Miracles Happen Every Day!

Hola!

My Spanish is coming along. Yesterday a Hispanic man started singing to me with his arms wide open. Normally when this happens I just roll my eyes and keep walking, but this time I smiled and said "Soy misionara de Los iglasias de Jesu Christo de Los santos......." I can't remember the rest now, I'll keep practicing.

Oh, yeah, the ASL is coming along great too! Improving little by little. We randomly met 3 deaf people on the streets this week. One gave us his number.... Score! It's s fun life, the ASL program is. 

This week we were able to meet with a less active, G, whom we have been trying to get in with forever. She lives an hour and a half away from us in Jamaica. I felt like I wasn't in New York anymore. It looked like Farmington and I walked down the middle of the street just because I could. Anyways, it was raining, freezing, and windy as we walked from the bus to her house. Sister Passey didn't even have a coat on! Well, soon we realized she gave us an address that didn't exist. So we kinda hung around the area knocking on doors and asking people if they knew of the deaf lady we were looking for. She wasn't answering her phone either :/ We finally decided to humble ourselves and say a prayer for help to find her house. I said "please lead us directly to her house so we can share the message we have prepared and get to the rest of our appointments for the day on time....." We wandered up and down a few streets, then we decided to give up and do a lookup in the area. Well, we couldn't find the lookups house either! Then, I picked a random house and said "Hey, let's go ask these people if they know of the lookup." We knocked on the door, and guess who opened the door..... G! Sister Passey and I both dropped our jaws. It was a miracle! The house we knocked on was nowhere near the address she gave us, but because we prayed with faith the first house we knocked on after we prayed was hers. I love it when things like that happen.

K's DVD player broke so she can't watch the Book of Mormon! #prayfork idk what to do! We can't just buy her a new DVD player. And the computer is broken too -__- technology these days..... But she came to church so that counts for something!

Halloween was fun. We broke our companionship rule-buying candy is not allowed- for a day. Mmm yum, I bought chocolate. One way my mission has forever changed me is that I love chocolate now. Stress does that to you I guess. We were in the ghetto all day which made it even more fun.

Shout out to Aunt Jer for sending me her fabulous pumpkin bar recipe with the cream cheese frosting! I made it successfully without an electric beater. The frosting sure gave me a work out, but it was worth it because the members treated me like a pro chef when they tasted it.

Also huge bday shout out for Shirley! Hope it was a great day and I hope that you and Grandpa love your new house!

It's been a good week, really. Yes, almost all of our lessons fell through, but we tried our very best to make them happen and that's what matters! We did find some new investigators :) I'm excited to meet with them again! I feel like these families we recently found might be the ones we were sent to Queens to find... We will see.

THE ASTORIA ELDERS JUST MESSAGED ME AND N who we found and started teaching before my transfer IS GETTING BAPTIZED THIS WEEK. I'm so stoked. It's gonna be the best day of my life! I love her soooo much. 

Be good, kids. And dress warm. It's getting chilly out there.

Claire sent me the lyrics to her favorite hymn today "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing". It's also Grandma Robinson's favorite hymn and one of my favorites. I love the last part...the 5th verse which is only included in the original text by Robert Robinson, a pastor and hymnist that at age 22 wrote the lyrics in 1757.

O that day when freed from sinning,

I shall see Thy lovely face;

Clothed then in blood washed linen

How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;

Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,

Take my ransomed soul away;

Send thine angels now to carry

Me to realms of endless day.

Ponder that verse for me, will you?

Xoxo

Sister Layton