Newark New York!

So the first week of this transfer has been pretty all over the place. First of all, I've been sick for most of it. I had a cough my first day in Newark, which turned into a cold, which turned into a fever. Yesterday during church I had chills and could barely keep myself standing, but I was asked to give a talk, which I did. Wow, I cannot even begin to explain the power of prayer. I felt pretty awful all of church, except during the sacrament I just prayed to Heavenly Father to give me the strength to be able to give my talk. I went up there and felt completely fine. Afterwards not so much, but I know the Lord provided me with the sufficient energy to do His will.

Before getting sick though I met some of the investigators being taught here in Newark. Aaron and Christina are a couple who have just gotten married and are expecting a baby in less than a week! Aaron had been less active, and Christina isn't a member, but they both have such strong testimonies and growing closer to Christ. Aaron always says he wants his family to be the "missionary family" the ones the missionaries can count of while they are away from their own families. For the last little bit the missionaries have been helping them build a house, were not sure if it will be ready by the time the baby gets here, but here's hoping!

We're having a lesson with them tonight. Christina isn't baptized quite yet because she wants Aaron to baptize her, and he has a smoking problem. The missionaries have been trying to help him since the summer time, but he always relapses. Today we're getting pretty bold with them, or at least we hope to.

Besides that getting to know the area has been fun. This is a pretty crazy town. Lots of mentally unstable people, but hey, what can you do? I know I'll love getting to know the people and area more and more as I spend time here. Also, there are Spanish people here! Crazy! They're not everywhere, but they're around, which is very exciting. Hopefully we'll get some Spanish investigators here soon!

I don't have tons of pictures, so I took some of the apartment. It's pretty old, but really cute. The sisters call all the houses here creepy cute. It's a very true statement.


Anyways, I'm sorry this email isn't as long as others. There's not much to report on. Sites are still pretty slow. I love you all, and I hope you have a great week!

Hermana Abreu


Here are some of Sister Moberly and I, they describe our companionship. Note the beautifully strong double chin. 

Also, Elder Holmes, our past district leader, moved to Buffalo. Before leaving he got me and Sister Packard certificates of achievement in the 'Daigua. It was pretty funny. 

Also, this is a picture of great similitude to me the past couple days. For those unaware, this is Alvin Smith, Joseph Smith's older brother, dying of a supposed burst appendix. So pretty much, same. 

I'm Going to Newark!!!

Oh goodness what a week! First things first! I'm being transferred to Newark North and my new companion is Sister Moberly! We did VC training in the MTC and also flew out together, so Sister Moberly and I are already on a pretty good level. Woo! I'm super excited. Though Canandaigua has been a wonderful learning experience, I'm excited to see what the Lord has in store for me! Also, glad to be done with training! No more four hours of study!! Anyway, I'm doing a fair amount of packing today and then I'll be off tomorrow!

A fun thing that happened this week: The Seneca Falls sisters are sisters who live at the Peter Whitmer farm (like legit live on the farm, a house just a little ways down from the visitors center there) for reasons long and complicated needed to stay at our apartment for a night and so we had a sleepover! Still went to bed at 10:30, but it was fun! We brought all our mattresses out and made a megabed!

Also! Revelations in context is the best thing on the planet. It's explained a little more in last letter, but basically all the sisters got the physical copies to study from! Sister Andersen and I were on exchanges at the Hill when the packages full of them came in and we were dying to know what was in them, so the Bradfords who were serving there let us be the ones to open them. Because we were bestowed this honor at site meeting we got to be the Sister who handed them out. We wore Santa hats and everything. Truly a glorious time.

It's been a fairly good visitors center week. We've had really good conversations with the people who come into the sites. A couple from Chile came to the sites after being in Salt Lake for a wedding of one of his mission companions. They came in five minutes to closing at the Smith farm and didn't

speak much English. Really the Lord has everything under control, and I know it was not by chance that Sister Tucker and I were the ones to be there. We also had another shift at the Hill right after the Smith farm that day so we then tell them we could take them on a tour at the Hill as well. Their faces LIT up. It really is amazing to be able to be the way someone has a great experience at the sites. Hearing it all in your native language makes all the difference.

Here's a picture we snagged with them!

Another cool experience we had at the sites was when a different couple from Utah came in. The man had served his mission in New York City and the girl at Temple Square. After giving them a tour we sat in the foyer of the visitors center and just talked about missions. Sister Trinidad, now Sister Cox, was able to relate to us very well and the amazing privileges afforded to us, but the bitter sweet feelings of being a VC sisters and never really seeing how your efforts effect others. I can just testify that any diligent VC sister puts their whole soul into connecting with people on tours, following the Spirit, and fulfilling what the Lord needed us to fulfill in that moment for that person. To every member of the church, anytime you enter a visitors center, prepare for a spiritual experience, be ready to have your spirits lifted and changed, because I know we do. Here's a picture with them!

We also decided to be creative this week and do studies in different places around the Visitors a Centers. For example, Sister Tucker and I decided to do studies in the log home. Wow, the Spirit in there is so strong. Plus, it was raining that day so we just sat there, calmly reading our Book of Mormons in the Smith family home listening to the gentle rain ping on the glass windows. It was

beautiful. Here's some pictures of myself and study materials in the log home.

Leaving the people I've come to know and care about here will be hard, but I know I've done what the Lord needed me to do in this area. Sister Tucker and I have built up what we could, and I know there is so much potential here, but we've really only lighted the kindling to a great fire that's going to need a lot of nourishment and persistence. But I know it will get there! Courtney is still getting planning on getting baptized, and though I won't be there to attend, I am still so proud of her. We had our last district meeting and one of the Elders, Elder Fauga is leaving to go home this transfer. All the Elders got emotional, so here's a picture of their group hug and a box of tissues.

I am also sad to be leaving these beautiful sisters who have become some very good friends of mine over the past twelve weeks. We commemorated our friendship by taking a few last pictures in the Christus room.

I love you all! Thank you for every prayer, every thought, just everything.

Until next week!

Hermana Abreu

P.S These pictures wouldn't send, but we had Zone Pday last week and today we went bowling as a final district activity. Also, just some extra pictures that wouldn't fit in the first one.

Look up Face to Face on lds.org NOW!!!

Ok, so it's been a bit of a crazy week. We taught a ghost, met the future prophet, stepped back in time, and oh yeah...JEFFREY R HOLLAND AND HENRY B EYRING ARE COMING, you know, real casual.

So first things first. Apostles. Sister Tucker and I walk into our shift at the Smith farm this past week and the front room of the welcome center is closed. We're guided by the senior couple to the office where they tell us Elder Bradford is in a meeting with some people from Salt Lake. Meeting?? What meeting?? After doing some online work out comes Elder Bradford and we inquire what is going on,
and he says he can't tell us. That's how we know some serious stuff is going down. A little bit later a man from the meeting comes in and asks how we're doing. Then he says he's in charge of the church's
face-to-face program. We get to talking and then he spills the beans, that ELDER HOLLAND AND EYRING ARE DOING A FACE TO FACE IN THE WELCOME CENTER OF TH SMITH FARM. Sister Tucker and I could not contain our excitement. It's official on lds.org and everything.

The youth's theme this year is "ask of God" quoting the famous Joseph Smith scripture James 1:5. And so what better place to hold a face to face then the place it all started? The place I just happen to be serving my mission. It's really awesome, the church this year is putting an emphasis on church history, hence the new revelations in context section in the gospel library app. If you go to church history and find revelations in context it basically puts all the Doctrine and Covenant sections in context of the history. So now everyone gets all the top secret information us sisters have in our site guides 😉 Either way, it's super cool. We don't know all the details, but apostles are coming!!! Repeat, apostles are coming!!!

Other things that happened this week. Courtney is back on date, this time for the 29th! Keep her in your prayers! We had exchanged this week so I went with Sister Packard to her area, and wow, what a cool experience. Shortsville has a lot more poverty than other areas, and we visited someone in a house that was just falling apart, but so many people live there. They were all swearing and smoking and drinking, but who we came for is a little nine year old boy named Christian. His mother is letting him take the lessons because she took them herself but couldn't be baptized because she is living with her boyfriend, and she has no problem if that's what Christian wants to do. He has such a special spirit about him, and despite the tumultuous circumstances he lives in, his disposition is so bright. He was literally begging his mother to go to church. Though I won't be teaching him, I needed to see his special spirit. Sister Packard and Andersen always talk about how he's the future prophet, and I could definitely see that potential.

We also taught a ghost named Cesar. He was a bit of a miracle story, but has a sad ending. After an appointment of Sister Tucker's and ours fell through, then our backup plans fell through, we sat in the car wondering what to do with the hour we had left in the day. We said a prayer, and as soon as we lifted our heads a man walks into our headlights. We go and talk to him and soon find out his name is Cesar and he's from Mexico, and doesn't speak very good English. So we get his contact info and another appointment and leave, amazed. Then comes the time for his appointment. We go, but there is no Cesar to be found anywhere. We knock on like ten doors asking if they know him, and nobody does. The phone number he gave us didn't work, and so we left pretty dejected. I'm convinced we taught a ghost.

Other things we did! Last Pday I didn't have time to write about this, but we went to Seneca Falls, an area in our zone. It's the place where the set for the movie It's a Wonderful Life was inspired. We visited the museum there and it was pretty cool. I had lots of Weaver freshman year memories come back to me, because we put on It's a Wonderful Life in the drama department. Shout out to any Weaver kids reading this!

Other than that things were very slow at the sites. We took pictures one evening to entertain ourselves! They're pretty self explanatory!

Alright! I love you all! I hope you have a great week, you all are always in my prayers!

Hermana Abreu

 



 

Typical VC sisters



There are some displays in the back, it's fun to take pictures with them!

Creepy Nephi fan

Working on Nephi's boat

Lots of sisters in the back room trying one of the sisters Guatemalan candy

Talking to haters at the Hill (not real, just bored)

 

Sister Andersen and I being bored and the log home, so we tried on some hats

 

 

New Year New Hair

Happy New Year everyone!!

So I did the thing I said I would never do. I cut my hair! I'd been thinking of doing it for a while, but keeping it secret. New Year's Day though, while serving at the hill, I just thought "New Year, new hair" and went for it. Luckily Sister Andersen, one of the sisters who lives with us went to beauty school so she did it for free. So...short hair is back!

Speaking of New Year, that was a pretty funny holiday. Us missionaries had to be in by eight, so after daily planning we cracked open a Martinelli's and danced to EFY and Christian Rock until 10:30. I slept through the first few hours of 2017, but the next morning for church none of us were wrecked! Priorities!

PARTY!!!!

 

 

At church we had tons of people we were planning on coming. Everyone fell through except for our beloved Courtney. So cool experience: everyone in Naples knows each other. We had recently contacted a referral from Amanda, who I think I mentioned last email. Either way, Amanda is a less active we had been looking for who just happened to be best friends with Courtney. We're working with both of them now, but besides the point. We contact Mike who was planning on coming, and then the next day Courtney goes to his New Years party where he says he was hitching a ride to our church. She wasn't planning on coming the day before, but figured she would if Mike was. It ended up that Mike didn't even go, but even still, he had a role in Courtney coming, which she's needed these past few days. Some sad news about Courtney. We're pushing her baptism back indefinitely, were still working on a new date. She expressed to us she's not sure she can keep all the commitments that come along with baptism. But she still is pressing forward, reading the Book of Mormon every day. We have the faith it will happen, but all in the Lords timing. Please pray for her! There is a power in prayer. I know there is.

 

Yesterday was a pretty cool experience. The sites were just popping with Spanish people. A pair of men came down to the Smith farm from Panama. We were serving at the Hill, so they called us down and we gave them a tour. Elder Erickson, the senior Elder on site, had to come along because we don't take single men on tours. He shared some accounts, which I translated, and there is no greater

feeling then being the way people hear the gospel. Both were converts and upstairs in the log home I translated their conversion stories to Elder Erickson. I can't begin to describe the Spirit there, such a special experience.Also, after dropping them off at the Grove and were walking back sister Erickson

comes up with another Spanish tour! A man from Chile who wasn't a member. He lived in New York, but would soon be going back to Chile, and had been curious to see the sites because lots of his friends had converted. Another wonderful powerful experience. I gave him a Spanish Book of Mormon with my testimony in it (I make sure to carry a few of those around now). But lo and behold! The Spanish tours had not ceased! We return to the Hill and after finishing studies our shift is over. On the way out the door though, in walks in a family from Peru. Both the parents were converts, and they had been saving and waiting to come to the sites for a while. They were such humble people, amazed at the fact that they were there. So we stay a few minutes and

start them off on a tour in the Christus room. Another very needed and beautiful experience. Sometimes I feel like people come into the sites to touch my life more then I can touch theirs.

 

Here are some pictures for the week. We served at the Hill a lot this week, so pictures!

We also served at the Smith farm a good deal. Here are some pictures of that,

and the new hair.

 

 

So it's been a week of up and downs, but definitely amazing. I love you all! And

Happy New Year!!

Hermana Abreu