Monday, March 30, 2015

Brooklyn Crooklyn






This place is sketchy! But this week was so great, we had lots of miracles, and lots of crazy people, and lots of laryngitis. 


So on Monday we were on the subway for an hour trying to get to the grocery store and we ran into this super sweet lady with 2 kids who we talked to for a bit and gave her our number. She didn't have a phone or address cause she was in a shelter so the only way we could teach her was if she calls us. So we prayed every night for like 3 nights in a row...nothing. And then finally on the fourth day the phone rang!!! Yaaaas. She is so golden. 


Tuesday we had interviews with President. They only happen every 12 weeks so it's a super special day. I love President so much, it seems like he always knows the perfect thing to say to me. Looking back over the last few months and all the things that have happened I have realized something: the only thing worse than going through a trial is going through it and not learning what God wanted you to. I've begun to see trials as opportunities to rely on the Lord and as stepping stones to the person we want to become. Something President said to me is that a good way to measure someone's conversion is to watch how they act during the sacrament and what they wear to church. It's so true, that hour once a week is a good reflection of how we put God first in real life.
We had an awesome lesson with our investigator who is getting baptized soon and about froze to death going to and from her house...why is it still winter?? Oh something else I was thinking about when I was studying charity: when we do service are we doing it to bless or impress? If we do it to bless we have the pure love of Christ "the greatest of all the gifts of God" if we do it to impress...we have our reward. 


Wednesday we did service in Prospect Park cleaning stuff up and raking leaves. It was so pretty there! When I go places like that I think "hmm maybe I could handle living in the city" and then we walk back to the subway and in my mind I'm like "who are you kidding Wads, you wouldn't live here if they paid you." Hah. That night we had correlation. Our Ward mission leader is the most hysterical person of my life. He is Filippeano and lets just say his mission was very different than ours...in his mission if they had 100 baptism per transfer they had a water fight party as a zone lol. A lot of the time is him telling us how our mission should be...it's really funny. I asked him if he had the white handbook on his mission and he just gave me a blank stare....lol. But he is so great and helps us so much. 


Thursday we did service for this lady, she called us on the phone and was pretty salty, so we were expecting the worst from our dear Irene. But when we got to her apt we came to find that she's just a regular sassy NY woman, and that she wasn't to be messed with. We had a ball dusting her studio apt, most people call us cause they're hoarders, but she called cause she's a neat freak, and her back won't allow her to dust under her bed and such. She was hysterical, just ranting the whole time about how much she hates NY, but she's never gonna leave. I feel like that's everyone here haha. That evening we went to "Lola's" for dinner. She's like the missionary grandma here, she makes a big dinner and then the missionaries come in shifts of half hour intervals. Sis Christensen is gluten-free and she ate some so we were praying she wouldn't get sick. We went to see a part member family, it was the mom and her adorable boys there and she's not a member so we taught her an awesome lesson, she is so prepared and has a lot of faith. She accepted the invitation to be baptized!! Her boys were sitting there gnawing on chicken bones it was the funniest thing. Most kids have pacifiers, but they had KFC! 

The only thing I remember about Friday was that we practiced a song we have to sing for Stake Conference and we met this super cool lady but it took an hour both ways to get to her house. Oh just kidding that was the day we managed to find all the crazy people in Brooklyn within like 2 hours. The first was this toothless Jewish guy on the subway..he was grinning (can you even call it that if you don't have teeth?) at me so I gave him a card and he asked me if I went to college so I said yes and he was like "why are you wasting your time being a missionary?" I was like hold up brother...! But I didn't wanna get angry so I just smiled and told him I loved it and I love the gospel. He snickered (don't think you can do that without teeth either) and I just got off the train sups over it. Then I saw him at the fruit stand later and just got the "aaaahhh" feeling. Don't talk to me dude. Anyways on the bus ride home these boys got in a fight with an older man and he pulled out a gun so we were like "aaaahhh" so we got off the bus it was really funny but kinda not at the same time. Oh goodness. I don't think you can even pack (legally) here so I dunno what was going on. Cug. 

Saturday we went and saw a family but it took 1.5 hours to get to their house. We made them pancakes and taught a lesson, it was super fun! This kind of leads up to our Sunday. The son was the one who got baptized last week, but since they are always late to church we arranged for me and my comp to come get them before church the next morning so he would actually get confirmed. Imagine this if you will: we are both sick, me with laryngitis and Sis Christensen with gluten girl probs. We wake up at 4am and get on the bus for an hour. There was no one out so the bus got there like an hour early. We get to their porch at 5 and it's dark and freezing. We called them. We knocked. We rang the doorbell. Nothin. So we sat there in the freezing cold. For an hour. In dresses, not carhartts. I've never felt that frozen in my life. Seriously ready to "let it go." Finally at 6:15 she came and opened the door and we sat on her couch trying to thaw. We made breakfast and got the kids ready and barely made it to church on time. It is kinda funny now that I'm writing about it. It wasn't then haha. The rest of Sunday was a blur. We didn't really stop working after that cause if we would have we would have just conked out right there. We had a super great lesson with a new investigator and a family in the ward. We are going around helping people make their own family mission plans. It's super cool to see the families get excited about how they can help with missionary work. Members want to help, but they don't always know how. Even just doing your home or visiting teaching helps the missionaries soooo much. So grateful for your example mom, you definitely go above and beyond...you probably fearless more people than I do! I am so grateful for missionary work and temple and family history work. The apostles and prophets have promised that when we engage in this cause we will feel our own testimonies being strengthened, and we will be better able to resist temptations. I love it here and am so grateful for the support from all of you! Have a wonderful week! 
Sister Wadsworth


Pics:
1. We have this thing with eating veggie straws and cottage cheese...
2. Crazy Irene haha...we had to take a selfie with her.
3: Face Timing with our investigator but her daughter always grabs the phone. 
4. Sister Urizar from Guatemala, her and Sister Placheta live next door on our floor so we usually party it up



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