November 22nd 2017~
Hello my dear and amazing family!!! Wow! What an awesome week it has been! I have sewn so many cool things happen and Elder Brown and I are working hard to find more people to teach! I have loved the holiday season and all of the amazing decoration that have started to pop up all over the city! I'm so glad that you all had a great and fun week! I'm so excited for all of the fun things going on! Just so everyone knows, we got a really awesome dinner appointment with a really awesome Family! We will be having our Thanksgiving Feast with the Call Family! They are a really young couple who have only been married for 2 to 3 years. They have a little 9 months old daughter named Faye and she is one of the cutest babies you will ever meet! They both graduated from Utah State and so it really feels a lot like home and I'm so grateful for that! We will have a really awesome time and I've heard that Sister Call is a really amazing cook and they have a really cool apartment! I haven't been there before but it will be a really great time! I am so excited for the holidays and all of the amazing sights and sounds! Today for P-Day I'm so excited to say that we might go to the......top of the Rockefeller Center!!!! For Elder Brown's birthday, he got some money to go to either the top of the Empire State Building or the top of the Rockefeller Center! We do have haircuts from Jay and then we may have some zone sports at the Manhattan Temple Chapel and so we will see if we have time or if we are just going to the top of the Rockefeller Center! I'm so excited to go and especially excited to go the day before Thanksgiving! Today is the day that they inflate all of the balloons for the Macey's Thanksgiving Day Parade so we may get to see some! It is going to be a really exciting time!
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I want to share some things that I am grateful and thankful for! First of all, I'm most grateful for my amazing family that I have been blessed to have!! You are all amazing people and I love you all so much! You are all what I'm most thankful for! I'm so grateful for this Gospel and for how much it has blessed all of our lives! I'm also so grateful for our home, cars, food, and everything else we have been blessed with! I'm so grateful for Joseph Smith and the Restoration of the Gospel and for Jesus Christ! I'm so thankful for all of you and all of your examples! This is such a great season to be thankful because we have been given so much!
Last P-day was so awesome! The Temple is so amazing and I love how peaceful it is inside! I can just sit and think about things and reflect on my mission! Our session started at 2:00 and so we had a nice, relaxing morning emailing and getting our weekly shopping trip done. I have been learning how to budget carefully and make sure that I have enough for the month and I have been so grateful for you teaching me how to budget! After the Temple, it was about 4:15 so we came back to the apartment and emailed until P-day was over. After our P-Day ended, we had a really great lesson with a single father and member, and his son Leo. His name is Brother Fuente and he got divorced not too long ago and so he loves it when we come over and share a message about peace. He had some hot and fresh cookies for us with a huge glass of cold milk and we shared a message about Thanksgiving. Then we had our 2 lessons that night fall through but we knew there was someone who needed us that night. So we knocked on a door of an investigator who had contact with missionaries a few years ago but hadn't been visited in a long time. So we knocked on her door and she was so nice! Her name is Lillian and she is in her mid 60s and takes care of her 3 grandkids. We talked about the Restoration and scheduled another time to come back and she was thrilled that we found her! Hopefully we can teach her and help her come to church! It was a great lesson and then it was time to go to the apartment for the night.
Thursday was another great day! We woke up to rain again and it was pretty dark and cloudy. We got a text saying that President Smith was going to have another conference call! I just couldn't believe that it was already time for the bells concert again the very next day! I feel like we were just all sitting together as a big family and hearing the Christmas music and it was time for it again! So we headed out with our roommates because they needed us to open up our church. We had a busy and packed day and so we always love days like these. After that, we did our companionship study and then went out to lunch at a really good sandwich shop called "Potbelly's". They sell really good sandwiches and I got an Italian sandwich with a chocolate brownie cookie and it was really good! Then we hopped on a train because we had an appointment all the way down in Lower Manhattan with the Ramos family who are less active. On our way there we had one of the craziest things happen so far on my mission. We we walking to our appointment right after getting off the subway and a guy comes practically running up to us and starts yelling and screaming his head off. He was yelling all kinds of odd and bizarre things at us and what our church believes. He wasn't making any sense and just wanted to take out his anger on someone. He appeared to be homeless and just wanted someone to yell at. We both just gave him a big grin and told him to have a nice day. Well......that wasn't the best thing to say because this made him more irate and upset. He followed us and was yelling at us and everyone was looking at him and they all had a funny look on their faces. Itnwas really crazy! Then we rode the subway and I was talking to a guy and he told me that he was at the Jazz vs Knicks game the night before and so he showed me lots of pictures thstnhe took of the Jazz. He thought it was so cool that I was from Utah and liked the Jazz. He told me that the Knicks won and played a really good game!Then we taught Brother and Sister Ramos about the Plan of Salvation and itnwas fun to see how much they knew about the Gospel! Then we had an assignment from a member in the Manhattan 3rd ward and asked us to bring some vases that were borrowed for Monae's baptism right before I got here. They needed to be returned so we took the 3 glass vases through the streets of the city and brought them back to the 87th street chapel and since we were just a few blocks from the Temple, we decided to go grab the mail for the Sisters who serve in our ward and for our roommates! So we brought back the mail and Elder Palmer got his final package from his family and then he told me how excited he was to come and meet you all! Then we hurried over to our dinner appointment that we had with Brother and Sister Toomey. We got to ride the train with Brother Ray Smith and he took our picture on the train and was excited to send it to you! I was so glad he was willing to do that because it was a cool picture and I liked how we had the subway in the background. So we went to the Toomey's apartment and had salad and enchiladas and then shared a message about Thanksgiving! Then they told us something really funny! Brother Toomey was doing some online shopping on Walmart and he told us that there was a mistake in one of the prices. He told us that for sale on Wal-Mart's website was a pallet of 1000 water bottles that normally retails for $500.00 and it was marked for $18.00 and free shipping on accident. So he ordered it right away and so now he has 1,000 bottles of water that were delivered right to his door with free shipping from California for a whopping $18.00!!! Then we went to our next appointment that we had with the McClain family. We had to be quick since we had a late night conference call from President Smith! We were all ready for a nice long sleep! Elder Palmer got his final package on his mission and he couldn't believe how fast time flew by!
Friday was such a great day!! First thing in the morning, we went over to the Church for our weekly planning. Then we had a lesson with Francis who we taught a few weeks ago and we were really excited because he always is wanting to learn more! On the bus ride there, we met a really nice couple in their 60s and they were both from Puerto Rico! It was so fun to talk to them and hear their story of moving to New York! So we headed over to have a lesson with Francis and to invite him to the baptism that was on Saturday! I totally forgot to tell you about it but it is an amazing story! So she is a security guard at the front desk of the Manhattan Temple and the sisters who live up there started teaching but they found out that she lives in our area and so the Sisters are teaching her and her baptism was last Saturday and President Smith baptized her! She is a really great lady! So after we did some weekly planning, we met with Francis and invited him to the Sisters' baptism. It has been so amazing to be here in New York City for the holiday season! I can't even describe the feeling of being here and seeing Christmas decorations getting put up and all the hype for huge Thanksgiving Day Parade! It is just so amazing to think that it will be on tv tomorrow and show our prosylyting area! There have been tons of tourists with luggage coming in from all over the world for the holidays and it is just such a cool atmosphere! I heard from Elder Palmer that lots of High School bands from Utah will be in the parade again this year! We do know that the parade will start at 9:00 our time and go until noon. I'm not sure what we will be able to see but it will be hard not to go and see it. It is just a such a famous and iconic parade and will be fun to see if we can see anything!! I will wave at the cameras and hope you can see me when you watch it tomorrow! It will be really cool to know that you are watching it because every single shot that the camera gets will all be within our area boundaries. It's pretty cool that we are THE only 2 Elder missionaries covering New York City at this time!! I'm so lucky and blessed! New Years Eve and Christmas will be even cooler!! As we were walking to get some lunch, we walked right past Madison Square Garden and there was a huge screen on the arena that said that 4 college basketball teams would be playing each other just like they do in the Gosner Classic that we went to at Utah State! They only showed logos and Elder Brown asked me if I knew all 4 of the team's that would be playing each other. They has the Virgina Tech Hokies, Washington Huskies, Providence Friars, and the Saint Louis Billikens all on the screen and he couldn't believe that I knew all 4 of them. He didn't recognize any of the logos. It was pretty neat to think that those 4 teams would be playing there that day! Then we passed by the Church and unlocked it for Elder Palmer and Elder Rocha and then we went tumour next lesson. It was a lesson with a really nice lady named Lillian. She had over a friend named Miguel who is a 7th Day Adventist. They were making a Puerto Rican food and they let us try son and they were very good! We talked to them and we mentioned the Word of Wisdom and had a great discussion. It was hard for them to concentrate because they were all walking around cooking and it made it hard for us to feel the spirit. We were still so grateful that they took the time to meet with us! She is the Grandma to 3 grandkids that live with her and her husband. After that, we finished planning for our week and planning for our investigators and I couldn't believe that we were planning for Thankgsgiving and our trainer and transfer call days! I totally forgot to mention in my last email that I could get a trainer call some time today and our transfer calls are this Saturday. It is so crazy and blows my mind at how fast this transfer went. I'm almost done with 7 of my 17 cycles. I really can't believe it!! After our weekly planning, we had dinner at our apartment and then went back our into the streets of the big city for more work! I was thinking about you all the whole day especially because you had the bells concert on Temple Square and I really wished that I could be there! I was hoping you had such a fun and safe trip! Then I got your email!!! I was so excited to get it! I was sad to hear that Mountain Crest lost but Elder Brown was really happy that his Tigers won! It was a really fun email to get! Then we went to go see Archangle and did a ton of other lookups. I looked at the time and it was about time for your concert to start and I was wondering how your trip went and how much fun you were having! It was really fun to think that you were there! After we knocked on a ton of doors, not a lot of people answered or were interested. I have really been patient because I know that it just takes that 1 person to be interested and get baptized. We are working hard to find that 1 person! There are so many people in this huge city but like we read in preach my Gospel, they just don't know where to find the truth. It was a great day and Elder Brown and I really enjoyed each other's company! I was beat and ready for a nice night's rest! We had a great day planned ahead on Saturday!!
Saturday was so incredible!!! It was a crazy busy day and we had lots of awesome things planned and I couldn't wait for them! So we woke up and did our morning exercise and it was really chilly! The view was amazing from the East River dock and we had a great time! We had 2 really cool things planned for that day! So we had Brother Anthony Eades' Temple Endownment session that morning! He was taught and baptized about a year ago and so now he is able to go through the Temple. We did our studies and then hurried over to the Temple for his session! I was so looking forward to going through again! It always brings back such great memories of when we went through together! I can't wait to do that again when I get home! I was so excited to go through the Temple again since we had just gone last Wednesday! So we got to the Temple about a half an hour early and then had a really great session with Brother Eades! He is a really great guy and was so excited to receive his own Endownment! We had a few member show up and support him and Brother Mishler, who is our Ward mission leader, was his escort. It was a really neat experience that I will never forget! After the awesome session, we changed and then we walked out into the hallway and there was the Temple President! It was really cool to meet him and he is such a nice guy! His name is President Bench and he grew up in New York. He has a really cool New York accent and he said "I'm from New Yawk"! After that, Brother Mishler wanted to treat everyone to lunch and so he went to a Halal food truck just outside the Temple and we had some amazing Halal food! He bought us some vegetarian falafel and rice platter and a drink to go along with it! It was really cool to spend time with him and Brother Eades! We enjoyed our food in the Relief Society room and when we were done, we said goodbye to Brother Eades and Brother Mishler and then we were walking out of the building and we saw Brother Victor Guzman! He is the 9/11 survivor who was in the North Tower when the 1st plane hit. He ran down the stairs and into the streets just before the tower collapsed. I wanted to get a picture of him before when he came to give a talk in Kingston so I finally got a picture with him! It was amazing just to be there with him because he has such an amazing story and it was cool to talk with someone who was not only there, but inside one of the buildings. After that, we headed over to our church for the baptism of Patricia. She is in her mid 50s and is the Temple security guard. We helped set up lots of chairs and then the baptism started and it was so awesome! President Smith was the one to baptize her and then we had our Bishop and Stake President there! President Smith knew that we would be there and he asked if we had a white tie with us and since we had just gone to the Temple, I had mine in my bag so President Smith used my tie to do the baptism. It will be a really cool keepsake! Then afterwards, we got our Thanksgiving plans all squared away! We talked to Brother and Sister Call and they want us to come over for dinner at 4:30 and they are also feeding the sister missionaries as well at 3:30. It is going to be such a fun time! Sister Pack did a really cool object lesson about the Holy Ghost with a really long string. She stretched it out and showed how we can feel the Holy Ghost when we strengthen our testimonies. She handed one end to Patricia and then she took the other one and asked her to close her eyes. She tugged on the string and showed how we can feel that but if we allow it to become loose, we can't feel the influence of the Holy Ghost. Then Brother Bryan asked us if we wanted dinner and of course we said Yes!!! So he took us to Chelsea Piers and then showed us some cool sights that we normally don't get to see! We walked right past the Google headquarters for the New York area and then into the cool shopping district around Chelsea Peirs! Brother Bryan is a banker for Goldman Sachs and has a 1 year old daughter. He grew up in Las Vegas and served his mission in Mexico. He wanted to take us to a really yummy taco place in the market! It was authentic Mexican food and it was so good to say the least! I ordered a carne asada taco and polla asada taco! They also had horchata and Coca-Cola in the glass bottles imported from Mexico and it was all so good! Brother Bryan was recently called to serve as a ward missionary and so he has been helping us a lot. He knows how hard the work can be to do in the big city but he gave us some pointers to help us find people to teach. It was so great to get to know him better! After our dinner, he wanted to help us get to where we needed to be and so he called a cab and we all traveled down to Lower Manhattan where he lives by the World Trade Center. It was so cool to be in a really New York City taxi cab! He gave us kind of a tour as we traveled to the bottom of Manhattan to do some finding and lookups. We drove right past the bike path where the tragedy happened. There was a huge memorial of flowers and police baracades all down the bike path. I had seen pictures all over the place of where the truck crashed and here we were driving right past it. It was pretty surreal. Then we said goodbye to Brother Bryan and then we went to knock on some doors. We ended up knocking on Archangel's door again to try to get him to come to Church. He has a fear of large crowds and so he tells us that he won't be coming back to Church for a while. We showed a video of Jeffery R. Holland and he really enjoyed it! Then it was time to head back to the apartment after lots of door knocking and we were both on cloud 9 after such a great day! We got to go to the Temple which is always so amazing and then on top of t hst, we got to see a baptism and confirmation! Then we got a text from our Zone Leaders telling us that President Smith wanted to have a mission wide fast for everyone to be able to have a baptism before the end of the year. So we had a conference call with every single missionary and we all fasted for all the missionaries to find people to teach! It capped off the day perfectly and I couldn't help but think how your day went and how much fun the Aggie game was! I was so glad that you got to go!!! It was such an incredible day and I can't describe how awesome it was!
Sunday was such a great and awesome day! We had a really awesome time at church! So we woke up and planned for our day and then we headed over to Church and it was one of the best Sundays I've had so far on my mission! The chapel was absolutely packed and we couldn't even fit another person in that building. It was the primary program and they did such an amazing job putting it all together! This ward has been so awesome for me and everyone is so nice and friendly! I have absolutely loved this great ward and all of the people in it! When we were waiting for the elevator to go to ward correlation, a member from Utah and his little daughter came up to us and starting talking with us. I asked him how old his daughter was and he told me that she was 9 months old. I wanted to say "WHAT!?!?" You mean to tell me that she was born after I came out on my mission?? This ward just reminds me a lot of home. There are lots of people from Utah and it really has been such a great ward! But not as great as the Nibley 1st Ward!
So we had a really awesome primary program and Charles and Godson both came and stayed for the whole 3 hour service! We had some really great lessons and an awesome correlation meeting. Our Ward Mission Leader is a dentist and he is such a great guy! Our Ward is so willing to come out with us and work whenever we need help! So after our ward correlation meeting, we decided to head back to the apartment to change outnof our suits and call and text lots of people. I have to tell you something crazy! So when we got back to the apartment we noticed tons of sirens and flashing lights right by our apartment. We got closer and there were tons of police officers and firefighter and the whole street was blocked off. We got even closer and noticed that a huge section of scaffolding about 50 feet in the air was tipping and about to fall. It had been really windy all day. It had tilted so much and looked like it was going to fall any second. We got closer to the emergency tape and the FDNY firefighters were only letting people go into our building who had an apartment that was facing East. Luckily our apartment faces East so we were able to go inside. They didn't know if it was going to fall so they were just being cautious. So then we called the people who put together the primary program just to thank them for the awesome job that they did! The Bishop's wife is the primary President and so we called her to thank her. I have become really good friends with Brother Anderson, who is the 1st counselor in the Bishopric because he loves football. He is a die hard Boise State fan and loves the Aggies too! He told me that the Cowboys lost the day before due to Josh Allen getting injured. I love talking football with him because it has built a trust and now he knows me personally and can ask us for help with things in the ward. He even wore a bright orange Boise State sweater underneath his suit coat because he told me that they beat Air Force the day before. I think I have told you this but he was at the incredible game in Laramie when the Cowboys beat the Broncos. I just think it's such a small world and I find it crazy that a couseler in the Bishopric all the way in New York has been to Laramie to watch a game. He was telling me how much fun it was to watch a game from War Memorial Stadium and how impressed he was! It was great to talk football with him! Then we talked to Brother and Sister Call and got our Thanksgiving Feast all planned and set up! I will be sure to get a picture with them so you can see them! Since more than 1 companionship of missionaries can't be together at 1 dinner appointment, they had the sisters come at 3:30 and then we are going to have our feast tomorrow at 4:30 so 2:30 your time. I have to admit that it is going to be so weird not being there and being a part of the festivities. I just think it is so cool and a great experience for me to be in New York City for the holidays! We hardly had any visitors there on Sunday so nobody took my picture and sent it to you. Even though there were a ton of people, there weren't a whole lot of visitors. Lots of people from all over the world are coming in to visit for the holidays and so I'm very excited for that! After dinner, we went back out and there were still tons of police officers and firefighters everywhere and they were trying to fix the tilted scaffolding. Wr headed out and they directed us past the caution tape and away we went for more work. We took the bus to visit Brother Eades since he wasn't in Church that day. He has some problems with his liver and so he wasn't feeling good that morning so he decided to stay home from church. He was very excited to have us over and we had a great lesson! It was all about the Sacrament and the atonement of Jesus Christ. It was amazing to hear the story of how he came to know that this church is Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ's true and restored church on this Earth. Then after that, we had a really awesome face to face event to watch! We met our roommates at our church and we watched the broadcast on our tablets! Here is the really cool part! It was broadcast live from Utah State!!! Elder Oaks and Elder Ballard were there and they answered questions and everyone who was in attendance were YSA age. It was a really cool experience! We had to be back to the apartment by 9:30 and it started at 8:00 so we headed back and had a really great talk about families and how much we all love and miss our families! It was such an awesome day! I was thinking about you all the whole time! Love you all so much!!
Last P-day was so awesome! The Temple is so amazing and I love how peaceful it is inside! I can just sit and think about things and reflect on my mission! Our session started at 2:00 and so we had a nice, relaxing morning emailing and getting our weekly shopping trip done. I have been learning how to budget carefully and make sure that I have enough for the month and I have been so grateful for you teaching me how to budget! After the Temple, it was about 4:15 so we came back to the apartment and emailed until P-day was over. After our P-Day ended, we had a really great lesson with a single father and member, and his son Leo. His name is Brother Fuente and he got divorced not too long ago and so he loves it when we come over and share a message about peace. He had some hot and fresh cookies for us with a huge glass of cold milk and we shared a message about Thanksgiving. Then we had our 2 lessons that night fall through but we knew there was someone who needed us that night. So we knocked on a door of an investigator who had contact with missionaries a few years ago but hadn't been visited in a long time. So we knocked on her door and she was so nice! Her name is Lillian and she is in her mid 60s and takes care of her 3 grandkids. We talked about the Restoration and scheduled another time to come back and she was thrilled that we found her! Hopefully we can teach her and help her come to church! It was a great lesson and then it was time to go to the apartment for the night.
Thursday was another great day! We woke up to rain again and it was pretty dark and cloudy. We got a text saying that President Smith was going to have another conference call! I just couldn't believe that it was already time for the bells concert again the very next day! I feel like we were just all sitting together as a big family and hearing the Christmas music and it was time for it again! So we headed out with our roommates because they needed us to open up our church. We had a busy and packed day and so we always love days like these. After that, we did our companionship study and then went out to lunch at a really good sandwich shop called "Potbelly's". They sell really good sandwiches and I got an Italian sandwich with a chocolate brownie cookie and it was really good! Then we hopped on a train because we had an appointment all the way down in Lower Manhattan with the Ramos family who are less active. On our way there we had one of the craziest things happen so far on my mission. We we walking to our appointment right after getting off the subway and a guy comes practically running up to us and starts yelling and screaming his head off. He was yelling all kinds of odd and bizarre things at us and what our church believes. He wasn't making any sense and just wanted to take out his anger on someone. He appeared to be homeless and just wanted someone to yell at. We both just gave him a big grin and told him to have a nice day. Well......that wasn't the best thing to say because this made him more irate and upset. He followed us and was yelling at us and everyone was looking at him and they all had a funny look on their faces. Itnwas really crazy! Then we rode the subway and I was talking to a guy and he told me that he was at the Jazz vs Knicks game the night before and so he showed me lots of pictures thstnhe took of the Jazz. He thought it was so cool that I was from Utah and liked the Jazz. He told me that the Knicks won and played a really good game!Then we taught Brother and Sister Ramos about the Plan of Salvation and itnwas fun to see how much they knew about the Gospel! Then we had an assignment from a member in the Manhattan 3rd ward and asked us to bring some vases that were borrowed for Monae's baptism right before I got here. They needed to be returned so we took the 3 glass vases through the streets of the city and brought them back to the 87th street chapel and since we were just a few blocks from the Temple, we decided to go grab the mail for the Sisters who serve in our ward and for our roommates! So we brought back the mail and Elder Palmer got his final package from his family and then he told me how excited he was to come and meet you all! Then we hurried over to our dinner appointment that we had with Brother and Sister Toomey. We got to ride the train with Brother Ray Smith and he took our picture on the train and was excited to send it to you! I was so glad he was willing to do that because it was a cool picture and I liked how we had the subway in the background. So we went to the Toomey's apartment and had salad and enchiladas and then shared a message about Thanksgiving! Then they told us something really funny! Brother Toomey was doing some online shopping on Walmart and he told us that there was a mistake in one of the prices. He told us that for sale on Wal-Mart's website was a pallet of 1000 water bottles that normally retails for $500.00 and it was marked for $18.00 and free shipping on accident. So he ordered it right away and so now he has 1,000 bottles of water that were delivered right to his door with free shipping from California for a whopping $18.00!!! Then we went to our next appointment that we had with the McClain family. We had to be quick since we had a late night conference call from President Smith! We were all ready for a nice long sleep! Elder Palmer got his final package on his mission and he couldn't believe how fast time flew by!
Friday was such a great day!! First thing in the morning, we went over to the Church for our weekly planning. Then we had a lesson with Francis who we taught a few weeks ago and we were really excited because he always is wanting to learn more! On the bus ride there, we met a really nice couple in their 60s and they were both from Puerto Rico! It was so fun to talk to them and hear their story of moving to New York! So we headed over to have a lesson with Francis and to invite him to the baptism that was on Saturday! I totally forgot to tell you about it but it is an amazing story! So she is a security guard at the front desk of the Manhattan Temple and the sisters who live up there started teaching but they found out that she lives in our area and so the Sisters are teaching her and her baptism was last Saturday and President Smith baptized her! She is a really great lady! So after we did some weekly planning, we met with Francis and invited him to the Sisters' baptism. It has been so amazing to be here in New York City for the holiday season! I can't even describe the feeling of being here and seeing Christmas decorations getting put up and all the hype for huge Thanksgiving Day Parade! It is just so amazing to think that it will be on tv tomorrow and show our prosylyting area! There have been tons of tourists with luggage coming in from all over the world for the holidays and it is just such a cool atmosphere! I heard from Elder Palmer that lots of High School bands from Utah will be in the parade again this year! We do know that the parade will start at 9:00 our time and go until noon. I'm not sure what we will be able to see but it will be hard not to go and see it. It is just a such a famous and iconic parade and will be fun to see if we can see anything!! I will wave at the cameras and hope you can see me when you watch it tomorrow! It will be really cool to know that you are watching it because every single shot that the camera gets will all be within our area boundaries. It's pretty cool that we are THE only 2 Elder missionaries covering New York City at this time!! I'm so lucky and blessed! New Years Eve and Christmas will be even cooler!! As we were walking to get some lunch, we walked right past Madison Square Garden and there was a huge screen on the arena that said that 4 college basketball teams would be playing each other just like they do in the Gosner Classic that we went to at Utah State! They only showed logos and Elder Brown asked me if I knew all 4 of the team's that would be playing each other. They has the Virgina Tech Hokies, Washington Huskies, Providence Friars, and the Saint Louis Billikens all on the screen and he couldn't believe that I knew all 4 of them. He didn't recognize any of the logos. It was pretty neat to think that those 4 teams would be playing there that day! Then we passed by the Church and unlocked it for Elder Palmer and Elder Rocha and then we went tumour next lesson. It was a lesson with a really nice lady named Lillian. She had over a friend named Miguel who is a 7th Day Adventist. They were making a Puerto Rican food and they let us try son and they were very good! We talked to them and we mentioned the Word of Wisdom and had a great discussion. It was hard for them to concentrate because they were all walking around cooking and it made it hard for us to feel the spirit. We were still so grateful that they took the time to meet with us! She is the Grandma to 3 grandkids that live with her and her husband. After that, we finished planning for our week and planning for our investigators and I couldn't believe that we were planning for Thankgsgiving and our trainer and transfer call days! I totally forgot to mention in my last email that I could get a trainer call some time today and our transfer calls are this Saturday. It is so crazy and blows my mind at how fast this transfer went. I'm almost done with 7 of my 17 cycles. I really can't believe it!! After our weekly planning, we had dinner at our apartment and then went back our into the streets of the big city for more work! I was thinking about you all the whole day especially because you had the bells concert on Temple Square and I really wished that I could be there! I was hoping you had such a fun and safe trip! Then I got your email!!! I was so excited to get it! I was sad to hear that Mountain Crest lost but Elder Brown was really happy that his Tigers won! It was a really fun email to get! Then we went to go see Archangle and did a ton of other lookups. I looked at the time and it was about time for your concert to start and I was wondering how your trip went and how much fun you were having! It was really fun to think that you were there! After we knocked on a ton of doors, not a lot of people answered or were interested. I have really been patient because I know that it just takes that 1 person to be interested and get baptized. We are working hard to find that 1 person! There are so many people in this huge city but like we read in preach my Gospel, they just don't know where to find the truth. It was a great day and Elder Brown and I really enjoyed each other's company! I was beat and ready for a nice night's rest! We had a great day planned ahead on Saturday!!
Saturday was so incredible!!! It was a crazy busy day and we had lots of awesome things planned and I couldn't wait for them! So we woke up and did our morning exercise and it was really chilly! The view was amazing from the East River dock and we had a great time! We had 2 really cool things planned for that day! So we had Brother Anthony Eades' Temple Endownment session that morning! He was taught and baptized about a year ago and so now he is able to go through the Temple. We did our studies and then hurried over to the Temple for his session! I was so looking forward to going through again! It always brings back such great memories of when we went through together! I can't wait to do that again when I get home! I was so excited to go through the Temple again since we had just gone last Wednesday! So we got to the Temple about a half an hour early and then had a really great session with Brother Eades! He is a really great guy and was so excited to receive his own Endownment! We had a few member show up and support him and Brother Mishler, who is our Ward mission leader, was his escort. It was a really neat experience that I will never forget! After the awesome session, we changed and then we walked out into the hallway and there was the Temple President! It was really cool to meet him and he is such a nice guy! His name is President Bench and he grew up in New York. He has a really cool New York accent and he said "I'm from New Yawk"! After that, Brother Mishler wanted to treat everyone to lunch and so he went to a Halal food truck just outside the Temple and we had some amazing Halal food! He bought us some vegetarian falafel and rice platter and a drink to go along with it! It was really cool to spend time with him and Brother Eades! We enjoyed our food in the Relief Society room and when we were done, we said goodbye to Brother Eades and Brother Mishler and then we were walking out of the building and we saw Brother Victor Guzman! He is the 9/11 survivor who was in the North Tower when the 1st plane hit. He ran down the stairs and into the streets just before the tower collapsed. I wanted to get a picture of him before when he came to give a talk in Kingston so I finally got a picture with him! It was amazing just to be there with him because he has such an amazing story and it was cool to talk with someone who was not only there, but inside one of the buildings. After that, we headed over to our church for the baptism of Patricia. She is in her mid 50s and is the Temple security guard. We helped set up lots of chairs and then the baptism started and it was so awesome! President Smith was the one to baptize her and then we had our Bishop and Stake President there! President Smith knew that we would be there and he asked if we had a white tie with us and since we had just gone to the Temple, I had mine in my bag so President Smith used my tie to do the baptism. It will be a really cool keepsake! Then afterwards, we got our Thanksgiving plans all squared away! We talked to Brother and Sister Call and they want us to come over for dinner at 4:30 and they are also feeding the sister missionaries as well at 3:30. It is going to be such a fun time! Sister Pack did a really cool object lesson about the Holy Ghost with a really long string. She stretched it out and showed how we can feel the Holy Ghost when we strengthen our testimonies. She handed one end to Patricia and then she took the other one and asked her to close her eyes. She tugged on the string and showed how we can feel that but if we allow it to become loose, we can't feel the influence of the Holy Ghost. Then Brother Bryan asked us if we wanted dinner and of course we said Yes!!! So he took us to Chelsea Piers and then showed us some cool sights that we normally don't get to see! We walked right past the Google headquarters for the New York area and then into the cool shopping district around Chelsea Peirs! Brother Bryan is a banker for Goldman Sachs and has a 1 year old daughter. He grew up in Las Vegas and served his mission in Mexico. He wanted to take us to a really yummy taco place in the market! It was authentic Mexican food and it was so good to say the least! I ordered a carne asada taco and polla asada taco! They also had horchata and Coca-Cola in the glass bottles imported from Mexico and it was all so good! Brother Bryan was recently called to serve as a ward missionary and so he has been helping us a lot. He knows how hard the work can be to do in the big city but he gave us some pointers to help us find people to teach. It was so great to get to know him better! After our dinner, he wanted to help us get to where we needed to be and so he called a cab and we all traveled down to Lower Manhattan where he lives by the World Trade Center. It was so cool to be in a really New York City taxi cab! He gave us kind of a tour as we traveled to the bottom of Manhattan to do some finding and lookups. We drove right past the bike path where the tragedy happened. There was a huge memorial of flowers and police baracades all down the bike path. I had seen pictures all over the place of where the truck crashed and here we were driving right past it. It was pretty surreal. Then we said goodbye to Brother Bryan and then we went to knock on some doors. We ended up knocking on Archangel's door again to try to get him to come to Church. He has a fear of large crowds and so he tells us that he won't be coming back to Church for a while. We showed a video of Jeffery R. Holland and he really enjoyed it! Then it was time to head back to the apartment after lots of door knocking and we were both on cloud 9 after such a great day! We got to go to the Temple which is always so amazing and then on top of t hst, we got to see a baptism and confirmation! Then we got a text from our Zone Leaders telling us that President Smith wanted to have a mission wide fast for everyone to be able to have a baptism before the end of the year. So we had a conference call with every single missionary and we all fasted for all the missionaries to find people to teach! It capped off the day perfectly and I couldn't help but think how your day went and how much fun the Aggie game was! I was so glad that you got to go!!! It was such an incredible day and I can't describe how awesome it was!
Sunday was such a great and awesome day! We had a really awesome time at church! So we woke up and planned for our day and then we headed over to Church and it was one of the best Sundays I've had so far on my mission! The chapel was absolutely packed and we couldn't even fit another person in that building. It was the primary program and they did such an amazing job putting it all together! This ward has been so awesome for me and everyone is so nice and friendly! I have absolutely loved this great ward and all of the people in it! When we were waiting for the elevator to go to ward correlation, a member from Utah and his little daughter came up to us and starting talking with us. I asked him how old his daughter was and he told me that she was 9 months old. I wanted to say "WHAT!?!?" You mean to tell me that she was born after I came out on my mission?? This ward just reminds me a lot of home. There are lots of people from Utah and it really has been such a great ward! But not as great as the Nibley 1st Ward!
Monday was so amazing and we had one of the busiest days I've had so far on my mission! We had both a lunch and dinner appointment and then tons of lessons to get to! It was so awesome! We did our studies and I learned all about the Restoration and I read in Helaman. I have loved having an hour each day to sit and read the Book of Mormon and study Preach My Gospel! I have felt the spirit so much and I feel like I'm in seminary or institute again! So after our studies we had a really awesome District Meeting and we talked a lot about everyone's Baptisimal dates and what the whole district can do for them. It was really great and they gave us some pointers on how to find people to teach so we can set a Baptisimal date. Then we had a really awesome lunch appointment at Shake Shack with Sister De Jesus and she even took our pictures and sent it to you! We had a really good burger with fries and a shake and then we hurried over to an appointment with a man named Dwayne but he wasn't home and then we had another appointment with Brother Eades and Brother Forbes so we hurried over there. It was a really tight schedule and so we enjoyed having so much to do! We had a dinner appointment at Taco Bell with Sister Coburn who is a ward missionary. So we taught Brother Eades and Brother Forbes and then we walked just down the street to the Taco Bell! We taught Brother Eades and Brother Forbes about family history and then we had a really great dinner with Sister Coburn! I was really thinking about you guys a lot and hoping you were having a great day! It has been so much fun to see the holidays come up and all of the amazing decorations. It has been such a fun time to be in New York City! It has been getting colder and colder recently and we even had some snow on the forecast but it never came. We met Brother and Sister Coburn at Taco Bell and we had a really nice discussion with them. Brother Coburn hasn't been to Church in a really long time but he still has a lot of knowledge about the church. He really likes to talk a lot and so it was hard for us to do any teaching at all. They are very nice people and we were so grateful for them taking us out to eat. We continued on our very busy day and went to visit Alexsander Feliciano and we invited him to Church and he accepted to come on Sunday! We will see if he follows through. He is a really nice guy and is in his early 30s. He has some mental illnesses but always has a big smile on his face when we come over. Then we shared a quick message with him and then we took a bus to the West side of Manhattan for an appointment that we had with Edwin Roa. We had set a goal that morning to set a Baptisimal date with him but unfortunately he wasn't home. We left his apartment complex sad that we didn't set a date with him but we know he will be ready soon. We got approached by a homeless man and he told us how he fought in the Aghan war and has been homeless because of the government ever since he got home. He asked us if we had any cash with us that we could give to him so he could buy food. He then reached into a grocery bag that had some food in it and then opened up a can of Red Bull and then drank the whole thing in a few gulps. It makes me sad that he was homeless but he had enough money to buy a $4.00-$5.00 can of Red Bull. He was kind of upset that we didn't give him any money but we aren't allowed to give people money because we are on a tight budget as well. It has made me so sad to see how many homeless people there are but it makes me even more grateful for the many blessings that I have in my life! There have been a lot of homeless people that will even ask us for money for drugs and alcohol and then we get asked if we can buy them a cup of coffee. We get approached probably 3 or 4 times a day and have lots of people ask us for food and money. It really has been an eye opening experience! We headed back to the apartment after a really awesome day and I couldn't wait to hear from you the very next day!!!
Tuesday was another really awesome day! We enjoyed being outside so much and seeing all of the people coming in and all of the hype for the Thanksgiving Day Parade!!! It was so amazing! I was so excited for you all to watch it! I will be just down the street from where it takes place and so it will be an amazing experience! It's just pretty cool to think that we watch it every year and now I'm actually here! There have been tons of ads telling us when and where the parade is! So we started the day by going to an appointment with a Baptist pastor named Sharice Vadon. She is a very nice lady but just likes to learn about other churches. We taught her the Restoration and she was very confused about the Book of Mormon and why we needed a "2nd Bible." By the time we were done explaining everything, she understood it all very well and understood how the Book of Mormon came to be. We set a return appointment with her for this next Friday at a Dunkin Donuts and she wants to buy us some hot chocolate and donuts! It was a great lesson and we really enjoyed teaching her and getting to know her better! She grew up in Georgia near Savannah and I told her that Dad used to live in Atlanta and she thought that was amazing that a young 19 year old boy from Wyoming could live there. She thought it was really cool! Then we did lots of lookups and knocked on many doors. We went into this one project building to find Evelyn and Jose and it was totally decked out in Christmas decorations! It was really crazy and I even got a video of it!
Then we came back and had lunch and did our companionship study! During lunch, I got a really great email from Grandma Evans and I enjoyed reading it during lunch! Then we headed over to Brother Eades and Brother Forbes' area and did some lookups before our appointment with them. We taught them about the Priesthood and then shared a video about the importance of exercising our Priesthood. Then we headed off to our dinner appointment with Brother and Sister Toomey and had a really great time! There was a store that had Christmas music playing and I couldn't help but get really excited for it! Then I saw a guy wearing a sweatshirt that said Richmond on it and I surprised him by saying "Go Spiders!" He was shocked that I knew that. We had a really great dinner and lesson with Brother and Sister Toomey and had a great lesson about family history! After that we did lookups and knocked on tons of doors for the rest of the night. I couldn't wait to get back to the apartment and read your email and see your pictures! We got back to the apartment and a few minutes later, I got your awesome email and pictures! It was such a great day and it was so fun to hear how you all were doing and all of the fun and exciting things going on!
Tuesday was another really awesome day! We enjoyed being outside so much and seeing all of the people coming in and all of the hype for the Thanksgiving Day Parade!!! It was so amazing! I was so excited for you all to watch it! I will be just down the street from where it takes place and so it will be an amazing experience! It's just pretty cool to think that we watch it every year and now I'm actually here! There have been tons of ads telling us when and where the parade is! So we started the day by going to an appointment with a Baptist pastor named Sharice Vadon. She is a very nice lady but just likes to learn about other churches. We taught her the Restoration and she was very confused about the Book of Mormon and why we needed a "2nd Bible." By the time we were done explaining everything, she understood it all very well and understood how the Book of Mormon came to be. We set a return appointment with her for this next Friday at a Dunkin Donuts and she wants to buy us some hot chocolate and donuts! It was a great lesson and we really enjoyed teaching her and getting to know her better! She grew up in Georgia near Savannah and I told her that Dad used to live in Atlanta and she thought that was amazing that a young 19 year old boy from Wyoming could live there. She thought it was really cool! Then we did lots of lookups and knocked on many doors. We went into this one project building to find Evelyn and Jose and it was totally decked out in Christmas decorations! It was really crazy and I even got a video of it!
Well my dear Family! I'm so grateful for this time that I have had to email you and let you know all about our week! It was so much fun to hear from you and see your pictures! I'm so happy that you all had a great week! Today for P-Day we are planning on getting haircuts and going to the top of the Rockefeller Center but when we woke up, it was a little cloudy and foggy. So we are putting that into our plans but we aren't sure if it will be clear enough to go. It is going to be such a fun day and then tomorrow will be awesome as well! I hope you all have an amazing Thanksgiving and a really fun trip to American Fork! I wish I could be there but the members here always rake such good care of us like you said, that it feels just like home! I'm happy to report that Elder Brown isn't feeling sick at all and I never got sick! Well, have a wonderful and fun Thanksgiving everyone and tell each other hi for me and eat lots of yummy food!!! LOVE AND MISS YOU ALL SO VERY MUCH!!!
Love You Always!
~Elder Lindberg
P.S: This is a picture of us and Victor Guzman, who is the 9/11 survivor who worked as an attorney in the World Trade Center. He was on the 85th floor of the North Tower which was the 1st Tower to get hit. He escaped by running down all those flights of stairs and got out just before the Tower collapsed. He is such an amazing guy with an amazing story!
Love You Always!
~Elder Lindberg
P.S: This is a picture of us and Victor Guzman, who is the 9/11 survivor who worked as an attorney in the World Trade Center. He was on the 85th floor of the North Tower which was the 1st Tower to get hit. He escaped by running down all those flights of stairs and got out just before the Tower collapsed. He is such an amazing guy with an amazing story!
No comments:
Post a Comment