Things have been crazy today. We had conference cleaning and trains were taking so long and all the computers are down at all the libraries and so it took forever to find somewhere to email. We are currently at the church's family history center.
Anywaysssssssssssssss
So this is what has gone down this week.
Gene had his 92nd birthday and so sis ganaha and I went and had some sugarless cake with him. It was fun! I can't believe how old he is but it was great to be with him. We wore party hats and he blew out his candles and everything.
So right now something kinda cool is that I am in a three person companionship until the end of the cycle with the mission president's daughter Dani. It's so great because we can go into any apartment. haha. Shes awesome too. So its a privilege to be with her. Yesterday we had our first appointment with her and we taught this lady I contacted what feels like forever ago. We have kept trying to teach her but something would always come up until yesterday. The spirit was so strong in the appointment and she accepted a baptismal date and committed herself to come to church. She loved the story of Joseph Smith because she said she felt like that too! I will let you know how it goes in the future.
We also had another appointment with our cute little Chinese investigators. THEY ARE SO AMAZING! We watched Finding Faith in Christ and I asked them how it made them feel to know that Christ did that for them and they said it really touched them. They are excited to come to church this Sunday. We are going to have such a great Sunday I know it... It will probably be my last Sunday in this ward (I'm praying its not) but looks like it might be with transfers.
Our investigators are doing well. They came to church on Sunday. They rock. We couldn't find one right after church on Sunday and so we were scared he got offended somewhere and left early. But when we called him that night he explained that he was just in the chapel waiting for the stake priesthood session to start. crazy huh? he is so amazing.
OK NOW ON TO THE COOLEST THING THAT HAPPENED THIS WEEK!!!!!! Soooooooo Sunday night president called us and asked us to be at the church the next day from 3-6 for a special assignment. He wanted sister ganaha for something and so I thought I was just there for the ride butttttttttt long story short. Because the yearly opening of the UN was here in New York a lot of dignitaries were here. So the emperor of Palau (google it haha) was coming to the church to learn more about us. He wanted to go to temple square but time didn't permit and so someone from the seventy called our public affairs office and asked them to set something up. SOOO they asked me to sing for him. AHHH. I got to sing with Elder Butler who is the nephew of the Greens and another missionary from Hawaii. It was so cool. We sang Families can be together forever and I am a child of God. It was cool. The Empress totally cried!! The problem was we actually were there from 3-8pm. It was the first day (and hopefully the last) that I didn't do any missionary work (well the regular stuff). After the meeting they took us to dinner. It was so weird. I felt really sick pretty much the whole day and so I just kept trying to smile and pretend I was not feeling sick. Anyways it was really neat. There were 8 of us missionaries there. The companions of those of us who sang and then a few who answered questions. It was SWEEEEEEEEET! But I was excited to go back to regular life the next day.
We are seeing so many miracles and I am praying I get to stick around and see more this next cycle. I just found out that two of my last roomies got their mission calls. Both to the Philippines. How cool is that? Another one is going to Iowa. So now there are 4/6 of us on or going on missions. HOW COOL IS THAT???
I am so grateful to be serving. Things are changing a lot in our mission. We have not got any new English sister missionaries lately and in two transfers all of the English sisters but me and 3 others leave. I am really scared about what is to come but I know that whom God calls He qualifies. I can do whatever He asks of me. *DEEP BREATH*. :D I am so grateful for the blessings and miracles God places in our lives. This gospel is the greatest news and we must shout it off of the hill tops. Next email... we will see where I am. I love you all. Pray for me!!!
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Trying to shine
Well, *sigh* this week has been tough. So I will just start by saying that all three of our baptisms have been canceled/postponed. That has never happened to me before and so its hard to not get discouraged. It has really been a humbling experience. It's hard sometimes to not get discouraged but I know that this is Heavenly Father's work and I am not in control of anyone but myself. So as I do everything in my power to follow him and be a good missionary I know that all will work out. Good thing its not all about numbers or I would be going crazy. LOL
So on to the more happy things about this week. I finally got to try pinkberry. O man it was delicious. But I cant believe how expensive it is. Luckily a member took us :D. I remember Jodi talking about it once and now I know why. haha. We got two awesome new investigators this last week. They are both from China and really have no concept of God or religion. They are both so excited to learn more about God and how to come closer to Him. We taught them about prayer and they were so excited to do it. They have so many questions and its so fun to teach but also so hard to get them to understand things that they really have never heard before. I found myself relating how the holy ghost feels to how it feels when we like a boy. HAHA. "You cant explain it ... its just inside of you". Lol. It's so cool being a missionary here because I feel like I am teaching the whole world. The new york new york north mission = the mission of the world. That's what one of our members told us because we teach people from all over. It's sweet.
Something also very sweet about being a missionary here is I get to meet and see famous people. Especially famous Mormons. So I was sitting with my investigator in sacrament meeting on Sunday and this boy walks by and I was like ..eeeeek... thats totally DAVID ARCHULETA!! haha. He was so cool. He was wearing a white shirt and tie and everything. Looked just like he did on TV. Just a very sweet guy. I'm not going to lie it was hard to focus during sacrament meeting. I kept thinking ... Hes totally sitting behind me... Hes totally singing this same song with me. hahaha. Anyways it was cool.
We are not doing anything fun this pday. We just took a long nap and relaxed because after this week I couldn't handle anything stressful. haha. Please continue to pray for me and for my investigators. I know that there will be miracles. I am excited to see what God has around the corner as we continue to move forward in faith. This is such an amazing work. I love this gospel with all my heart and I know that no matter the sacrifice we make for it, its worth it. I am grateful for the power of the Atonement and that no one is too far out of our Savior's reach. What an amazing blessing it is to have this knowledge and to have access to the Atonement through the restoration of the gospel.
Love you all to the moon and back..
So on to the more happy things about this week. I finally got to try pinkberry. O man it was delicious. But I cant believe how expensive it is. Luckily a member took us :D. I remember Jodi talking about it once and now I know why. haha. We got two awesome new investigators this last week. They are both from China and really have no concept of God or religion. They are both so excited to learn more about God and how to come closer to Him. We taught them about prayer and they were so excited to do it. They have so many questions and its so fun to teach but also so hard to get them to understand things that they really have never heard before. I found myself relating how the holy ghost feels to how it feels when we like a boy. HAHA. "You cant explain it ... its just inside of you". Lol. It's so cool being a missionary here because I feel like I am teaching the whole world. The new york new york north mission = the mission of the world. That's what one of our members told us because we teach people from all over. It's sweet.
Something also very sweet about being a missionary here is I get to meet and see famous people. Especially famous Mormons. So I was sitting with my investigator in sacrament meeting on Sunday and this boy walks by and I was like ..eeeeek... thats totally DAVID ARCHULETA!! haha. He was so cool. He was wearing a white shirt and tie and everything. Looked just like he did on TV. Just a very sweet guy. I'm not going to lie it was hard to focus during sacrament meeting. I kept thinking ... Hes totally sitting behind me... Hes totally singing this same song with me. hahaha. Anyways it was cool.
We are not doing anything fun this pday. We just took a long nap and relaxed because after this week I couldn't handle anything stressful. haha. Please continue to pray for me and for my investigators. I know that there will be miracles. I am excited to see what God has around the corner as we continue to move forward in faith. This is such an amazing work. I love this gospel with all my heart and I know that no matter the sacrifice we make for it, its worth it. I am grateful for the power of the Atonement and that no one is too far out of our Savior's reach. What an amazing blessing it is to have this knowledge and to have access to the Atonement through the restoration of the gospel.
Love you all to the moon and back..
Sunday, September 13, 2009
So blah... I'm so flustered right now because we just went to get hair cuts and we went to a hair school that was giving away free hair cuts... should have known it was a bad idea. I knew they would be new and so I just asked for a trim... an hour later I find my hair less than an inch shorter... I was like .. ok that's good thanks. Then my comp had to go and she has about 1967969 times the amount of hair I do and she wanted layers... haha. 2 and a half hours later... she was also disappointed in her cut and we left. haha. Any whoo I am just glad its over. BUTTT BACK TO THIS WEEK
So we have been meeting with one of our investigators regularly and he is so fantastic. He is so excited about his baptism. We had an interesting lesson on Thursday though. So he lost track of time and was late for his appointment (which is so not like him btw). And so instead of going to our usual spot we decided to just teach him on a bench. So there we were just minding our own business when this homeless man came up and begged for money. We kindly declined but he was not ok with that. He yelled and was obviously drunk and or high and was like "you have bibles in your hands you hypocrites" blah blah blah. We tried to talk to him like a human being and asked him his name and he was not having any of it. He decided he wouldn't leave until we gave him something. He said "I do this for a living, you think I am amature? that you are the first people I have asked for money from? I have gotten money from celebrities!" Then he so sweetly named all the celebrities who had given him money. Mean while I looked over at our sweet little investigator and he was saying a prayer! It was so cute! Finally the member we were with was like fine, I will take you to buy something to eat. The best part about the story is that we were teaching about Tithing and Fast offerings and how you can be at peace knowing that the money you donate goes to people who really need it and its not given as handouts which foster dependency on other. It was ridiculous but nice to use as an example in our lesson. I wanted to point something out too that's pretty sweet. Our investigator is a student at Columbia university. And since he lives in the dorms there we teach him on campus. So... I TEACH AT COLUMBIA! Woot and Ivy League school .. at my age. Who woulda thought? haha. The campus is so beautiful. We also have Julliard in our area now. Those students are so great!
Something cool that happened this week is that Thursday night the zone leaders called us and told us that we were going on a split with sis smith (the mission president's wife) the next day! I was super nervous but also excited because I always here about the miracles that the elders see when they go on splits and especially when with the president. It was her first time doing it and the reason she was doing it is because President Bednar told her that she needed to go out with the sisters and see what we go through, a King Benjamin approach. So she came to our appointment and we taught the Word Of Wisdom. It was a powerful lesson and I talked about Grandpa Tom and how amazing he was and I was getting super emotional and I got the feeling that I needed to extend him a baptismal date. And to this point he hadn't and skirted around the idea every time. But I followed my prompting and HE ACCEPTED!!!! Yay! He is now progressing toward his baptism and is excited about it! It was such a cool experience. It will be so good for both this young man and his recent convert father. So we got to see a miracle with sis smith. Shes so sweet too it was nice to get to know her better. Shes much different than sis searle. I would just describe her as fun and young and spunky.
So yesterday at service they were totally filming law in order at the church above the food pantry we work at. How cool is that? Too bad I have never seen the show before or maybe I would have recognized the celebrities. hahaha
So I got your package. Thanks a million. You are so sweet. I love the rice. I will live off of it. But now that we are in two wards we are getting a lot more meals. We got to go to this place this week called mamma mexico's. They make you fresh guacamole right at your table! So cool. We don't usually get to go out to eat but it was a nice treat!
We are excited for a baptism on Friday! She is so excited too. The whole Young Women's is also excited! That will make 6 yw now I think. Life is so different on this side of the country.
LOVE YOU ALL TO THE MOON AND BACK!
-taters
So we have been meeting with one of our investigators regularly and he is so fantastic. He is so excited about his baptism. We had an interesting lesson on Thursday though. So he lost track of time and was late for his appointment (which is so not like him btw). And so instead of going to our usual spot we decided to just teach him on a bench. So there we were just minding our own business when this homeless man came up and begged for money. We kindly declined but he was not ok with that. He yelled and was obviously drunk and or high and was like "you have bibles in your hands you hypocrites" blah blah blah. We tried to talk to him like a human being and asked him his name and he was not having any of it. He decided he wouldn't leave until we gave him something. He said "I do this for a living, you think I am amature? that you are the first people I have asked for money from? I have gotten money from celebrities!" Then he so sweetly named all the celebrities who had given him money. Mean while I looked over at our sweet little investigator and he was saying a prayer! It was so cute! Finally the member we were with was like fine, I will take you to buy something to eat. The best part about the story is that we were teaching about Tithing and Fast offerings and how you can be at peace knowing that the money you donate goes to people who really need it and its not given as handouts which foster dependency on other. It was ridiculous but nice to use as an example in our lesson. I wanted to point something out too that's pretty sweet. Our investigator is a student at Columbia university. And since he lives in the dorms there we teach him on campus. So... I TEACH AT COLUMBIA! Woot and Ivy League school .. at my age. Who woulda thought? haha. The campus is so beautiful. We also have Julliard in our area now. Those students are so great!
Something cool that happened this week is that Thursday night the zone leaders called us and told us that we were going on a split with sis smith (the mission president's wife) the next day! I was super nervous but also excited because I always here about the miracles that the elders see when they go on splits and especially when with the president. It was her first time doing it and the reason she was doing it is because President Bednar told her that she needed to go out with the sisters and see what we go through, a King Benjamin approach. So she came to our appointment and we taught the Word Of Wisdom. It was a powerful lesson and I talked about Grandpa Tom and how amazing he was and I was getting super emotional and I got the feeling that I needed to extend him a baptismal date. And to this point he hadn't and skirted around the idea every time. But I followed my prompting and HE ACCEPTED!!!! Yay! He is now progressing toward his baptism and is excited about it! It was such a cool experience. It will be so good for both this young man and his recent convert father. So we got to see a miracle with sis smith. Shes so sweet too it was nice to get to know her better. Shes much different than sis searle. I would just describe her as fun and young and spunky.
So yesterday at service they were totally filming law in order at the church above the food pantry we work at. How cool is that? Too bad I have never seen the show before or maybe I would have recognized the celebrities. hahaha
So I got your package. Thanks a million. You are so sweet. I love the rice. I will live off of it. But now that we are in two wards we are getting a lot more meals. We got to go to this place this week called mamma mexico's. They make you fresh guacamole right at your table! So cool. We don't usually get to go out to eat but it was a nice treat!
We are excited for a baptism on Friday! She is so excited too. The whole Young Women's is also excited! That will make 6 yw now I think. Life is so different on this side of the country.
LOVE YOU ALL TO THE MOON AND BACK!
-taters
Sunday, September 6, 2009
So Blessed
Wow... I'm super overwhelmed with emotion right now. Good e-mail... *sigh* Ok So this week has been so amazing! I am so overwhelmed with gratitude right now. Luckily I am at a church this time not at the library. I am so grateful that my Heavenly Father loves me enough to answer my prayers. Man I wish I could express what I am feeling. I just know that every prayer is heard. Im so grateful that He loves me enough to let me have joy in my life. We have been so amazingly blessed this week. The guy that I told you about last week who ordered a book of Mormon has already decided to be baptized! So this is how it went down:
So we had an appointment with him and a member who is amazing. We taught him about the gospel of Jesus Christ (faith,baptism,holy ghost,etc). And while we were teaching I kept getting this prompting to commit him to be baptized. I was a little nervous because it was less than a week since we had even met him. But at the end of the lesson I asked him how he felt his relationship with our Savior had changed since we first met him (he didn't believe in Him then. He then pretty much bore his testimony about how he knew that Christ had Atoned for his sins and that He was his personal Savior. Then I asked him some more questions and then read a verse in 2 nephi 31 where it refers to baptism as a gate and I told him how he was waiting now at the gate and that our Heavenly Father is waiting on the other side of it with so many blessings and ... it's time to open the gate. So we extended the date of Sept 19th but he said he felt like he should read the whole Book of mormon first. Then our amazing member pipes in and talks about how you will never learn everything and that the blessing of the gospel is that it is an on going lesson. He also talked about how he would understand more as he had the companionship of the Holy Ghost which comes after baptism. BAMMM. So then I asked Will to pray and ask God if Sept 19th was the right date and he committed then our amazing member piped in again and said "well would you be comfortable if we did it now? Together?". My jaw dropped and that was def only something he could do as his friend (they go to school together). So right then and there we all got on our knees and Will said the most sincere and powerful prayer, pleading with His Heavenly Father for direction. Then after the prayer no one moved and we all just sat there feeling the spirit. At that moment I knew we had called down the powers of Heaven and I knew there was no way that the spirit would tell him it was wrong. Then Will sighed and looked up with a huge smile on his face and said "it feels good". It was seriously the most amazing thing ever. We have been meeting with him daily to prepare him to be baptized and he is so amazing. He is reading so quickly and has the greatest faith. I am so humbled by this opportunity to teach him. I feel so blessed that my Heavenly Father has trusted me to teach someone so amazing. I cant even explain the gratitude I feel in my heart right now. This is the greatest work ever!
Our other investigators are progressing well and our YW sweet spirit is so excited for her baptism. She loves young womens. So on to less exciting things... well sorta. One funny story. At the beginning of our lessons we sing a song and at one of our lessons I wanted to sing I need the ever hour... and I dont know what happened but I started the song soooooo low! It was terrible and our ward mission leader was there and he was belting out a very low bass line of the song. I felt terrible but I could not stop laughing... Just imagine trying to invite the spirit with that. It dosent work if you're wondering. haha.
So SUPER SAD NEWS..... ACTUALLY DEVASTATING!! The post office had a fit and decided they wouldn't forward our mail from the mission home anymore. So now I have to wait for the APs or zone leaders to bring it to us every once in a while! TRAGEDY!!!!! It breaks my little missionary mail loving heart. So those of you who write my I will give you my current address if you want to write me soon but if you're gonna take a while you might as well send it to the mission home just in case I move. But mom you can give my address to those you feel comfortable giving it to and I will do the rest. So its been a sad week and a half ... with no mail really. O well I guess it makes me more focused? ! ?
Well I sure love you all. I am so grateful for your support and prayers. Tell Sis Sanders thank you but I will send her a thank you when I get her address. That money is Heaven sent. This place is so crazy expensive but the members have stepped up on feeding us so that's nice (mostly because we are in two wards but we will give them some credit).
LOVE YOU TO THE MOON AND BACK!
-TATERS
So we had an appointment with him and a member who is amazing. We taught him about the gospel of Jesus Christ (faith,baptism,holy ghost,etc). And while we were teaching I kept getting this prompting to commit him to be baptized. I was a little nervous because it was less than a week since we had even met him. But at the end of the lesson I asked him how he felt his relationship with our Savior had changed since we first met him (he didn't believe in Him then. He then pretty much bore his testimony about how he knew that Christ had Atoned for his sins and that He was his personal Savior. Then I asked him some more questions and then read a verse in 2 nephi 31 where it refers to baptism as a gate and I told him how he was waiting now at the gate and that our Heavenly Father is waiting on the other side of it with so many blessings and ... it's time to open the gate. So we extended the date of Sept 19th but he said he felt like he should read the whole Book of mormon first. Then our amazing member pipes in and talks about how you will never learn everything and that the blessing of the gospel is that it is an on going lesson. He also talked about how he would understand more as he had the companionship of the Holy Ghost which comes after baptism. BAMMM. So then I asked Will to pray and ask God if Sept 19th was the right date and he committed then our amazing member piped in again and said "well would you be comfortable if we did it now? Together?". My jaw dropped and that was def only something he could do as his friend (they go to school together). So right then and there we all got on our knees and Will said the most sincere and powerful prayer, pleading with His Heavenly Father for direction. Then after the prayer no one moved and we all just sat there feeling the spirit. At that moment I knew we had called down the powers of Heaven and I knew there was no way that the spirit would tell him it was wrong. Then Will sighed and looked up with a huge smile on his face and said "it feels good". It was seriously the most amazing thing ever. We have been meeting with him daily to prepare him to be baptized and he is so amazing. He is reading so quickly and has the greatest faith. I am so humbled by this opportunity to teach him. I feel so blessed that my Heavenly Father has trusted me to teach someone so amazing. I cant even explain the gratitude I feel in my heart right now. This is the greatest work ever!
Our other investigators are progressing well and our YW sweet spirit is so excited for her baptism. She loves young womens. So on to less exciting things... well sorta. One funny story. At the beginning of our lessons we sing a song and at one of our lessons I wanted to sing I need the ever hour... and I dont know what happened but I started the song soooooo low! It was terrible and our ward mission leader was there and he was belting out a very low bass line of the song. I felt terrible but I could not stop laughing... Just imagine trying to invite the spirit with that. It dosent work if you're wondering. haha.
So SUPER SAD NEWS..... ACTUALLY DEVASTATING!! The post office had a fit and decided they wouldn't forward our mail from the mission home anymore. So now I have to wait for the APs or zone leaders to bring it to us every once in a while! TRAGEDY!!!!! It breaks my little missionary mail loving heart. So those of you who write my I will give you my current address if you want to write me soon but if you're gonna take a while you might as well send it to the mission home just in case I move. But mom you can give my address to those you feel comfortable giving it to and I will do the rest. So its been a sad week and a half ... with no mail really. O well I guess it makes me more focused? ! ?
Well I sure love you all. I am so grateful for your support and prayers. Tell Sis Sanders thank you but I will send her a thank you when I get her address. That money is Heaven sent. This place is so crazy expensive but the members have stepped up on feeding us so that's nice (mostly because we are in two wards but we will give them some credit).
LOVE YOU TO THE MOON AND BACK!
-TATERS
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