7.29.2013

Dear Family,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

H

7.22.2013

Dear Family,

Another week gone, another adventure on its way in New York.... Elder Bybee and I thought we knew what was going to be happening at transfers... We were wrong! Crazy stuff!

So transfers... I'll tell you what Elder Bybee and I expected. We got word a few weeks ago that Massena was being split into 2 areas- Massena Walk and Massena Drive. Massena walk would be in a new apartment downtown and have no cars, but they would just cover the village of Massena. Massena Drive would be in our apartment and cover all of the outer areas of the branch. We were expecting Elder Bybee to take over the walk area and continue to work with everyone we've been teaching here in town, while I took over the drive area and started new again, trying to find new people to come to church..
 

However, as President Wirthlin says, "The Logic of man is not the will of God."
 

We got our transfer call on Saturday at about 1:10 while we were driving to a lesson with Brother Rich. As the Zone Leaders were telling us everything that was going on, they informed us that Elder Tollefson (The assistant) would be coming to open up the Massena Walk area and train.. So he'll be teaching everyone we've been working with. Then, they informed us that and Elder Mecham would be coming to the Massena Drive area.... After a little bit of suspense, they informed Elder Bybee that he would be Elder Mecham's new companion in the Drive Area, and that I would be going to Lowville! That's crazy! We were all super surprised about it..
 

I guess I'm leaving Massena! It was pretty tough to think about and kinda shook me up for a bit, but I feel good about it now. I trust that President Wirthlin isn't the one transferring me, and I know that this will be the best for Massena! Elder Tollefson is the perfect man for working here in Massena.

I started packing earlier this morning.. It's still weird to think that I'm leaving.. But I'm excited for Lowville. It has a branch and is down by Watertown. I'm making a loop back towards Syracuse! I've heard it's definitely a cow town and most people there are either farmers or work at the KRAFT CHEESE FACTORY! Get ready for some cheese! :) It'll be cool. My new companion is Elder Davis (the younger, not the one I came out with). I don't know anything else besides that... A lot of people told me that Lowville is the snowiest place in New York during the winter, so that'll be exciting!

 

 

 

I love Massena! I'm always going to be super excited to hear about how the Branch is doing and how the people I've come to love are. It'd be really cool to come to church up in Massena in a year if you guys wanted to come out and pick me up.... :) I'd definitely want to drop by the Massena Branch.

That's my exciting news! I'm headed to Lowville. It'll be awesome! I'm excited to work with another Branch. Thanks for updating me on people back home. I love you all and I'm so glad you're all doing well!

Love you guys!

-Elder Hussey

7.15.2013

Hey family!

 This past week was pretty nice! We had some cooler weather roll in, which was really nice! We had some really good visits with new investigators as well as less active members of the church and things have been progressing pretty well. The humid heat rolls in occasionally and can be really difficult to handle, but it normally only lasts until a super weird storm comes out of nowhere and clears it out. The other day, it was a beautiful sunny day, then it got super humid.. Then in about an hour, a big nasty storm blew in and just unloaded on Massena! Super heavy rain and crazy wind were tearing everything up! There were a lot of trees down and anything people had out in their yards was missing once it was done! Luckily, we had an appointment we had just barely gotten to when the storm hit! We were all watching it out of the window, then we read a chapter of the Book of Mormon, then the storm let off and we made it home for the night. Right as we started planning, the rain started up again! Glad it worked out like it did!

So things are changing quite a bit in the mission field.. We haven't really had anything change quite yet, but I can see a lot of changes in the near future. They want us to move away from tracting a lot, which I can understand. A lot of people seem scared of us. When you have people cross the street so they don't have to talk to you, you know something is wrong. A lot of people just don't understand our purpose as missionaries, which is a shame. But as of now, we do still knock doors occasionally. I don't think they'll ever factor that out completely, because there are plenty of good people found that way, but they're emphasizing finding in other ways more. We can now do 4 hours of scheduled service a week, which is a little higher than it's been. I think we're going to be doing a lot more with family history as well, which could open up a few opportunities. And we desperately need the members to help us find people to teach. It's SO nice when someone we're teaching has a member friend to support them and help us in the teaching. They would love it if we never did have to knock doors, but with as many hours as there are in the day it'll take some time to work towards that. Missionary work probably sounds a lot different from when you were out, huh?

This past week was pretty good. We had about 10 lessons and several other good encounters with less actives that will hopefully lead to them coming back soon.

 

They have changed up a little bit with how we're supposed to dress.. Not entirely sure what all is changing, but I guess we'll see! That'll be interesting to see what all President Wirthiln approves of. We did get the word that backpacks are out.. Kinda a pain, but what can you do, huh? Elder Bybee has a really nice shoulder bag that is waterproof and has some good pockets and straps for when we bike. He told me that you can order them on timbuk2.com

He got one that was the small size and it's worked great for him. The best thing is that it's waterproof, because a normal shoulder bag I could find out here would probably get soaked through with some of the storms we've been in. I looked at the missionary site showing what kind of bags are appropriate, and there were two of the same kind of bag there. Here's pictures so you guys can see what it looks like.

 

I really like that color of blue, although I'd probably switch it up so that the main part of the bag was black and the blue was the middle sripe and interior liner. Elder Bybee told me the bags are all sorts of customizable with pockets and colors and everything. It'd be really nice if I could get permission to go online and do it next P-Day.. See if you guys can see what it's like and how expensive they are, and I'll keep my eyes out as well. I feel bad whenever I'm wearing my backpack now! Haha

And on the suits, they're all holding up pretty good as of now. A few of my pants are getting a little bit tight, but I think the better solution will just be for me to stop eating ice cream and pop-tarts... :P I'll keep that in mind with the suits though! The biggest thing I could probably use is a few more short sleeved shirts. The Mr. Mac ones are okay, but they're all super wide and it always looks like it's not tucked in the best. Elder Bybee was able to get slimmer shirts at CTRclothing that look a little better. Either the "slim" or "athletic" fits would be a bit slimmer.

 

Anyway, things here are going good! We're just working hard and hoping everything goes well for the Massena Branch! It's a lot of work to get a branch started strong.

Love you all though! Transfer calls this Saturday..... We'll see what happens!

 

Love you guys!

-Elder Hussey

 

 

 

7.8.2013

It's a beautiful day here in Massena! This past week has been very unique.. Rain one day, then super humid heat the next. Back and forth. Kinda tough to get used to! But it's been good. It is amazing to think that it is already July! The time is just flying by.. I realized that a few of my really good missionary friends are getting close to going home! In the next 4 months, Elder Baird, Elder Simmonds, and Elder Gasetoto will all be going home! That is crazy.... Kinda sad. I might not get to see them again while they're on their missions! Weird! Time does fly.. Sometimes too quickly.

Biking has been a lot of fun! Elder Bybee and I had a day last week we didn't even touch the car... We were both really sore by the time we got back in to the apartment. And it was the hottest day of the week. But it was fun and it made me feel like the missionaries you see in the movies! I really enjoyed it.

Pretty sweet bikes, huh? The Huffs got them from another missionary couple.. If I find out that I'm going to be in the walk area next transfer, I might need to look for another bike. This one doesn't quite fit me right... But it'll work for now!

The next transfer, we might be getting another set right in Massena that would cover the inside of Massena, while a set with the car covers the outer areas. We have had a lot of work going on right in town, but we haven't had too much going on outside of Massena. Because of that, we've been trying to get out and see people in the outside area and we've met some really great people! There's a family with 5 kids that I have faith will start coming back to church, as well as a few other people here and there we've found. There's another family (all none-members) that we met and are going back to teach this upcoming Thursday. We're trying as hard as we can to fill up the Massena Chapel! I'm determined to see 50 people there at church before I leave.. It'll happen!


I'm glad to hear you all are doing so well back home. Things are good here in Massena. There was a car show here on Friday, so we stopped in to walk around and get stared at for a while. (Seriously, the people here in Massena stare at us WAY more than they have in other areas...Oh well!) Elder Bybee LOVES El Caminos. Absolutely loves them. So he was on the hunt to find them at the car show.. And he did! There were 3 of them, but one was the first year they did an El Camino and looked really good. I snagged a picture of him right as he turned around from looking in it.. :)

I learned a lot about cars from Elder Bybee that night! As we were driving around I asked him all sorts of questions and he loved talking about all that stuff. It was a lot of fun and a good way for a lot of people in the community to see us out in the open, not just knocking on their porch.

So I have a question- How much do we know of our family history? Do you think you could send me some info? Do we know how far back the Hussey family goes with church history? When did our first ancestor join the church? Were any of them pioneers? It'd be a shame to not know about them if that was the case. I was reading a talk in an old Ensign and it was talking about Alma Sonne, and I recognized him from my Priesthood Line of Authority. I've just been wondering how much our family has in family history. Family History is really cool and I think I'll be a lot more involved in it once I'm done with my mission, but we're also going to be utilizing it quite a bit more in our mission in the upcoming months, so I want to start gathering some info now!

Things are going good! It's good to hear from you all and I'm glad things are going good for the family. Let me know if there's anything I can do for you!

I love you guys!

-Elder Hussey

7.1.2013

Hello family!

How cool is it to think that our family grew by one by the time I'd been out on my mission for only a year!... I would have never guessed that would have happened so quickly!

Things here have been pretty good. The past week was pretty uneventfull actually... Kinda weird! We had a few new investigators we were able to meet with, which was good. We also made contact with one of our investigators who canceled his baptism finally, so that was good. We'll be teaching him again, but we'll just have to move at a much slower pace.

On the 27th, I woke up, opened my package (thank you! The cookies and pringles stix are delicious! I also like the idea of Jerky. I'll be able to throw a bag in my backpack. It's light, good for a snack, and tastes good!), then went to District Meeting. We had an exchange planned, so I went to Canton! It was good. Elder Lamb and I had fun. We rode bikes into town, which is really fun, then talked to a few funny people, then had a dinner appointment with a family. It was good, but nothing really exciting. Just another day in the work. The next day in Canton was good.... and wet. It was raining really hard, but we were having our mission wide "Car Fast" to conserve miles... So we rode our bikes into town. We got SOAKED! I made a rookie mistake too... I was wearing gray pants. Oops!

We had a good day though in Canton. After that, we swapped back at a really good burger place called "Between the Buns" that is one of my favorite places to eat in Potsdam. Then, just back to normal work back in Massena! We had a pretty good weekend again. We had about 36 people at church. I don't know if I mentioned it last week, but we had a family of 5 move into the ward last week. They're a really cool family and a huge blessing to have in the Massena Branch.

 

Things are going good here in Massena. We don't have Transfers until the end of July, so Elder Bybee and I will be companions for a little while longer. It hasn't been 100% confirmed yet, but it sounds like we'll be having another set of missionaries in Massena. They've had us looking for another apartment in the middle of the town, because these will be walking/biking missionaries, while the other set covers the outer areas and drives.. Should be exciting to see! I never would have thought I'd have to learn how to hunt for apartments, considering location, cost, and lease time! Look at all the life skills I continue to learn on the mission. Funny! :)

Well, I'm glad you all are doing well back home. We're doing good out here in Massena.

Love you all!

-Elder Hussey