8/20/2012

Hey everybody!

It is really crazy how fast time flies by when looking back on it.  Just a few days ago, I realized that it was almost exactly one year ago that I was in Cedar City, worried about college and everything else... And all of the sudden I'm in New York, already past one month out here in "The Field".  Pretty exciting!

One of the many exciting events this week was "Return and Report", a meeting in Utica one month into the mission where all of the missionaries come back and receive more training. Elder Baird and I traveled to Norwich on Thursday night and stayed with Elder Chandler, who came out with me, and his companion, Elder Gleue. They're both awesome missionaries and it was good to catch up with them and everything else. Then on Friday morning, we were off to Utica.

Return and Report started off with a lot of training on what to do if we get sick, how to take care of out feet, car care, etc. Then we got to the good stuff.  President Wirthlin taught us about a lot of different stuff- Recognizing and sharing the Spirit, following it's promptings, etc. Then the AP's, Elder Becerill and Williams, taught us about being the "4th" missionary. The talk was very interesting that they were sharing from and talked about the 4 different types of missionaries there are out there, and why we should strive to be the 4th type of missionary. It's a good goal to set and I'll always work towards that while I'm out here.

In other news, it was another good week! I received a letter from Casey, including pictures of his "get-up" from Mr. UBIC and I couldn't be any prouder of that kid. Way to be! Now I have the Sax part from Careless Whisper (I think...) stuck in my head though, on constant repeat. Haha gotta love that! Also, during the drive to Utica, Elder Baird and I listened to a few CD's he has that are AWESOME. He has the Nashville Tribute to the Prophet- Joseph Smith and Nashville Tribute to the Pioneers- Trek. They are very country, and surprisingly, I love them. I'm already a fan of country... So if any of you out there know of any other "Nashville Tribute" cd's, I love 'em! *hint hint

Our investigators are all doing well. We have some very exciting things coming somewhat soon.. I'm really blessed to be here in Owego. Seriously, I can already tell I was sent here for a reason. The sister we've been working with is doing great. We're working on helping her quit drinking coffee and she's been doing really good so far. Elder Baird gave her a really awesome blessing and I could feel the power in the room afterwards. We're re-evaluating her baptismal date, due to the fact she needs to be 4 weeks off coffee before baptism, so we should know when that will be soon.

So I'll finish with a slightly funny/gross story. Recently, Elder Baird and I have been finding a lot of Spiders.. Spiders are everywhere here in New York, and I'm pretty sure I have the beginning signs of Arachnophobia.. It's super gross. Some missionaries play a game where they see how many spiders they can count on a porch before people get to the door. When Elder Baird and I hit 28 or so on one porch, I decided I was done playing that game.. But recently, there has been an.. influx of spiders in our apartment and we couldn't figure out why. In fact, it was bad enough that we now have a spider kill-count on our white board. As of today, I'm at 27.

But this morning, at the start of our personal study, I looked up and saw a spider on the blinds of my window, so I got the bright idea of pulling the blinds up to smash the spider. (Hint- Don't do that.) Turns out the blinds weren't exactly mounted the best, so the sudden movement pulled them off of the wall and a few spiders exploded throughout the room. After killing the spiders and picking up the blinds, I realized that there was about a 2 inch gap at the top of our window where anything that had a desire to get in our apartment could. Apparently, windows in New York slide open from both the top AND the bottom.... So I got up and slid the window shut up top... I think we're going to duct tape it shut so it doesn't slide down again...

So I found out where the spiders were all coming from! Now I just need to mount the blinds back up and all will be well.. :)

The joys of missionary work. Fun stuff!

Things here in Owego are going well! The members are all out trying to get me fat... We've been fed by a lot of members and it's AWESOME! Such a great blessing. My testimony grows every day and I made some major progression both as a missionary and member of the church. There's SO much good found in our church and it can really bring great happiness to those around us. I'll admit it- I didn't always know how big of a blessing this church was to us, but I'm starting to scratch the surface.

I'm loving being out here! There's both bad and good out here in the mission field, but if you focus on the good, you don't even remember the bad.

Hope all is going well at home! You're all in my prayers!

Love you all,

-Elder Mitch Hussey