ASL Struggles In Queens

Fam!

It's been a good week.

I really love New York, you guys. It's thee best. I'm moving back here one day.

It has been a little bit hard opening a new area. Sometimes we feel discouraged and wonder if the area can grow! But then we remember we are here opening this specific area for a reason. There may not be many people open to hearing the message, but I know that because the Lord placed us here there must be AT LEAST one soul who is prepared, ready, and waiting for the gospel. Until we find that person(s) we will keep doing lookups and asking everyone everywhere if they know deaf people! They cannot run and they cannot hide from us. We will find them, one way or another! 

Last week I emailed my mom telling her I was frustrated and whatevs, she emailed back about agency! One thing she said was "imagine how Joseph smith and Christ, Himself, felt when they were rejected, they didn't always see success either!" I always knew agency was important, and that its great these people I meet have their agency, but for some reason when I heard it from my prime gospel teacher (mom) I had more gratitude for agency. I've been pondering it all week. Isn't it the greatest gift?! We have freedom to CHOOSE! I love it. 

We do have one progressing investigator. Her name is K. We've been working with her for a few weeks. She lives more than an hour away from us so we only make it over there about once a week. She is from Guyana and doesn't know much ASL. Hahaha teaching her is a struggle. We try to gesture and teach simply. I can't ask questions because she doesn't know the meaning of how, why, or what! We're working on it :) K has SO MUCH FAITH. She can't read so we gave her an ASL video Book of Mormon. She is going through it so fast. She doesn't understand it, I hardly understand the ASL Book of Mormon, but she will sit there and watch it for hours because she is showing faith. And she loves it. If she doesn't know how to answer a question, she will sign "DVD good. Kiss-fist DVD." Yesterday we brought her to church with us and to a baptism after. Maybe she didn't know what was going on, but I know she felt the spirit, because she really enjoyed it and is coming again next week :) She wants to get baptized in November yay! It might be December though. Idk if she will understand everything by November. We will see!

I wish we all could have as much faith as K. She will watch the Book of Mormon every day because we have asked her to and because she knows it is good, even though she doesn't understand anythingggg. Last week was stake conference and an RM talked about someone he baptized who couldn't read, but every day he would just stare at the Book of Mormon and pray, pray, pray, for help! Now that is faith! Reading the Book of Mormon everyday is so simple. Yet it is so hard. Simple, hard, but SO worth it. I know that holding on to the word of God will help us reach our full potential and keep us on the straight and narrow path. The Book of Mormon is TRUE, no doubts! I looooove studying the Book of Mormon... even if I have to do it with the seminary manual, which I do, because well, I'm not that smart. ;)

Anywho. We went on splits this week, I stayed and ran the pool with Sister M. She's the cutest little missionary. We had a great time spreading the good news of the gospel in Manhattan together. I was a bit scared to do ASL without my Sister Passey, but it worked out and I was fine! We were fearlessing Chris when an old woman came up to us crying because her husband couldn't breathe! So Chris called an ambulance while we calmed the old woman down. It was so random. But we got a bunch of referrals for the english missionaries from the ambulance thing so that's good.

HALLOWEEN SEASON IS SO FUN HERE. everyone gets on the subway in their costumes to go to parties. :))) fun fact: New York children go trick or treating a week before Halloween because all the crazy psycho people come out on Halloween and it's dangerous! We have to be in the pad by 6 on Halloween. 

We finally got a video phone! It's sooooo nice. We can do daily contact and follow up phone calls now. Plus I can do language study with the branch members :))) oh, here's a miracle- we got S vp number. You guys it's a big deal, everyone keeps telling us about S, they say that she knows EVERYONE. We are excited to call her today, because if she knows EVERYONE she must know someone we can teach!

Ok I have to go. We have to take our suitcases full of food back to our pad. Praying a nice person will help me up the stairs.... #subwayprobs

I love you all soooooo muchhh.

-Sister Layton