10.14.2013

Dear Family,

Transfers are this week. However, I felt confident that nothing was going to change, so I had forgotten to mention it last week. Elder Sedgwick and I will continue to work in Lowville for 6 more weeks. We were excited about that, because we have a lot of work that hasn't quite come to fruition yet.. We can see it coming in the horizon, but it's just a matter of being patient and diligent until it arrives. Here's a picture of our District this past week.

A few people in the district are transferring, but things are mostly staying the same. It's always exciting to meet new people and I have no idea who any of the people coming are, so that will be good. It's amazing to see all of the people I've met on my mission so far and the friends that I've made. I'm kind of grateful that I'm in the US and will be close to a lot of the friends I'm making.

Things in Lowville are going good. We didn't pick up any new investigators this past week, which was kind of a bummer, but we did have some good lessons with those investigators we already have. We had one investigator that we just could not get to read the Book of Mormon, but this past week we were inspired to read 3 Nephi 11 with him (The account where the Savior first comes to America) and it really caught his attention. He kept reading and when we finished the lesson, he said he was going to read before he went to bed. I think that will make a big difference if he finally starts to desire to understand the message the Book of Mormon contains.

 

The weather is pretty nice here in Lowville! it's definitely not summer anymore, which has its pros and cons. The Leaves were all beautiful, but most of them have all fallen to the ground. Luckily, it's still mild weather. I don't think we'll have any snow in the upcoming week... Hopefully. :)

 

So this last weekend was Stake Conference in Utica. That was pretty cool! I love the conferences and all of the direction we can receive there. It's amazing to see how big of an impact it is to take simple notes of what doctrine they're speaking on, what they ask us to do, and the blessings they identify for us to look for. Then, you can go back through and see what you can do to fully utilize the leaders counsel. At Stake Conference they were talking a lot about missionary work (at the Saturday Session) and exact obedience to the Commandments (on Sunday). There was one speaker that asked a few questions that really made me think... He asked- "Are we keeping the Sabbath Day holy, or are we just attending Church? Are we keeping the Word of Wisdom, or are we just not partaking of those things identified to be bad?" He gave a few more examples, but those two really stuck out to me. There's always ways that we can improve and do better at being obedient to the Gospel, we just have to remember that it doesn't all come at once. It takes diligent effort and continued repentance to overcome the natural man.

There was also a talk about the resources the Church has to help us in our religious study. The Church's scripture study app is awesome! It can download all of the Church Publications (Standard Works, Magazines, Conference Talks, and books used in church classes) as well as download videos (like Mormon Messages, church movies, etc) and has some neat ways to organize everything and make it easy to study. Some important advice he gave though- "If you're paying for an app from the church, it's not from the church". Everything digital the church is doing is free for us to use. It'll be interesting to see the effect this has on the publication of the Ensign and everything else in 10 years. Things are changing, but it's getting easier to utilize everything the Lord has given us.

Besides that, we really didn't have anything too exciting happen here in New York! I just found out in an email that a lady I was teaching in Owego got baptized this past weekend. That's always a good feeling! It sometimes takes people a while to be ready, but I'm glad to see that she made this step. Missionary work is awesome!

Love you guys! I'm grateful for everything that you do to make it possible for me to be out here. Serving a mission is great, and I don't know if it'd be possible without all of you! You're in my prayers. Keep up the good work.

Have a great week!
-Elder Hussey

p.s. Thanks for the music you sent! There's some good music there and I appreciate having something new to listen to. You'll have to see when you're with Heather sometime if you can figure out how to get Enoch Train off the internet.