What A Week!

So this was by far the most exhausting week of my mission thus
far. And it gave me a little taste of how many good things are in
store for this transfer. So Tuesday was my last time seeing my trainer
Elder Pincock for a little while and that was fun. Transfer meeting
was pretty good. It was president Calderwood's last one so obviously
he left with a bang because of how powerful both his and his wife's
talks were. Then after that was the leader's meeting and because my
companion (who is still Elder Peña) had to stay for that and I got to
hang around for a while after the meeting because of that.
    Then Wednesday was more of a housekeeping kind of day. I started
cleaning up my Facebook page to make it look more professional which,
for those of you who have seen some of the things I've posted, shared
or liked then you might understand how long it's been taking me to
clean that :) The main purpose of Facebook is to not only reach out
and continue talking to investigators and members out here but also
friends, family or anyone else who might be interested in talking with
us about the gospel through this online proselyting method.
    Thursday was the day that really killed me though. We had a solid
weekly planning session saying exactly which people and families we
want to focus on, getting our plans straight since our teaching pools
are now combined so we have so much work on our hands. But right after
that we had lesson after lesson. We just would show up to a house,
they'd be home, share a message and continue on with our day and it
was actually a really good day. Even though at first I wasn't too
excited since we had so much planned and I'm lazy. But since that day
we've had 11+ lessons and it's been a blast.
    One thing I would invite all to do is the same activity we had
one family do last night and we were all able to feel the spirit so
strongly. It's super simple. We had the family put on Yo sé que vive
mi señor which is I know my redeemer lives in English and just had
them write any thoughts or feelings they had down on a piece of paper.
Elder Peña and I decided to join in too and one thing I wrote was
"Podemos sentir el espíritu bien fuerte cuando pensamos solamente de
nuestro salvador Jesucristo" which would translate to "We're able to
feel the spirit so strong when we think solely of our savior, Jesus
Christ." And it's so very true and it's something I've really been
working on. Like I said before I've been on Facebook so shout out to
some of my loving family members for remembering me during the Warrior
games :) Trust me...it's been a struggle. But as I think of what I'm
doing here, all the good that I'm doing, it makes it a little bit
easier. It truly does.
    Thanks to everyone out there who may or may not be reading these!
Even if not everyone does, that's okay because sometimes I just type
to pass time in the laundromat. Anyways, summer is here so I hope
everyone has an awesome one! Thanks again!

Have some pictures too!

1) Last picture of the Ty's
2) Good ol' New York traffic

Just another week in Paradise

So to start this one off I'm just going to go ahead and say that I'm
staying in my first area! I was really happy about that for two
reasons: I'll be able to continue teaching the investigators I started
out with and hopefully see a baptism happen or at least set one up.
The other reason is that my mom sent me a ton of food and I have been
able to finish any of it so I'll have another transfer to stuff my
face with all that goodness. Now for the week!

Tuesday was a taste at what these next 6 weeks are going to be like
because my trainer took his 4th and final temple trip so elder Peña
and I spent the whole day together and it turns out he is now my
companion! Should be some fun stuff. And Tuesday went pretty well too.
First we taught this one investigator who, to quote Nacho Libre,
basically said, "I believe in science"  so we will be playing Jack
Black and sneaking up behind him to baptize him...which should be
interesting! I think the weirdest thing though is to think that my
companion is going home now. Like we may not have gotten along all the
time but he was still a super chill guy and I learned a lot from him.
He also shaped me into the missionary I am today which is either a
good or bad thing.

We also had a couple lessons with this other investigator who may or
may not be investigating the church just for his girlfriend. He's been
pretty difficult and actually had a baptism date but because he
doesn't seem to have a real strong desire to be baptized we are
wanting to push that back a little. But hopefully with time we will
help him to really have that desire because we don't want to baptize
someone just to say we baptized someone because then they're not doing
it for the right reasons.

One thing that was pretty interesting from this past week was that
this guy who is a usual at chili's decided to pay for our whole
district on Friday for no reason! He came over and talked with us and
I didn't really pay attention because I was too busy watching
highlights from game 1 from the finals (obviously the better
highlights since last nights game sounded saddening) and he just got
to know us then decided to pay for us! So that was really cool. And
our waiter agreed that Rapunzel is way better than Elsa so that was
legit.

Something else that's pretty legit is that we will be getting Facebook
and Skype this week so that means our means of teaching are now going
to be a little different but hopefully more effective! I'm not sure
exactly how it's going to work yet so please no questions about it to
those few who enjoy talking to me.

So the pictures I'm including today are probably pictures I should
have included last week except for our district photo. That was from
this past week. And because some of you may have heard that I color in
order to relieve stress you can see my amazing artwork. So here ya go!
1: Ninja power
2: this amazingly terrible game where some jelly beans are normal and
others are those disgusting flavors...1 out of the 6 I had was good
and 3 or 4 of them was skunk spray. The taste wasn't bad but man did
that stink. Oh and I had barf too and almost barfed be caused of it.
3: the district
4: The tremendous trio

Great Things come in 3's

So guess what! I'm in a trio now! The district leader was needed
elsewhere so he left this past week and his companion is now in our
pool. It's definitely not staying like this though. Especially since
my trainer will be going home this next transfer. Also, to everyone
who has ever played words with friends with me and knew I cheated I'd
just like to point out that I played scrabble last night and won fair
and square so I am able to play I'm just lazy! Anyways, this week was
insanely busy because we now technically have two teaching pools so
things have been pretty fun. One thing that's also for sure is that we
got fed so much this week. And I loved it. We had 2 investigator
lessons this week (both from the other pool) which went really well
but teaching as a trio is so different. You really gotta find your
part in all of it. We also haven't heard anything from our
investigator Yefry this week. But this is usually around the time when
work for a lot of people pick up and that's exactly what he's been
saying it is. We mainly had member lessons though. Both active and
less active. We also worked a ton doing service Friday and Saturday.
Friday we helped our mama negra move which took pretty much the whole
day and that was a good time and then Saturday we went to this other
member's house to help him clean out his shed so we got even more sun
this week after recovering from the mets game. So yeah I've got a nice
missionary tan line going already. So yeah! That's pretty much the
gist of everything out here! This is the last week of the transfers so
by next week I'll know whether I'll be staying here in the promised
land of Brentwood (which I'm hoping) or be moving on to other things
in New York. Stay tuned!!

Elder Rossi

Well poopy....

Yeah the subject can pretty much describe how my week went. Nothing
too much happened so this one will definitely be shorter. But to start
off I just want to say that I made some pretty awesome meals (using
pasta) and I was going to take pictures to prove it but I would start
to eat and just wouldn't stop so use your imagination! Also, we had a
little problem with our plumbing... Our tub became a giant cesspool so
that kind of stunk. (No pun intended) so we dealt with that for two
days then we were finally able to go out and teach no one would be
home or they would cancel and things as such. It was pretty difficult
just because that meant we were left win pretty much nothing to do.
But I'm hoping this week will be better and that I'll have more to
write for next week! Also, we went to the Mets vs Phillies game today
and since I've been to a couple Phillies games before I remembered how
their catcher's nickname is chooch so every time he went up to bat I
yelled that of course. I also still hate driving in the city. Well
that's about it! Enjoy some Pictures!!
1) our tub
2) our view
3) Comp selfie

I'm giving a what??

So this week was another pretty slow week teaching wise. We would go
looking for people to find out they're not home, they moved or
something else like that. Hopefully this week will be better though!
We weren't able to teach Yefry this week either because of his work
schedule so that was kind of a bummer but we did get a new potential!
His name is José and when we told him we have a message about Christ
he was just like "¡Digame!" Which is just like tell me or lay it on me
so we did just that. We taught him most of the restoration and how the
Book of Mormon came about and he was still interested afterwards and
said we can come back any day Monday-Friday so we'll definitely be
there this week. This Friday is when we'll be teaching Yefry again,
too, and we're bringing the Ward Mission Leader's brother in law who
is another awesome teacher so that'll help a ton. We also have this
other investigator named Christina who we teach during her breaks at
the barbershop where she works on Wednesdays so we'll be doing that
this week and possibly setting up an appointment to teach her family!
Oh and then with Jeremias (The guy who's house we staked out) we'll
hopefully be there tomorrow or tonight to talk with him again. Other
than that we're just doing look ups and trying to find those
investigators!

As for some fun stuff this week, we went to the Elders Quorum
president's house for dinner then family home evening and the sister
missionary who taught him a while back was in town visiting as well
and we found out how he came to the church and that he proposed to his
wife on the day he was baptized. He's a super legit guy. But the
sister missionary was an English missionary and knows no Spanish so
that made family home evening interesting since the president's wife's
aunt who was there as well doesn't speak English. So he had to
translate from either English to Spanish or Spanish to English which
made speaking in Spanish hard so I gave up and went to English. It
also didn't help that he was mimicking any movement or sound we made
while talking haha. Then Friday rolls around and I get a text from the
district leader saying I have been chosen to give a talk on Sunday.
Um...what? I gave one in the MTC but this is like real stuff man! I
kind of freaked out more than I needed to but I did fine, I wrote a
talk that was about the light of God and how important it is and it
was about 10 minutes I would say. And a lot of people told me that it
was really well done so something had to be right! Then after
sacrament meeting we went to Richmond Hill, Queens to go see someone
who my companion taught from the beginning be baptized and that was
super cool. (I also was getting score updates about the clippers and
rockets and I was very happy to hear the rockets took the clippers
out!! But that's not important) and it was actually supposed to start
at 4:30 but the guy left church, bought a cake and then got back at
5:15. But he was baptized and it was all good.

Now, the reason why we didn't have pday yesterday was because of zone
conference and oh my goodness was that amazing! I learned so much, had
some good food, good cake and now I just want to get out and put the
things I learned into action. Usually it is at the mission offices but
since it was President Calderwood's last round of zone conferences we
had it at the mission home and it was super legit. By far the best one
yet (and my first). So yeah that about does it for this week! You all
are awesome and I love you miss everyone! And here's a picture of my
talk (in English too) and me with president and sister Calderwood.

A las seis en español, 8:00 in English

 So this past week was pretty slow again. We are doing some
service for this investigator Emilio and we went to his house to help
clean his backyard twice this week. We basically took down some bushes
and are moving some stuff out so he can sell it. But, the dust mixed
with the Poland made it nearly impossible to do much. I was sneezing
up a storm and I'm pretty sure Emilio thought I was dying but I made
it through it. And then he took us out to lunch to this place called
Los Andes and I'm pretty sure we went there 3 times this week...but
their food is really good and we didn't have to pay so I'm perfectly
okay with that. Plus they give you a ton to eat. Which obviously I
need. I'm pretty sure part of the reason why Heavenly Father called me
to go Spanish speaking was because he knew how much I would get fed
haha. And I've definitely been eating more and more since I've been
out here. For example, Saturday we got fed by our mama negra and she
brought a huge dish of chicken, potato salad, platano and then two
dishes for pork and I was just like "challenge accepted" there were
about 10 missionaries there eating and I definitely had the most to
eat. Was it a good idea? Probably not. Did I feel good afterwards? Eh
not really. But was it delicious? You'd better believe it! I've also
come to realize what Hispanic time really means. Friday night there
was a Mother's Day party that was supposed to start at 8 and I was
freaking out because we were at an investigator's home until 7:30
helping him with making arroz chaufa which is basically just fried
rice which any kind of meat mixed in and I thought we were super late.
But we called the missionaries who were there and they said nothing is
even set up yet so I was like are they just standing around then? But
it turned out that there weren't even that many people there yet...but
everything worked out in the end! And I got a lot of food that night
too :D
        As for lessons, we met with an investigator named Christina
and this was the first time I taught her since the first time my
companion did, we were on splits. We taught her about the gospel of
Jesus Christ and it went really well. She understood everything and
was able to apply it to her own life which was super cool. We'll be
going back to see her again this Wednesday to set up a time to teach
her family at her house because right now we teach at a barbershop
where she works. Then that night was soccer again and we had a good
amount of people including this family who we are trying to get
interested in the church but it's just not there yet. But we are
getting pretty close with them. The sons like basketball and soccer
which works out perfectly since I love basketball and my companion
loves soccer. So before we played soccer we went in the gym and played
basketball and one thing for sure is that Heavenly Father didn't let
those talents go to waste ;) I went against the older son and he
definitely plays soccer more than basketball. But I was wanting to try
and help him but I didn't know how to explain it in Spanish...but I'm
going to try this week! Then Thursday we got a call from a new convert
who's baby had a fever and she wanted us to go give her baby a
blessing so we head to her house and blessed the baby with health and
then shared a brief message with them about service. Then that night
ended awesomely. We went back to that house where we had the stakeout
to see if that Toyota was there that we knew he drives and it was! It
finally was! So we went in, got to know them and hopefully we'll be
able to meet with them again because they're super cool. Then
yesterday at church my companion and I started talking with the gospel
principles teacher about missions and how great they are for the rest
of our lives and that was pretty cool. He's a really nice guy and he
speaks very clearly so I understand most of it. Then after that chat
he asked me where I'm from and I was just like ¿Dónde piensa? Meaning
where do you think? And he guessed Peru, Guatemala, Columbia, Mexico
and some other places so I was like dang it...I thought he'd be the
first one to get it right! So I just explained that my father is
Filipino and my mom is white but lots of people think I'm Hispanic so
it's okay. So to this day there isn't one Hispanic who's guessed I'm
not one of them xD
      I didn't really do anything too crazy to get pictures of but I
did go to the beach a couple weeks ago to do a beach clean up (for a
really clean beach) and my companion and I were messing around by the
water and someone got a picture of that so here ya go! Hope everything
is all good with everyone back home. Talk to you next week! ¡Ciaocito!

Elder Rossi

Perdóname

Well I've heard it gets hard to write home after a while but I didn't
realize it came this quick. So here's a very quick recap from this
last week! I first had a lesson with a less active family who the
bishop wanted to get back to the temple and after meeting with them we
found out they have already been planning on it so that's cool! Then
we had a lesson with this family of a member and have the people who
were there were members so that was interesting.  Then we had a lesson
with our main investigator Yefry and his family who are super cool and
after the lesson he said he would come to church but once again he
wasn't there so that was kind of sad. But it is a weekly thing so
there's still another chance. Today for P-day we were supposed to go
to Brooklyn to meet up with some of my companion's friends but we got
lost and that didn't really happen but we got some pictures so here ya
go!