Apartment A45

February 10, 2020

Welp, I am not going to lie, this week was the hardest week of my entire life.  I don't even know where to begin explaining the situation we are in. First of all, long story short, we didn't have any food! My new companion, Elder Larson, is VERY intensely obedient, and did not want to go grocery shopping on transfer day just to be safe (even though we had permission to buy the things we need). So that was frustrating, and we have been eating PB&J sandwiches every day. But, we ran out of bread! Luckily my mom sent a package with some food in it, which saved us for a few days. Then we ran out of food completely, so we visited members towards the end of the week and just hoped they would share something with us (and they did!). But that is not the only reason why this week has been so hard...

We realized that almost none of the people we are teaching are progressing, and they aren't willing to keep the commitments that we have invited them to do, so we stopped teaching all but 3 of the people we usually teach. That means, we spent our entire week FINDING new people! Prime time is usually from 6PM-9PM, but since we are desperate, we have been doing it from 1PM-9PM because we need to find people to teach. So that's been physically hard, and our days have felt super long! We have been trying every finding tactic we know of. Visiting part-member families, using the golden list, asking EVERYONE we see for referrals, talking to everyone, we even started to preach to entire trains at a time just to reach more people, which was scary. We also started teaching an English class at the church for anyone we meet that wants to learn English. People from the ward can bring their friends, and we hope we can find some new people that way. Seriously, we have been working so hard and nothing has worked. Several people on the street told us that we are wasting our time, which was so discouraging. New York can be really mean, I am sure you can imagine. Not to mention, the weather has been pretty brutal, so it is no picnic to be out looking for people who are willing to hear our message. I have never worked, or prayed harder!

One day, we were talking to a girl on the street and asked if she knew anyone who needs a message of peace and comfort. She told us that a lot of people hang out at a nearby pizza restaurant, and we should try there. We don't normally do that, so we decided not to. After that, we started asking another random lady for referrals, and she told us to go to that same pizza restaurant! We thought, "maybe Heavenly Father is trying to tell us something", so we went to the pizza place with no plan, hoping for someone to be waiting for us who needs to hear the gospel. We got there and didn't really know what to do, so we split up and each sat at tables with random families and tried sharing a message with them. Kinda crazy. Turns out, no one in that pizza place wanted to hear our message. We were sad because we were hoping for a miraculous experience of being led to someone in need, but... we were only led to some rude, hungry New Yorkers.

We got hardcore rejected all week, with no luck. And New Yorkers can be pretty mean, so we did not feel good. Until, on Sunday night, we knocked on doors in an apartment building. It was literally the 4th floor, and the last door. Apartment A45. It was the last door we were going to knock for the entire week. We met the person we have been praying to find, and searching for all week! Franchesco! He said his whole family was planning on being baptized, but they went on vacation to Colombia, and when they got back, the missionaries never stopped by again! So his family just... didn't get baptized! ALAS! OUR HARD WORK, PRAYERS, AND TEDIOUS EFFORTS HAVE PAID OFF! We found someone wants to meet with us! It was truly a miracle, and God tested us all week with patience and faith and hard work. We were losing so much motivation, but we knocked, and we did receive. Hallelujah, indeed.

So, a little about my new companion, Elder Larson! He is from a small town near Houston, Texas. He is super obedient (like, if we get home a minute before, or a minute after we are supposed to, he feels like the world is going to end). He is honestly a pretty intense missionary and just works super hard, which is what this area really needs. Even if we had a lot of food, I am pretty sure he would still only eat PB&J sandwiches because that's just what he likes. He is pretty intense and kind of hard to work with, but I truly believe that this area needs some of his intensity in order to progress.

Here are some scriptures I read this week that really helped me, so if you are going through a rough time, maybe they can help you too. Alma 31:30-38, D&C 100:4-6, Alma 36:3, 1 Nephi 16:15-31, and Mosiah 23:10. 

Sorry for the long email this week, have a good week! And please pray for Elder Larson and I, and also the people in Richmond Hill so that they can be prepared to receive the gospel!

Elder Webster