3 Months In. 10/16/2017

Whew. Crazy week. I was out of town all week... I know that sounds weird, but when your companion is a DL, you're on exchanges a lot. On Tuesday both of us went on Blitz with the ZL's (that means we both went to Potsdam and went and worked with one of the ZL's) The Blitz was honestly a party. We started out helping one of their investigators move. Good thing the ZL's have a truck, because we moved a LOT of furniture. It was all completely covered in cat hair, naturally. So that was fun. After that, we went to an Asian Buffet for lunch. That was probably risky, but hey, best Chinese food I'd had for months. After lunch we went out to their Branch President's house to help with some work in the garden. His wife is in the hospital, and they have a HUGE garden that needed a lot of harvesting. So we spent a lot of time picking pumpkins and sorting tomatoes. We also got into a fairly serious game of tomato baseball, using a fence post as a bat. It was probably the most effective way to get rid of all the bad tomatoes, however it did result in us being completely covered in rotten tomatoes... So that was good. After our gardening experience, we went back to the ZL's apartment and showered and then went out to tract and OYM. I was with Elder Manley, a rather interesting fella from Las Vegas. We walked around for about 2 hours, and talked to everyone. And I mean EVERYONE. Elder Manley would wait in parking spaces, interrupt phone calls, knock on doors of abandoned houses, chase down people who were avoiding us, etc. We honestly probably walked 4 miles before dinner. After dinner, we went back out, to tract and OYM. Potsdam is a college town, there's 2 fairly big schools right in the city, so in the evening, the streets are PACKED. We talked to a ton of people. One group of girls was walking towards us, and I asked them if they'd ever talked to Mormon Missionaries before. They said "no we haven't, but we're actually headed to get a beer right now, if you guys come with we'd love to talk." Sadly, we were unable to join them . Later, after knocking about 50 doors and teaching no lessons, we started walking back towards the apartment. As we were walking, we ran into Elder Davis and Wallentine, we talked for a second, then Elder Manley saw a girl getting out of her car, and he ran right up to her. I noticed the house was most definitely a Sorority (thanks Ashley for helping me be able to recognize such things.) So, this girl got out of her car, and Elder Manley immediately started with a prayer... Now, maybe it's just me, but I like to get an idea of who I'm teaching before I begin a lesson with a prayer. But he just got right into a prayer, and by the second point of the Restoration, she turned around and walked away. As we left, Elder Manley said to me "I got the vibe she was a little mentally handicapped." Now, that was a shock, because all 3 of us other missionaries got the vibe she was a regular college girl who didn't want to talk to us at the time. But Manley told us he was pretty sure she was handicapped. Soooo that was odd but hilarious. Anyways, we talked to a LOT of people, and lined up a pretty good number of appointments for them. So that was good. After we returned to their apartment, Wallentine told us we were going to play hide and seek. When we first heard this, we thought it was a joke. But I guess that it was a tradition started by the AP's. The Potsdam apartment is MASSIVE. Like, 3 floors, a basement, 2 bathrooms, the works. So we literally played an hours worth of hide and seek, and it was hilarious and fun. When we woke up, we got into the cars, and drove back to Massena for District Meeting. After District Meeting, I got into the car with Elder Hewitt, and went to Malone. In Malone, Elder Hewitt and I actually saw a lot of success. We picked up 3 new investigators, taught some good lessons, and had fun knocking doors. The coolest thing was when we knocked on a door, and an older dude answered, we introduced ourselves and he initially began to close the door. But I said, "is there anything we can do for you?", and he told us about how his girlfriend of 23 years had recently passed away, and he didn't know what was going to happen to her. So he let us in and we taught the full 45 minute Plan of Salvation, gave him a BoM, and he committed to read and pray. That was so cool, and it was literally the first time I've been let in and taught a full lesson my whole mission. Usually we get told to never come back, or to try again in a few days. It is rare to be let in and allowed to teach on the first knock. So that was super cool.

     Long story short, we saw some miracles on exchanges this week. And it was a lot of fun. It was kind of weird to be gone from Massena from Tuesday-Thursday, but it was fun to work with other missionaries, and learn a little more about good ways to approach people, and see how others teach. I think I'll stick with an introduction and get to know you segment, before I begin to pray. Because apparently people think it's a little odd when you run up to them and immediately start to pray?? 

     On Friday, as you all know (if you've payed any attention to these emails), we had service at Salvation Army. However, this time, we didn't do a lot of work. Instead, we taught Darlene the first two lessons, and she said she'd read. She's been at Salvation Army a long time, and has talked to all the past missionaries that have done service there. However, she's never really let them teach her, but on Friday, she was apparently open to learning, so we had a good talk. So that was really cool. Another cool thing happened Friday evening. We had stopped at our apartment to grab some supplies, and were a little early for our dinner appointment. But Elder Davis said we should just leave then, and be a little early. When we walked out our front door, our neighbor, Ashley, flagged us down and came over and talked to us. She said she'd been thinking a lot lately, and missed how good she felt when she used to meet with the missionaries. She also said she'd been thinking about reading the BoM, but she would get bad feelings when she thought about it. She recognized that was the adversary and said "wouldn't that be Satan trying to keep me from reading it, since it's about Prophets and Jesus and stuff?" She also asked us if it was ok to have a celebrity crush. She was worried that the commandments about adultery and being lustful were referring to things such as having a movie poster up, because she thought the guy was hot. It was kinda funny, but she has a genuine concern and desire to be doing what is right. It was awesome. Anyways, we were able to talk to her, clear some things up, and she told us she was coming to Church, and had already arranged a ride with the Palkki's. That was a little miracle, because apparently she's been avoiding the missionaries ever since June. We thought she'd ran into Anti stuff or something.

     On Saturday we had our interviews, and I now know, to some degree, what's gonna happen on November 1st. I will be staying in Massena, and I'll be getting a new Comp. Elder Davis is off to some other area. Kinda sad, Elder Davis and I have become buds, and we have a lot of fun. But I'll be taking over Massena, and I'll be the driver and the "Senior Companion." I'm excited, but it's going to be very interesting as I figure out the whole thing with a new guy. We've got 2 more weeks, so Elder Davis and I are gonna tear it up and pick up 500 new investigators, so me and the new guy will have our plate full. Saturday night we did a lot of tracting, and literally only had two houses open the door. We knocked every door on like 3 blocks. The very last house we knocked opened the door. I was the one who knocked, and after the first knock we heard 2 girls scream. A nice dude came to the door and talked to us, we introduced ourselves, he wished us luck and told us we were doing a great thing, but that they were very happily Roman Catholic. I apologized to the girls for scaring them and they laughed. But it was good to actually talk to people, and now they know Mormons are normal nice people. So maybe one day we'll be let in to teach. The other house that opened the door was hilarious, awkward, and weird. We knocked, and a 20 something year old dude that looked like Ed Sheeran answered the door. We introduced ourselves and asked if he'd like to hear a message about Christ. He said "sure why not" and stepped outside. About 12 seconds in, the door opened, an old lady grabbed the dude by his arm and pulled him into the house while saying "we are not interested in your services." We could hear the guy start saying "Aw mom come on I was going to listen." It was so weird. But, that's kinda how tracting goes for us most of the time, it's a party.

     It's been a fun/busy/tiring/interesting week. But we picked up a lot of new investigators (sadly they're in Malone and Potsdam, we're still workin on Massena.) I'm a little nervous for transfers, but I'm kinda glad I'm staying here in Massena. That's 80% due to the fact it's a fun area and I like the people we're teaching, and I really wanna be here to see them progress, but it's also 20% due to the fact we already have 2 Thanksgiving dinner appointments lined up. So that's lit.

     Love you all, thanks for the support. 

Sadly I don't have a ton of pictures from the last little while. This is largely due to the fact that I bought a 1982 Nikon for $3 at Salvation Army, and have been taking pictures on that a lot. However I cannot email film. Sooooo I'm gonna have to ask someone who's old and knows the process to help me get it developed, and I'll start sendin those. But here's the massive snake we caught this week (it was at least 8 inches long), some trees, and the sick camera I got.