New York Utica Mission: A Week Full of Cookies and Miracles

Hello!!

Life has been so good! So I'm in Glenville now! It is a super nice and pretty wealthy area. There are some ginormous houses--so tracting is fun because we just admire all of the houses and we get to see all the cute Christmas decorations. :) The ward is huge! Its like a Utah ward...so fun! They are super good to the missionaries here--its even someones calling to make sure we get fed dinner..good thing my companion loves to run or else I would be in trouble! haha

My companion is Sister Reintjes and we are practically the same person its the best haha We have so much in common and work really well together. We are both super excited for this transfer and are working hard and seeing results. She's been out one transfer less than me and is from Vegas and went to school for a year in Wisconsin on a running scholarship. She is super into cross country and track and we live right next to a school so we run on the track every morning! I love it! She laps me a billion times but that's okay haha

We do A TON of service here! More service than I have ever done at one time haha its so fun!! I absolutely love the people we do service with! We go to a memory care facility every week and play games and do poetry with the people there(old people are the best--some of them are super sassy haha). We also go to a place called Captains Treasure which is a thrift store that we organize the donations that come in and price them and put them out for people to buy. Then we go to a food pantry and organize the food that's brought in. The last place we do service at is Skyler Ridge--its an elderly care facility--and we play word games with them! I love doing service, I'm so glad we have so much!

We have met a lot of potentials these past two weeks which has been super great! And we have picked up a lot of new investigators!! We have been contacting a lot of people who have been taught by missionaries in the past and stopped investigating the church and the coolest miracles have happened. I'll share a few of them.

So B...hes been taught a lot in the past and has read the Book of Mormon twice and Doctrine and Covenants (super impressive) and we stopped by his apartment and talked with him for a little bit and shared a scripture (we couldn't go in because he's a single man) and set a return appointment. (Side story--so a member in the ward just came back from his mission in Brazil--he reminds me a lot of Josh (his name is actually Josh too haha) and he was a super awesome missionary and baptized dozens of people) We asked him and his mom to come with us to B's lesson. They did and it was the coolest thing ever. Sister Reintjes and I joked that we learned more in that lesson than we have our whole mission haha I love when members come to lessons with us! They have such strong testimonies and can really relate to those we teach, sometimes more than we can. Bill has a lot of potential, I can really see him getting baptized in the near future. He came to the ward Christmas party too! He really enjoyed it. :)

Aimee! Oh my goodness she is the cutest. So we stop by her house (shes a former investigator) and she opens the door and says "Sisters!! Come on in!" We were like "Okay!!" We ended up talking to her for probably close to an hour. She had so many really good questions and we taught her the restoration and she was so open and welcoming and kept complimenting us on our outfits haha she even gave us a tour of her house and gave us Ghirardelli chocolates! We set an appointment for this upcoming week to see her again and I'm super excited. She is definitely prepared.

J and C are former investigators too and we stopped by (it was probably around 8pm) and they opened the door and said come in!! (that is seriously the best thing to hear as missionaries) They are a cute older couple and J has read the entire Book of Mormon and we shared with them Moroni 10:3-5 and invited them to pray about it. They are super nice and we can see potential there.

T and S are so awesome. So we had our ward Christmas party on Saturday which was super fun(and it was even better having Bill there and a couple of the less actives we visit and a recent convert). Then afterwards we had a little time before going in for the night so we walked around our big apartment complex trying to talk with people about Christ and we run into a Chinese couple. We talk with them and S says she is Christian and goes to a church that speaks Mandarin but they were super friendly and we invited them to our church and they said yes! They promised us they would be there. We were super excited and just so grateful for all the blessings we've been given this week.

We go to church the next morning and we were waiting for them but didn't see them so we were about to go into class(we have sacrament meeting last because two wards meet in our building--its kinda weird but I'm getting used to it) and then all of a sudden we see S and T walk up to the church doors!! We were SO happy! We walk with them to class and there's actually a member that served his mission in Taiwan and knows Mandarin so the Elders go get him and he comes in and translates the whole thing! (they have lived in America for about 10 years but their English is still a little rocky) And then he takes T to Priesthood and Sofia stays with us for Relief Society.

After that we go into the chapel to meet up with T and S says they have to go because they own a nail salon and they need to go there. But we start talking and there's actually another member who knows Mandarin so he's talking to T then one of the members of the Bishopric goes up to start the meeting so we all hurry and sit down. One member was talking to S in Mandarin and the other was talking to T in Mandarin. Both members were translating sacrament meeting for them! It was the coolest thing ever! The members here are the best! I couldn't stop smiling all through church. And the lessons that were taught were super good too, in RS they talked about service and specifically those who quietly and valiantly serve and don't get recognition. I was almost getting emotional because the Spirit was so strong in that room (and because I thought of my mom who is the most perfect example of selfless service).

There have been so many miracles this week its incredible. I love being a missionary! In exactly one year from today I will be on a plane going home which makes me sad! I don't want to leave! For anyone who is thinking about going on a mission, DO IT. It will really be the best 18 months (2 years) of your life.

Sorry if this was all over the place. I just had a lot to talk about! :)

Hope you all are having a wonderful holiday season!!

Love,

Sister Horne