[Here's Ralph's e-mail from Wednesday.]
Hi everyone! Hope you are all doing well. Not too many significant things happened this week, so this'll probably be a long slog of an email to get through (I also neglected to write in my journal this week, oops, aka probably a lot less details, oh well).
Anywho, after I emailed last week, we went to the Met, were scared away by the $25 entrance fee (which turned out later to just be a recommended price, you can pay like $1 to get in. Sigh), so we went to the gift store and bought some wallet size subway/bus maps. We then went out shopping, got all the stuff we needed, then took it all back to our apartment. We then went across the street to go read with Alex (Norka's son, Norka being Anthony's roommate, Anthony being our investigator, just to remind you people). We then did a few lookups after Alex, and while we were running around, some little old lady stopped us and asked, "Have you got anything for me to read tonight?" We were rather surprised, so we then gave her a Book of Mormon and explained what it was. She then asked for our number so she could call us as well. She THEN also asked us to deliver a DVD for her and she gave us her address. So that was pretty out of the blue. After that we had dinner and went home.
Thursday we had studies, and then we had zone meeting (which had been pushed from Monday due to snow), and we talked about what President Morgan has in mind for us as missionaries. We talked about different goals, looked at some charts with mission numbers, and explained the significance of said numbers. We also went over something called The Standard of Excellence, which is basically the teaching/key indicator goals that President Morgan has for us. We then went and had lunch, then did our weekly planning. We then went upstairs and did some online proselyting until our lesson with Joseph, had that lesson with him, then went to dinner at the Kunzlers. It was great, they're some of the funniest, nicest people ever, Bro. Kunzler knows missionaries so well and their habits, what they do at certain times over their missions and so on, it was so funny. We then traveled home.
Friday we had studies, then went and had an interview with Sister Weyandt and Sister Jensen. We then did some lookups, met a less active named Jeff, talked with him about how he was doing and shared a message about the New Year. We did some more lookups afterwards, but none were home, so we then went to our appointment with Bro. Barrett. We shared dinner with him, and he talked about his experiences both as a missionary and what he's done with missionaries (he's been Bishop twice and in a Stake Presidency, so he talked about how he's worked with missionaries from both of those areas). After that we went home.
Saturday we fasted as we were doing an APF focused specifically for the Spanish Sisters, as we were going to go tracting to help them find new people to teach. We did studies, then prepared for the APF by gathering materials. We then met up with the rest of our district, Elders Monson and Longo, as well as Elder Pickard and Elder Richards (the zone leaders from Harlem), and we all split so we had at least one Spanish speaker per companionship, (I was with Elder Pickard), and we then went and started tracting in the Projects across from our building. I know that Elder Pickard and I had enormous success, we taught 8 lessons in the time we were tracting and ran out of materials to give out to people. The Spanish Sisters even got a baptismal date from someone during it! It was a great experience. We went from there into the now pouring rain to go to the Bennion's for dinner, then we went home.
Sunday we had studies, then we went to the Yamada's for lunch before church, then we went to church (there was a Chinese lady there who wanted to learn more, so Elder Wang talked with her and then referred her to the Chinatown ward). We then had the usual block of meetings, one of the talks in Sacrament was particularly interesting, it was about how Christ always sought solitude in "a desert place," and he talked about how we need to establish our own spiritual desert places for us to return to, to meditate in, and so forth. We then met with our high priest group leader Bro. Farnsworth and gave him all of our information on the lookups we did for him. We then went to Priesthood and the lesson discussed the Teachings of Joseph Fielding Smith. We then met up with Bro. Runyon and went and looked up a less active family (Bro. Runyon came because he's in the Young Men's program and in the family there's a 15 year old guy), so we went over and talked with them for a while and invited them over for an event on Friday. After that, we went back to church and had our interview with the Hermanas, then participated in their online event. Then we went home and ate stuff.
Monday was pretty much full, as we had district meeting in the morning, then went from that to the temple for interviews with President Morgan as well as IPad training from the APs. They were running behind, so we started about 2 hours late, so it took quite a while. My interview was pretty short, he just checked up to see how I was doing, suggested some better ways to maximize the effectiveness of my studies, and talked about how my companionship and area are. The IPad training talked mostly about how to properly input information into the IPad area book, as well as to make inspired Facebook posts. We then gave Hermana Jensen a blessing (she'd been feeling sick all day), and then we went to dinner and went home.
Tuesday we had studies, went at 11 to a special district leader meeting that the zone leaders arranged, then we had a zone VGPA meeting, where we reestablished our goals as a zone. We then went and visited the Hermanas at their apartment (Hermana Jensen was feeling so sick that she stayed home), so we got them food. We then went to the library and got library cards, then we went home because Elder Wang was feeling sick, and he took a nap and I did some additional studies. We then went to meet Bro. Farnsworth for dinner, as well as to help him with his home teaching, then we went home.
Today, we did laundry and then came here! We're going to be playing volleyball at the Temple, so that'll be fun, and we're visiting Alex and Bro. Barrett as well (Bro. Barrett is our new ward mission leader), so yeah, my time is running out, hope you all are doing great, and I'll see you next week!
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