Week Fifty Seven

What's up everyone? 

It's been a party out here in East Boston, and I'm happy to report that our friend Bill got baptized. It was amazing to see him get baptized, and confirmed this week. It's amazing because our first week at church Bill just randomly showed up with his friend. He walked in right as we were walking out, and we talked to him and gave him a chapel tour. As we finished the spirit must have touched him because as we were getting ready to enter the chapel he said "hold up" and he ran outside and dumped his almost full large iced coffee out. Then he came and introduced himself to everyone. From then on he was just awesome to teach. He had very very good questions, and I'll be honest, I felt like I was on missionary TV all the time, and that they must have been filming "The District" part 4 Boston edition, because he was just so solid, but also a challenge at times. He went out teaching with us as an investigator as well. He lost his car because he left his job, and he began to walk 12 miles round trip to our lessons, and to church. Now that he's a member, he got up and told everyone he's most excited to receive a ministering family! This man is something else!

We have been working a lot on facebook recently and finding through there, and from it so far we have found a couple of less active members, and recently set a date for baptism with an investigator. Two of the less actives we found randomly showed up to church on Sunday, and we didn't even invite them! 

We went on exchanges with the assistants this week, and I went with Elder Hardcastle. We came out at the same time, and it was a blast just hitting the streets of Everett and Boston. We were talking with one guy while he was walking himself to the hospital. To end the exchange we ate at Smashburger. It was the first time I'd been there since the day I left on the mission! Good times. I just want to give a quick shout out to the awesome lady that gave us money to buy shakes at Smashburger. She's the homie.

We also had MLC this week. That was really awesome. We talked about the goals we have and what we have to do to reach them. The entire mission looks to our zone as a miracle because we are brand new, and we have our work cut out for us. I'm glad to be here though, and I know that as long as we keep working hard, the Lord will continue to bless us with miracles. Anyways y'all should go out and look for some miracles in your own life. 

Bill got baptized!

Week Fifty Six

So this week was pretty great! 

We sent Elder Petersen home, and the bachelor suite now has an extra bed. We taught some more awesome lessons with Bill. He is my miracle man on my mission! In total he's walked near 100 miles to have lessons with us. We wish he would accept a ride.

City life is good stuff though. If appointments fall through we can just go contact the endless people walking the streets. The style out here right now is wearing slides, and a gold chain. Even some of the dogs got chains out here.

We ate a whole buncha food this week. Elder Solomon threw up a few times because of how much. I also had fufu for the first time this week. Es ok.

 

Serving a mission has been life changing, I've met so many people I love and care for. 

I'm out of time this week, be safe and spread some love! Bye!

We took Rachel to the temple for Elder Petersen's last day.

Mom edit:  I didn't know what fufu was so I had to look it up!  Just in case any of you didn't know what it is either,.....

Fufu -  dough made from boiled and ground plantain or cassava, used as a staple food in parts of western and central Africa.

Week Fifty Five

This week was good! We did a lot of finding, and teaching this week. Recently a brother in the ward got an assignment to find every less active member of the church, and see if they still live in the boundaries. So we have been going on splits with him a ton! It's been cool to meet a bunch of the members from the branch.

This week we taught a lesson to Abela and Stanley. They are both from Tanzania, and are really awesome! They speak Swahili there! We were teaching Stanley about baptism, and Abela came outside and decided she wanted to sit in on a lesson. So we had our lesson focused on 2 Nephi 31. Stanley had his scriptures on his phone, and Abela had an English copy of the Book of Mormon. I started us off and began reading. It was not going very well when I suddenly remembered briefly seeing a Book of Mormon in the car with foreign writing on it. So I said hold up real quick. I ran to the car and checked the book of Mormon, and it just so happened to be a Swahili book of Mormon! I ran back and gave it to Abela, and she was sooooo happy. She was in disbelief that they had Swahili copies. Then I went over to Stanley and changed his gospel library app to Swahili! We resumed the lesson with Stanley, and he read 2 Nephi 31: 3, and it says: 

3 For my soul delighteth in plainness; for after this manner doth the Lord God work among the children of men. For the Lord God giveth light unto the understanding; for he speaketh unto men according to their language, unto their understanding.

When he finished reading he was like "YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO is this for realll?" I hadn't realized what happened yet, and he started to read the language part.  He and Abela got really excited and wouldn't stop talking about it for a few minutes😂 we finally calmed him down and continued the lesson. The scripture is true though, and all of our testimonies of the Book of Mormon were strengthened at that moment!

Bill is also strengthening my testimony. Bill recently quit his job, and in turn lost his work truck. The day after he quit his job he texted us, and asked if he could go out with us to see what it's like being a missionary. So here we are driving from appointment to appointment with Bill in his mom's car behind us! He was a great investigator present! He was testifying of the truthfulness of what we taught and telling everyone that he was going to be getting baptized soon. The next few days really humbled me though. It has been pouring rain out here in Boston, like enough that roads were 4 feet under in some spots. Bill wasn't able to use his mom's car the last few days, so he walked 6 miles to get to the church for our lessons, and for church. He doesn't like accepting service from people so he didn't want anyone to give him a ride. He passed his baptismal interview though on Sunday, and is ready to be baptized.

It was a good week though, and I hope all y'all have a great week too! 

 Boston

Some pictures of Lynn yesterday, it was crazy.

Week Fifty Four

This week was awesome. We did a lot of teaching, and had a lot of fun. Since we have been finding a lot of people out here, our schedule is always full! I have found it is important to look for people all the time. During lessons, in between lessons, even while we are driving to lessons. This week we actually found a new person to teach in the car! We rolled down the window, and told him some of the Restoration from car window to car window. He took a pamphlet and we met with him on Saturday!

We have an investigators named Bill we have been working with. He puts in fences for his job, and has a Mohawk! He has been asking a lot of questions, and progressing really quickly. On Saturday we got a concerned text from him talking about baptisms for the dead. We had taught him about it before, but he found somewhere in the Bible that said communicating with the dead was an abomination. So we had a lesson with him before a ward party, and it was pretty intense. Omar the recent convert was there, and he did an excellent job teaching. While we were talking I asked Bill if he could pull up the scripture. So he showed us, and I took a look at it, and said hoooold up. Is this Niv? Then I flipped to the same scripture in the King James version and it all made sense. He was so happy that we found that. He came to church the next day, and during Elders quorum near the end he walked out of the room suddenly, and he looked a little upset. When the discussion finished he came back into the room with tears in his eyes, and he exclaimed "There's just so much wisdom!" It was awesome!

Fast and testimony meeting was awesome too. Almost all the recent converts stood up and bore testimony of their conversion. So the entire meeting was just hearing amazing testimonies. 

Besides all that this week has been great. I've loved this Boston life. The people here are awesome. Missionary work is fantastic, and I hope you all have a great week! 

 The Garden.

 Lawrence with all the red brick mills. 

Funny kid who let us borrow his hover board.

 Lynn. It's a lil dirty but it's all good.

 Bill holding a chicken.

A cool convert that is the dean of Harvard summer school. He took us to Chipotle and he isn't even in our ward.