evening to Friday morning. Just a sore throat, not too terrible but I
have gotten better,but it's still there. I am like my normal self but
just with a sore throat and I've been sweating buckets out here. Man
when New York gets hot, it gets hot. We pretty much skipped spring and
went right to summer.. It's gonna be a hot summer! Anyways it's also
been a little tough because our money didn't come in until this
morning so I had to use a lot of my personal funds for both of us
since elder Casela doesn't have a personal fund. I'll get it all
reimbursed. I already sent the receipts in so it should be coming
soon. I'll get right into it! Oh Transfers happened too, Elder Casela
and I are staying!
Last Wednesday we had Coordination because the Sisters had a baptism
of Lucinda coming up so our ward mission leader wanted to talk about
that. We also got an egg on bread, Brazilian style (since our ward
mission leader and his wife are Brazilians). Really good!
Thursday we had weekly planning, Elder Casela had a head ache so he
slept until about 12:30 after we did studies. We left around 1:30 and
got to the church and did our planning. After our planning we had to
go to our dinner appointment at the Sotos where I helped Sister Soto
figure out how to work her nutri bullet, and also they asked if I knew
how to fix computers, I told them I could give it my best shot and
yeah they need to go to the geek squad, they need the disk in order to
start up. But it was fun working with technology again, I miss it!
This is where a super cool miracle happened. We were walking home and
Elder Casela stops on this corner and says "let's go this way", I'm
like "but our apartment is down the road here" we talk for acouple
seconds and then as we start walking this guy and his wife come up to
us and ask us where our temple is. We told them 65th and Columbus but
then told them where our church building was and we told them about
the baptism too, and they seemed excited to go. This is the Martinez
family, they had 3 other encounters with missionaries. Once in Queens
about 10 years ago. They are cool, Jose and Jenny Martinez. They gave
us their number.
Friday we were lucky to help with an APF and the Zone leaders, but on
the way to a look up prior to we met this lady from Caldwell Idaho. I
was like oh I used to have an Uncle and Aunt that lived there. She
took our picture and put it on this Facebook page Missionary Mommas..
I guess it's for moms who have sons on missions and you hope that
someone puts our picture on there so you can see us. Yep. Anyways. We
had an APF in the Blazin sun at the Bethesda fountains in Central
Park. I swear people probably thought we were crazy because we had a
huge world map pained on a board and we were standing in the sun for
over 2 hours. Members were coming up to us and thanking us for all we
do. Sweating for days but we had a purpose and talked to a lot of good
people. I'm gonna tell 2 good lines one of my zone leaders used. One
was to a family from London, he asked "Do you like Harry Potter?" And
the other one was to these people from Ireland, "Do you like Lucky
Charms?". Anyways it was incredible, he is funny. We had to go to
Staples that night to print off papers for an APF we had on Saturday.
Using those computers costs an arm and a leg. Yeah. 33 cents every
minute. 50 cents per page. I printed off a lot of pages. I will get
reimbursed.
Saturday we went to the Bethesda fountains and did good deed dares and
we talked to a lot of people, it was super awesome. And this guy came
up to us and told us that the Bible has the final say in anything, he
talked about how either Joseph Smith was true or he wasn't. He invited
us to read the bible... Haha it was funny, we just tell him to have a
good day, there isn't much to say. We went to Lucinda's Baptism and I
got to be a witness, it's really cool to have that opportunity to use
my Priesthood and see that baptism happen, it was very spiritual. At
the end, the Martinez family showed up! Jose, Jenny and Jean all came
to sacrament. They felt super welcome, everyone talked with them and
one of our members Sister Willford talked with Jenny in Spanish, even
though she didn't remember Spanish too well. Sister Willford brought
them up to do a chapel tour so we went up and we were just there. We
did give them each a Book of Mormon and a restoration pamphlet. They
said that they would come to church. And boy they did. Sister Willford
testified how the Book of Mormon has helped her in her life,
especially when her dad died. Oh I also got to have a Dr. Pepper ice
cream float, livin on the edge! It was like the time I had a monster
smoothie.
Sunday we got to church right as it started. The trains were super
delayed but we had to wait. We got there and too bad they weren't
there. We were asked to help pass the sacrament and during the water,
all 3 of them walked in and sat down with Sister Willford. It was
awesome! The ward literally just took care of them, we didn't do
anything! It was super great! I love when you have wonderful members
who just talk with our investigators and do the work for us so we can
talk with other members. It was super awesome. We didn't have much
else to do other than a lot of looks ups, it's hard when you don't
have money to use so you walk everywhere. It was incredible. We met a
member from Staten Island.
Monday we had aDistrict Meeting, yay the last one of the cycle! It
was good. We had to go to grand central afterwards to go to Scarsdale.
I met with President and man I know that the Atonement is real, we can
be cleansed and any burdens we feel can be lifted off of us. It's a
painful process but I know repentance helps us change and be better.
We can receive help from our Savior Jesus Christ, I plead with anyone
who feels guilt or shame, or has sins that remain on their minds, you
can have those sins completely wiped clean. It's worth it! We talked
to so many people that night who knew about our church and even have
met with missionaries before. We met this guy who studied our religion
and loves us. He is an atheist though. It was just incredible. We had
a Dinner with the Leals and Brother Leal plays PlayStation 4! We had a
good long talk about video games as we were waiting for the pizza. He
gave me some games I need to play when I get home, I'll check those
out haha! I love em!
Tuesday we had to travel up to the Inwood Chapel which is like forever
on the A Train, we were barely on time. President talked about how
Elder Bennett is coming to our mission to do a mission tour next week.
Ours is on Tuesday. Yeah. 6-4.. We will be taught from on high! It's
gonna be wonderful. He also talked about Safeguards for using our
iPads, and how if the devil gets ahold of a missionary then it can do
a lot of harm. Don't ever allow Satan into your lives, try your
hardest to do what is right. We had a dinner that night with the
Myres, Sister Myres served in the Bacolod Philippines mission, she
speaks Illongo brother Myres served in Brazil. It was fun to be
there, we had dumplings! It was amazing. We street contacted
afterwards, talked to this guy named Jay who knew who we were and took
a Book of Mormon, but wasn't really interested, then Joe who doesn't
believe in God and didn't even care, and then we talked to Bryan
again, the guy who taught us history last time about New York. We
talked for 5 minutes and then had to walk home. I really missed the
spirit, there is such a difference when you have the spirit. I'll be
sitting there and I'll feel the spirit hit me to say hi to someone.
It's super cool to have the spirit so strong again. It helps a lot in
testifying to people. I love being a missionary!
I know this church is true and it has blessed my life tremendously,
the atonement of Jesus Christ is real, it cleanses people and we can
be forgiven. We can have the spirit again with us. Jesus Christ died
for each and every one of us so we can be happy and we can be clean,
"no unclean thing can inherit the kingdom of God" so we need to be
clean. Repent and be forgiven, feel burdens lifted off your shoulders.
Do not procrastinate the day of your repentance. I'm grateful to be a
member. I love you all and this gospel blesses our lives!
Love,
Elder Casper
1. Freedom Tower
2. Elder Casela and I on the A train
3. Elder Burrell who is one of my best buds in the mission who sadly
went home today!
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