How is everyone doing? It was so great to hear from you all! I would love to reply individually to you all but I don't have much time. So I will do this email first and then reply to the others if I can.Alright so let me tell you a little more about my area. I am in the Westchester area which includes a few cities including Yonkers (where we live), Hastings on Hudson, Dobbs Ferry, Elsford, Irvington,Tarry Town, Sleeping Hallos and Thorwood. Our area is really large so we use a car to get around. We got lost quite a bit this week because Sister Awerkamp hasn't had to drive before. But we are getting a hang of it. It varies as far as rich and poor areas. Yonkers is really poor and no one wants to live there really. We live in a nicer part of yonkers so we have a pretty nice apartment. Everything works just fine. We have a small kitchen with a stove, oven and fridge. There is one bathroom for all 4 of us. (There is a Spanish companionship and then Sister Awerkamp and I). It is really fun living with the other sisters. We only see each other in the morning and at night.
Down Town Yonkers can be a pretty scary part of town. We are not suppose to walk around there at night. There is one street in Yonkers where a less active and a member live that we go and visit on occasion. On this street there is a park where a lot of people (usually men) just chill and hang around. Everyone just stares at Sister Awerkamp and I as we walk to our appointments. Let me tell you, two white girls in Yonkers is a sight to see. We really stand out when we walk the streets because we are minority. Everyone looks at us and I am sure they are just wondering what are two young white girls in skirts and nice blouses are doing walking around in Yonkers. We really stick out. When we pass the guys that hang around at the park they will just stare shamelessly and make comments. It is rather uncomfortable but as Angela said "You just have to walk like you own it and they will leave ya alone". Last time we were in Yonkers doing look ups we decided to smile and say hi to everyone we passed no matter how rough they looked. This ended up being really fun and we saw that most everyone was happy to return a smile and a hello. There was one big, tall, rough looking black man we smiled to and said hello. He looked a little surprised and said hi back. When we passed him later he stopped his conversation on the phone the was having to tell us that we were so beautiful and had the most lovely smiles. No one really smiles or interacts with each other so it is really fun to break that and to be friendly with people and to watch them transform from something hard, mean or intimidating to someone kind and friendly by simply smiling and saying hello.
Down Town Yonkers can be a pretty scary part of town. We are not suppose to walk around there at night. There is one street in Yonkers where a less active and a member live that we go and visit on occasion. On this street there is a park where a lot of people (usually men) just chill and hang around. Everyone just stares at Sister Awerkamp and I as we walk to our appointments. Let me tell you, two white girls in Yonkers is a sight to see. We really stand out when we walk the streets because we are minority. Everyone looks at us and I am sure they are just wondering what are two young white girls in skirts and nice blouses are doing walking around in Yonkers. We really stick out. When we pass the guys that hang around at the park they will just stare shamelessly and make comments. It is rather uncomfortable but as Angela said "You just have to walk like you own it and they will leave ya alone". Last time we were in Yonkers doing look ups we decided to smile and say hi to everyone we passed no matter how rough they looked. This ended up being really fun and we saw that most everyone was happy to return a smile and a hello. There was one big, tall, rough looking black man we smiled to and said hello. He looked a little surprised and said hi back. When we passed him later he stopped his conversation on the phone the was having to tell us that we were so beautiful and had the most lovely smiles. No one really smiles or interacts with each other so it is really fun to break that and to be friendly with people and to watch them transform from something hard, mean or intimidating to someone kind and friendly by simply smiling and saying hello.
Well my area has only been open to the Sister missionaries for about 3 months. There is a lot of work to do. One of our biggest focus is helping less actives to come back to church. We have 13 pages of less acitve members in our branch. We go around looking up these people to find out if the have moved or why they aren't coming to church ect. So we spend a lot of time doing look ups to find these less active members. The problem is that everyone cancels on us or they are neverhome. We had a really rough day where every single appointment was canceled and none of our referrals were home. We did have a funny thing that happened to us though. We were looking up a man named David Grenky, age 47 who was a less active. We go to his apartment door and a young man opens the door. When we ask if David is home he tells us that he moved to the only downstairs apartment around the back of the building. So we go down there and see a man on the porch. We ask him if he is David. "David who?" he asks. "David Grenky" we say. He looks at our name tags then our faces then our name tags again and replies "Oh...David passed away". He told us David passed away a few years ago which he was obviously lying about since the young man upstairs just sent us down to talk to David Grenky. We let him be and had a good laugh about it. We could had made the situation very uncomfortable by catching him in his lie but we didn't. So that was the story of David Grenky. May he rest in peace.
We only have two investigators but I have only met one. His name is Vasu. He is extremely intellectual and has done a ton of school. He is on his way to being baptized soon. We teach him every week at a members house. Elizabeth I have not met yet but she doesn't believe in God. She was found through tracting. She has been busy lately but I will meet her soon. We have a few hopeful referrals including a girl named Jessica who texted US after talking with the Elders saying that she started read the Book of Mormon and is excited to talk with us about it. We asked her when we could meet and she said she needed to check her work schedule but she hasn't gotten back to us. We will follow up with her again soon. There is another member who called us asking us to meet with his friend because recently his wife died so he wants us to teach him about the plan of salvation. There are a few others like that where we are waiting on them to get back to us. As a missionary you do A LOT of calling, following up, scheduling, planning and then calling again, following up again, rescheduling and adjusting plans when people cancel or fail to get back to you.
Our branch is so small!! Only about 40 members. There was 4 youth in sunday school. There was 6 women in Relief Society. We meet in a office building but the interior looks like any other church. There are 3 solid families, but they're all moving out!! We are so sad! But everyone has been so so nice. We have a dinner appointment most every night because some of the families have us over every single week on a certain night. Yesterday I got to meet the Hippins. They were so much fun!! The mom reminds me of Hannah Downs because she was just so funny and outgoing. One of their daughter' personality reminded me of Isaac. She is 12 and also really like to color and draw. Then they had a little 4 year old. Even though they had all girls, it still reminded me of home and I felt really like a part of their family. All the members are so kind a welcoming. I'll just be sad when all the "big" families with 3 children move out.
I have done some street contacting and tracting but I don't like it at all! It is hard! I had an interview with President Morgan and he made me feel better about it all. He told me that I don't need to change myself and that I should approach people as I do naturally and to focus on really asking inspired questions that would cause them to think deeply and reflect on what I teach. Both my companion and I are practicing on street contacting and door approaches. We are both figuring this out as we go. She is awesome though. I am so glad we are companions. We can have a lot of fun together and it's easy to talk. Over all it has been a long week and it wasn't exactly how I thought it would be, especially with focusing so much on finding less actives. But it has been really good. I wish I could share more stories but there are people and visits that make it all worth it. It is exciting to finally be out here!
I hope all is well with you all and that I got to all of your questions. I love you all so much!
Sister Lounsbury
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