Week 4 - Good Experiences

Hey everyone, sitting at a McDonald's at the moment typing this, so hopefully it'll go well (despite autocorrect wanting to change everything I say). This week was a lot better than the last one.

Last P-Day, we went and visited the new World Trade Center and the 9/11 memorial (yes I took pictures), which was an experience to get through as their security is almost more stringent than airport security.

The less active we were going to teach that night (Isaac) delayed our appointment by an hour, meaning we had an open hour to do anything we felt like, and thus we went tracting. We went to an area called The Projects, which is a very sketchy set of apartment complexes, picked a random number between 1-10 for what floor we'd go to, and then tried to find an unlocked building. First building was locked, but the next building we tried wasn't, so we went to the 5th floor and started going door to door. Only one guy opened his door, said he wasn't interested, and the rest didn't even come to the door. We were at the second to last door, knocked, and a lady opened the door. We told her that we were the missionaries, and she immediately invited us in. We were a little nervous, as she didn't look like the friendliest type of person, but then we heard more voices. Turns out, we'd just randomly tracted into Hermana Dunn & Laititi's lesson! Apparently Janice (the lady) had just been saying that she didn't think God knew who she was and that she wasn't really interested in going to church or believing in it, and right when she said that, we knocked on her door. She was pretty much crying all over the place, was very happy, and everyone felt the Spirit a ton (apparently I bore a very powerful testimony, I don't remember), and then the lesson really helped as well. It was the Mormon message entitled "Mountains We Must Climb" by President Eyring, which I had actually heard twice earlier that day and hadn't really paid attention to it. It talked about how we all face trials, and as long as we rely on the Lord that we can overcome them and be better for them, which is exactly what I needed to hear at that time.

The next day was new missionary training up in Scarsdale, so we took the train up (after Elder Wang lost me in Grand Central) and I got to see everyone from the MTC! I've really missed them more than I had realized, and it was great to be able to talk with them! Elder Reid got bitten or something and the left side of his face was swollen and painful (he was on antibiotics though), and it was already much better by the end of the meeting. President Morgan taught us a lot, including safety, answering the right questions (very interesting topic), and a lot of other things. Lunch from Sister Morgan was great, did some more training with the APs, and then piled 18 people into a van to get to the train station. Got to ride back with Elder Reid and his companion, caught up with him, compared pictures, and so forth.

Taught quite a few people this week and have had several dinners (none so far this week though, only one we have is Thanksgiving). Went and visited a member from upstate in the hospital several times (Joan), and had an opportunity to give her a blessing as well as bring the sacrament to her on Sunday. Have a new investigator named Tao (friend of one of the families we ate dinner with, came to church), she's Chinese so we may pass her on to the Chinatown missionaries, or just have Elder Wang teach her.

It's been very windy, and raining for the past two days. Supposed to clear up and get really cold tomorrow. Went to breakfast at the Denning's yesterday, not sure how but I ate 16+ blueberry pancakes (I literally lost count, I have no idea how I ate that much), and helped prepare Rie some more for baptism. Input a TON of inactive look-ups into the IPad yesterday, like 5-6 hours worth and still didn't finish. Planning on going to the museum of natural history today, which'll be cool.

Hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Ralph Smith

On the bus

From Ralph from last Sunday (November 24):

Someone on the bus was a photographer and was kind enough to take a picture of us! Hermana Laititi, Hermana Dunn, Me, and Elder Wang (from left to right), we're the missionaries for our ward.

Letter from the Mission President

Here's part of a letter we got at home from Ralph's mission president:

"Dear Brother and Sister Smith,

It was a pleasure for Sister Morgan and I to welcome your son upon his arrival in the New York New York North Mission. We were touched by his enthusiasm and sweet spirit. It is our desire to do all that is within our power to help him become the finest missionary possible during [his] opportunity for service in New York.

* * *

We are grateful to have your son with us. I enclose a picture we took with him at the mission home together. He is happy and very excited to be here. We look forward to getting to know him and serving with him."

Week 3

We've been trying to do street contacting and looking up less active members, but we've only managed to talk to about 2 people during street contacting and I think only one of them wanted a pass along card, and then of about 15-20 look ups we did, none of them let us in. It's been getting very very very cold here, thanks to some weird wind system moving through (like 20+ mph winds almost all the time). [My companion] made breakfast this morning (toast with an egg on top, a nice gesture). Despite eating 3 meals a day and more, I've apparently dropped down another 2 pounds since Sunday (may just be our scale, not sure). Hope you people have a happy thanksgiving (that may be next week but I haven't been keeping track). Talk to you later.

Week 2ish, New York!

Well, week 2 has begun and gone for a little, I finished up at the MTC, took pictures with all of my teachers (will upload those when I get to a computer that can :P) and got sent off into the wild blue yonder. Got on the plane to Georgia, took about 3 hours, and made it there on time. It was nice, we had a 2 hour layover (the airport was HUGE), and then we left on a small little plain for the airport in White Plains NY. I didn't manage to fall asleep on either flight (whyyyyyyyyyyyyy), so I was awfully tired. Met President and Sister Morgan at the airport, they're amazing and I love them so much. We then loaded up all the luggage and went to the Mission Home (it's over 100 years old and very pretty, I didn't get to take pictures though), and had a humongous dinner after talking to the rest of the mission presidency and the other missionaries. We then had a kind of testimony/introduction meeting, and then crawled off to bed. There were these weird bugs in our room (I think they were weevils of some sort, or possible stinkbugs, who knows), so we hunted down as many as possible before going to sleep. We woke up, had a ginormous breakfast, then I found out where I was ending up. I'm currently in the Manhattan South area, the one with Union Square and a bunch of other cool stuff, and I got a new companion, Elder Wang (pronounced Wong). He's from north eastern China, and is very kind. I think we're going to get along, we'll see! Our apartment is nice (has like 3-4 locks), and we share it with another set of missionaries (our zone leaders actually, and Elder Wang is the district leader). I've already been on the subway/buses a LOT (passed through Grand Central Station too!), and I have to teach a lesson tonight! Hopefully everything is going well over there. Love you all! Elder Ralph Smith

In the beginning, there was week one

Hey everyone! As you heard last week, I made it to the MTC safe and sound (although very tired). Staying up for 19 hours really wasn't too pleasant, but I managed to survive.

The MTC has been going really well, I have a ton of good teachers, combined with devotionals from our branch presidency, MTC presidency, and videos of talks by Apostles (Elder Perry is speaking the day we leave, so I get to miss him in addition to Elder Oaks in Spokane *sob*). The Spirit here is really strong, and I've probably felt it here more than any other point in my life.

Elder Wallace and I have been teaching two investigators, one being our teacher who is role playing as an investigator, and then our "TRC Investigator," who can either be an MTC worker, a member, an inactive member, or a non-member volunteer, which is pretty nerve wracking. My district is amazing, we all get along very very very very VERY well, and all of them are funny, spiritual, insightful, and so on. The best part is that the whole district is going to the same mission, meaning I'll see all of them at mission meetings, and possibly even end up companions with them again.

The next few days are going to be pretty hectic, but I think I'll be fine. I'm starting to question the quality of the Distribution Service's shirts, as my shirt from there has had two buttons fall off already (have sewn them back on), and also my gray suit's top button fell off on Tuesday (sewing it on later today).

I've been trying to get as much sleep as possible, but it's still kind of difficult. Laundry is in about 30-40 minutes, so at least most everything will be clean. Got a haircut today, apparently it's required that every Elder MUST get a haircut before they leave, seems silly to me but whatever.

I am really starting to love the Elders in my district. Elder Wallace is an amazing companion, and is very humble as well (balances out my enormous ego). He's 6'3" (you'll see in the pictures), is from Declo, Idaho, and has really been a great blessing to me. We also think pretty similarly (pretty eerie at times), so we've been getting along swimmingly. The other two Elders in the district are Elder Reid (in the left in the picture of them two), and Elder Porter. Elder Reid is from Oahu, Hawaii, and is one of the most kind, funny, and spiritual people I've ever had the chance of meeting. Elder Porter is from Pleasant Grove, Utah and is pretty silly at times, teasing people, making movie references, etc. (reminds me a lot of Jacob Sok actually).

For any of you who didn't know, Elder Wallace and I got called to be the Zone Leaders over 3 districts (our own, the Iowa Des Moines District, and the Washington Everett District). We've been kept busy, doing new missionary orientation yesterday night, and we have to plan out Sacrament Meeting and Priesthood Meeting for Sunday. The date I will be coming home in October 27th, 2015 (at least according to my ministerial certificate), so I'll be out for just a little less than 2 years.

I've been eating well (yes I have been eating), though there's no scale here so I'm unsure of whether I'm gaining/losing weight. Also have been exercising a lot, playing 4-Square (ask Teddy what it is if you don't know), as well as running (won't Papa be proud). So yeah, that's pretty much all I have to say (sorry for the enormous wall of text), and I'll make sure to include anything else I wanted to say in my letters. I will have pictures attached, and I'll make sure to identify everyone. Hope you're all doing well.

Love you all,

Elder Smith

While We Wait

While we wait to hear more from Ralph, here are a couple more photos from the airport: