A great week!

This last week has been great.  Not really with tons of success, but just cool experiences, which I have such a hard time expressing through email, but I'll try.  First off we haven't really been able to meet with our investigators recently.  They've been really busy and stuff, so that’s been trying but Elder Head and I are getting through it.

So let’s start with Sunday. We had a goal of at least two investigators last week, and we had only been able to find one by Sunday, so we spent the hours after church finding until our last appointment for the night at 7.  And we found... a lot of diddly squat!!  Just a plethora of slammed doors.  Not my idea of success.  But that's cool - nothing that much out of the norm.  So eventually it came time to travel to our next appointment, and about fifty feet from the front door, this lady across the street yells “Hey I know them”.  Which isn't uncommon either, so we kinda glanced over, thought she wasn't talking about us and kept on walking.  Then she left her friends and ran after us and shouted "hey wait up"...  I guess she was talking about us.  So we stopped and she caught up and was like “Do you remember me (to Elder Head)?”  Turns out she worked at a Duane Reade (Pharmacy here in NY) and he had contacted her when he was serving in the East Bronx.  A long way from where we are now.  He eventually remembered her as well, and she was like "Hey I want Bible studies now!!"  And then she asked if we could come to the Bronx.  We said “no, but there are missionaries there who could pass by” and she was like “No I want you two”.  "Could I come over here once a week and you could teach me?"  And we were like of course!!  So we exchanged info, and parted ways.  But it was just way cool to have that experience, especially for Elder Head.  Just shows that no matter what we do, the Lord has a way of making sure all those who need to receive the message, receive it.

After this experience we met a couple other people and so in the coming weeks we should be able to find a few new people to talk to, which is awesome.  And we had a great training from President Smith about teaching, and then yesterday we applied the model he gave us in one of our lessons, and it was just AWESOME!!  The model was [Observe and Listen --> Discern --> Talk], which was a great help for us, and the lesson with the family was great.  We found 2 news as well. 

That’s about all I got for now.  It's good to hear the all is well back on the home front.  Just let me know if I missed anything, or if you've got any comments or concerns.

Love, Carson

P.S.  I added a photo of the member I mentioned last week - the one who reminds me of Grandma Dilling (if she were Hispanic).

The Members Love The Missionaries

Hola Familia,

Bueno, para empezar. Voy a decir que... No lo creo que Sarah escribio esa parrafo por si mismo.  La gramatica que uso, y las palabras vinieron de un nivel mucho mas alto do lo que ella hubiera aprendido en high school.  algunas de las palabras aun yo no las sabia.  Para de todos modos de diverti leyendo su carta en Espanol. 

Well things here are going pretty good.  It was cool getting a letter from all of you.  I'll start off by saying I'm gonna get a new camera, because I always hold the button down half way and make sure that the camera gives me the green light saying it's focused.  So I'm assuming that something isn't working as it should be.  So I'll go ahead and do that today, and let you know what it cost next week.

I guess I'll start off answering your questions.  There’s approximately 12 Wards (1 stake) in Manhattan alone.  Then there are five in the Bronx, and I know that there’s a Queens Stake, and a Brooklyn Stake.  So the church is pretty big here, but it really appears small in comparison to how many people are living in this city.  One of the Elders in my District got a letter from his dad with the statistic for how many people live in his area.  Apparently in the skinny part of the island over a distance of 25 blocks or so, approx 400,000 people are living.  Crazy right?  As for Christina’s questions, the ward I'm in right now is super awesome.  The members are so supporting of the missionary work, and that’s just so awesome, because not many wards are.  We're gonna have an activity on the 25^th.  It will be a Movie night.  We're inviting members to come see a movie, and their ticket is a non-member or less-Active member, so hopefully we can get some good success from that.  We're gonna watch The Testaments.

From the sounds of your letters everyone back home is doing great.  Hopefully Sarah gets that job at Spruce It U.  It'd be a lot of fun, and when I was there I got $12/hr.  But maybe they'll pay her more, who knows. 

As for me, things are going great.  We had a pretty good week, still not a whole lot of new investigators, but we're happy and finding some success from our knocking, and finding efforts.  A couple of cool things happened this week.  First off Elder McMullin came back with his Family for a visit, and I met his parents at church on Sunday, which was kinda funny because His mom already knew who I was.  She was like “wow, you’re Elder Dilling” (apparently when you search "New York New York North Mission" My Blog comes up) so she'd read that a little bit, and it was kinda cool to meet them.  We haven't really had any really cool spiritual experiences lately, but we've had some more success with our finding efforts as I said... Just a few less people said “no” to us or ignored us through the door.  These are all good things that lead to success sometimes faster than others, but that’s cool. 

I just have a quick story to let you know how the members feel about us.  We were walking to an appointment the other day, and this member (her name is Hermana) was walking towards us and the first thing she said was "What happened on Friday?!?" (We hadn't stopped by) She then went on to talk about he she had cooked for us and stuff and expected that we were coming over, even though we hadn't made any appointment with her.  We were actually trying to give her a break and not be a burden on her.  That obviously didn't work; she then said that she expects us to come over every Friday.  We were just so impressed by her love and desire, and we also felt so bad for not having gone over.  But we figured that since we hadn't made an appointment with her she wouldn't do anything like that.  But it just goes to show how much the people here love the missionaries, at times too much, but you need not worry, I'm being well fed here.  We have dinner appointments like 3 or 4 times a week. And the occasional lunch appointment too.  Just another side note, I was thinking about this member and the thought just came to my mind about how similar she looks to Grandma Dilling, I have a picture of her, but I want a better one.  If Grandma Dilling were Hispanic, this would be what she looks like.  I'll get a better pic when we go over on Friday.

But yeah, as I said things are going great here in the Campo Misional.  Hope everything also continues to go well for you in Calgary, and that the weather gets better.  It's been like 20 everyday for the last week here.  Spring has definitely arrived early.

Love Carson

P.S. As for Dad’s School question, I'm currently leaning towards BYUI, to at least get my associates, but then after that I'm not entirely sure.  But I'm still allowing staying in Calgary to be an option.  I'm trying to be fair about it, but I think I'd be happier at Idaho.  We'll see though, I know I've gotta decide soonish, and that'll definitely be a question on my mind during this coming conference.  For now though I'll focus my efforts on what’s at hand.  It'll all work out whatever I do.  I've also been thinking of some other career paths I might pursue.

Something Great is in Store

Hola mi familia,

 All is well here in Manhattan. First off, what do you want me to do about my camera?  Should I for sure go ahead and buy a new one?  If so, how much should I spend?  I might just break into that cash that I have saved up.  What do you think? 

 Anyways, it's good to hear that all is going well with you back home.  Unfortunately I can’t really say the same for us here in my area.  We haven't really been able to find any new investigators these past few weeks and it seems that every time we try and do some finding we really don't find much.  Then to top it off, most of our present investigators are dropping off the face of the earth, or just not keeping their appointments.  In spite of all this I feel that Heavenly Father is trying to teach me something, I'm just not all that sure what thing is yet.  I just wish it would be a little clearer sometimes.

 This week was pretty good in other ways though, Elders Hill and Bartlett are doing great together and they've brought a great spirit with them to the area.  It's been a lot of fun with them.  Yesterday we went and did some service at a local garden.  It reminded me of my days at Spruce it Up.  (Which, by the way I suggested to Sarah that she put in an application there.)  All we did was shovel mulch into buckets and then carry said buckets about 100 meters to the garden, dump the bucket and then another missionary would spread it while I went back to get some more.  I'll tell you what.. My back was KILLING me this morning when I got up.  I think I'm gonna need a massage and a chiropractor when I get home.  Also I might need a new retainer.  Mine is getting pretty old and has a couple holes in it as well as a few cracks.  But I still wear it as often as I remember.  (most nights.)

 We also had a great lesson with one of our investigators named Hector.  But he goes by Daddy Rane.  Don’t ask me why.  Anyways, we went over there with the plan of dropping him because he hasn't been progressing and ended up giving him a baptismal commitment.  Not a date.  (because he's got a long way to go), but a firm commitment to which he said he wanted to work towards, so we're excited to keep working with him.  Aside from that, Elder Head and I are convinced that the Lord is preparing us for something big because of our lack of success in finding new people to teach.  I can hardly wait.  Things are still going great regardless. 

Anyways, just let me know about the camera and stuff and I look forward to hearing back next week.

Love, Carson

As for the mission it's going great

Hey Family.

Well, thanks for emailing me this week, you’re definitely doing much better than that other missionary’s family, you've only missed twice, but that doesn't mean you get to slack off. 

As for the camera situation, I'll see what I can do.  My camera is having a tough time focusing, so if you want to send me the Pentax that would be awesome.  I know you don't use it that often... jk.  But I'll go look into another camera.  I don’t know what’s up with mine.  Is it the majority of the pics?  If so, I’ll definitely need to look into a new one.   I'll also try and get more pictures.  I just don't really like doing it, you know me.  I like pictures of things, not people.  I don't know why though, I'll try and change that.  That way you can get rid of the bad and the ugly part.

As for the mission, it's going great.  Jesse's still doing alright, not progressing super fast or anything, but he's there and he's working towards it little by little.  Then there are the other three.  We haven't had an opportunity to meet for like 2.5 weeks.  It’s been pretty tough here recently.  Also Elder McDaniel and McMullin went home today, I'm definitely sad to see them leave as they were both great missionaries and I learned a lot from them both.  I am definitely planning to keep in touch with them.  They were pretty excited to go home and see their families again, but still worked hard and were just great.  But it's time to move on and just "Put [my] Shoulder to the Wheel."   To replace them we got Elder Hill and Elder Bartlett (the one who I lived with already for two cycles) also, Elder Hill is from Elder Hulmes home ward, which is pretty cool. 

But yeah, that’s about all the news I got for y’all this week.  I hope everything continues to go well.  Good luck with the advertising thing.  Till next week.

Love Carson.

P.S. That’s so awesome that Jared is planning on a mission I'll have to write him a letter and just get in contact with him.  Maybe he has an extra camera ;)

P.S.S. Just a second note since I have some more time.  Since you asked about rats, I am happy to report that we don't have any.  We work very hard to keep our place clean and clutter free.  Also, I've gained a little bit of weight.  I think like 10 pounds over the course of my mission and thankfully it's not fat! Yay!

As for the memory card, when I send it, it gets wiped in customs.  Remember the one I sent you last Christmas...?  You could definitely send me a hard copy of photography tips.  That might be help me to remember what I need to take pictures of.  I'll even post it on my wall to remind me every day... ;)  ha-ha.  Anyways, that’s about it for now once again hope all continues to go well.

Much Love, Carson

An Answer to her Prayers

Dear Family,

Hey, so to start off I included a few pics of a verb chart that maybe Christina could use, seeing as I only have the one that I am using. 

But yeah, so this last week, well I guess weeks, have been really great.  We're really hoping that Jesse's baptism goes through this weekend, but we'll have to see.  It seems like Satan is working super overtime to make sure that he doesn't get baptized.  He just seems to be too busy to do anything, plus his family really doesn't help him at all, but we're still gonna work with him and support him and stuff. 

Anyways, so as I said this week was really good.  The best part of it was actually yesterday.  I'll say though, that it didn't really sound all that good when it first started.  I was on a split with Elder Fan, one of the English elders in my zone, his companion was with Elder Head.  Our plans for the day consisted of one hour of lookups and the rest of the 7 hrs as contacting and knocking on doors, just general finding (not my idea of a fun day).   Sure, a little bit of finding is cool if you have some lessons planned, but looking at your plans and seeing that you've PLANNED 6 hrs of finding isn't cool. 
So around the fifth hr. we were knocking doors in this project and had knocked around 5 floors without really finding anyone other than a couple Spanish people, but I was in the English program for the day, so I was really looking for people to help the English elders.  Anyways, back to the story.  So we're knocking these doors and we eventually knock on this door that from outward appearances is like every other door we have knocked on, but then a lady named Donna answers the door and looks at us kind of weird, with a gaze that said, “What the heck are you doing here?”  We introduced ourselves as missionaries.... you know the drill.  Anyways, I was talking to her about the Book of Mormon and then I had to look down for a second to grab a card.  When I looked up again she was crying.  I thought to myself ok, what’s up, this definitely isn't normal.  Eventually she composed herself and told us that her father had recently passed and that it had been a really hard week for her and that at the very moment that we knocked on her door she had been praying for some help. She then expressed how we were an answer to her prayers and that she wanted us to come back, so we made a return appointment for this Saturday and even though I won’t be there, I'm super excited for the English elders to get to see her and stuff, she’s so legit. 

Those elders definitely deserve it.  It was also kinda cool too because that very morning I had been thinking about how I always hear these stories of finding people and those types of miracles, but hadn't ever experienced one and now I have.  The Lord definitely works through tender mercies and it made that day of finding more than worth it.

But yeah, that’s the cool experience I had this week.  Aside from that, things are all relatively normal.  Unfortunately, Kenny and them have kinda gotten super busy as of late, but we'll get them back soon.  I hope you all have a wonderful week and I look forward to YOUR letter next week.

Love, Carson

Good things happening in NY

Hi!!  So NY won the Superbowl.  I must admit, I was a little disappointed to find that out, but that's cool.  It's always fun living in a city where something big happens.  All I need now is to have the Rangers win the Stanley Cup, but that's definitely not something I'm hoping for. 

Anyways, this week has gone by super fast as always, and it was a pretty good one too.  Nothing super special is really going on right now.  Jesse our Bap date, currently doesn't have one because of some other trials that are going on in his life.  The biggest one being with his wife who currently is in hospice care because of a cancerous tumor in her skull that they got rid of, but it affected her and now she needs A LOT of help, so that's kinda pulling him away from the Waters.  But it's okay, because he is really sincere and wants to be baptized.  Also, his lack of a job right now hasn't helped much either.  He's doing all he can to make the best of his situation, and we're trying to help support him as much as possible.

Aside from Jesse, we're working with a few other people that we found with the help of the Sisters during a blitz.  We found these way cool guys from the Dominican Republic who've been to the church there a couple times, and have been here for about a year.  We're also teaching their aunt, and all of them want to come to church.  Actually, that brings up a pretty cool story.

So we were at their house on Monday, and we went to teach Kelvin, but ended up teaching him and his brother Eriso and their Aunt Kenny (who are both new investigators).  Anyways, we decided to read 3 Nephi 11 with them because that's the assignment we gave to Kelvin the week before.  We read it and taught a little about the doctrine of Baptism and such, and then without us even mentioning anything about church attendance, Kenny asks when the meetings are and whatnot, so we told her 9 o'clock Sundays.  Then she was like “darn, I work Sundays” (she actually works 7 days a week).  But then she continued by explaining how she'd only had the job for like 6 days, and then went on and explained how maybe in a few weeks she could ask for the day off.  She just wants to get her metaphorical foot in the door if you know what I mean.  So were all like YEAH, that's awesome!  We said “In the meantime we'll continue coming back here to teach you so that you can continue getting prepared for that day.  Her next question was “when can you come back?”  So we fixed an appointment for tomorrow with her and Eriso.  Kelvin has to work, but that’s cool because it gives us a chance to teach them the restoration lesson, and hopefully even extend a baptismal date.  So yeah, they seem super legit. 

Anyways, about the baptismal situation here, tonight I'll be doing a little bit of a split to interview one of the people getting baptized by the other missionaries, and then this Saturday two people will be getting baptized.  So things are going great here in Inwood A.K.A. Washington Heights.  As for your question about interviews, I interview those who I don't teach, and then the zone leaders interview those I do teach.  The Sisters had a baptism this past weekend, and that went pretty great once the candidate made it to the church (1.5 hrs late:))  It was a lot of fun though.  I'll excuse her though, seeing as she is an older lady who has trouble remembering things occasionally.

And finally the packages, they're here, but I don't have them yet.  I should get them tonight, and then I'll be sure to send out thank you's and what not.

Anyways (<--- that seems to be my most used word), I hope you all have a Great Week, I love you all very much,

Carson.

P.S. could you put all the advice stuff on one sheet and send it to me in the mail? That would be very cool.

Superbowl Sacrifice = Missionary Memories

Well, it's always nice to receive your email updates every week, and It's good to hear that all is well.  Things here are going great in Manhattan.  This Last week hasn't been a super eventful one, but things have been going well.  Jesse's still doing well.  Coffee has still been a little bit of a struggle, but he's getting better, and not drinking it every day, so that's great.  That's definitely one of the biggest struggles of Dominicans; they love their coffee.

The Last few days the weather has been hanging around 10-12 degrees Celsius, which is crazy.  And I've really been enjoying it, because I haven't had to wear a jacket, so that's awesome.  Although I do miss the snow a little bit because it's always nice to have some variety, and the days it is cold I wish it was snowing.  Unfortunately it seems that every time we receive precipitation it's warmed up enough that it rains.  And that's not my favorite (in other words, it sucks!).  The really cool awesome thing is that here in New York we almost don't have to be outside because all our tracting is done indoors anyways, and the transit is really good because it can get you almost anywhere you need to be relatively dryly.  But I always have an umbrella just in case.

Anyways, so here's my cool experience.  The other day we had a Blitz (a two hour time period where everyone meets and works in the area of one of the companionships to help them out).  So Elder McMullin and I went knocking doors, and at the first building we had no success at all, but then we went to this other building and found these people who I wasn't aware of, but they've been investigating for 10 years now.  They refer to themselves as Dry Members, or members that aren't baptized.  And right now their big concern is that they don't want to get baptized if they might fall away after their baptism.  So yeah, we taught them yesterday, and I'm really not all that sure what to do with them to help them make the decision to be baptized.  Do you have any advice?

And then in the same building we met this old Lady named Patricia who is bedridden.  Her nephew invited us in, so we went and talked to her and she asked us to say a prayer on her leg which Elder McMullin offered, and miraculously after wards she started to move here ankle a little bit, and it seemed that something had happened.  We asked her if she was able to move it before hand, and she said that she hadn't been able to move it up until the time we said the prayer, so that was really cool.  We'll probably go back there sometime this week, and see how she's doing and try and teach them the gospel.  I know it would definitely bless her life.  But yeah, that's pretty much what’s happened this week.

On another note, we had a really good Multi Zone conference with President Smith yesterday, and that was awesome.  Unfortunately President Smith informed us that even though the NY Giants are in the Super bowl, we can’t watch it :(  JK.  But it was a great meeting in which we talked a little about the doctrine of baptism and stuff related to that, pretty much our mission purpose.

My district is also doing pretty well, and we have 4 baptisms planned in the next 2 weeks, which is fantastic.  As for your question about the languages, there are 5 languages here: English, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, and ASL (American Sign Language).  And we live with two other Elders.  Anyways, that's about all the time I've got for today.  I hope you all have a great week, and that life continues to treat you well.

Love, Carson