WRITTEN 10/17/16
Monday as you all know was my pday and we all went to the church and emailed and played some ball and all that fun stuff. Later that night all of our appointments went through and so we decided to go by the bishops house to see if we could talk with him about the members and some members that he want us to specifically work with. It went really good and his wife made this awesome dish. She called it "Mexican pizza" it's something super easy but super good so now me and my companion are eating it more at our apartment. It had egg, ham (but you can use any type of meat), spinach, cheese, and salsa. She just kinda put all those together and it was way good.
Tuesday I got up and found this super creepy looking bug and my companion was in the shower and I had no idea what it was. It looks like a dang alien! I was getting ready for the day and it flew across the floor but all I saw was a blur? Anyways super freaky! Thought I was going to flip! And the fact that I hate spiders, I think this topped that!
Tuesday was also our last District meeting this transfer. It was way good we had some trainings and some role plays and we got to learn some really good finding strategies to use everyday. After the meeting we had what's called the "hot seat" it were the missionaries that are leaving next week share some experiences from their missions. Spiritual experiences, funny experiences, scary experiences thief testimonies and so on. It was pretty cool to see how the mission has changed these missionaries and that it's crazy to see how fast the time goes! Just thinking that they'll be with their family next week is a crazy thing to think about!
(Big group photo is our zone and the smaller one is of our district. Two elders are leaving next week.)
Our wonderful senior couple provided lunch for us, they were sweet pork tacos so yeah they were good!
After all that it was exchange time! I went up to the heights area and switched places with my district leader for a day. I was with his companion Elder Merritt. Super cool guy. Been here in jersey just barely longer than me, he left home on the 6th of July. He's English speaking so he was only in the provo MTC for 3 weeks but cool fact, we'll go home the same time! (Because I spent a full six weeks/transfer in the MTC. Spanish elders have one less transfer in the field then the English elders)
The exchange was super awesome. I learned lots of stuff from elder Merritt. We talked to a lot of people. We were walking and contacting people on the streets and we walked past this one lady and felt like we needed to talk to her so walked back and started to talk to her and it turns out that she loves doing family history work! It's so cool to find people that aren't of our faith but still do family history. So she's meeting up with the missionaries and the family history consultant on Thursday and she's going to be taught more about the church. So crazy how small a feeling can be but how it is so important to follow those feelings or promptings, when we do that we are showing God that we are listening and that we trust him.
Wednesday we finished up our exchange by finding people to talk to. We went to the water front and it was so cool to see across the river.
The architecture around here is really interesting!
Later on Thursday we met up with the English elders and we did a table stand by a bus terminal for like an hour and we passed out 7 Books of Mormon and gonna pass by some others later this week.
Thursday was set aside to do a lot of finding. We went around and knocked on a lot of the inactive members and tried to figure out who has moved or no longer live at the address we have. We also did service at the Salvation Army. That's pretty much it for Thursday.
Friday we were pretty much inside all day. We had studies till 12 (1 hour for personal study, 1 for companion study, 1 for 12 week training, and 1 for language) and then we had weekly planing and TAC. Weekly planing takes forever but it's really nice to plan out the next week and set goals for those investigators who are progressing and make plans to help them further their faith. And we make plans to help those investigators who have a baptismal date (right now we have two😊). And TAC is something we do at the end of the transfer and we deep clean our apartment; sweeping, moping, clean the kitchen, etc.... We took one of our investigators who has a baptismal date out with us proselyting, his name is Isael. He's 14 and super cool, just moved out of his moms house in Elizabeth into his dads house here in jersey city. He was taught everything before by the missionaries but had to move out because of some family things. Super awesome testimony, told us that he wanted to be baptized on our fist discussion with him earlier this week so we put him on date.
Saturday we met with another investigator that's on date, her name is Tomasina. She's a mother of a member in our ward. Super sweet lady, old, and talks a lot! She is super interested but has some health problems that can slow things down. We're thinking of pushing her date farther just so we can really go slow and simple, so we can make sure she really understands. She has a past with getting baptized in lots of other churches just to say that she's been baptized so me and my companion are gonna make sure she's gonna stick with this. She's came to church like four times and loves learn more. So it's pretty exciting.
Sunday church started at 9 and it was super good. We are seeing lots more people at church and we had two investigators at church so that was awesome. My companion and I taught gospel principles for the second hour. We taught about talents and why talents are important. We all talked about our talents and how we can bless others around us when we use our talents. I think it's so cool that God gives each and every one of us specific talents. He gives us opportunities, trials, and times to try our faith in order to help us develop and use those talents to help those around us. After church we went up to the roof just to look over the skyline and take a few pictures, jersey city is so cool I hope I stay here for a while.
Oh yeah and we saw this lambo in like a pretty rundown part of town so that was kinda weird but it's a sick car so I had to take a pic.
Later on Sunday we stoped by a member in the hospital whose been inactive for years and years, her husband is bishops second counselor. She had a operation done and had to stay for a few days. We went over on Thursday to give her a blessing just to help with the recovery. She said with all the help of the members she's thinking about coming to church again so that's good, hope she starts coming again.
We came back to the house for some studies for about 40 min. We had to leave for a appointment that was like a 20 min drive but our car battery was out! So we walked a good 4 miles to our appointment just to find out he juked but luckily our other appointment was close so that was good and we were getting fed!
We passed by this pretty cool painting, they're all over the place!
Well that's what my week looked like! I'm having loads of fun and it just keeps getting better and better. My Spanish is getting pretty good my companion tells me. I can understand almost everything that people say but saying things I need practice with. I'm just taking it day by day and learning more and more. I know that you can't learn something all at once so I'm patient with it and just use in more and more.
Love you all! Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers for my companion and I. They've helped us this week find more people to teach! Thank you!
Locked and loaded and ready to go for transfer two!
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