Spring Has Sprung

Spring has officially sprung in Long Island. Let me tell you, it's BEAUTIFUL. The winter lasted much too long for me. Hooray for spring colors, blue skies, and clouds. We woke up early this morning and drove to a gorgeous trail that leads to the beach. It was so refreshing. The clouds looked beautiful, and the light house was still blinking! I love Long Island so much. :)

Pics

M. She's darling. I want to dress like her when I go home.

This is our investigator, C. She loves Book of Mormon stories.

Last district picture :( Elder's McCann and Rogers are leaving us :(((((

Morning runs to the beach! 

So, this week was SO MUCH BETTER than last. Last week wasn't bad, it was just new/awkward being in a trio AND having a brand new missionary. One thing I've been working on developing throughout my whole mission is balance-in everything, and this week I was able to use that balance to make everything work! Heavenly Father really blessed us this week. I feel like everything fell into place perfectly, everyday. 

I loved being with the trio this week. It's been funnnn. Pretty sure they wanted to kill me because I was always happy and talking and having the time of my life, but I've truly enjoyed it! Sister Hardman is doing soooo great! I love her so much! She's super fun to teach with... We both get really into it. I love seeing her bring out her personality. A lot of times missionaries come to the mission and forget how to be themselves. I definitely forgot at first. But it's SO important!!!!! Heavenly Father made us who we are for a reason, right?

We had the neatest experience this week.... We met M :) she's our new investigator referred to us by the Chinese sisters. M is 17 years old, from China, and is a foreign exchange student here. She learned about the church in China, from her moms friend, and they attended church with her mom and brother several times there. However, she was never able to be baptized, because they aren't from Hong Kong. One of the many reasons she decided to come to America is so she could be baptized here! She reads the Book of Mormon, and knows the church is true. The Chinese sisters were teaching her for a while, but the Chinese church is like 2 hours away, and it was getting too hard to wake up at 6 to go to church. Ha I can't blame her. Luckily the Bayshore church is only 15 minutes away and she speaks perfect English, so we are working with her now! We gave her a baptism date for May 16th... She was soooo excited it was awesomeeee. She also came to church on Sunday! We love her so much! I felt like she was my sister from the first minute! And no one is going to believe this but...... She is the Chinese version of cousins CLAIRE. No wonder I connect with her so well. Yesterday at church we both looked at each other at the same time during the meeting and started laughing for no reason. Lol. Can you believe this you guys, can you believe it, my investigator is Chinese! I'm living the dreaaaaammmmm! :)))))

Ok other news... J has a job interview in Utah this week. Holllaaaa! Watch out for her. Do we know anyone who is in their early 30s and single? She took us to Chilis and guess what we did? Made her a profile on LDSsingles lolololol. Good news: Mormon.org is making an "I'm a Mormon" video of her! Yay. She was a fantastic member missionary this week!!!! It was miraculous to see someone so new in the church throwing themselves into the work of salvation! One night, J came with us to appointments... Which all fell through.... So what did she do? She called up G, a woman she talked to on the train last week about the church, asked her if we could deliver the Book of Mormon that J promised to bring her, and drove us there! Like what? She perfect. But wait, it gets better, G is actually very interested AND speaks Haitian-Creole!!!! Sister Hardman was having a rough time that day.. a new Haitian investigator is exactly what she needed to cheer her up!! This G is so sweet too :) I think things will go well with her!

Saturday Sister Hardman and I left Sister Ewell in Bayshore with J all day while we went to the city for a meeting! I felt bad cuz they knocked on doors alllll dayyyyy.... Who knows why.... And no one wanted to learn more! Sister Hardman and I joined them for like an hour before dinner, knocking on a different street, and we had some sweeeet knocking experiences! We met B who is familiar with Mormons, seemed very interested after we told him about the restoration, and told us to come back to see him and his wife next weekend! J and Sister Ewell were like "are you kidding me..... We've been knocking all day, with no luck, and you only knocked for an hour and already found someone......-__-" hahahah. 

Ohhhhh and on Saturday while we were driving home from the city I made a split second decision to go to Wendy's.... We walked in and the M family was right there in line. What theeeee. I've never told you about the M family, but they are a sweeet Muslim family we used to teach. They tried to pay for our meal lol. I felt like I was a missionary in Utah. The good news is- they said we can come see them next week!!! I'm tellin ya, the spirit knows how to prompt me through my appetite. 

D and A went MIA, because they didn't pay the phone bill, and then THE ELDERS WERE ABLE TO CONTACT THEM. it doesn't seem like a big deal, but I promise it's a huge deal. 

 

Kkkk gotta go!

-Sister Layton IV