Skip to main content

Phase 2!

June 22, 2020

Good news! Today marks the first day of phase 2 of reopening New York City! That means that WE CAN FINALLY BAPTIZE, we can finally get hair cuts (I am getting one today and I am so excited), and we can finally take the train instead of walking for hours to get anywhere!

With the long awaited authorization to have baptisms, we finally have plans to baptize Anibal this Saturday! He postponed his baptism last week because he accepted a job on a farm, but it turns out he only got paid like $4 an hour, so he quit after the 2nd day. The baptismal service needs to be really small (only 4 people will be there) and the program is only supposed to take about 20 minutes. We will be wearing gloves and masks the whole time, and it is going to be a really unique experience! I am really excited! Also, because we have been doing all our lessons over video call, I still have not met him in person. The first time I physically meet him will be at his baptism!

As District Leader, part of my job is to interview all the baptismal candidates that are in my district. Since my district is HUGE, there is basically a LINE of people waiting to get baptized haha, so I have been doing LOTS of baptismal interviews and it has been such a cool experience! One lady I interviewed, Lety, was so happy that she passed the interview, that she called Elder Weller and Elder Calder (the missionaries that teach her) to tell them all about it. They sent me a screenshot of them talking to her and I will attach it to this email. It made me super happy to be able to approve her baptism and see her excitement when I told her she passed!

Another cool experience I had this week was one night, Elder Chavez said to me, "Elder Webster, I don't feel like I am on a mission. I feel like I am at home, but just making tons of phone calls." I see where he is coming from, because our daily schedule is not what people typically imagine when they think of the mission life haha. I had an idea to read together a document called, "The 40 Day Purification Fast". The document basically invites us to fast from food and water for 24 hours, and after we fast, make a list of 10 things we want to give up in order to more fully dedicate ourselves to the work. For example, not scrolling through Facebook or not singing unapproved music. Elder Chavez LOVED the idea, and we decided to do it together! We each have our own personal lists, and we are sacrificing our natural tendencies to show our commitment to the work and to develop a missionary-mindset. It is like putting our favorite things on a sacrificial alter with the intent of being more worthy and receptive to the spirit. Ever since we started, we have been seeing crazy miracles and success! It is really awesome to see Elder Chavez not only notice God's hand in missionary work, but also see him make the connection as to WHY we have been blessed. And the answer he always comes up with is that we are sacrificing our natural man tendencies in order to be more in tune with the spirit.

Mosiah 3:19 says,
"For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father."

One more cool thing I want to share! We organized a small little devotional zoom call with our favorite members and all the people we are teaching. One of our members insisted on helping us with the music! I am pretty sure this WASN'T allowed, but we met him at the church and he played piano for our zoom call and we filmed him from 6 feet away :) All the members loved it and want to do it again next week! The people we teach also gave us a lot of positive feedback! Anibal even said the closing prayer in front of all the members! It was sweet!

Have a great week!!

Elder Webster

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fireworks or Gunshots?

October 16, 2019 I feel like I am in an episode of Naked and Afraid. Except I'm not naked, I am just afraid. Haha just kidding, but I do feel like I am on survival mode, because we made popcorn in the drying machine because our house doesnt have a microwave. My district also likes playing a game that we like to call, "Fireworks or gunshots". Every night we hear loud bangs, and most of the time it is fireworks. But sometimes, it sounds more like a gunshot, and then we usually hear police sirens afterwards. So we all make guesses on if its a firework, or if someone got shot. Kinda sketchy, but theres not very many other games we can play haha. The CCM is starting to grow on me! Its literally prison but I am used to it. I am on week 3 of 6, so I am halfway done! The first 2 weeks were really, really hard, but I think I have adjusted to the lifestyle by now, and warmed up to everybody. But staying inside the classroom all day, everyday is driving me crazy! I am counting down...
Post a Comment
Read more

Zone Conference Week

 August 16, 2021 What's good!!! This week was Zone Conference week, so we were running all over the mission giving trainings and making sure everything went smoothly. It was my last Zone Conference ever, which was sad, but I was honestly pretty relieved after it was over because its really stressful organizing the whole thing. Departing missionaries are always asked to share their testimony at their last Zone Conference, but because I attended ALL the zone conferences, I got to do it every day.  We dropped Elder Money off at the airport on Thursday morning! It was super sad! I love that guy. He was such a great companion! Elder Call and I actually had time to do normal missionary work yesterday for the first time in months! We grabbed a stack of Book of Mormons and rode the subway up and down Manhattan for a few hours and passed out as many as we could. Elder Call met a guy named Nephi who isn't even a member of the church. It was so cool. I met a guy from The Bronx that spit ...
Post a Comment
Read more

"Hurricane" Henri

 August 23, 2021 To whom it may concern, This week was great! There was a hurricane over the weekend so we were in a hurry trying to contact parents and get missionaries who live on the coast to safer places to live as we waited out the storm. We were all very underwhelmed because it was probably the weakest hurricane in history haha, but I am glad no damage was done! All missionaries were on lockdown and church was cancelled. We live in the same building as President and Sister Holmes, so we were on lockdown with them and spent the day working on things together. I feel extremely blessed. They are changing my life every day. Elder Call and I got to proselyte a lot this week! It was my first time doing it in a few months, so we gave it everything we had, especially because neither of us have much time left to do it! We found a few new people to teach, but the biggest miracle was Mario! We met him at a taco stand when we were getting lunch. It turns out he was already meeting with t...
Post a Comment
Read more