order his lunch we found that he lives in our area. We were blessed to cross paths with B.

The rest of our day together was just awesome! We made our way home after getting Elder Davis’s luggage, when we got home I made myself a quick snack for lunch while he got himself situated. When we finished we had a quick companionship study, we talked about the plans we had for the evening and we went out and got to work. We had some referrals we went to T’s first because a referral we had scheduled to visit called and rescheduled. We knocked T’s door and he answered, like the first time we stopped by about a month ago, he said it wasn’t a good time and briefly explained why; he just had some teeth pulled that day and was in some pain. We respected his current situation and offered to just say a prayer with him. Similar to our first visit, his countenance began to change; he smiled and let us into his home. Standing in the doorway I offered to say the prayer. Then T hopped in and said he would like to say it. So I gladly let him and it was a sweet and humble prayer. I definitely felt that he was happier because of our visit. We followed the spirit and were led to see him today. We will make plans to visit with him regularly. We made an appointment for Friday! After leaving his home, we looked up a former investigator and quickly found he didn’t live there anymore. We then looked up a member in our area and also found that she didn’t live there anymore either, but we met a young pregnant lady who said some Sister missionaries came by a few times looking for the same person. We got to talking with her and found that she enjoyed the Sisters coming by and became good friends with them and would love for them to visit her.

It was a little after 5 so we went towards the church and got a sandwich for dinner, we then went to the church to eat and prepare more for our appointment with D at 6:30.

Our visit with D was solid! He is so prepared and just truly wants to follow the Savior. He keeps the commitments we extend to him and he does his research. He loves the community here in the church and the feelings he’s had while worshiping here with us. We extended the invitation to him to be baptized on December 23rd and he accepted it. He said he would pray about it. He is seriously so awesome!

It was just after 7 when we finished meeting with him so we decided we could look up a couple referrals we had. In the process, we received another referral, P. So we called him and were able to stop by his apartment to deliver a Bible and a Book of Mormon. He was an interesting guy. We had asked what inspired him to seek for a copy of the Bible. He said, “It’s just good to have in your home. It brings good vibes, especially when you just leave it open on your table.”  It was an interesting response.

It was a successful day to us! We set a baptismal date with an investigator and were able to make some solid contacts with people along the way.

I am truly so grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I’m grateful for the knowledge I’ve received as I’ve studied and have lived the gospel. I’m grateful for the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the healing we can receive from it.

Patience. Love. Faith

Much love,
Elder Newbold 

***Elder Davis and Elder Newbold are companions again! Elder Newbold was Elder Davis's trainer (almost 2 years ago) and now they are serving together again for Elder Davis' last cycle.  They will be together for 5 weeks and then Elder Davis will go home and then Elder Newbold will have 1 cycle left that will be 7 weeks and then he comes home to us the end of February!  

Elder Davis and Elder Newbold

Elder Davis and Elder Newbold

Week 85

Hello hello! Welcome to another week!

This week I received an email from my sweet cousin Emily. She had told me about her week and how recently in seminary they have focused on prayer. She asked some questions about my experience with prayer and how I’ve gained a testimony of prayer. I felt to share this with her and I feel to include it in my email this week.

This was my response to her.
[Since being on a mission I have had to rely on prayer a lot. I’ve experienced a lot with prayer and it’s amazing what can happen when you understand and have faith in something like prayer.

I think a couple of the biggest things we need to understand about prayer is first “what it is”… If we don’t understand what praying is, then, just like anything else in the world if we don’t understand it, we won’t know what to do with it.

So what is prayer… Well to me, prayer is a form of communication. Just as we use a cell phone to talk to someone we can’t see or be with in a moment, we use prayer to communicate with someone very special, someone very important to us, in moments that we feel we need to.

And I’d say the second but really the first thing we need to understand is... “Who it is “ that we are talking to. When we pray, we are speaking to our Father in Heaven. We pray to the Father in the name of Jesus Christ (3Nephi 18:19). Our Father in Heaven looks forward to hearing from us and he will never grow tired of hearing from us. Just like our earthly parents want to know what’s going on in our life so does our Heavenly Father (even though he knows exactly what’s going on) he still wants to hear from us and see us exercise our faith in Him.

I had a really neat experience with prayer just before coming home halfway through my mission. I had just finished meeting with my mission president in a chapel in Stamford Connecticut. I had just found out in that meeting with my mission president that I would be coming home. When we left the building he told me, I need you to drive this mission car and I need you to follow behind me. You’ll be alone but you’ll follow me. While you have this opportunity to be alone I want to invite you to think about the things that we just talked about, I want you to role-play with God what you will say to your parents when you call and tell them that you’re coming home.

I have prayed aloud before many times; alone, in front of my family, even at church in front of a congregation. But it wasn’t until this experience that I really understood what it should be like to pray with real intent. The scriptures say to come before the Father with a broken heart and a contrite spirit. In that moment I had a broken heart and a contrite spirit. I had faced my sins head on and came clean of that which kept me from the Spirit. I was uplifted, I was weightless, but I knew it wasn’t over... I knew that I had to go home, face my family, face my congregation, my friends, people that supported me going to serve a mission and my fear was their view on my early return home.

While driving behind my mission president and in a separate car that day I had never felt so much comfort, so much peace, and so much love in that moment then ever before.

I followed the invitation to speak aloud to my Father in Heaven and tell him of the things that I was worried about, the things I feared, but that I was willing to do it anyway.

For over an hour I had a conversation with God. I can’t say that He spoke words to me aloud, but the feelings that overfilled my heart allowed me to know that I wasn’t alone in this. One of the greatest things I learned that day was to give Heavenly Father time to reply.

So often we pray when we need something or when we are frustrated… Etc. but how often when we pray, do we stay on our knees and give Heavenly Father the time to place in our hearts and in our minds feelings and ideas for the things that we need and that we request.

Prayers aren’t always answered immediately, but they are always heard and in due time are always answered. God’s timing is far better than our timing. So we must give Him the time to respond to us through the spirit, even if it’s not going to happen immediately. Show Him you’re willing to listen, because that’s what a conversation is. A TWO-way discussion.

There are a lot of things we can learn from prayer. As you pray for experiences of your own you will come to have a stronger testimony.

I know that prayer is one of the greatest gifts we have been given in this life. It has blessed me abundantly and I am so grateful for it. Through my experiences with prayer I have felt my relationship with Heavenly Father grow and I know as you pray more often and with specific needs you will be blessed with divine help and guidance as you wait and listen to the Holy Ghost.]


This week has been good! Our mission has been picked to pilot a program to make contact with media referrals (meaning the people that go online and request a Free Bible or Book of Mormon make contact with missionaries online, who then refer that person to the mission of where they live). This alone has kept us busy. We haven’t had too much consistency in meeting with specific people but we’ve been out looking up, making a first contact with referrals, and lots of phone calls.

As part of this program, we get sent a lot of referrals, usually about 6 a day. We will figure out where they are located. We look up their address and determine which area they live in and we will send them to the missionaries that serve in that area. When we have referrals that live in our area we will make a few attempts (if necessary) to contact them. In our 1st attempt to contact them we deliver their requested item and seek to find their interest. We like to ask what lead this person to seek out a bible or Book of Mormon. It usually leads to a great and personal experience, where we have the opportunity to offer them a follow up appointment to come back and see how they are understanding their readings...

It’s been really busy! Going around trying to find those who have real intent to follow the Savior.

Today I felt like we had a pretty cool experience. Elder Patterson knew this family that moved into the Olmstead Ward in Hunts Point when he served there. They reached out to him and we met with them this evening at Panda Express. While we were eating, the husband, Brother Grace, asked Elder Patterson a question… He said “what is one of your greatest take-aways since being a missionary?” He said, “other than serving God and being able to share the gospel, what do you feel you’ve benefited from in your experience?”  After Elder Paterson gave his response, he turned to me and said what’s yours? … Same question but what’s your thoughts? I thought about it for a second, I said similar to what Elder Patterson said (he mentioned maturity and how that’s been a big part of his change and experience as a missionary) I would have to say experiencing on a different level, independence. Being a missionary we are dependent on the funds we receive monthly and even at times the people back home supporting us out here. Learning to be thrifty with that money has impacted the way I see money and I see how I can better use it. I don’t like the thought of relying on people financially; I don’t like asking for money or handouts. So I’ve tried to focus on being independent.

I liked being out with Brother Grace and his family; I got a chance to think about how else the mission has impacted my life other than spiritually. The things I’ve learned while serving a mission apply in life after the mission.

I’m so grateful for the opportunity I’ve been blessed with to have the experiences I’ve had that have brought me to where I am and have molded me to who I am today.

Patience. Love. Faith
Much love,

Elder Newbold

Click here to see a wonderful video put out by the Mormon News Room about Religious Freedom, featuring a picture of my cute missionary!