Another freezing, dirty, awesome week in the Bronx!!
Today was P-day! It's my companion Elder Richardson's birthday, so we got a special district treat and got to leave the Bronx... and head to Manhattan to the Museum of Natural History! It was so great! 8 missionaries all acting like little kids in a massive museum... GREAT fun :) :) :) Hahahaha I hoped you got a kick outta the video I sent home from the Dinosaur exhibit ;)
We ate street vendor food- SO good- lamb and chicken over rice and then pretended we were a crew on a space station in the space exhibit.
These last few weeks have been going a little slow teaching wise. The very DAY I got here, they split the previous area in TWO, and added another set of missionaries into the zone. THIS means that Elder Richardson and I have the South half of what used to be one pretty big successful area. Area x 50% = 50% Success. BUT we are RAPIDLY adding to our teaching pool, and we still have a baptism planned for early march (right by Connor's birthday hooray!)!
The Bishop of the Olmstead 1st Ward is SO cool. His name is Bishop Ephraim Zamora- he is 28 and a returned Missionary- he served in California. He is so caring and does such a good job keeping the Ward active and excited about missionary work. Being a member over here is quite different from in Utah. We include the families in nearly everything we do with investigators- we take members teaching with us, tracting, contacting, and nearly every night a member in the ward feeds us and an investigator and helps us teach the lesson. The Spanish people here in NYC are so AWESOME. I LOVE them. They are SO powerful and valiant and concrete in their beliefs. :)
It's FREEZING here. Temperature wise, it doesn't get much colder than Salt Lake... but the humidity added on... the cold eats thru your skin into your bones!! Hahaha we look so funny all bundled up like eskimos, handing out pass along cards in the outside subway stations. :)
Cool story-
SO Sunday, we had a few investigators at church, but one of our main progressing investigators wasn't at church. It was 12:50, and church started at 1- I called her and she said she couldn't make it because she was tired and didn't have money to buy a metrocard to get up there (she lives about 15 minutes away by subway). I remembered something Hermano Rivera taught me in the MTC- be BOLD with love. I said "Sonia! This is SO important that you are here, your baptism is scheduled for just 3 weeks from now! We're on our way!" (haha all in my broken spanish of course). She said that she was still tired and she would come next week- I said "Sonia. You have 15 minutes. Be ready." We got a member named Manny to drive us down to southern Bronx and sure enough she was ready for church, although a little surprised at my aggressiveness. It was now 1:20 and I was supposed to play a musical number right after the Administration of the Sacrament. I was SO worried I had missed it. We sped (legally?) back to the chapel. We pulled up to the church on Olmstead at about 1:30, hurried into the church and literally as we opened the doors to the chapel the Bishop said "and now a musical number by Elder Hellberg." I walked right from the doors of the chapel right to the piano and played. It was SUCH a tender mercy of the Lord- Sonia felt the Spirit SO strong she was crying by the end of my song- along with the Bishop's wife (brownie points). I was SO grateful to the Lord for giving me courage to be firm and get Sonia to church. She said she loved the services and looks forward to coming to next Sunday!
BAHAHAHA I'm sending home a package...
with...
something...interesting...
inside... hehehehehe
You'll get it soon enough :)
WELL my email online time is almost up!
I love you all SO much!
Be safe!
Be happy!
Be smart!
LOVE,
Elder B-Dizzle Hellberg
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