sister layton in NY

What is up.

It's been a wicked week! The first three weeks in the field I though
"okay yeah, missionary work is cool, I can do this for a year and a
half!" But this week I started to think "THIS IS SO AWESOME THE GOSPEL
IS TRUE IM NEVER GOING HOME." So that's good.

I won't lie, I do miss Utah summers... the golfing, hiking, rainbow
snows, lawn mowing, boating, etc. But I mostly miss golfing. The
closest thing I've seen to golfing here was when I was running around
some soccer fields on Tuesday morning. An olllddd Chinese man was out
with his golf club, a milk jug cap, and a tennis ball. Using the milk
jug cap as a tee, he hit the tennis ball around the fields. It was so
cute hahahah. As I sat down and started to do some sit-ups, that same
old man wobbled over to me smiling. He says with the little English he
knows "big belly, no no no, you want skinny. I show you how." I'm like
"oh... uhhhh yeah ok!" He proceeds to grab my ankles and knees and
puts them in the "proper position." Then he grabs my wrists and pulls
them towards my feet and says "hands to feet, then up then again." So
I attempt this strange exercise and he gets mad because I did
something wrong with my knee. Then he made me do it again, this time
he held my knee in the proper position. Alllll sorts of alarms were
going off in my head because THIS OLD CHINESE MAN WOULDNT TAKE HIS
HAND OFF MY KNEE until I did the exercise right. Well, President never
informed us on what to do in a situation like that, so I was just
hoping my companions would come get me out of it. They were too busy
laughing at me from a few feet away. Then finally I did the exercise
right and he let go and I said "wow thanks for showing me sir, I'll
have to do that more often." And walked away as fast I could. Hahahha.
What the heck, can you say random?!

-Transfer Tuesday! Oh my heavens, I felt so claustrophobic, there were
so many missionaries. I loved seeing the departing missionaries who
were going home the next day. As I looked into their eyes I could see
how sad they were to leave, and how precious their time here in New
York was. It made me motivated to work harder. When I am in their
shoes I want look back and be happy with how I used the Lords time.
   Because it was my first transfer meeting, they made me stand up and
introduce myself, my companion, tell why I came on a mission, and say
the area I'm serving in. I stand up and say "hi, I'm sister layton,
blah blah blah, I've been here 3 weeks, and we're serving in.........
Umm... Uh......" I COULDNT REMEMBER WHERE IM SERVING. Everyone was
laughing. It was pretty funny, President got a kick out of it. You'd
think after being here for 3 weeks I'd at least be able to remember
the name of my area. Hahahaha the struggle is real.
   We have two new missionaries in our district with a new district
leader- Elder Busby. It's Elder Busbys second to last transfer and let
me tell you, he is ready to go out with a bang! He has set some high
goals for our district, and we're determined to reach them. We've been
focusing a lot on finding new investigators to teach. It's actually
very hard to find people in New York because everyone is busy busy
busy. Like hello, you can't be too busy for salvation, people! Due to
finding, we've been knocking on doors a lot. And guesss what, I got a
door SLAMMED in my face! It was awesome, I've always wanted to
experience a real live door slamming!
    I mentioned earlier that we set some high goals as a district.
Along with those goals we decided that if we reach them we will reward
ourselves with..... District pedicures!!! Awesome right? And the best
part is it was the elders idea. Hahahahha. I can't wait. Our feet do
look pretty ugly from all the walking.

-We cooked this week. Real food. It wasn't even fake. Life is good.
Raise your hand if you're proud of me.

-Yesterday I was talking to a man from Bangladesh with a crazy accent.
He thought I was from a different country and asked me what language I
spoke. I was like uhhhh I'm American. He says "then why don't you
understand English?" Hahahah oh man, I'm so bad with accents.

-Sister board and I have been getting lost a lot. And I mean a lot. We
have no idea what we're doing, but it's cool. In fact, we see the most
miracles happen when we're not where we planned to be. I love seeing
how The Lord has different plans for us than we have for ourselves and
he knows exactly where we need to be to find those who are prepared to
heard the gospel.
   I used to think the "hastening of the work" was due to the large
amount of missionaries being called to serve, but now I know that it's
because of the Lords help. The New York mission vision starts with
this line: "I am set apart from the world to serve WITH The Lord Jesus
Christ here in New York." He is here, I know He is. He is softening
the hearts of many many people so they can accept His gospel when they
hear it. Now we just have to find them! When we do find them it's
gonna be awesomeeeeee. So stoked.

Ok my zone is playing a game right now and I really wanna play sooooo
until next time peeps.

With love from NYC
-sister layton