Another busy week. It included much tracting, hunting down referrals and potentials, service, and tiredness. We keep getting referrals from the areas surrounding Massena, and they missionaries that give them to us seem pretty confident. Then we go knock on their door and they're never home, or always slightly too busy to talk... Everyone seems to act like a teenager, never doing anything, but always busy. However, we still manage to dig out the people who are really interested. So we're still chuggin right along.
On Monday we drove down to Ogdensburg to spend the day with Elders Jarman and Bellon. We went fishing, that lasted about 4 minutes. We got bored real quick... So went to Subway and got lunch, then we went bowling. I think I bowled a 46 or something. I probably won't be going pro any time soon. But we had a lot of fun, we chilled at their apartment for a bit and talked about how we're always tired but life is good. Ya know, classic missionary stuff.
On Tuesday we delivered Meals on Wheels. Ms. Beadle (the flirty old lady) was waiting at the door, along with 6 other elderly women. Apparently she'll be inviting friends over to answer the door now. It's great fun. After MoW the legendary John Scott Sterling took us to lunch. He got us both a couple of Buffalo Bills hats. So I officially have my first real New York gear. While we ate we had a good talk about all sorts of gospel related stuff, then he saw a TV screen that mentioned North Korea, soooo we got some vintage flashbacks of our time fighting alongside him in NK. He's awesome. We tracted for a bit, then went and saw Floyd. He read 8 sections of D&C without us, and gave us a summary. He's working with some program right now that will help get him off probation, and maybe we'll be able to baptize him before 2019. He's such a good guy, and stands up for the Church wherever he is. I wish everyone was a little bit more like Floyd. That evening we had a lesson with Seantaie, Steven, and Ryan. We talked about prayer, and Elder Davis and I, and Seantaie shared experiences we've had with prayer, and wow. It was an awesome lesson. Steven and Ryan both got very serious and listened and asked lots of questions. The Spirit was definitely there.
On Wednesday we went and met with Steven (different from the last Steven) He was the guy that told us he was interested in learning more about the deep doctrines of the Church, and we told him to listen to Hugh Nibley. When we knocked on the door he came out and said he loved listening to that stuff, and wanted to discuss it more. However he could barely talk, he'd had laryngitis that week and his voice was gone. Sooo we'll be going back this Wednesday, and we're excited to talk with him. He told us he believes all the basics the Church teaches, but wants to know more of the deep stuff before he decides anything. After that we went to Salvation Army, and sorted through about 1.9 million Halloween costumes. It was actually lots of fun, and we talked with Darlene, and the other 3 employees about our church and they asked all sorts of questions. They all are wanting to know more and more each time we go. It's awesome. That night we went to Cheryl's and read out of the BoM, and talked about "faith unto repentance." Cheryl gave the closing prayer, and prayed to receive strength and help getting her to baptism. And she also mentioned that she had stopped buying cigarettes and had gotten rid of the ones she had. She's been smoking for 50 years, and that was a huge step for her. She's gone through the Church's 15 step program before, and really wants to quit. But it's so hard. The place she worked at is closing down, so she said she wouldn't be able to afford them anymore, and since she's so interested in being baptized, she took it as a sign and is quitting. It's good to see her progressing.
On Thursday we had a crazy day. We moved our schedule around because Brother Hann, the Branch Mission Leader invited us to come out with him and gather and split wood. He stores about 32 cords of wood for the winter, because his house is heated entirely by a wood burning furnace. It's a lot of work to cut and stack and store it all, and he's in his 60's, and usually does it all by himself. So he was very excited to have us come out and help (for anyone who doesn't know how much a cord of wood is, it's a lot.) So at 7 am, he picked us up, we went and picked up a log splitter, and drove out into the forest. His neighbor is an astonishingly wealthy 70 something year old guy, who has a lot of property, and a lot of trees. He and Bro Hann are close, and his property is where Bro Hann gets most of his wood. Anyways, we went out to this massive pile of wood, and started splitting and stacking wood like crazy. It was like 80 degrees, and the woods have crazy amounts of bugs, so it was miserable, but it was fun. As we were stacking, Wayne (the rich neighbor) comes cruisin through the woods on a massive bulldozer. He uses the plot of land we were getting trees from as a hunting ground for deer. He clears roads with the bulldozer, and sets up tree stands and trail cameras all over. He parked the bulldozer and talked to us for a while. He's a car guy, and has 2 Porsche's and a 50th Anniversary Corvette. He's a cool guy and we talked for a while, he's never really talked to missionaries before, and he could hardly believe that we actually pay to be out here, away from our friends and families, for 2 years. We're going to go knock on his door this week and hopefully answer some more questions, and get him interested in the
why we do it. He owns about 4 houses, and easily more than 1,000 acres of property all over the US, however he doesn't have any in Utah. But after talking with us for about 15 minutes, he wants to go hunting and see the sites in Utah. So if Wayne from Massena asks any of you Utah folk about property, sell it to him. Anyways, we spent about 4 hours splitting and stacking wood, while Bro Hann ran the chainsaw, and Wayne ran stuff over and pulled trees out with the bulldozer. It was easily the manliest gathering I've been a part of in weeks. Cars, bulldozers, guns, hunting, chainsaws, log splitters, trucks, etc. That evening we did our usual service at the Methodist Dinner. More dish washing and talking to interesting folk.
Friday I honestly can't remember what we did. And I burn the corner of my planner page each night, to signify that day is over. But I got a thing of Zippo lighter fluid for a handwarmer in the mail this week, and I got carried away and Friday was lost in a fire. Sooo whew. Solid day. I do remember that we spent about an hour unloading a trailer full of food from the Bishop's Storehouse. Elder Lee, the mission vehicle coordinator, drove up a huge load of food, and we unloaded it, sorted it, and then helped load it into the people's cars. It was kind of cool to see how much stuff the Church helps provide. There are a lot of people in this area who are in need of a lot of things, and we helped get a majority of that stuff to them. It was cool. We went to dinner with DD, and then we talked about how we have helped the community recognize Mormons, by waving to everyone and all the service we do, and all that good stuff. A lot of people at stores and restaurants refer to us as "the boys" and members tell us that people say they saw "the boys" again. A lot of people still think it's weird we're in a shirt and tie every day. But hey, people are recognizing us and saying hello to us. Hopefully that will lead to them letting us in when we knock on their door.
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