Week 7 - Liverpool, NY

Hello friends and family!  

                                                  

I've had quite the full week! Last Tuesday we arrived in Syracuse around 6:30ish and got picked up by the Mission President and we went to a place called Gino and Joe’s Pizza, which was so delicious. Then we stayed the night at the mission home.

Wednesday we did training then met our new companions, mine is Elder Ricks. He's from Utah and he's nice. He's on his last transfer so he was surprised to be training me since training normally lasts two transfers. We then drove to our new areas….mine is Liverpool. (Not the one in England btw).  Once we got there we went to the church to help teach an English as a Second Language class. There were only Spanish speakers there, so I tried using some of the Spanish I remembered. We had a ward mission leader meeting afterwards and then went home to plan and get ready for bed.

 

Thursday we had a regular day. Woke up at 6:30, exercised for 30 min and got ready by 8 a.m. Then we had personal study, companion study, language study, and twelve week training.  We then went to visit some less-active members including this one kind of blind lady and another old lady in an assisted living home. She's super out there and funny. She told me that I have "searching eyes" whatever that means haha. Her name's Sister R and she has all these random pictures and things in her apartment….. Like a 2015 Chihuahua calendar. After we finished with those appointments, I was able to get on Facebook for the first time, which was so weird because I haven’t been on social media in over 6 weeks.  Later we went to see a couple named Sean and Rosanne. They are quite characters, but they are really fun. Rosanne always goes off about deep doctrine or different tangents so we have to help her stay focused. They are the kind of people you would see on the hoarding shows on TLC. We visit this couple every other day.

 

Friday we went out tracking and found a former investigator named Susan. We shared a quick message because we aren't allowed to teach one female alone, but we set up an appointment to meet with her and her husband this week. She had all these plants and was like "do you guys want some rosemary plants??", and, we were like uhhhh, no we're good but she insisted, so she gave us each a rosemary plant!  Maybe I can use it when I cook. Later we saw the blind lady again. Her husband isn't a member and I felt prompted to invite him to come sit and read the Book of Mormon with us even though I didn't think he would, but he did end up coming! So that was cool. Then we had dinner at a family named the Bianco's. It took like 2 hours because they were talking to us for a while and then the pizza they were making took a while, but it ended up being pretty good.

 

Oh also, this guy named Brother May comes with us a lot and he is a saint. I call him our all-star member because he seriously helps us a lot, especially since we are assigned a lot of less-active members to teach. He is this little old man who retired last year and loves the missionaries. He told me that I look like Justin Beiber.lol! He took us to this place called Heid's Hotdogs and even though I am not a big fan of hot dogs, they were pretty good.

Then Saturday we met with a lady named Sister N. who fell away from the church 15 years ago, but really wants to get back. So we taught her the Restoration. Afterwards we helped with the church's Meals on Wheels with the bishop storehouse and got Sister R. her food with Brother May. Afterwards, we went around trying to find former and potential investigators but didn't have too much success. Pretty much all the doors we knocked on didn't want to hear our message.  Sunday (yesterday) the bishop had me introduce myself and share my testimony in Sacrament meeting. Then after church we did some teaching with Brother May at members’ homes. We had a nice dinner at the Bishop’s house and then went to see the Sean and Rosanne.

So, in our car we have this TIWI system thing that can tell if you are going to fast or aggressive driving if your rpms are too high or you brake too fast. It uses GPS and what not. My companion has a bunch of motab and EFY music and Alex Boye songs that we listen to so that's nice.

Oh, I didn't have a pillow so I had to get one today I have been sleeping on three shirts piled up as my pillow haha. 

Well I have said a lot. Miss everyone!! Love you guys.

Elder Waters