Flushing New York

Flushing New York

Monday, October 26, 2015

Week #4, Squirrel Problems!

Summaries of the Day
10-19-15
Preparation day. Did laundry, sent emails, went shopping and got a
blanket, Gatorade powder, and goldfish. I'm good now:) dropped that
off and went to the church. Went bad and forth with mom for like an
hour and a half. Went to eat at a restaurant for dinner. Had good Kung
Pao Chicken. Chinese food here is so much better than Panda Express:)
then went to visit a less active and taught him about the ugly
duckling story and how we are God's children. Visited an investigator
that has been gone for a while and turns out she is still gone. Came
back and made Gatorade. Home sweet home:) Also opened up my first
present of the 13 nights of Halloween. It was a solar, dancing,
pumpkin man.
10-20-15
Morning routine. Then lunch, then district meeting. Not much happened
there except that Elder Lee(Zone Leader) was on splits with Elder
Wixom so we had a Chinese speaking elder present. He spoke English too
but as a second language. Then we visited a person we called last
week. Fun family but so much was going on with people running around
and visiting that we were there an hour and a half trying to teach a
lesson and get to know them. They have been taught before but one day
the sisters that were teaching them stopped coming. Weird. So they
were happy to see us but with phones and people all around, they
didn't really pay attention or feel the spirit. Next time is at the
library with one of them only. Then we had dinner, and street
contacted more.
10-21-15
Mickey Mouse. Lots of Mickey Mouse things everywhere today. Morning
routine. Lunch and then President Reynolds was in town conducting
interviews with the missionaries. It went well I thought for only
having been a week since I had an interview with him. Went knocking
afterwards with no success in College Point. Came back and street
contacted after dinner and en ended the day with a lesson at a less
actives house. They fed us another dinner and ended up starting the
lesson at 9:30... And it ended at 10:10 so we had to run home and get
in bed by 10:30. But the lesson was the best lesson Elder Reese and I
taught as a companionship. It was worth it to stay so long.
10-22-15
Happiness. There were so many people saying hi and actually talking
with us today. Everyone was in a happy mood. Some old same old in the
morning. Then we had weekly planning meeting to set goals and plan
lessons for our investigator pool... Which is very small so that
didn't take too long. Then went knocking up in College Point again
with the same thing as yesterday, nothing. The people there just never
answer doors or something cause like only 5 people answered their
door. Not going back for a while now. Going to try somewhere else.
Then we went to eat at New World Mall in the cafeteria and I got to
say, I couldn't read a single thing there. Nothing was in English, all
Chinese. It's china town. Then we went contacting at the library and
was able to teach a lesson to someone. Gave them our number and got
his contact info to set up another appointment sometime.
10-23-15
ZTM. You should know by now what I do until lunch. Then we went
contacting for a half an hour until Zone Training Meeting. Learned a
few tips on faith and obedience to apply to the mission field. Then we
went contacting again. No success at all. Dinner at a street vendor
which was Lamb over rice. It was so good. Best meal I've had here.
Then we went to teach a less active about Amlickiah but then Elder
Reese changed it to the law of chastity as soon as the prayer
finished. We taught the less active and his girlfriend who is taking
lessons from the sister missionaries and is planning on getting
baptized. She just needs to go to church 3 weeks in a row still.
Afterwards we went to correlation and then to another less active. But
the second one wasn't home so we went home for the night. Starting to
settle in here I feel like.
10-24-15
"It's 9 o'clock on a Saturday. The regular crowd shuffles in." Not too
bad today. Went knocking all afternoon but only talked with 2 people,
the rest either said they are of some other religion or not interested
or didn't even answer the door. We also had Saturday session of Stake
conference today. President Reynolds spoke at it. And I finally
remembered to sing piano man at 9 pm:) not much happened today but I
got a package so that was nice:) full of Halloween gifts that go along
with the 13 nights of Halloween so I open one a day at night:)
10-25-15
"I can move mountains, I can work a miracle, work a miracle, oh oh."
Stake conference messed up our day. First we went to pick up a less
active for it but he was asleep and didn't get up. We also only did
personal study today and that was it. We contacted for like 5 hours
today. We contacted from 1-4 and found lots of people to talk to. One
was a guy in a wheel chair and was looking for the church. Elder Reese
actually was going by his place every week before I got here but he
was hospitalized which is why no one answered. So we ,et him today and
he enlisted on buying us something. So he bought us sodas and we
forgot it was the sabbath. But he offered to hand stuff out so we gave
him pamphlets and a Book of Mormon to hand out. He was so excited even
though he has like 3 areas of his body that need surgery, head, torso,
and both feet. All different conditions. Poor guy but he is the
happiest guy I've met here. And he insisted on serving us because we
are representing Jesus Christ on the earth. He offered to buy us a
beer and pizza but we settled with the soda. People like to offer beer
a lot here. I'm not old enough but maybe I look old enough. Anyways,
then we went to go contacting but was stopped by 2 guys that had a
question about our church. One thing led to another and they ended up
basically trashing the church. They like study the bible deeply, like
university level and questioned us. We are just 18 and 19 year olds
straight outta high school and they are like in their mid 40s. They
were quoting scripture and asking why we do this and how to tell the
difference between an angel of God and an angle of the Devil. I had no
idea how to answer most of his questions. He talked for 45 min there
on the street so we went contacting till dinner. Then more contacting
after dinner and then went to visit the less active we went to visit
this morning but they were busy again. So today was interesting in how
lots of people talked to us but that trashing the church one was kinda
a downer on the other successes we had earlier.

You heard about Pluto? That's messed up right?

So I thought I should share some things I do. I read emails every
night in bed just before I go to sleep. It is like my guilty pleasure
but not really guilty:) Send lots of questions!!! I can't answer all
of them just by sending an update. I need questions to know how to
fill these emails. President Reynolds stopped by this week for
interviews and one thing they told us is that we are no longer allowed
to go to Mets games anymore. Which sucks because they are in the World
Series. The mets stadium is in our area by the way. So hopefully they
win and if the do, buy me the hat mom and dad. You know I like the
collection and how cool would it be to have them win on my mission???
We also had to take down the pull up bar because it broke a door in a
different area and the church lost like $1500 dollars on it so no more
pull ups.

We had such a cool experience yesterday helping out one guy with his
bible class for college and he was like so grateful for us helping
him. He was just trying to understand how his textbook related to the
Bible and what it was talking about. We taught him some ways to read
it to help him understand and he like went on and on about how
grateful he was for us. This was after lunch. We also talked to a gay
guy after dinner while contacting and he was supper nice but not
interested. Darn. But he like travels for like months at a time and
loves there for a bit, them moves on to a new area. He is a stock
broker or something like that so he travels all the time and stay for
a year or a few months and moves onto the next area. He has traveled
to every continent except Antarctica which would be so cool. I
received a package this week on Saturday and the two letters from mom
with the pictures.

Oh and something funny. Friday night we got a text from the Zone
leaders that there is a squirrel in our chapel. We get there Sunday
morning and find out that is has peed and pooped all over the piano
and in a back corner and it tore up a hymn book. It smells terrible
over by the piano so no one sat over there during Stake Conference. I
laughed because of how mom feels about squirrels peeing and pooping
everywhere. Haha. We now call the piano "pee-ano" haha:)

Loving the movie quotes from you guys by the way.

Yesterday, we flipped off and got sworn at to our faces while talking
to someone. That was interesting but we came to find out that he was
drunk and usually a nice guy when sober. It's just that when he
drinks, his parents kick him out to the street so then he comes to the
library and that is where we usually are.

On Halloween, we have to be inside our apartment by 6 pm. So we get to
hang out around there and just play a board game or something. I don't
know what we'll do but we'll find something. Nice part is that there
is a Halloween party at the branch that night so we can go get dinner
there and snack the rest of the night.

This week was hard on Thursday. I woke up and thought "what am I doing
here? I feel like we have no success and no one to teach. We go out
and contact with no one that wants to talk to us" So I got really
homesick and wanted to go home. But then I put my faith in the Lord. I
went to work that day with a smile on my face and said I was going to
talk to someone today. As I went out and talked, I felt better and
better by the minute. Even if people didn't stop, I felt like I wanted
to be here again. The Lord blesses those that are faithful and endure
to the end. This is not the end yet but it is a start to challenges
and difficulties. So be faithful and always be in tune with the
spirit. I have learned what it means to put your faith in the Lord.
And I have already seen the blessings that come from it. I love it
here now:) I don't want to come back. I have moments of homesickness
but now they pass with ease. The mission is the hardest thing I've
ever done. But it is so worth the sacrifice.

Squirrel is still in the piano today. Elder Wixom and Elder
Householder trapped it in the piano. Elder Wixom is from Draper as
well!!!

Love you all and miss you all.

-Elder Heaton

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