Monday, June 30, 2014

Short Hills Week 7 - New companion, New Mission President

Wow this last week has been crazy! Thank you for all the prayers and support! I am doing good. We had transfers on Tuesday and I got a new companion, named Elder Lopez. He is originally from Oaxaca, Mexico but moved to Pennsylvania when he was 11. He is such a awesome missionary. He is on his third transfer, just got done being trained by one of the ex-assistants so he knows his stuff. I have already learned a lot from him. We get along super well though. We are pretty quite but we have been laughing a lot together as well. He knows perfect Spanish so I have been able to ask him tons of questions that I have been building up the past 11 months. Its really helping me. I think Heavenly Father gave me this transfer just to learn Spanish and improve my teaching even more. Its been a blessing.

Yes, the 4 man is now a two man! Pretty sad move but we are holding down the fort well together. Its a massive apartment for us two. Its three stories. We have a "weight room" below, a kitchen and a big room where we sleep, then two study rooms and a bathroom upstairs. We are actually getting a new apartment in a few days though. We checked it out and it looks sweet.

We taught one of our investigators named Vi---. He is such a humble guy and always seeking the truth. We teach him just on his front steps and we invited him to church this past week but it was a no-show. We have been committing him to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. We have invited him to be baptized a few times, but he is still "thinking about it." Its all good though.

We got to do some service for one of the sister's half investigators. She was German. We had to sand her deck down, just me and Elder Lopez. It took us a good four hours in the sun. We even had those big machines too. It was way fun though. She invited us in for some lunch and she made us a bunch of German food. We went in and she just started railing on us for about a half hour about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. I don't think we said one word for a half hour. She was just going off. I looked at Elder Lopez a few times and I could just tell he was thinking the same thing I was thinking: -Crazy lady, we aren't backing down from what we know to be true, so don't try to tell us all your false ideas. If you want we can share what we know, if not we are going to get back to work-  So it was pretty nuts. We tried our best to help her but she was pretty set on her ways. Sad stuff, but we did laugh about it later. You can't force anyone, Only invite.

We taught this lesson last night to one of our member families. They are Peruvian and they invited two other ward members to come to dinner. All Peruvian. And all talking about the world cup. Man, all my Spanish was out the window. Ha I have never heard so much slang and heard such fast Peruvian Spanish it was nuts. Elder Lopez and I have really started to work with members and inviting them to do missionary work. Elder Lopez really opened my eyes from something his trainer, Elder Carballo, said. He said, talking to member, "If you don't know anyone prepared then prepare someone!" Such a true concept. I feel like when we think about people we know, nobody just really jumps out as being "prepared." But we can prepare people by doing simple things. It has been helping the missionary work grow here.

Haven't heard  anything about President and Sister Taggart being here, I hope they made it... Nah just kidding, but seriously...

Crazy Chloe is at half way! Mindblown!!!!  (Ben's sister on her mission is half way)

Things are going good.
Love you,


Elder Sumsion

Shoutouts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mom- Thank you for sending letters every week in the mail. They are a miracle at times. I love hearing about how everything is doing. I know its a lot of work but thank you.


The Barbers- Loved the quotes you sent from General Conference. We have plans to stick those up around new apartment.

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