Happy Monday!

“I am either learning or loving every minute of my mission”. That
pretty much sums up this past week. There happened to be a lot of
learning experiences for me this time… but those are the weeks that
I grow the most!We did have a couple of highlights this past week! One of them was
Raneesha’s baptism. He is the guy from Sri Lanka. It was a great
service. Except one tiny little detail… 🙂 Haha! We started filling
the font at the beginning of second hour, and figured it would have
enough time to fill up. SO we checked it after Sunday school was over,
and it was not even close to being full. We had accidentally left part
of the chain in between the drain and the plug so their was about 1/4
inch of an opening that water could drain out. We kind of panicked a
little bit. Luckily we found a 5 gallon cooler and some pitchers, so
we got pretty creative! We put the cooler in the shower and started
filling it up. Then we had the sink filling up the pitchers, we would
run and dump them in the font every time they got full. It was a long
process, but eventually it worked out. Ha! It was like a sauna in the
bathroom, and a member walked in.. he was so confused at first but
then he started laughing with us when he realized what was going on!
Good times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is always an adventure out here. It was a harder week than usual,
but thats okay. Last week I emailed about “enjoying the journey” and
this past week I had to decide to practice what I preached! It wasn’t
easy either. Ha… When the alarm clock goes off at 6:30 every
morning, I don’t always want to get out of bed and start exercising.
That honestly isn’t the first thing that comes to mind… But we still
do it! You just have to make a conscious decision to keep moving
forward, especially when times are tough.

I am super excited for conference! More excited than I ever  have been
for it before. I invite everyone to watch as many sessions as you can!
Remember.. Revelation doesn’t just come on Sunday 🙂

Elder Lee!
Come what may, and Love it!

 

Enjoying the Journey!!!

Another great week on Staten Island! We are so busy it is insane.. I
love it though. I would much rather be busy all of the time. I gave a
talk in sacrament meeting yesterday about general conference!! I am
really excited for it now. It is Super Bowl Sunday for us
missionaries!

Big news! Did you know that there is one district left on the
continental U.S.A.? (A district is basically something that is
composed of wards, but is too small to be a stake) Well did you also
know that the last district is in our mission? It won’t be a district
for much longer! In April it will be organized into a Stake! It is
pretty big news. President Calderwood has been the District President
for all of those wards, and after this is over he will have some more
time to focus on the missionaries. That man just never stops. He is
unbelievably good.

I can’t remember what happened this past week. Too much stuff is going
on. We have our zone conference this upcoming week though! I am really
excited for that. I keep a journal though so I will share stories with
you after the mission… I just don’t have the brain power right now
to recall all of these things.. Ahh 🙂

I have noticed something in a lot of people that I have met throughout
my mission. They can’t seem to find happiness. It is interesting. You
will see one missionary and he will be the happiest missionary that
you have met, and then you will meet his companion. His companion is
depressed and does not want to be there. How does that make sense?
They live the same life. They do the same things! What in the world?
Well it all goes back to the first book in the Book of Mormon. It
usually does. I think I already emailed this thought home? Oh well,
you can hear it again. Anyways! Lehi’s sons take off on an adventure.
They are all walking the same path, doing the same things, eating the
same food. Yet we see Laman and Lemuel having what seems to be the
worst time of their lives! It all came down to their attitude. They
chose to focus on all of the horrible things that were happening,
while Nephi took the opposite approach and had opposite results.
Happiness in life really is an active decision on our part. You have
to learn how to be happy in your life especially amidst the trials
that you face. President Calderwood says, “As leaders (or people) you
can NEVER have a bad day”. Learn to love everything that comes your
way. It’s worth a shot to give it a try… What have you got to lose?
Only sadness.

Elder Lee!
Come what may, and Love it!

The Key to Happiness

It has been another busy week here on Staten Island! Always a good one
though! We spent a lot of time looking up some names for Bishop. Want
to know a fun fact? Well, years ago all of the wards did some cleaning
up of their records. They checked on a bunch of people and if they
didn’t live there… they shipped their records of to Salt Lake. Well
now there are TONS of records in this “black hole” and Salt Lake is
starting to ship back 25-50 names per quarter for the ward to double
check on. So that is our main priority right now. Seems mundane, but
it is the best way we can help the ward right now! I don’t mind, I
just love serving them. Our Bishop is great. He is actually in one of
the Bible Videos.

Anyways, there is an awesome Liberian family that we are teaching!
They are so cool. We are going over there tonight with a member to
help them understand the importance of FHE. It should be pretty sweet.
We are excited for them! Oh and our Sri Lankan friend had to have his
baptismal date pushed back a week. We felt like that was right. He is
going to be a solid member!!

We also had a zone meeting on Friday! It went pretty well. I was asked
to give a workshop. I talked about “The Key to Happiness”. I am
actually going to send home the follow-a-long that I created for
everyone else. It has a bunch of scriptures and quotes that I used.
Maybe you can learn something! It was more directed to missionaries,
but you can still learn from it. The main point was about obedience.
Obedience really is the key to our happiness. Not only in this life,
but in the life to come. If you can’t learn to be obedient to the
“little things” here, what makes you think you will one day be able to
handle the higher laws that govern Heaven? It would do us all some
good to take a “self-inventory” and look for ways we can improve.
Maybe we can do better to keep the Sabbath Day Holy? Is there a better
way we can honor our parents? We may not find perfection in this life,
but we certainly must participate in progression if we hope to return
to live with God again. Our eternal life is earned in the seemingly
mundane daily decisions we make.

Just some food for thought!

Elder Lee
Come what may, and Love it!

The (Not So) lonely Island!

Greetings from Staten Island!! I was transferred to my third area this
past week. I will miss Brooklyn and all of the great people I met
there, but it is time to move on!! I was thinking about my mission
history and guess what? This is my third area and I am on my 6th
companion! Oh and did I mention that I am companions with Elder
Finlinson again? 🙂 We were stoked. I never thought that would happen,
but I am not complaining!!

It has been a crazy week. Staten is pretty much just a mix between
Brooklyn and Long Island. I like it out here! We spent some time
getting to know the members of the ward. They are all awesome people.
I love the ward already.

We had two lessons with one of their investigators! Raneesha. He is
from Sri Lanka! He is going to be baptized this month and we are doing
our best to help prepare him for it. We had a sweet lesson about
honoring the sabbath day, which turned into us teaching him about home
teaching. He seemed to be pretty excited about it. We are trying our
best to help these converts stay active after they are baptized..

I learned something that I am trying to apply lately.. When Adam and
Eve were in the Garden of Eden God gave them some commandments. in
Genesis 2:16-17 God said “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest
FREELY eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou
shalt not eat of it”. He showed them all of the great things they
could have. The whole garden was theirs! Except for the one tree. What
is the big deal with one tree though? They had a huge garden for
themselves!! Then we have satan who came in saying “Yea, hath God
said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?”. Satan changed
their perspective. They no longer were thinking about all of the
amazing things that God had provided for them, but thought only of the
one thing he asked them not to do. I have seen myself doing that
sometimes with the commandments! I feel like we all do it. Sometimes
we get too focused on the things God asks us NOT to do, and we
completely miss the amazing things that we could be doing in stead of
complaining. My advice for the week? Don’t focus on the one tree you
are “missing out on”, when you have a garden full of blessings waiting
for you!

Elder Lee
Come what may, and Love it!

The Journey Continues….

Well this past week we had a Jewish guy bite his thumb at us.. that
was a first! If you don’t know the significance of that, you can
research it. Ha! It was a great week though! I am getting transferred
to a new area tomorrow, and I enjoyed my last week serving in
Brooklyn.

Do you remember Mike? He is a recent convert from my last area. We
have skyped him a few times to help him prepare himself for the
Melchizedek priesthood!!! How amazing is that? I am really excited for
him.

One of the highlights of the week happened with Adam! Our investigator
is moving to Arizona, and he had all of the missionaries over for an
early dinner on Friday. Little did Elder McPherson and I know, but we
were going to be the main chefs… So we showed up and we had two
hours to make all of the food! We made fried chicken,
spaghetti/sausage, penne pasta, hard boiled eggs, salad,
cheese/crackers, vegetables and hummus, etc. We prepared a feast!
Luckily it turned out pretty good. I have never made fried chicken
before, but now I know how (kinda..)! Its amazing the things you can
learn when you are given very little time to learn them. Ha!

I was on an exchange with Elder Durkin and we had a great day! We were
fearlessing tons of people all day, and we actually managed to get a
couple people’s information. That doesn’t usually happen. We had some
extra time at night because something fell through so we decided to
knock a building. The thing that is frustrating with knocking is that
they never open their doors! They always yell “WHO IS IT?” and after
we tell them, they say they aren’t interested. Which is funny because
they have no idea what they aren’t interested in. I started responding
to them after they would say that. After hearing them say “not
interested”, I started saying “not interested in what?”. Haha it
caught a couple people off guard and they would just mumble something
like “Well.. whatever you are talking about..”. People these days…

Anyways. I have loved serving in Brooklyn. Great memories here! It is
time to move on though. I don’t know exactly what the next chapter in
my mission holds, but I suppose that is the way it should be. Whenever
you are unsure of things in life you just have to press forward with
faith!! There is one thing that I do know about my next area..
adventure awaits!

Elder Lee
Come what may, and Love it!