the title later. It's been a pretty good week. A very spiritual week
at that and we haven seen too much success but so far this week we
have seen some.
Wednesday we finished out the night eating dinner with the Calders,
while we were there, brother Calder told me of that amazing pizza
place acrostic the Brooklyn bridge called Grimaldis and right next
door there is a place called Julianas which is really good too. I
won't ever get to try them on my mission but they are super good.
After the mission . Brother Calder gave us a brilliant finding idea,
to have a board that says "What are you most passionate about?" And to
be able to answer that question. Like I'm passionate about technology,
or the gospel ya know? They are super awesome!
Thursday we had Zone Conference! President had volunteers teach the
restoration in 5 minutes, it was super spiritual and you could always
feel the spirit when the first vision is taught, some sisters taught
it in Chinese and it was super cool. It made me want to be able to
teach it that simply and powerfully. We also had a training by a
senior couple about family history and how we can help retain the
people we teach and help them to be more involved in family history.
The church came out with a new pamphlet for family history which will
be super nice. The spirit was there, it's super cool to be able to
feel the spirit so often as a missionary. I will miss being able to
feel the spirit this much all the time, but I know I'll be able to
have spiritual experiences without being a missionary. President
talked about building relationships in the ward. Sister smith talked
about sacrament meeting and how we can make sure we have spiritual
experiences. I hope you all have spiritual sacrament meetings, it's up
to you and how well you prepare for sacrament meeting. Give all the
burdens you carry to the savior, forgive yourself. It is so powerful.
We had dinner with the Croppers, they are awesome. Good conversations
and delicious food, sister cropper made the Cafe Rio sweet pork, it
was super bomb diggity. They are a great family and they have a kid
named Ladd.. Like that is super cool.
Friday we did our weekly planning and then went to the Doxford's for
some pizza and a delicious cheese, beef, cream cheese, spicy chili dip
that brother Doxford was craving. His wife went somewhere so it was
just us guys and his 2 young kids. He has these posters up of New York
in his kitchen. They are called Ork Posters, I super want those
posters. Brother Doxford is super awesome, it was a fun dinner and we
talked about his life and his conversion story. It was awesome.
Saturday we had service, coordination meeting which was fun. A pretty
unsuccessful APF At Washington square park which is part of NYU. Not
many people are interested but it was cool to have the opportunity to
talk about temples. It was super legit. One of our members bought us
some Halal food and left it at the temple. On our way back to eat it,
we talked to some members from New Jersey, I love running into members
and talking to people. We walked around some parks and said hello to
other people and got to talk to them. It was a super tough day but you
have those as missionaries.
Sunday was good, Saturday was one of those days where I just wanted it
to be over and wanted the sacrament. I wanted to restart and try
better because last week was pretty bad. I was grateful to see Yun
come to church again. I am giving a talk next week, I already know
what I'm speaking on. My conversion. It will be super powerful, I was
pondering and praying about it and that's what came to my mind. After
church we finished our studies and then went to the Vogelmanns, they
are so cool, they had some members over from our ward and then 1 from
Manhattan 1st ward. We talked about the sacrament and invited them to
invite their friends to church. It was a super good day, and some
members are moving and they gave us missionaries a lot of their food
they can't bring with them. That's the disadvantage of living in New
York. People are only here for a small period of time because they
move elsewhere. That's how the wards are here.
Monday was fantastic! The zone leaders came to my district meeting and
it was way spiritual, we talked about ways we can make baptisms more
spiritual. We teach the restoration in 5 minutes and it will help. We
also talked about ways we can help each other find more people and the
simplicity of opening your mouth. It was super spiritual and we
learned a lot. I love when we can feel the spirit, I hope to feel the
spirit a lot when I return home. Elder Casela cooked us a ton of
Filipino food, vicol express, patim, lumpia, pork chop, siomai. It was
all super good, it was like mana from heaven in form of a Filipinos
cooking. We went to DSW and I had to exchange the shoes I bought for a
size bigger, now they fit really nice. Mail came and we picked that up
and walked around Union square park with a visit Mormon.org sign. We
taught 2 lessons but one person was trying to convert us to become
Muslim. This other guy was super legit. His name is Michael Herrera,
he's been praying to God to find the right religion, he is on a
spiritual journey. When we told him the first vision he knew what we
were saying was true, he knows that other churches don't have the
authority and he wants to come to church. He lives up in Washington
heights which is Inwood. He works down at Union square and said he
would come to our church sometime, so hopefully we will see him!
Tuesday we did all our studies and went to Washington Square Park and
talked to people, they are always doing street performances there and
they are always super good. We went to the church and went to do an
APF at Union square and it was raining but we talked to a guy who
lives in Brooklyn who wanted a Book of Mormon but wasn't interested in
meeting with us. We did a lot of street contacting. Then we went home
and ate and back out to go tracting. On our way to the projects we ran
into this girl. We just said hey and she asked us if we had a lighter.
She had a blanket around her and she asked us why we were dressed so
nice, she also asked if the Book of Mormon had Devils in it and she
thought I was engaged because I have the choose the right Ring on my
right hand. She was super crazy and when we told her that Jesus Christ
came to the Americas, she was like "yeah the melting pot" anyways we
got out of there and gave her the Book of Mormon. She asked where
elder Casela was from and he told her he's from the Philippines. She
starts to speaking to him in some random language like Ghanaese to him
thinking its a language from the Philippines. As we were walking away
elder Casela said get thee behind me Satan. We looked back at her and
she was running away. It was a weird. The whole time we were talking
with her she was sticking her tongue out and doing weird things. It
beats me. She was probably a drugee because of her initial question.
Tracting was fun but we ended up going back home afterwards. So there
is this guy from Provo Utah who recently moved to New York to work, he
got off his mission from Brazil 3 years ago but on Saturday night he
came over to grab his keys because we were holding onto them for him.
Last night he came over to borrow our ironing board and iron and he
brought us a bunch of chips. He is super cool. His name is Daniel. He
has offered to come to lessons with us, the only problem is he is in a
different ward, the Manhattan YSA ward. He is legit and he lives
directly behind us.
So lately I have decided to remember a scripture a day. Today I
remembered Doctrine and Covenants section 4. I know I have been on my
mission for a while now but I finally have it down. My mind has been
filled with scriptures lately which has helped me. One of my previous
companions told me of a promise that President Monson said quite a
while back when he was in the Quorum of the Twelve. "If a missionary
will remember a scripture a day, he will come back with a photographic
memory." I took on the challenge a little too late but I think it will
be really helpful for me to have a better memory and to understand
things better. I'm gonna keep it going and try to remember lots of
scriptures so they can be in my arsenal for when the spirit needs to
pull them out. I love this gospel and I hope you all have a great
week! Love you!
Love,
Elder Casper
1. Zone Conference, from left to right. Elders Stevenson, Essler,
Cheney, me, Sanford and Casela being lifted up.
2. Battery Park
3. That cool Jenga looking tower
4. New Jersey
5. Our area from the top of a project.
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