6.16.2014

Greetings family!

I hope you are all doing great! Elder Wendt and I are enjoying ourselves in New York quite a bit, even though it has been quite rainy. However, cooler temperatures and no humidity sure are nice to have. Things are going really well here for us in New york. Much like all of you in Utah, we have been quite busy! That is really nice as a missionary. It's good to have places to be.

This past week was really great! Let me think for a minute about everything that happened.... Alrighty, here we go!

Monday- After Emailing and shopping, we went to the Church for a District Activity! We brought a Frisbee and played Ultimate Frisbee together, which was pretty fun. It was a muggy day, and I really got into the game, so I was pretty worn out by the end. The one sad part about our District Activity was that before we even got there, one of the Sisters (the one that is going home with my group actually) did something and hurt her ankle... I knew nothing about that, but found out when we saw her using crutches the next day... Oops! It's nothing too serious though and she's doing pretty good. Missionaries need to be really careful to make sure they don't get hurt, both right before coming on a mission, as well as when they're about to come home. I'm being super safe! :)

After our District Activity, we headed to Cortland for my exchange with Elder Rebman, and it was fantastic! We had a miracle right from the get go when we got into Cortland. As we parked the car and were going to put my change for proselyting, we saw a note pinned to the front door that read- "Hi, my name is Henry. I am moving to China tomorrow, but I would like to learn more about the Mormons before I leave. Can you give me a call?" At first glance, Elder Rebman and I didn't think there was any way it was for real.. It sounded too good to be true. However, we gave it a call, Henry gave us his address, and we went right over! He was a foreign exchange student that was attending at SUNY Cortland for a semester while he studied Linguistics. One of the last things they did was go to New York City, where they attended the Book of Mormon play. He said that he really enjoyed the play and it made him really interested to talk with us. He talked to someone who apparently knew where the Elders lived, so he came and rang our doorbell, and when we didn't come, it made the note we found.

We ended up teaching him the Restoration, answering a bunch of questions he had, gave him a Book of Mormon, and then he said the closing prayer, which was his first vocal, structured prayer. It was awesome! Afterward we ran to the Church to use a computer, where we found a way for him to contact the Church for more information when he got back to Beijing. Once we got that to him, he asked for our emails so that he could send us any questions he had as he read the book. It was really awesome!


Tuesday- Elder Rebman and I had a great day! We went tracting for a while, talked with people on the street, then got lunch at Denny's, which is one of my favorites to go to. afterward, we went to an investigators and helped him paint his dining room. Painting was a lot of fun and the room looked WAY better once we were done. As we painted, we actually did a lesson with Will and talked about the 10 Commandments. Will was awesome and is actually going to be getting baptized in 2 weeks. Pretty sweet!


Later in the day, we were able to teach their investigator, Brandon. Brandon is sweet! He's a 17 year old that met some of the Elders who invited him to Church Ball. He started coming to play ball, then started coming to Church on Sundays. He likes it a lot and wants to get baptized, so the Elders are helping him get there. That was way awesome teaching a kid close to our age that was attending church/investigating all on his own. There are so many prepared people out there! We have no idea...
After the lesson, we all played Basketball and I wore myself out again. I'm not too bad at shooting and I'm still in fairly good shape, but I don't know plays or anything.. But we had a lot of fun.


Wednesday- We ended our exchange at our Zone Training Meeting in Liverpool. Unfortunately, somebody rear-ended a school bus and we got stuck on the highway for about 20 minutes, so we ended up getting to the meeting late.. Oops. The training was awesome though and I learned a lot! We had a member from our Ward (Bro Bird) come and talk with us about the Book of Mormon. He has a really strong testimony of the Book of Mormon and is really motivating! It pumped me up again.

Here's Elder Rebman and I after the meeting was over-

We took several pictures, but I didn't have any with us looking at the camera.... :/

Right when we got back into DeWitt, Elder Wendt and I ran off to our investigators, the Nelsons, to take them on a Church Tour. Because we didn't have the car, we had to get a ride with them. We had a great Church Tour with them. They liked the building a lot and we were able to answer a lot of the questions about Sunday Services. Church tours are a great way to answer questions and help people understand things a lot more. Had dinner with an awesome family right after the Church tour and finished our night!

Thursday- Good day! We tried a bunch of people in the morning, did weekly planning, then had dinner at Sister Loomis's home. We had stuffed shells and I ate WAY too much... It was really good. After dinner, we had a great lesson with our investigator Pam about the Plan of Salvation. The member who came with us, Brother Herlihy, did a fantastic job explaining everything and is a great teacher.

Friday- RAINY DAY! We were able to see a less-active brother in our Ward, and then on our way to a headquarter referral we received, we noticed a giant rain storm coming in... We started to power walk and made it to the referral's before the rain started, however, the referral didn't answer the door.. Dang. So, we ran outside as it just started raining and took cover under a bus stop just as the downpour started, where we waited until Brother Huller picked us up for dinner. When dinner was finished, we went to our investigator Don's house and read the Book of Mormon with him. It's amazing to see the power of the Book of Mormon as people read it. They naturally stop swearing and smoking and the Spirit really comes into their home. It's quite odd actually, but it's really cool!

Saturday- Went to a potential's house from the Blitz we had. Curtis let us right in, and his wife sat down with us also. We started teaching the Restoration and they were really interested and wanted a copy of the Book of Mormon. We gave them one and set up a time to see them this week! So, we were able to find more investigators this week, which was REALLY nice. Things are really coming together here in DeWitt!

We went to help the Blanchs (an active family in our ward) with some service and got a great workout moving furniture, then we had another good lesson with Pam about the Plan of Salvation. I drew it out for her and we answered a bunch of her questions. It was a great lesson!

As soon as the lesson was done, we headed off with one of the counselors in the Bishopric to Bishop Frazee's. They did a cookout and had all of the Bishopric and the missionaries over. It was great getting to know some of them better and hearing stories about their missions. We have great leadership here in Fayetteville Ward. I love them!

Sunday- Church was great! Everyone pretty much knows that I am leaving soon, so a ton of people were asking if it was my last Sunday... it was kinda crazy. I don't feel like the end is coming so soon... Weird. But we enjoyed Church. We sat by the Ward family during sacrament (the 2 boys that just got baptized) and helped the kids stay quiet during sacrament. It was fun. I love the Ward family. :)

We saw a less-active sister of the Ward who said she would come to Church next week, tried a bunch of people, then went to dinner at the Malcom's. They are an awesome family that moved into the Ward just after I was transferred there. We've gotten their son Tyler out teaching with us a few times and I'm really glad they had us over for dinner. The Ward also had a farewell dessert for the Chamberlains, the first Stake Patriarch that is moving to Michigan this upcoming week. Saw a few people from the Syracuse Ward that were there.

Now- As you can tell, it was a crazy busy week, but it was really good. This week looks equally busy, and I'm just so grateful to see the growth that has come to our area the past six months. Miracles are always happening and the work is progressing. I'm glad to be a missionary. :D

I love you all and I look forward to seeing you all soon, but I'm glad I have one more week in the field. Keep safe and we will meet up soon. I'll try to not drive Elder Wendt crazy this week as I'm nearing the end of this adventure and the beginning of a new one. Life's good

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-Elder Hussey