Life's swinging hard but I'm swinging harder

Happy Halloween 

So our p day got moved off of Monday and onto Halloween. And our hours to work were moved from 6-9 to earlier in the day so we can stay in our apartment for the evening. 

This fall is so disappointing because the trees turned so slow that there are trees that are barren and trees that are still green and all the in between. But now Its dropping in temperature.. real quick. I believe it snowed in buffalo today.(I was in Rochester because my companion was at the temple)

This week we went with the downtown Elders for a day. I was with Elder Samhammer who is from cedar city/Enoch area of Utah. I was with him for a day during the beginning of my mission in the GVB which is the YSA for Rochester and Palmyra. The first thing we did all day was knock a few door before a appointment and the first door we knocked on was a man that came out and sat with us and we spoke for a hour. After getting to know him a little it was quite clear he was ready for the message of the restoration. He was a talker but he seemed to get a lot out of it but in the end he didn't really understand the importance of what we shared. He is open to them coming over again though. His name was Al.

We visited several people in the hospital this week. (Our area has three or four hospitals) we gave a blessing to a man from the Lockport ward named Mike. We also visited a recent convert from a different ward in our stake in a mental health ward. While we were waiting to see her some crazy lady was talking to us until she found out we were Mormon. She proceeded to yell at us to go away and yell at people not to talk to us. The reasoning that insane people give for the things they think is really interesting to hear. 

We were then told that the recent convert didn't want to see us. We later found out from her missionaries that she says no one told her people tried to visit...

We also tried to find a less active in the veteran hospital but he wasn't there anymore. We met a nice Jehovah's witness while we were there though.

We are meeting with a less active named Edwardo who only speaks Spanish. His girlfriend Marianella speaks English and Spanish though. She believes that the church is true and we are trying to help her progress towards baptism. (Lets hope I get a Spanish speaking companion) we met with them twice this week. Edward fed us Cuban food on Saturday which was amazing. He is a really chill guy. Elder Vizcaino helped him translate for his lawyer earlier In the transfer.

They both came to the Halloween party that the ward had on Friday evening.

That same Friday evening, before the ward activity, we got invited to a spaghetti dinner thing at some Catholic church by a former investigator that we had never met. But we were planning on trying to contact her this week so it was cool. It was really weird and no one talked to us except a man named Tommy. The lady who invited us, Dorothy, was In the kitchen the whole time. We were then late to the ward party.

This Saturday we got up and did service at 6:30am for a member in his backyard. We dug some holes for ivy plants and then cleared some grass and that was it. It was great weather.

We went to ward correlation at the ward mission leaders new home. The Krebs are our ward mission leaders and they remind me a lot of my cousin Josh and his wife.

When we left their house it was raining. It proceeded to rain all day. All our appointments fell through and so we had a good time in the 50 degree rain. We got screamed at by some homeless guys after I was going to buy them some food but the owners wouldn't let me because the two guys have been doing this for weeks and harassing their customers and things. I tried to talk to the guys but the younger one started screaming profanity at me so I just walked away and he followed me and yelled at me for a few minutes while I waited for a bus. I could tell they were faking it from the start but I wanted to see how far they would take it.

Other then that I found a used 9mm pistol shell on the side of the road on Baylie ave.

The Bishops wife made me a cake which was really nice of her.

This Monday it was about 40 degrees all day and incredibly windy. We helped a elderly lady clean up her house and after we got out of her house it was pouring and still super windy. We walked for about 25 minutes to Wendy's where we took our dinner hour we were soaked all the way through after a few minutes. We waited for a bus for half an hour to take us up to the sisters area so we could steal their car for Elder Vizcaino's temple trip today.

That was my week.

a snapshot of Elder Samhammer and Vizcaino during our ward correlation

a random Wendy's picture because he was saying we don't have any pictures

Edwardo and Marianella

my cake

The slow fall

I'm still doing fine here in Buffalo. It's still short sleeve weather here. I wish I could go running in the cold dry Utah fall. Elder Vizcaino and I had several families that all said they were coming to church and were solid about it but none of them showed up... The downtown Elders baptism fell through as well.

This week was pretty much walking through the trash neighborhoods in the daek talking with drunk people and getting second hand high. We found a few people but most of them already fell through.

The Liggans were a family we found. Lisa, the mother, was one of our potentials. She was a bible referral from a while ago but she was in the "contacted" section so we figured she already got it. We stopped in and the daughter let us right in which was interesting. We were standing in the door frame and we hear, "who is it?"and the daughter replied, "I don't know". So they yelled for us to walk all the way in haha. They had no idea who we were so we explained and they told us they never got the bible so we quickly corrected that. They are Pentecostal so they are very upbeat and happy. We taught them the restoration and gave them books of Mormon. 

Clarence, the husband, has a Mormon tabernacle choir tape that he loves. He said he wanted to come to church so we gave him the info. (He didn't come).

While all that was going on their older daughter started cooking oil on the stovetop and left the house... like drove off. Halfway through our lesson their kitchen was on fire and there was smoke drifting all over the ceiling. We caught the grease fire and stopped it. 

I talked to someone who likes music besides just rap for the first time in New York and we talked for a while and I've actually seen his favorite band live which was cool.

That was my week.

Hollow words

Sorry I haven't been talking much. I don't like hollow words so I don't say anything more then what I feel. I hope everyone has been well. Buffalo is a great place. My companion is from Chihuahua mexico from a Mormon colony down there. Him and I are having a good time here in Buffalo.

So this week we had a seventy come to our mission and speak to us. It was Elder Bennett. He talked for 4 hours straight without stopping. It was a super awesome time and he was basically calling us all to repent and become better. Most everyone in this mission is pretty obedient so it's not like we were being called out but they see so much potential in this mission.

Elder Bennett knows every single mission President that is serving right now and he said that he would want his grandchildren serving in this mission because President Evans. Elder Uchtdorf said the same thing about his grandson that is going on a mission soon. I agree with them. President Evans is extraordinary person. He is pretty young for a mission President.

The day before Elder Bennett spoke to us Elder Hershey and I were on splits in my area in east buffalo. We had a pretty good day. We stopped for dinner and a member from Utah came and talked to us. His name is Shawn Owens and he served in Chile when they had that huge earthquake. He is working as a sales man up here and he gave us a list of 20 people to go contact. So this Friday Elder Vizcaìno and i went contacting several of them. We taught one and got return appointments with a couple others. We found a few other people as well. We got a call from a member down in Springville asking us if we could go help him serve his friend who is one of our investigators. We were planning on contacting him this week so of course we were down to go. 

We got picked up early Saturday morning to go roof Jared Branigans house. We ended up roofing from 9am to 9:30pm. Talking with the other Elders we found out we aren't supposed to be on people's roofs.... or using nail guns... oops. We finished scrapping off the old roof, laying down some water and ice lining up the whole roof, and shingling it all. Jared asked me if we had met before because I seemed "familiar". He seemed familiar to me too but I always find people familiar so I didn't think anything about it. He is a really awesome guy. He wants to learn more and he wants his family to learn more too but he was disappointed with the other missionaries which is sad. We are going to start teaching him now.

We are having a follow up zone conference on the meeting with Elder Bennett this week. Things are moving in the Rochester mission.

our first day in buffalo a few weeks ago

My Address is 709 Longmeadow Rd Buffalo New York 14226

riding to Palmyra to be chastised

some guy who anti-ed us in the ghetto so we took a picture with him lol

Elder Bennett's meeting

Quiescence

Sorry I don't really feel like writing about my life much. I'm in east buffalo now. The ward is pretty awesome. My area is in the ghetto of buffalo. We don't have a car here so we ride the buses and trains. Elder Vizcaino and I are both new to the area so we are just learning the area. This is Elder V's last transfer. We went to Niagara falls last p day and I have a few pictures but that's about it.

I hope everyone has a good week