Garage Sale Finding

Kind of a different week.

First off, last P-day we went to the abandoned tunnels. That was legit. I'll have to send some pictures. We forgot a flashlight so we weren't able to explore too much. It was still pretty cool! Lots of evidence of the hobos that live there during the winters and such.

Tuesday was zone conference. The whole day. Nothing too interesting. President is having us read the whole Book of Mormon from now to the end of next transfer. Which isn't too hard. He is having us read it in a handout copy and mark specific things. It's quite the list of marking things so I'm not able to go through the quickest. It's cool and I'm glad for the excuse to read the Book of Mormon all the way through again. It just limits what I can study on my own as that takes up a bulk of my personal study.

He also decided to announce the new rules with Pageant. You can only go 3 times and each time has to be with an investigator. The investigator part makes complete sense. As some missionaries would take Less Actives that aren't doing anything but are willing to take the missionaries to Pageant. But, the three times is kind of a bummer. Mostly because I most likely will only get one Pageant. And I was planning on trying to get a solid investigator for every night. Milk Pageant for all it's worth and get some conversions.

It was an exciting week of Doctor appointments as well.

Also a week of exchanges. I went on an exchange with the zone leaders (Elder Jace Allen). Which was nice. He's a solid guy and lots of fun. We did some tracting and it was really relaxing because he was good at talking to people as well. Got a couple potentials and handed out a couple copies of the Book of Mormon.

Also went on exchange into the other Elders area with Elder Powers. They've been doing "Garage Sale Finding" every Saturday so that's what he had planned for us. Which was just hopping garage sales and talking to people. It's the easiest because people are less threatened. BUT.... The most I could get out of it was inviting everyone to Pageant. Wasn't the best way to find investigators. But since it was his area, he was calling the shots. HOWEVER, I bought THE COOLEST little Kodak collectible camera for $2. It's an old film camera but I'm just going to use it as a desk ornament. It's WAY cool! I'll send pictures. I was pretty excited because it's got the Kodak Park history to it! I thought it was a great souvenir idea.

As far as teaching, everyone either wasn't there when we showed up for our appointments or cancelled on us. Lots of curveballs from Satan. As well as we finally got in contact again with a really promising referral who decided they didn't want to meet with the missionaries.

That's about it for this week! I'll send some pictures of the fun stuff.

Greece: Kodak Park Edition

I've decided I'm really good at having unnecessary costs. This week I had to buy new sheets and comforter because the dryer destroyed them, a card reader because the chord wouldn't connect my camera, I need to get ANOTHER car charger for the gps because this gps is REALLY easy for them to break (I'm gonna get one of those mounts too to help reduce it's chances of breaking). Well, this will help me to be more motivated to keep a solid "emergency fund" when I get home and I have more expensive things like cars and washing machines to randomly break on me. I have THE worst luck.

Last Thursday we got to have Stake Priesthood Meeting at "The Hill." Oh you know, just the Hill Cumorah. Where the Book of Mormon was buried. An angel appeared. No big deal or anything (but actually quite a big deal because it's awesome). It's cool to sit there and talk about missionary work and think about how all 80,000 missionaries are testifying of what happened in my mission to everyone they meet. About what is happening where I was sitting at that moment. Pretty sweet!

Exterminator came. Quite a rude guy. But at least spray "number 1" is done. Bed bugs begone. Elder Ipson continues to be obsessed with bed bugs. He googles and reads everything he can about them. Then spends a large amount of time examining his bed. They should pretty much all be dead or dying and almost dead at this point.

Okay the District:

Elder Ipson - My companion. Kodak Park area. Greece District. Rochester 2nd Ward. District Leader. Been out for about 22 months. He is from West Valley Utah. He went to Snow College for a little bit before he came up. He is short and most people think at first meeting that he is much younger for his age. He likes to program engineering things, play dungeons and dragons, Magic card game, play role playing video games and do some larping (Live Action Role Playing). If you don't know what LARPing is, I'm not 100% sure either. So... Google it.

Elder Passey - Companions with Elder Powers. Greece North area. Greece District. Etc. Been out about a year. He is from Eastern Washington State. Kenowick or something like that. He also likes Magic cards and things of those nature. He is pretty chill. He jokingly considers himself a nerd. Likes soccer. Puts up a decent fight in basketball. He is average height and skinny.

Elder Powers - Passey's companion. Greece North, etc. He is from Colorado. Been out just under 5 months. Somewhere near Denver. The name is blanking on me. He is chill kid. He was the "punk" type back home. He just hung out with friends and things of that nature. Normal kid. Not real into basketball but he played football and wrestled. He has a little bit more mass to him as he played on the line for football.

Okay. So we went to the coolest place ever. Basically it's literally a drive through. It looks like it's an old car wash turned into the place it is. Basically, you drive inside with boxes that are stacked on either side. You pop the trunk. They then load up a case of soda depending on the variety of bottles you pick, you hand them the cash and drive out. Basically, way ghetto. Way chill. Totally kind of really seems like a drug deal. But it's delicious (and cheap!) soda.

Our investigator Jonie is still progressing nicely. She finally got work off of next Sunday and will be able to try out church. We are excited for that! Fingers crossed she can get work off as that's the only thing stopping her.

I'm slightly disappointed in the efforts to teach the missionaries Family Search as a finding tool. They have been going around to one companionship at a time (1 a week) and with us getting transferred every 6 weeks, it isn't quite effective. They finally emailed out the information sheets they've been teaching. Basically all it is is how to sign up for an account and how to click on the help button and search. I'm going to try to figure out how to do family search because I've had a couple opportunities in Canandaigua where family history would have been a way in with the people.

Things that scare missionaries: testimony meeting and gospel principles classes. Both times we are always scared out of our mind ready to correct any sort of false doctrines or poorly worded deep doctrines that could possibly scare our investigators.

We didn't have anyone come to church this week because of Father's Day. Of course, all the talks in Sacrament was great! The classes were great. Etc.

However! Great miracle yesterday. We went to visit a guy named Micheal. We've trying to get in with him for a while. He met with missionaries 25 years ago and they street contacted into him like 2 months ago. We finally got an appointment set up. I thought he was going to reschedule again. Nope. He was all set up and ready. Everything laid out nice. Lesson went awesome! We got to figure out what he knew and talk a lot about how the Atonement can help him through things. Gave him a priesthood blessing of comfort (odd thing to do in a first lesson for sure) but the spirit was way strong as we were leaving. So definitely a great start! He is coming to church next week!

Found the truck's twin in NY.

I need more rice related recipes. Or ways to cook rice. Or cookbooks in PDF form. Or paper form. If anyone can help out with that, I'd be much appreciated!

Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite

So.... We got bed bugs. Well, Elder Ipson got bed bugs. We didn't find any on my half but better safe than sorry. We had to call the senior couple over the apartments to come over. They brought over a few quarters to help reduce the burden of how much laundry we are doing. It is crazy! Had to wash everything. Had to dry clean things as well. There goes $50, I didn't want to eat this month anyway. Ha! Well, I had to use my personal card because the missionary card kept asking the place if they we were tax exempt. I sure would like to be tax exempt! We Have to get an exterminator to come over. No fun at all. ::sigh:: another curve ball thrown.

All our appointments this week with our main progressing/potential investigators cancelled.  It was beyond frustrating. Everything was canceling. Dinner appointments, people who signed up to fast for the missionaries, even ward correlation meeting with our ward mission leader cancelled. It was crazy! Every single appointment scheduled.

We basically have gone through the whole ward list and have contacted everyone. Found out who has moved and who hadn't. Etc. See who is friendly and who isn't. We handed in quite the excel sheet full of names and info into the Ward Council. Each person got a personally highlighted copy with the highlights referring to the things pertaining to their calling. Except Bishop. Because it all pertains to the Bishop. Hopefully they look at that as "The missionaries really want to work hard so let's support them, help them, go on splits with them, invite people to be taught by them, etc."

Plus I've started my idea that I wanted to do back in Canandaigua. It's a fridge magnet of "Blessings from Sharing the Gospel." To constantly remind people to share the gospel with their friends and acquaintances. I originally was going to do a "8 Ways to share the Gospel" but most of them were obvious ones that most people know. I feel like focusing more on the blessings of sharing the gospel might help motivate people more. Plus the fridge magnet is a nice way to show them that we are trying harder and not just sharing a random video/scripture at dinner appointments.

This week was a rough week for scheduled appointments. Every single one of our appointments we had scheduled fell through for one reason or another. Hopefully this golden referral ends up working out and our only progressing investigator is able to get work off.

I got to snapchat! Haha we were meeting with a Less Active Family. The girl had me snapchat her friends. It was a picture of me and the Book of Mormon. Then we sent a video of me telling everyone when Pageant is. Yay for snapchat!

Woooo! We got pageant stuff. The Hill Cumorah Pageant is a HUGE outdoor play where they basically describe the Book of Mormon. It's free. Basically a huge way to get people familiar with the church and a huge conversation starter. We got 150 pageant cards for our district. I plan on handing out AT LEAST 10 a day. I'm not letting this opportunity slip. Especially since I probably only get one pageant (I was in the MTC during the last one).

When you find out Alex Boye made a version of Frozen's Let it Go. Your life becomes complete. LDS artist. Totally approved song. Rocking out!

There was one shining hope! Yesterday a lady came to Sacrament Meeting. A family signed up to Fast for us and we asked for them to fast that she would come. Her name is Amanda. We've only taught her once but she has lots of potential!

Sister Trimm. So there is this Mexican Woman who was baptized four years ago in the ward. She LOVES the missionaries. She does all she can to take care of us because she feels like we take care of the ward. She calls us her babies and some other random string of Spanish words. Ha! She has QUITE the long list of stories. Being a convert. She grew up in L.A. and was into lots of rebellious stuff. She's done it all! But great for Fellowshipping because she can relate to almost any situation! My favorite quote from Sunday Lunch at the Trimms was her referring to her kids "Oh! I just tell them that they have to deal with me. They're alive! They've made it. Just grow up, get a good paying job and hire a therapist." Hahahahaha! It's even more funny in her Mexican accent. Sooo funny!

Rumor from the "mission leadership council" is that President is only going to let us come to Pageant 3 times this year. You have to get special permission to go more. And obviously you can only go with investigators. Which kind of blows because past years they've gone all 7 times with people and I only get one year of Pageant :/ tell Laurie to get her kids on a roadtrip down here for Pageant!

The members seem to realize that I'm serious about missionary work and Pageant. Hopefully we can get things going and I can get the rest of my district on board with the ideas.

Heaven is Earned by Grace. Growth is Earned by Works.

I think I've lost track of how many times we've almost got in a car accident this week.

Monday we went to the Redwings game with Ron. He's a guy that has no interest in joining but is really good friends with missionaries. So he hangs out with them on P-Days occasionally. Which is cool because we got to go to the game. He's quite the character! Not much of a dull moment around him. He owns a hair restoration place. Single. 52 or something like that. It was pretty hot so the long pants with a shirt and tie was quite the heat wave. Luckily I had the foresight to wear tan pants to reduce the heat on my legs.

We got a pretty sweet referral from a member. Her high school friend is looking for a new church (according to Facebook). So we stopped by and set up an appointment for tonight. Hopefully that works out as she seems promising!

This area is finally organized. Everyone who has moved is weeded out. Have the area divided into 4 sectors. Everyone is mapped out. Maximum mileage efficiency and helps us to be able to "drop in" more. Ran into some quite extremely rude Less Active Members doing that though. Wipe the dust off our feet.

I hate cats. Everyone has like 6 cats here. And it smells like cats. Soooo many nasty apartments that need a good cleaning and needs 6 less cats. I don't care how attractive my future wife is, I will not have a cat. I'm just saying!! Hahaha!

We are going to set up the 15 step stop smoking program with Pamela and her daughter Sylvia (Less Active Members). Her daughter is 16. It's quite sad to see that someone that age smokes. We might be able to get the 12 year old daughter interested and taking the lessons (non member).

Thursday night we had dinner at the late Joseph Smith Wife's house. That made for interesting conversation. Apparently, when your name is Joseph Smith our church sparks quite the interest. But when you call up the mission office and say "Hi I'm Joseph Smith and I want to be baptized." They don't take you too seriously. But he convinced them! Got baptized. Pretty cool!

Then the miracle of the night on Saturday. We are walking away from trying to get in with A random potential with no real luck. We hear "Hey Jehovah Witnessess!" And what sounds like taunting. So we ignore and keep walking. Bad mistake! He starts to walk out to the front yard where in a sound of defeat he says: "I want to be taught." So... I turn around. We go up to them. I swear I think they are going to bible bash or something. Or just make fun of us. We go up and explain we are Mormons and not JWs. They apologize! We ended up teaching them the whole Restoration! Gave out two copies of the Book of Mormon with Restoration pamphlets and our number marking 3 Nephi 11. He told us when we could come back and started reading the Book of Mormon right there. Just goes to show that we CANNOT judge who will accept the gospel by their appearance. They were smoking, energy drinks in hand, cigarette in the other, tank tops on. But way chill guys.

The music conductor here has a wand. I believe she is a wizard. The investigation will continue and I will keep you posted on our findings.

Elder Powers had to go to the urgent care Sunday afternoon. Abdominal pain finally hit it's limit. So far no news on why... Hopefully it isn't his gallbladder.

I only am out of Canandaigua for 1 week. Only 1 week. And good ol' Adam (Recent Convert I worked with there) decided that he was a prophet. Made for some quite entertaining Facebook posts. I think he said he was going to retranslate the Book of Mormon. It was interesting! Elder Brindley and Elder Hirschi (my replacement) went over and talked to him. Whatever they said worked because his next Facebook post was about how he had been deceived by Satan and isn't a prophet. All is well again. Never a dull moment in New York!

Oh and only in the city is the default stamps you get from the post office "Black Heritage" stamps. I love it! I want to keep them and not use them ha!

That about sums it up! Onto the next week!

It's a Kodak moment!

I made it to the Kodak apartment. It's a nice area. The apartment is in a nice place but it's kind of far from a laundromat, walmart, post office. Etc.

155 Whitehall Drive
Apartment D
Rochester, NY 14616

Let's see... So far, we've just stopped by a lot of random people. Nothing too crazy. Checked up on some referrals that they hadn't visited for some unknown reason.

The area had no organization to it. I feel like I spend all my time organizing areas then get transferred. So far we've began to organize everything. Split up the area into 4 sections. Made 4 lists, one for each section. Then listed everyone in order by geographic location. Which wasn't too hard this time around. We did it smarter this time. Then we got the white board set up and organized.

The ward has a "fasting calendar" which is pretty cool. People sign up to fast on that day for the missionaries. The problem is the missionaries have to call the night before to remind them and tell them what to fast for. So we need to set up a way to make sure we contact them.

So they had a baptism this Saturday. That was almost a train wreck! Nothing was planned so we were frantically calling people Thursday night to make sure we had everything. We ended up getting everything. Then we show up at the church at 8am to fill the font. Which is an elaborate process to make sure it's warm. We turn it on the the steady stream of warm water. 3 hours pass. It's only a foot full and the water isn't keeping warm. Frantically we start a bucket filling system from the other side that is hooked up to another water heater. We fill it up and dump it into the font. Back and forth. Turns out there is a slight leak in the drain or something. So we are fighting against that. The font barely gets filled in time but the janitorial closet on the other side ends up flooding over a little bit and we had to set upa fan to dry off the carpet for church the next day. But we barely got the font filled (and a decently warm temperature) in time for the 2pm baptism. Barely. She got baptized and all went well from there. She had been coming to church for a year or so. So she should be a solid member.

Other than that we are going to the Redwings game with Ron (non member, never going to change, not even investigating But filthy rich and likes missionaries. I was friends with him before I came to the area). Supposedly. The AP's invited themselves and told us we have to wear Proselyting clothes. Which is weird, awkward and kind of inappropriate attire for the game. Oh well. It'll be fun!