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

Training Begins

This week ROCKED.

As you all know, we started out the week by picking up our new little one from the airport. Hahahahah it was the funniest thing of my life. She was so excited but so freaked out at the same time! Made me flashback to the first of my mission... Good times :) Right when she got here we drove across the city to Jamaica Ave-most definitely the craziest street in the mission- and let her "fearless" some Haitians! It was so fun.

Then we went and lived the high life at Presidents! Ate some real nice seafood on the water and had a good old time at his house with the STLs and the APs. 

After that we let Sister Hardman jump right into the #missionlyfe. Haaaa she was kind of in shock. On Wednesday she was falling asleep as she blow dryed her hair lololol. Being a new missionary is very exhausting so we've been sure to take lots of breaks and relaxation periods for her to make sure she doesn't get overwhelmed. But guess what, she's theeee best new missionary I've ever met! I've never seen someone come out so prepared! And she has so much greenie fire.... She's such a blessing. She's from Salt Lake, graduated in 2014, went to BYU for a semester and wants to be a dietician. We are having lots of fun as a trio :)))

We had a pretty busy week, and it was fullll of miracles :) actually it might have been one of the best weeks ever, not gonna lie.

Andddd I just really don't have any time this week so that's all I got for ya.

My favorite quote from this week is "You missionaries are like therapists working for God." Said by our investigator J. No worries, we don't counsel anyone... But we did spend a lot of time just LISTENING to people this week. It seems to me that if you can just listen to your investigators for a few minutes, try to understand their concerns, and pray for them as they're talking, then by the time they're done talking they will have already resolved their concerns by talking them out, leaving us the perfect opportunity to testify! 

Ok I have to goooooo we are playing monopoly! But I shall attach some pics.

Xoxo

Sister Layton

1. Sister Ewell, J (our investigator), Sister Hardman, and myself after church.

2. This is F! We've been working with her forever!

3. Dinner with the APs and STLs.

I'm Training

Dear Family,

Well, I have close to no email time today. But this email will still probably be long, knowing me. I can never cut things short for some reason.

We are driving to the airport in Queens... to pick up my new trainee. 

Im training! Finally! I didn't know if I would ever train due to the fact that our mission is downsizing a lot, and the number of sisters coming in is decreasing each transfer. I think when I came in we were at the peak of missionaries! The mission was HUGE, idk how President handled so many missionaries! It's much smaller now :/

ANYWAYS, we had President Interviews on Thursday, and President asked me to train. Didn't see that one coming, but I about fell out of my chair I was so excited. Her name is Sister Hardman- I know nothing about her except she's a Haitian-Creole sister and she's coming to the mission early because she's smart and passed the MTC quicker than expected. 

She's coming in alone, so Sister Ewell and I are picking her up from the airport, and then driving her to presidents for dinner, a fireside, and a sleepover there!! Sisters Peterson&Peiper and APs will be there at presidents tonight too! It's gonna be a partyyyyyy.

Also, I'm training her I'm Bayshore, which means I get to stay here 2 more transfers :))) heck yessss! Bayshore in the summer is going to be heavennnn.

Other than that we had a wonderful wonderful week! It was really just lovely, everything about it, right down to the weather. 

Alright, who did as I requested last week and prayed for us to find and teach some pure in heart families? Whoever did- thank you! It worked! Keep praying for this! 

Remember that lady I shoveled water for-A? We had been having a hard time getting in and teaching her and her family. On Thursday we finally got in and had an AMAZING lesson!  It was great. We taught the plan of salvation and didn't get past the creation hahah. They were both mind blown that we had a pre-mortal existence. It had never even occurred to them! D (the daughter) had so many wonderful questions and it was very evident the spirit was helping us answer questions according to her needs. By the end, D accepted a baptismal date! A didn't, she's not understanding quite everything because she's actually a Haitian-Creole speaker, but it's okay because MY TRAINEE SPEAKS CREOLE. A will be sooo happy to meet her!

Another cool experience: 

Saturday all of our plans fell through. We had literally nothing to do, which is weird because Saturday is usually our busiest day. So we went home and prepared for our teeny tiny studio apartment to become a 3-woman pad. Then we decided to do lookups and clear out the area book... Because like I said before, there was NOTHING left to do!

The second house we looked up was the daughter of a member in Arizona. Her name is J. She spoke to us through the glass door and explained she is catholic, respects our beliefs, has a Book of Mormon but doesn't want to read it, is really really busy blah blah blah. I was thinking "oh great, we are going to get this door slammed in our face any second now." But something pushed me to keep trying, so after an awkward pause I said "well.... can we come in and read the Book of Mormon with your daughter?" She said "oh... Sure, why not! Come on in!"

We didn't end up reading the Book of Mormon with her daughter, but got to know her VERY well and definitely won her trust! I kept feeling that we should offer for the Elders to come give her a Priesthood blessing. Guess what, before I could even say anything about the Priesthood she says "you know, I was meaning to contact your church this week because I want the thing where they put their hands on my head and pray over me." Her father had given her a blessing once before and she wanted another one during this time of need. So we called the Elders right then and there. They came to the rescue and Elder Rogers gave a powerful blessing. The Spirit was strong! She was bawling! I couldn't stop smiling! After the blessing we played some games with her daughter and her daughters friend and have an appointment to go back and visit this family next week :) I'm so grateful the spirit led us there! Please pray for J :)

It's been interesting.... Our district has been seeing so many miracles from the Priesthood lately. I feel like it's really helped us build Zion. MIRACLES ARE HAPPENING. 

I'm going to be very sad when we aren't a district anymore in two weeks. :(  

We picked up a former investigator named M this week. And you know what, I think it might be the right time for her to accept the gospel! We shall see. She's super sweet :) I was pretty happy about that. 

Many other great things happened in the space of the last 7 days... But I gotta go soooo just use your imagination to envision how great it is to be a missionary on Long Island in New York. 

I'm living the dream. 

Spiritual thought of the week: pray with FAITH. and remember you're not praying with faith if you're not working for what you prayed for. On my mission I've noticed a common phrase: "all you can do is pray and do your part. the lord will do the rest." Sometimes I will say "and what do you have to do to fulfill your part?" They will think for a moment, not really sure what their part is. "Do you read the Book of Mormon everyday?" I ask. Most often the answer is "no, not really." I have a testimony that no matter what the situation is, if you are not reading the Book of Mormon everyday, you will never fulfill your part. Do your part, read the Book of Mormon, keep the commandments, and the Lord will do the rest! 

Xoxo

-Sister Layton

Pics:

The Jessen ave one is for cousin Jessen. Just for fun.

Yet another cute district pic. I apologize if I already sent this home.

General Conference/Easter Week

Hi Everyone!

Ok this week was greaaaaaaat!

It started off on an exchange with the one and only SISTER PETERSON, my gurl. Boy oh boy it was so nice to be with her again. It was refreshing, really. Felt SO GOOD. I just pray we can be companions someday! We taught her g o l d e n investigators and then, we were literally kidnapped by a member who drove us to the beach. There was no escaping it! So we took a walk and took some pics while we were there :) ALSO, we found deaf peeps together and taught a deaf less active. I've missed ASL! 

Here's an ASL miracle: (I'm copy and pasting it from Sister Petersons email)

"Who's ready for some ASL Miracles?! This week we figured out that Sorenson (the company that sells VPs aka Video Phones) buys VP numbers in bulk, which means that we have just tapped into basically all of the VP numbers in New York. I'm really bad at explaining this, but if you don't understand, just know that this is a breakthrough for ASL Missionary work and we have just found the most amazing way to do finding through calling people. Sister Layton and I spent our language study just testing it out and we were able to get in contact with so many people."

God is SO GOOD. The ASL mission is going to explode now that we've cracked the code and figured out all the deaf people's numbers! It gets me pumped to go back to the ASL program :) Miracles on miracles on miracles :)

Sis. P informed me we only have 4 more transfers left here in New York before we are on the airplane together flying towards Utah. What the heckkkkk right? Time flies!

Other than that it was a fairly strange week. Can't really describe what happened. It's the strange weeks that are the best weeks.

News about J - the one who is always with us. She invited us to her family's Easter brunch! It was a MIRACLE. I don't think they even knew she was converted. They still don't know! She doesn't want them to know. She gave us strict rules such as:

"1. No preaching of the Book of Mormon. 

2. No discussing J's conversion. 

3. No showing of #becausehelives. 

4. No discussion about J's recent trip to Utah. 

5. No talk about General Conference. 

6. No talk about how close missionaries are with J." 

Hahaha J is so funny. I thought her family was gonna be craaazyyy. But much to my surprise they are the coolest and most normal family I've met in New York! I felt like I was with my family in Utah! In fact, her brother in law looks, acts, and talks just like cousin Cade Robinson! You all know it's never dull when Cade's around. As we left her mom said "you are welcome back anytime, I know J isn't going to come back (she avoids home at all costs), but you can come back anyways."

COOL.

Other good news: Sister Ewell found a pure in heart family with Sister Peiper on exchanges. Miraclessssssss. All I want is to find and teach pure in heart families!!! Pray for us to be led to them :) we pray for that every day!

Well, conference was good! Something was wrong with my hearing (as always) and I couldn't hear the first three sessions, so I have absolutely nothing to say about that :/ but it's okayyy because I can watch them later :)) However, I heard everything in the fourth session and it was just beautiful! I especially liked Elder Pearson's talk- about staying by the tree. He's right, giving in, giving up, and giving out are not options! There is no room for average disciples, and average commitment will prevent us from enduring to the end. We are either in or out!!!!! The only way we can be valiant disciples is by studying the Book of Mormon. EVERYDAY. I don't think we even realize the power and rewards this simple deed will give us! If you aren't reading the Book of Mormon EVERYDAY, start now! It doesn't matter how young or old, or what stage of life you are in, you still need to stay by the tree. You can't stay by it without the Book of Mormon. Maybe everyone should just go listen to his talk again :) 

I'm so happy, you guys! My companion laughs at me every morning because I wake up smiling lol. I love the Lord's work. I love building up His kingdom the best I can. I love my investigators and the members of the Bayshore Ward. I know the gospel is true. It does change lives, everyday. It has changed my life, and can change your life too!

Peacin' out. 

-Sister Layton

Pics...

1. Beachin it with Sista Peterson.

2. Best district I ever did have. (Yes I wore the same dress twice in one week. Get over it.)

3. My gurl, P.

4. I was trying to show her how to take cute Layton girl Easter pics hahaha it didn't work out.

Not a Boring Week

Well, my friends, this was not a boring week. Weeks on the mission are never boring, but this one was quite something.

To hit some of the highlights.....

-->To start off the week we got a text early Tuesday morning from one of our investigators that our pal, L passed away. We were pretty sad/surprised.. She was supposed to go home from rehab the next day! We have been visiting L about every week since I got here! We didn't teach her, because she was too sick, but we read Bible stories, bonded, and learned lots about her life. She will be missed! She is the mother-in-law of our investigator J and the mother of P - also our investigator. Every time we went to see L someone new was there, so now we know their whole family!

The last time we visited L I said to Sister Ewell- "L probably won't accept the gospel in this life, I just don't think she will be able to. But I think that after knowing us, her heart will be softened and she will be more likely to accept the gospel when she meets missionaries in the spirit world!" I hope this is true.

-->Also on Tuesday the Elders came to our door to tell us a sweeeeet story. Long story short, they felt prompted to stop by our investigator T's house. We had been telling her about Priesthood blessings, so she asked the Elders for a blessing to help her stop smoking. They gave her the blessing and the strangest thing happened. Throughout the blessing she kept smelling lemons!!! A very strong, distinct, smell of lemons. Then, the taste of nicotine came to her mouth and it tasted disgusting to her, she never wanted to taste it again. Then, she smelled lemons again! No one else in the room smelled lemons, only T. She said when she was little her mom always taught her that "sweet smells, like lemons, are from God." So when she smelled lemons during the blessing she knew the Elders indeed held the Priesthood and were from God! Sweeeetnesssssss. Literally.

-->I turned 20 on Wednesday. Ohhh yeahhhhhh. You better believe we ate burritos to celebrate! The Elders surprised me with French Toast Bagels for breakfast! That was so kind of them. 

Best part of my Bday: we finally contacted a less active we've been trying to meet for agessss... And she's LOVELY. she wants to come back to church, hallelujah :)

-->Thursday was swell! Remember that lady I shoveled water for? She and her daughter are doing great! We finally taught them the restoration and they lovedddddd it! We showed them a video clip of the First Vision and D shivered and said "I love this, wow, I really like this, I just love this!" With a big smile on her face. They really wanted to come to church and were planning on it, but then the member who was going to pick them up decided not to come to church. Major bummer! 

-->We were invited to L's funeral on Saturday. It was a Baptist funeral :))) It was WEIRD. Lovely, but definitely different than a Mormon funeral. Sister Ewell and I were the only white girls in the big chapel. Lololol. There was lots of singing, "praising," and clapping. Sister Ewell was loving it-- she wishes she lived in the southern states with all them black people! 

Now, I haven't been to many funerals in my short life, but that was definitely the saddest funeral I've ever been to because this family was devastated! It broke my heart to see their pain. 

I can't imagine what a funeral would be like if I didn't know my family was eternal...

I felt so blessed as I sat there. Sister Ewell and I were the only people in that whole congregation who knew the truth of Gods plan for us!! We are SO BLESSED. It doesn't matter what trial we are facing, whether big or small, the gospel can give us peace and happiness through it!

Anywho, I'm glad we went to the funeral. It meant a lot to the family! Even the family members we barely knew gave us big hugs and thanked us for coming. I hope and pray we can help them accept the gospel!!

Well, have a happy pday everyone ;)

And happy, happy birthday to my brother kybo! 

Xoxo

-Sister Layton

Pics:

Birthday lunch with the district.

T got me balloons for my birthday!

Who'd have thought it'd still be snowing at the end of March? 

Happy 20th Birthday Week

What a week!
It was totally crazy.
Almost all of our appointments fell through, which is weird. That
almost never happens to us. BUT, we didn't let that get us down, we
had a wonderful week nonetheless.
It snowed this week which was awfully annoying. My Yahoo weather app
shows it's nice and sunny in Utah! What's up with that? Jealous. :)

K I just want to share one story this week. Let's talk about P.
P is sweet! Aw mann I just love her to bits. Sister Ewell had only
taught her once before I got to Bayshore. We've been to see her quite
a few times since then. The first time I met her she explained that
she had some strange fungus rash on her head, so she always wore a
bandanna over it. No one could diagnose it, and no medicine could make
it go away. She says it n-e-v-e-r stops itching. Since I've known her
the rash has spread down her neck, back, stomach, and arms. Every time
we visited her she was itching more and more throughout the lesson.
From the beginning she wanted to have a Priesthood blessing. We had
tried to stop by a few times with the Elders when we were in the area
with them, but both times she wasn't home ://

So, let's fast forward to Sunday. Sunday was going to be the BEST DAY
EVER. we had appointments set up with our favorite investigators, and
the day was just full of appointments. One by one the appointments all
fell through. Since it's the end of the month, we are nearly OUT of
miles, so we knew we couldn't keep doing lookups as a backup plan. It
was starting to get dark, and we aren't supposed to knock on doors
after 7... So what did we do?
We said a sincere prayer and explained to God our situation (even
though he already knew) and told him we were simply trying our best to
do His will. We asked Him to please lead us to where He needed us
tonight. We ended the prayer and sat there thinking for a moment. The
thought popped into my mind "let's go see P!" We'd never gone to see
her at night... She's usually only available in the afternoon, but we
decided to try anyways.
P  gave us big hugs and welcomed us right in. Her two grandkids were
there as well, so that was a bonus. I love little black kids :))))) as
we sat there I noticed P could NOT stop itching! I could see the
pain in her eyes! It got so bad that she was standing at the corner of
the wall itching her back on the wall! I was like "alright sister
Ewell, call the Elders, i don't care if they're not on the area, she
needs a blessing now!"
To our delight the Elders were only a few minutes away and they came
to the rescue!
We went onto the porch in the cold (there were no other men in the
house), and Elder Poole blessed her!
We went back inside, talked about how she felt during the blessing,
and then randomly started talking about reincarnation..... And how
it's not real lol. But something was different this time. What was
different is that P didn't itch her body for a good 30 minutes. She
didn't realize it, but Sister Ewell and I sure noticed. She looked so
calm. I couldn't believe it, I kept looking at Sister Ewell to see if
she noticed hahah.
Eventually we closed with a prayer and when we said "amen" P gasped
and said "ohhhh myyyyy gosssssshhhhhhhh. I haven't itched since the
blessing. Oh my gosh my head doesn't itch. My head has itched non-stop
for 3 months, and..... It doesn't itch! I don't feel anything! :0"
She looked at us in awe with her jaw dropped and her eyes wide open.
It was sweeeeeeeeet. We were able to bear solid testimony of the
Priesthood and how it has been restored to the earth.

That's all I wanted to tell you. Oh, also.... As we were talking about
how reincarnation isn't real P's 5 year old grandson was sitting in
the corner drawing a picture on one of those magnetic whiteboard
things. I didn't think much of it. As we were leaving he showed us
what he drew. It was a picture of Jesus. I didn't understand it, but
he explained to me "it's the guy you talk about and say his name when
you pray (Jesus), see he was buried in the ground, and there's arrows
because he was resurrected and then went to heaven."
It was cute! I didn't think he was listening to us talk!!! I'll send a
pic I took with him.

I gotta go! Have a blessed week and eat lots of cake for me on my
birthdayyyyyy. :))) for real tho, you got to, I'm turning 20 for
heavens sakes!
-Sister Layton

Pics:
-Me and sister PETERSON. she's out of ASL and here on the island with
me :))) so excited. And she's my STL to make it even better.
-P's grandson.
-P's granddaughter. They're craaaazzzzyyyyyy little things.

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