Kingsbridge #19

Hello family! 

How is everything going? Mom, Caleb and Isaac- that fun run looked fun :) Haha way to go! And Caleb, way to win it all! I'm excited to get to see you run when I get home you speedy Gonzalez! 

Things this week have been great! The weather has been a little crazy! It has been raining cats and dogs. It comes we you least expect it.on,mot it is sunny and humid as usual, and the. The next moment BAM!!!! The clouds wash over the sky, the heavens open up and dump massive amounts of water. If you are outside for 3 seconds (we times it) you are soaked. If you stay out any longer than 3 seconds, it is like you just jump in a pool of water. You are dripping wet.  Flash floods run through the street and clean off all the poop and trash. The Bronx needs a good washing every now and then. (Actually, it could always use a washing) Normally in these storms, it is still warm out and there is lightening that rips through the sky and thunder that is deafening. 

I like the storms, except when you have to get to a appointment. I really don't have the shoes or coat for rain. And unfortunately I lost my umbrella. But we've been pretty lucky with being inside teaching or having lunch during these downpours. Or we are on our way home, so it doesn't matter if we get soaking wet. In fact, we like to run and jump in the puddles and play in the storm :) it makes things fun.

SO,

The work here is exploding more than normal. We were blessed with two FAMILIES to teach this week!!! Some people will go their whole mission without teaching a family. It is a very, very rare thing to find a family with a husband and a wife and children here in NY. And we were blessed with two!

One family is from Bangladesh.  This are super solid. This is the mom and son who showed up randomly at church asking to be taught. She has a husband and a daughter as well. They invited us over this week and we talked about the Book of Mormon. They love, love, love learning anything more about Jesus Christ. They were fascinated in hearing about how the Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ. She thought it was so amazing that Christ went and visited the people in the ancient Americas. We taught the mother Linda who was translating in Bangla to her sister. Linda kept turning to us and saying "and the what?!" We would teach her, she would stop us and turn to her sister to translate what we said. They had the best questions and the spirit was so strong! The mom and kids want to be baptized! We will meet the father next time. And once again, it's another person who found us, we didn't find them! 

The other family was found at a word of wisdom APF by Yankee stadium. The mom wanted to stop smoking so we got her contact info and set up an appointment. It turns out that her, her husband and kids were taught by missionaries and went to church for two years and the fell out of contact! So teaching them will be like a refresher course. They seem hesitant about baptism, but once we get into the lessons, I think that will change. 

We also received 4 new media referrals this week. One of them the other sister visited and taught. I haven't met them yet, but it is another family that wants to be baptized!! I feel overwhelmed with how many are falling into our laps. I feel so blessed and trusted of The Lord. Transfers are coming up next Wednesday, but I am hoping that I will stay. I could stay here til the end of my mission. Maybe The Lord will let me even though I have already been here for 6 months. :) 

Oh! Something else cool happened this week! We did a zone APF where we showcased our talents on the streets on New York. For example there was people who sang, people who were doing soccer tricks, people who were roping (like in a rodeo) people who did arm wrestling, and I was able to sit and play songs on the keyboard. We all had "I'm a Mormon" posters. Other missionaries stopped and contacted people. It as a really good idea,it could have been organized a little bit better so that there was less talents and more contacting. I think a lot of people stopped and saw us, but not enough were contacted and were able to find out who we were. I think we will try again but doing it a little different. But, it was definitely fun :) 

I am loving my mission. I love serving The Lord. I love seeing lives change for the better. I love seeing change within myself. I love that I am coming to a deeper understanding of Jesus Christ and what He has done for me. I love what Hannah Downs said to me once "it's the best job, with the best pay, with the best boss ever" I truly feel like I have the best job in the whole world with the best pay. It is so rewarding and I am being so blessed by The Lord. I want to soak up every single moment of it. :) I love you all. Thank you, as always for all the support and love. Not just from my family but also from the Turner Ward. I have received many letters and emails through out my mission from ward members. Time is pretty limited as a missionary so I haven't had time to thank all of you personally, but I am truly, truly grateful for you all. Thank you for thinking of me and taking time to show me that you support me. I am so blessed to have such wonderful Ward Members and friends :) I hope you have a wonderful week! 

Love Sister Lounsbury

Kingsbridge #18

Hello dear family of mine! 

It sounds like you had a fun Fourth of July! That is awesome! :) 

Highlights for this week: 

-Four of July was fun. Our ward mission leader hosted a lunch where we could bring less actives and recent converts so they could socialize . At the end we shared a message, so that was cool. Later that night a member had us over for a Dinner. We played a board game called "What" that was hilarious. We had a really good laugh. Having 10 missionaries in a ward is a lot... So I really grateful for supportive ward members who have us over on a regular. They sacrifice a lot for us. Once we got home and finished planning, we went to the roof of our building and watched fireworks over the city. It was so beautiful!! The buildings in the city were all lit up and then there were firework shows to every side. Someone was doing fireworks In the ally way of our building....those were blowing up a little too close for comfort haha. It was a great night :) 

-we had Interviews with president Morgan. I love this man. He is so amazing. Every single time you come away from a meeting or interview with him, you just feel uplifted and inspired. I felt a renewed desire to give it my all and to finish my mission strong. He is so great. We found out that our roommates area is closing. There are 33 missionaries leaving this cycle and only 22 coming in so we have to close some areas. So that means that we will be taking over their area. We will also be responsible over all the single ladies that are less active members in the Bronx. And of course we will continue to do our responsibilities as a sister training leader...so we are going to be super,super busy.  I'm not sure if I will still be here next cycle, but since sister Westlund has only been here for 6 weeks to learn the area and learn her responsibilities as a sister training leader, I kinda feel like I might be staying for one more.  We are going to work hard to get our area organized and get ready for the anticipated changes. 

-There have been some crazy rain and Thunderstorms lately. We have been caught in the rain so we just accepted the fact we would be soaked and we made it fun. We danced in rain and splashed in the puddles. There were warning for flash floods. During the storm There were still fire hydrants opened up spraying a continuous flow of water to add to the flooding down the streets. We splashed in it all and came home soaked. 

-We Had mission leadership counsel which was really good. We were told about some recent changes 

1. Our areabook will be getting a pretty big update in a few weeks

2. Our mission will be counting key indicators a different way. We will finally be reporting key indicators as defined in PMG

3. The first Presidency sent an email with some changes. Before baptism we will have to teach lessons 1-5 in PMG before and after baptism. (Teaching lesson 5 before baptism is a new thing) we are also to stay in frequent contact after baptism for 3-4 months. Missionaries will now be taking the lead to make sure new member lessons happen (before the ward council was suppose to take the lead...but that never happens) I think these changes are good and will help with retention. 

Random things:

-We presented zone meeting yesterday. I think it went fairly good.

-I've been Sugar free for 3 weeks now. (Except for when dessert is offered at an appointment and we can't refuse it without hurting feelings) 

-our Elevator broke. We had to carry our groceries up from target on this hot sticky day. To get home we go up over 200 steps (very uneven steps, a lot of steps are decaying/slanted) 

Then we got home and had to walk up 4 flights to get to our apartment.... That was fun

So miracle moment: we were greeting people at church and this lady Linda came up to me telling me her brother in law was a member and gave her the address for the church. We talked to her and she said she wants to meet and learn more! She loved church and wants her whole family to be taught! Wow! I truly feel the Lord's work hastening. We have been approached by around 7 people this week who stopped US and asked US who we are. More and more are being affected. As people are baptized, they reach out to family and friends. More and more are hearing about the gospel. And more and more are curious.  I think missionary work is going to get to a point where truly missionaries number one responsibility will just be to teach—they won't have time to do anything else! 

Well I love you all! Hope you have a great week! 

Love, Sister Emma Lounsbury