His name is Elder Westin Smiley (and yes he does smile) and he is from
Saudi Arabia! Originally from Colorado but he has been living in Saudi
Arabia for the past 3 years, he loves it there and it has been an
interesting conversation starter. He is super awesome, he has so much
in common. He reminds me of myself when I first started my mission and
I asked him what his favorite music is and he said "Anything but Rap
and Country", and that's exactly what I like. It is way awesome, I
can't believe I got someone who likes what I like. He even played
tennis because he's not a sport guy, just like me. He is so cool. Talk
more about him later.
Last Wednesday we played Gatorball and it was super fun, it was some
serious good exercise. It's always good to play sports on your Pday so
you can relieve some stress and usually we would have trainer calls
that night, I didn't get one so I assumed I was clear.
Thursday we did planning and street contacting.. It wasn't super
successful but we did talk to some cool people. Even a dude told us
after he rejected us and we kept trying, "I'm shocked at your
persistence in the face of rejection".
Friday we had an awesome day, we had faith and set a goal of 3 other
lessons taught and we got it! First we had Daniel, he thought that if
he joined our church he had to practice polygamy and that made him
uncomfortable, we cleared that up for him and he told us he still
wants to learn. Then we met Jimmy at our church and taught him the
plan of salvation and he committed to going to church in Brooklyn
(Where he lives) but he didn't but now the elders over there are in
contact with him. He told us that he wants to be baptized and he
totally will be baptized. He wants a church family and boy will he get
one. We then met with this kid named Niyiin (pronounced Nie-yeen) and
he is super cool and not too religious. We invited him to church and
he said he wants to learn more. I asked him after we told him about
church, "what are you doing Sunday at 10am?" He replies "Probably
going to church". It was fantastic. We also saw Carlos after and we
had a good talk with him but we had to leave. We followed up on the
Book of Mormon and he said he will read it. We were seriously blessed
to have those lessons, one right after the other. We also got to help
our bishop take down a bunch of tables that the ASL Branch set up for
their party the following day. Bishops son was being baptized so we
helped him take down all the tables and got to talk with him a bit.
Saturday we went to the baptism of Bishops son Merrick Arnett. We were
the witnesses and it's always a humbling experience because we get to
use the priesthood to witness the baptism to make sure it is performed
correctly and spoken correctly. We also had Yun Tian come to the
baptism! We stayed after and talked with the members and had some good
desert as well. We had an APF at the Bethesda fountains but we had to
leave early because we went to help a new member move from Astoria
Queens into our area. It was super awesome. They were cool guys and
the girl is a little less active so hopefully she will come to church.
After dinner on our way home we were walking to the projects and
President Smith calls. He says "As I've been pondering transfers, I
feel to call you as a trainer". I felt like he was gonna call me as an
assistant, or a zone leader but I'm fine with a trainer. We did some
looks ups but there was no success. We got our transfer calls and our
entire zone is either whitewash training, just training or being
transferred. 2 companionships stayed the same, that's it. Elder Casela
is going to Yorktown, the former AP is our sole zone leader who is
training. It's super crazy what happened this cycle but I guess that's
what the Lord wants.
Sunday was awesome, elder Casela said a lot of goodbyes. Dennis, Yun
and Reggie came to church so that's exciting. The talks were amazing,
brother Tarbet gave an amazing talk about shaking off the chains of
the devil. He also talked about the sealed on earth, is sealed in
heaven and loosed on earth, is loosed in heaven. He talked about how
if we repent that sin can be loosed on earth and in heaven because of
the priesthood authority that's in our church. It is seriously
wonderful. It blew my mind. Dennis couldn't stay after the sacrament
but he will come again next week! Yun and Reggie stayed for all 3
hours. We taught Yun the restoration right after church as simply as
we could. He had a lot of questions and we helped him understand words
and helped him relate them to other words he knows so it makes sense.
We will have to go over it a bit more but he liked it and understands
it. Then some members taught him with us about understanding the
answers to his prayers so that's incredible. There was a ward picnic
that night too, before that we brought the sacrament to a member from
Vermont who was baptized here in Manhattan. Yun came to the picnic and
stayed a while, we talked with a lot of members. It was a wonderful
night. Elder Casela had a bit of packing to do.
Monday was incredible too, we had district meeting, the last one of
this cycle! It was good, we talked about some finding ideas and one
idea that was brought up was having a ward event and we all want to do
that in our wards. It's gonna be sweet.. We will see what happens. The
spirit was strong. We had some dollar slices and got some chips and I
got a Mountain Dew grape kickstart. We had a good time and talked with
elders Newbold and Tatafu, because they are leaving. Sadly. We did
some finding and street contacting to invite people to come see what
our church looks like on the inside. Elder Casela had to pack so I
cleaned the apartment. I was getting pretty nervous to train, but I
slept pretty good.
Tuesday morning we woke up at 5:30, took all of elder Casela's stuff
with us to go to Grand Central station so I could split with another
trainer. It's really bizarre but it was super fun. We planned a sweet
Pday, we are going to the natural history museum, it's donation day! I
then met elder Westin Smiley from Saudi Arabia! He is cool and we
seriously have so much in common, like everything is in common. He is
a really cool dude, he also reminds me of Garrett a little bit. He
likes a lot of the same things I like. I love him so much, he is such
a good guy and has a good heart and I'm grateful to be able to learn
from his example as I train him. I'm pretty sure he will teach me more
than I will teach him. We went back to the apartment to drop off his
stuff and we were able to talk with everyone, conversations just
flowed. It's wonderful. We went to Washington Square Park and we did
the good deed dares and talked to this guy named John, everything he
was saying was what we would say as missionaries, he was teaching us a
lot of what we already know and believe. Elder Smiley has such a
strong spirit and he was guided by that, he did most of the teaching
and I just testified to what he said. We gave out 4 copies of the Book
of Mormon. We also taught Dennis the Plan of Salvation and Dennis told
us that this isn't contradictory in any way, it's just more in depth
than what any church could tell him. He's also opened to the idea of
baptism. It was so spiritual! We had a fantastic spiritual lesson and
I was praying for my companion and testifying to what he said. We were
both dead tired but it was wonderful to be able to do the lords work.
I am so grateful to be a missionary here in New York, I have grown so
much here in New York. This is where I have found my Jesus and I am
grateful for every single minute that I can serve here. It is hard but
it's so rewarding. I have been out for 20 months so you could say that
I'm an old missionary, I feel old every single day. Every night
everything hurts but I wake up in the morning and somehow I don't hurt
anymore. I love you, I pray for you. I hope you have a wonderful week!
Love,
Elder Casper
1-3.At the ward picnic, Yun is the Asian dude in the 1st in 3rd photo
and he is awesome!
4. Bro pizza party!
5. New York City!
Natural History Museum
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