emails to posts

So this is from 1-27-14 to 2-3-14,

I know that I havent done this in quite some time but I hope that you are all doing great! I love you all so much! Just thought I should let you know that! :)

Hospital with the Motzing Family

So after teaching Jeffery at the church I saw that we had a missed
call from call from Sister Motzing, who is an awesome lady in the ward
and her husband is in the bishopric. I talked to her and she was just
in tears on the phone, which really shocked me. She told me how she
wanted us to come to the hospital to her her father in law a blessing.
Bro Motzings Dad was admitted on the day before and she told me on the
phone that the doctors told them that he only had little time left. It
made me so sad. SO I called the other elders and we motored over to
the hospital as quick as we could. The news came as a shock to them,
all of a sudden he had gotten really sick and then they took him to
the hosptial. They had thought he had around 5 years left. So they
were not really ready for what had happened. As we got there we were
trying to find the room and then we asked the nurse at a desk and then
I heard her say that that he was in hospice and then I knew
immediately that he was on his way out of this life sadly. We got into
the room and sister motzing was in tears and brother motzing was so
somber looking. I went and gave brother motzing a big hug and just
told him that I loved him. And then there was their little 7 year old
son Liam curled up on the bed right next to grandpa motzing fast
asleep. It was so sad to see this man only 76 years old so frail and
just fighting to be able to breathe. After visiting with them for a
good amount of time the Bishop got there and then we gave him a
blessing with Bishop. It was so sad to see  this happen, but it was
also an experience I was able to learn a lot from. The spirit was
strong in that little hospital room. I could feel the truth of the
plan that God has for us. It only makes sense for life to continue on
after death and I am so happy that I get to share that with others
around me. It just made me think about how great a calling I have to
be serving The Lord and representing him everywhere I go. Bro
Motzing's Father passed away the next day sadly.

Seeing the Motzings share stories about him, was so cool. This man was
incredible! He is from Australia and is extremely famous over there.
He conduted orchestras in the sydney opera house for years and taught
there for even more. He was in the music and film industry for many
years and was super highly regarded in australia for his
accomplishments. It was sad to see and hear their regrets in what they
wished they had done more with him and and the things they were glad
they had done. It made me realize how important it is to live each day
to the fullest. That principle really is so important! No regrets.
That is definitely something nice to have in life. One of their
biggest regrets was never really encouraging him to investigate the
church, so he never joined. That is definitely something that I can
always apply in my mission! :) It was such interesting experience! One
that I will never forget.

Chess

So I am not sure if I have said this but Elder Hooper is a Chess
master!! He loves it and is way good! He is really pumped to get
involved with the community and found a chess club near us that meets
twice a week which is amazing! I am super happy that he did! :) It is
something that I never would have thought of! So we have been going to
that and it is way cool! I still don't know how to play so I work on
others things like transferring our paper teaching records into our
electronic area book app while he plays with the people. The people
are super friendly and way cool and around 50's probably so it is cool
to be able to interact with them. They ask us questions and things
like that which is way cool! So that is great to have happening. If
only I could find something like that with tennis...oh man I would be
in paradise haha :)



Leaders Meeting

So since I am a district leader now I go to these meetings every week
called Leaders Meeting. Pretty original name right haha :) There we
discuss things about the dsitrict and if we are on track to hit our
goals and things like that. Also they teach us about how we can do
things better. The zone leaders who are in my district and are Elder
Carlson and Elder Jensen they are awesome Elders and I love them a
lot. They are my good friends here. I look up to them a lot and I am
grateful for them helping me out at all times. We go to different
chapels to have the meeting and we went to the plainview stake center
one this week which is about 30 minutes away from little neck.  At
leaders meeting this week, we had crepes! And they were super yummy!
They had this stuff called Butter milk syrup! It was pretty good and I
even got to make some crepes as well and use my cooking finesse that I
have. Haha completely kidding :) I really am not sure if that exists
or not. I like to think that I can cook though. Also in there I had
hot chocolate. But not only did I have hot chocolate Elder Jensen and
I went at it during the meeting. We had a competition kinda silently
as the meeting was going on with who could drink the most without
going to the bathroom first. The hot chocolate was really good at
first but after cup number 9 it was kinda getting to me a little bit
haha :) Anyway we continued through the meeting just pound them down
until at the end elder jensen was done at cup 11 I was only at 9 at
the time I think and I HAD TO BEAT HIM haha :) I have no idea why I
wanted to do this so bad BUT I did :) Anyway after the meeting had
ended I finally threw down cup 13 and boom! There it was! I beat him
by two! He asked why I did and I just needed to give myself that extra
cushion if he wanted to come back haha :) But he said there was no way
that he was drinking more of that stuff ;) What I usually did out side
of the meetings though when I didn't have to go to them was just
language study and write in my journal which was nice. But now I am in
them for a good while it seems so my companion who has been a district
leader for like half of his mission gets a break which he likes :)

Bishops Store House


On Saturday us and the Sisters, who now were switched to be Sister
Training Leaders {which means that they go on lots of exchanges with
the sisters in the mission and train them and they also go to Mission
Leadership Council Once a month with President the Zone Leaders and
the assistants.} When I got here there was only one companionship of
them and while ago there was another formed and now there are three!
Which they just started this transfer! And I am lucky enough to have
them in my district! They are great sisters! We went to Plainview to help out with the Bishops
Storehouse. It was my first time ever doing it! And man it was a lot
of fun!  It is quite the production really! They church just amazes me
with how we take care of those who are in need. It is so cool to see
all of this food going to those who are in need But anyway, first the
truck pulls up and we unload hundreds of boxes. Then all the boxes are
sorted on tables throughout the gym. Then we get the order forms and
fill all the orders, and then put the bags and boxes under th right
ward or branch, then we take all the orders out to cars of people
representing those wards... It took about 40 people 2 or 3 hours to
get it all done! It was super fun! I thought that I would take the
liberty and do the orders that were in spanish and I realized that I
didn't know a lot of the stuff you have in a kitchen haha so it was a
little learning experience for me! Yep I am still the little white kid
you all know...sadly not Hispanic. YET :) The church is just awesome! It is things like
these where I think man the church is true!!! :) It was a lot of fun
though! I got to see Elder Hernandez which was great since he serves
in that area. And also the missionaries got to take extras home! Yay!
:) So we got some brown sugar for oatmeal...score! And a loaf of bread
and man this was one honkin loaf of bread like 24 slices! :) And then
some raisins, honey nut scooters! :) Oh yeah cereal :) And some
evaporated milk for my Arroz Con Leche that I make :) So that was
pretty sweet! ;) It was a fun and cool experience.



And last monday it snowed sooooooooooooooo much like about a foot. So
much snow that everyone besides us got stuck in the church parking lot
haha :) Luckily our car is a Subaru and is a champion!!! But when we
were leaving the church a snow fight erupted between all of us and
there was not too much mercy haha :)  and all of a sudden our ward
mission leader showed up in his truck because he does maintenance on
all of the buildings here so he comes and checks on them and then he
joined in on the snow ball fight with as well! It was super fun! :)
Its little moments like these that just make everything better :) Haha
and one of the sisters and I were just chowing down on some snow :)
Tasted great! Especially when it was getting thrown at your face :)





email from 2-3-14====2-9-14
Hello I hope that you are all doing great! Just thought I would let
you know how life is in the best place ever! Cuellito!

Hair Cut! FREE 99! :)

So last last monday as in Feb 3rd I went to get my free hair cut! And
man it was great! If you don't know the story! Well here it is!
Flashback!!!

 A while ago as in like a while ago before Christmas while...we were
out doing a "Street Sweep" which is where we go out onto the streets
and try to talk to people about the Gospel in different ways...because
if you keep the same approach over and over, you really aren't gonna
get anywhere. So we gotta be creative! So we got our snow shovels and
the sisters took a cookie recipe from The Friend magazine, yes they
really did :) and we went to the busiest street that there is when it
is snowing...well there really aren't busy streets when it is snowing
but I think that you guys catch my drift here :) Anyway so this street
is called Bell Boulevard. It runs through a town called Bayside which
is in our area here in Little Neck. The only thing is that on a normal
day the street really isn't super full with people, only a few here
and there. So in the snow when it is snowing kinda hard you could
imagine the surveying scene! Fun stuff! So after we found parking we
went right to it! We got our snow shovels and started shoveling on the
sidewalks and things like that while the sisters sang hymns and tried
to give out cookies. Haha we got a lot of weird looks for doing that.
But I guess that is what happens nowadays when you have people singing
in the streets of New York with a plate full of frozen cookies haha :)
Anyway as we shoveled we would talk with those that passed by and what
not and it is great. I really enjoy talking to people. Sometimes it
can be kinda weird and people just will not give you the time of day
and then there are other times where people are so surprisingly nice
back that you forget how to even respond haha. That happened to me
when I got here from Brooklyn :)

Anyway talking with people was tough for me when I started especially
because most of it was in Spanish and I had NO CLUE how to talk to
Spanish people at the time. But now I have realized that if you are
just yourself and generally happy then others are happy as well! Shout
out to DAD for that little piece of wisdom :) Love ya! Anyway I really
love talking people now because here, especially in New York there are
so many different people with so many different stories and I love it.
And a lot of the time I come away just feeling as I have learned
something or that I tried my best to bring a little smile to someones
face. Like for example we were driving the other day and a lady was
directing traffic and waving me on very hurriedly because I was going
to be the last car to go around the corner and I just smiled at her
super big and waved and the smile that cracked on her face just made
my day haha :) That makes my day knowing that I made someone smile
just once :)  That is what I love doing most when I try to talk to
people. Is just to be me and then have the Gospel flow naturally from
that conversation and when we do it out of love it really can work
like that! It is amazing. It takes a while to get into that kinda flow
I guess you could say but it works! :) The culture hear in the New
York South Mission everyone calls it "Fearlessing" instead of street
contacting because you gotta be "Fearless" to share the Gospel with
those that surround you! :) It is definitely tough at first but can
really be so much fun if you get out of your comfort zone :) Okay mid
paragraph apology! Sorry I have been going on a lot of tangents in
this story so I am gonna try to stay on track here but if I don't I am
sorry!

Haha ANYWAY! I was shoveling outside of the store Super Cuts and other
ones as well but when I was in front of Super Cuts some lady was
shoveling as well and I said "Hey! Go inside I got this taken care of!
:) And then she asked if I was sure and I said Yep! So she then asked
if I needed a hair cut or trim, but I had just gotten one like 2 weeks
before or something like that so I told her thanks for the offer but I
was okay. Then about like 5 minutes later another lady strolling by
came up to mea nd was asking why I was shoveling outside the store and
I said "Hey we gotta keep this street running somehow!" Or something
really unclever and not original like that haha. Then she said all
excitedly "We need to get you a free hair cut!!" And then I said are
you sure and she said "oh yeah!" So that was pretty legit! I was super
excited about that! :) So she came out and gave me a little card
written on it "free hair cut" and there it was! They were so grateful
it was so cool! :) So then after my hair had grown for a while it was
time for me to go back there! And I did! I went in on monday and yet
again it was snowing! :) Haha and I almost got hit by a snow plow as
well! Pretty scary! Haha so I went in and showed a lady my coupon
thing that I had and she was a little skeptical at first, because it
wasn't the same lady and then when I told her how I got it she was
soooo happy it was great! She said "oh that is so sweet!!" And then
boom I got my hair cut from this really nice lady and I talked to her
about everything it was awesome! I love little experiences like those
because it is such a comfortable environment and it is so easy to
share the Gospel and what we do as missionaries. So overall getting
that hair cut was so cool! It was a great experience! Super long story
I know! :) Hopefully you aren't too bored by now :)

District Meeting!

So these district meetings have been going pretty interesting so far!
With this one it was quite interesting! So I had a great idea! Or so I
thought! I asked Elder Carlson to give the workshop or training for
the meeting on the  spirit and following promptings. So I thought that
it would be cool to do something fun to lead into that! So I thought
of a game or well copied at least... we had district meeting in one
room of the church and then I asked for volunteers and the sisters did
first! So they were the ones! So then we went into the Relief Society
room and set up an obstacle course for one sister to go through blind
folded while the other one lead her through with her voice! And the
rest of us were distracting her without her knowing that we were not
"the sprit" :) and her companion lead her the wrong way one time and
then the right way the next time! :) So I thought that it applies to
us as missionaries and also all of us really. God really is trying to
get us to trust Him at all times and to listen to the spirit and
sometimes the spirit takes us into paths with no results we think. And
one thing that I have realized is that God does this to see if we are
consistent to listening and then acting upon the promptings that we
receive on a daily basis. So he tests us with these small and simple
things and once we have proven ourselves He gives us the same
prompting and then we follow it and we are rewarded in the end. It is
an amazing principe to think about really and it is so true as well.
Anyway so at the end of it all the reward was a big batch of arroz con
leche that I made for the entire district! But the worst part was that
I forgot it and I realized that I had forgotten in right when we got
into the church parking lot. Yeah to say I was suuuper frustrated at
myself would be an understatement haha :) But it is okay though it all
turned out well in the end.

Song Practice for Funeral

So after district meeting we had to come up with a song to sing at
Brother Motzings dads funeral. So we chose lead kindly light! It was a
good choice we felt and we practiced for a while. Me and Elder Jensen
were going at it practicing for quite a long time and man we were
getting nowhere. It was BRUTAL. We sounded like dying oxen on the
pioneer trail. Okay maybe not really that bad but still we were pretty
bad! So I was chosen to practice the tenor part. I thought that it
would be no big deal really because I had sung tenor before and it
wasn't too hard....well....I guess after a year of not singing parts
destroyed me completely. Like seriously I was dying trying to sing
that high. So the conclusion was my range in the high
notes....definitely gone haha :) It's okay though because if I sang
that high it was probably going to be really gross sounding and
annoying haha :)

Snow Shoveling=Awesomeness!!

So on wednesday 2-5-14 it snowed like it has been like the whole
winter here haha! Like for real though I have never seen so much snow
in my life and like Dallin says somehow I am not frozen yet....even
when I totally forget it is like 25 degrees outside and I just have a
short sleeve shirt on and a jacket...whooops. Haha anyway! Since it
had snowed I thought hey we should  go and do some service and help
people out! And then! Danielle Rome, I am not sure if I have told you
about the Rome's yet but I will explain right in here :) Anyway
Danielle is a recent convert to the church and she called us months
ago to help her parents to get a treadmill out of their house, her
parents aren't members at all as well. The mom is suuuuper Catholic
and the dad is suuuuuuper Episcopalian. So it is quite the interesting
religious mix in their house. Danielle is about in her 30's and so
after we helped them we stayed for dinner and it was awesome! :) Then
we went another time weeks later and visited with them. But since then
we hadn't seen them since. Anyway! Danielle had texted us that morning
asking us to go over and check on her parents and so we did and we got
there right when Don, the dad, had gotten out there with his
snowblower. FIrst thought was dang, he has a snow blower but then I
just thought well he is gonna get extra help! :) So I jumped outta the
car and went to see him. He was way excited to see me! Yes! I was
pumped about that :) So then we got straight to work getting the whole
area around the house done! Man I seriously love shoveling snow.
Everyone else HATES it but man I LOVE IT!!! It is just such a great
opportunity to go out and to be able to serve people! And I don't even
have boots so I am just doing it in my dress shoes that have like no
grip on them so it can be pretty interesting at times haha :) But
anyway!!! We finished and they invited us in to have lunch and
everything and it was super great! :) We had a great visit with them!
Don gave us extra sweatshirts because he says that we come over
unclothed all the time haha :) and also they gave us some soup as
well! They are seriously such good hearted people! I love them a
bunch. I just am trying to figure out a way to get an in with them
Gospel wise because they do not want to be taught at all. They love
and respect us but just don't want change it seems. But we'll see if I
can work my magic with them haha! Totally kidding! The conversion
comes by the spirit not by me! So it was such a cool opportunity to be
able to visit with them again! They have a son that works for the NYPD
in undercover narcotics! Pretty intense right? :)


Then after that we raced back into our town to get ready to surprise
Elder St. Rose for his birthday! So we had everything perfect! We were
waiting for them to come into the church because they had just
finished shoveling as well and we were hiding on the stage and the
other elders were supposed to be keeping watch...well they found the
basketball and were messing around with that and then all of a sudden
Elder St. Rose walked in and oh man....it turned into the worst
surprise ever. He just walked in and said whats up guys and the other
elders were like uhhhhhh....nothing....and then he came onto the stage
and found us all and he never goes up onto the stage! Ugh! The one
time haha. So needless to say the surprise wasn't very surprisey haha
:) Which was kinda sad...but it was okay because we made him cinnamon
rolls which made him happy! :)

Herm!

So having to do with shoveling snow we were pulling into our building
to grab a couple of things for elder st rose for his surprise and then
I saw a little old man whose car was just completely buried in the
snow right outside of the building and he was just struggling trying
to get his car out, and seriously here it is ridiculous! Hopefully I
can get a picture to show you guys how some of the cars look. But when
the snow plow goes by it just puts a huge wall of snow by the car
which then later becomes straight ice...yep if you can imagine it is
pretty crazy! So that is what my good friend Herm was dealing with. So
I jumped out with my shovel and got to work on his car! :) Elder
Hooper wasn't feeling so good...he had been sick for a while so he
took a break and then I helped him get his car out of there! Man it is
such a good feeling to be able to help people...I love it! He was
sooooo grateful and I just love older people because they are sooo
nice! :) he tried shoving a ten dollar bill in my pocket and I was
like uuh! Nope! No way! And he was asking how he could repay me and I
said come to church! :) And he said that he really wanted to which was
wayyy cool! :) Okay I just realized that I might have shared this
story last week....if so you got it again! If not....well I am
crazy!!!


Catholic Funeral!

Son friday 2-7-14 we were invited to go to a Catholic funeral!! So let
me explain first :) a former investigator named Gabriella who is super
nice who another companionship is working with, her husband sadly
passed away from a neurological disease. So we were invited to go to
the funeral. Wow it was quite the experience! I remember when we went
to a catholic baby blessing when we lived in Wheatland and that was
years ago. This experience was way different. It was pretty incredibly
different than anything I have ever seen. I was pretty amazed how the
priest didn't even know the man who had passed away, it was kinda
weird to me but I think that it helped me out a lot to open my eyes to
other churches and how they runan d how they do things. There was a
lot of standing and sitting involved haha :) I finally got all he
jokes about Catholic Church services that people make when you are
somewhere and you do a lot of standing. Haha so it was really
interesting. They brought out the communion and the elders that were
with me were all looking at me like I was supposed to know what in the
heck was going on and what we were supposed to do and I had absolutely
no idea what in the heck was happening. It was very interesting! :)
But it was a good experience and the lady was really happy that we
came. The best/most scariest part was when the priest said to give
everyone the sign of peace and then two girls in front of me kissed
each other, on the cheek no the lips just for clarification haha :),
and then they turned around and said "peace be with you" and then
looked at me and I was soooo scared that they were going to try to
kiss me!! But then they just stuck out their hands haha :) And I shook
their hands and it was no big deal haha :) But this all totally
happened in slow motion and I was freaking out internally haha :)



Bagda! :)

So Elder Hooper and I were at the library and we got a call from a
lady in the rego park ward that her friend needed help and then her
friend called us and at first I thought that I was talking to a hindu
lady and it was pretty crazy. Then we found out that she wanted help
cleaning out her car from the snow. So we just figured that it was to
get ice off of her windshield and stuff and then we found out that she
was pretty buried in the snow....well more like ice haha :) And so me
and elder hooper got to work and we went at it! :) it took us a while
to get it done but it was a lot of fun to be able to help the lady
out! Then we finished and the lady called us and told us to wait but
we needed to leave...but we waited and while we waited we helped
another guy who had one of those big passenger vans stuck in an
iceberg basically and we helped him to get that out! Man he was wayyyy
stuck! It was crazy! :) Luckily he had a pick axe that thing was a
champion and we got him out after a lot of using that pick axe and
pushing! :) It was intense! So then Bagda finally showed up and she
wanted us to come to her house and help her even more but we kept
saying that we had to leave...so we went to her house and she wanted
us to try to shovel out an ice rink that she had in front of her
house. No joke it was the size of a mini ice rink! It was ridiculous
and we told her that we couldn't though and then she tried to get us
to give her a ride in our car to key food which is a grocery store
here and she wanted to buy us food! And then we were just like thanks
but no thanks! We gotta leave! And she kept saying...NO! You are
coming with me here and I am coming with you here and all of this
stuff. Needless to say it was really funny! :)

The Funeral..

So I went to 2 funerals within 2 days! That is super crazy! That like
never happens! It was pretty weird! So we got there early and so since
we did I started to clean up the church just to make sure that
everything looked nice. And what was weird is that the family wasn't
there and they brought in the body and were asking me questions about
a bunch of stuff and I was thinking..uhhhh I am not in charge here
haha :) But then they eventually got there. And what was kinda sad was
how at the funeral there really was almost no one there for this
amazing and humble man. If it had been in Australia it probably would
have been overflowing with people trying to honor this amazing
musician and composer but since it was here not a lot of people came.
But it was a good service and then we as missionaries performed and
the sad part was that Elder Jensen and I were the worst that we had
ever been on that one..but nobody noticed so that was the best part!
:) It was an overall good service though! There is a lady who came and
she sang opera and man it was suuuper intense and way good! It was
such a good and special spiritual experience that we had with the
Motzing family. I really do love them so much and I am so grateful for
them.