I got a baby child!

Hello everyone! Well I could talk about my week entirely but to sum it
up, we had 3 lessons. It was rough but we still had a miracle lesson!
We were out trying to talk to people on the streets and possibly get
in an apartment building to knock on some doors (that's mainly what we
did this week) when I thought of an investigator. We have tried
visiting this guy a bunch of times but he's never home. I went on a
mini exchange with the zone leaders last week and we actually had
contact with him and he expressed a lot of interest. Then elder oaks
and I tried calling him but it seemed like he hung up half way through
the call so we dropped him. But because I randomly thought of him
again we decided to go to his house and he was home! He said he has a
lot of things in his life that he wants to change and that he wants
our help. His name is Rayomond and he's so solid. I even extended the
baptism invitation which was my first time doing that and it was in
the first lesson too! He said he wants to meet up again tonight at the
church but the only thing is that we kind of lost his phone number so
I'm just hoping and praying he does come through tonight. But he's
still so awesome. Oh and the quote of the week came from Elder Peña.
He said, "Elder Rossi I hate that you were called Spanish Speaking
because now I have to deal with you in two languages" 😂😂 It's
because I always make fun of him and annoy him in both English and
Spanish. But don't worry. He really does love me.

The other highlight came Friday night...bum bum bum...IM GOING TO BE A
DAD!!!! Well sort of. I'm going to be training! I'm both excited and
nervous but more than anything I just hope I can train him to work
hard and have fun. I mean just imagine...another Elder Rossi is going
to be running around New York! 😂😄 I personally love the idea! In all
seriousness though, I really am excited for this calling. What our old
mission president said was that the parents of these incoming
missionaries are Hopi and praying that they're kids are going to get a
good first companion and I'm just hoping I can be the trainer at least
their parents need to be. So that's kind of what I'm thinking a lot
about as I'm getting ready to do this. Oh and Elder Oaks got a
training call too! He'll be leaving and I'm staying here which I'm
really excited about because there's a lot of good work here and all
the other elders who I've gotten close with are staying as well! And
I'll be here for my birthday!! So yeah tomorrow we will find out who
we are training and I'm pretty excited for that. So that's pretty much
what I have for you all this week! Hope you all have and had an
awesome week and happy Columbus Day!

Pictures!

1) I translated I'll make a man out of you
2) My baby announcement picture
3) Yup I'm holding a tarantula (that one's for you mom)
4) You know you're out late when no one is on the bus
5) Windshield destroyed by a big rock

Just another update

So this week my highlight was...Conference!! It's funny because I've
never really enjoyed watching it until I got out here. There's just
something completely different about watching it as a missionary. Or
maybe it's just me maturing. One of the two. But the thing I enjoy
most about it is that we have an opportunity to hear from apostles the
things we may need to change about ourselves. And in preparation for
that, I decided to change something. Many of you may know that I may
not have the most "missionary-like" language so I've been trying to
change that. So anytime I say "flip" "crap" "dang" or anything like
that I have to do 5 push ups. I'm pretty sure it's still not working
because I've done about 400 now in the past 3 days but give it some
time and I'll either have better language or better arms...

As for during the week, we had some pretty good success though. We got
about 8 lessons (4 investigators, 4 members) and those all went well.
We tried to go see some less active members this week to talk about
general conference. There were some really good videos about preparing
for conference with questions and stuff like that on lds.org so I
wanted to share them. But when I went to the Spanish version of the
website, the videos aren't there...racism. But the lessons went on and
I just kind of explained the videos so it all worked out. We also had
our investigator Efrain who wants to be baptized come to the
priesthood session so that was good. Even though he fell asleep. We
also talked and he now isn't sure about baptism so we will now be
working extra hard with him. We also met with this guy named Moises
who knows a ton about the gospel and the Book of Mormon but just like
everyone else in New York, his job takes up all his time. That's
pretty much the he common theme with all the investigators right now.
Then there is the 10 year old kid who hasn't been to church but we
don't know why since his mom comes. So pretty much there's still lots
of work to do.

Well this week is definitely a little bit shorter but I now officially
have 8 whole months in my mission! Crazy how fast it's gone. Well I
hope you all have an awesome week! Talk to you all later!

Pictures!
1) My self portrait
2) Squad pics again...minus Elder Robinson
3) This little girl in our ward, Jasmine, enjoys taking pictures of us
like this a little too much
4) Elder Peña's stalker picture of me

Oh I've also failed to mention that we had a conference a while back
where Elder Bennett from the seventy (He gave the 2nd talk in the
priesthood session) and here is the picture from that. I'm sure you
won't be able to see me so I'm going to make a game out of it. If you
find me, you get an imaginary high five from me. (Hint: I'm farther to
the left)

Slow as a turtle

Okay I think slow as a turtle is a bit of an exaggeration but this
week was pretty slow. It revolved a lot around doing look ups and just
trying to clean out the area book. To quote Patrick Star, "We're on an
investigator hunt and don't think we don't know how to weeeed them
out!" See, we have about 80 potentials in our list but most of these
people haven't been talked to in well over a year so we have to go and
check if they still live there and if they're still interested. We've
dropped a good amount of people this week just from doing that. I also
think some missionaries like to mess with everyone and add people in
the potentials list who shouldn't be there. For example, a JW
(Jehovah's witness) lady who was really angry that we had her
information, said she has never spoken with the missionaries and
doesn't want us to come back. So that was interesting.

Tuesday was probably the slowest day though because I was pretty
sick...or so I thought. My stomach was hurting all day, I was drowsy
and after district meeting I just came back to the apartment and
crashed...which kind of sucked because we had a lesson at 6 and I
still wasn't feeling ready. So elder Peña came over and had his
trainee go over with Elder Oaks to the lesson which I wasn't too happy
about but I lived with it. After talking to Peña for a little while he
figured out it was because of stress. It sucks but it's true. I've had
to do more on my own this transfer than ever before so it's just taken
a toll on me. But I'm still going! I was out Tuesday then I came back
strong on Wednesday with lots and lots of look ups. I think it's a
good thing it's a good thing I don't gamble though because each time I
was like okay this one is the one I guarantee it! But I was wrong. So
yeah. Anyways, time for some big updates.

WE GOT A BAPTISM!!!! Or we will, anyways. I guess the lesson on
Tuesday went really smooth. The guy's name is Efrain and we had a
lesson with him last Tuesday and he pretty much told us he enjoys
coming to church but there's some things that bother him. So what
happens on Tuesday? I guess he pretty much came in and told them that
he believes and wants to be baptized! So elder oaks gave him the
invitation but we will be giving him a date tomorrow! Super cool
stuff! I'm excited. We also had to move Brian's (The 10 year old) back
a little farther because he still hasn't come to church and we have
another potential baptism with this guy named Orlando. He was
investigating a while ago and just recently he told a friend of his
who is a member that he wants to start talking with us again. I didn't
say this last week I don't think but Sunday after church we went to go
talk to him and get to know him a little and he's a super solid guy.
He works on Sunday's but he has his own business so it won't be hard
to change that at all. So yeah! Some exciting stuff is happening here!
Other than that it's just finding and trying to get by. And to explain
that a little, I have a picture of what we had to eat yesterday.

Well that's pretty much it for this week! I hope you're all doing
swell and living life to the fullest. Take care and have an awesome
week!!

1) I got bored so I did this
2) New haircut
3/4 Squad pics
5-10) Elder Peña and I went on an exchange on Thursday and decided to
do some look ups way out by Brooklyn Bridge park and ran into Elder
Sainteran and Elder Robinson so we just had to take some pictures
11) Last night's dinner: Rice, eggs and hot dogs. #poorpeoplefood

Short and sweet

Hello everybody! Well, this week was crazy busy and it would take way too long to describe it all so I'm going to give you a very short description (sorry!) 

So we had about 4 lessons with investigators as well as 4 lessons with members and they were all super legit! We also found a member who's been looking for the church the past 4 months!! He moved here from Mexico and he's going through a pretty rough time and just knows he needs the gospel. He found us on the street, we talked for about an hour and a half and I gave my first blessing of comfort fully in Spanish...it was scary. But it was super legit. At first I was just kind of saying some simple stuff but then the spirit took over and I can't explain what happened next. It was like words were just shooting out of my mouth and I couldn't control them and it was just a super cool experience both for him and me. Then we had another lesson with him the next day with the bishop so he could get to know him and that one was even better. He's so sincere in his desire to change and as he said the closing prayer I started to cry...but no one saw so I think we're good! 

We also had two baptisms on Saturday instead of one! The little girl got baptized and so did her mom! Her mom was baptized before but because we lost the record we had to do it again. But it was cool that they got to both be baptized together. Oh! And I guess someone forgot to prepare a talk about baptism so guess who had to make one up on the spot! Me!! I was both excited and nervous because I was just thinking like okay what can I pull out of thin air right now. I had about 5 minutes to prepare so I pulled up a scripture about baptism (#timefillers) and then just said pretty much everything I know about baptism. It went pretty smoothly though! I talked for about 5 minutes or so and I don't think anyone even knew that I completely made it up right then and there. The church is true everyone. 

As for investigators right now we are working with 4 people I think but no real progress has been made just yet. We've only had one lesson with them all but I'll definitely be keeping you all in the loop! My mom would probably get mad if I didn't.  Oh and the 10 year old boy with the baptism date has been changed. We have to push it back a couple weeks because he hasn't been to church yet sooo that makes things a little difficult. But it's okay! 

Finally, SHOUT OUT TO MY BOY PARKER BURR!!!!! He's heading out to the port of Spain today to start his mission experience in the field. He's gonna be speaking Dutch so that's legit. Good luck man! 

Hope everyone has an awesome week! Love you all! 

1) Super awesome sticker

2) Super awesome me  

3) Super awesome cake

4) Super awesome people about to get baptized 

5) Super awesome district

Tyler sent me these from P-Day. Chilling out playing some Basketball

P-Day September 14, 2015

Okay last little bit of pictures. But here's the main crew

Pictures from Brentwood, NY

Oops I keep forgetting these pictures! These are the ones with the
members I was close with back in Brentwood
1) The Artola family
2) The wonderful Hermana Majano (She was pretty much like my mom)
3) The peguero family (They like me I promise. They just don't like to smile)
4) Our Ward mission leader Jorge Majano
5) Bishop Martinez being Bishop Martinez
6) The Fuentes family
7) Jess (She's from the English Ward but lives in the same place as us)

8) and last but not least, the Hurtados

So that happened

I found myself saying that a lot this week...So this week pretty much feels like I just a perfect 3 ball to the outside and whoever my outside is, is just about to destroy it. We have so many lessons and people to work with now!! When I got here the teaching pool was already really big but the guys who were here before me were working with like none of them. So what did I do? I took action with all these people and made calls and tried contacting them and now we have 5 investigator lessons set up this week and couple for the week to come. We also did a ton of fear-lessing (or talking to people on the streets) and got about 6 or 7 new contacts that way so within a little while, we'll be getting lessons left and right. Oh and I forgot to mention how we are having two baptisms this transfer! One this coming Saturday for a 10 year old girl and we just set up the date with this 10 year old boy for October 11th.

Pretty legit stuff man. I'm excited. 

This week definitely felt longer because of a 4 hour meeting and all the finding we were doing. The meeting is called Zone Training Meeting and it's pretty much a training for everyone in your zone. They're really good but we all know I can't sit still that long so that was a bit of a struggle. One thing I took away from it though is how we can't just stop trying to find people to teach once we think we have a good pool going. We need to prove to the Lord everyday that we are out here so willing to work and we won't stop even if we barely have any time. So I took that literally and just went ham with talking to random people and trying to contact investigators in our records and so far so good! I'm just hoping the lessons we have set up don't cancel. People out here are super busy with work and stuff so that makes things pretty hard on us. 

I think Saturday was the weirdest day of all. We were doing a fearless activity as a zone and we walk by this guy who called us over and it wasn't until we got right next to him that I realized he was drunk...so I was just like sweet let's see what happens. So he tells us about how God has helped him a ton through life and he seemed really cool. Then he went to shake our hands but as he did he put our hands on top of his head and I think he tried giving himself a blessing...I don't know. Then out of nowhere he punches my and companion and I in the guts so that was fun. Oh! And he refused to believe I wasn't Hispanic so that is still happening with people here too. Then later that night we were going to do look ups when this other guy stops us and is like hey what's going on I'm Christian too. And we thought this guy wanted to have a legit conversation with us so we started talking to him and he asked is the bible our final line of authority. So to be careful with answering that question I told him, it's a huge part of our religion as I'm sure it is yours as well but we also have another book called the Book of Mormon which is literally just another testament of Jesus Christ written by ancient prophets who came to the Americas. And he was shocked. So long story short, we talked and discussed our religion on the street for 2 and a half hours on the street and he wants us to come back so we will see how that goes. He's also an English speaker so I don't know how long we can really visit him since we are supposed to visit only Spanish speakers. Plus I love my Hispanics so there's that too. So that was Saturday.

A fun experience that was a really cool energizer for me was seeing the beam of light they shoot up at the sky on September 11th where the twin towers used to be in commemoration of them. We were walking out of a lesson and I see a beam of light and I just think, "Huh must be a big event or something" but then I realize the light isn't moving and I've heard about the light before so then I just scream "NO WAY!!!" Then I take off running and as soon as I see it super clearly I start jumping and I was just super hyped. Then we get to the subway station and I take off running again to the end of the platform because it's outside and I saw it even better and I just stood there silently (after getting some pictures of course) and I just want to get a shout out to all those who gave their lives that day and everyday since to fight for the freedom of this country. It was a pretty sweet experience. 

I think that pretty much does it for this week! Other than that it was just a lot of calling and finding! One thing I've been bad at doing has been birthdays sooo, shout out to my little brother who turned 14, my mom who is at an age where she may not want a lot of people knowing but she's still rocking it! Oh the owner of Siggy's carpet cleaner himself, Chris Rossi, has turned a year older and is somehow still going  one of my many 2nd mom's Jennifer Burr just had a birthday on the 11th! And today is Meghan Kempker's birthday and she's turning 16!!! I hope I didn't miss anyone but those are the ones I know off the top of my head. If I did miss someone, please don't hate me. Hope you all had a good one and Meghan I hope you have a good one today! 

Now pictures!! 

1) Not sure if my mom sent this out but this is me telling my amazing story in Spanish

2) New York skyline

3) The twin tower light 

4) Major respects 

5) Very blurry zone picture

6) Less blurry but very crazy zone picture