May 18, 2015 Back in a trio

Our zone in the mission home for one last hurrah with President Calderwood and his wife.

Pay attention! Speaking to Leigh (or Becca or Danai if they are single in a year): marry this beautiful man wearing the tie that looks like a picnic table cloth. We've already talked about it, everything's a go. I take this marriage and family stuff seriously - I'm gonna have cool brothers in law. It's like playing chess. Seriously though, Elder Buckner is where it's at.  he will be in Provo in a year.

Today is a little bit sad.... Elder Buckner is going back to Peru. He was supposed to stay to the end of the transfer, but his mission president called a few days ago and said he wanted him on Monday. I'm going to miss him so much. I've never looked up to any missionary here like I have to Elder Buckner. He is a good missionary. I look forward to catching up with him at BYU after the mission. So that kind of leaves this district in a super awkward spot. Elder Honey is now in a trio with us, so I still have been in as many trios as I have companionships! Also we will be finishing up Elder Honey's training, so he will have had three trainers between Elders Buckner, Vi and myself. Weird huh? Also Elder Buckner was our district leader. We were wondering if we would be having a democracy for the last three weeks of the transfer.... Thankfully we've got Elder Vi, our new district leader! He's got a lot of experience in the mission and in Jamaica so he knows the area well. Without him we've got elder Honey who is training, me who just finished training, and the sisters who just got blinded into Jamaica (and Hermana Urizar is as young as I am). So our district is really young, and now our trio has to take care of what two companionships were doing before. It's going to be super fun! It will be an adventure.  So we just dropped elder Buckner off and now we have to go move Elder Honey into our apartment.

Our trio looks like immigration officers - two white guys and a translator all dressed up. That's actually something that often makes it hard to contact people - if they've got a guilty conscience they think we are cops. We just wanna feed the sheep, man.

With Elders Buckner and Vi

On Sunday we took Chris, our most promising investigator, to the English ward because he couldn't make it to Spanish. Not to be deceived, the English ward has more skin pigment than the Spanish, and a lot of them used to be Pentecostal. Chris was a little overwhelmed. Not sure if I want to be taking any more investigators to the English gospel principles class anymore..... Chris was literally getting the gospel yelled at him.  It was kind of funny. Elder Vi and I were just looking at each other not really knowing what's do. That's what makes New York fun - lots of different people with different backgrounds. You meet some interesting people here. In our ward there is a lady who is probably the most committed person in our ward to the gospel, but has a few variances in how she interprets the scriptures. She believes we have to wear pioneer clothes all the time and go to church all day on Sunday. So she goes to the English ward as well, which is impressive because I don't think she really understands English....  Anyways, there's a brief recap of what's going on... I'll try to work on a list of people we are working with and let you all know a little more about the work here soon.

To finish off, I'd like to bear my testimony of prayer. I'm really trying right now to improve my prayers because as a missionary you have no choice but to rely wholly upon God, and I want to strengthen my relationship with Him. I've been thinking lately about the significance of praying in the name of Jesus Christ. On the mission I've come to realize a little more the power and the sacredness of that name. I think that in the past I've used it perhaps too lightly. I have been trying lately to understand a little better what it means to pray in the name of Jesus Christ. I would hope every one of you would do the same.  I testify of the power of prayer, of really, truly praying. I give my witness that God is there, and we can speak to him as one man speaks to another. I invite you to search the scriptures and learn what it means to pray in the names of Jesus Christ, and I say these things in His name, amen.

Elder Sirrine

This is how you shop at Costco when it's 45 minutes away and you don't have a car. Thanks Granny for the solid suitcase!

Proofreader needed

In case you were ever wondering what I look like bald.... You can now imagine it a little better. Elder St. Rose was bragging about his haircut ting skills so I thought I'd give it a shot. It took me about 1.5 seconds to realize he was using the clippers on the top of my head, and it took him about 1.5 seconds to shave a line right down the center. Anyway, this is our beautiful district with Elder Shippen heading down to a zone conference in the mission home!