1/8/2018

First of all, NY is quite cold. Like it's rather miserable. It's so cold in fact, the entire mission was commanded to NOT LEAVE THEIR APARTMENTS FOR TWO DAYS. Friday and Saturday were spent entirely in the apartment. The only times we went outside were to confirm that the mailbox was still empty, and to retrieve care packages from members. That last bit was awesome, because a nice member lady brought us like legit 30 lbs of KFC, and then another nice member family brought us Krispy Kreme Donuts. You see, Krispy Kreme doesn't really exist up here. The closest ones are located in Montreal (that's in Canada) and Scranton, Pennsylvania (probably near Dunder Mifflin, if you know where that is.) So getting Krispy Kremes is a very rare treat, and luckily, the Collyer fam was dropping a daughter off at the airport, and stopped and got donuts for all the missionaries. So that brought some joy into a miserable two days. My current companion and I have virtually nothing in common, and he loves asking questions about my life, and then not listening when I answer, so I spent some time staring at my wall, reading scripture, and feeling lonely. It's a weird thing, to be with someone 24/7 and still feel lonely... But enough about my feelings, I'll share those in a homecoming talk someday, this letter is supposed to be happy and action packed. So here we go.

     This week was a slow one... When your comp is sick and doesn't really stir until about 10 A.M. regardless of various efforts to awake him, the mornings are rather slow. I work out, shower, then read various church things for a while, then try to wake him up again so he can take his medicine and like get ready and stuff. It's a different morning routine than I had grown used to, to say the least. 

      On Wednesday we had District Meeting and the ZL's came so I finally got to see Elder Jarman for the first time since we bowled in Ogdensburg on Halloween. So that was a blessing. And awesome miracle happened after the meeting. We got a text from a random number (it was Elder Rasband who's serving somewhere in this mission) and he told us that a former investigator was in the hospital and needed a blessing. As we were reading that text, we got a phone call from Bro. Pettingill who also asked us to assist in a blessing. So our empty schedule for the remainder of the night filled up real quick. We met Brother Pettingill at the hospital, and we went to assist him in the blessing. That blessing was incredibly hard to participate in... The lady had just had some kind of seizure and possibly a stroke and was on life support in a coma in the ICU. When we got there it did not look good, but the spirit was definitely strong in the room. The 3 of us priesthood holders worked our way through the monitors, tubes, wires, and machines, to lay our hands on her head. Brother Pettingill gave a very simple blessing, and then we gave a blessing of comfort to this lady's husband. I think everyone in the ICU was rather un-hopeful that this lady would pull through. It was a sad place to be, however, Brother Pettingill told us on Sunday that this lady had woken up, was off life support, and is supposed to make a full recovery. So don't you try to tell me that the Priesthood and Priesthood blessings aren't real. After we gave that blessing, we went to a different hospital in Binghamton to find this guy named Jon. We wandered around looking for his room, and then, as we walked past one open door, we hear this dude yell "ayyyyyeeee that looks like some of my Mormon brothers right there!" Hearing this, we nearly immediately felt that this dude was the dude we were looking for (how coincidental.) Anyways, we went in, and met easily one of the coolest guys I've ever met. He's a biker, but not a biker like I am. He's a Hell's Angel, and told us about how his past life involved a lot of Harley's, kicking in doors, "roughing people up", drugs, alcohol, and all sorts of things that probably aren't the most legal nor safest things to be doing. He lived this lifestyle for a long long time, up until Elder Rasband (Razzy) and Elder Schwendiman (Schwendi) knocked on his door about a year and a half ago. At that time he quit drinking, smoking, drugs, beating people up, he started coming to church, and wanted to be baptized. However, after Razzy and Schwendi were transferred, they kinda fell away and Jon and his wife's life got crazy busy and a couple things happened that pulled them away. But Rasband apparently found out he was in the hospital, and sent us. And Jon was so greatful and said he wants to get back into the church, and he wants to get baptized, so that a year from that day, he can go to the temple and be sealed to his wife. Lemme tell ya, this guy gets it. He's got it figured out, and he's on the right path. He's read the BoM twice since the last time he saw missionaries, and says he feels guilty for stopping, but life happened, and he let it get the best of him. But wow, this lesson was 2 hours long because the first hour was Jon telling us his life story, and then his wife showed up and we worked on some serious faith building. She's struggled a lot since the last time they met with missionaries, so we have some work to do. But let me tell you, I am going to see to it that Jon and his wife are baptized, and attend the temple to be sealed while I am on my mission. They are incredible people, who have truly changed their lives completely and have the most sincere desire to join the church I've probably ever seen. 

     Alright, so those two blessings were definitely the coolest experiences of the week. Because the majority of the week was decided by the text from the mission office that basically said "Y'all have to stay in your apartment from Thursday night until Sunday Morning because if you go outside you will likely die." According to the tidbits of news we'd seen throughout the week, there was these things called "Arctic Blast" and "Winter Storm Grayson" and neither of them were going to be fun. The nice thing was it was only like -5 degrees plus windchill at the coldest in Johnson City, with no snow. Up in Massena it was literally 40 below and snowing. So we got "lucky." However we were still stuck in the apartment for two days with nothing to do but read and sit. If any of you know me, I'm not much of a reader, and primarily sit to work on bikes or drive my Jeep. So these 2 days were a long two days. Elder Richardson was always burning something on his desk, and making a chainmail tie. I would read some, write a letter, go do a workout, rewrite the letter I previously wrote, read, take a nap, stare at the wall, and then repeat those actions. It was a long weekend. Buuuuuuuuuuut we were brought meals and treats by various members, so I survived. 

     On Sunday we had a dinner appointment with the Beirdneau family. Brother Beirdneau is doing his residency at UHS in Podiatry, and he and his Australian wife and 4 awesome kids had us over for homemade pizza and a fun lesson. Throughout the evening I gave a child my watch, another one my nametag, the 1.5 year old stole my pocket knife, and my pen went missing. But lemme tell you, being with an awesome family and teaching about families will take away any homesickness you have, because when you're in a family situation, where the mom and the dad were married in the temple, and all the kids are excited to tell you about how they learned about Alma the Younger in Primary, you get a chance to see what it's all about, and see what the end goal is. And that gives you motivation to keep on keepin on, and give other families the chance to experience that same thing.

LOVE YOU ALL. KEEP BEING AWESOME. TALK TO YOU NEXT WEEK