Hello family!
I'm glad that it's Spring back in Utah for you
guys! It's still pretty much winter here.... Haha we woke up to a dusting of
snow on everything this morning and 21 degree weather... But the Sun is out at
least! There was a member from Utah that was visiting family this Sunday and he
was talking about how much nicer the weather is back in Utah. Needless to say,
he was excited to get back! Haha we're wondering how long exactly winter is
going to last out here.. Last year it started warming up pretty well around mid
March. Oh well! I'll survive.. :)
Let me tell you
guys a little bit more about DeWitt! It dawned on me that I haven't quite given
you guys as much information as I should have... I've realized that as
missionary work has become a more natural part of who I am, I haven't thought to
mention it as much... Oops! So, here we go..
DeWitt is a fairly
big, compact town right on the edge of Syracuse. The people here are pretty nice
for the most part. It's full of middle/upper middle class families who are quite
often new to the area. This is really nice, because East Syracuse (where we used
to live) was a lot of older couples who had lived in the area for a really long
time. So, we now have greater potential to find FAMILIES! That's been a big
focus that we've had. One interesting thing about where we live is the Jewish
population. We live right across from JCC, the Jewish Community Center. There
are 2 temples within walking distance, one orthodox and one that isn't. Because
of this, there is a high population of Orthodox Jews that live in the area.
Because they can only walk so many steps on the Sabbath, they typically live
within a few blocks of their synagog/temple. That's been interesting and adds
some variety to the work!
The work has been going good, although we
still don't have many people that we are working with. One of our investigators
is married to a recently reactivated member. Brother Grant's family joined the
Church when he was a boy in New York, moved to Utah, and somewhere around the
lines he stopped attending. He has been doing great and is such a great guy!
They've been to church about 5 times now and Sister Grant has a baptismal date
for..................... MAY 10th! Elder May and I were discussing potential
baptismal dates and I threw that out there (kinda as a joke). I was on exchange
during our next lesson with the Grants, and was surprised to get a text that
night saying that May 10th was her date. Haha pretty funny! She is doing super
well and is progressing great! We love the Grants.
We've also been
working with a few less actives in the Ward and are seeing some good success
there. Besides Brother Grant, we have had one Sister (Sister Montenegro) that we
were working with come back to church (6 times so far). She's set on getting
temple worthy and doing the temple work for her ancestors, so we've focused a
lot of family history with her. She's loving Church, just accepted a calling,
and had us over for dinner last night. We have two other less active members we
are meeting with regularly that have started to progress. We have started out by
getting them to pray daily, then challenging them to read the Book of Mormon
again, then when the Spirit prompts, inviting them to do more. They both came to
an emergency preparedness fair that we had on Saturday, which was the first time
they have ever stepped foot in the Fayetteville building. So good things are
happening here, even though we don't have many teaching appointments each
week.
What I've really learned about is the importance of Daily
Scripture Study and Prayer. That is SO vital to stay strong in the Gospel. When
that begins to slip, other little things soon follow. Another thing that we have
started to focus on is getting the members of the Church to study Preach My
Gospel. As such, I would like to invite each of you to study Preach My Gospel at
least once a week during your set aside scripture study time. I know that if you
do so, you'll see great spiritual growth in your lives, as well as the lives of
others. It's such a great resource and answers a lot of the questions and
concerns we may have about missionary work. It's great!
I love you
guys! Thanks so much for all of your support. I'm super glad that I get to be
out here in New York serving the Lord, and I couldn't do it without you. Keep up
the good work family!
-Elder Hussey
p.s. Thanks for
the package you sent! The homemade oreos are SO GOOD! Elder May liked them a lot
too. And the other things in there are good too. I'm quickly learning that more
important that what I eat is HOW MUCH I eat... Portion control seems to be the
biggest struggle. One cookie is manageable... 5 in bad. Haha
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