Monday: Mondays are always exciting. We had a district activity with all of the other missionaries in the local area to 'build unity' and we made t-shirts with bleach pens and then also made waffles. Elders though... can't trust them sometimes. While we were making waffles, a few elders snuck into the kitchen and made pancakes. But they didn't know how to cook and 30 minutes later, there was smoke everywhere and the fire alarm went off. They burned like 20 pancakes. Ha Ha. Oh boy, but I made some really good waffles with lots of toppings so I was happy. We then had the worst dinner appointment on record. We had dinner with some members and their investigator friends, but they aren't the most reliable. So they showed up late 30 minutes (to their own house) and they took 90 minutes to make dinner and then the house was super crazy and nobody was listening to us. So after 3 hours of not getting anything done, we quickly shared a message and left.
Tuesday: We first started with some service at one of our favorite members homes and helped her clean, because she is moving. For a 60 year old lady... she had a pretty extensive collection of bb guns to scare away robbers. It was slightly hilarious. And we might have also taken a lot of pictures trying to be cool. Then, I had a dentist appointment to fix a tooth that had been bothering me for a while and I have waited a quite few months because there just aren't a lot of dentists out here in New York. It is all fixed now and I feel like a new person! Afterwards, we dashed off to the RS activity and spent time with the members and we had to help teach about how to be a better visiting teacher.Wednesday: It was Zone Conference. We spent the whole day driving and spending 6 hours in Utica with the President. It might have been one of the hardest conferences I have ever gone to. It was the exact repeat training that I got 2 weeks ago at MLC and some of the missionaries were super disrespectful and not paying attention and making inappropriate comments to get a laugh. Yes, so that was a struggle. But agency.. what can you do! When we did get home late, one of the elders left their camera in the back seat, so we decided to make a music video in our free time and random pictures. Lesson learned: never leave your camera unattended. It will be hijacked! Ha Ha
Thursday: We finally got to teach people!! We got in with a less active that we had never met before and she was super nice.. but she ended up being a contemporary baptist and wasn't interested. Ugh! It does get awkward, because you want to bare your testimony and tell them what's up.... but most people actually get more offended and go the other way. So, we shared a BOM scripture on Christ and called it good. We then went visiting teaching with a very pregnant sister and we had fun teaching about temple covenants and trying to get less active sisters to the temple. We have been trying to call the rest of our soldiers that aren't going to church also. Many have moved out and their numbers have changed. Nothing like trying to find ghosts and move records. Later on, we had Institute and one of the single soldiers that I called showed up and said that he wanted to come back to church! It was awesome! So we will keep working with him. Institute was awesome. The teacher is a CES big wig and travels all over the state to teach, despite major life problems. Love this man, his name is Bro Baker and we went way deep into the study of Christ. It was awesome, learning about the pre-existance and how even coming to earth was an act of faith in Christ himself that he could perform the atonement. We also watched some other cool videos. It was the intro, so it'll get even better as we go along!
Friday: Weekly planning. It is good to plan. We also found out that we will be moving apartments in the middle/late October. That will be so good! That was good news, but it looks like I will have a move in the future. We then checked up on some members and had dinner on post. We also have been getting more and more records. We tried our best to find the "lost less actives". We ran into the Hillsteads. Ha Ha Funny story.. we knock on the door and this super lanky, pale lady with half shaved purple hair come to the door. She smiles and we start talking, but my eye is caught on their home decor. There was a witches broom and some fairy picture on the wall. Come to find out.. they were once Mormon, but now they are now Norse Pagans. She literally worships Thor and Odin and drinks out of goblets and toasts and stuff. It was the weirdest thing ever, but she was totally happy in her "dungeons and dragons' reality. Oh well, just makes for a great story, but we will not be going over any time soon.
Saturday: Busy Busy Day. We shared a 2 minute scripture with our investigator who is a really funny lady that never has time for us. Then, we spent some time with some awesome members and talked about service and now we are pretty much best friends. We then went to the Johnson's and helped them move and we got a lot of stuff moving. We packed a kitchen and it was pretty good exercise. I was helping prepare my moving skills for later in life. We then taught Cameron about Family History. His baptism is set for 31 October. Whoop Woop. And we referred his sister to the NYC Sisters who have an iPad mission. That would be sweet to get those. We then picked up a new investigator named Shawn. He is married to a recently activated member and after dinner we talked about biological warfare and everything and then we talked about the BOM and he invited us back! Hooray! We then acted out Helaman with a member family. :)
Sunday: Church. Sister Clarke came! We had more Facebook lessons, got threatened by a non-member lady to never come to her house again or else she'd call the police and have us arrested (even though that can't happen) and made play dough forts with a family (we read Alma 48) and it goes with it for a Sunday FHE.
Missionary work is tough. I encourage everyone to be a little nicer to the missionaries... even when you may not like them. We are still learning! I love being a missionary, don't get me wrong... but there are some things that I will not miss! So I encourage all of us to be a little nicer this week and try to reach out to those who may keep to themselves at church!
The Church is True! Norwood exchanges are this coming week and transfer calls too. Oh and General Conference is coming up.... Wow!!
Love Sister Kylie Williams
