I'll be Home for Christmas

I remember my first day in New York...who wouldn't? You step off the plane and the humidity slaps you in the face and you realize you might be walking around in it all day for the next 18 months. When the new missionaries get here President tells us "this isn't a handcart mission, it's a bullet train mission....jump on the train and let's go" or in the words of Elder Holland "Start fast, run hard, and to the tape, you can rest later." This has been the most wonderful 18 months of my life. There was happiness and heartbreak, there were long days of walking the streets trying to find someone who would listen. But somehow it all went by so fast! Too fast. I am so grateful for this opportunity...we don't give the Lord anything when we serve Him because we are blessed to immensely for any small amount we do give. We cannot give Him a crust without Him giving a loaf in return. I only wish I could have done more. But it's okay because it isn't over for me, and it never will be. Still on the same team just playing a different position. A disciple of Christ never throws in the towel no matter what they've already given. There is always more to give.

I love my Savior. I know this is all true because if it wasn't I wouldn't be changed, and neither would any of the people I've taught. But they are! And I am! And each person stands as living, walking evidence that the atonement can heal what we cannot heal, can fix that which is beyond repair, and can mend our broken hearts and dry up our tears. "Wherefore, how great the importance to make these things known unto the inhabitants of the earth, that they may know that there is no flesh that can dwell in the presence of God, save it be through the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah, who layeth down his life according to the flesh, and taketh it again by the power of the Spirit, that he may bring to pass the resurrection of the dead, being the first that should rise." {2 Nephi 2:8}

I am forever changed from serving here, and even though there is trash all over the streets and it's loud and there are lots of bad attitudes NYC will always be special to me because this is where I came to "the knowledge of a Redeemer." And I do know that my Redeemer lives.

I love you all so much, see ya in the airport!

xoxo
Sister Wadsworth

Another week in the Big Apple

11-17-15

Oh my heck what is life? You'd think after being here for 18 months I'd have experienced it all....nope!! Everything has been super intense this week but I wouldn't trade a second of it!

We had a meeting with sweet Sister Reynolds and all the other Sister Training Leaders and used President Nelson's talk "A Plea to My Sisters" as a backdrop for our discussion. It's so important that both men AND women recognize that God has a great work for us to do! Mostly within our own homes. I am grateful to be a part of all this, full-time, now and forever. It's the best! The meeting went long and we missed our Zone Training Meeting ): but that's okay we had a great night of teaching anyways. 

On Thursday we finally had time to weekly plan! That almost never happens. Then we exchanged with the Chinese Sisters ha ha I was with Sister Johnson and we went to visit a Chinese family. I guess in their culture if they give you something you're expected to eat it...ALL OF IT. Well, they gave us this red bean paste over this plastic-y noodle stuff? I don't even know what it was, I just know that I choked on it for like 2 minutes straight and the old Chinese grandma was looking at me, laughing, and slapping my back so hard I wanted to cry!!
Friday we went to another Zone Training Meeting, this time we actually made it on time, probably because we had to give a workshop. Their zone was so dead! No participation ha ha good thing we know how to fix that...we got up and said "get together in your districts and whoever has the funniest picture on their iPad wins!" Well that woke em up haha they had some good pictures! And after that we had a great discussion about nightly planning. We also taught a new girl, Karen, who has been coming to church for a year! She already read the entire Doctrine & Covenants! We asked her if she knew who any prophets were and she was like "Joseph Smith...I mean, he's the main one right?" #yesss
I think the biggest miracle was teaching June, the lady who walked in last week wanting to be baptized. Actually the miracle isn't necessarily teaching her, but the person she is! She is so prepared! So on our first lesson Sister Lemmon asked if we could kneel for the prayer and she was kind of confused but agreed and we had an amazing lesson. Well on Saturday when we taught her again we knelt down and she said "can I tell you a secret?" "I haven't been able to bend my knee for 20 years...until last week when we knelt down to pray, and now my knee is fine!" This was an amazing fulfillment to a promise from our president that if we would kneel with our investigators on the first lesson they would progress. Not only is she getting baptized in 4 weeks but her knee is healed!
Something weird I saw this week: a lady on the bus curling her eyelashes with a spoon...? Haha don't ask me how cause I don't know lol. I also found a crisp $10 bill on the sidewalk, and this cool bracelet when we got on an empty train...it's my lucky week I guess! Oh AND, I was on the subway and this lady kept looking at me and then writing stuff down in this journal..she was kinda creepin me out. Well when I was walking off the train I took a quick look at her journal and she had sketched me!! I was so flattered guys, I can't even tell you! I'm pretty much a model now I guess. Hah.
So this week was pretty drama-filled with our lil investigators and it's probably not needful to give all the details but I have learned very deeply that the gospel is the happiest way to live our lives, and that Satan will always attack those who choose to follow the gospel path, especially during and around important moments in their conversion. As I have been reading 2 Nephi 2 I am more and more grateful for the opposition in my life and especially on a mission that has strengthened my commitment to Christ. I love verse 2: "Nevertheless, Jacob, my firstborn in the wilderness, thou knowest the greatness of God; and He shall consecrate thine afflictions for thy gain." I might have lost a lot of things to come on a mission (weight not being one of them ha ha) but I know that what I gave from serving a mission has proven far more valuable than what I gave up. I love Elder Holland: "I want to give something back, but I never want it to be (in King David’s words) “that which doth cost me nothing.” I hope the service we give causes us to stretch ourselves and cling to the Lord in all we do. "All things have been done in the wisdom of Him who knoweth all things." I love being a missionary here and it'll probably break my heart in half to leave next week, it's been the greatest time of my life.
I love you all!!
Sister Wadsworth

b

I'm not old...I'm ancient

The subject title is from Sister Dorsky, FYI. Finally got a good picture with her....see below :) she's like 90 and is still kickin. 

This week went by wayyy too fast!! Sister Lemmon turned 20 on Monday!! So obviously we had to party so much. I took her to a thrift store and we got some fun stuff for cheap. Also went to 5 guys and had a real burger for the first time in like a year ha ha. This week consisted of basically all of our plans falling through which was fine with me cause some incredible things happened instead!
So there is this girl, Karen, who's family moved from China so they could worship, even though they don't have a church. She lives right by our church so she started coming and has been coming (unbeknownst to the missionaries) for the last 3 months! Well it's Brooklyn Stake Temple week and she wanted to go but as it turns out, you actually have to be a member to go to the temple so now she wants to get baptized!! Holy cow what is life?! So we are working with her and hopefully she will get baptized soon. We have also been working with a 10-year-old boy whose grandma is a member and he is SO HARD to teach. Like the ultimate A.D.D. child here. But thank goodness for ios9 and the drawing feature on notes, we have him draw pictures of what we teach while we're teaching and it is the first time missionaries have been able to teach him all the lessons! You should see the poor kid's teaching record, every companionship was like "maybe when he's older" and stuff like that but DING DING DING we taught him everything so he is getting baptized next week! And of course Peyton got baptized yesterday so that was the coolest thing ever. She pretty much bears her testimony of the restoration non-stop through church it's so presh. I'll save that story for later.
We are also teaching this lady and it's been so cool to see her boyfriend's heart soften:
1st visit: we ask if he wants to join the lesson and he walks into the other room
2nd visit: sat there through a video about Jesus
3rd visit: waiting on the couch with the Plan of Salvation pamphlet in hand and was more responsive than his girlfriend.
Haha!! I love what the gospel does to people, they just can't help wanting to know more. Oh and a random funny story, we often walk past a waste management facility and Sister Lemmon is always like, suffocated, and I'm like, so happy cause it smells like a dairy...you can take the girl out of the country but ya can't take the country out of the girl!
We had an amazing MLC mostly talking about patience and setting goals for next year but I will skip over that to tell you a story about poor Elder Paterson. He is from Cardy and knows all of Travis' family...pretty much a hysterical Canadian. Well we had a break and so everyone was walking back in but he tripped over the Assistant's MacBook cord and almost fell into his seat so we were all kinda joking about how he tripped and having fun. So we have a tradition where when Sister Reynolds walks into the room we all stand up out of respect. So Elder Paterson tries to stand up but something went wrong and he fell down and his chair folded up so he was flat on his bum on the ground and we were all just dying laughing. Seriously everyone in this mission feels like my close family now. It's like I have 120 little brothers and 80 sisters. And President and Sister Reynolds are like the parents, it is SO FUN to be a missionary in the NYNYS Mission.
So let me skip to Sunday cause it was cray. Reminded me of when I was in Belle Harbor there was so much happening! First of all, we had 10 INVESTIGATORS at church.All progressing, most have been coming consistently...what the heck? In NYC? Fuhgeddaboutit. Seriously couldn't even keep track of them all. We attended Young Women's because 4 of them are in there. After church Peyton got baptized! The RS room was overflowing and the spirit was amazing. Most of our investigators stayed for it! She was so happy and was crying and smiling and our hearts were so full! President and Sister Reynolds came as well and it was so fun to have hem there! They are THE CUTEST thing of my entire life. Right before the baptism a young lady from Malaysia walked in and said she was looking for a church to join. She knew a few things about our church so she said she would like to be baptized....I was like...uhhhhh...the font is full so uhhh....haha. We got her contact info and have an appointment. AFTER the baptism Heavenly Father sent us another new investigator. She is from Japan and she googled churches near her home and thought ours looked nice. She came and our members basically jumped on that and welcomed her in so nicely. We had a lesson that evening and she LOVES the restoration. She was in a crazy church that was making her vomit on command and all this really weird stuff we were like "yeah we just have green jello and that's about as weird as we get..." Ha ha. Met with her again last night and set a baptismal date. I don't know why we are being blessed so much!! I know it's not about us though, these people are ready whether we are or not, so we are trying to pull ourselves together and catch up to God's pace!! I seriously LOVE missionary work and being here in NYC and being with Sister Lemmon and working with all these amazing people! Life couldn't be more perfect. LOVE YOU ALL!!!
Sister Wadsworth



Pics...one from the dr's...I got mah flu shot
Some vintage clothes we got at this cool store....
And some guy with some nast dreads on the train he kept flipping his hair and it was touching my comp...sick.
And pics taken by Lemmdog
And PEYTON'S BAPTISM

and President and Sister...the cutest things ever.

And the Laundrymat

New Tires

Well Howdy!
This week started out golden!! Last Sunday we stopped by Anna's house, we found her on the subway a few months ago and she said she'd never join cause she believes we can have more than one prophet. We stopped by anyway and she was walking out the door with trash so she invited us in and we small talked for a few minutes and she showed us her incredible shoe collection from Aldo.,,seriously like 55 pairs it was impressive. Anyway we started talking religion and she kinda broke down and said she didn't know if her efforts as a single mom were enough. We showed her the video "you never know" and she seriously bawled through the whole thing cause obviously the spirit was telling her she should join our church haha. She thanked us profusely as we walked out and asked us to come back the next week. She made it clear she did not want to attend our services. BUT she texted us the next day: "Hello. I asked God last night why did he allow our paths to cross. I'm trying to understand it.  Is your objective as a missionary for your church to bring people to your church?  Because if its not, and it's more about teaching people about Jesus, perhaps we can get together when you have time to talk about God and Jesus. I'm steadfast in my beliefs mainly because it is what I was taught, but also my personal relationship with God. The things he's revealed to me.  I've heard him literally speak to me.   With this being said you are always welcome in my home to teach my daughter and I the word of God. You can read from your bible. I can read from mine.  ;-). Please send me that video I watched yesterday. I may stop by your church one day, but I will never stray away from what I was taught and what I believe to be true. I do have many questions about the bible and God, so maybe we can share knowledge and ideas. I'm totally down for that." It was like music from heaven! This was one of the coolest things of my mission to see her heart slowly change and now she is willing to give it a shot! I KNOW she is going to accept our message, and it might be sooner than we thought!



We had an exchange Tuesday, I was with Sister Jenkins who is a total riot and we just get each other. It rained so much but we just had a good old time in it! She is an angel and let me borrow her rain boots. We went to a dinner appointment and the lady fed us (straight up) 3 HUGE hamburger patties with a bunch of rice haha I felt like a boy eating that much meet but it was good! Haha. We had interviews with President. We made him and the assistants some "special brownies" so that was fun, right afterwards we exchanged with the ASL sisters. I was here with Sister Barker and  we had such a good time! She is going home when I do so it was good to relate about feelings and stuff. I went to the foot doctor! Guess what??!! WENDY THE WART IS GONE FOR GOOD. There was a bit of a callous but the podiatrist shaved it off and my foot feels sooo good! It's like I went to Les Schwab and got new tires and am lovin walking again!! #blessings Sister Lemmon had a bit of a rough exchange haha. She was with 2 new missionaries so she had to drive and their car overheated so Sister Barker and I ended up going to the mission office to exchange back. They are know without a car but I have my Lemmdog back so all is well!



For Halloween we had to be in at 6 and we were cleaning our house but realized we couldn't go take out the trash cause obviously someone would murder us so we opened our window and I chucked the trash bag as hard as I could and it made it into the dumpster! So that became a bit of a game...we also made some yummy fajitas but I'm not sure why I'm telling you all this cause no one cares.



The highlight of this week was Sunday, we had 8 investigators come to church, and the elders had quite a few as well! The gospel principals class was super full, and Peyton's baptism is next week! Sister Lemmon is singing a song and I am playing so it will be great we are super excited for it! We are also getting people to the temple this week so the work is going AMAZING. This area is on fire. I love the gospel so much and I am grateful for these past few weeks, I have learned so much about the Lord's plan for us but more importantly how much He loves and cares about all of His children.



Love y'all!
Sister Wadsworth