Week #10

Hey Mis!

No worries, glad you made it safely! My week was tough, but it was good. TONS of reschedules and disappointments. But Heavenly Father is still going to help us out if we do what we need to do and keep the faith. The first part of this week sort of sucked. My bike got run over by a car. I wasn't on it, I had just parked it. Someone ran over it, and the front wheel frame was bent, the front brakes were detached, and there was something near the chain that got bent. The ZLs have a member who used to fix bikes for the missionaries as a calling, and apparently he still likes to do it, so they're picking it up today. My bike was still rideable, it was just the chain kept clicking, and the tire kept rubbing up against the farm. The rubbing almost makes a "quack" sound haha. A member laughed at me when we showed up to his house at dinner, and then said I could borrow his bike until it gets fixed. The work continues! Haha.

Church yesterday was pretty awesome. We talked with Martha at church. She has two teenagers, Stefan and Natalie. They have to go to their dad's on the weekends, but we've been trying to get them to go to mutual. They've gone three weeks in a row, and Martha said she's seen a change in Stefan, and actually started to break down. He had been really rude and rebellious to her, but recently he's been opening up to her a lot more. She said that whatever we teach tough is working, and so she wants in. She's already been scheduled to be baptized December 19th (that's a cool day, right?), but now I think she'll be even more motivated and progress faster than she had been in the past. I'm so excited for them! We also introduced Bro. Jackson, a Young Men's leader, to Xavier, one of the kids we met playing basketball. They got along GREAT. Xavier is 15, and Bro. Jackson is over the Teachers Quorum, so it's perfect haha. Xavier wants to read the Book of Mormon, and we're excited!

Sorry I don't have any pictures this week, we were crazy busy, and we haven't really had anything that was super picture worthy.

Do you know Kerry Faughnan? I met him on Sunday. He said the sister missionaries in his ward said that there was a missionary from upstate NY, and so he wanted to meet me. Turns out we're from the same city. I don't remember him much, but he seems pretty nice. He said he's been trying to get his sister to come back to church, but it's been tough. Hopefully her missionaries will help her out!

So that was my week. Also, some members said they found me on Facebook. Let me know who added me. I hope you guys enjoy Thanksgiving! Love and miss you guys!

Trev :D

P.S. I can't remember, did you say you dropped off a Thanksgiving package at my apartment? If so, where?

Week #9

Hey Mis! It was cool to see you guys Friday! Glad you enjoyed yourselves in Vegas. Sounds like you're having a good time in Utah too. My week was crazy. With the new ward boundaries, we've been very busy transferring all the records from the part we lost to other missionaries, and receiving the records from other missionaries for the records we gained. The area that we took had a baptism scheduled this Saturday, so we had to finish teaching her the lessons and plan the baptism, which was crazy. Last night, we knocked on a door at 8:59. A lady opened the door. She was a self-referral from to church headquarters. Her name is Szilvia, and she's from Hungary. She's reallllllllly interested in the church. We set up an appointment for later this week, and she gave us some Hungarian food! It was sort of like cake, and it was DELICIOUS. That's why you always work up until 9 pm haha. We also proselyted by playing some basketball this week. Elder Wightman and I played one on one against a kid named Xavier. I attached some videos below. Believe it or not, I won.  Wightman recorded a bad part haha. I also got to meet a realllllly cool member this week, Brother Fuller. He grew up in the Bronx, 10 minutes from Yankee Stadium. He has an accent and everything. He was a pitcher, and got drafted out of high school. He made it all the way to triple-A ball. He's a convert too. Crazy right?? He's so cool, I think we're having dinner with him and his wife at some point this week.  That was my week! You know what happened Friday, so I won't need to tell you about it haha. We still have like half of the gift card left haha. Anyways, I hope things keep going well! Btw, Kacie Pierce and Sean Sasser were in the same MTC district!, crazy right??

Love you Mis!
P.S. Pictures and videos are attached to a separate email.

Sent 11/16/15

Sent 11/16/15

Sent 11/16/15

Sent 11/16/15

Week #8

 Misa,

First, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE PACKAGE!!! How long did it take to put that stuff together?!?! I really appreciate it, thank you so much! And thanks for the CDs too! I attached some pictures that we took with some of the stuff you sent. We have a cowboy hat and a sword in our apartment, so it made an interesting costume haha. Sounds like a busy week! Hopefully you'll be able to figure out your laptop soon. I'm glad to hear you're still doing TRC! I remember our TRC guy tried to act like a non member, but he had a G-line hahaha. I'm glad you got to have some fun babysitting Skye too, cute picture! This has been the most stressful week of the mission, maybe even life. Haha. As of right now, Elder Wightman and I are both staying for another transfer. I'll explain more about that below. We started off great, we got to teach Tyrese, the basketball kid, more about the Book of Mormon. We also taught Richard about the Word of Wisdom, and he committed to follow it. He said that since he's Mexican, he drinks and smokes all the time haha. But he said he's going to stop, so that's good! We also taught Quinn, a ghetto lady from Alabama, about the Restoration. She soaked it up well. Then we taught Bobby, the football player, about the Plan of Salvation. We also taught Adrian and his kids the Plan of Salvation, and Adrian and his daughter Vanessa committed to be baptized on January 9th! His son, Justin, is still unsure, but we want to keep working with him. We had some good lessons!

We also got a bunch of investigators to mutual! We're teaching a lady named Martha, and her two kids, Stephan and Natalie. Stephan and Natalie can't come to church because they go with their dad on the weekends, so we've been trying to get them to go to mutual. This week they came! And Natalie brought a friend too! And, Adrian's daughter Vanessa came too! Also with a friend! Justin couldn't go because he was sick. The YM and YW president were surprised, but were really excited. 

Then everything hit the fan. Richard's mom doesn't want him to be baptized yet, so we pushed his date back. Then, Adrian got in an argument with his sister who he lives with, and they got kicked out of her house, and so they are temporarily not in our area now. After that, Tyrese said his mom won't let him go to church, and she won't tell him why. He did say he can still meet with us though. And then, to top it all off...... the stake is changing the ward boundaries. There were 13 units in the stake, and they are dissolving two so it's only 11 now. All units except for two are affected. We lost the western-most third of our area, but we picked up more area in the eastern part. We lost some investigators and some really cool members.

:( We lost Richard, his buddy Davy, Bobby, and Quinn. I'm so mad! We also lost the Leaver Family, the Leaver grandparents (both Leavers had us over for dinner all the time), the Fischers (the spaghetti on the table people), the (Hardmans who are pretty awesome), the Knowles (who have 2 priests that come teaching with us), and the Hendersons. It's really sad, but we're going to get to meet a lot more people. So this all happened, and our mission president didn't even know. So we might have some emergency transfers haha. As of right now though, I am staying in my area with Elder Wightman. We'll see how things go. For now we are trying to organize all the records and stuff so that we can transfer them to whoever is receiving them. It's frustrating because the elders before didn't really organize the records or update them, so we JUST finished playing catch-up, and now we have to re-organize them. Craziness. So that's my life! I hope everything settles down for you, but at least you're doing a lot of stuff! Any word on teaching opportunities in the MTC?

Love you Mis!
Trev

P.S. I'm sending pictures in a separate email

Sent 11/9/15

Sent 11/9/15

Fun with a Halloween package (sent 11/9/15)

Fun with a Halloween package (sent 11/9/15)

Fun with a Halloween package (sent 11/9/15)

Sent 11/9/15

Sent 11/9/15

Week #7

Hello all! I had a busy week. It started off great, but then went south pretty quick. Monday and Tuesday were awesome. Monday night we taught a guy named Bobby. He's HUGE. He played outside linebacker at Utah State. But he is suuuuper nice. One of the nicest people I've met here so far. We taught him about the Restoration, and he really enjoyed it. On Tuesday, we met Kenny. Kenny is from Sri Lanka, and he's verrrrrrry nice. As we were teaching, he offered us cake. We politely declined, but he got up and gave some to us anyways haha. After we finished, he asked "want more?" We said no, but he gave us more. Then he asked the same thing. We said no. He still gave us more cake. Finally we left a little bit on our plate to show him we were done. It was pretty funny, he gave us like half of his cake. We taught him about the Book of Mormon and invited him to read it, which he accepted. We also met a guy named Carlton. He had talked to us before, but then we came back and taught him some more. He's a really good guy. He's moving to Alaska soon, so we're going to have to refer him to missionaries up there. We also taught Daniel, who is a band teacher at one of the middle schools. We taught the Plan of Salvation, and he really enjoyed it. We're going to teach him again soon. Tuesday night we had dinner at the Hendersons'. We had a food challenge. She fed us sandwiches the size of my head. Four meats, various vegetables and sauces, and even coleslaw. It was delicious. I attached a video of me eating it at the bottom. Wednesday was awesome. We taught a kid named Tyrese. He's on the JV basketball team at one of the high schools here. A few days ago, Elder Wightman and I played basketball with kids in the street. The next day we rode by, and Tyrese was there. He and his buddy challenged us because he heard we played basketball with his friends. So we did. We won. Shout out to Thursday night basketball at the Binghamton Ward! Then he wanted a rematch, so we told him we have to teach him if we do. We played again and he got revenge. But then we taught him on Wednesday! We taught the Restoration and he loved it. We invited him to read the Book of Mormon. His appointment ended at 5pm, and when we got home around 9pm, he texted us and asked us why the Lamanites were cursed with dark skin, and he also wanted to know if he was cursed because he was black hahahahahaha. HE READ UP TO 2 NEPHI 5!!! In one day! Craziness. We explained it to him and he understood haha. We teach him tonight. The rest of the week was really disappointing. Lots of people had to reschedule, or they would lie to us and say they were interested, and then we would come back and they would say no. Plus, we only had one investigator at church. Hopefully we'll see more next week!
Love you guys!

Sent 11/2/15

Sent 11/2/15

Sent 11/2/15

Sent 11/2/15