Mission Wide Training and Snow

Hello everyone who is reading this message!

Connecticut has been quite cold in the past months of my time here, we have been getting buckets upon buckets of snow dumped upon us.. and honestly it gets old real quick. It seems like we are shoveling about every day and I had no clue that's pretty much what missionary work consists of upstate. 

This week has been a very spiritual week with this meeting last Thursday and our interviews with president on Friday. On Thursday we had to be at the Lincoln center church (which is the temple) by 10:10, in our seats waiting for president Morgan to come in with Elder David Evans of the seventy, and Elder Steven Allan of the seventy. The meeting was a very spiritual experience, filled with a lot of personal revelation and it is truly a blessing to have general authorities come speak to us as a mission, it's just incredible. To get to the temple we had to take the Metro North train down to Grand Central, and either walk or take a subway up to the building. We decided to walk and to see all the beautiful sights of New York, one of those sights being Times Square! It was beautiful to walk through and see the huge lights and the New York people. That meeting took up our whole day, it was 7 o'clock by the time we got home with all the travel time. We didn't do anything that night other than eat and go to bed because of how late it was. The spirit was strong at that meeting, it was a lot to take in and it was just a good experience to have while I am here. It was about how we can Repent, Refresh, and Restart, and what we can do to better commit our time and lives to the Lord. The meeting was a lot about how to protect ourselves from temptation while using the technology we have as missionaries. We will be getting our iPads soon, probably next week at Zone Conference, that is how they usually give out the devices, give them to us and then have training on how to use them better. I thought i'd be getting Facebook soon, but they are unauthorizing  Facebook for about 3 months for all missionaries and online proselyting purposes. I won't be getting Facebook until the End of June or so, which I find as a blessing because I will be able to continue to do normal missionary work without the distraction of Facebook. 

Friday we had our interviews with President and a little training in our zone, and the interview that I had with president was super cool because president seems to say everything that I need to hear. He wants us to know that if there is anything that we need to repent of we are able to talk to him and he will love us so much more. I really love that, and love president and told him the struggles of a new missionary but over time that will change. Since my companion is going home at the end of this transfer president told me that I need to know the area for the next missionary to come. I took that as a sign that I might be training soon, which would be very fun but at the same time it is scary to think about. All these new missionaries have been choosing to go home, and that is what I am worried about. I don't want to train someone and have them decide to go home because that would be hard and emotional for anyone. Missionaries usually go home when they are new or later on because they hurt themselves or get sick. I really want to stay here and not wake up one morning and decide to get sick. 

Not much has been going on other than that, except all the snow we have been getting especially last night. We got snow, then freezing rain and today it has been raining and will then start snowing and there will be black ice underneath that so it might be rather dangerous tomorrow. People have been calling us on our P-day more than any other day asking for our help and we have been way busy today so there hasn't been much time to help people. I don't have much else to say. 

I know that this church is the true church once again established on the face of the earth, I know that through our savior Jesus Christ and the Atonement we can repent and be cleansed from these feelings of guilt and shame through repentance and forgiveness. I was reading from Alma 5 the other day and I really love that chapter, so I invite you to read Alma 5 and really think about it and write down any impressions you get. I have a testimony of repentance and forgiveness, I know that It can be done and that we are all able to be clean once again. I love you all and pray for you.

Love you, I'll send the weekly email soon! One thing I've learned is
the importance of our studies every day. That helps keep the spirit
with you, also doing family study and prayer. It's like personal and
companion study on a mission. 

Have a great week!

Love, Elder Casper