Newburgh #15

Hello family! 

Well this week was another great one! We had a lot of members involved in coming to lessons with us and it was awesome! Having members at your lessons makes all the difference! We have been doing a bit better at planning out and scheduling appointments so we actually have time to give members a good amount of heads up. So that has been great. 

We had interviews with President Morgan and training from the APs on Facebook and the iPad. That was very helpful because they announced two weeks ago or so that we were not allowed to use our paper planners any more. That has been super hard for me. I feel so far behind everyone else with the iPad... I am just not very tech-savvy at all! Haha but it is coming along and the training helped answer a lot of my questions. 

A snow storm hit this week and we had our APF right in the middle of it haha. People were like "are you crazy? What are you doing out here?! Go home!" Haha a nice elderly couple let us in. We got to know them, shared a scripture and asked if we could come back to help them with the kitchen they were remodeling. They didn't say no, so we are going to come back in two weeks. 

Transfers are coming up in the beginning of February. I have a feeling that I am going but we'll see what happens. 

Grandma told me about Aunt Gladdy passing away. I wish I could have been there for the funeral. What a joyous reunion she must be having with Keith and her loved ones! 

Mom congrats on the new calling, you'll do great. Dad congrats on another birthday. I hope you had a fun get away!  Noah congrats on the first lost tooth, you look adorable. 

I hope all is well with you all! Thanks for your emails and support, and try to make it to the next Facebook event if you can, we are having more and more online investigators join in! 

I love you all so much!!!

Love, Sister Emma Lounsbury 

Photos

Newburgh #14

Hello family!! How is everyone? 

My week has been pretty great! We met a new investigating family this week! They are from the Caribbean and have been in the USA for about a year now. We talked mostly with the mother and she seems way awesome! They want to start meeting with us regularly! So that was really exciting! We also had a whole less active family show up at church! We've worked with the since I had been here so it was really exciting to see them come! James came for the second week in a row and said he'd be back next week! That has been awesome as well :) 

The most exciting thing this week was that we got to go the temple with Chiara!! It was the coolest experience! Chiara was baptized about a year ago but soon after started falling away from the church. When I first met her she told us that she didn't believe in the teachings any more. She said that we could still come over but that she wasn't interested in coming back to church. Well since then we have retaught her the lessons, she has started keeping all of the commandments, she received a calling and then this week we got to go to the temple with her for the first time to do baptisms for the dead! You could see that she was feeling the spirit so strongly as she entered the temple and was able to perform these sacred ordinances. She was so deeply touched and soon Tears were streaming down her face. My heart was so full of joy I thought I might burst! It was my time driving through the city. It didn't take too long to find out why they don't allow missionaries to drive in the city... It was ridiculous! We almost got in several accidents and almost hit a few pedestrians. Haha

For our district activity today we did what they called "epic meal time" basically the elders made a 14 inch pancake, layered the whole thing with eggs and hash downs, then a layer a bacon weaved together, then a layer of 6 or so waffles, then another bacon weave, then a layer of 6 or so French toast, then another layer of bacon weave, with a layer of eggs and hash browns on top. Hahah it was giant! I will send some pictures! Then we played some soccer and some other games, it has been a really fun p-day! We have an awesome district and we have a lot of fun together! 

 Also, I just wanted to thank everyone again who sent me something for Christmas. I wanted to write everyone thank you notes, but I haven't been able to find the time. So thank you everyone! I will try to get a card to you eventually! 

Well that's all for now! I love you all and hope that you had a great week! 

Love sister lounsbury

Newburgh #13

Hello my family!! How is everyone? 

Well this has been a great week! We've had a lot of exciting things happen! This Sunday James came to church with us!! He is an elderly man who takes us out to dinner every week at the Maybrook diner. We like to call it our "date night" haha he is the sweetest thing ever! Well jake was once a very active member of the church, and he has always been a hard working, serviceable man but somewhere along the way he got his priorities mixed up and he stopped attending church. It had been 20 years or more since he had been coming to church. He has been making progress slowly but surely with keeping the word of wisdom and riding scriptures. Finally this week aft a lesson on covenant keeping, he came to church she partook of the sacrament! I was so filled with joy! Mikeala, Dale, Chris, Maryellen, Christie and Chiara all came to church as well! 

We have been working to prepare Christie and Chiara to go to the temple! They are both returning les actives a few years older than me. Christie has been a member for 7 years and Chiara for one year and neither have had a chance to go to the temple! Well since we've been meeting with them, Christie and Chiara started coming to church weekly and started living the gospel standards. This week Christie received a calling to be the primary secretary! Chiara received a calling to be a YSA representative! They Were both so, so excited to have a calling! I was so proud of them both for the difficult changes they have been making in their lives and that they are now actively participating in church! The most exciting thing was that Chiara had an interview and got a temple recommend! She was beaming when she came out of his office. She was literally jumping up and down! She was so excited that she was worthy to enter the house of The Lord and to take part of the wonderful Spirit that can be felt there. We get to go with her and sister Blaine to the temple on the 14th! Just last October she was questioning whether or not she even wanted to be a part of the church, and look how far she has come since then! I am so excited for her and I am just so proud of her. :) 

The other exciting thing that happened this week was that we have a lot of new potentials to start teaching. Some were found while tracking, others are referrals and others are part member families. I feel so blessed by The Lord. Our work started picking up this week, possible due in part to everyone returning from their vacations etc. but I also just feel that The Lord is blessing us for are efforts. We have been working with a lot of the same people forever. Chiara and Christie are two of those people. We will continue to meet with them but we hope to find more less actives who are willing to meet with us. That is one goal we set, to try to branch out and reach out to more people. 

The other new thing that we tried this week was waking up at 5:30 to go to the church gym so we can play and run around. In I our apartment there was an old basketball, tennis racket & balls, and a soccer ball. So we take those with us. I start off by doing some spirits and getting my heart pounding. It is sickening to me how quickly I get out of breath. But I am seeing already seeing a little improvement after a week. I have noticed that I do get a little more tired in the afternoons. 5:30 am to 10:30 pm is a long day!! But I think my body will adjust to it. Hopefully we will keep it up!!

Thank you for everyone who was able to participate in our online discussion on Facebook! Last week we talked about recognizing answers to prayers. We had 10 people actively participating. 7 were active members, one was a less active, one was a recent convert, and 2 were nonmembers! One of them , rose, thanked us and told us she learned so much. She asked if we could have a discussion next week about "grief" and "coping skills" as he son passed away last year. So this week we will be talking about the atonement of Jesus Christ and the hope it can bring into your life! Personally I think it is so awesome that my family and friends back home can participate in the missionary work I am doing here in New York! It is awesome! The event for this week is already created. It is called "online Discussion: The atonement brings hope" it is an open event meaning anyone can join. You also have the ability to go to the event and click the button "invite friends". It should be a Great discussion this week, so come and invite friends! 

Ooh yeah! Another thing I just remembered. So we had a pretty big storm hit us! We got 6-8 inches or so in one night. I'll send some pictures later :) it has been suuuuper cold. One morning it was negative 8. It's pretty miserable. We went tracting yesterday in 5 degree weather... That was so cold it was almost humorous. No one wanted to hear what we had to say, but almost all of them told us to go home and that it was too cold out!! 

Well family, I love you all so much! I hope that all is well with you! 

Much love, sister Lounsbury 

Newburgh #12

Hello Everyone! 

Happy New year! Can you believe how fast that year flew by? 

Well it was so amazing to see you all on Christmas and to talk with you! I love you all so very much and I loved every minute that I got to talk with you! I'm glad to hear that everything is going well! Zack and Madeline, it's so awesome that you have your own apartment set up in Provo! I am totally going to crash with you guys after the mission k? :)) Also, the talk about picking me up in New York... For sure make that happen :) Oh it just lifted my spirits so much to see you all and to hear that you are all doing well :) 

Well this week has been good. I don't know if I wrote about this, but we received two brand new Elders in our Ward. They white washed the Area. They are a lot of fun and we have really enjoyed working with them. Our District set the goal to get to know each other better and to be more united. So we do things like District activities on P-day (today we are playing soccer! ) and APFs (Area Proselyting Focus where we all go to a neighborhood and knock doors)

The APF was really successful yesterday. We were able to get into two houses. One is now a new investigator although her and her family are probably better suited with the Spanish Elders... so we will give them the Referral. But, there were two potential investigators given to us! So it was really cool to see how we all were able to help each other find people to teach. I like tracking when it snows... people seems to have more compassion and they let you in... or they just don't want to leave the door open forever and let a cold chill in. 

We have been working a lot on looking up Less Actives that the Bishop has assigned. Basically he just gives us a name about about 15 potential addresses where they may or may not be living. We get to find that out. It takes a terrible amount of time because if you don't catch them while they are home, then you have to go back again and again. It has been a slow process. But we've been dedicating a  lot of time doing it (in the hopes to finish by the new year). We haven't finished, but we made a lot of progress. They really aren't too fun...we got yelled at over the phone by one lady telling us we better not call again. Then at another house a lady opened the door and told us to not Trespass and that if we came again she would call the police. But we have to try. You never know, you might find a Less Active at the right time when they are ready to come back to church. 

Finding appointments has been harder with the Holidays. We are hoping things will pick up again soon. Well that's all the updates I have for now! I love you all so much! 

Love, Sister Emma Lounsbury