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