Life of an ASL Missionary

Hello!

In case any of you were wondering, in one day I was told I look like Hermoine, Tinker Bell, a 9 year old, and Boo from Monsters Inc. with my bangs. All of the Relief Society sisters think it's so funny to tease me. I love it! 

So apparently I've gained a lot of weight from New York pizza because our bed broke this week. I'm on the top bunk and I was laying down to sleep and well, it broke.

HAHAHAHAHAH it was so funny. No worries everyone Sister Passey was still saying her prayers and didn't die. 

When the office elders set the bed up they didn't have enough screws and only used like 6 screws out of the 14 screws the bed needs... Hah. We kept telling them it's going to break and we are going to die, but they insisted it was fine! Silly office elders.

My mattress is on the floor now :))))

We had many many many appointments fall through this week. That's the life of an ASL missionary for ya. :) 

But it was still a good week!

K is doing so gooooood. I love her more and more every week. As her sign language improves she gets funnier and funnier. I was crying from laughing on the subway with her yesterday, that's how funny she is. She wants to get baptized so bad, but she doesn't understand we can't baptize her until she understands the gospel! She needs the gift of hands more than I do, people, so pray for her. Oh, AND, we met her family this week. They are all hearing and so pure in heart. THERES SO MANY PURE IN HEART PEOPLE OUT HERE. They love us because we love K. They say they know it's no coincidence how we met K. I think the whole family will get baptized as they see K's life change! 

N came to church!!!!.... She was a bit late... Got there 30 minutes after it ended...

It was still great! She got to go watch B and her daughters be baptized after church and it was totally amazing. I think the spirit got to her. We were having a lesson before the baptism started, talking about the commandments and following Christ. It was great, she was very interested in it... Sister Passey starts extending the baptismal invitation for the second time (she rejected the first time) and says in ASL grammar "will you follow Jesus Christ, his example, how?".....

And then an Elder cuts into the lesson and says "everyone needs to stop signing right now, the baptism is about to start." 

I was like nooooooooo! So Sister Passey didn't get to finish the last word in the baptism invite-"baptism." It was sad, but afterwards all us missionaries had a good laugh about it, including the Elder who interrupted the lesson.

We will get her on date this week :)

Yesterday a drunk man fell on me on the subway!!!!!

I repeat, a drunk man fell on me on the subway!!!! Lolololol.

Has a drunk man ever fell on you on the subway?

Didn't think so.

N got baptized. She did it! I was privileged to speak at her baptism. It was such a sweet experience. I could literally see the change in her. She was beaming! From meeting Sister Board and I on day one to her baptism day she had completely changed her life around. That is exactly what the gospel of Jesus Christ does. It changes people. 

It has changed me. And it can change you. But it can't change you if you aren't willing to change and if you don't have a desire to change. It can't change you if you aren't willing to act. Think about Joseph Smith. Did he pray and say "which of all the sects is right?" No he did not! He prayed and said "which of all the sects is right so I might know which of them to join." He prayed with a plan to act. My invitation to you, brothers and sisters is to pray to know how you can change this week. What do you need to sacrifice to become a more devoted disciple of Christ? Pray to know and plan to act after you pray. It will do miracles!

That's my week.

Love you all.

-Sister K. Layton

Hair Cut & Happenings

Hello Family!!!! 

I chopped my hair. Well, Sister Peterson did.

She gave me bangs.! (Pics attached)

Happenings:

-Did I mention R ever? She is a lost sheep we found. Let me give you some background info. A few years ago there was a branch in Brooklyn, but then it collapsed. Many (maybe 100) of the members records didn't transfer safely to the Union Square Branch. They kinda just went floating out there. R was one of those. Somehow we found out that a deaf person lives at her address, so we went to check it out maybe 2 weeks ago. She answered and was soooo happy to see us! We went inside and taught the most spiritual plan of salvation lesson ever and invited her to be baptized. But she's like "oh yeah, I've already been baptized into your church, years ago!" So we looked into it and sure enough she is a member. And her son David is as well, he actually still remembers quite a bit about the church. 

This week we were doing a lookup. We were amped about it, because it said "family of 6." Like are you kidding me, a deaf family of six is a dream come true! So we go knock on this family of 6's door and guess who answers. R. Turns out she's their aunt! 

All these families here in Queens confuse me, they're all either related, best friends, or whatever. I love it, it's like a mystery. It gives me a headache sometime, but Sis. P. and I shall figure it out.

And after we figure it out we shall bring them all back to the straight and narrow path.

-We found the pure in heart. Her name is M. Actually, we randomly met her in a hallway, our second week in Manhattan, but there was some drama with the North Elders (there still is drama with the north elders), and she was busy, so we didn't get to meet with her til this week. She took us to thee best Thai food place and we had a nice chat about the restoration of the gospel, my favorite topic. Oh my heavens, she had some deep questions that would have been hard for me to answer in English, so it was hardddd to answer in ASL! But she said she felt the spirit when we showed her the Book of Mormon!! and she accepted a baptism commit. Score! She didn't accept the date hahahaha but she accepted the commit! 

-We had 80 people at Sacrament Meeting for the second week in a row. Miracles are happening. The norm for the branch is like 45! #deafward2k15

-N is our investigator and she is starting to progress! I'm freaking out! I didn't think it would ever happen!!! We had been praying for her to have a spiritual experience with the atonement, Welllll, on Tuesday she walked in on district meeting right when Elder Harris was giving a POWERFUL testimony of the atonement, Sister Passey and I looked at each other in awe. It was so cool. We are going to hearing YSA FHE with her tonight. Oh goodness I hope I don't have to interpret flirting................. ️Pray for me?

-K IS MY BEST FRIEND. She gives me candy :))) She's started to pick up some of the funny little things I do when I sign. I LOVE IT AND I LOVE HER. I don't really know how I love her so much. We ride the train with her to church and she always analyzes everyone's shoes- guessing where they're from, how much they cost, if they're warm, comfortable, etc. It's so funny. Her bap date is December 16th. I think.

-I hit my 6 month mark. I HIT MY SIX MONTH MARK. So I cut a tie. I didn't want to burn down the entire building so I cut it instead of burning it.

-Sister Passey had a birthday! So I shaped her eyebrows up, did her makeup, let her wear my socks, and chose her outfit. It was fun. I love that kind of stuff. We also ate carrot cake.

Family I am so grateful for you!!

I have the best most beautiful family in the whole world!

Thank you all for praying for me and my investigators the past 6 months, for emailing me and loving me from across the country. I can't believe it's been 6 months. It's been the hardest but happiest 6 months of my life :) Luckily I still have 12 months left... I have so much work to do and so much to learn! I am "forever changed" from serving in the NYNYCS mission, and I will always be "forever changing" because of the things I've learned here.

XOXO

Sister Layton

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

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

pday

Hey Fam sorry no time to email today! I have been busy doing this.....
Now that's a good pday.
Love you all.
-Sister Layton

ASL Branch

Well, well, well, it's Pday once again.

Today I am emailing you from my bed! That's right, we got our own
wifi. Thank you Verizon man!

I have nothing to write, but I'm sure something will come into my head soon.

Oh, Sister Passey just said right this second "Sister Layton, why are
things so..... Weird?" I say "what, like that piece of bread?" She
says "No, just life in general. We are living the weirdest life right
now!"
That pretty much sums up my week. It's been weird! Which is good. The
Layton family motto is after all "the weirder the better."

We did lots of look ups in some weird places, had some AWESOME
meetings, picked up some new investigators in a very weird way, and
had some very weird lessons hahahaha. Oh man I love the ASL program.
It's always an adventure.
Hold on a sec, let me ask sister Passey how my ASL is doing...
She says "pretty much you're fluent."
I say "let's be real here."
She says "for your first week, it's really good, next week you really
will be fluent!"
Lol lets see if I'm fluent next week.

Tuesday was my 5 month mark. Weird right? We went to DQ and ate a
pumpkin pie blizzard for dinner to celebrate.

On Saturday we had the branch party. Wooohooooooo. Deaf parties for
life, I'm never going to a hearing party again. Jk I probably will.
Here's the thing, deaf people don't get get to see their friends very
often, so parties last alllll day. It went from 2-8pm! It was good
language study, and I got to meet most of the members. By the end kept
eyes hurt so very bad. I think I fell asleep for a sec on the subway.
Oh funny story, sister Passey and I kind of forgot we can talk after.
we were signing on the subway and a man offered us his seat. We sign
"no, no, it's fine, thank you." And he looks at us weird. Then we
remembered we can talk and said "oh ha, sorry, we've been at a deaf
party all day and forgot not everyone knows ASL!" He was like "wait,
you can hear?" Lol that happens almost every day. We will be signing
on the subway and then I'll start talking to the person next to me.
They're always surprised!

Church was cool! Best Sunday of my mission to be honest. It's more
different than I could ever imagine, but I love it! And I understood
the teachers, so that's good right? Oh, I bore my testimony and
introduced myself in sacrament meeting and only saw one person
laughing. Success!!!

To sum it all up, I'm loving it!
Until next week.
Oh wait, pics,

2. I'm being transferred again! Jk, we went grocery shopping. That
suitcase and the bags are full of food for the month. Gotta do what
you gotta do to shop in New York, right?
3. A little girl, on a windy day, in a big city. I love manhattan and
am so happy sister Passey and I get to work there. Other missionaries
refer to us as the "covenant missionaries" because we are allowed to
work in Manhattan! Wooh!

K bye.
-Sister Layton

Transfer to ASL!

Hi Fam!!

It's me, Sister Layton, emailing you once again from the subway. We're going to Grimaldies pizza! WORLD FAMOUS PIZZA. 

Well, much has happened. 

I was transferred. Let's talk about that.

-My new companion is Sister P. She is an ANGEL child. I've loved every minute spent with her. Ahahahaha she's so sweet, and innocent. The most innocent person I have ever met. I love it. We are two of the four ASL sisters. They opened up a new apartment and pool for Sister P and I in the Union Square ASL Branch. Yup, we got blinded in, but we are PUMPED. It's such a blessing. 

-Our pad is located in the most lovely part of Astoria (same as my old area), but our area consists of all of Queens and all of Manhattan. And possibly the island if needed, idk. In the words of Sister Bradford "President instructed us to get you a pad as close to Manhattan as possible, so your pad is 1 minute away from the train stop that will take you right into Manhattan." Everyone in our mission is jealous of Sister P and I because we can go to Manhattan to work whenever we want hahah. In fact, we are pioneers! It's the first time missionaries from the south mission have been assigned to work in the north mission. We are a little bit overwhelmed because our area is HUGE, and ASL sisters haven't been in the north mission for years, but we are figuring it out one step at a time. :)

-In previous emails I mentioned working with the zone almost every day for finding, service, etc. We won't be doing that in the ASL program. :/ It's a bit of a bummer, but it's fine because really there's no time and it's not effective for ASL. It's so weird though, I'm used to seeing all 14 of my peeps everyday, and now we're lucky if we get a text message from other missionaries!! On the bright side we're getting wifi in our pad next week!!!!! And there's a fruit stand right by our house. Yep, a fruit stand.

-I really reallyyyy don't know how to sign that well. But hey, I can understand it 50% of the time so that's better than nothing!! Sister P is pretty skilled. We practice a lot. Whenever we are on the subway or bus, we only sign. It's great! Sometimes I will sign something to someone, for example "I like your shirt" and Sister P will interpret. It's funny, the people freak out and don't know what to do or how to act! I [KISS-FIST] ASL.

THE MUSICIANS JUST GOT ON THE SUBWAY. Yesssss, they always make my day. We aren't allowed to give them money :/ Two old black men singing their hearts out while holding out a blue bag for people's monies. I don't think they're under the influence, which sometimes the money begging people are.

-Anywho. CONFERENCE WAS AMAZING. We watched it in ASL, but with sound at the Union square church on Saturday and at a members house on Sunday. I loved all of it. Like why have I never before stayed awake and attentive for all four sessions?! It is such a precious time to hear the words of living prophets and apostles and to receive personal revelation from our Father in Heaven! Boy, I sure received answers to my prayers and concerns. One thing that stuck out to me was when on Saturday afternoon someone, I can't remember who, talked about repentance, real time repentance. He spoke briefly about real time repentance, but it clicked when he did. President Calderwood is always preaching "real time repentance." Right in the very moment you realize you've made a mistake, repenting!! Why wait until we kneel down for our evening prayers to repent if we can repent anytime, anywhere? Oh and Elder Uchtdorf's talk, top notch. Loved it.

I also loved the emphasis on prophets in Sunday afternoon session. I love President Monson! One thing I love testifying of is the truth that because our Heavenly Father loves us, He still communicates with us today, and He does so through a living prophet! I remember telling Nelly these things, she was mind blown- "Well why did no one tell me this before?!? No one even told me there's a prophet now! I knew there were prophets a long time ago, but I just don't understand why no one told me!!!" Hahaha. It's true my friends. Thomas S. Monson is a prophet of God, and he does indeed hold all he priesthood keys that have been restored to the earth. I know that as we choose to follow his counsel, we will be filled with joy.

Have a grand week everyone.

-Sister Layton