Merry Christmas

Christmas Devotional

First of all MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

For some reason this week has been really warm and humid, like 60 or
65 degrees. it's been weird, we have been sweating like crazy and it's
almost Christmas, and right now the temperature for tomorrow is saying
that it's suppose to be 71 which is super crazy because everybody has
told me that winters in New York are super cold but it's already the
end of December and it 65 haha. Anyway this is what happened this week

Thursday we had to go down to Manhattan because Elder Wilson has to go
to the doctors every 3 months and so this was the month for him to go.
We got to the train station and these 2 guys started talking to us one
was pretty old and one was young, and one asked where we were from and
how everything was going, he seemed to know a lot about missionaries
and so we told him that we were doing good and we are just going to
Manhattan, we got on the train and they both sat next to us and we had
a pretty interesting conversation, this old guy is like a host for
foreign people or anybody and he does this thing called couch surfing
and that is when anybody around the world can go on it and ask to stay
at his house anywhere in the world. And so he had this kid with him
and he was from Russia he came here like 5 days ago because he is gay
and apparently Russians don't like gays or something like that and so
he wants to get a citizenship here and this old guy is helping him to
get it, it actually worked out great because this old guy is also gay
and so he is letting his stay at his house with his husband,
personally I thought it was kinda weird and I felt creeped out to talk
to them but it was all good and they were actually really nice.

After the appointment we went down to Dairy Queen because Elder Wilson
had a gift card for it and it was delicious.

Friday we had a awesome Christmas devotional that was all made up and
run by the missionaries and they sang some awesome songs!! The main
person in charge of it was Eliza Smith she is a sister missionary here
and she was pretty much the one who put it all together and finalized
it and she is the Sister that is from Montana and is best friends with
Whitney. I talked to her for a little bit after because we got food
and she is pretty cool and also she is majored in opera and is super
good at singing.

There is a man in our area his name is Mr. President nobody actually
knows his real name but this past week we have been running into him a
lot, we saw him like 4 different times and this guy is CRAZY! He is so
crazy that I don't even know how to describe him but every time he
comes to church on Wednesday all the kids get scared of he because he
acts super weird. We saw him on the street and he came up to us and he
had a super fat lip and we asked what happened and he said that he was
peeing on the street in public and somebody told him to stop but he
didn't so they just punched him right in the face and ran away, I
kinda felt bad but then he wanted to punch us because he never got to
punch anybody after he got hit, likely the bus was coming and we left,
but this Sunday we were sitting in sacrament meeting and out of know
where he just shows up and just sits next to us and we didn't know
what to do with him so we let him sit down with us and after about 2
minutes he just stood up and started clapping as loud as he can and
started doing all these weird hand gestures and it totally ruined the
spirit but we were able to calm him down and like 5 minutes later he
wanted to go to the bathroom and so he left and the people behind us
were like you guys have to go with him before he breaks or does
something crazy, so we followed him and he came out of the bathroom
completely drenched from head to waste and he wanted to go back into
the chapel but we not unless he goes and dries himself off, so he
dried himself and we went back and after about 10 minutes he couldn't
take it and decided to leave so we had to escort him out to see if he
actually left, and so that was what I did in sacrament... babysat a
crazy guy.

Monday we had a awesome lesson with a sister of member her name is
Rocío, she didn't read or pray because she said she had a lot of work
(that's pretty much 95% of the people here) but the lesson was good
and I could feel the spirit and we had her brother testify as well,
most of he time she acts like she doesn't care but we could tell that
she really does and we can't wait to meet with her again.

Yesterday we had interviews with president and my interview was really
good, and I left the interview really surprised because how in tune
President Smith is with the spirit because he was just saying
everything that I needed to hear and before I thought he was just
kinda a robot but he was really personal and he knew me really well
even though I have been here for 4 month and he has like 170
missionaries to worry about. I'm really grateful that we have a
awesome Mission President!! Also yesterday we did this thing were like
6 or 8 missionaries go and set up a table on Fordham road (busiest
road in our area) and we just talk to people and show them the new
video and see if they would like to learn more, we didn't have a whole
lot of success mainly because nobody wanted to stop and talk or even
make eye contact but we got a few people who were interested.

Let's see what else oh ya I stepped in poo 3x yesterday it was awful.
Nobody cleans up after their dog here but what can you do it's the
Bronx.

Today we are going with Jay to Manhattan to see all the awesome
Christmas lights.

I hope everybody is having good holiday and Merry Christmas!

Elder Pugmire

👔👖👍🏻

I don't have much to say about this week except that I had a good first week with my new companion. 
So far I have been blessed with good companions that are hardworking and are fun to be with and make the work exciting to do. 
We haven't had very many lessons this week mainly because we dropped a lot of the investigators because they didn't wanna learn and progress or they didn't answer our calls or didn't answer the door when we would go over. Also this last week president sent out a challenge to have 1000 new investigators by the end of this year. So we have been trying to find new investigators and tracting a lot every day. We haven't had much success last week but this week has been really good on Monday we found a guy that is kind of interested and yesterday we found 2 new investigators that are really cool and wanna learn more, so we already hit the standard of excellence for this week because it's only 3 new investigators a week. 

Yesterday we had a really good member lesson with one of our investigators (it was awesome because it's really hard to have a member presents because everybody works here 24/7 but we had one last night and it was awesome!) her name is Scarlet and she is really cool, she has been searching for a church and has been going to a lot of churches but non of them seemed right to her. We had a awesome lesson on the restoration and she agreed to read the Book of Mormon and to pray about it. I'm really excited to teach her more because she seems super legit and she is really sincere. 

Also I finished reading the Book of Mormon this week and I have started to read the Bible because a lot of people stop us on the streets and ask us about how much we know about the Bible and then start quoting things from it and to be honest I have no idea what the heck they were talking about, so that's what I'm gonna do for studies for the next few months. 

I just wanna end by saying that the Book of Mormon is awesome and I wish I would have read it more when I was home, I hope that everybody has a good week and happy holidays. 

Elder Pugmire

Transfers and a new comp

Delight and the Sister who taught her

This week has been a pretty interesting.

On Thursday we didn't have much going on because we always have weekly
planning and that takes up to 3 hours if not longer, so we didn't get
out of the apartment until like 4:30 or 5 and so we decided to knock
some doors and then go over to this one guys house, his name is Tom,
we knocked on his door and he let us in we sat down and started to
talk to him. We had a really good lesson on the plan of salvation
because he had some questions about what happens after we die and
stuff like that. At the end of the visit he went on a long rant about
ASIS and stuff like that and so that's when we decided to end he
lesson and leave but before we were about to leave he made us take a
can of beer and he would not let us leave unless we took a can and
when we got to the pad we just dumped it.

Friday I had a day split with the district leader Elder Cheney we
pretty much did looks ups and tracted the whole day and we found 3
investigators and 2 of them looked really solid but toward the end of
the day at about 8 we decided to tract a certain building and so we
got to the 5th floor and we knocked on the first door and nobody
answered for a little while so we knocked again and this guy just
flings open the door starts yelling at us and cussing us out super
hardcore and telling us that he was gonna call the cops if we didn't
leave the building so we pretended like we were gonna leave and just
went 2 stairs down  and knocked on the next door and he heard and ran
down the stairs and kept yelling and cussing us out and also he
threatened us a lot so we decided to leave for good.

On Saturday me and elder Richards went to a baptism of a cool lady
that we tracted into (Delight Stackhouse) and it was a really cool
experience and it was really fun to see her get baptized and to see
how happy she was. And on Sunday she invited us to the English ward so
we can be there to give her the Holy Ghost.

This week we also had transfer calls and it took president forever to
call the zone leaders who then call the district leaders who then call
the missionaries in their district to see what areas they are going
to. So we got our call at midnight and Elder Richards is leaving
Kingsbridge and going to Newburgh which is kind of funny/sad because
thats where he started and that's where he is going back so he has
been on his mission for over a year and only served in 2 areas, I hope
that doesn't happen to me. My new companion is elder Wilson I don't
know him yet because I haven't seen him and still waiting for him to
get here.

So Monday and Tuesday we were just pretty much visiting all the
members in our area so that Elder Richards could take a picture with
them and say goodbye.

Thats all.

Elder Pugmire

Finding New People

Thanksgiving was great! We had 3 dinner appointments that we had
scheduled for sure and we knew there was gonna be a lot of food so we
invited Elders Price and Salceda to join us because they don't have
members in their area that feed them. The first appointment was good I
was pretty hungry so we got there ate food shared a message and left.
The second appointment was also good we didn't eat food because we had
another appointment but Hermana Vega still made us eat something, she
gave us a whole bunch of ice cream cake, after the cake I was pretty
full and had no idea how I was gonna make it in the next appointment.
When we got to this next appointment with Hermana Katya the whole
table was filled with food and to make the story short I felt super
sick and super fat that night because of all the food I have eaten
that day but I'm gonna stop complaining because there are missionaries
like Scottie who don't any food for thanksgiving.

This past week we have been focusing on finding new people to teach
because we need more investigators and also because we went from
having 8 people with a baptismal date to only 1. I'm not sure what we
are doing wrong but we gotta make some changes.

So we have been doing ALOT of tracting and for some reason we haven't
been able to find the right people because nobody wants to hear what
we have to say.

This past Sunday the video "A Savior is Born" came out and we were
really pumped to share it with people at the door thinking that it
would make them more interested but so far no luck, but we will keep
trying our best and I know that we will find somebody who is really
interested and wants to learn more.

On Tuesday we had a really good lesson with Nicole (she is the only
baptism date we have right now) it was on the law of chastity because
she has a less active boyfriend and they just had a baby so in order
for her to be baptized they need to be married. It was my turn to lead
and guide the lesson. I have never had a lessons on the law of
chastity with anybody before so I was thinking to myself that it was
gonna be a little awkward and a little scary but when we got in the
house, we started out with a prayer and as soon as  the prayer was
over I immediately felt super awesome, and I didn't feel scared or
nervous and it was really cool to have a experience like that. I knew
it was the spirit and I felt it all through out the lesson and I'm
pretty sure that this lesson was the best lesson we had so far when I
was in charge of leading it.

This is it for this week sorry that it sounds like I complained a lot
but this is what actually happened and I didn't know what else to
write. I hope that everybody had a great thanksgiving (sounds like
everybody did) and I hope that the rest of this week goes well.

Elder Pugmire

New Companion

I don't have much to say about this week except that I had a good first week with my new companion. 
So far I have been blessed with good companions that are hardworking and are fun to be with and make the work exciting to do. 
We haven't had very many lessons this week mainly because we dropped a lot of the investigators because they didn't wanna learn and progress or they didn't answer our calls or didn't answer the door when we would go over. Also this last week president sent out a challenge to have 1000 new investigators by the end of this year. So we have been trying to find new investigators and tracting a lot every day. We haven't had much success last week but this week has been really good on Monday we found a guy that is kind of interested and yesterday we found 2 new investigators that are really cool and wanna learn more, so we already hit the standard of excellence for this week because it's only 3 new investigators a week. 

Yesterday we had a really good member lesson with one of our investigators (it was awesome because it's really hard to have a member presents because everybody works here 24/7 but we had one last night and it was awesome!) her name is Scarlet and she is really cool, she has been searching for a church and has been going to a lot of churches but non of them seemed right to her. We had a awesome lesson on the restoration and she agreed to read the Book of Mormon and to pray about it. I'm really excited to teach her more because she seems super legit and she is really sincere. 

Also I finished reading the Book of Mormon this week and I have started to read the Bible because a lot of people stop us on the streets and ask us about how much we know about the Bible and then start quoting things from it and to be honest I have no idea what the heck they were talking about, so that's what I'm gonna do for studies for the next few months. 

I just wanna end by saying that the Book of Mormon is awesome and I wish I would have read it more when I was home, I hope that everybody has a good week and happy holidays. 

Elder Pugmire