Hello everyone!
I hope everyone had a great New Years. This week has been another adventure... as my weeks always are :) It did start off really great.
Monday we started off with a youth combined with missionaries game of dodge ball/scatterball. Best thing ever. We played for an hour and all of us missionaries were out of breath. ( I am so done with being out of shape). We were all merciless playing. The dodge balls were perfect shape so we had quite a few times of getting welts and also give a few welts in return. Most of the time, it was just us missionaries wacking other missionaries. We went a tad easier on the youth. Little did we know that we would all be so super sore the next few days. Sister Gass could barely walk and I could barely raise my arms. Thankfully, right after we saw a member who was a Chiropractor and I got an adjustment. Best thing ever! I haven't been to the chiropractor in a year and I missed it so much. We did the usual P-day things and took a 10 minute nap later because that's all the time we had. We had dinner with a member family and they had to show us their new Christmas presents--- mini go karts! They kinda forced all of us to go and ride with them before eating dinner. Slightly against the white handbook, and it's super awkward when members don't take no for an answer. Right after, we got invited to a dinner with an investigator. So much food! Megan is amazing though, she got engaged to her LA boyfriend in Utah this Christmas and we are just so excited! Now she can get baptized after they are married. She is progressing so well. She already looks and acts like a Mormon and asks the deepest doctrine questions during lessons. We had a lesson on foundations of testimonies after we slid more food down and talked about her plans for the wedding.
The weather here has started to get colder. The next day started off slow as we tried to call everyone we knew to get an appointment. Many people were busy and sick, so we had to go walking outside. We OYM'd a few neighbors outside... and got the usual results. Then, we got changed and did some service at the local food bank. It was very fun and we were checking imported food and other products to see if it was safe to use. We got to talk to others working at our station. The one we talked to the most was a girl named Onyx and she was really cool. We didn't get to go too gospel'y on her, but we shared a pass along card afterwards and she said she enjoyed working and talking with us. Seed are planted! We are going back and working tomorrow! We saw Nadine and also Jim. Poor Jim is doing worse. More opposition at work and he doesn't have the support system or good enough knowledge to confront people when they bring temple or priesthood misconceptions. So as of now, he is avoiding us. :( All we can do is wait and pray and try to find the right opportunity to help him. Satan is a really smart and cunning fellow. He is pretty good at doing what he does.. :( We later saw Will that night and also Brian. Will is progressing so well. No doubt he will get baptized within the next 4 weeks. Brian has read up to Mosiah in the BofM. He is coming to Church on the 17th !Whoo hoo!
Wednesday came along and we started having car problems. We had a District Meeting too, which is always good. We learned about commitments and how to make them better. We then went to go buy some oil for our engine because it was low, and then we noticed a leak by one of the filters. Lights started coming on too. So, we were told to wait and to take it in immediately. We drove to Elmira and got the card looked at. We talked to a few people waiting in the lobby. One guy was totally trying to avoid us the whole time, but one was a really nice army kid from Ft. Bragg and the other was a roofer that ended up taking a pamphlet and actually read it! He also invited us to go to the local casino to gamble and get the free buffet. We will see if he calls us back. :P Ha Ha, you can always still be doing missionary work, even in a car auto shop. I had a few lessons and then we to coordination withe WML.
Thursday was New Years Eve and I actually started to feel a little funny. My stomach was not doing so well. I ended up getting the stomach flu and yea, it was not super great. Before I realized what was going to happen, we still saw a few LA and saw Will again and actually taught Tom F (a new investigator) over Facebook. He is a solid smart guy and is now reading the Book of Mormon. But yeah, it was New Years Eve and I couldn't even eat dinner. We didn't do a whole lot. Great way to spend the holiday :) Luckily we weren't that busy.
Friday I was recovering, but I was very tired. We weekly planned in the morning and saw Rachel later. She is doing so well, she understands everything she reads in the BofM. Unfortunately, her coworkers are being ruthless with her about studying to be a Mormon. Thankfully, she has member support since she is dating a member family. I am done with all of this anti-Mormon and opposition we get all the time out here. People just need to be nice. We can't even teach people without someone else running in and throwing anti pamphlets at them! We tracted in the cold, found some potentials, and after dinner I passed out and slept. I woke up later and went to see Megan and Will.
Saturday I felt better. We were still struggling to set up appointments. We met with a LA that finally wanted to see us but is going through a ton of health problems right now and is so tender hearted that it totally shuts her down. Sister Gass got this amazing general conference story book that we took and we read a few stories. They are super fun to read and some are also pretty intense. For example: apparently Elder Oaks gave a talk in conference a while ago about an experience he had in Chicago where he almost died when a teenage gang member tried to steal his car. Elder Oaks was protected and got away by giving the gang member a lecture. Ha Ha! Only he could do that! We then continued tracting and trying to find more people. The potentials we had found the day before actually said that they were not interested, so we had to try to talk to some more people. We got in with the Fedenko's and they came to Church this week. 3/4! So good! Their kids bore their testimonies. They are probably my favorite LA family because they have great hearts and want to be good. They just have a few struggles that can easily be worked on if they allow us to continue to help them. They also make great cookies.
Sunday was Church and we got the Houston's, the Fedenko's and Will and Nadine to come. Great showing. But it could be better! Testimony meeting was awesome! The members were just bearing testimony on the truthfulness of the BoM and everyone was pumped about the New Year and trying to be better and read their scriptures more. There is literally such a thing as scripture power! We tracted more and contacted a bunch of referrals. It got even colder. I finally pulled out my biggest blue coat. It is so warm -- I just love it. I wish I could wear it all of the time. I enjoy being warm now. I've come to learn that my favorite temperature range is 50-75 degrees. ha ha :)
2015 is in the past. My one year of full missionary service is over. I now have 5 months left, and a new year ahead. Many people have asked me what is my New Years Resolution. Really, all I want for this year is to end my mission strong in a few months and then make a smooth transition to college. Easy enough. I want to remain motivated and truly learn the doctrine of Enduring to the End and relating to my missionary service. To help with that.. a wise man in my ward said yesterday, "It is the effort that brings the Spirit, and not the Spirit that brings the effort." I hope everyone can take that principle and apply it into their goals for the New Year.. and so will I.
The gospel is True!
Love Sister Kylie Williams
New York
Tuesday, January 5, 2016
Monday, December 28, 2015
The Gift that Keeps on Giving
Hello Everyone!!
I hope that you had a Merry Christmas and a good New Years this week. Life as a missionary will hopefully get back to normal after the holidays. Haha. Many people are not receptive to hearing the gospel during the holidays... which is actually the best gift you can get :)
This week was good. We were spoiled by the Ward Members here in Elmira and they were so good to us. I don't want to even hear the word cookie or pie for at least 2 weeks. Lots of presents and lots of games were played this week.
We were much more subdued with teaching investigators and less actives this week. Most were busy, not at home or sick. We didn't get to do as much as we wanted, but that is just typical during the first winter months on a mission. Tuesday, we had a fun district meeting about Christmas and also companionship unity. The best part was the white elephant gift exchange.
I got a lot of old candy and a basketball photo frame. It was great. We then tried to find some ugly Christmas sweaters to go tracting in, but they were all sold out.. even at the Salvation Army! Oh well, maybe the Lord was just telling us that he didn't want us to make Him look bad.
We did however get in touch was Nadine and help her with her concerns with committing her time and talents to the Church. I was actually proud of her this Sunday. She participated many times during the 2nd and 3rd hour, and gave normal responses and wrote down all that she learned. Hopefully, Feb & March we can help her get baptized. We also got this great "Book of Mormon Christmas" picture book from the RS President to borrow and we used it all week. It is the birth of Christ, but from the Nephites perspective using mainly Helamen and 3 Nephi to tell the story. It was super good. Everyone loved it! We used that to teach William and a few others also. We didn't use it on James since he doesn't celebrate Christmas, but we've worked hard on him this week, to receive revelation and answers to prayers about the Church being true. He is still holding on to a few things, so it's apparent that HF is trying to teach him patience and humility and obedience by not answering right away, even when the question is of eternal importance.
Wednesday, Oh my, we had to make cookies and treats because we were going caroling that evening with the Elders and the Ward Mission Leader. With us being broke missionaries, we bought the cheapest brownie mixes and with our lack of kitchen supplies, our poor afternoon was a mess of trying to fix this steaming pile of mess/gross brownies and other treats to give out. It was super weird. We prayed that the Spirit of Christmas would touch their hearts and they would overlook our fail at Christmas Cookies. But, we still had fun!
We had quite a few cancellations and had dinner then we went caroling. We sang in Elmira mostly and it went well. It made the Ward Mission Leader's day because he was having a really bad day.
We also saw James again and taught Will the Law of Chastity. It all went well, but I am still the most awkward person ever talking about the Law of Chastity to anyone... let alone a single older gentleman. Thankfully, things got more serious when he talked about his family and we could easily transition to blessings of being pure. Kinda a basic day.. cookies, presents and caroling. We did however, give Will and Jim new ties for Church. They both loved them.
Christmas Eve... I fixed all of the computers in the Elmira Ward family history library so we could Skype and we saw some members/LA in nursing homes. I have never been to so many nursing homes in my life till I came to New York. It was good to uplift people that don't really have anybody. I read more of the Christmas book to our recent converts and then we went to the Christensen's for dinner and games. We had Mexican food and played Uno and Phase 10. We spent the whole evening there and got to have good family time fun. They gave us Christmas cookies and gave us a present or two also. It was really sweet of them. We then finished our 12 days of Christmas Scripture Ding Dong Ditch. That was fun.
Christmas Day, we opened presents. Some were very practical, others weren't so practical... then we went to Denny's with Jim and got breakfast.
We saw Nadine, we had lunch and then we Skyped our families at Church. It was so good to see my family!
Then, we partied at the Gabrishe's. More board games and Christmas music and pie for days. So exhausted by the end of the day because of the craziness of being with 4 elders and 4 young crazy cute energetic kids...
Me and Sister Gass were wiped out and went to bed after having a movie night of watching Mr. Kruger's Christmas at 10:30 in bed. The life of a missionary is super wild right?
Saturday was a baptism of a daughter in the Ward. We invited Will to come see it and he did. He loved it and learned more about baptism. That was super great. The Ward is doing well with being friendly to Will. It helps that he already looks and acts like a member. Hopefully he will get baptized b the end of January. We are planning for the New Year. We got new planners! We then tried tracting to find people because we had nothing to do. That wasn't all too productive. People were not too happy. We had dinner with the Scott's and had our typical follow up lessons with James and Will.
Church was great. I had to give a talk in Sacrament meeting about goal setting and receiving exaltation. It was the first time in my whole life, that when I prepared my talk, I didn't write it out word for word . I used references from General Conference talks, scriptures, and personal experiences and analogies and looked up at the congregation like 95% of the time and wasn't nervous. In fact, I was told to speak for 5 to 7 minutes.... but I may have purposely spoken 10 to 12 minutes. Another Elder also had to speak as well as our 2nd Counselor in the Bishopric and he loves deep doctrine. He was giving his talk on exaltation too. I knew many investigators would be in the audience and I wanted to make sure they understood the things that he was going to speak. I spent lots of time talking about Grace, the Atonement, Salvation, our pre-mortal identity and destiny and a brief overview of commandments and ordinances to get to the celestial kingdom. I am so glad I did. It was the first time I have ever heard someone in a Sacrament talk quote from the School of the Prophets, the Lectures on Faith, Bruce R McConkie and the King Follet Sermon, CS Lewis and the Idea of Theosis, and the Pearl of Great Price. Talk about Deep Doctrine. I have a testimony since my mission about the plain and simple truths of the gospel. So important and so much fun too. Everything was great though. We taught this new LA man who will be here for the next month or two and saw a few others.
We got quite the punch in the gut from Jim though. He skipped Church and wouldn't call us back. We finally got a hold of him and he was at Dunkin Donuts. He was about to be interviewed to receive the priesthood, and it scared him... so he ran. He doesn't wan the responsibility and he basically told us that he just like going to Church for an hour and keeping the commandments. It was super sad. he regressed so much in 2 days because of fear of getting a calling. He doesn't want one and he doesn't want the priesthood. Then he felt bad and guilty, so then he wouldn't even look us in the eyes. That is the hardest part about being a missionary, loving people so much and wanting them to progress, but having to let them make mistakes and fall so that they can learn and feel the power of the atonement. GRRRR ....but this is life. We all move on.
Today we played dodge ball with the youth. They are so awesome and we went to the chiropractic.
The Church is True and I just Love the Gospel So Much! Have a Safe New Year.
I hope that you had a Merry Christmas and a good New Years this week. Life as a missionary will hopefully get back to normal after the holidays. Haha. Many people are not receptive to hearing the gospel during the holidays... which is actually the best gift you can get :)
This week was good. We were spoiled by the Ward Members here in Elmira and they were so good to us. I don't want to even hear the word cookie or pie for at least 2 weeks. Lots of presents and lots of games were played this week.
We were much more subdued with teaching investigators and less actives this week. Most were busy, not at home or sick. We didn't get to do as much as we wanted, but that is just typical during the first winter months on a mission. Tuesday, we had a fun district meeting about Christmas and also companionship unity. The best part was the white elephant gift exchange.
We did however get in touch was Nadine and help her with her concerns with committing her time and talents to the Church. I was actually proud of her this Sunday. She participated many times during the 2nd and 3rd hour, and gave normal responses and wrote down all that she learned. Hopefully, Feb & March we can help her get baptized. We also got this great "Book of Mormon Christmas" picture book from the RS President to borrow and we used it all week. It is the birth of Christ, but from the Nephites perspective using mainly Helamen and 3 Nephi to tell the story. It was super good. Everyone loved it! We used that to teach William and a few others also. We didn't use it on James since he doesn't celebrate Christmas, but we've worked hard on him this week, to receive revelation and answers to prayers about the Church being true. He is still holding on to a few things, so it's apparent that HF is trying to teach him patience and humility and obedience by not answering right away, even when the question is of eternal importance.
Wednesday, Oh my, we had to make cookies and treats because we were going caroling that evening with the Elders and the Ward Mission Leader. With us being broke missionaries, we bought the cheapest brownie mixes and with our lack of kitchen supplies, our poor afternoon was a mess of trying to fix this steaming pile of mess/gross brownies and other treats to give out. It was super weird. We prayed that the Spirit of Christmas would touch their hearts and they would overlook our fail at Christmas Cookies. But, we still had fun!
We had quite a few cancellations and had dinner then we went caroling. We sang in Elmira mostly and it went well. It made the Ward Mission Leader's day because he was having a really bad day.
We also saw James again and taught Will the Law of Chastity. It all went well, but I am still the most awkward person ever talking about the Law of Chastity to anyone... let alone a single older gentleman. Thankfully, things got more serious when he talked about his family and we could easily transition to blessings of being pure. Kinda a basic day.. cookies, presents and caroling. We did however, give Will and Jim new ties for Church. They both loved them.
Christmas Eve... I fixed all of the computers in the Elmira Ward family history library so we could Skype and we saw some members/LA in nursing homes. I have never been to so many nursing homes in my life till I came to New York. It was good to uplift people that don't really have anybody. I read more of the Christmas book to our recent converts and then we went to the Christensen's for dinner and games. We had Mexican food and played Uno and Phase 10. We spent the whole evening there and got to have good family time fun. They gave us Christmas cookies and gave us a present or two also. It was really sweet of them. We then finished our 12 days of Christmas Scripture Ding Dong Ditch. That was fun.
Christmas Day, we opened presents. Some were very practical, others weren't so practical... then we went to Denny's with Jim and got breakfast.
We saw Nadine, we had lunch and then we Skyped our families at Church. It was so good to see my family!
Then, we partied at the Gabrishe's. More board games and Christmas music and pie for days. So exhausted by the end of the day because of the craziness of being with 4 elders and 4 young crazy cute energetic kids...
Saturday was a baptism of a daughter in the Ward. We invited Will to come see it and he did. He loved it and learned more about baptism. That was super great. The Ward is doing well with being friendly to Will. It helps that he already looks and acts like a member. Hopefully he will get baptized b the end of January. We are planning for the New Year. We got new planners! We then tried tracting to find people because we had nothing to do. That wasn't all too productive. People were not too happy. We had dinner with the Scott's and had our typical follow up lessons with James and Will.
Church was great. I had to give a talk in Sacrament meeting about goal setting and receiving exaltation. It was the first time in my whole life, that when I prepared my talk, I didn't write it out word for word . I used references from General Conference talks, scriptures, and personal experiences and analogies and looked up at the congregation like 95% of the time and wasn't nervous. In fact, I was told to speak for 5 to 7 minutes.... but I may have purposely spoken 10 to 12 minutes. Another Elder also had to speak as well as our 2nd Counselor in the Bishopric and he loves deep doctrine. He was giving his talk on exaltation too. I knew many investigators would be in the audience and I wanted to make sure they understood the things that he was going to speak. I spent lots of time talking about Grace, the Atonement, Salvation, our pre-mortal identity and destiny and a brief overview of commandments and ordinances to get to the celestial kingdom. I am so glad I did. It was the first time I have ever heard someone in a Sacrament talk quote from the School of the Prophets, the Lectures on Faith, Bruce R McConkie and the King Follet Sermon, CS Lewis and the Idea of Theosis, and the Pearl of Great Price. Talk about Deep Doctrine. I have a testimony since my mission about the plain and simple truths of the gospel. So important and so much fun too. Everything was great though. We taught this new LA man who will be here for the next month or two and saw a few others.
We got quite the punch in the gut from Jim though. He skipped Church and wouldn't call us back. We finally got a hold of him and he was at Dunkin Donuts. He was about to be interviewed to receive the priesthood, and it scared him... so he ran. He doesn't wan the responsibility and he basically told us that he just like going to Church for an hour and keeping the commandments. It was super sad. he regressed so much in 2 days because of fear of getting a calling. He doesn't want one and he doesn't want the priesthood. Then he felt bad and guilty, so then he wouldn't even look us in the eyes. That is the hardest part about being a missionary, loving people so much and wanting them to progress, but having to let them make mistakes and fall so that they can learn and feel the power of the atonement. GRRRR ....but this is life. We all move on.
Today we played dodge ball with the youth. They are so awesome and we went to the chiropractic.
The Church is True and I just Love the Gospel So Much! Have a Safe New Year.
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
Put Christ in Christmas
Hey everyone!
I hope you have all had a good week and have been preparing for Christmas. I am excited for Christmas. A lot has changed since the last time I called home. I was a brand new missionary in Corning, I Skyped my family from the basement of the Stake Presidents Home and the night before I had caroled the night away and ate plenty of traditional Swedish delicacies that sometimes weren't all that delicious. Now I am a little older and hopefully a little wiser and I find myself only 20 minutes south of my original area! I am not complaining, the southern tier of my mission has been very good to me. There's great people and I have only gotten 1 inch of snow and it's forecast to be 50 to 60 degrees on Christmas Day. I love a good cold and snowy Christmas, but when you have to be outside finding people all day, I would rather be in 60 degree weather. It is still super green here also. It is going to be weird when I got back out west and all I see is brown!
We are being spoiled by the Ward with presents and lots of dinner appointments. Best of all, we even got a few referrals! This Christmas, we will be spending most of the day playing with a Ward family and Skyping and playing games when we are done proselyting. Most of our investigators will be out of town or they are sick. Except for our single Men's Club. (Jim, James and Will) All three of them try to see us as much as possible... so thankfully, we can still do some teaching this week.
It is actually kind of weird, most people think that around Christmas time that people are kinder and happier and more joyful. In our case, we have actually seen the opposite. Signs of the times I guess. We talk to so many people and have been trying to use the "Christmas A Savior is Born' approach and build off the foundation of Christ to get people to let us in. Unfortunately, people have been ruder and sadder this month. We hear people saying that they actually hate Christmas and what it has become and yet they wait in line and buy hundreds of dollars of junk. Satan is so clever in the snare of commercialism. It is so ironic to see this happening. With the change in weather, people have also been getting sick of have family over, so with the craziness and business that people create, they don't make time for the tings that matter most. When they tell us how stressed they are and how they don't have time to meet or hear a message, it really does make me sad. People! Let's just take 5 minutes and pay attention to the real spirit of Christmas. What have you given to the Lord this holiday as a sign of your love and devotion for him? The true meaning of Christmas can be found most often in things that are not visibly tangible. Time, love a smile, service, devotion, gratitude, traditions... those things cannot be packaged and put under the tree. I am grateful that I get yet another Christmas to serve Him and do better. It is really a neat opportunity. Rant over...
This week has been quite exciting and it always is about finding people and conferences, colds and baptismal dates, crazy people and awesome members.
Last Monday we got another opportunity to relax and take a nap. So good! We saw Jim and James that night. Him is just eating up the gospel. Hopefully, he gets the priesthood this next Sunday or the next because he took off work to go to the temple trip with the youth. So fun! We have been helping with his family history and getting that all prepared. Everything we meet he always mentions how much he has to pay in tithing this month and how he is going to get baptized for his Dad. We get along quite well, because we both say off the wall comments to each other during lessons. This week he called me a lion because my hair was extra frizzy due to the weather. Sister Gass could not stop laughing. We also saw James, and he is so good at pulling out jokes too during our lessons.
Tuesday we saw a lot of rejection. Nobody was home or wanted to talk to us. One lady turned us into her apartment complex and we got called and were told not to tract anymore because it is a 'non solicitation' complex. We didn't see a sign and technically we aren't soliciting... but whatever! We also had this crazy cat lady yell at us for knocking on her door and demanded that we show her our 1 day pass from the village which gives us the permission to tract. We told her we didn't have certificates and that we didn't need to do that, but she slammed the door anyway. We also had a bunch of harsh No! and people kept saying, "No, Bye, have a Merry Christmas". Wait, you don't celebrate that." What?? Mormon's don't celebrate Christmas? We are not the JW's. So, this week Sister G and I are going to buy ugly Christmas sweaters and try to go tracting in those. Maybe making people laugh and they will let us in!
Some good things did happen later that day. We taught this family with 3 girls and they are somewhat interested and the girls love God. We taught them the restoration and later found a man named Cory that grew up with Mormon friends and he listened to us and said we could come back! We also went to the RS Christmas Dinner and I met Rachel. Rachel is dating a recently activated member of the ward and he is one of the sons of one of the more prominent families of the ward. I knew she was checking out the Church, so I kinda did my whole missionary /predator pounce thingy. She is just so cute. We talked the whole time and I got to know her quite well. She then asked questions and said that she did want to know more about the Church and I had eased her fear with missionaries. We texted and actually saw her today and taught her lesson #1 which went super duper. She is so prepared. I have no doubt she will be baptized here shortly. So probably the most successful finding I have ever done though a ward activity. We also saw Will again and taught him about temples which went good. We also have this other family and they are already acting just Mormons. So, we have been ding dong ditching their house and leaving scriptures and little cards. We also delivered dinner to Sabrina because she works 12 hrs a day with no break and she needed food. Okay, dinner was from Wendy's, but it was still food. She was so grateful and we talked for quite a while. We have totally earned their trust. They just have crazy busy lives.
Wednesday, one of the sister missionaries from the ward came home. She wasn't reporting/getting released until the end of the day, so she spent time with us. We made a cute trio. It was so much fun. We saw some RC/LA families and Will and James. We taught Will about tithing and used potato chips to teach the principle. At the end, Sister Gilmore asked about how he felt as we taught him. He said, "After my wife died, I was really sad and felt empty. Since meeting the Sisters, that emptiness is gone and the gospel is making me whole." :) Me and Sister Gass might has shed a tear, such an awesome experience. Just funny to think that 3 to 4 weeks ago we knocked on his door at 8:30 at night after being thrown out of another house. Looking back, we needed to have been thrown out of the house. If we had not, we would have stayed too long in a potentials home and we would not have tried just a few more doors. God closes doors so better ones can open. We just had to have the humility and obedience to keep knocking after rejection. We had missionary coordination and went home for the night.
Thursday, we had conference in Liverpool. Woop! We borrowed a 12 passenger van and drove 5 sets of missionaries up to Syracuse. 6 hours of round trip driving... ugh. We talked with some of our sister and they are awesome. it was weird with the elders,,, they are kinda obnoxious, but that is okay... they are learning. Conference was the best! 5 hours of the Spirit and singing Christmas Carols and there was a talent show. I saw a few friends that I might never see again and now I am getting to this point that all my mission buds are my age or order and going home soon. Time is limited with transfers! There's always the next life. HAHA President talked and shared stories. He knows a lot of GA's, Holland, Bednar, Packer, Perry, Hinckley, Monson, Benson etc and more. Just be a Stake President in St. George and apparently you meet all of the big guns! he has the best stories, our Christmas present is the coolest. It is a NYUM temple recommend holder. I love it so much. Once we were back from Conference, we saw our 'usuals' and after we continued to do '12 days of Christmas' ding dong ditch with a few people. Oh, it also rained all day.
Friday, we had the coolest thing. We OYM'd this coupe outside of our apartment complex a week ago and we taught them over Facebook. The husband is like 25 and is so prepared and is so open. He is awesome, and I hope we can convert them from Wesleyan to Mormon :) Tom was fun to teach. We did some other Facebook stuff and put together all the new computers in the family history center. They are so new! Thank the Lord. It was so slow before. We also saw James and Will again, and watched a JW movie about how it started. :P That was interesting. Apparently JW's think that in 1914 WWI , their restoration happened and there was something about this tree as mentioned in Daniel 4 or 5 and a slightly skewed interpretation about the apostasy. Super interesting but kinda weird at the same time. I can't even remember the bulk of what the movie was about.. it's probably a good thing.
Saturday we tracted. A lot of people were not home, but we found 1 person and we taught them. They are a good christian family. Open but not too open. They gladly took a Book of Mormon and said they would read it. We will try and see them again after Christmas.
Sunday was great. Church had two homecoming talks and lots of visitors. Very powerful and Will came again all dressed up in a suit. We just need Megan and James to come after New Years and we are going to have the coolest row of investigators ever. We saw a few less actives afterward and tried to encourage them to come to Church. We both kinda felt gross after that and everyone at Church was sick, so we took a quick nap and warmed up and took cough drops with vitamin C. We did have the best dinner appointment with the D Family. I just love them so much. They are a convert family and they make me laugh so much. They had one of the returning missionaries and then she drove us around to her friends homes and gave us 7 referrals for the next 2 weeks!! So cool.
The Church is true and I love my time out here in New York, no matter how crazy it may be.
Love you all.
Sister Kylie Williams.
I hope you have all had a good week and have been preparing for Christmas. I am excited for Christmas. A lot has changed since the last time I called home. I was a brand new missionary in Corning, I Skyped my family from the basement of the Stake Presidents Home and the night before I had caroled the night away and ate plenty of traditional Swedish delicacies that sometimes weren't all that delicious. Now I am a little older and hopefully a little wiser and I find myself only 20 minutes south of my original area! I am not complaining, the southern tier of my mission has been very good to me. There's great people and I have only gotten 1 inch of snow and it's forecast to be 50 to 60 degrees on Christmas Day. I love a good cold and snowy Christmas, but when you have to be outside finding people all day, I would rather be in 60 degree weather. It is still super green here also. It is going to be weird when I got back out west and all I see is brown!
We are being spoiled by the Ward with presents and lots of dinner appointments. Best of all, we even got a few referrals! This Christmas, we will be spending most of the day playing with a Ward family and Skyping and playing games when we are done proselyting. Most of our investigators will be out of town or they are sick. Except for our single Men's Club. (Jim, James and Will) All three of them try to see us as much as possible... so thankfully, we can still do some teaching this week.
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| James, Sister Gass and I |
It is actually kind of weird, most people think that around Christmas time that people are kinder and happier and more joyful. In our case, we have actually seen the opposite. Signs of the times I guess. We talk to so many people and have been trying to use the "Christmas A Savior is Born' approach and build off the foundation of Christ to get people to let us in. Unfortunately, people have been ruder and sadder this month. We hear people saying that they actually hate Christmas and what it has become and yet they wait in line and buy hundreds of dollars of junk. Satan is so clever in the snare of commercialism. It is so ironic to see this happening. With the change in weather, people have also been getting sick of have family over, so with the craziness and business that people create, they don't make time for the tings that matter most. When they tell us how stressed they are and how they don't have time to meet or hear a message, it really does make me sad. People! Let's just take 5 minutes and pay attention to the real spirit of Christmas. What have you given to the Lord this holiday as a sign of your love and devotion for him? The true meaning of Christmas can be found most often in things that are not visibly tangible. Time, love a smile, service, devotion, gratitude, traditions... those things cannot be packaged and put under the tree. I am grateful that I get yet another Christmas to serve Him and do better. It is really a neat opportunity. Rant over...
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| Derek with Sis Gas and I |
Last Monday we got another opportunity to relax and take a nap. So good! We saw Jim and James that night. Him is just eating up the gospel. Hopefully, he gets the priesthood this next Sunday or the next because he took off work to go to the temple trip with the youth. So fun! We have been helping with his family history and getting that all prepared. Everything we meet he always mentions how much he has to pay in tithing this month and how he is going to get baptized for his Dad. We get along quite well, because we both say off the wall comments to each other during lessons. This week he called me a lion because my hair was extra frizzy due to the weather. Sister Gass could not stop laughing. We also saw James, and he is so good at pulling out jokes too during our lessons.
Tuesday we saw a lot of rejection. Nobody was home or wanted to talk to us. One lady turned us into her apartment complex and we got called and were told not to tract anymore because it is a 'non solicitation' complex. We didn't see a sign and technically we aren't soliciting... but whatever! We also had this crazy cat lady yell at us for knocking on her door and demanded that we show her our 1 day pass from the village which gives us the permission to tract. We told her we didn't have certificates and that we didn't need to do that, but she slammed the door anyway. We also had a bunch of harsh No! and people kept saying, "No, Bye, have a Merry Christmas". Wait, you don't celebrate that." What?? Mormon's don't celebrate Christmas? We are not the JW's. So, this week Sister G and I are going to buy ugly Christmas sweaters and try to go tracting in those. Maybe making people laugh and they will let us in!
Some good things did happen later that day. We taught this family with 3 girls and they are somewhat interested and the girls love God. We taught them the restoration and later found a man named Cory that grew up with Mormon friends and he listened to us and said we could come back! We also went to the RS Christmas Dinner and I met Rachel. Rachel is dating a recently activated member of the ward and he is one of the sons of one of the more prominent families of the ward. I knew she was checking out the Church, so I kinda did my whole missionary /predator pounce thingy. She is just so cute. We talked the whole time and I got to know her quite well. She then asked questions and said that she did want to know more about the Church and I had eased her fear with missionaries. We texted and actually saw her today and taught her lesson #1 which went super duper. She is so prepared. I have no doubt she will be baptized here shortly. So probably the most successful finding I have ever done though a ward activity. We also saw Will again and taught him about temples which went good. We also have this other family and they are already acting just Mormons. So, we have been ding dong ditching their house and leaving scriptures and little cards. We also delivered dinner to Sabrina because she works 12 hrs a day with no break and she needed food. Okay, dinner was from Wendy's, but it was still food. She was so grateful and we talked for quite a while. We have totally earned their trust. They just have crazy busy lives.
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| Nadine with my Comp and I |
Wednesday, one of the sister missionaries from the ward came home. She wasn't reporting/getting released until the end of the day, so she spent time with us. We made a cute trio. It was so much fun. We saw some RC/LA families and Will and James. We taught Will about tithing and used potato chips to teach the principle. At the end, Sister Gilmore asked about how he felt as we taught him. He said, "After my wife died, I was really sad and felt empty. Since meeting the Sisters, that emptiness is gone and the gospel is making me whole." :) Me and Sister Gass might has shed a tear, such an awesome experience. Just funny to think that 3 to 4 weeks ago we knocked on his door at 8:30 at night after being thrown out of another house. Looking back, we needed to have been thrown out of the house. If we had not, we would have stayed too long in a potentials home and we would not have tried just a few more doors. God closes doors so better ones can open. We just had to have the humility and obedience to keep knocking after rejection. We had missionary coordination and went home for the night.
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| Driving up to Conference |
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| Us with a 12 Days of Christmas Card |
Saturday we tracted. A lot of people were not home, but we found 1 person and we taught them. They are a good christian family. Open but not too open. They gladly took a Book of Mormon and said they would read it. We will try and see them again after Christmas.
Sunday was great. Church had two homecoming talks and lots of visitors. Very powerful and Will came again all dressed up in a suit. We just need Megan and James to come after New Years and we are going to have the coolest row of investigators ever. We saw a few less actives afterward and tried to encourage them to come to Church. We both kinda felt gross after that and everyone at Church was sick, so we took a quick nap and warmed up and took cough drops with vitamin C. We did have the best dinner appointment with the D Family. I just love them so much. They are a convert family and they make me laugh so much. They had one of the returning missionaries and then she drove us around to her friends homes and gave us 7 referrals for the next 2 weeks!! So cool.
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| Crazy Elders at Conference |
The Church is true and I love my time out here in New York, no matter how crazy it may be.
Love you all.
Sister Kylie Williams.
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
All I Want For Christmas
Hello Hello!
Christmas is around the corner... and yet here in New York it is green and sunny, 61 degrees and NO snow! Super weird, but I am not complaining. It makes missionary work so much easier.
This week has been pretty good. We have a few break through with some investigators and we've been quite busy. I was going to go on exchanges to Ithaca and Owego this week, but due to a recent bed bug problem in the Upstate, all exchanges are cancelled for a while. #warmweatherprobs. But instead we used the time to go finding. Our teaching pool is quite funny right now. Either our investigators are super solid and going to be baptized so or they are not interested at all and dropped us. I prefer to work with the super solid of course!
So here is some of my favorite people in the Universe, that we have been teaching this week.
Will: He is a single widower in his 50's that we tracted into 2 weeks ago. OMG. So Golden. He is my favorite tracting investigator ever. We taught him everyday this week and he is progressing immensely. He keeps every commitment. He is committed to baptism in February and he can do it. We have been working on the Book of Mormon and commandments, and with his research on Mormon.org he asked us about the Word of Wisdom and actually said he wanted to give up coffee because with his diabetes, coffee is killing his kidneys with potassium. He doctor actually told him a week or two ago that he needed to live the WOW... so when we taught it to him, he loved it. It is rare to have this attitude in New York! We wanted him to come to Church, but he was like "I don't know.. I am not ready." I knew that he not broken any commitments, and he sure enough, he showed upon Sunday 30 minutes early, all shaved and in perfect church attire! He stayed only for the first hour, but he loved it and the members love him already. We saw him yesterday and he bought us Snickers because he said the "Church was sweet." It felt so good to be at church and that he had been waiting and looking for it his whole life and now he thinks he has found it. Ahhh! So cool! I love him so much! Just gotta keep him away from "Anti" literature and he will be baptized soon!
J, Oh J. He is the coolest Jehovah's Witness ever! We also have been teaching him every other day and he is so sincere. He is in his 70's, is African american and from the south. He is the funniest old guy ever. We have been reading the Book of Mormon, and he is praying about it. We are trying to work with comprehension and after December he wants to come to Church then go to the JW Hall in the afternoon to compare and contrast the beliefs. He asks great questions and he truly wants to know what we know. It is just hard, because the beliefs are so different that he gets confused sometimes. I have learned more in 2 weeks about the JW's than in my whole life. We tracted into another JW, and their proselyting van knows who we are and they wave and say Hi. They give us their magazine and we give them Ensigns and Books of Mormons. It is quite funny. We have a bible of theirs and we looked through it. We can barely understand what we are reading it is so different from our Bible. ha ha talk about loosing plain and precious truths. He has talked about baptism and if everything goes well, over the next couple months he will get baptized!
Jim, he is the recent 50 old single cute convert. He wants to dedicate his life to the Church, but he works as the city clubs janitor and head dishwasher and can't retire yet, so he is quite busy. He is the most humble heart ever. He is currently working on his family history and temple work so we can get him to go with the youth in January.
Meg, a part-members girlfriend, super cute and has the cutest border collie puppy ever. We teach her simply and she wants to be baptized, she just wants to know everything first... ha! She came to church for the first time in months this week! Woop :)
Nadine - Craziest lady ever. Super sincere desire to know the church is true. But every time we teach her, something crazy happens. Either her cat has a seizure and dies in front of us, or she has her legs go paralyzed, or her ex-neighbors who she said did black magic or haunt her house, or some crazy weird comment that make us laugh so hard that we cry. She loves reading the Book of Mormon. She loves to get hung up on random subjects that don't quite matter to her salvation, like the gift of tongues or the 3 Nephites. Never a dull moment with Nadine. She is on schedule to be baptized in March.
Tom - Super cute old man! His wife doesn't like us at all. He smokes, but he is giving it up to be baptized! He has lots of health problems. If it wasn't for his smoking, he would be baptized now. Everything is all in the Lord's timing. :) Super humble too and he loves Sacrament Meeting. He has a mustache that kind of looks like a dead rat.. :P but that is okay, it's what his heart is like that matters!
Other than that, this week we have been trying to find investigators. We have tracted. We even OYM'd at a mall with the cards "A Savior is Born", but we haven't had too much luck. Lots of rejection with that this week, but it is bound to happen and people are just down on their luck and most actually don't care for Christmas. They said it too commercialized, and yet they are spending away for others. Darn Babylon! Hopefully after the holidays, people lighten up and start welcoming us in more or be nicer! Who knows. Tracting just makes me laugh, we run into the craziest people. All of those jokes about Walmart people, aren't have as bad as what I've dealt with. Tracting an apartment complex is so much wackier! We meet drunk people, naked people, people who think we are JWs no matter how many times we say we're Mormons, old people with 10000 health problems and the list goes on!
We had a great District meeting this week. We had to walk around blind folded with dirt on our hands and our companion had to lead us around the Church to "Baptism" aka the sink and we pretended to be investigators. It was harder than I thought.... lots of distractions!
Oh, Christmas.mormon.org. Watch those cute music videos done by famous Mormons! So much fun!
Taught a few LA's and no progressing investigators this week too. It's all about hearts, either you are humble or you aren't, or open to the gospel or aren't. There is no gray area. We did find this one lady late at night. She let us in and we did a short message and gave her a BofM. She kinda freaked out when we asked if we could meet again and she was like, "Is this going to be a regular thing? I let you do your schpeel..." ha ha some people just do not understand our purpose even after we tell them.
We went tracting the other night and taught a lady on her porch and she loved us coming by, but wanted to stay Presbyterian. She referred us to her neighbor the preacher. We went over, he wan't there... but a woman named Delores was. OGM, the coolest grandma ever! She is 70 years old, rides motorcycles all over the world, talks to the police and other tough bikers and gets pictures with them and is the cute sweet clean lady. She skydives for fun, loves Jesus and help at the Baptist Church. She travels the world, takes painting lessons with 3 member of the Corning Branch so she loves Mormons. she let us in and we talked and I gave her a BofM. She is going to read it on her cruise to Panama. She called up President Ong and a few others in Corning where I used to serve so she could try and get some 'dirt' on me because she knew I'd been there. Small world we live in. It is refreshing to meet good, religious people, that just make the world a better place.
We have been ding dong ditching our people with Secret Christmas Scriptures and presents... that has been really fun!
Well, gotta go. More things to do. I love you all and have a merry Christmas!
Sister Kylie Williams.
Christmas is around the corner... and yet here in New York it is green and sunny, 61 degrees and NO snow! Super weird, but I am not complaining. It makes missionary work so much easier.
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| Kylie, currently serving in Horsehead, NY |
This week has been pretty good. We have a few break through with some investigators and we've been quite busy. I was going to go on exchanges to Ithaca and Owego this week, but due to a recent bed bug problem in the Upstate, all exchanges are cancelled for a while. #warmweatherprobs. But instead we used the time to go finding. Our teaching pool is quite funny right now. Either our investigators are super solid and going to be baptized so or they are not interested at all and dropped us. I prefer to work with the super solid of course!
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| Kylie and Her Companion |
So here is some of my favorite people in the Universe, that we have been teaching this week.
Will: He is a single widower in his 50's that we tracted into 2 weeks ago. OMG. So Golden. He is my favorite tracting investigator ever. We taught him everyday this week and he is progressing immensely. He keeps every commitment. He is committed to baptism in February and he can do it. We have been working on the Book of Mormon and commandments, and with his research on Mormon.org he asked us about the Word of Wisdom and actually said he wanted to give up coffee because with his diabetes, coffee is killing his kidneys with potassium. He doctor actually told him a week or two ago that he needed to live the WOW... so when we taught it to him, he loved it. It is rare to have this attitude in New York! We wanted him to come to Church, but he was like "I don't know.. I am not ready." I knew that he not broken any commitments, and he sure enough, he showed upon Sunday 30 minutes early, all shaved and in perfect church attire! He stayed only for the first hour, but he loved it and the members love him already. We saw him yesterday and he bought us Snickers because he said the "Church was sweet." It felt so good to be at church and that he had been waiting and looking for it his whole life and now he thinks he has found it. Ahhh! So cool! I love him so much! Just gotta keep him away from "Anti" literature and he will be baptized soon!
J, Oh J. He is the coolest Jehovah's Witness ever! We also have been teaching him every other day and he is so sincere. He is in his 70's, is African american and from the south. He is the funniest old guy ever. We have been reading the Book of Mormon, and he is praying about it. We are trying to work with comprehension and after December he wants to come to Church then go to the JW Hall in the afternoon to compare and contrast the beliefs. He asks great questions and he truly wants to know what we know. It is just hard, because the beliefs are so different that he gets confused sometimes. I have learned more in 2 weeks about the JW's than in my whole life. We tracted into another JW, and their proselyting van knows who we are and they wave and say Hi. They give us their magazine and we give them Ensigns and Books of Mormons. It is quite funny. We have a bible of theirs and we looked through it. We can barely understand what we are reading it is so different from our Bible. ha ha talk about loosing plain and precious truths. He has talked about baptism and if everything goes well, over the next couple months he will get baptized!
Jim, he is the recent 50 old single cute convert. He wants to dedicate his life to the Church, but he works as the city clubs janitor and head dishwasher and can't retire yet, so he is quite busy. He is the most humble heart ever. He is currently working on his family history and temple work so we can get him to go with the youth in January.
Meg, a part-members girlfriend, super cute and has the cutest border collie puppy ever. We teach her simply and she wants to be baptized, she just wants to know everything first... ha! She came to church for the first time in months this week! Woop :)
Nadine - Craziest lady ever. Super sincere desire to know the church is true. But every time we teach her, something crazy happens. Either her cat has a seizure and dies in front of us, or she has her legs go paralyzed, or her ex-neighbors who she said did black magic or haunt her house, or some crazy weird comment that make us laugh so hard that we cry. She loves reading the Book of Mormon. She loves to get hung up on random subjects that don't quite matter to her salvation, like the gift of tongues or the 3 Nephites. Never a dull moment with Nadine. She is on schedule to be baptized in March.
Tom - Super cute old man! His wife doesn't like us at all. He smokes, but he is giving it up to be baptized! He has lots of health problems. If it wasn't for his smoking, he would be baptized now. Everything is all in the Lord's timing. :) Super humble too and he loves Sacrament Meeting. He has a mustache that kind of looks like a dead rat.. :P but that is okay, it's what his heart is like that matters!
Other than that, this week we have been trying to find investigators. We have tracted. We even OYM'd at a mall with the cards "A Savior is Born", but we haven't had too much luck. Lots of rejection with that this week, but it is bound to happen and people are just down on their luck and most actually don't care for Christmas. They said it too commercialized, and yet they are spending away for others. Darn Babylon! Hopefully after the holidays, people lighten up and start welcoming us in more or be nicer! Who knows. Tracting just makes me laugh, we run into the craziest people. All of those jokes about Walmart people, aren't have as bad as what I've dealt with. Tracting an apartment complex is so much wackier! We meet drunk people, naked people, people who think we are JWs no matter how many times we say we're Mormons, old people with 10000 health problems and the list goes on!
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| District Meeting |
We had a great District meeting this week. We had to walk around blind folded with dirt on our hands and our companion had to lead us around the Church to "Baptism" aka the sink and we pretended to be investigators. It was harder than I thought.... lots of distractions!
Oh, Christmas.mormon.org. Watch those cute music videos done by famous Mormons! So much fun!
Taught a few LA's and no progressing investigators this week too. It's all about hearts, either you are humble or you aren't, or open to the gospel or aren't. There is no gray area. We did find this one lady late at night. She let us in and we did a short message and gave her a BofM. She kinda freaked out when we asked if we could meet again and she was like, "Is this going to be a regular thing? I let you do your schpeel..." ha ha some people just do not understand our purpose even after we tell them.
We have been ding dong ditching our people with Secret Christmas Scriptures and presents... that has been really fun!
Well, gotta go. More things to do. I love you all and have a merry Christmas!
Sister Kylie Williams.
Monday, December 7, 2015
When Missions Get Dramatic
Hi Everyone,
So this week, I am a little short on email time, so I will have to hit the highlights and keep it simple :)
This week has been interesting for sure, mostly revolving around my companion who has had some health issues. I have sorta been playing the whole "mom" role this week. I make soup, I talk to doctors, I tell her to take a nap when she doesn't want to... all good practice for the future. Yet, this week we have still taught a lot.
Monday is when things got interesting, We taught Tom, who is planning on being baptized the 30th of January, but we are currently helping him quit smoking. We also taught Megan who is a friend of a member who is super solid and will be baptized this year. She just wants to know everything first. My companion came close to dying... like chest pains, headaches, fatigue, etc. And this has been slightly building up the last few days. So I rushed her to an Urgent Clinic and got things checked out. Yea, they weren't the smartest people ever. We are still trying to work on what is going on with her. They did tests and then told us to come back today. So the whole week, I'm like... how do we work and also not have my companion be a sack of potatoes and just throw her on my back and take her teaching. We have the best members on the planet. I dropped her off at one member's home and they feed her and let her sleep while I took their daughter and taught lesson. We picked up this bible loving lady named Alicia and set Will on date for February. Will is also another cute investigator that is so humble and keeps every commitment we give him. If he's not 'golden', then he is a silver!! We also taught Jim out in the cold and got him ready for the priesthood.
Tuesday, we had to take it easy. This was the worst day for my poor companion this week. We still taught our investigator named Brenton at Barnes and Noble and he is the GM and we teach him at the Starbucks. It is so weird teaching with coffee all around. But, he took a Book of Mormon. He is a really cool hipster of a guy. Then, everyone just cancelled on us, which was a tender mercy. The Ward members again stepped up to the plate, bought us food, oranges (which Pres. Rogers told my companion to eat to get rid of the shakes), and got priesthood blessings. We went home early. I put her to bed and then went to town cleaning the whole apartment because that is all I could do... oh and update the area book.
Wednesday. Priesthood blessings are awesome. My companion was determined not to stay inside and we ended up teaching 7 lessons that day. But the most important miracle that day was Nohelia. We tracked her... she was baptized at 12 years old but just went less active. She is married and has the cutest 1 year old and wants to remember her beliefs and come back!! That also opens the door to teach her catholic husband! We visited a few less actives and taught Will again about the plan of Salvation.
Thursday we taught this older man named Gary. Oh boy! Gary has been baptized into 5 different religions and been to like 50 churches. He loves the Book of Mormon, but doesn't want to go to church, be baptized or keep the word of wisdom. Doesn't quite get that you can't pick and choose the gospel either. Oooo well... agency. But at the end, he went on a rant about how he could speak in tongues. hahahahah oh my. So weird. I couldn't keep it together. Sounded like gibberish. The other miracle was teaching this 10 year old named Wyatt. He is a current foster kid of a member family and he wants to be baptized. He knew so much about the restoration that he was really almost teaching us. So proud of him, and he should be a quick investigator to member because he has been attending church for about 3 years now.
Friday... I woke up early and went to Zone Conference. That was fun. We got pounded on the Book of Mormon and how to use it more in lessons. Also, I have to read the BoM again cover to cover before Easter and mark every reference to Christ. :) I have been reading about Mosiah and Abinadi. SO GOOD. I have always loved the Book of Mormon, but a mission has really strengthened my love for it even more. We got home late, had dinner and went to the Ward Christmas Devotional. Lots of musical numbers!
Saturday, nothing was flowing that morning and we have been starting to work at a slower pace, and nobody wanted to talk to us. My companion had improved a little each day, all because of the power of the priesthood and the Spirit (for reals thought! It works) We taught some slightly recent converts about the restoration and they actually were doing good and wanted to come to church! Woop Woop! We saw Jim, we saw Nadine, she is literally a whole email in and of herself. That night, we were both feeling good, so we went out and started OYMing (open your mouth) and the first guy we talk too is this guy named Scott. He works for the energy business and lives in Binghamton and as soon as we gave him a Christmas Card, he goes "YOU GUYS ARE MORMONS!! I WANNA GET INVOLVED IN THE MORMON CHURCH!" That was sweet. WE gave him all of the info for the Church and the Elders in Binghamton to follow up with. We then just started tracting and met some people that couldn't speak any English. LOL We then found a guy named Mike who was a trooper and we should teach him tonight! Then we found Jessie, who is covered in Tattoos. He let us in and his wife was there too. He seemed like a super nice guy... turns out he was a heroin addict back in the 90's who found God and never looked back. He studies the bible, loved the idea about the Book of Mormon and started investigating. We go Sunday and he starts going off about the 10 Tribes and Lehi and how they relate to native Americans, anti-christ and aliens. To make it worse, he said God created ethnic people on the 6th day and rested and then created Adam and Eve on the 8th day... and yup you guessed it, things totally went down hill from there. We just had to grin and bear it until we got out of there.. and we were like "what just happened????" People are so weird sometimes. Poor Heavenly Father, He must have an eternal face-palm and head shake thing going on all the time, because His kids are SO lost sometimes.
Sunday was Church, we just rested, taught Him and saw Derek. He is going to get baptized this next year too! He just needs to quit drinking. HE believes the Church is true! We had the best lesson with our JW investigator named James and watched the restoration with a member and prayed to know if the Mormons are right. It was sweet. We wrapped things up with the 1st Presidency Christmas devotional.
Never a dull moment in my life!!!
Everyone, take care and I know that this gospel and Church are true!
Love, Sister Kylie Williams.
So this week, I am a little short on email time, so I will have to hit the highlights and keep it simple :)
This week has been interesting for sure, mostly revolving around my companion who has had some health issues. I have sorta been playing the whole "mom" role this week. I make soup, I talk to doctors, I tell her to take a nap when she doesn't want to... all good practice for the future. Yet, this week we have still taught a lot.
Monday is when things got interesting, We taught Tom, who is planning on being baptized the 30th of January, but we are currently helping him quit smoking. We also taught Megan who is a friend of a member who is super solid and will be baptized this year. She just wants to know everything first. My companion came close to dying... like chest pains, headaches, fatigue, etc. And this has been slightly building up the last few days. So I rushed her to an Urgent Clinic and got things checked out. Yea, they weren't the smartest people ever. We are still trying to work on what is going on with her. They did tests and then told us to come back today. So the whole week, I'm like... how do we work and also not have my companion be a sack of potatoes and just throw her on my back and take her teaching. We have the best members on the planet. I dropped her off at one member's home and they feed her and let her sleep while I took their daughter and taught lesson. We picked up this bible loving lady named Alicia and set Will on date for February. Will is also another cute investigator that is so humble and keeps every commitment we give him. If he's not 'golden', then he is a silver!! We also taught Jim out in the cold and got him ready for the priesthood.
Tuesday, we had to take it easy. This was the worst day for my poor companion this week. We still taught our investigator named Brenton at Barnes and Noble and he is the GM and we teach him at the Starbucks. It is so weird teaching with coffee all around. But, he took a Book of Mormon. He is a really cool hipster of a guy. Then, everyone just cancelled on us, which was a tender mercy. The Ward members again stepped up to the plate, bought us food, oranges (which Pres. Rogers told my companion to eat to get rid of the shakes), and got priesthood blessings. We went home early. I put her to bed and then went to town cleaning the whole apartment because that is all I could do... oh and update the area book.
Wednesday. Priesthood blessings are awesome. My companion was determined not to stay inside and we ended up teaching 7 lessons that day. But the most important miracle that day was Nohelia. We tracked her... she was baptized at 12 years old but just went less active. She is married and has the cutest 1 year old and wants to remember her beliefs and come back!! That also opens the door to teach her catholic husband! We visited a few less actives and taught Will again about the plan of Salvation.
Thursday we taught this older man named Gary. Oh boy! Gary has been baptized into 5 different religions and been to like 50 churches. He loves the Book of Mormon, but doesn't want to go to church, be baptized or keep the word of wisdom. Doesn't quite get that you can't pick and choose the gospel either. Oooo well... agency. But at the end, he went on a rant about how he could speak in tongues. hahahahah oh my. So weird. I couldn't keep it together. Sounded like gibberish. The other miracle was teaching this 10 year old named Wyatt. He is a current foster kid of a member family and he wants to be baptized. He knew so much about the restoration that he was really almost teaching us. So proud of him, and he should be a quick investigator to member because he has been attending church for about 3 years now.
Friday... I woke up early and went to Zone Conference. That was fun. We got pounded on the Book of Mormon and how to use it more in lessons. Also, I have to read the BoM again cover to cover before Easter and mark every reference to Christ. :) I have been reading about Mosiah and Abinadi. SO GOOD. I have always loved the Book of Mormon, but a mission has really strengthened my love for it even more. We got home late, had dinner and went to the Ward Christmas Devotional. Lots of musical numbers!
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| At Bishop Duke's Home |
Saturday, nothing was flowing that morning and we have been starting to work at a slower pace, and nobody wanted to talk to us. My companion had improved a little each day, all because of the power of the priesthood and the Spirit (for reals thought! It works) We taught some slightly recent converts about the restoration and they actually were doing good and wanted to come to church! Woop Woop! We saw Jim, we saw Nadine, she is literally a whole email in and of herself. That night, we were both feeling good, so we went out and started OYMing (open your mouth) and the first guy we talk too is this guy named Scott. He works for the energy business and lives in Binghamton and as soon as we gave him a Christmas Card, he goes "YOU GUYS ARE MORMONS!! I WANNA GET INVOLVED IN THE MORMON CHURCH!" That was sweet. WE gave him all of the info for the Church and the Elders in Binghamton to follow up with. We then just started tracting and met some people that couldn't speak any English. LOL We then found a guy named Mike who was a trooper and we should teach him tonight! Then we found Jessie, who is covered in Tattoos. He let us in and his wife was there too. He seemed like a super nice guy... turns out he was a heroin addict back in the 90's who found God and never looked back. He studies the bible, loved the idea about the Book of Mormon and started investigating. We go Sunday and he starts going off about the 10 Tribes and Lehi and how they relate to native Americans, anti-christ and aliens. To make it worse, he said God created ethnic people on the 6th day and rested and then created Adam and Eve on the 8th day... and yup you guessed it, things totally went down hill from there. We just had to grin and bear it until we got out of there.. and we were like "what just happened????" People are so weird sometimes. Poor Heavenly Father, He must have an eternal face-palm and head shake thing going on all the time, because His kids are SO lost sometimes.
Sunday was Church, we just rested, taught Him and saw Derek. He is going to get baptized this next year too! He just needs to quit drinking. HE believes the Church is true! We had the best lesson with our JW investigator named James and watched the restoration with a member and prayed to know if the Mormons are right. It was sweet. We wrapped things up with the 1st Presidency Christmas devotional.
Never a dull moment in my life!!!
Everyone, take care and I know that this gospel and Church are true!
Love, Sister Kylie Williams.
Monday, November 30, 2015
Gobble Gobble
Hi Everyone! I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving! I know that I did! This week just flew by :)
Monday just started off with Pday and we did the normal Pday things...running around trying to get errands done and yet relax. Ha,. That doesn't quite work that way on a mission. I did some shopping and I guess the best thing that happened was Zach. He is the nicest, sweetest person ever! He is a geologist that used to play USA Hockey up in Lake Placid and actually knows a lot about the Restoration because he has done geological studies on the Hill Cumorah for his work. Apparently, the Hill Cumorah is a geological anomaly (not normal) due to certain attributes and mineral deposits. He used other big words I don't remember, but anyways, he toured all of Palmyra and now he is reading the Book of Mormon. We were just blown away when he interrupts us during the First Vision and he's like, "oh yea, and then Moroni shows up right?" haha. Anyone who just brings up the name Moroni and can pronounce it right is obviously a golden investigator. We are going to see him tonight and his little daughter.
Tuesday, I went to Corning on Exchanges!! Now that was weird. We had to go help out a dear member clean her house because she has been fighting viral meningitis and that broke my little heart, because I love that family to death and yet they keep serving others. There are so many people that I know, who I want to be like when I am older, so many great examples. We taught a recent convert at a coffee shop, which was weird... I didn't quite feel the Spirit there... but then we had a ton of free time. I took Sister G with me and we did some tracting. It was interesting because I had never tracted hardly at all when I was in Corning, Now I do it all of the time. I remember how scared I used to be and now it is just a matter of resisting Satan's rationalizations in my mind of 'ehh, they aren't home." No, that person looks to busy..." and just go and do it. Nike's logo at it's finest. You gotta just do it, and the Lord will finish it. We actually got in some homes and everyone was a Corning Inc. Scientist from India. I taught my first two ever Hindu families. Very interesting. Once actually is non-denominational, and insisted we take $20 for a copy of the Book of Mormon. haha I tried my best to explain that wasn't allowed, but he wouldn't listen. In the end, I gave the money to the Branch President. We also found some cool potentials and didn't freeze. I could remember a ton of roads once I was back in Corning. It was funny how many memories came back. I also got to talk to some of the members and it was just a great day.
Wednesday we came back and had District Meeting. We talked about overcoming our fears and we actually had this cool object lesson in the gym using rope. It was fun. We had a few appointments that day, but not too much with Thanksgiving coming up. We tried our best to do some administrative work.
Thursday was THANKSGIVING! It was interesting. We started out seeing Jim and teaching him about the Priesthood. We are trying to get him ordained next month. Yaayy! My companion started to not feel so well, so we came in for lunch and found out that one of the elders in the Unit had broken his ankle in 3 places at the Turkey Bowl. The elders were freaking out and had to pack and get the elder picked up by the President all within 3 to 4 hours. 1 game of football changed a mission completely for this elder. :( He left for Idaho within 24 hours and has a 4 to 5 month recovery time before he can come back out. YIKES!! Make good choices people! I am grateful for my health and all of those blessings. We then had to help them and relaxed at a members and had a good turkey dinner. :) After dinner we had to start driving for Utica because MLC was the next day. We were all falling asleep in a mini van. ha ha. Long car rides no longer bother me. My mission has completely changed that. 3 to 5 hours car rides are easy peazsy. But we did have this apple pie/cheesecake concoction. That was super duper!
Friday was MLC. It was good to see so many friends. :) We did the usual things, not too exciting this month. We ate food and drove back. We had to make quite a few stops for the Zone leaders because they went on exchanges. We had to stop in Greene, NY for about 45 minutes. Me and my companion went tracting in another area to kill time and gave out a Book of Mormon and got a few referrals for those Elders! It was super sweet to just get out and go, even if it was not our area. It took 6 hours to drive back, so we got home at like 10 pm and fell asleep.
Saturday we taught some investigators. We also found W and L. W is an old single man. We taught him in the apartment complex's open laundry room and he is now progressing and reading everything we give to him. We also accidentally talked to L, she was a cute lady outside that we thought was someone else. :P Oops Mistaken Identity! She let us right in and her older Sister was a Mormon. We are going back tonight to see where it ends up. I also dedicated my first home. Apparently you don't have to hold the Priesthood to do that. It is just a prayer, so that was cool to learn and do. So, we have been doing that to a few homes of our investigators and less actives to help with the occasional paranormal activity. #UpstateNYprobs.
Sunday, we taught sharing time on Gratitude. There are some super cute kids in the Elmira ward. We then had a blast seeing some investigators and we had a super fun dinner with 2 member families. I have had 3 turkey dinners this week and they were all so good. My favorite though was teaching this investigator family. We call them BSG (it's their initials) and we haven't seen them in 2 weeks, but they have been reading and praying and that is huge! I has no religious background and one has bad health problems and one just works a lot. But, we had a great lesson on the Plan of Salvation and they enjoyed it and I could honestly answer their questions for hours. I have to make sure that I don't do 20 years of learning in 45 minutes of conversation. It can get real deep, too fast and I am not the best at being simple. It's just one of my quirks I guess.
This has been a fairly good week for Thanksgiving. I still taught 20 lessons during the holidays which is 18 more than last year!!
Everyone stay warm and safe. I am grateful for the gospel, for my family, for the knowledge I have, and for the many people that God has put in my path so that I could meet them and have them help me to become a better person. I am grateful that God knows me better than I know myself and that He has a plan for me. I am grateful for Chocolate, Target and Mints! I am also very grateful for my Savior!
The Church is TRUE!
LOVE, Sister Kylie Williams
Monday just started off with Pday and we did the normal Pday things...running around trying to get errands done and yet relax. Ha,. That doesn't quite work that way on a mission. I did some shopping and I guess the best thing that happened was Zach. He is the nicest, sweetest person ever! He is a geologist that used to play USA Hockey up in Lake Placid and actually knows a lot about the Restoration because he has done geological studies on the Hill Cumorah for his work. Apparently, the Hill Cumorah is a geological anomaly (not normal) due to certain attributes and mineral deposits. He used other big words I don't remember, but anyways, he toured all of Palmyra and now he is reading the Book of Mormon. We were just blown away when he interrupts us during the First Vision and he's like, "oh yea, and then Moroni shows up right?" haha. Anyone who just brings up the name Moroni and can pronounce it right is obviously a golden investigator. We are going to see him tonight and his little daughter.
Tuesday, I went to Corning on Exchanges!! Now that was weird. We had to go help out a dear member clean her house because she has been fighting viral meningitis and that broke my little heart, because I love that family to death and yet they keep serving others. There are so many people that I know, who I want to be like when I am older, so many great examples. We taught a recent convert at a coffee shop, which was weird... I didn't quite feel the Spirit there... but then we had a ton of free time. I took Sister G with me and we did some tracting. It was interesting because I had never tracted hardly at all when I was in Corning, Now I do it all of the time. I remember how scared I used to be and now it is just a matter of resisting Satan's rationalizations in my mind of 'ehh, they aren't home." No, that person looks to busy..." and just go and do it. Nike's logo at it's finest. You gotta just do it, and the Lord will finish it. We actually got in some homes and everyone was a Corning Inc. Scientist from India. I taught my first two ever Hindu families. Very interesting. Once actually is non-denominational, and insisted we take $20 for a copy of the Book of Mormon. haha I tried my best to explain that wasn't allowed, but he wouldn't listen. In the end, I gave the money to the Branch President. We also found some cool potentials and didn't freeze. I could remember a ton of roads once I was back in Corning. It was funny how many memories came back. I also got to talk to some of the members and it was just a great day.
Wednesday we came back and had District Meeting. We talked about overcoming our fears and we actually had this cool object lesson in the gym using rope. It was fun. We had a few appointments that day, but not too much with Thanksgiving coming up. We tried our best to do some administrative work.
Thursday was THANKSGIVING! It was interesting. We started out seeing Jim and teaching him about the Priesthood. We are trying to get him ordained next month. Yaayy! My companion started to not feel so well, so we came in for lunch and found out that one of the elders in the Unit had broken his ankle in 3 places at the Turkey Bowl. The elders were freaking out and had to pack and get the elder picked up by the President all within 3 to 4 hours. 1 game of football changed a mission completely for this elder. :( He left for Idaho within 24 hours and has a 4 to 5 month recovery time before he can come back out. YIKES!! Make good choices people! I am grateful for my health and all of those blessings. We then had to help them and relaxed at a members and had a good turkey dinner. :) After dinner we had to start driving for Utica because MLC was the next day. We were all falling asleep in a mini van. ha ha. Long car rides no longer bother me. My mission has completely changed that. 3 to 5 hours car rides are easy peazsy. But we did have this apple pie/cheesecake concoction. That was super duper!
 |
| 1 Year Service for all of us |
Friday was MLC. It was good to see so many friends. :) We did the usual things, not too exciting this month. We ate food and drove back. We had to make quite a few stops for the Zone leaders because they went on exchanges. We had to stop in Greene, NY for about 45 minutes. Me and my companion went tracting in another area to kill time and gave out a Book of Mormon and got a few referrals for those Elders! It was super sweet to just get out and go, even if it was not our area. It took 6 hours to drive back, so we got home at like 10 pm and fell asleep.
Saturday we taught some investigators. We also found W and L. W is an old single man. We taught him in the apartment complex's open laundry room and he is now progressing and reading everything we give to him. We also accidentally talked to L, she was a cute lady outside that we thought was someone else. :P Oops Mistaken Identity! She let us right in and her older Sister was a Mormon. We are going back tonight to see where it ends up. I also dedicated my first home. Apparently you don't have to hold the Priesthood to do that. It is just a prayer, so that was cool to learn and do. So, we have been doing that to a few homes of our investigators and less actives to help with the occasional paranormal activity. #UpstateNYprobs.
Sunday, we taught sharing time on Gratitude. There are some super cute kids in the Elmira ward. We then had a blast seeing some investigators and we had a super fun dinner with 2 member families. I have had 3 turkey dinners this week and they were all so good. My favorite though was teaching this investigator family. We call them BSG (it's their initials) and we haven't seen them in 2 weeks, but they have been reading and praying and that is huge! I has no religious background and one has bad health problems and one just works a lot. But, we had a great lesson on the Plan of Salvation and they enjoyed it and I could honestly answer their questions for hours. I have to make sure that I don't do 20 years of learning in 45 minutes of conversation. It can get real deep, too fast and I am not the best at being simple. It's just one of my quirks I guess.
This has been a fairly good week for Thanksgiving. I still taught 20 lessons during the holidays which is 18 more than last year!!
Everyone stay warm and safe. I am grateful for the gospel, for my family, for the knowledge I have, and for the many people that God has put in my path so that I could meet them and have them help me to become a better person. I am grateful that God knows me better than I know myself and that He has a plan for me. I am grateful for Chocolate, Target and Mints! I am also very grateful for my Savior!
The Church is TRUE!
LOVE, Sister Kylie Williams
Tuesday, November 24, 2015
1 year older and wiser too
This week has flown by! Super duper fast. We had an exchange, a zone training meeting, and My birthday of course,
and as of this week, I have been a missionary for a whole year. 1 year! What??? So much has happened in that year. I had no idea that you could change so much and help so many people and have crazy adventures.
Anyway, back to Horseheads. It is a cool place, kinda crazy, but very cool. We have some of the sweetest members and there are a ton of prepared people. Their testimonies are small and need some time to get progressing....but hey, at least we have people to teach! They come from a variety of backgrounds... from humble janitors to ex-hockey players to stay-at-home mom's to one family that manages a restaurant named Friendly's!
One of our recent converts... Jim is one of the most elect of God that I have ever met. He changed his life around and gave up everything in 2 months because he believes in the restoration and loves the Book of Mormon. He kinda looks like a hobo and Santa Clause all rolled together. He smiles and talks about how much his life has changed. Few people just grasp and accept everything we teach and try it out, but he does. It is people like that that make a mission worth it. Even if you find just one..... that is all that matters. We saw him and another cute less active lady on Monday.
Tuesday we woke up way too early and drove to Owego for a ZTM and it was all about commitment and repentance. We learned we have to be bold and loving to extend these commitments. Our investigators cannot repent and come to know of the truthfulness of the church if they do not put forth the effort to see if this will change their lives. I quickly learned that the difference between a disciple of Christ and an average person is their level of commitment. If you cannot make and keep covenants/commitments, then look in the mirror and fix that... It also relates to goal setting. I used to hate goal setting before my mission. Now, I see it as a rudder on my ship of life. It provides direction and something to do and to make myself a better follower of Jesus Christ. It is one thing to go with the flow (which I enjoy a lot), but it is another thing to take control of a situation and evaluate our lives and see how we can improve and be better. Complacency is a killer! So, that was a good wake up call.
Right after the meeting, we exchanged with the Vestal Sister and I went with Sister Trapane to Vestal. It was a sweet exchange. They are struggling to find people to teach, so we went out and talked to everyone outside. They live right next to Binghamton University, so I stopped a lot of college students on the road walking to off campus housing and that was sweet. Tons of Asian students. OMG so many! We picked up a few Nings, and Yaos, and other hard names I can't pronounce.
I really have struggled my whole mission with talking to people on the street... especially after serving in Fort Drum because that is not allowed. So, the companion I was with struggles with being social and talking to people. So, we set some high goals and started talking to everyone. It was very cool. I talked to a few non-interested people , talked to a Catholic lady minister, and literally ran into a college student named Nate. We talked about school, graphic design and then taught him on the street about the restoration and it was super awesome. He said that he'd like to come to church! We also worked to find some lost investigators in the phone book and found them at 8pm that night, in the woods in a multimillion dollar home. HaHa. We were tracting late. :)
We had no luck on another street, but one man did feel bad after rejecting us and said "I have had the pleasure of having friends that are members of your Church and I have nothing but the highest respect for them." That was awesome. I might have even "sweat out of my eyes" for a like a second or two. But that last house at the end of the street belonged to a guy named Emmanuel and he was so awesome. I could see him getting baptized one day. Just so open to the gospel! We found other potentials, and it was sweet! The Sister I was with on Exchanges also had the same birthday as me, so we had a pre-birthday celebration! Woop Woop. We had some cake!
We woke up the next morning and went to some appointments, nothing fancy... but it was better with my companion and the other Sister in Elmira for the day. We had an investigator-- who tried to rewrite part of the Book of Mormon-- tell us how crazy we were. US? Well, we dropped her like a hot rock. The Crazy Quaker lady I mentioned last week, who I am pretty sure had someone spit in her oatmeal, was always quite cranky. We then traded back and it was good to be back home in Elmira and we had dinner with some grandparents in the Ward. So cute and full of personality. We had coordination meeting and went right to bed.
Thursday I turned 20! Sister Gass did make me a card, and gave me a present that morning after I opened the ones from Home. She also mentioned it was my birthday during a few lessons, so I had investigators and less actives sing to me all day. A few ward members also brought me some goodies and treats and the meal coordinator lady actually called our dinner appointment and asked her to make chicken enchiladas which I requested! Overall, it was a good birthday and we taught 6 lessons! We have some super sweet less actives, who are older single ladies that just need the occasional kick in the rear to get them to church. I also got to meet Tom. He is another great investigator that has health problems, he is in his 70's and needs help to quit smoking so that he can get baptized. He will get there eventually! :)
We also had the coolest lesson with BSG as we call them. They are a family that is related to our RS President and the Dad is super interested and started diving deep into the Book of Mormon during our lesson. The Mom doesn't have any religious background and the 19 year old son, we're pretty sure he has a crush on us.. ha ha. But, they are hilarious and have been happier since we started teaching them. They will be baptized sometime in the future, especially B. He already is like, "so how do you guys tithe?" I get really animated at their house. I lost count of how many analogies I used in one Book of Mormon lesson. I have come to realize that I over explain and complicate things, but when I use analogies, I can convey a ton of info into something simple and teachable. THERE IS A REASON WHY JESUS SPOKE IN PARABLES!
Friday we had a lesson with a drunk old guy over the phone.. :( Bad conversation. We will probably lose him as an investigator soon. We also picked up this other super cool father also named B and we taught him the restoration. He said if he liked what he learned, he would get baptized so that was Fun. We teach way more men than women in New York. I don't know how that always happens! I think that the men are more open to change, especially religious beliefs, especially when they sincerely want it. Women are more in tune with the Spirit, but when we believe something, we believe something!
We have just been finding the nicest people on the streets. For example, we found one woman named Beth who was on the standing on the street smoking. We said Hi and did the short greeting intro and she was excited and said that she wanted to learn! "I heard Mormons believe in Hell and damnation... I don't like that, do you actually believe that? Oh my gosh.. first of all, we have #1 a person who is willing to confront us on misconceptions and goes to the source of what we actually believe. #2 we taught her the Plan of Salvation right there and she loved it. She is catholic, but wants to grow spiritually. She is that rare combo in an investigator.
A lady this week didn't want to talk with us because she believed that Mormons don't eat pizza, so therefore she shouldn't talk to Mormons. WHAT? MORMONS LOVE PIZZA.. actually Mormon's love anything with bread.. Silly silly misconceptions running around out there. So much misinformation.
We also picked up another super cool young dad named Zach who used to live in Lake Placid and play USA Hockey. He got hurt and is only about 25 yrs old, but he is the nicest person I have ever met. We get to go teach him tonight! Another great potential :)
We have set a date for baptism for another woman. I am pretty sure her cats and her house are possessed with something. But, she keeps coming to Church and has really good desires. We had dinner with a family and the kids are going to find a cure for cancer someday... they're very smart and driven. The 5 and 7 year old kids can talk to us missionaries all about the US Presidents and say that their favorite animal is a 'Webbed 10 foot Renruk" or something weird from Madagascar. I can barely remember the quadratic equations, let alone compete with these kids. HAHA.
Sunday was church and we had meetings, and taught a few people over Facebook because all of our appointments cancelled on us. Just the normal things.
I do love my area, my ward and my companion here. So all is well. Now we just have to get our investigators to progress and be baptized. Word of Wisdom issues are a problem out here :( This week is an exchange to Corning and a District Meeting and Thanksgiving. I also get to work in a soup kitchen and go to MLC's. So, it will probably fly by just as fast as last week.
Everyone, have a fun and safe Thanksgiving. Lets all have an attitude of Gratitude!
The gospel is true and when living the gospel.. "inch by inch, it is a cinch; yard by yard, it is hard! So remember to do the little things!
Love you all!
Sister Kylie Williams
Anyway, back to Horseheads. It is a cool place, kinda crazy, but very cool. We have some of the sweetest members and there are a ton of prepared people. Their testimonies are small and need some time to get progressing....but hey, at least we have people to teach! They come from a variety of backgrounds... from humble janitors to ex-hockey players to stay-at-home mom's to one family that manages a restaurant named Friendly's!
One of our recent converts... Jim is one of the most elect of God that I have ever met. He changed his life around and gave up everything in 2 months because he believes in the restoration and loves the Book of Mormon. He kinda looks like a hobo and Santa Clause all rolled together. He smiles and talks about how much his life has changed. Few people just grasp and accept everything we teach and try it out, but he does. It is people like that that make a mission worth it. Even if you find just one..... that is all that matters. We saw him and another cute less active lady on Monday.
 |
| Teaching Jim |
Tuesday we woke up way too early and drove to Owego for a ZTM and it was all about commitment and repentance. We learned we have to be bold and loving to extend these commitments. Our investigators cannot repent and come to know of the truthfulness of the church if they do not put forth the effort to see if this will change their lives. I quickly learned that the difference between a disciple of Christ and an average person is their level of commitment. If you cannot make and keep covenants/commitments, then look in the mirror and fix that... It also relates to goal setting. I used to hate goal setting before my mission. Now, I see it as a rudder on my ship of life. It provides direction and something to do and to make myself a better follower of Jesus Christ. It is one thing to go with the flow (which I enjoy a lot), but it is another thing to take control of a situation and evaluate our lives and see how we can improve and be better. Complacency is a killer! So, that was a good wake up call.
Right after the meeting, we exchanged with the Vestal Sister and I went with Sister Trapane to Vestal. It was a sweet exchange. They are struggling to find people to teach, so we went out and talked to everyone outside. They live right next to Binghamton University, so I stopped a lot of college students on the road walking to off campus housing and that was sweet. Tons of Asian students. OMG so many! We picked up a few Nings, and Yaos, and other hard names I can't pronounce.
I really have struggled my whole mission with talking to people on the street... especially after serving in Fort Drum because that is not allowed. So, the companion I was with struggles with being social and talking to people. So, we set some high goals and started talking to everyone. It was very cool. I talked to a few non-interested people , talked to a Catholic lady minister, and literally ran into a college student named Nate. We talked about school, graphic design and then taught him on the street about the restoration and it was super awesome. He said that he'd like to come to church! We also worked to find some lost investigators in the phone book and found them at 8pm that night, in the woods in a multimillion dollar home. HaHa. We were tracting late. :)
We had no luck on another street, but one man did feel bad after rejecting us and said "I have had the pleasure of having friends that are members of your Church and I have nothing but the highest respect for them." That was awesome. I might have even "sweat out of my eyes" for a like a second or two. But that last house at the end of the street belonged to a guy named Emmanuel and he was so awesome. I could see him getting baptized one day. Just so open to the gospel! We found other potentials, and it was sweet! The Sister I was with on Exchanges also had the same birthday as me, so we had a pre-birthday celebration! Woop Woop. We had some cake!
We woke up the next morning and went to some appointments, nothing fancy... but it was better with my companion and the other Sister in Elmira for the day. We had an investigator-- who tried to rewrite part of the Book of Mormon-- tell us how crazy we were. US? Well, we dropped her like a hot rock. The Crazy Quaker lady I mentioned last week, who I am pretty sure had someone spit in her oatmeal, was always quite cranky. We then traded back and it was good to be back home in Elmira and we had dinner with some grandparents in the Ward. So cute and full of personality. We had coordination meeting and went right to bed.
 |
| My Companion and I, we think and dress a like!! |
Thursday I turned 20! Sister Gass did make me a card, and gave me a present that morning after I opened the ones from Home. She also mentioned it was my birthday during a few lessons, so I had investigators and less actives sing to me all day. A few ward members also brought me some goodies and treats and the meal coordinator lady actually called our dinner appointment and asked her to make chicken enchiladas which I requested! Overall, it was a good birthday and we taught 6 lessons! We have some super sweet less actives, who are older single ladies that just need the occasional kick in the rear to get them to church. I also got to meet Tom. He is another great investigator that has health problems, he is in his 70's and needs help to quit smoking so that he can get baptized. He will get there eventually! :)
We also had the coolest lesson with BSG as we call them. They are a family that is related to our RS President and the Dad is super interested and started diving deep into the Book of Mormon during our lesson. The Mom doesn't have any religious background and the 19 year old son, we're pretty sure he has a crush on us.. ha ha. But, they are hilarious and have been happier since we started teaching them. They will be baptized sometime in the future, especially B. He already is like, "so how do you guys tithe?" I get really animated at their house. I lost count of how many analogies I used in one Book of Mormon lesson. I have come to realize that I over explain and complicate things, but when I use analogies, I can convey a ton of info into something simple and teachable. THERE IS A REASON WHY JESUS SPOKE IN PARABLES!
Friday we had a lesson with a drunk old guy over the phone.. :( Bad conversation. We will probably lose him as an investigator soon. We also picked up this other super cool father also named B and we taught him the restoration. He said if he liked what he learned, he would get baptized so that was Fun. We teach way more men than women in New York. I don't know how that always happens! I think that the men are more open to change, especially religious beliefs, especially when they sincerely want it. Women are more in tune with the Spirit, but when we believe something, we believe something!
We have just been finding the nicest people on the streets. For example, we found one woman named Beth who was on the standing on the street smoking. We said Hi and did the short greeting intro and she was excited and said that she wanted to learn! "I heard Mormons believe in Hell and damnation... I don't like that, do you actually believe that? Oh my gosh.. first of all, we have #1 a person who is willing to confront us on misconceptions and goes to the source of what we actually believe. #2 we taught her the Plan of Salvation right there and she loved it. She is catholic, but wants to grow spiritually. She is that rare combo in an investigator.
A lady this week didn't want to talk with us because she believed that Mormons don't eat pizza, so therefore she shouldn't talk to Mormons. WHAT? MORMONS LOVE PIZZA.. actually Mormon's love anything with bread.. Silly silly misconceptions running around out there. So much misinformation.
We also picked up another super cool young dad named Zach who used to live in Lake Placid and play USA Hockey. He got hurt and is only about 25 yrs old, but he is the nicest person I have ever met. We get to go teach him tonight! Another great potential :)
We have set a date for baptism for another woman. I am pretty sure her cats and her house are possessed with something. But, she keeps coming to Church and has really good desires. We had dinner with a family and the kids are going to find a cure for cancer someday... they're very smart and driven. The 5 and 7 year old kids can talk to us missionaries all about the US Presidents and say that their favorite animal is a 'Webbed 10 foot Renruk" or something weird from Madagascar. I can barely remember the quadratic equations, let alone compete with these kids. HAHA.
Sunday was church and we had meetings, and taught a few people over Facebook because all of our appointments cancelled on us. Just the normal things.
I do love my area, my ward and my companion here. So all is well. Now we just have to get our investigators to progress and be baptized. Word of Wisdom issues are a problem out here :( This week is an exchange to Corning and a District Meeting and Thanksgiving. I also get to work in a soup kitchen and go to MLC's. So, it will probably fly by just as fast as last week.
Everyone, have a fun and safe Thanksgiving. Lets all have an attitude of Gratitude!
The gospel is true and when living the gospel.. "inch by inch, it is a cinch; yard by yard, it is hard! So remember to do the little things!
Love you all!
Sister Kylie Williams
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