Fun Days

Hello to the world!

 

Sorry this email is going out so late, I've had a long day in

Manhattan but a really fun one! I'll get to that later though!

 

This last Thursday we went to a members house for dinner and we got to

hear a lot of funny mission stories, and it made me think about some

of the funny experiences I've had. We really love eating at members

houses. One of the Kids he had was talking about his older brother. He

said "Tyler likes Care Bears... That's a baby show". Keep in mind the

oldest kid is 9 and the second oldest is 8. It made us laugh for a

good while, one of the funny experiences I've had.

 

I also got a hair cut recently, I got a 2 on sides and she cut the top

of my head and members keep complimenting me, but I think it looks

nice. Even if it doesn't. We did service on Saturday with the Danbury

Elders and it was fun, we got to work in the outdoors and get a nice

little tan... More like a burn.  Anyways a tick landed on my arm, but

I saw it and flicked it away. I don't have time to deal with a tick.

 

We have been getting opportunities to do service lately, from

missionaries in our district and I've been excited. The weather has

been nice lately and we have been able to render service to anyone we

see. I love doing service, it's one of my favorite things about being

a missionary, teaching is still one of those things that I'm not super

good at and its something that I want to improve.

 

Yesterday we were able to teach a group of 11 people at a local

community church, we were able to share what we believe and they

pretty much bible bashed us. A couple of the people were interested,

so that will hopefully be promising.

 

Today has been a good day and a long one. I made one mistake today by

not bringing any water. We were supposed to leave at 6 this morning

and get to South Ferry at 8 but we ended up getting there around 11.

It was so fun to be on Liberty Island and see the Statue and get

beautiful pictures of Manhattan and of the surrounding areas like

Brooklyn and New Jersey. We went to liberty island and I got a lot of

pictures, and there was a huge spider on my shirt collar and I didn't

see it but someone came up to me and flicked it off, and it was super

close to my neck. That freaked me out. Anyways we decided to not go to

Ellis island because we were starving and thirsty and we didn't feel

like walking around a museum. We got back to shore and walked for a

good 45 minutes to the Brooklyn bridge and went to the halfway point

(where the north and south missions boundaries are). Got pictures,

went to china town for some Chinatown buns, for like .90 cents a

piece. Then to century 21 and we got a unity tie. We met this guy

named Matthew who is from queens who just got off his mission from

Bakersfield California. He talked to us for a bit and then asked if we

have eaten yet, and we told him we have a dinner tonight. He was

totally going to offer to take us out. People in our mission are so

dope. I have some pictures to send, well a lot but I will only be able

to send you some today! I want to send them all!

Many Miracles

Hello to anyone reading this email,

 

I hope everything is going to well back home and everyone is safe. So

on Monday our Zone leaders told everyone that we are meeting together

as a zone so they can tell us a special announcement. President Morgan

has announced that every companionship needs to spend 3 hours of their

day finding people. The numbers in our mission are too low, so we need

to find more people to teach and have a big teaching pool!

Missionaries find people to teach and then teach that person and stop

finding, but we always need to have people to teach so we don't have

to keep repeating the process of finding. If we are continuously

finding then we will always have someone to teach. I have seen

blessings come from these 2 days where we spend hours of our day

tracting. There is always someone to teach, someone we can reach out

to and teach them. Everyday we have done this we have found a person

to teach and the mission is going to explode with baptisms and people

to teach and we are excited!

 

Saturday we went Service tracting. We saw this older lady doing some

gardening and we offered service to her and she accepted. We planted

10 trees, and The gardening that I have done before my mission has

helped me do better planting. She was asking us questions about our

church while we were doing service. We finished and she offered us

water and we shared the he lives video with her and she is interested.

Her boyfriend offered to buy us pizza, and we never turn down free

food. We taught them and they are interested in learning more. They

are in their 60s and not married and living together so this will be

fun! :) that was super successful!

 

I went on with 2 splits within a week, wither Elder Leung again, and

Elder Whittaker. I have learned a lot from them and I had a wonderful

time with them. We tracted a lot together and we didn't see much

success but there are a lot of people who are friendly towards us and

thinks what we do is nice and good for everyone to hear.

 

Yesterday we ran into some Jehovah witnesses and one of the guys sees

us and says "it looks like Mormons" and we are like "Yeah how are you

sir?" He tells us that when he was in Germany he would buy the

missionaries 7 UPs because they were American. We thought that was

dope. He left the military to be a Jehovah's Witness. They are nice

and we respect each other for what we do, we don't dis each other.

They know a lot of Mormons and are great friends. It was a cool

experience.

 

We offered service to this guy yesterday and he tells us that he is

Hindu, tells us about his religion. He showed us his Hindu temple in

his house and it was a cool experience! We gave him a B.O.M. And

invited him to read it. He wants to hear what we believe. There has

been a lot of cool experiences. Without the guidance of our Heavenly

Father we wouldn't be able to find these people who he has prepared

for the gospel. Prayer is an important aspect of missionary work, and

talking with EVERYONE! It is a lot different to find people upstate

compared to the city. In the city we talk with everyone, here we tract

for days.

 

There hasn't been too many interesting things going on, I am letting

Elder Neuerburg drive now, I am bored of it and I want to be able to

relax a bit in the car. I am excited to teach more people and have

more fun here and really feel the need for the gospel in these

people's lives. I am excited to skype with you guys on Mother's Day, I

really love each and every one of you. I hope you have a blessed week!

 

Remember what Christ has done for us, read the Book of Mormon and pray

about it. Ponder everything you read and you will find your answer.

 

Elder Domenick Casper

Great Week

Hello to everyone who is interested in my week,

 

How is everything? There is not much to say about this week. We have

been tracting still, at least 1 door a day and on Monday we knocked on

this door and told this guy who we are are what we do. We asked if we

could share a video. He says "yeah, let's see it" so we showed him.

Gave him a Book of Mormon and it was great! He was interested but he

was busy. We will probably go back and see him soon.

 

Our progressing investigator Darwin is doing good, but has been really

busy and hasn't been able to meet with us lately. He is the closest to

baptism. The 2 new investigators we got haven't been free to meet and

have been really sick so we will be meeting with them soon. Yesterday

I went on another split with Elder Leung and we got 2 member present

lessons which was dope. We tracted yesterday and we knocked this door

and this guy who is tall looks through the window above the door at

us. He opens the door and says "no" and shuts the door. That was

pretty funny. We got a new investigator yesterday, a part member

family where the girlfriend is a member and the boyfriend is not. He

was interested in learning more so we will teach him.

 

We are hoping to see many more miracles as long as we show God we are

willing to do the Hard work. We really want this area to become strong

and have a strong teaching pool. We have been using our time more

wisely and seeing blessings because of it. I need to get better at

contacting and tracting so if I train I can do a lot of it with him.

 

One thing that has been cool this week is I've lost 10 pounds in 7

days. I'm back on the meal plan and I'm excited to start dropping

weight. I've been so stocked to go do missionary work ever since I've

been losing weight. Hopefully by Mother's Day when we skype, you can

see a difference in how I look! I'll be skyping you in one month! :)

I've been waiting to buy short sleeve shirts until I am smaller so I

don't waste any money. I love you mom and dad, thanks for being

supportive of me to go on a mission. Thanks for giving me that push

and really allows me to make my own decision. I love you all and hope

you the best of week! :)

 

Elder Domenick Casper

General Conference and Miracles

Hello everyone, this week has been pretty crazy with a new companion

and all. This last Wednesday was crazy with getting home from

transfers and writing family that we had to finish our shopping and

that was the end of it.

 

So I'm taking over the area, because my companion is new here so

planning was a bit difficult but I managed getting good plans and

goals with Elder Neuerburg. We made a VGPA, which is our vision for

this area, goals, plans and accountability. It really helps us do good

and be better hard working missionaries.

 

My Birthday was very fun, it was our most jam packed day of teaching

last week. Came back from the gym and our door was decorated with

balloons and a Happy Birthday sign, with a card from the sisters in

our district. We had a good time teaching and some missionaries in

this zone threw me a small birthday party with 2 pies. We walked into

the Danbury building and we walked into the back and the room light

was off but there was like a fire flicker, I was wondering what that

was exactly. Walked into the room with a surprise "Happy Birthday

Elder Casper!" I was so happy, and suspected it was that. I love the

missionaries in our Zone, and they are super amazing. A member was

going to take us out but he was tired from a flight home so he left

$40 in the door for us to go get food. We got Burger King. Haha but it

was close and I wanted to teach more children of God. So we ate then

went to a members and shared the Because he Lives video. It was a good

day.

 

I love general conference, and all the talks were great! Those two

days flew by and then we were back to normal missionary work. So much

revelation that comes from the prophet and the apostles. Jeffrey R.

Holland was my favorite but Elder Pearson of the 70 had a good talk.

Watching general conference as a missionary is different than back

home. I was paying so much attention and every time they talked about

missionaries I was like "I'm one of those missionaries!" It was really

fun and I felt the Spirit so strongly.

 

The Willis's had us over for Easter Breakfast and we had an Easter Egg

Hunt, I found the Golden Egg!

 

Now getting to the Miracles, During Personal Study I read in Preach my

Gospel about how to recognize promptings from the Spirit as

promptings. I have been feeling like we are having no success and I

feel like I wasn't getting promptings to do things. And while reading

that section I had the thought that I need to go Tracting. Something

President Morgan has said over and over, there is no way to show

Heavenly Father that you want it more, than by tracting. Tracting is

the most difficult part of missionary work, but doing that shows

Heavenly Father that you are ready for blessings. So Elder Neuerburg

and I made the goal that we would tract at least one door a day, and

if we have time do more. So we prayed and started tracting. The first

door we knocked on, this lady answered and she asked if we come back

another day. So we will be stopping by soon. A couple houses down we

gave a Book of Mormon to this guy. We have seen a lot of blessings in

the past couple days.

 

Yesterday we tracted in the morning, 4th door this girl comes out and

watches the video and we talk a lot about Christ, and gave her a Book

of Mormon and she was interested. Going to send the sisters over to

see her. President doesn't want us teaching girls, that is a rule he

has, and a good one to have. We got a media referral for this guy and

we decided to go hit him up at night. We get to the door and all we

heard was yelling and screaming and everything. We were thinking about

coming back later. We decided to knock, we hear this lady yelling "who

is it?" And we didn't say anything. The door swings open and we tell

her "Hi we are missionaries from the church of Jesus Christ of Latter

Day Saints, we got a message saying that Elliot wanted a Bible." She

yells to Elliot "Elliot the Jehovah's are here!" We correct her "no we

are Mormons" and she says "oh, come on in" so we went in and gave the

bible to them, Elliot didn't remember asking for a bible, even though

it was the same day we got the referral. She was telling us that she

was "church shopping and wishes there was more churches than just

Protestant and Catholic Churches". We told her that "We have a church

in Newtown". She was way excited and we were teaching them a little

bit about what we do. She was interested, she said "how can I do this

thing?" And we were confused and responded "what?". She says "how do I

learn more, do I sign a paper or anything" and we just told her how we

will teach them. Gave the Book of Mormon on the way out. Set up an

appointment for Thursday. They already said they would be baptized and

were way excited to read the Book of Mormon, she wanted to study it

all day. 2 days into doing the work we have already been blessed

immensely. The people in this area are so ready to hear what we have

to say, their hearts have been softened. 3 new investigators in 1 day.

We were so excited we were going to call President Morgan to tell him

about that cool experience we had.

 

I love this work and I really love being a missionary. I really

encourage you all to read Alma Chapters 37-42 because I have been

reading these chapters and have been able to do a lot of amazing

things. I invite you all to read from the Book of Mormon and pray

about it. Gain that testimony in this book of holy scripture that

testifies of Jesus Christ. Build your faith with a foundation of

Christ. I truly believe that this is the True Church, President Thomas

S. Monson is a prophet of God. I know the Book of Mormon is true. I

love you all and hope you have a great week.

 

Love,

Elder Domenick Casper

Dad,

My Birthday was really fun, some of the missionaries in my zone decided to throw me a little party with pie, I'll talk about that more in my weekly email. Being 20 doesn't feel that different, I'm still a missionary. We taught a crazy amount of lessons that day. Oh also thanks for the Tie, I wore it on my birthday! 

I did see conference, and I went to the priesthood session. My favorite talk was by Jeffrey R. Holland and elder Pearson of the 70. 

Easter was fun, thanks for the Candy. I'm back on the Meal plan though and lost 4 pounds already. 

My new Companion is tight, we go hard and do a lot to show the Lord we are ready for Blessings. We have gotten 3 new investigators in the past 3 days, the work is starting to go. 

Tell Brandi Congratulations for getting into BYU-Idaho, it is truly an amazing school! That is cool about the Winter/Spring track! She should go to Sunrise Village, I love those apartments! 

Thanks for sharing your mission experience, that really brings me a lot of Joy. I love hearing missionary experiences.

Love you,
Elder Domenick Casper

Ward Conference

Dear all who has come to read this,

 

How is everything? So this week has been a weird kind of trunky week

with Elder Tancayo coming to the end of his mission and I found who my

new companion will be last Saturday. I will talk about everything

later on.

 

Last Wednesday was a lot of driving to the mission home to drop Tank

off and then do the trio split thing, but that night was just

finishing our planning and then he slept because he was dead tired.

 

Thursday we got a hair cut and mine looks great. We went to this

member in the Spanish Branch and she cuts our hair for free all she

wants is for us to help her clean things. Her name is Mayera and she

cuts hair really quick, within minutes. My hair was exactly how I

wanted it and I can actually spike it again. It took her assistant an

hour to do my hair but then Mayera came over and just finished it

super quick and gave me a fresh look. We went home afterwards to

shower and plan. That night a less active took us to Buffalo Wild

Wings and told us to get whatever so we did. Afterwards we went to

Cold Stone Creamery and got some delicious ice cream. If you listen to

the people around you, you hear interesting things. People really do

see us, and we stand out as missionaries. Even though they may not

know what the means. It was pretty cool.

 

We have been doing this Month of Rescue thing in our Ward so we have

been busy looking up all the less actives and staying busy. We have

seen success because of it and we have loved the feeling of being

busy.

 

Saturday we got our shot calls, which is what is happening in our

zone. Most importantly with us. So of course Elder Tancayo but we have

been joking that he is opening a new area on Molokai Hawaii, looking

for that 10 cow wife, his eternal companion. But he will have a good

time at home. I am getting an Elder Neuerburg who is my Trainers

trainer. And he has 6 weeks left so I am killing yet another

missionary. It's funny that he is going to be my new companion. Before

we got calls I was wondering what it would be like to kill my

"grandpa" in the mission and sure enough. I heard he really goes hard

and loves missionary work so it should be fun. I'm taking over the

area and I know that it will be a fun 6 weeks but I'm going to be so

diligent.

 

Sunday was my FIRST Ward conference in the mission and Our Bishop

spoke, then Elder Tancayo bore his farewell testimony, and then

President Checketts then spoke to us. It was on how we can build Zion

and it was super amazing. I got a picture with President Checketts. I

guess he used to own Madison square garden. He is an amazing Stake

President.

 

These past couple days have been a little slow because of Elder

Tancayo packing and freaking out because he is going home. There are a

lot of thoughts that have been flowing through my mind and really

making me homesick but I have been trying to keep my mind off Elder

Tancayo. We have had a lot of fun while driving together. We have been

bonding so much more and we love being around each other. Now he is

going home so it is bumming. Anyways Transfer meeting is today so I

will let you know how things are going next week.

 

I love you all, remember the lord in all that you do. Check out the

Helives.mormon.org website, the video is now up and it is an inspiring

video.

 

Love,

Elder Domenick Casper

Last Days with Elder Tancayo

Hello to all!

 

This week has been interesting, we had a temple trip on Saturday and

Elder Tancayo is at the temple with the missionaries going home at the

end of this transfer. I am on a Trio split with Elder Richan and

Leung. We are having a good day but it's hard to be in a trio. It's

really inconvenient to have to do everything they need to do when I

don't need to do those things. Anyways now I'll talk about the week.

 

Last Wednesday after our nerf dart activity we went to a lesson with a

less active and she was going to take us out to dinner. Elder Tancayo

had a super bad head ache and he told her upfront and she gives him

Asprin and tells us we will reschedule. You know he is sick if he

wants to go home instead of eat food. We went home early and he slept

all through the night. He was out.

 

Thursday we weekly planned and had dinner at our Bishops house. He

started the Harlem branch which is the same ward that I served in

while I was there. That was super cool to know, he also started the

China town branch which is the ward Elder Leung has been in his whole

mission. It is cool how the Lord really understands and knows where we

need to be, even though sometimes it may not feel like we belong.

 

Friday was of course a snow day so we still went and did things. We

went to these less active members for lunch. They fed us some beef

stroganoff and white rice with this yellow sauce and chicken and it

was so good. For desert we had dulce de leche (which is sweetened

condensed milk that has been submerged in boiling water for 2 hours).

We put white cheese, the dulce de leche right on top of it. Pineapple

on the side or on top. It was super delicious and they are awesome.

They are a Brazilian family. We had lookups for "the month of rescue"

which is the month we reach out to everyone in our ward. Of course it

snowed all day and then into the next morning.

 

Saturday was the temple trip that I said we went on. Usually we can

only go to the temple on Pday, but Elder Tancayo asked the APs if we

could go. The trip was from a reactivated member who was receiving her

endowments. So we left at 7:30, got to the city at 9:30 and the

session didn't start until 11. The bishop of their ward paid for us

missionaries to eat. (His old bishop). We walked through Times Square

afterwards and got pictures. One thing I really dislike about the city

in the summer time is their is temptation everywhere. Seriously

walking through the city, everywhere you look there is people wearing

no clothes. It is so dumb and I feel bad for missionaries serving in

the city. It does not make me want to serve in the city in the

summer time.

 

Sunday we had church and lunch with a super inactive part member

family. The dad loves missionaries but doesn't want to ever come to

church again. We had a wonderful lunch and he took us for a ride in

his 2012 Chevy Volt. That thing goes fast and it is pretty cool to get

a ride. The only thing you can hear when riding in it is the road, no

sounds at all. It regenerates power when you slow down and charges it.

It would be a pretty good investment at one point.

 

Monday was district meeting and we went to banana Brazil and I had

quite of bit chicken hearts. They are pretty good and all the meat we

had was good but just way salty. It was for Elder Tancayo and we had a

good time.

 

Tuesday Elder Tancayo had his exit interview, so we went to Scarsdale

and I got to sit there and talk to office people.

 

So tonight there is a possibility that I may get a call from President

to let me know that I am training. President told elder Tancayo that

"I will be getting a new companion" but of course I am because Tank is

dying this cycle. I will let you know next week, and next week is

Transfers so hopefully it will be a big email to you next week.

 

The work is going good and I am giving my all, hope you are all having

a great time. That is everything for this last week, talk to you all

later!

 

Love,

Elder Domenick Casper

Hey Dad,

It has been cold and snowing and the dumb part is that it's spring, you're right it shouldn't be like this. I hope you have fun in Nashville and I hope you both feel good and have a wonderful trip together. You may not want to leave Brandi home alone, I'm not sure you can trust her to keep the house in proper working order. Haha just kidding.

The work has been going good, just a bit more tough because Elder Tancayo is going home but that's all good. I work out every morning and get huge, but I don't work out to get big, only to feel good about myself and concentrate on the work. I love working out. 

Thanks for sending me something, I really appreciate all you do for me :). We have an investigator named Darwin we have been teaching and so far he is following all the commitments we invited him to do. My studies have been intense. I am cross referencing all the lesson scriptures to the footnote scriptures. So at the end of each section in the PMG lessons, there are scriptures. I go through the scriptures and look at the footnotes and then cross reference them. It really has made me think more about the bible and how it connects to the Book of Mormon. I'm doing good here, no favorite scriptures at the moment. The ward here is an amazing ward, and I want to continue serving here. 

Love,
Elder Domenick Casper

Asian Splits

Dear Everyone,

Hey everyone this week has been a slow week.I

only have 2 weeks left of this transfer and then I have been out 4 1/2 

months and that is crazy to me.

Last Wednesday I went to the temple with the 

New York New York North Mission.

Saturday we helped move 2 people from the Danbury elders ward. They

are less active but all 6 of us elders went hard and it went quick. We

made a huge assembly line and and got all the boxes in the apartment

put in the truck really quick. This lady has like 3 floors full of

boxes and they are all written on in Portuguese so the Portuguese

elders and the lady knew what they said but no one

else. It was really fun, and the other move was up in the 8th floor

and we had the elevator, it took forever to do that but eventually we

got full control of the elevator. That made it so no one could access

the elevator but us, and that was super nice in the moving

process. The day we choose to

help move it rains all day.. So whatever.

On Monday we played billiards with this families kids and I got last place

and elder Tancayo got 2nd, but we have some pictures of that as well.

Nothing happened all the way until Tuesday, it has been a more boring week.

We have done a lot of look ups but this week we need to go way hard

and tract and make the best use of all the time we have. Tuesday I

went on a split with Elder Leung, in our area. We had apartment

inspections which Elder and Sister Lotz came up with dunkin donuts.

They looked at our apartment, luckily we cleaned that apartment good.

I guess we need to clean better in the kitchen areas though. Had a good day

introducing elder Leung to all the Asians in our ward (2 member

families). We taught 5 lessons, and tracked for an hour, and Elder

Leung taught me to always leave something, like a restoration pamphlet

and a card. We went to Johnny first and we read the Book of Mormon

with him and showed how the Book of Mormon answers those questions of

the soul. And also talked about church and hopefully he will come this

Sunday. We had lunch afterwards and we tracted from 2-3 and found some

success, this guy we found wasn't too interested but he has a friend

that is looking for something in his life. We got his number and

hopefully we will be able to teach him. 

One thing I need to work

better on is using time more wisely, like if we have time and not

doing anything before an appointment. We could go tract and plant

seeds for someone else to harvest. Make the best of every moment.

We had a couple less active lessons afterwards, the only reason they

are less active is because they are a little more aged and can't make

it to church. Had a dinner and then a desert appointment. We had a

good day and were really dedicated.

Something funny that happened while we were tracting is we knocked on

this door and this guy answered and said "nows not a good time" we

then asked "when is a better time?" And the guy responds "never". So

we were like out of 24 hours no time was good. We laughed after we

heard that. It was a good day.

That's all that happened this week, today we have a nerf dart war with

PVC pipe blow guns.

It's getting to that point where I will be buying short sleeve shirts.

Sometime in the near future. We have a mall here with all the stores

we have, also Costco.

So I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Elder Domenick Casper

New York New York North Mission