mission tour with a Elder Bennett. Not too much has happened this last
week but some cool miracles took place!
Wednesday we went to look up this lady named Senka O'Connor and we
have looked her up numerous times with no luck. Well this was the
perfect time, we knocked on her door and the door behind us opens so
we start teaching and share the Hallelujah video with her. She loved
it and she took a Book of Mormon and after we talked a while we asked
her name and it turns out it's Senka! She wants a copy of the Book of
Mormon in Yugoslavian, we have those in the office, I know because I
saw them. It was super successful, it was nice talking to her. Now we
just need to get a copy for her so she can easily understand.
Thursday we had weekly planning, when we got to the church we got this
referral named Lawrence Grecco. We called him and he is super
interested in our church. He went to temple square a few years back,
visited the conference center and saw the tabernacle. Lately he has
been doing research on how we do missionary work and he felt inspired
to learn, he also has a wife! Families can be together forever! We
also had to go to the 87th street chapel to get a Spanish Book of
Mormon and pamphlets for Jenny Martinez. I got to see my MTC companion
again, elder Essler (since he is in the same zone as I am). I love it!
We call him Honey Bear, it's been his nickname for his entire mission.
It's great. We got back and finished our planning and then had a
dinner with the Calders! Yay! We had dinner on the roof of their
building, we ate some yummy hamburgers. Brother Calder has a business
and he makes the smallest wallet I've ever seen, it's called the 1/8th
inch wallet, you can search his company, Anson Calder. It's awesome.
They are so awesome, I love em to death! We quickly went into
Century21 and I bought 2 new short sleeve white shirts for the summer.
They were $13 a piece. The brand is Pierre Cardin and I want to buy a
couple long sleeve shirts so I can retire some of my older ones. I'll
probably wait awhile. I also got this super awesome floral tie, for
floral tie Friday. Century21 is the go to place to buy ties, I love
penguin ties, I also love floral ties. Yeah. We ran into a guy who
used to work for Bonneville audio place which is the same company that
does general conference. It's sweet. We met some members from Utah and
when I told them how cheap the shirts are, this guys wife didn't want
to leave until they bought him a new shirt.. I felt bad for the guy.
Friday was fun, as we are walking to the projects and this guy stops
us, his name is Dave Michaels, he lives in Staten Island and Has met
with missionaries. We talked with him for an hour and he told us his
life story. It was a super cool experience, and he is a good guy. We
had to go and pick up mail. One of the elders convinced us to go get a
gourmet New York donut, so we went to this place and the line is out
the door, 3 stores down so we turn around and go back to the church. I
guess New York donuts are good? Idk Krispy Kreme is here too, good
enough to me! Our appointment with Lawrence canceled until this
Thursday so I'll let you know how it goes! At night we went to go see
a less active and her non member husband to teach them the lessons. We
went with our bishop and our elders quorum president. They taught the
restoration and we added some comments and got some time to speak. We
will be meeting with them pretty regularly! It was super cool and it
was a fun lesson. Their names are Albert (non member) and Lorraine
(less active), they are getting married by bishop super soon. It will
be cool.
Saturday we did a huge zone APF in Central Park, at the Bethesda
fountains. We had 3 companionships there at a time and we switched off
every hour and a half. Some people flaked though. It was pretty
successful! We talked to a lot of people and had them come put where
they are from on our huge map! It was fun. We talked to a lot of
members. A lot of them kept trying to give us money and some
successfully did. One of them says that general authorities give money
to missionaries. One lady gave us $100 to go buy some ice cream with
all of us. We told her no quite a few times but she persisted. She is
this cute old lady from West Virginia and loves us. We have money to
use for missionary purposes, yay! We stayed there from 12-4 so I got
quite burned. My arms and face were as red as a lobster, whoops my bad
forgetting sun screen. After we left supposedly it poured. We met s
guy who served here in our mission, he got home 3 years ago. He had
the old president smith and president Morgan. It was great. We had
some Brazilian food at the Leals, we had coordination with the
sisters. The food was amazing! Brother Leal talked about his play
station 4 to me, and showed me the game he was playing right as we
came in. It's a good game. Anyways. I love their family.
Sunday was great, we had 4 people come to church! The Martinez family
and Yun. We won't be able to meet with the Martinez family until next
Saturday, so yeah it will be awhile with them. Yun is having a good
time at church, we are trying to set up a time to meet with him. It
hasn't been super successful, but we will keep trying. We had dinner
with the Vogelmann's, they are super great to us, I love them to
death. When we walk into their home, I feel like I am walking into
grandmas. Haha. Also we had a flash flood that evening, we talked to a
lot of people and also found this legit guy named Jay who told us to
come by tomorrow so we did on Monday with no luck.
Monday we had district meeting, we set a goal last week to get 100
contacts, talking to someone and talking about a gospel principle. We
got 109 this week and we are gonna exceed it! We set a new goal of 130
so we will gradually get better and talking to more people. I did a
way better district meeting than I have done in the past, it was
awesome, it was about chapter 10 of preach my gospel which is all
about teaching skills. It was powerful! In the district, I have been
out the longest! We did a lot of walking and did look ups. We also had
dinner with Brother Smith who lives up in Poughkeepsie, I know him
from the many times he has fed us and done stuff with us. We had Thai
food, it was super delicious, the place is called Thais New York. I
love him. He was baptized 3 months before I was and he worked at IBM,
yeah. He did computer science, one of my dreams. We will see.
Tuesday was awesome! We went to the Lincoln square chapel, so the
temple and we were taught from on high. Elder Bennett is a funny guy,
he served as a missionary in 2 missions, got transferred to a new
mission halfway through his mission. He proposed to his wife 4 times,
before she finally said yes. He made sure we know, not to tell a girl
that you have received revelation for her. Never! He talked about
their mission to a Russia Mission and he told us how his missionaries
got punched, kicked, spit on, hit in general daily. Our mission has
cuddly, fluffy rejection. He told us how his missionaries got rejected
100 times a day, we don't get close to that at all. He told us to open
our mouthes, we are already weird, show it, be peculiar, stick your
arm out and smile and shake people's hands. Talk to people at every
opportunity, there is no day that is too busy that you can't talk to
people. Open your mouth. He told us a beautiful way to introduce
ourselves and get straight to the point. "Hello we are representatives
of Jesus Christ, we share the most important message you will ever
hear, will you take 3 minutes to hear this message?" And when he said
that the spirit was so strong, I wanted to listen to that message. I'm
gonna try to use that. He also talked about how we hold more power and
authority than any president, King or queen on the earth, we are the
only ones who can bring people to Christ. Many missionaries have
served in the area I am in, many missionaries sowed, it's time for you
to reap. The field is white already to harvest. Asking for referrals
from everyone, also about being consecrated which is to make
everything sacred, to give everything you have to this. This is the
Lords mission, not mine. Make every moment count, use his time wisely.
He talked about how our current companion can be affliction, we need
to learn to be humble. The mission is the best time to prepare for an
eternal marriage. The doctrine of Christ isn't just a cycle, you have
faith, you repent, you are baptized, you receive the Holy Ghost and
then you have faith again. It isn't just that but it is more like a
spiral staircase in which you go up everytime you exercise faith, you
repent, renew your covenants, have the Holy Ghost. It's a lot cooler
to think about it like that. When Jesus Christ was in gethsemane he
saw each of us individually and saw everything we would go through and
he took that upon him. He suffered for much for me, you and everyone,
and if you think about that it brings a lot of joy. Also he told a
cool story of missionaries who walked outside during lunch to do work
as they were having a meeting. They talk to this guy who tells them
how he hates missionaries, these missionaries ask why so this guy
tells them the story. The senior missionary comes up to him and talk
to him, the guy tells him "I don't believe in God" the missionaries
say "How come?" And the guy says "Because I haven't seen him" the new
missionary says "well do you believe in Africa?" This guy is like
"yeah", the missionary says "well have you seen it?" And this guy
tells the missionaries to leave. 12 years later he runs into the
missionaries and now he wants to know because it's been on his mind
ever since. Elder Bennett said he could imagine the spirit just poking
him over and over and over again. Because he just realized I don't
believe in God, but I believe in Africa. It was Hilarious! Anyways it
was a super spiritual meeting and we had a super good time. I loved it
and being able to be taught from on high is so cool. We taught Jose
Buco as well, he recently returned from Ecuador and he got us a
souvenir! It's a little statue of the center of the world. We taught
him the plan of salvation and he really doesn't understand it. When we
ask questions he would tell us some crazy answer. We will have to go
back over it again with him. Jose is an interesting one but we love
him. That's been our crazy week, we will definitely be more effective
now than we were 2 days ago. I love this work.
I know this church is true, I know that our savior Jesus Christ
assigned me to the New York New York north mission through an apostle,
the creator of the universe assigned me here, and he assigns every
missionary that has ever been on a mission or that will ever go. I
know this is his work and he knows when people are ready for the
gospel. I'm grateful to be here and I know I'll see more miracles in
these last few months. I love you all, I really do. I hope you know
that. Take care and have a great week!
Also this is my new favorite scripture: "And whoso receiveth you,
there I will be also, for I will go before your face. I will be on
your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your
hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up." D&C 84:88
but in order to have people receive you, you need to open your mouth.
Which leads to this scripture: "I, the Lord, am abound when ye do what
I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise." D&C 82:10
Love,
Elder Casper
1. A group of us at Bethesda fountains taken by a group of girls from BYU.
2. 14th street!
3. The statue from Jose Buco
4. Elder Casela and I while we were waiting for our clothes.
5. A video of a storm in the summer time here in New York.
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