September Already???

September 6th 2017~Excited For President Nelson!! Go Ridgeline!!

Hello my dear family! Thank you all so much for your amazing email and pictures! What an amazing week you have had! I was so glad to hear that you all enjoyed your Labor Day and day off from work and school! I hope I can remember everything that happened and that I wanted to tell you. It has been a really packed week with lots of visits and appointments. Here it goes!:

Last P-Day was so nice! We had such a nice and relaxing day and I had so much fun emailing you all back and forth! First thing we did was go get a haircut. We were looking forward to it since both of us had long hair. The barbershop we went to was just right down the street which was so nice! The guy who owns the store was a really nice guy and was fun to talk to! He did a really nice job on our haircuts and we were so happy to get it done! After our haircuts, we came back to the apartment and got ready to go shopping. Then we went to Walmart and then picked up a picture that we printed off at Staples for Bill! He really liked the picture that Elder Howard took of the 3 of us and so we printed one off for him. Then we came back and put our groceries away and then I cleaned the whole apartment and now it looks so nice and clean! I always love to have things organized and tidy! Then we had such a fun time emailing and chatting back and forth! It was such a great P-Day and I was sad when it was over! Then, we drove over the Sagazie's house for dinner! They are so nice and always love having us come over! We had a great lesson with them and we read the 1st chapter of the Book of Mormon with them and they really enjoyed it! I really wish that they would come to church and give it a chance. They just don't want to come to Church because they don't like organized religions. We are trying so hard for them to feel the spirit and have them come to Church because it would bless their lives so much! Then we got a call from Sister Thompson and she invited us to do something really fun! The scouts were having a "Cupcake War" night and were wondering if we wanted to be a part of the audience and have some cupcakes after! We couldn't say no! So we drove over to the church and Bishop Wootan was one of the judges and he was so funny! He acted just like the real judges do on the show and really was fun to watch! It was like actually watching a live episode! He would say: "the presentation of this cupcake is excellent and the design was innovative", stuff like that. It was a really fun activity and they did a great job putting it together! Well, by this time, it was 8:45 so we enjoyed our cupcakes while talking with the members and then drove back to the apartment for the evening. I have some news.....niether of us got a trainer call. We weren't expecting any because we were both pretty sure that Elder Howard is staying here for the rest of his mission so we were both happy about that! So we came back to the apartment for the evening and waited for a call but we didn't get one. So that meant that Elder Howard and I are staying together for at least 1 more cycle! We had a great evening and I read your email over again and enjoyed it so much!

Thursday was such a great day! I can't believe how fast it went. We woke up and had the usual morning routine and then had a Conference call! We always look forward to hearing from President Smith and his guidance! We were really excited because we knew that he was going to give us more information about President Nelson's arrival and some of the logistics of the day! He told us that the meeting will start at 1:30 in the Manhattan Temple chapel and President Nelson made a really cool special request! He asked President Smith if he could personally greet each missionary and give us all hand shakes! It was so cool to hear and we got even more excited! I couldn't wait to wish him a Happy Birthday on his Birthday!!! So after our conference call, we had lunch and then drove over to the church for our weekly planning session! We always like to start each week with a clean slate and have a wide open schedule to fill! It takes a lot of work and planning but it is still pretty fun! So after our 3 hour weekly planning session, we drove to pick up Isaac Blue at his house and take him to another lesson with Ryan! Our lessons with Ryan have been going so well but he just has lots of doubts and doesn't have very good self confidence. He sees himself as this terrible person who can never come to Church, never get baptized because he is such a bad person..........or so he thinks. He is a great guy and really has his life in order but just thinks so poorly of himself. We had a really great lesson with him and we enjoyed teaching him very much! We taught him about keeping the Sabath Day Holy since he had questions about why Church is on Sunday and not Saturday. Most people tend to focus on the small, irrelevant details and try to find something wrong with our church that they can hang onto and criticize even if it doesn't matter all that much. He had lots of questions about the Book of Mormon as well. He thinks that the Bible is the final say and he takes it Sooooooo literally!! He doesn't understand symbolism and thinks that everything in the Bible you have to take literally. He is such a great guy and wants to know the truth but isn't reading the Book of Mormon and so it is hard for him to gain a testimony of what we are teaching him. He told us that he read in the Bible thst "No man has seen God" and so he argued that there is no way Joseph Smith could have seen Heavenly Father because "It says it in the Bible." We calmly explained to him and testified that we know Joseph Smith is a true Prophet and that he did see Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. After our lesson, we took Isaac back home and then went to go visit Josh and Adal at their parents restaurant! We had a great visit with them and showed 2 Book of Mormon story videos with them from the Gospel Library app and they really enjoyed them! Then we came back to the apartment for dinner! After we ate, we had a really nice evening! We went to go and visit Richard Dahl to see if we could schedule a time to come help him with some wood splitting that he needed to get done. He was home and so we had a really nice lesson and talk with him. Then, we went to do a few lookups but not very many people were home. We knocked on a door of a less active lady and she answered but told us that it wasn't a good time at all because she was just putting her kids to bed. We headed back to the apartment for the night after such a great day of work! The weather has been so pretty and I have just loved it up here in beautiful Kingston! There are so many cool building and little businesses and sooooo many trees! The temperature has been perfect!

GO AGGIES! I was hoping you were all having a huge party and having so much fun watching the game! I was hoping it was on tv which I was pretty sure that it was. I missed watching it SO much with you!!!! I just know how many more great and fun seasons we have ahead of us! Friday was a really amazing day as well! The days just seem to be going by quicker and quicker and I really can't believe that it is September. We woke up ready for another great day! We had lots of great things scheduled! We woke up to some of the most beautiful weather I have ever seen! It was a cool 49 degrees and felt so nice! I just love the fall because you know what that means......football!!! First, we drove over to the Velasco's Restaurant because we had some service scheduled with them for that morning. So we went inside and nobody was there. Then one of the workers came over and said that he couldn't find the owner so he went to go get the owner's wife. She came over to us and was so sad because her husband had been drinking all night long and was passed out drunk. She was on the verge of tears and was so embarrassed that we scheduled an appointment with him and then he goes and gets drunk right before we got there. He came stumbling downstairs and felt really bad himself. He asked us if there was any way that we could reschedule for another time. We said that would be great and then drove to the Mid Hudson Buffet with Sister Wootton and had a great lunch! They have lots of really good food! It is owned by an oriental family and so all of the workers are from Japan, China, or Taiwan. They are always so nice and know Sister Wootton by name. We had a great discussion and then Sister Wootton asked us if we would like to go apple picking really quick for a family that she had been thinking about. So we drove over to Brother and Sister Walker's house in the ward and picked tons of apples from their tree and then Sister Wootton drove over and delivered them! It was a great activity and it was so nice to serve! I like to call it: "Service while serving!" Hehe. Then we drove over to visit Manny and he was home but he didn't have much time and so we scheduled another time to come back and we checked up on his Book of Mormon reading and how he was doing with reading the pamphlets as well. Then we went to go visit Knowledge and he told us something really cool! He is on the Kingston Tigers football team and so we got along really well right off the bat! He told us that they were playing FDR High School that night! It was really cool to know that football season was just around the corner! I have loved my Utah State magnet and have it proudly displayed! I love knowing when the games are! So after we talked with Knowledge, we wished him luck at his football game and then drove over to visit a less active lady named Sister Policastro. She is in her mid 70s and a very nice lady! We got to know her a little bit and promised her that the ward was thinking about her and that she was missed at church! Then we went to go do a few more lookups and talked to a lot of cool people and then drove back to the apartment and had dinner. Then we had a great lesson with Bill and then we had Bishop Wootan come with us! It was so great to have the Bishop there and he did such an amazing job at teaching! Bill has had almost all of the lessons and so we taught him about tithing. It went so well and the Bishop had lots of cool stories and experiences from paying tithing! Bill really enjoyed the lesson and committed to paying his tithing! Then we went to go visit Dorette and David but neither of them were home and so we left notes for both of them. BY that time, it was time to head in for the day After a great day of hard work! We were so excited that it was September. I was thinking about you guys all day and wondering how your day went after the kids' 1st full week back from school! I missed you guys a lot today and just really want you to know how much I love, miss, and appreciate you!!!!
Saturday was so awesome! We woke up and did the usual routine and then headed out the door for another great day! We were excited because it was transfer call night but we were both almost positive that we were both staying....especially me because I just got here! I checked the weather as soon as we woke up and I couldn't believe what I saw! 43 degrees! I have heard that it doesn't start to cool down very much until November and so it was really crazy to see how cool it was! I was thinking about you Dubbie all day long and hoping you were playing your heart out and winning! I was also thinking about you Abbs and I was really hoping that you didn't have to work so you could go too! I was so excited to get your email and I was so happy that Brandon won his game! Congrats Buddie! That is such a great win! We had such a great day and we had a very cool experience and it was so amazing to see the power of the Priesthood! It was even a little bit chilly but felt so nice and it was nice to cool off! We started the day by driving to one of 2 service projects that we had scheduled and if one of them fell through, we could go to the other one. Well, we drove over to Richard's house to help him chop some wood for his wood pile but we knocked on the door and he wasn't home. So then we called Brother Pease's son and he told us that he was up in Albany and didn't need our help for the day. We were kind of disappointed because we were told by 2 different families that we could come over and help and they both cancelled on us last minute. We were right ready to work and then we had to drive back to the apartment, find something else to do, and then change back into our white shirts and ties. We were sad we couldn't help them out! So we had lunch and then filled out our driving report for the month of August and then drove to do tons of lookups to fill the extra time that we had. I have been working on my New York accent and saying "August" is the best way to show off a New York accent. Everyone thst grew up in New York or have lived here for a very long time say "Awegust". I still remember in our Mother's Skype call, I said "Wahkin!" People's accents here are so cool! Then after we ate lunch, we drove over to Brother Lopez' house for Ward Correlation and it went so well! We talked about Bill, Manny, and how Ryan was doing! Brother Lopez is so great and we love talking with him and sharing some of our needs that our investigators have. We talk about who can give rides to our investigators and who can come with us to lessons. Then after ward correlation, he gave us a peach for the road and then we were off to do more work! The day before, we got a call from Sister Lisa Martin and she asked us if we could come over the next day and help her out with some furniture that she needed moving around her house. Lisa is so nice and has a really long history with missionaries. So we helped her carry her air conditioning units upstairs and then moved a dresser outside to the curb with a sign that said "free" so anyone could take it. Then we had to hurry back to the apartment and pick up some paper plates for our dinner activity we had that night! Sister Cross invited the Parks over and we had Little Caesar's pizza and tons of desserts that they made. Sister Cross seemed a little sad that day because Logan, her son with Cerebral Palsy wasn't doing well. He wasn't his normal self and we could tell. He can't talk but you can tell that he is listening and can understand what we are saying. We all could tell that he wasn't his normal self and then Sister Cross asked us if we could give him a blessing. Brother Parks gave him a great blessing! Logan hadn't really moved and had his head down pretty much the whole evening and as soon as we were done with the blessing, his head went up and he gave us all a huge smile!!! It was a night and day difference! It was so amazing to see a blessing work so quickly! He was smiling and happy the rest of the night! It was amazing. Then, we did something really cool! Just down the street there is a cool little walkway that goes right past the Hudson River and has some amazing views! We took that short walk and it was so amazing! I took lots of pictures! Then, we said goodbye and thanked everyone for the evening after a short spiritual thought and then we drove to visit Knowledge but he wasn't home so we dropped a note off to a couple of houses for our appointments that we had Sunday. Then........it was time....... for transfer calls! We were both pretty sure that Elder Howard was staying. So we came back to the apartment and waited for the call! We didn't get any leadership calls like District or Zone Leader. Then we got the call at around 10:00! Elder Newbold told us that Sister No was going to the Manhattan YSA Ward and Sister Johnson will get Sister Perkins who was in my last Zone! Then, our District Leader, Elder Newbold, is going to Kingsbridge and he will be replaced by......wait for it......Elder Bradley!!! I was so excited to hear that I will be in the same district as Elder Bradley again! We were so excited to stay together for at least 1 more cycle! Today, I'm officially done with 5 of my 17 cycles! Check, check, check, check, check!! It is so crazy to think that Elder Howard only has 2 cycles left. We could be together until he goes home which would be crazy because the last cycle, he would have lots of meeting like a class on how to jump back into real life and his exit interview with President Smith. We are both looking forward to being companions for at least 1 more cycle! It was such an amazing and productive day!

Sunday was really great! I have been missing you all so much and wishing I could be there with you! We had such a great day at church and enjoyed all of the talks! Brother Monterroza even gave Bill a ride to Church and so we had him there which was awesome! We drove to Church and there weren't a whole lot of people there since it was Labor Day weekend. Lots of people were traveling I'm sure! It pretty much rained the whole day and it was very dark and dismal out there. We had some really great testimonies and enjoyed having Bill there with us. Then, they recognized Brother Lopez' daughter for graduating from Seminary and getting her personal progress record. They invited us to come over and celebrate by having a big lunch! Then the very next day, she left to go to school at BYU-Idaho. It was hard for them to say goodbye and so it was kind of like them having a missionary go out. We had such a great time with the Lopez family and they had some really good food! They had a really good chicken tamale soup and tortillas to make little tacos with creme de leche, beans, guac, and sour cream! It was all so good and authentic right from their cook books from Mexico. Brother and Sister Lopez speak only a little English but understand it very well. We took a picture of them together for 1 last family picture. I'm very glad that we were able to be a part of their final moments together! Then we drove to do lots of lookups and went to go visit Josh and Carrie. One thing that I've noticed is that people really like to make excuses and say that they will be home, but leave to go grocery shopping just before we get there. It makes me sad that people will do anything just to make sure they aren't home for our appointments. We scheduled an appointment with Josh and Carrie about a week before it actually happened and then reminded them and left lots of cards on their door. We made sure that they knew when we were coming over. The night before, we left a card on their door that said "Hey Josh and Carrie! We can't wait to see you tomorrow at 2:30!" Then when we got to their house after lunch, their son answered and said that they had just left to go grocery shopping and they wouldn't be home for a few hours. We asked if we could stop by later and he said that they wouldn't be home then either. Then, we drove over to visit Knowledge and we walked up to the door and I could have sworn that I saw Knowledge sitting on a chair playing a video game with his brother. When the doorbell rang, he bolted and hid and then told his brother to go answer the door. We were a little confused and then his 10 year old brother came up with a big long story about his cousin was moving to Georgia and so Knowledge was having a sleepover at his house because it is the only time he gets to spend with him. I didn't want to accuse him and tell him that we saw Knowledge but I wasn't positive it was him or not. It has been hard to have appointments fall through! Then we went back to the apartment and had dinner and we were starving! Then we went to go visit Sierra and Lorenzo! Something that has been so funny is that WHATEVER time we go over, Lorenzo is always taking a shower. We will go over there in the morning, afternoon or evening and he is always in the shower. I always think to myself "Maybe he just stays in there all day!" It's funny how whenever we go over there, he is always in the shower. Sierra was home and she was more than willing to have a lesson with us! It was hard to teach her because their little tiny dog was barking up a storm and we could barely think, Lorenzo Jr kept falling down, and their little baby kept crying. It was so cool because as soon as we started talking about the first vision,.......scilence. It was one of the coolest things ever! The dog stopped barking, Lorenzo Jr sat down and the baby stared at us. The spirit was very strong and we enjoyed so much teaching them! We had a great lesson and gave them a Book of Mormon and Restoration pamphlet and then headed out the door. We still had a little bit of time left and so we went to do a few more lookups and left lots of cards on lots of doors! It was such a great and amazing day!

Happy Labor Day! I felt bad that I forgot to wish you all a happy day off of work and school last P-Day! I was so excited to get your email when I woke up! I was thinking about you guys all days and hoping you were having a great time! We woke up, did our studies, and then made the 30 minute journey to the last District Meeting of the cycle! We had such a great meeting but we were sad that Sister Ho and Elder Newbold were leaving. So we had our meeting and then we drove all the way to Saugerties for a Labor Day picnic at a beautiful campsite! So we said goodbye to Elder Newbold and Sister Ho and then we drove the 45 minutes back and drove up to the campsite! We are always so grateful for members for always taking good care of us and making sure thst we had good food! We were one of the 1st ones there so we set up and helped them start up the grill and started cooking food! It was such a great time and we enjoyed talking with all the members! We had Sister Shambo, the Parks, the Larins, and the Hansens up there. I was thinking about you the whole day and hoping you were playing a big backyard football game! Then, it was time for us to leave and drive back to Kingston for a service project that we had. We thanked everyone for the meal and away we went! It was so nice to talk with everyone and get to know them better and it was a really fun way to celebrate Labor Day! So we drove back to the apartment and changed into some service clothes and then drove down the street to the Walker's house. The weather was absolutely perfect and was the perfect temperature. Bright and blue skies as far as the eye could see! The Walkers are renovating their detached garage into a really nice "Mother in law" suite for Sister Walker's sister. They are turning it into such a nice living area that they will eventually rent to college students going to SUNY Ulster College just down the street from us. So our job was to help them with whatever they needed around this apartment. They had tons of garbage cans filled with cut up pieces of plywood and sheetrock and we collapsed lots of boxes and put all of the trash into about 8 huge garbage bags. Then we carried about 20 packaged panels of flooring into the house so it can become acclimated to the temperature of the apartment. Then, Sister Wootan brought over dinner for them because Brother Walker went in for chemotherapy yesterday. He was recently diagnosed with a minor form of skin cancer and started his treatment yesterday. So Sister Wootan wanted to be nice and so she made them a huge meal to show her love for them. There was so much food that we got invited to stay after working hard! It was great to get to know them better because we don't get a lot of time to talk to them at church. Brother Walker is from Pittsburgh and Sister Walker is from Kingston. They are really great people! We headed back to the apartment for the evening after such a great day of work! We had such a great day and the picnic made it even better! We wished Brother Walker well in his treatment and headed back to the apartment for the night.

Tuesday was so awesome! I was so excited to get your email last night and couldn't wait to hear from you and about how your week went! We had a really great and busy day! First, we drove over to Sister Falatyn's house and did lots of weeding for her! We called her thst morning and asked if we could come over and help and she said "Well there's always work to do so I guess you could come over!" We happily went over and helped her cut tons of dead daisies out of her garden. When I say tons....I mean TONS! We probably snipped close to 1000 daisies and 3 inches from the root and made her garden look so nice! She is the lady thst got offended and hasn't been to Church in many years and has a beautiful brand new house with amazing views! So we clipped and trimmed her flower bed and then she made us some sandwhiches on really good bread for lunch! The weather so nice as you saw on your phone but we heard it was supposed to rain than night. I have something SO, SO crazy to tell you about late last evening!!! So we said goodbye to Sister Falatyn and she was so appreciative of us coming over and all of the work that we did. We usually go over every Tuesday morning but this appointment wasn't scheduled and so we just called her that morning during planning and luckily it was perfect timing for us to come over! Then we drove back to the apartment and changed really fast and then we went to pick up Isaac Blue again because he wanted to come with us to visit Ryan, Sister Shambo, and Anne! Isaac was the one in the picture with the black shirt on and Ryan has the white shirt on. He is always so nice and willing to come with us. So we picked him up and away we went to visit Ryan. He has been having lots of questions about our Church and he is accusing our Church of breaking the 10 commandments solely on the fact that we have Church on Sundays. It is really frustrating to him and he says it is the only reason why he won't come to Church and get baptized. The other thing is thst he refuses to pick up and read any of the Book of Mormon because he thinks he needs proof from every single verse in the Book of Mormon and compare it to the Bible. He is a really I interesting guy and we are trying really hard to help him and help him feel the spirit. We are working through these challenges the best we can but we don't see him getting baptized anytime soon. He is a great guy and wants to be a good person but he just wants to be sure. We told him that the only way for him to know if it is true is to read the Book of Mormon and pray. We had a great lesson and answered his questions the best we could and then drove to Saugerties to visit Anne and Sister Shambo. We showed them the Joseph Smith Restoration video and got to know Anne a little bit better. She grew up Jewish and so she has lots and lots of questions. Then after our great lesson, it was time to take Isaac home. We were about 20 minutes away from his house and so we decided to go get something to eat. Isaac really likes McDonald's so I decided to pay for his meal. So we got our food and ate on the ride home. Here is the crazy part! Elder Howard and I were a little confused about the exits and entrance ramps and Elder Howard was driving. He took an entrance ramp that he was sure took us back home. It was going in the right direction but then it turned and started going north.......way north. He realized that he made a mistake and tried to make a u-turn as soon as he could but we noted that there weren't any separations in the guardrail on the freeway. So we kept driving, and driving.........and driving for about 10 minutes in the wrong direction. The next exit and opportunity to get off the freeway was in Catskill New York which is about 10 miles away. We then realized that we.....had left the mission. WHOOPS!! Mistakes happen and even one of the Assistants, Zone Leader, and District Leader in the Bronx have accidentally gone to Queens before because they took the wrong bus. So needless to say thst we crossed into the New York Utica mission last night on accident. President Smith says if it ever happens, just get back as soon as you can. We couldn't beleive it! Mistakes happen and we are all human but Elder Howard was so embarrassed. We finally got turned around and off we went to take Isaac home. After we dropped him off, we met Brother Bowers, who used to be Bishop in this ward, at Bob Costello's house for a lesson. The thing about Bob is that he is still very bitter about the church and getting offended and so we thought it was a good idea to bring Brother Bowers. Boy were we right! He helped us a ton and really got through to Bob! Bob was married in the temple in about 1973 and is 69 years old right now. He was getting a divorce but he didn't want his temple sealing removed. He believes that someone destroyed his letter and file and removed the sealing without his permission. He says that they aren't able to do thst unless they have permission. So he is still very upset about that and he talks about it like it happened yesterday. We had a really great talk and lesson with him and he and Brother Bowers hit it off really quick and enjoyed the visit as well. Then it was time to say goodbye and head back to the apartment for the night. I couldn't wait to get back and read your email! It was a really busy and jam packed day!

It has been so much fun to email you today and hear all about you week! I always love sending off my emails but I am sad to be done with my emails. I always look forward to Tuesday nights so much! I hope you all have another great and safe week and work, school and all of the other activities that you have going on! I will be thinking about you all week! Today for P-Day, Sister Cross invited us to come to lunch with her called Adams Farms Market. It is a grocery store and apparently has some pretty cool indoor gardens. It should be a great time! I'm so excited for today and to be able to email back and forth with you! Have a great day at work and school everyone! LOVE AND MISS YOU ALL SO MUCH!!!


Love You Always!
~Elder Lindberg