The arborary world

The world is what we grow it to be. We have all been born into the vineyard where ever we started. Maybe you feel like the tree that you are watching over has had all the branches cut off and new ones grafted on. No matter what shape the tree is in right now, or how many times we are told to move to a different part of the garden and watch another tree, we always have a choice to help or to hurt the tree. 

Sometimes in our lives we see people going around swinging axes without a thought into other people's trees and maybe even their own tree. But as we tend to the branches that we have been given we can always bring about good fruit.

Sometimes we are the trees and sometimes we are the servants. Have faith in the Lord of the garden. He is not lead by ways that will lead to nothing.

We met a family from Tanzania that let us right in. We taught the 17 year old son named Anaklet and his older brother Ragabo. They don't speak much English but luckily we had some spare Swahili pamphlets that we gave them on Wednesday when we went back Anaklet is sooo cool. People from Africa are always super happy and smiley. Hopefully he is able to come to church this Sunday. We ordered several more books of Mormon in Swahili for him and his family but for now he got the app and is reading it. He read the first line of 1 Nefi 1 and told us he likes the book already :-O

I shared a poem in a talk in church so I figured I would share it with all you

GROWTH BEFORE CONSTRUCTION

What would a seed mean to you

If you had never seen a tree
What if you knew
That a small little rock
Could sprout into so much green

Many people carry bricks of sin
Looking to build a house
But home is something
that you find within
Not something you drag about

Along my way
I've picked up bricks
And carried them on my back
Thinking that I
would build a house
And thus gain what I have lacked

I did not know
I had the answer
It was just hidden within
A home doesn't come
From all the weight
Of doubt, of sorrow and sin

I've learned that home takes time
To not only plant but grow
We have to care
And nurture our seeds
Before you can reap you must sow

Then you can build your own cabin
With the bonds your seeds have made
And lay down the logs
Of the faith you have grown
On the foundation that your bricks have made

I hope everyone has a great thanksgiving

The Bluffs of Buffalo

I got my new companion Elder Harvey. We are having a good time in east buffalo. He is a pretty quiet guy. I am trying to sift the wheat of our area book. We have had to drop quite a few people, but we have found several really sincere people. Our new district leader is Elder Hershey. 4 out of the 6 missionaries of our district came out together. Sister Anderson and I. 

We were knocking doors in one of the nicer areas in our area and we had a guy come out and say he wanted us back next week on Thursday and gave us a time. He said his wife just recently died. His name is Zell. We will see how that goes.

On Friday the high was 27 degrees or something... We walked around a lot and got anti-ed twice by Muslim guys. In the evening we went back to the apartment to get coats because my skin was turning purple haha. We went walking to the edge of our area to find a potential. While we were walking there I knocked on a door with the intention of asking them where a address was. Before I could say anything a woman answered and said it was cold out and told us to come in. She offered us hot chocolate and we shared the message of the restoration. The spirit was really strong and we described how we can know this is true. She said that she has never just invited anyone into her home but we had a "warmth about us". Maybe that's why I haven't died from the cold yet. Lol

Her name is Lari (pronounced laurie). She works at the school and coaches track so she is pretty busy but she said we could come back. The potential that we went to go see didn't exist. I know that we were sent over there to find Lari.

I gave a talk in sacrament on visions and revelations and compared it to rock climbing. Prophets are the lead climbers and visions are the anchors that God has given us to use as we climb. 

I hope everyone is well and let me know if I can do anything for you.

 Here is a stupid picture of us about to go biking in the dark freezing night. [He forgot to attach a picture]

Alterations

Transfers are tomorrow morning. Elder Vizcaino is going home to Chihuahua and I will be with Elder Harvey in east buffalo. It's been a good transfer. We haven't been finding any new people for the past few weeks but we are looking. 

The downtown Elders sent us all their Spanish speaking people so we went and talked to all of them and taught one of them. Since I am not getting a Spanish speaker we will have to send them back to downtown because they are in their area. 

We got fed every night this whole week because Elder V was leaving so we got to know a few families a little better. We met with the Cotto family Sunday night and set a date that their daughter Gabriella can be baptized. We will have to teach her all the lessons before December 16th. They have 4 little girls and a son. They are always fighting for my attention the second we walk in the door. Last night I was stuck coloring in coloring books and getting stickers all over my shirt while Elder V talked with brother and sister Cotto... It's going to be a good experience helping them come to know their God more.

I'm pretty terrible at emailing in a way that I can actually help any of you guys get a glimpse into how my days go, or what my thoughts about it all are. To be concise, I hope for a better world. I see so much sadness and hurt all around all the time and nothing's going to change unless we change. That is what I'm here to teach and I will never hesitate to ask someone to change. I love everyone and I hope we all have the meekness to follow where the Spirit takes us.

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