Well, the snow has finally hit New York! It's snowed like three times
this week and each one was about 5-6 inches. We've been doing a LOT of
shoveling. We've also been able to get out and work, though. We had an
incredible week!!
So first off, we had my first MLC on Friday!! MLC stands for Mission
Leadership Counsel. On the Friday before every new month, all of the
zone leaders, sister training leaders, assistant to the presidents,
and President Morgan get together and we have a meeting were we figure
out everything that's been going on in the mission. It's was
especially cool this time because the training that President Morgan
gave was all about how to be a good leader. What a great one for me to
start off with!! It was so cool and it was so much fun!
Saturday was kind of lame. Remember how I said that we're trying to
get a sports night going every Saturday night at the Newburgh chapel?
Well it hasn't happened yet, so we were really hoping that this would
be the week to get it going, but everyone cancelled because of a bunch
of different reasons. It's been really frustrating. The whole reason
we want to do it is because there are a lot of guys that we play
basketball with in our basketball league that we can't talk about the
Gospel with because it's illegal to proselyte on the campus of West
Point. So we wanted to get them to "our turf" so that we can still
play basketball and get to know them more, but be able to openly
discuss the gospel and such with them.
Sunday was GREAT though!! Holy cow. We had a lesson with both Toese
and Cali, and they were both awesome! We taught Toese during the
second hour of church with his friends Jacob and Chandler, who are
both members. We taught him about the Plan of Salvation, which
basically outlines everything you need to know about where we came
from, what our purpose for being here on earth is, and where we are
going and what is going to happen when we die. We were able to teach
him in a classroom because we have church inside of an educational
building on West Point, so we had access to a whiteboard and stuff. We
drew the whole thing up for him and he LOVED it!! We were all able to
feel the Spirit so strong as we talked about why Jesus Christ is such
an important part of the Plan. Afterwards we asked him if he would be
baptized when he found out for himself that it was true, and he
strongly said yes!!! Wooooo!! We were all so excited for him! My
favorite line he said was, "you know guys, I would be lying to you if
I said that I didn't believe that this was all true...". Those words
feel like Christmas to a missionary haha :) it was so awesome!! And
almost the same thing happened with Cali!! We taught her after church
at a members home and we taught her about the Plan of Salvation, too!
She had so many good questions and was just so excited to learn about
all of this. After we got through she just couldn't seem to wipe a
smile off of her face :) I drew a little plan of Salvation for her on
a little white board that was in the house, and she insisted that she
take a picture of it on her iPad so that she could look at it whenever
she wanted! They are both so great! We're so excited for them both.
On Monday we had dinner at the Dattages, who are like my family in the
branch to eat dinner with. It was their little eight year old girls
birthday that day so we had a super good, nice dinner and had a little
party for her. Then we got to teach her about baptism and what it is
and what it means and stuff. It was adorable! But it was kind of
crazy. They have two adorable baby twins and they were going a little
crazy during the lesson, and the little girl kept getting distracted
talking about other stuff so it was a pretty jumbled lesson, but I
loved it!!
Well, that was pretty much my week!! I totally forgot to say that I
gave a talk in Sacrament meeting last Sunday. It was fun! I like
giving talks actually. I learn so much when I'm preparing for them,
that I feel like I learn way more than the people I'm actually
speaking to do! I spoke about why we need a modern-day prophet.
Well, I'd better get going! Thank you all so much for your emails and
your encouragement! I love you all and am praying for you every day!
Have an awesome week :)
-Elder Stafford
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