already! Monday was a great Zone P-Day with the rest of the Hartford
Zone and we had a fun snowball fight and then played chair soccer to
end the day! We had a great time with them!! That night, we saw a
bajillion people! We went to dinner with Sister Kirkley-Bey and the
Smurthwaites to J’s Crab Shack, one of the best seafood restaurants
I’ve ever been to, and it was right down the street from us the entire
time! The fish was really fresh and just tasted clean and not fishy at
all. It was really good food. After that we spent a little bit of time
with the Biggers’ and had family home evening with them! It was fun
and throughout the entire time I’ve been in Hartford, the Biggers’
have always taken us in. Thank you Brother, Sister, Grant and Clark
Bigger! After the Biggers’, we drove back to Park St, and went to AC
Petersen with Sister Buswell! They have some of the best ice cream I
have ever had in my life. Definitely a place to go back to. We had fun
and ate some really good ice cream.
Tuesday was mostly spent packing. We finally got everything together
at the end of the day and saw Jacob and his family for a little bit to
close our time in Hartford. Jacob and his family have so much
potential and I am grateful for the time that we had to work with them
and help them get closer to baptism.
Wednesday morning, we checked everything and then I headed out with
the Zone Leaders to New Britain for a blood drive. Elder McIntyre
would check in the Sisters later in the day and then head up to good
ol’ Amherst with Elder Tingey. I am really thankful for the learning
that happened in Hartford. The situation we were thrown into was
probably the best thing that could have happened for us. We were both
pretty new, but the experience of loving the members, our relationship
with each other, the process of finding new investigators, being
fellow shipped by much more senior, experienced missionaries and their
effect on me, and the whole combining into 4.5 months all made a big
impact on me. I am so grateful for the people in the Hartford ward and
all of our investigators. Each of the them made an impression on me
and I love the area so much! That morning, we met a guy named Jaheel
at CCSU, where the blood drive was, and he said he knew a Mormon guy
named McCade LaRose and that he was the coolest, best guy he knew! We
left him with a card, and later that night, we were at dinner, and it
turns out that McCade’s dad teaches Institute in New Haven!! Coolest
thing ever! Brother LaRose actually remembers Jaheel as well, which
was amazing to see the Lord’s hand in the small things that we do
every day! The Zone Leaders drove me down to Southington and we had
lunch at a place called Young Youngs, best chinese buffet ever! I
finally met up with Elder Greding and we have had a blast ever since.
He is a hard working missionary and was trained very well by Elder
Lutkin. Sadly, Elder Lutkin had to go home 2 weeks early because his
wisdom teeth were giving him serious pain. He is from England, and
they don’t traditionally worry about the wisdom teeth until they
become a problem. Elder Greding is doing great though and is excited
to be back in New Haven!
Haven, and East Haven, which is pretty small, but it takes forever to
drive through. The chapel is a 6 story building on the Yale Campus,
and we are the Yale Missionaries! Pretty cool thought! New Haven is
basically a nicer version of Hartford. It has the bad parts and the
good parts with a college, plenty of crazy streets and everything in
between! It’s a lot of fun to be here. Also, one of the original pizza
places in the USA is here in New Haven, Frank Pepe’s! There was one in
West Hartford, but this is the original.
So Wednesday was my first day in New Haven! Since I don’t have the
specifics on me of everything that happened, here is the rundown of
the people and investigators we have:
Christine: She is friends with Joe Senatore, who has been a member for
about seven years. She has heard about the gospel on and off for a
while, but recently she has decided to make a serious study of the
gospel. She has a baptismal date for next Saturday, and since Elder Greding has
been in Southbury for two weeks, we have to teach all of the
commandments in one week. Yep. But she is very committed and it
shouldn’t be a problem. She doesn’t have any issues with commandments
except for one or two, and we are strengthening her and giving her
tools to fight off temptation. We are excited for her to receive the
Holy Ghost since that will help a ton! She is really teachable and
accepts all of our commitments willingly. She is amazing and we can’t
wait to see how far her influence goes!
Edet: So long story short, Edet is a Nigerian Prince, but didn’t want
to rule, so he ran away, but had to divorce his wife for her safety,
and she is still in the UK while he is here. He has been taught almost
everything, he is just living with a lady here, who is his fiance, so
that is the only thing keeping him from baptism. We have had an issue
with him knowing what to do with this for a while, but this week, we
got some feedback at District Meeting. We should pray with him on the
spot and get an answer. In our lesson with him, at the end of a spirit
filled lesson, we asked if we could pray about it and he said yes.
After the prayer, which was super genuine, we sat in silence for two
minutes, and he sat up and said, “Wow, i will be baptized by April.
And I’ve decided that I will move out of Minteria’s house (his fiance)
because I cant see us having a Christ centered life together”. It was
amazing!!!! It worked!! The power of a prayer…He is so awesome and
has an investigator fire that will hopefully continue to his life in
the church.
Sergio: He is retired, about 45, and at the Yale Divinity School. He’s
just studying religion for fun, but his class load is insane. He is
mostly investigating for intellectual reasons, but he is really cool.
He knows the Bible like no other, and is smarter than anyone I have
met, but we are hoping to help him apply it to himself.
Argenis: He’s an 8 year old kid, and his two sisters were baptized
about a year ago, and now he wants to be baptized. His parents aren’t
members, but they want the kids to grow up in a religion and to choose
for themselves. Argenis knows about as much as any 8 year old, but we
have to teach him the lessons since he is a convert.
Jennifer: Her fiance is an RM who left the church, so he knows a lot,
but she wants to know about her future in law’s religion, so she
requested a Book of Mormon. She has LOTS of questions and a good
amount of them are hard, but she really is wondering. She doesn’t have
too much faith in Jesus Christ, but we are helping her get there.
That’s pretty much all of our solid investigators, but just to let you
know, Sister Badham, my MTC teacher, served in New Haven 3 years ago,
and now I am here! I am excited to discover the amazing people the
Lord has prepared for us to teach and will let you know about the
progress of everybody here pretty soon. Peace out!
-Elder Davis
Where the Lord Wants Me 