New Comp!

Hola mi familia!

Happy transfers y'all! I am still in the Bronx, but now Lancaster-less! The fact that she got transferred is CRAZY! She has been here for 8 months, and only has one cycle left before she leaves to go home.  But apparently she was needed in Connecticut! My new companion is Sister Richardson. She was actually MTC companions with Sister Lancaster, so she will also be going home in February. She is awesome. Everyone has told me she is a super hard worker, which is what I need right now- I need someone to kick my butt! She was an STL before, so it is going to be interesting to see how her work ethic affects my area. Also because she is leaving, most likely I will be staying here for at least two more cycles.  So my first 7 months will be spent in the Bronx! Does that make me a Bronxite? Hahaha. This week I have begun my search for my who-what-why.  Sister Lancaster and I always talk about how there are so many different types of missionaries, and I am in the process of finding out what kind of missionary I want to be, and how to become that missionary. During study time, I came across a talk by President Thomas S. Monson titled "That All May Hear". It is an oooold talk, but really felt relevant to my purpose! In it, he outlines three things that every missionary needs to do in order to become successful: Prepare with purpose, teach with testimony, and labor with love. These three things have become my motto! It's amazing to see how much those three topics show up EVERYWHERE in the scriptures!

Sadie's zone

Anyway, on Saturday I went on a split with Sister Stringam, one of our STLs! She taught me how to labor with love for sure. The Lord has been helping me discover why love is so important, and Sister Stringam is evidence of that. Love creates a desire. She brings love and service to everyone and is always there to help. If anybody needs a hug, she is there. I love her, and I especially love her example. Sister Stringham is amazing and has truly changed my mission life already. I want so bad to be a missionary like her. She loves, she is smart, she is direct, she knows, she listens, she is awesome. She doesn't like to waste time for anything, which is how I feel I want to be. She taught me how to be direct. How to just say what you're going to teach, then teach it. Don't be awkward about transitions to questions or anything.  Just go for it.  Because people like to talk anyway, so it will all work out, especially if the Spirit is there. I love that.  Anyways, we met with an awesome Dominican lady named Amparo when we were actually looking for her daughter, Cynthia. Cynthia is a less-active member, who we thought was going to be back here by November, but it looks like no. Amparo is not a member, but has been taught by missionaries in the past, I am sure. She knew so much about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and believed a lot of it. She also told us that she has read part of the Book of Mormon. While she was making us hot chocolate, we were sitting outside of her kitchen on chairs. She spoke Spanish about a million miles a minute. I understood maybe 40% of what she said. Luckily Sister Stringam was there to help me out. But our lesson was amazing. She told us that she had doubts about Joseph Smith. It was really the only thing she didn't completely understand. Sister Stringam looked at me and told me to tell about the Restoration. I nodded, then began. I felt like I could see the pamphlet in front of me in my head. I was so grateful for the time in the mtc that we spent memorizing the topics of the pamphlet. The words began flowing out of my mouth. I had a few mistakes, but the words just came. I felt so inspired. I felt like what I was saying was clear- like she understood. I began the story and then felt inspired to tell about the first vision. As I taught about Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ coming to Joseph Smith in a humble grove of trees, the spirit was so strong. I felt like for the first time in a while this was God's lesson--not mine. I have been reading about how we have the amazing gift to not only have the Spirit with us, but literally through us. In that case, we say what the Spirit would say we are just His mouthpiece. That is amazing to me. In this experience, I really felt that!

Feeling like a mouthpiece for the Spirit happened again yesterday when we taught a member of our ward, Marta, who is about 70 years old and the sweetest, most hilarious Puerto Rican ever. We talked about her conversion story and I bore testimony that she should write it down for her future generations, and how I have the gospel because my ancestors received, shared, and wrote about their experiences of the Restored Gospel in their own time. I testified that her family would come to the knowledge of the true gospel of Jesus Christ if she shared her testimony with them by writing it down.  This really is The Lord's work, because I would not be able to feel the way I do, be the missionary I want to be, or have experiences like this if He were not guiding me every step of the way. 

Mom, we do stick all our food in the fridge... Except those cookies had been out. And the mouse ate sister Lancaster's stocking too... She wasn't very happy. But she is going upstate where they have no mice or bugs, so that is a plus!  I am sooo spoiled!! Thank you so much for your packages and love. I also got packages from grandma and grandpa, nanny and papa, there is one coming from the chums, one coming from Sarah, and apparently a package with five pounds of meat from Drew!!!!!   Also funny story, Alexa is in Punxy, PA, the place where the groundhog is. She is terrified of groundhogs. Really she is terrified of a lot of stuff hahaha.  Here is am amazing story! The English ward had 9 people baptized on Saturday. Yeah. Nine! Two families! I missed the baptism, but heard it was amazing. 

It finally snowed!!

Not much else happened this week, except we got stuck in the EXACT SAME ELEVATOR.  Yeahhh.... Same time, same elevator, same exact people, just the next week. We weren't going to take the elevator, but I convinced Lancaster that we should just go with the elders. Next thing you know the door is not opening again... This time after pushing buttons, all the elders started yelling out their weight to see how close we were to the maximum weight allowance.  They looked at Sister Lancaster and I--we threw them a couple of sassy looks.  Yeah, they returned to pounding the door open button. Oh, and it snowed like crazy. That is really all that happened though.  Love you all!! Merry Christmas! Thank you to everyone participating in the Christmas challenge! 

I am excited to talk to you next week! 

Love you!

Hermana Sadie Dodson