June 29, 2016 Teaching two great lessons and interviews.

This week has been a pretty good one,

          Last Wednesday we went to the museum of modern art, it was pretty modern. We had a good time though.

          Thursday was pretty good also, I can't really remember anything notable about Thursday other than we had a lesson with Alex that went pretty well.

          Friday we had an appointment with Dwight, he really hates his job and doesn't want to go we were talking about that. Luckily he is quoting soon.

          Saturday was also a quieter day. Nothing really notable.

          Sunday was good. I got to speak in church and it went well I think. I was hoping it would be useful to someone! A lot of our members weren't there due to the big gay pride parade and just business trips and vacations. So that sort of stunk. Elder’s quorum was really small there were only four of us.

          Monday was good! We were running around looking up less actives most of the day, we ran into a couple that were very kind, but didn't want to listen to us.        Yesterday we had an interview with president and they got running late and it went super long. It ended up taking most of the day. But afterwards we had a dinner appointment which was nice, we went with the YSA elders to one of their dinner appointments it was a treat!

          Today elder Burton is going to a Broadway play so I'm splitting with another elder, It should be a good day.

Elder Richards

June 22, 2016 Giving lots of service!

Hello all, this week has been a relatively quiet one! But that's alright, here are the highlights. On   Sunday our investigator Alex came to church which was really good. The branch president had a meeting with him during elder quorum and they discussed being gay and being a member of the church and what sacrifices that would require him to make. Our branch president is a really cool guy, and I'm glad he handled that conversation for us. Anyways Alex is still doing pretty well, it will likely be a while before he is ready to be baptized. But his testimony is still growing really well!

            Saturday we went and volunteered at Central Park and had a pretty good time, we were originally scheduled to have people sign waivers but a lot of volunteers didn't show up so we got to help in all other sorts of ways. The one job that we spent the most time at is keeping people in line and not butting for a paddle board ride. Citi bank brought a huge pool into the middle of Central Park and hired people to give short paddle board lessons and we got to keep the lines straight. I was amazed at how some people waited four hours for a three minute paddle board ride. I would have bounced way before then. I did get a free hat and t-shirt though which was pretty cool. Anyways those were really the highlight this week. Hope you all have a good one!

Elder Richards

June 15, 2016 The book of Mormon is the word of God!

Week update. June 15, 2016

This week has been a pretty good one, really one of the best highlights is our investigator Alex. A couple of weeks ago he said his testimony of the Book of Mormon was questionable, he said he hadn't found anything wrong with it but he didn't t know if it was true or not. But that he would continue praying about it and thinking about it. And then in our most recent lesson with him he told us that as crazy as it sounds he believes the Book of Mormon to be the word of God. And he also said he believes that Joseph Smith was in fact a prophet. Which is great news, his current concern is he knows that these things are true but he also wonders if other churches are true as well, so we are going to be heading that up soon. It's amazing to see his progress from when we first met him and he thought Mormons were a cult to now. It's been awesome. One thing that I've been thinking about this week is how cool captain Moroni is, I am striving to be like him. Because, “the devil had no power over him” which is pretty neat. So I'm working on trying to be like him in addition to Christ like attributes. Also one thing that has been on my mind is how we often profess to have the faith to do big things and we will do what is asked of us often if it's a big thing. But I've been thinking about how it's often we are asked to do the little things and how it requires less faith then say, leaving your home and moving west. But yet we all struggle to do them. So I've been trying to be more concentrated on showing my faith by doing the small things that are asked faithfully. Most of this week was fairly quiet but we are out and about. It's been a fairly cool week which has been nice! Anyways that is this week! Have a great week at Strawberry Days! 

Elder Richards

Throw back picture to the days of Mosiah!

June 8, 2016 Elder Bennett visits the mission!

Week Update

 This week was a pretty quiet one, mostly because I was down with the sickness, I got some sort of food poisoning or something, but we will get into that later. 

            Thursday was pretty good, Elder Burton went to Scarsdale for a meeting that the returning missionaries go to so I was in a trio all day but it was good. We got to do some really solid contacting in Central Park. Which is always a good thing. It’s super nice in the park right now. Everything has greened up and it's beautiful. It was hot though which did stink. But it was good to talk to people.

            Friday was the start of me feeling sick which really stunk. I spent most of the day in bed or in the bathroom

            Saturday I was sick as well.

            Sunday was good though I was feeling better, we went to church and it was good. We had our Investigator named Alex come. He is probably our most solid investigator right now which is good. We had a wild Gospel Principles lesson that he attended. We were talking about final judgment, and our teacher gets really side tracked and was talking about all sorts really deep doctrine and stuff. And we got into the three degrees of glory inside the celestial kingdom and we got lost. Then we started talking about sons of perdition and outer darkness and that was wild. We had to clear up that it is pretty hard to become a son of perdition. One of the members in attendance said some crazy stuff that offended our investigator so that was wild. Anyways in our next class before we started we were able to clear up any questions or concerns with Alex. And he's a really good guy so he didn't really care. 

            Monday was quiet, we had district meeting which went well. Elder Burton had to practice the piano for mission tour, so I ended up splitting with Elder Newbold. He is a really good guy. 

            Tuesday was really good, we had mission tour with Elder Randall K. Bennett. And it went really well he is a really good guy. He taught us all sorts of stuff and I feel like a lot of it can be used really well in the branch. Out of all the general authority's that have visited the mission I think this one was one of the best ones that I learned the most at. He taught us all sorts of cool stuff about the premortal life and how to be good missionaries and a ton of other good stuff. I really enjoyed it! And afterwards we even had a dinner appointment which was awesome! 

            Today is Elder Burtons birthday so I told him he gets to decide what we are doing. And I don't think he has figured it out yet. So I don't know what we are doing today! Hope you all have a great week!

Elder Richards

June 1, 2016 Finally getting to teach Anthony!

Week update

This week has been a pretty average one, here is what went down.

            Thursday was a quiet day. Oscar cancelled and wanted to meet on Saturday instead. So most of the day was spent doing finding.

            Friday's highlight was our investigator named Dwight, who has been investigating the church for a little over two years now took us to dinner with the girl from Utah who introduced him to the church. So that was pretty fun, it was a good time. Dwight is an interesting guy, he knows pretty much all he needs to know about the church. He is just missing something that is holding him back from being baptized. Hopefully we can figure it out soon. It was still fun to go to dinner with him though.

            Saturday was pretty good, it got really hot outside, in the morning we did a meals on wheels service opportunity, we delivered a ton of meals to elderly people in this huge senior apartment building. So that was pretty fun. It was Fleet week this week as well which was pretty fun. All that really entailed was a ton of sailors and marines everywhere, and they got sick discounts everywhere! The highlight of fleet week was they had one of those helicopter airplane hybrids (like the ones at the start of the first transformers) flying around. Saturday night brought with it transfer calls, Elder Burton is staying another cycle and he goes home at the end of it.        

             Sunday was a pretty quiet day, our investigators weren't able to come to church due to it being Memorial Day weekend. So that sort of stunk.

            Monday was pretty good, once again it was wicked hot. The highlight of the day was we got to teach Dwight. He opened up to us during this lesson and we were really able to understand some of his concerns and help him to overcome them. I think it went really well.

            Tuesday was a weird transfer day, although neither Elder Burton nor I got transferred we had to go up to Inwood to a weird technology training meeting. It seemed a lot like a transfer meeting though. So that was fun. Elder Moss one of our roommates went home and we got Elder Tatafu from Alaska taking his place. Later in the afternoon Anthony actually showed up and we got to teach him. We told him that he really needs to commit more and show up much more regularly.

            Today we are I think headed to the met which will be nice. I think. Anyways it has been a pretty good week. Hope you guys all have a great week! Also, I just remembered on Tuesday we woke up way too early to go play kickball as a zone, I don't quite know if it was worth the lost sleep to stand around in a field. But a cop showed up and played for bit so that was fun.

Elder Richards

Early morning soccer!

Manhattan Elders

Keeping the spirits high!