Week 5

I've been in the field for over a month...I can't believe it. Wow. Elder Wayne hits his "year mark" this week, meaning as of this week, he's been on a mission for a year. It seems like I've got such a long way to go, but from what I hear it's gone before you even realize what happened.
Our last P-day, we saw some more of the Freedom Trail, and the Quincy Market! It's this indoor food market, with all these different places, with as many different kinds of food as you could possibly imagine! It was really cool. We also went and saw the TD Gardens, where the Bruins (hockey) and Celtics (basketball) play. The other Elders were more interested in that than I was, but that's okay. It's about give and take - not everyone is going to enjoy everything we do for sight-seeing on P-days.
This week I went on two different exchanges - one with our Zone Leaders, and another with the other companionship of Elders in our district, who also live in our apartment. It was really fun to be with another companion for a day, to get to know people better, and to learn from other missionaries.
Oh, definitely check out D&C 111 - it's about Salem, MA!!! It's the Lord talking to Joseph Smith about THIS area. Elder Evans, the Zone Leader I went on exchanges with, showed it to me. My mind was blown. It's so great to see the promises of the Lord talking about the area I'm serving in!
Elder Swasey (one of the other Elders in our district that I went on exchanges with) and I had some interesting experiences on our exchange with tracting and talking to people. One guy went off on us about how he knows EVERYTHING we're going to say, and how he went to St. Mary's school for 12 years and graduated from Boston College, blah blah blah. I won't say everything he said, but here's one "I've got more intelligence and education in my baby TOE than either of you have in your whole bodies!!!" He said all this crap about Joseph Smith that wasn't true, and he had some choice words for us that I won't repeat. He ended up taking off on his bike without listening to a thing we had to say. His buddies that were also standing right there told us after he left that he never even graduated high school. WOW...people sure are interesting. We also talked to this 14-year-old kid named Chris who's Atheist/searching - he's done a TON of research on different religions, and he's probably the smartest 14-year-old I've ever met. We added to his research stack with a mormon.org card and a pamphlet about the Plan of Salvation. It was really interesting to talk to him, and thinking about how Joseph Smith was only 14 years old when he prayed in the Sacred Grove. I can't help but think if Joseph Smith was brought up in this world, he would be a lot like Chris is now. I don't know what will happen to him, but hopefully we had a positive impact in his life. Elder Swasey is a Spanish-speaking missionary, so there were also two lessons during the day that I had no clue what was going on. I sort of got the gist of what happened, but I didn't know most of the words.
Our apartment is actually surprisingly close to the beach - one morning this week the 4 of us in our apartment took a jog down to the beach and played catch for a while while the sun rose. Needless to say, I got a TON of pictures.
We have a couple new investigators that are from China - one is from Shanghai, her name is Carol. She's interested in learning more about the gospel, since she didn't have the chance in China. The other's name is Daniel, and he's from Shandong - he came to church yesterday, which is awesome! He seemed to like it. Both of them have really good English, but they both speak Mandarin, so Elder Wayne's pretty excited. He's half-Chinese (did I mention that before?) and speaks Mandarin, but forgot a lot of it when he learned Cambodian, so now he's studying Mandarin again and working on getting back to fluency.
David and Diego Estrada got confirmed and received the Gift of the Holy Ghost yesterday in sacrament meeting! It was so great to see that, and I got to stand in the circle. I feel so honored and humbled that the Lord has called me to be part of this great work in saving souls!
I'll close this week with a true miracle. Last week, a woman and her son walked into church, wanting to know more. How often does that happen?! We went over and taught them the first lesson this week, and it was pretty incredible how receptive they were and how strong their faith is. Their names are Darlene and Hanz, and they're both very religious. I was loving how well our lesson was going, when it got better than I ever could have imagined. It turns out that Darlene has been praying for 2 or 3 years for God to lead her to the right church. Last August, she and her son moved here to Revere, just a couple streets over from the church building. She saw it and decided she'd check it out someday, but never did. And then last week, Darlene had a dream of a church that she had never been to before, and she had this overwhelming feeling and heard a voice from God saying that that was where He wanted her to be. She woke up and had a strong impression to go to the church that she saw when she first moved here. So on Sunday (the 18th), she did just that, and when she walked in, it was the same church as the one in her dream. She loves it, and she knows it's the true church. She knows it's where God wants her to be, so she and her son have both accepted baptismal dates and invitations to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. We are so excited for them! They were at church yesterday as well. I feel so blessed to be able to teach them and to have witnessed this miracle!
Much love and best wishes to you all,
Elder DeLong