Off to Johnson City! 12/11/2017

 I've known for a while now that I would be leaving the (in)famous North Country. And now I know where I'll be leaving to. I'm headed down to Johnson City, and will be in the Binghamton Ward! I'm going from the Canadian border to the Pennsylvania one. From the land of -30 degree winters, to the land of 30' of snow in the winter. So that's gonna be interesting. 

      The last week in an area is a weird one. We try, well, tried, to have one last lesson with all our investigators. These last few weeks have been full of set appointments that end up being cancelled. So in the end, we met with a few of our most progressing and most awesome gators. Ashley, our next door neighbor and our most progressing investigator is getting baptized this Saturday! We've been meeting with her as much as we possibly can, and she is fully committed, and very excited about baptism. It's been so cool to watch her progress and change her attitude and many things about her life so that she can be baptized. I'm so bummed I'm going to be leaving 3 days before the actual baptism, but that's life as a missionary. Just about every one of our other appointments ended up being a no-show, or cancelling at the door. So that was a bummer. The saddest/most shocking experience this week was our lesson Friday night with Floyd. Floyd has been going to Church for 2 years, and meeting with the missionaries at least once a week for those 2 years. He's been all in, knows it's true, loves it, and is one of the best "member missionaries" despite not being a baptized member. However, this all is now up in the air... Floyd spent a night at a friend's house on Thursday, and when we got there on Friday, it appeared this "friend" was actually Satan. Because Floyd had spent the better part of the day watching Anti-Mormon videos and reading Anti-Mormon literature. Floyd now says that there are Mormons in the mafia, Joseph Smith didn't see God because nobody can see God, the golden plates would have weighed more than 200 lbs so there's no way Joseph could have carried them, etc. Let me tell ya, I've never been so shocked, sad, mad, and disappointed. However, the situation did get (slightly) better. We began to address some of the concerns he now had, based off of these insane Youtube videos. As he was going on and on about this and that, we just knelt down and said "Floyd you're going to kneel down and say a prayer, we'll wait." He did. And after that he kind of calmed down and began to ramble about stuff that wasn't even really "anti", he started asking how Jesus is only 500 years old. Honestly I felt bad, because I burst out laughing when he said this... He was genuinely concerned that Jesus is only 500 years old. I couldn't even talk because I had no idea how to approach this concern with a serious demeanor. The MTC does not prepare you to dispute charges that Jesus is only 500 years old. I had to pull out our phone and use the calculator to show Floyd that the simple math of 2000 (I rounded down to simplify the process) minus 500 (Jesus' age, according to Floyd) got us back to the year 1500 AD. And that simply didn't make sense, considering what "AD" refers to. After we got that taken care of we had to leave. For a few reasons. We had a bunch of stuff we had to go study to address these newfound concerns. And I was having one of those moments where I could not stop laughing. Luckily this happened with Floyd, because he's like one of my friends, and he could understand why I was laughing. If this was with a regular investigator, I'd have to be ET'd because I probably would have offended them greatly. Long story short, our lesson went from a bunch of anti-mormon material, and fearing that Floyd was gone forever, thanks to Satan. Then we were able to address some concerns and pray, that helped a ton. Then I had to argue about how Jesus is not 500 years old, and could not stop laughing if my life depended on it. So that was.... a unique night. 

     This week was also my last exchange in Malone. I must say, I am not a fan of the Malone area. However, the people are awesome. While tracting we talked to a very nice Catholic guy, when he heard us say "we're sharing a message about Jesus Christ" he let us right in. Said he was always willing to talk about Jesus. We shared the #lighttheworld initiative with him, and talked for a bit. Turns out he's a big biker and skier. Works on bikes in the summer and skis in the winter. So we bonded over bikes for a bit, while Elder Hill (the other Elder Hill, not my companion Elder Hill) patiently listened. It was funny. To finish off our exchange, we went to the Putnam's house (the Malone Senior couple) and had a Kickaboo drinking challenge. Yeah we know a "drinking challenge" doesn't sound very missionary like. But it was a party. I won, even beat Elder Putnam, the mind behind the Kickaboo. After that, those of us that are leaving the area got to sign our chairs. Usually it's just the ones leaving Malone, but the Putnams said I'd been there enough on exchanges that I earned a spot on the chair. You may think it's weird, but when you're leaving an area, you just write your name on random stuff around the apartment. I've written "Lindy" (my nickname given to me by Elder Jarman) on just about everything that I can. It's so weird to be leaving my "home" of 18 weeks. But I'm excited. 

     Church was great yesterday. Carlena gave a talk. Carlena was the first person I confirmed, way back in August. When I first met her, she was very shy and didn't want to talk much to anyone. Since her baptism she has honestly become a whole new person. She asked the Branch President if she could give a talk, she reads the BoM all the time, she talks to people about the Church. It's so cool to see how much her life has changed since her baptism. Church was also cool because Brother Hann, the Branch Mission Leader suggested that all the Priesthood holders in the Branch gave the missionaries departing Massena a blessing. That was an awesome experience. I'm going to miss this little branch.

I'll talk to you all next week, from Johnson City!!