Hello my dear and amazing loved ones! Wow! What a fun and busy week it has been getting settled! Your email was so amazing and I loved every word as always! I'm so thankful that each of you had another great week! I'm always at peace knowing that you are all well and happy! I feel bad because this email won't be as long because we are going on a small hike at a place called Lake Minnewaska and so I want to send this email out to you all and let you know that I love you so much! Today for P-Day we are doing something really fun! Ray Smith knows this area really well and so he knows a lot of cool sights to see! We are meeting him at 8:30 our time and so hopefully this email doesn't seem too short but I wanted to send it off before we go. We are going to meet Ray Smith and then we are taking a pretty hike and so I will send lots of pictures and send out my individual email as soon as I can. My week was so busy and so awesome and I'm growing so much! I can't believe that I'm saying this but Elder Kirkham went home last Tuesday and so that has been cool to think that he is back with his Family! I have so much to talk about and so here it goes!
Wow! Last P-day was so much fun and we packed like the wind!!! It's always sad to leave an area because I get so comfortable and used to certain people and routines it is always wierd to pack up and move! The weather was absolutely beautiful and so pleasant to be out in! I realized that it was my very last full day in the Bronx. Crazy huh! It makes me wonder when the next time that I will be back here will be! Our apartment was really busy with 3 of the 4 missionaries moving out and so the whole apartment looked so bare! It sounds like things really got changed up and so many transfers happened so I'm not the only one! They want us all to pray to receive a confirmation that this is where Heavenly Father needs us. We had a really fun time playing frisbee and the weather was awesome! 6 of the 8 missionaries in the District are getting transferred out and so there was a lot of packing that needed to be done and so we all grabbed a cold drink and then headed off for some lunch before finishing our packing! I had tons of fun emailing you and I was so grateful for all of your questions and fun emails! I had no problem with fitting all of my stuff into my suitcases and it was such a relief to have it all done and have everything ready to go! It will be so nice to have a car to drive all of our luggage up to New Paltz! I was excited to see the New missionaries coming in! I feel like I just did that! We had such a great day and vacuumed the whole apartment and cleaned the bathroom so it can look like a new penny! Then we got to go to Family Home Evening and we had a great time! A lady named Sister Robison taught and she did such a great job! It was all about kindness and some ways that we can help out around the city. We got a text from the Zone Leaders and they said that President Smith wanted to do a final conference call of the New York, New York North mission! We were all so excited and couldn't wait to hear him! He talked about how he felt a confirmation that we are where we are needed! He said to keep going and never give up and always try to become more like the Savior. It was so cool to hear his testimony and he even teared up and we could tell that he was sad to leave. I was so thrilled to get your email and I was so thankful for your kind words! 1 more day until transfers!!! I'm so excited! Thanks so much for all of your prayers because they really do help! I feel like everything goes so smoothly when I have such an amazing Family behind me every step of the way! Love you all so much!
TRANSFER DAY!!!! WOW! What an awesome and busy day!! Everything went so well and I'm here in New Paltz safe and sound! I woke up and was so excited to see your email that you got to talk to Olivia's Mom! That is so cool that we are in the same mission! I really appreciate your emails and love getting them! We woke up and everyone was busy making final preparations for our move! This is the 1st time that 3 of the 4 missionaries are leaving and so it felt like everything was changing! The weather couldn't have been nicer and we were so grateful that is was such a pretty day! We all got ready to go and then we said goodbye to the apartment and headed out the door ready for another awesome area! We got to go to the Inwood Church to meet and put our luggage in the office Elders' car and then they drove us up to Inwood and it was so much fun to talk with the other missionaries! Everything went so smoothly and we had such a great day! I have some news! So we got to beautiful New Paltz and went to District Meeting and I found out that Elder Lusk is the district leader! So here is the news! We thought that we would be the only Elders in the New Paltz Branch but it turns out that we might be in this area for 2 weeks until the July 10th transfer. There is another set of Elders that have been here for 3 transfers and so we are here to find more people to teach and find as many people as we can until July 10th. We might stay here and the other 2 Elders will leave in 2 weeks but we aren't sure. We are so excited to meet President Hess tomorrow! Our apartment is pretty small and can accommodate 2 Elders just fine but this situation will only be temporary until the next transfer. Does that make sense? I have a feeling that Elder Lusk and I will stay here for longer since we just got here but the Sister Missionaries also have an extra companionship and so there are 4 companionship serving in this branch. But we heard that they just needed to send all of the missionaries that would be serving in the New Jersey Morristown Mission to areas within the boundaries of the Morristown Mission and then let President Hess make any needed changes on July 10th and so I'm crossing my fingers that I get to stay in New Paltz for a long time! Elder Dick is my new Zone Leader and we have 2 Elders that have been out for 3 transfers each and their named are Elder Bronson and Elder Fowers. Elder Lusk is such a great guy and he is such a hard worker! So the other Elders in our apartment took care of all of their appointments and we went out to do as much finding as we could and had a great time driving around talking to people! We even found a barber getting out of his car that I got my haircut from when I was in Kingston! It is so great to be back and there is so much wide open space and it really reminds me of you and home! There were cows and horses and it just felt like Utah and seeing so much green and wide open spaces! It is so peaceful up here! We are organizing with the other Elders in our apartment and I wish that I had more time to type but we are getting to know the names and setting some goals and so I will type more tomorrow. Just know that I love and miss you all so much and I love New Paltz! It is such a fun little town and I will love serving here for as long as they need me! I found out that Elder Williams is staying in Yorktown with his companion that he was with and so we are in totally separate missions now. Crazy! Love ya tons!!!
Wednesday was such an incredible day!!!! I hope that you had an amazing day because I sure am doing well here in New Paltz! I have so much to tell you but the most important thing to know is that I love you so much! This mission is so similar to the New York, New York North mission but there a few exciting changes! It's time to meet President Hess!!!! We woke up and it was so crisp and cool and it felt so nice to go out on a run! We were able to go to SUNY New Paltz and run around the nice track that they have that overlooks a huge field of trees. It was a really fun place to run and get some good exercise! Our apartment is so nice but it has been a little cramped having 4 missionaries in a 2 person apartment but they told us that it would only be temporary. We enjoyed getting to know each other! Elder Bronson is from Tennessee and Elder Fowers is from Missouri. They are really funny and work hard as well! A few transfers ago, they combined the Kingston and New Paltz areas for a few weeks but they are back to being separate areas now and so it has been fun to hear from Elder Fowers how Kingston is doing! So here is the exciting part of the day! I was so excited to drive for the first time in 6 transfers and it felt so good to get behind the wheel! We have the exact same kind of Nissan Altima but the only difference is that it is a charcoal gray. It is really nice and I love driving it! So I got to drive to Poughkeepsie and we saw some wildlife and some deer and the drive was so pretty! We got to the Chapel and we read some scriptures and then we saw President and Sister Hess drive up and then they walked into the Chapel and President Hess gave me a big hug and welcomed me to the mission! We had about 10 missionaries at the meeting, which was the whole Poughkeepsie District, and Sister Hess spoke first and she is such a great lady! She shared a story about how she knows that we are all supposed to be in this mission! They told about themselves and they are from Farmington. President Hess was an accountant and his wife passed away and Sister Hess never married until she met and married President Hess. 1 really awesome and amazing thing is that when missionaries go home, they get to go to see the Statue Of Liberty and go to the Temple! This mission is so diverse and there are so many cool and amazing places to serve! We also found out that you can send packages directly to our apartment! Isn't that cool!?! The Assistants to President Hess are really awesome as well and they went through all of the areas that we could serve in! I'm so excited to be here! We also found out that missionaries fly out of Newark Airport! We had interviews to get to know both President and Sister Hess and they are really nice and loving! It was just so cool to get to know the mission and know where I could serve in the future! I'm so thankful to be here in this area and this mission! We left feeling so happy and I was thinking a lot about you all! I pray for you always and feel so much Love! I hope you day was great! We were able to go lots of tractjng while the other New Paltz Elders went to their appointments and we met some really cool people! People up here are so smart and know a lot about religion! We met this lady from New Mexico and said a prayer with her! It was such a great day and I was just thrilled to have such a smooth handoff from the North mission to this mission! The Facebook page is really awesome and is called "NJMM - Official" and so I hope that you can join because it is just like a blog! Hopefully this letter isn't too scattered but just know that I love you all so much and I'm doing well! Love ya tons!!!
Wow! Thursday was so awesome! We had another awesome and busy day! I just love New Paltz and the beautiful scenery up here! I was thinking about you all a lot and wishing you a great day! We had 1 last miracle line with President and Sister Smith and it was so great to hear them for 1 last time! Sister Smith told us to trust more and worry less and also live the Gospel in the good and hard times! They said goodbye and I was able to record the call with my handy dandy recorder to keep forever because it was so great! We officially become part of the New Jersey Morristown Mission on Sunday July 1st and that is when President Teuscher gets to the New York City Mission! Sister Smith also told us to read the Book of Mormon every day and she said that we will be lead and guided as we read and we will find answers to our questions! They were sad to leave but they told us to keep going and she said that we will get together again and see the Smith Family again! We know that this area and the 2 weeks that we might have here will be a great time of growth since we don't have any investigators to teach since our roommates are teaching their investigators and we are in charge of just finding and so for the next 2 weeks, my emails might be a little boring but we are seeing so many cool things happen! Elder Fowers told us that President Smith said that we are finding machines for the next 2 weeks because this area really needs more people to teach and so we are excited that he trusts us that much! It has been something new and interesting that I haven't ever done before on my mission and we have solely been tracting and street contacting all day, every day and so we have had lots of fun just finding as many people as we can since we don't have any lessons! We tracted a ton and knocked on so many doors and we were able to teach the Restoration a lot! The area is so beautiful and we even saw some geese, deer, and lots of pretty birds and we even saw some fireflies! We also had lunch with a member named Sister Gervais and she took us to a really yummy Italian restaurant and we had pizza, lasagna, garlic bread, and teriyaki wings! It was a fun time to get to know her! Her husband is a Jehovah Witness and she has been a member since her parents were baptized. Then we got to meet with the other companionship of sisters who are doing the same thing that we are and are rooming with the other Sisters and are in this area to find more people to teach and to tract. We got to meet with the other companionship of sisters and we got to talk with the Branch President, his wife, and the 2nd councilor, Brother Weed. They welcomed us in so nice and made us feel so loved! It has been so cool to be in a Branch and I'm really excited for Sunday to go to Church! I have loved driving around and seeing all of the pretty houses and we love knocking on doors and working hard to find people! I really miss you all and I love you so very much!!!
Friday was so amazing! I woke up and was so excited to hear from you! I loved your email so much and thought your picture was awesome! We got a text from a member in Poughkeepsie and he wanted to take us out to lunch at a really cool little diner called P&G's and it serves all kinds of American Food! So we were really looking forward to that and I was thinking about all of you and I was hoping that you were having fun at your camps and a great summer! I have really been thinking about and praying for each one of you! We had a fun lunch and I got a delicious Ruben sandwich with fries and it was so tasty! I was so thankful for him sending you pictures! We spent most of the day tracting and it was really hot but we just kept feeling bursts of energy to keep us going! I will be honest, it was a little hard to do tracting all day but we are getting better and better at it and we talked to a lot of cool people! I love making any connections that I can with people and so if they have a cool car, then I will talk to them about it and I love finding sports logos and starting conversations that way! It has been such a neat and unique experience to be here and have a clean start and tracting all day. It has also been weird to not have any lessons or appointments because we are just focusing on finding because our goal is to turn this Branch into a ward and we need more members to make that happen! We went into some beautiful country and I couldn't believe how green everything was! Trees and flowers are in full bloom and the sunsets have been amazing! My favorite thing to look at is the wide open field of corn or Apple trees because it reminds me of the country that we see in Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho! We were just about to head back to the apartment after a great day of tracting and we found this guy who was watering his garden and we asked if we could help him. He asked us if we had any wisdom for him and we started teaching him the Restoration and he was really skeptical at first but we had a good 30 minute conversation with him and by the end, he told us that we were fine gentlemen and he hadn't ever met people like us before and so he was pleasantly surprised with the Church and what we had to teach him! We hadn't had a whole lot of success finding people to teach but it made all of the door knocking worth it to find him! His name is Richard Burke and he is a native of New Paltz and is in his mid 60's. We were really excited but also very tired from all of the satisfying hard work! I just love and appreciate you all so much and I want you to know that I'm always here for you and if you ever need anything, just let me know!
Saturday was another great and busy day! We have had fun playing basketball at SUNY New Paltz but I have something funny to tell you! Hehe! So there is a nice outdoor court that we play on but for some reason, the rims are very bouncy and so the ball hardly ever goes in. If you don't swish the ball, then it will bounce out and so we laughed so hard because none of us could make it. We laughed and laughed the whole game just because we would all try our best but it never would go in because the rims were so thick and bouncy.
Sunday was such a great day! I just couldn't wait to hear from you and read your fun email and see your pictures! Your email was just amazing and I couldn't wait to talk to you! It was my 1st time ever going to Church in a Branch and everything went so well! This Branch is really awesome and the members are so down to Earth and remind me of people from Utah and Wyoming! It was the 1st official day of the new mission change and I officially became a part of the New Jersey Morristown Mission and President Teuscher officially became the new mission President! It was an exciting day and we got an email from President Hess and he welcomed us into the mission! It was so interesting to go to a Branch for the 1st time and see a smaller attendance at Sacrament meeting! I was able to bear my testimony and it was so great to hear the other testimonies! The lessons were so good and it just amazes me how the Church is the same no matter where you go. It's true everywhere!!! After that, we went tracting for the rest of the day andnit went really well! It has been quite the adventure to do so much tracting and door knocking the last week and I have really enjoyed it! I just keep my attitude positive and just try my best and good things always come out of hard work! We had a really cool coincidence and met a guy who attended the University of Utah but is from New York! He showed us his student ID and everything! The Branch is so supportive and we had about 25-30 people in sacrament meeting which is just totally different from what I'm used to but it was an amazing experience! Therein a member who I really enjoyed talking to because he used to deliver furniture to the World Trade Center before 9/11 and it was amazing to hear his story about the gigantic elevators that were used for freight and deliveries to the observation deck and how they had to use 3 or 4 elevators! I feel like I'm jumping around but I just want to tell you everything and I'm just so excited and grateful to be a missionary! We are going on a hike tomorrow morning before it gets too hot and so we are meeting Ray Smith at 8:30 and so we can email a ton after we get back! We had a really great dinner appointment with the Hekking Family and they are such a cool Family! They have a daughter serving in Colorado right now and a son that just returned home and so it was fun to spend the evening with a Family who is experiencing the same thing you are at home! It made me feel a lot closer to you! They had steak, salad, and cookies for desert and they have a beautiful home! They used to work in Jackson Hole and they said that they met a lot of famous people like Harrison Ford that came to visit and so they had fun telling us about all of the people that they met and then we taught an investigator who is a friend to their daughter on a mission and we taught the whole Plan of Salvation! It was such an amazing day and it was very hot to say the least! It got up to 105 degrees and the humidity was through the roof! I'm so thankful to have a car with ice cold Air conditioning! Thanks a billion times for your awesome and fun emails and pictures! I can't wait to talk to you tomorrow! Love you all tons!!!!!!!!
Well my dear and amazing Family! I love and miss each of you so much and I'm so thankful for everything that you do for me! I'm so grateful that you are all doing well and that you had a great week! I feel so much love and many prayers all day, every day! Transfer Calls will be next Sunday night and so it will be really exciting to see what happens! I might be staying and we could replace the other Elders in this area but anything could happen! I know that President Hess will know exactly what needs to happen! It will be such an exciting week that's for sure! We will keep doing lots of tracting and finding! I hope that you all have an amazing and fun 4th of July! You are the best Family ever! LOVE & MISS YOU TONS AND TONS!!!
Love You Always!
~Elder Lindberg
P.S: I will send an email and we can chat after we get done with our little hike! It is going to be so pretty and I've heard so many good things about this area!
~Elder Lindberg
P.S: I will send an email and we can chat after we get done with our little hike! It is going to be so pretty and I've heard so many good things about this area!
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