Finally Adjusting

Mom!!!

 

Hey there! Okay so I am going to address the Lion King first... There are only night time showings?? No day time... :( If you could look again that would be great. But yes that will be a problem if they have stopped showing them during the day. And not necessarily that week but it would need to be sometime during my second cycle. And not the last week of it. So maybe like the 26th of December. That would be good! :) So just look around there. I really hope they still have daytime showings.  Many of the missionaries in his mission are able to view a Broadway show before coming home.

 

Well not going to lie, not much new.. Going to the city again today for Pday. Haha I think next cycle I am not going to go at all! lol! It's just such a hassle :P But it has been nice to enjoy some of the new privileges we have. They are now able to go into the New York South mission to see such sights as the WTC Memorial, Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty.  But I would much rather serve there again! I really hope I can go back and finish my mission in Harlem!

 

ZL Zone Leader stuff is normal. Not too much going on. We are now allowed to give permission to missionaries to leave the Zone on Pday. Zone Leaders have a lot more responsibility than before, but still nothing too backbreaking. My favorite part so far has been going to Zone Council and getting to meet with all the others ZL's, APs,Assistants to the President and President and Sister Morgan. Those are pretty cool meetings where we all get to share our thoughts, ideas, and experiences from the mission.

 

Oh Big news! This Saturday Elder D. Todd Christofferson from the Quorum of the 12 is coming to talk to us :) That is going to be so cool! I remember when he came to our stake! It will be cool getting to meet with him again! He is coming to talk to the Yorktown Stake (Where I was in Stamford) And I was upset that I was not going to get to hear from him after I got transferred, but now he is coming to talk to all the Missionaries so I am really excited! :) It is going to be sick! I will tell you all about it next week! \

 

Other than that, not too much new. I took over the area yesterday when I went on a split with Elder Elliot (District Leader from English District) He is really cool! Such a great teacher! I learned so much from him! I think it was one of the better splits I have had on my mission. The ward has been struggling with people coming to church so we have been focusing for now on a lot of less active work. We were looking some people up yesterday and we had a bit of a miracle. We just so happened to visit a family who was having some internal struggles... Can't say too much. But it was truly amazing what led us up to going there :) 

 

So tell Lindsay to email me! I want to know her plans about serving! I think she should get her papers in ASAP! And if she does not want to leave until after I get home, just put her departure date for after! But she could get her call within the next 2 months in all reality! .. Following the announcement at General Conference that young women can now go on missions at the age of 19, Lindsay has decided to put in her mission application early next year.  Yes, I have requested that she not go until after Mark gets home.

 

All of our investigators are slowly progressing. I love helping them work past their fears and doubts! :) I have finally started meeting some members, and I completely got punked multiple times the other day at the Arroyo's house( I think that's their name lol! ) First off I ate a tiny pepper.. Freaking Hot as.. yeah. But it surprised me how hot that little thing was. Not going to do that again... then they played a game with us..  It was way weird.. There was one person who would decide how to touch someone's face with their hand and just do something funny.. like run their finger across the person to their left's forehead, for example.. I thought the game had no point... Well turns out Elizabeth ( the mom lol) had lipstick on her fingers.. So whenever she touched my face I got lipstick all over me...  I had no idea what was going on, but everyone else was laughing at me and I did not quite get it.. haha It's kind of hard to explain but it was funny... Elder Kropf got a pretty good kick out of it. It took me like 10 rounds until I looked at my hand and there was a red mark and I was like "what the?? " lol It was fun!

 

To answer you question Mom we have been going down to the city for our Pdays. Last week we went to China Town and to the 9-11 Memorial with Sister Keanini and Sister Floyd!  I was proud of myself! I did not spend any money apart from $7 for Metro!

 

But anyways that is about all the news for this week! :) I am doing good and finally adjusting to this place! :) We are trying to pick up the work! We really need the help from the members so that is what we are focusing on.. But first we need to get them to church! Well pray for us here! Pray for the ward! :)

I love you all! Take care and have a great week! :) 

 

Love Mark!

Just a Few Quick Thoughts

Mommy!

 

Well I know you are writing but I am going to start writing now! So the big question is.. When is Lindsay putting in her papers??? :) Hopefully soon! :) That is such a big crazy change!

 

But anyways conference was so good this weekend! I loved all of it! One thing that really stood out to me is when President Monson said "As we act on the promptings of the Spirit the Lord will use us more frequently to run his errands" Or something along those lines. I was listening to it in Spanish so I do not know exactly what it was that he said. But I loved it! I learned so many things by the leaders of the Church, as well as by the spirit! :)

 

So not a lot of time so I am going to cut to the chase. Mom could you look for Lion king Broadway tickets for like the 2nd of January? There are like 4 or 5 of us who want to go and the sooner the tickets are bought the cheaper they are. So If you could look and tell me prices that would be great.. and would you be willing to buy them and then I could just have everybody pay you back? Because we would all need to buy them together so we could be in a group... But either that day or like the week before or something. Any of those Wednesdays would really work. Just make sure it is a Wednesday. could you do that for me?? :) Thank you tons! :) Just look at prices and let me know what I could do for myself?? That could be my Christmas present! :) Please do that this week!!! :) The sooner the more money we all save!

 

Okay well about college. Second thought apply for the Fall semester. Not summer. After some praying that is what I want to do. And Elder Fox told me I could apply as a freshman because that is what he did at multiple schools lol! So if you could start that.  Okay well mom not a lot of time! but I am glad to hear bout Linz! :) She should go right after I get home! A Well mom I love you all! Got to keep it short! :)

 

Oh scc ID no idea where it is! Well I love you all! Love Mark! :)

 

Sorry about the short email! WE are going to the city again! :) Chinatown and Memorial for the Trade Centers! lo love u all! :)

 

A New Area

Hey there mommy dearest! :)

 

So your letter today was as scatterbrained as I normally am lol! But I will go ahead and try to answer all of your questions. I may not have too much time because this is Elder Kropf's dying cycle and he wants to go down to Manhattan and take advantage of the new privileges we have been given... AKA we are going to Time Square today :) And yes Elder Kropf is the one with the Yoda lol!

 

So the area is good! Still upstate so I am still in a car. Right now Elder Kropf is the one who is driving .Although I am fairly certain the the next couple days I will be the one taking charge of that so I can learn my way around the area. The area is huge! It borders my last area in Stamford/Greenwich. And we live in a small apartment. There are only 3 in the building. Our landlady Maria is awesome. She owns a Pizza joint as well so she is always giving us free pizza lol! She loves us. So we are well taken care of. Plus this is the nicest apartment I have lived in. A little smaller than the others, but for sure the best furnished and decorated. I really like it! :) And I am finally on the Bottom Bunk!! First time in 18 months lol! So that has been nice. I feel like I sleep a lot better, when I am closer to the ground. New responsibilities are  fairly simple, be kind, loving and an example! So not too bad. Plus we take numbers on Sunday nights and call the AP's. So nothing too bad... I was not excited when President Morgan called me though lol! I was trying to avoid leadership.. But oh  well.. What the Lord wants, I will do. :)

 

So packages, just send them to the office. It is in my Zone so I can pretty much go there whenever I want to pick it up... Just for now on send mail to the Mission Office. I will get it pretty much when it comes in.

 

So the area is really nice! We live about a 2 minute walking distance from the Church! So that is a huge plus!! And yes I am still working in the Spanish Ward! :) This ward is a lot smaller, and I have hardly gotten to know anyone yet.. But I plan on changing that soon. I am going to implement the plan we used in Stamford and use it here. And we are giving a training about it to the Zone next Monday.. That is something President Morgan wanted me to do, and one of the big reasons why I think I was called as a Zone Leader. So I am excited to see the Work get moving here. Member Participation in Missionary work is kind of down the tube here, so it will, with much faith, be coming back up here shortly :)

 

So I am thinking this is probably my last area but I really don't know. We will see what happens! :) We are teaching some really cool people. There are 4 Mexican sisters who come to the Spanish class, and come to church each week. The hard part has been actually sitting down with them and teaching them. They are all younger. Se llaman Mia, Lidia, Nance,.. and I forget the others name lol! But they are cool. Then there is this lady who we are teaching. She is ready to be baptized, she just needs to move out of the apartment where she is living because she is living with another guy... She is looking though :) That is the good news :) Elder Kropf has done a great job at teaching her!  She is so smart and has a sincere desire to learn :)

 

And then there are a lot of other people but I don't have much time lol! :) But things are going well.. as always I am a little slow adjusting to change but I will be good :) I am glad to hear the family is doing alright and nothing too Crazy is happening... I will try and write Todd again soon. I got a big stack of letters that I need to reply to. lol!

 

And thanks for telling me about Julian. Tell him I say "what's up" and I love him. I love you all very much! and I miss you! You are all in my prayers! :) Tell Bishop Remund I say Hello as well :) I love you all. Take care and have a great week! I will talk to you all soon! And try to have even more time to email next week! Take care! Love you all! Love Marky Mark! :)

 

(Auhoo hoo) That is my monkey noise for Stephie! You can tell her I just made that in the Library for her lol! :) Bye Bye! :)

Transfer to New Rochelle, NY

Mommy! Ok this stinks but I have like no time! I am in New Rochelle with Elder Kropft. I will be killing him. Term meaning that he will be sending him home next transfer. This is his last cycle. I am also a ZL .now.  Zone Leader, similar to a district leader but works with a larger group of missionaries. I am certain he will explain his responsibilities in future emails.   But I am happy about the changes, it was hard at first but now I am really excited to be here :) this stupid computer at the library only gave me 15 mintues to email because the library is closing in a couple of minutes. and we were helping with Transfers all day.  But I am glad to hear Thomas is doing well! :) As you all are. :) Sorry that this will be the shortest email of my mission.

 

 

Well I love you all very much I promise I will say more next week! :) You are all the best!

 

Love Mark! :)

Some pictures from his last weekend in Stamford:

Thank You to Everyone!

Dear Mom and Dad :) 

So Mom first off.. you didn't find any dermatologists in the area for me like I asked lol! I am only saying that so I don't forget to ask again. 

But anyway my birthday was really good! :) As you know I went to the Baltazars Monday night and they had a really interesting/fun party for me :) I appreciated it a lot! I also had 2 other parties that day. 1 with the Vera family and 1 that the Sisters planned haha! So by the end of the day my face was stuffed with cake! But it was a lot of fun! :) I enjoyed myself. 

And Mom thank you for all the cards and for the package! :) I appreciate it so much! I got a good number of cards, so I just want to say thank you to everyone who sent me something... haha I even got a letter from Tori! That was really surprising!.. I was confused when I saw the envelope because it was not the same last name that I was used to haha.! But I am going to write her back today.. :) Sounds like she is doing good with her Husband and her baby boy :)  

So the work is going really good :) We found this awesome kid named Christian this week who is a friend of Katherine Baltazar. He is legit. Such a humble perosn. He is 18, still in High School, but so open to the things we are teaching him. We left a Book of Mormon at his house Sunday night, then called him Tuesday to see if he got it, and he said "Yeah what part do you want me to read" And he sounded really excited to start reading so that was a really cool experience! :) 

Also we have taught Emmanuel again, as well we are now teaching his mom! :) He said he was going to pray about which Saturday in October will be the day he gets baptized! :) I am just so happy, because his Mom, Dora is so open! We had such a great lesson with them Sunday night :) 

So we have given like 15 blessings in the past week! It has been such a blessing for me to be able to see the power of the Priesthood work through us.. The one I gave to Hermano Alfaro was a really spiritual experience.. and it was given completely and utterly by the Spirit.. The Lord promised him some big blessings.... :) Priesthood blessings, especially ones for the Sick have really helped me understand the Atonement.. They really are such a powerful thing..

So I don't have too much time today, but I just want to let you all know that I love you and I am constantly thinking about you.

Well everyone thank you so much! :) You guys are all the best! :) I love each one of you! Thank you for all you do and for your support! I love what I am doing out here! There is no place I would rather be :) God Bless! :)

Love Marky Mark! 

Oh Mom could you please send a flash drive with all my mission picutres?? ASAP please :) just save them and put them on there and if you could have them out by this weekend it would mean the world to me :) Thank you Mucho!!!

Love Mark! :) 

Feliz Cumpleanos Elder Mattei!

A Gospel Comparison to Halo?

Dear Mom... Thank you so much for sending that to me! :) Your conversion brought tears to my eyes and I felt a really strong special spirit at I read it. So thank you so much :)

Well other than that.. I really have no idea what is going to happen with Transfers. I know that Elder Vazquez is out of here. As well as Elder Stevens will probably be going to. Shoot there is even the potential that I could leave and Fox could take over the area. (Probably not) But it is still possible. But I will let you know when I know something. Maybe splitting the area?? That is possible as well becasue of all the Work we have from this plan! :) Our investigators are doing great! I love them all! Every  single one is an awesome person and I love them so much! Haha quick funny story!

So all those years of me playing Halo came in handy yesterday! We were teaching our investigator Emmanuel, he is 12, and he loves Halo! And he had some doubts about getting baptized because he feels like he would need to be perfect, or God would expect so much more of him after he would be baptized.. So I related the Gospel of Jesus Christ to Halo and the Master Chief ( the main character in

the game lol) Baptism was the beginning of the game. Afterwards he would die (or spiritually die in real life. SIN) but he would advance to Different Checkpoints (places where it saves the game and you don't have to restart.) And that is equivelent to Sacrament and Repentance. And New Levels are steps in the Gospel (Priesthood,Patriarchal Blessings, Callings, Temple, Etc.) And at the End you beat the game. (Resurrection) And throughout the whole game you have someone there to help you (Cortana, ask Greg I don't feel like explaining. It's a Hologram Master Chief has inside his helmet.) And I compared that to the Gift of the Holy Ghost and how that will help us finish the game and keep on going on and Fighting and killing the Covenent, as compared to enduring to the end..     It was completely led by the spirit. And at the end we asked him if he still had doubt and he said "no.. not really the Halo Analogy made everything pretty clear and helped a lot! 

so Mom all those years of me playing video games was actually a blessing :) it helped someone's elses life in their progression in the Gospel and coming unto Christ! :) :) Next time we go we are setting a bap date with him! That will be on Saturday! :) So we are excited! if you did not understand the analogy I made just ask Greg to explain it to you lol! 

Well we got to get going! But I just want you to know I love you and am thankful for all that you do! :) You are the best Mommy! :)

I love you all and you are all in my prayers! 

Love you! Love, Marky

Some answers to questions -

1. So yes we get fed very well! Somehow I am still managing to not gain weight.. like 3 or 4 weeks ago we had 4 dinners in 1 night lol! 

2. And it varies. Right now we have a really big teaching pool because of our recent Ward mission plan! It is going great! We try to teach 20 lessons a week, Including Members and less actives. But right now we are really focusing on getting With Member Lessons! :) 

3. We cover 2 cities Greenwich and Stamford (And yes I know they are both very rich) 

4. WE only cover 1 Ward. The Sister Missionaries cover Norwalk CT. 

5. We go to PEC the First Sunday of Every month. Other than that we go to Correlation every Sunday morning. In my other 2 wards we went to PEC each Sunday. 

6.Stamford is a lot different. A lot more houses and sane people. Most of the people here are from either Peru, Ecuador, or Guatemala. In the Bronx they were almost all Dominicans. We don't really work in the Rich part of our area. We stay really close to the actual city. 

7.Most are employed.. Stamford's nickname is the "City that Works" haha kind of lame. But they do landscaping.. Or surprisingly a ton of them work at McDonalds. Just depends. A lot work at Restaurants as well.

8. Well today we are just relaxing. Last week we went to the Mall.. And other than that we just play sports and hang out. I would like to go fishing or hiking one of these weeks though. That would be a lot of fun! :) 

9. So we are now allowed to go to the Statue of Liberty and Time Square and all of those places. Hopefully I will be back in the city at the end of my mission so I can do all that.

10. and yes I have been to the Natural History Museum. 2 times actually and 2 Times at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I have not finished looking through either 1 though. They are HUGE! Makes the Art Museum in STL look like a little turd. From what I remember though i think I like the Museum of Natural History in D.C more than the one here.