January 19, 2016 Manhattan Temple trip

Life is going great here in "3 celestial zone"! My simple testimony is that I love missionary work and know it is a true work (check it out sometime, see your local missionaries for details). In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Manhattan temple! It worked out great because it was Elder Cottle's 18 month anniversary, so we got to go together!

January 18

So I will be emailing tomorrow instead of today just FYI - anniversary temple trip tomorrow and so we will combine preparation day with that.

Elder Sirrine

Text from photos of journal pages:

January17

Yesterday was the long awaited coming of Elder Lee Donaldson and Brother Watson from the missionary department.  It was so good!  We learned so many good things.  Possibly the foremost subject (well, besides the Doctrine of Christ, because we’re missionaries so every training is focused on the Doctrine of Christ) was planning.  They taught us the newest training on planning and actually helping people instead of just hoping.  They warned us that for the first bit it would be long and frustrating.  I didn’t actively believe him but right about now the leadership of the mission is like a bunch of chickens running around with no heads.  We are absolutely boggled.  We’ve practically been planning non-stop since we left the meeting, skipping language study, adding “companionship study,” etc.  And we’ve made it through plans for three people.
Another bomb dropped on the leadership is a new style of exchanges.  Bro Watson was in a meeting with the Quorum of the Twelve last week in which they told him to change exchanges so that the entire non-leader companionship comes and works in the leader’s pool.  That puts some pressure on the leaders to have a stellar area!  The idea is that they can observe exactly what is done to have a great pool.  The actual logistics of pulling it off are surprisingly complicated.  We are the only mission in the world testing this right now.  It’s going to be fun.

January 18
Wow our pool is looking so solid right now, we are really working with some pure in heart.
Today we taught three amazing new investigators; a Mexican with family problems who is pretty smart, and a Dominican couple who was super awesome.  All three accepted a baptismal invite.  We really taught well, and the Spirit was there.  The Mexican guy, Javier, just got divorced a few months ago.  It turns out Elder Cottle and I had both spoken with him on the train before.  That’s interesting.  (another train story – after the Dominican appointment on the way out, a group of kids were walking in the building and one of them interjected, “Hey I’ve seen that guy on the train before!”  Yeah.  Everybody’s seen us on the train before…two well-dressed white kids that talk with everyone.  By the time I’m done with Bushwick, anyway).  So we taught Javier, and after he prayed, there was a long silence, and we asked him how he felt, all this just after explaining the fruit of the Spirit.  He felt it.  He felt peace for the first time in a long time.