The North Country 8/14/2017
Holy cow guys. I'm really here. A week ago I would've been sitting in class in the MTC, but currently I am sitting at the Library in Massena, NY. It's a poor, run down town that sits about 12 inches from the Canadian Border. If any of you smoke, like old (really old) houses, and have a crazy family situation, Massena is the place for you!
So. This has been quite an adventurous last few days. Tuesday morning we woke up at 2:50 AM, and were on a bus headed to the Airport at 3:00. We took off at 7:30, had about a 3 hour layover in Detroit, then flew to Syracuse. We were met by President Rogers and his wife, who took us to baggage claim. At baggage claim a total of maybe 15 bags came. So that left about 30 bags unaccounted for. I ended up with a suitcase full of garments and ties, but no clothes, so that was awesome. President Rogers handled that exciting situation while all us "Goldens" (not greenies) went to the vans and ate sandwiches from some Deli in Utica. We got to the mission home and started interviews around 8:00. I went into his office and we talked about football, he was an All-State DE, 3 time state champ in his division. Pretty much a quick "get to know you" turned football talk. He seems awesome. After our interviews we all showered and tried to go to bed. We were all exhausted, but to excited to sleep. We stayed up, all 18 of us Elders, telling stories until everyone had been interviewed, then stared at the ceiling/bunk bed above us, until we fell asleep.
The next morning we ate breakfast at the mission home, then headed to the church/mission office to do some "training". We talked mostly about bed bugs, which is apparently a lot bigger issue than I previously anticipated... After that fun slideshow we went into the cultural hall and sat and pretended to listen as the AP's talked to us. All of the Trainers were at the back of the room, and we were trying to use peripheral vision and prayer to get an idea of who was gonna be the one. Then President went up front and started calling names and saying areas I'd never heard of. Finally, he said "Elder Lindberg, you'll be heading up to the North Country with Elder Davis." I was way pumped and I didn't even know why. I had no idea what the North Country entailed. Lemme tell ya, it ain't what I expected.
After some way good NY style Pizza, Elder Davis and I threw my suitcases in our car, and drove FOUR HOURS to the US-Canada border, to the Village of Massena. We dumped my suitcases at our humble abode, and went to a dinner appointment. That dinner appointment was with a man most missionaries could only dream of. His name is DD (Dennis Elliot, idk why it's DD and neither does anyone else) He feeds the missionaries on Monday and Friday, and apparently sometimes Wednesday, and also enjoys taking them to breakfast and sometimes lunch. He also is doing our laundry right now, so we can email, then he said he'd meet us for lunch, so we weren't too hungry before our dinner appointment with him. DD is a devote Catholic, who has been baptized into our Church. He knows the Book of Mormon is true, however he struggles with the idea of prophets. He goes to Mass on Saturday, and Sacrament meeting on Sunday. Makes no sense to me, but he is awesome, we are just working on teaching him about prophets and revelation.
Idk what to classify DD as, he's not really an investigator, since he's baptized, so DD is just DD. Anyways, we have quite a few Progressing Investigators, and quite a few Potential Investigators. Floyd is one of the coolest. He's a 60 something year old Army Veteran, heavy smoker, but he's got a Baptismal date for 2019, as soon as he's off parole. He promised to stop smoking at Christmas. Before I got here, apparently he prayed the new Elder would be a blonde one, and I was an answer to his prayers. After our last lesson, he said the closing prayer, and prayed we wouldn't get in a war with North Korea. He's awesome. Sonny and Courtney are an unmarried couple with a kid, who we're working on either getting them married or moving one of them out. They live in a very rough apartment near Willow Street, which is the ghetto area, where we spend most of our time. They both want to be baptized, so we're working on getting them there. Cheryl and Cheryl are a set of older ladies who love hanging out together and watching Game of Thrones, we go read with them and teach a lesson about twice a week, they love us but hate turning off Game of Thrones, so they're forced with a tough decision every time we come.
On Thursday we go to the Methodist church, which is about 40 feet from our apartment, and help at the community dinner. We picked up a couple new potentials there, who we'll visit this week. On Friday we do service at the Salvation Army, where we talk to a ton of people that need the Gospel, but virtually nobody that wants the Gospel. Which is way sad. But we've got a lot of lessons scheduled this week, and I think quite a few of them will be very intrigued. Pray for us.
We spend most of our tracting time around Willow Street, we park on the other side of the river and walk across the foot bridge to Willow and the other rough parts of town. Generally we're most successful there, but also deal with a lot more "interesting" scenarios. It's a lot of fun. Only a few drunk ladies have approached us and told us our butts look good and asked us to come inside. Coincidentally, we're always "running late for an appointment."
Goodness this is a long email, but so much has happened, and this isn't even half of it. Please keep emailing, and send letters. My address is
179 Main Street
Apartment 5
Massena, NY 13662
Love you all. Thanks for all the support!
So. This has been quite an adventurous last few days. Tuesday morning we woke up at 2:50 AM, and were on a bus headed to the Airport at 3:00. We took off at 7:30, had about a 3 hour layover in Detroit, then flew to Syracuse. We were met by President Rogers and his wife, who took us to baggage claim. At baggage claim a total of maybe 15 bags came. So that left about 30 bags unaccounted for. I ended up with a suitcase full of garments and ties, but no clothes, so that was awesome. President Rogers handled that exciting situation while all us "Goldens" (not greenies) went to the vans and ate sandwiches from some Deli in Utica. We got to the mission home and started interviews around 8:00. I went into his office and we talked about football, he was an All-State DE, 3 time state champ in his division. Pretty much a quick "get to know you" turned football talk. He seems awesome. After our interviews we all showered and tried to go to bed. We were all exhausted, but to excited to sleep. We stayed up, all 18 of us Elders, telling stories until everyone had been interviewed, then stared at the ceiling/bunk bed above us, until we fell asleep.
The next morning we ate breakfast at the mission home, then headed to the church/mission office to do some "training". We talked mostly about bed bugs, which is apparently a lot bigger issue than I previously anticipated... After that fun slideshow we went into the cultural hall and sat and pretended to listen as the AP's talked to us. All of the Trainers were at the back of the room, and we were trying to use peripheral vision and prayer to get an idea of who was gonna be the one. Then President went up front and started calling names and saying areas I'd never heard of. Finally, he said "Elder Lindberg, you'll be heading up to the North Country with Elder Davis." I was way pumped and I didn't even know why. I had no idea what the North Country entailed. Lemme tell ya, it ain't what I expected.
After some way good NY style Pizza, Elder Davis and I threw my suitcases in our car, and drove FOUR HOURS to the US-Canada border, to the Village of Massena. We dumped my suitcases at our humble abode, and went to a dinner appointment. That dinner appointment was with a man most missionaries could only dream of. His name is DD (Dennis Elliot, idk why it's DD and neither does anyone else) He feeds the missionaries on Monday and Friday, and apparently sometimes Wednesday, and also enjoys taking them to breakfast and sometimes lunch. He also is doing our laundry right now, so we can email, then he said he'd meet us for lunch, so we weren't too hungry before our dinner appointment with him. DD is a devote Catholic, who has been baptized into our Church. He knows the Book of Mormon is true, however he struggles with the idea of prophets. He goes to Mass on Saturday, and Sacrament meeting on Sunday. Makes no sense to me, but he is awesome, we are just working on teaching him about prophets and revelation.
Idk what to classify DD as, he's not really an investigator, since he's baptized, so DD is just DD. Anyways, we have quite a few Progressing Investigators, and quite a few Potential Investigators. Floyd is one of the coolest. He's a 60 something year old Army Veteran, heavy smoker, but he's got a Baptismal date for 2019, as soon as he's off parole. He promised to stop smoking at Christmas. Before I got here, apparently he prayed the new Elder would be a blonde one, and I was an answer to his prayers. After our last lesson, he said the closing prayer, and prayed we wouldn't get in a war with North Korea. He's awesome. Sonny and Courtney are an unmarried couple with a kid, who we're working on either getting them married or moving one of them out. They live in a very rough apartment near Willow Street, which is the ghetto area, where we spend most of our time. They both want to be baptized, so we're working on getting them there. Cheryl and Cheryl are a set of older ladies who love hanging out together and watching Game of Thrones, we go read with them and teach a lesson about twice a week, they love us but hate turning off Game of Thrones, so they're forced with a tough decision every time we come.
On Thursday we go to the Methodist church, which is about 40 feet from our apartment, and help at the community dinner. We picked up a couple new potentials there, who we'll visit this week. On Friday we do service at the Salvation Army, where we talk to a ton of people that need the Gospel, but virtually nobody that wants the Gospel. Which is way sad. But we've got a lot of lessons scheduled this week, and I think quite a few of them will be very intrigued. Pray for us.
We spend most of our tracting time around Willow Street, we park on the other side of the river and walk across the foot bridge to Willow and the other rough parts of town. Generally we're most successful there, but also deal with a lot more "interesting" scenarios. It's a lot of fun. Only a few drunk ladies have approached us and told us our butts look good and asked us to come inside. Coincidentally, we're always "running late for an appointment."
Goodness this is a long email, but so much has happened, and this isn't even half of it. Please keep emailing, and send letters. My address is
179 Main Street
Apartment 5
Massena, NY 13662
Love you all. Thanks for all the support!
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