So they shipped me out of Morrisville, one of the nicer areas in the mission and dropped me right into the poorest city around, Reading! For clarification purposes it's pronounced RED-ING. So now when you all go play Monopoly you can say Reading Railroad in the correct way because this is the place where you find that railroad. So a little background on reading, it's like the 4th biggest city in PA, so we cover a fraction of it and then the rest of our area is some farmland (like Lehighton) and some nice suburbs (like Morrisville). So it's pretty diverse. Luckily I'm still in a ward, the Reading 1st Ward, so I don't have to deal with branch problems. My new companions name is Elder Fisher from Roy, Utah. He's been out 3 months.
Oh man oh man so this place is full of Latinos and pretty much everyone speaks Spanish, it's super interesting! I guess I'll try to brush up on my Spanish while I'm here. We have a bunch of investigators who are pretty iffy because that's just how poor people are. We have this kid named Benneson, he's 19. He's actually part of this huge friend group who missionaries have been teaching from time to time. He seems like a good kid and he seems really interested so we put him on date for July 10th.
Upstairs from him is a girl named Hendy, I think she's from the Dominican Republic. Missionaries have had a hard time getting in contact with her, so they have only taught her once, but we stopped by and she was home! We asked her about her Book of Mormon reading, she said it wasn't too good. So I asked her where she was at, expecting Maybe 1 Nephi 15, no she said Alma 6. We also found out her aunt is a member in the DR, so we had a great lesson with her and set her on date for July 10th!
The first day I got here a guy ran up to us and asked if we were Mormons. Then he asked what made us different so I talked to him about prophets and the Book of Mormon and he asked if he could meet with us! We've had two lessons with D'Anthony and I'm not going to lie he is super weird, but he's loving everything and says the Book of Mormon has been helping him out so much!
We have this other guy named Jason, who thinks he's a gangster but he's super white, it's funny to hear him talk! Reminds me of my non hood investigators back in Morrisville.
We are super blessed though because we are teaching this dope guy named Paul, he's our ward mission leaders friend. Now both of them are from a country right by Liberia so I'm stoked to be teaching more Africans! Paul had a date to be baptized this Saturday, but there's still a ton to be taught, so we pushed him back to June 11th, but he's super ready!
So it's nice because we have a good amount people to work with, but I'm still weary of it because of the commitment level of the people here. This zone has the lowest amount of baptisms this year so I'm hoping to change that, at least with my district. I live in a house in a good nice part of the area so I'll attach my address so you can all send me letters and packages and food! I feel so blessed to be out here serving a mission. Especially being out 9 months. When I introduce myself no one ever says "oh your a young one!" Or "you still need someone to show you along the way!" I've been blessed with great companions the past few months who have taught me a lot, especially Elder Mackay, and I've really learned so much and grown to where I have confidence in teaching people and missionaries about the Savior. I love you all and I hope you have a great week!
1) my boy Phoenix! He's officially a member now! 2) my favorite people, George and Elder Mackay 3) the new district! As you can see Elder Martinez is somehow still my zone leader. That makes all 9 months of my mission with him! And his boy Elder Laine is back with us! 4) I found my love once again
What a busy week it was! We taught some sweet lessons and picked up a new gator named James! Pretty sure he's from Ghana, one of those really spiritual foreign guys! We got to teach Steve this week, the guy the sisters handed over to us, and man is he solid! He is on date for June 5th, which I feel he's ready for, but logistically he probably won't be able to be baptized then with all the stuff we still have to teach him! A sweet miracle we saw this week came by teaching the Rosa's daughter Asiye. She's turning 8 in June and while we just got told we shouldn't be teaching the kids of member families, we decided we still needed to because a) we promised them we would and b) they are so new to the gospel that she wasn't raised up knowing any of this and c) we teach Jennifer while we are there too so it's not a waste of our time. So we showed up to teach her and there was a lady named Sarah there, she's an aid for the kids because they are all homeschooled. So as we were teaching Asiye she started asking questions and finally we just pulled her into the lesson and invited her to pray about the Book of Mormon! She was way stoked when we gave her a copy, and she said she would read it with Asiye! What a blessing it was!
The big crazy thing this week was we got asked by some of my favorite people, the Pray's, to come help clean their new house. So I finally got to spend some time in the nice part of the ward! It's an awesome big house, but it's pretty old style and it wasn't cleaned too well over the years. We had a really fun time cleaning windows and floors, cracking jokes, eating pizza and tearing apart the kitchen! They were so thankful that they are taking us to a Brazilian restaurant tonight! But the renovation doesn't stop there! Ashley bought a new trailer that needed the carpet removed, so who does she enlist to help? Us of course! So we tore up all the carpet, but it doesn't stop there! The next day we went with Corbin and Brother Massimini to install new carpet! They both have experience with carpet so we were pretty covered. We ran into like 8 roadblocks during the day but we were successful in laying down one room and the rest of it will be finished this week. We used our members AND our investigators wisely! But it doesn't stop there! We also got asked to move some boxes at the Daniel's new home. Now remember a few months ago how they told us they needed more room than their massive house because it was getting too tight? Well they definitely got more room! This house was absolutely insane! Probably the most roomy house I've ever been in! The basement was unfinished and you could easily fit an entire chapel in there! (missionary terminology eh?)
So while we did some great service this week we are stoked because Carla and Phoenix will be getting baptized this week! They are both so excited and doing so well! I've seen them the whole way through and I'm so stoked for them! Sadly I won't be able to see them be baptized because I found out I'm getting transferred out of Morrisville tomorrow. I was extremely disappointed when I found out, so was Elder Mackay, but I just had to keep singing in my head "I'll go where you want me to go dear Lord". I've never been so angry to being so content in just a day. It's a blessing how much church can calm someone down. I'll miss this place so much, a few tears were shed having to say goodbye to people but I guess I'm needed somewhere else and I got called to be a district leader in a district full of elders. Stark contrast from the sistrict I've been in the past 5 months, but I guess I will do all that I can to be of help to those in the district and my new area. So I'll be writing from somewhere new next week! So don't send anything to this address, either wait a week or send it to the mission home. I hope you all have a great week!
a) the carpet slaying b) my boy Corbin, gonna miss this guy c) the Rosa gang! Gonna miss em a ton too! d) district
It's always a good week when it starts off with a nice birthday meal for your companion at Buffalo Wild Wings! We had a good week, while we may have had some unfortunate moments such as no young men, nor their leaders, showing up to go on splits with us and having to cancel an appointment, however we taught some fun lessons and we have a lot of people here in the Morrisville Ward getting ready for baptism.
One of our investigators we haven't seen in a while, Orin, invited us over for dinner this week. It's always a blast because he says outrageous things and makes fun of his friend Michelle while she cooks us food! Towards the end we shared the Mormon message about a bishop in England talking about what the Book of Mormon means to him, and somehow shifted into Orin wanting to come to church next week, inviting Michelle, then telling Michelle she needs to get baptized with him and started joking with her telling her to quit coffee, smoking and drinking. Needless to say it was in a joking funny manner, but I've never had any of my investigators tell another one to get baptized!
We were super stoked this week because we were given a new investigator to teach. His name is Steve and he is a members boyfriend. He's met with the sisters before and came to church twice. They found out he lives in our area and handed him over to us with a baptismal date of June 5th! He's pretty solid and hilarious, we've been his guide during church and priesthood meeting the past few weeks so we are stoked to teach him. He also has a great beard!
While yes the week started off great with Buffalo Wild Wings it ended great talking to my family. For those of you who aren't my family, they are doing just great and they got a brand new refrigerator which I'm pretty stoked about! Anyways me and Elder Mackay did a training at Zone Training this week and we based it off Elder Oak's first conference address in October of 1984 "Why do we serve?". It's one of the best talks I've ever read, especially if your a missionary. So I suggest reading it if anyone's interested. Have a good week everyone! Stay safe out there and remember who you are!
This week was busy busy busy let me tell you that! Phoenix had a big concern about polygamy and some how, probably with the help of the spirit, we destroyed any concern he ever had. He's way excited to be baptized and he's doing so well! As well as occasionally coming running with us in the morning, he came to half price wing Monday at Tony's and he's feeding us this week! We are so excited for him to be baptized so we can take him teaching with us all the time! He came to church again yesterday and was talking to a bunch of different people and went and sat with some members his age! We are so stoked for him! Carla is doing well too, sadly she couldn't make it to church yesterday due to health reasons, so we will probably be pushing her date back to be baptized the same day as Phoenix, May 21.
This week we were able to pick up a few new less active to teach. One's name is Alsah, he's 19 and from Liberia. He's a massive individual and he's got these sweet dreads he's been growing out for a while. He's just such a nice kid and he's interested in learning about the Book of Mormon... It's funny because he doesn't even know he's a member, though he's been to the church before. We also picked up another Liberian named Urias. He actually served a mission in Africa about 10 years ago so he showed us all of his pictures and told us all about his mission and how much he loved it. I guess he's just incredibly busy doing school and work right now that it's hard for him to get to church, but his testimony is still there!
We had a sweet service opportunity on Saturday where we got to volunteer at the Special Olympics track and field competition, but the best part is what we got to do there! Brother Massimini's brother Phil own's a hot dog trailer called Good Dogs, based of off Good Burgers, ya know like "welcome to good burgers, home of the good burgers, how may I help you?" and he asked us to help him out! It was way fun being able to watch all the special needs kids doing track and field events while getting all the parents of the kids hot dogs and pretzels. We went through 300 pretzels and at least 300 hot dogs too! Let me tell you they really are good dogs! We ate our share during the event to provide nourishment for our young hard working missionary bodies. Then after the event we went to a members for dinner and lo and behold they fed us hot dogs. So many hot dogs that day...
Like I said it's been a really fun busy week! It's pretty crazy to me that Mother's Day is coming up this week, already my second time calling home. Time does fly when your working hard and having fun! A member made a sweet video of the temple being built and something pretty interesting is that the temple is being built pretty much as see level so essentially the foundation could possibly move and the temple would wear down quick which we know is not how temples are built. So they drilled deep down into the earth and attached huge metal cables from the bedrock to the foundation of the temple. How firm a foundation right? Just as we need to have a firm foundation ourselves. I hope it's a great week for you all, I know it will be a good one for me because I get to finish off my week by calling home!:):):)
1) GOOD DOGS 2) us with Phil 3&4) just a typical raid
April 25, 2016 As you can see above, this week had a lot of service, but I'll get to that in a minute. We had a pretty sweet week. Carla and Phoenix both came to church and they are doing really well! They should both be baptized within the next month! We had a few sweet lessons this week, especially a big one with Phoenix that got us past a pretty big roadblock! Carla even fed us this week! We finally got to have a lesson with this guy Lucious that Elder Johnson picked up as an investigator right before he left. He read the restoration pamphlet and pretty much taught us the entire thing and believes it's true! Then Nyema came in and pretty much taught him about priesthood authority, it was crazy sweet because I hardly had to teach! The less we have to teach, the better they understand.
So this week Joshua's wife Ashley decided she wanted to buy a trailer 7 trailers down from the one they are in now! We volunteered our help because we all know how much I love to get out of a shirt and tie! So a small trailer move doesn't sound too hard right? Especially only being 7 trailers down? But there was a catch! The old couple, Larry and Mair needed help moving to their new double wide, 4 trailers down. We were ready to tackle this and get them out quick, but lo and behold they didn't pack a single thing! No boxes, just a buncha garbage bags and loose items. This place looked like a decent candidate for Hoarders. Anyways we moved pictures, frames, garbage, chairs, more garbage and garbage. Oh and I don't think they cleaned once in the 30 years they have lived there, which was proven when we picked up a couch and Elder Mackay's foot disappeared in a pile of dust! Even more evidence was when I couldn't go 20 seconds without sneezing. It took two days of moving to turn a new fresh double wide into another hoarders home, there was hardly any room to walk! A few days later we went back to help Ashley clean her "new" trailer. We found a bunch of rotting in the wood walls and a ton of water stains on the ceiling that had been spray painted to cover up the blemishes! There was even mold growing out of the ceiling and on the windows. Luckily Ashley hadn't signed anything or handed any money over yet, so Bro Massimini and her dad talked her out of buying it. So while it may seem like it was a big waste of time, we had a ton of fun and as Bro Massimini says, we were BTRing (building a relationship of trust)!
We also got to do more service at the senior center, which was pretty much just sweeping and moping a huge floor, and we helped Bro Massimini clean out the Special Olympics shed to get ready for the big track and field meet next week! It was fun doing a bunch of manual labor this week, reminds me of all my time in Lehighton!
We had our last interviews with President Anderson this week. He shined each elders shoes when they came in for their interviews. He's such a good guy, I'll miss him a bunch. Well that's about it for this week so I'll leave you with a nice scripture. Sister Anderson had a Book of Mormon that each missionary marked their favorite scripture in. Most of my favorites are pretty well known, but then I thought about a scripture my Uncle Ken told me about at my farewell. Alma 29:3 But behold, I am a man, and do sin in my wish; for I ought to be content with the things which the Lord hath allotted unto me. We need to just be thankful with what we've been given. Our Heavenly Father has blessed us with so much and we should be happy with it. Although we won't be perfect , we are perfect to him. I hope it's a good week for you all!
