**Disclaimer: There are a lot of grammatical errors in this e-mail. I will go through and fix them sometime**
Hello everyone!!! So another week here on the island and it has been glorious as always. Although I'm pretty sure there is a high chance I might get malaria or West Nile virus from all these Mosquitos. Bug spray is my new best friend. I'm also learning some Spanish to somewhat understand these Spanish families of our deaf investigators. Sister Deuel and I aren't doing so hot haha we sounds so white. I love it.
Monday: well Pday was really interesting, we didn't do much because we all don't know the area very well. We did all of our normal Pday routines like shopping and laundry and stuff and after we headed back to the pad (that's what they call apartments here) and hung out and got to know the other sisters. We mostly just planned what we are going to do our next Pday. We will start doing fun things because sister Layton is leaving here pretty soon. I'm killing my companion sad day haha we will miss her dearly.
Tuesday: we didn't have a ton of appointments today but we worked a lot on sister Deuel and i's training so that's always good. We had a district meeting and it was so long! Oh my word three hours long. Afterwards we went to a members house to go over membership records because a ton of people have moved out, investigators that have been dropped, etc. So sister Deuel and I can't use area book on our Ipads yet so sister Deuel sister benson and I just sat there and sister Layton and sister Ostraff were on their own haha. We felt so bad that we couldn't help but rules are rules. We also felt really bad because we all fell asleep! Haha I guess they were all cracking up because it's such a typical greenie thing to do. We were just so tired I guess. Then our ward member said our trainers were working us too hard if we fall asleep every chance we get haha. Then we went to a dinner appointment with the Cuello family and they are recent converts. It's just her and her daughter and they told us their conversion story and it was so heartwarming. After a super long dinner appointment (oops) we looked up a less active member and we met with her! Hooray. We talked with her for awhile and she said she wants to come back to church because she wants her kids to grow up with the gospel. We shared a message about Helaman 5:12 and how we need to build our foundations (our lives) on the gospel. And when we do that we cannot fall. It's just so true if we build our foundations on Christ we won't be swept away when trials and tribulations come.
Wednesday: Very first zone meeting today and of course that took all day. I swear half of our time is in hours upon hours of meetings. We discussed on how only 41% of the missionaries in our mission study from preach my gospel everyday. I think that's just a dumb thing to do because we might as well just throw our badges out the window because preach my gospel contains everything we stand for, teach, and everything we believe. During the meeting a less active member texted us and asked us to come over and that it was urgent but when we got there she was not home. So that was super strange. Then we went to a members house to talk with their daughter because we are trying to get all the young women to go to the temple because almost all of the young women haven't ever gone to the temple, and since we didn't eat before we went there they fed us and that was some of the best Spanish food I have ever eaten. They gave us this soup and I have no idea what it was and I'm not sure if I want to but oh my I will have dreams about that soup. Afterwards we tried to look up a referral but when we were walking back to the car we ran into her neighbor and he claims to be agnostic and pretty much believes the bible is a fictional story. So basically he is atheist but there's 1% in him that hopes there is a god. But oh my word he was trying to tear us down and basically trying to change our minds but we had to stand firm and just keep testifying. Defiantly a testimony building situation.
Thursday: This morning we had to wake up earlier than when the rooster crows because we went to teach the early morning seminary class. Bless the state of Utah and having seminary during school hours. I took the lead on the lesson and I felt so bad because the kids looked bored out of their minds but I pray it was just the being tired. Maybe both, who knows. We were so tired after seminary so we took a nap then we headed over to a members house to teach her son but he never showed up so that was disappointing but oh well things happen. Then we went to tried to do service at our deaf investigators house but I guess it was too hard work so they just made us do family history haha. Now these investigators texted us the other day and told us they hadn't heard from God yet. Haha we thought it was funny but we discussed with them what kind of answer they are expecting to receive and cleared up all of those concerns. Finally! They are such stubborn people but so nice and they are finally starting to open up so we are so stoked. Then on each Thursday night we teach an ASL class and it's so nice for all of us because members are learning how to communicate with the deaf members and it's a nice review for us missionaries. We having a problem during our night hours because it gets too dark to knock to were having Problems in the mission trying to figure out what to do at night when we don't have appointments. We have to start get creative.
Friday: so I am in New York during 9/11! I never thought that would happen. So many peoples families were effected by the horrible tragedy 14 years ago so a lot of people were way open today. As a district we went to Main Street with posters that said "HOW DO YOU GET THROUGH HARD TIMES?" We got a pretty good turn out except one person did draw a gang sign on our poster but no need to fear because we turned it into a heart with smiles faces, right back at you random citizen right back at you. We met one man we said he was in high school when it happened and he just remembers that his dad had a meeting that morning in tower one so the whole day he thought his dad had died but when we got home his dad was there and said he was on his way over to the meeting when we saw the first plane crash. How crazy right? For dinner we made cafe rio and invited the other sisters over just to help our bonding. There's just a weird vibe going on in our district and we're trying to get rid of it. I think it's just because everyone is new to this area. Then we headed over to the church for cute little eight year old Marcellos baptism! He is a son of a part member family and when we got to the baptism his dad came and supported him! It was a miracle and he even teared up a little and we just know he felt the sprit. Even his little daughter bore her testimony and it was the cutest thing I've ever seen. Then we headed over to an in active members house and we started sharing a message about the scriptures and she went on a rampage about how the bible is true but the Book of Mormon isn't true and how our church worships Joseph smith so that was a total bust and lost control of the entire lesson. So we had a lot of hard hearted people this week but we built our testimonies up so much so all good things all good things.
Saturday: Today we had correlation meeting and in all honesty we just need a new ward mission leader or train him. He's great but has no idea what he is doing. We are always the ones leading the meeting and asking him questions when it should be the other way around. Then after our meeting we did some look ups but no success sadly but the work shall continue on! Afterwards we did some phone calls and companionship inventory and it's funny because we have to find things on how we can improve and we have no idea what to say to each other haha we all just like each other so much. Then we went to our investigators house for an African barbecue! It was so cool! African food is weird and spicy, holy moley my mouth was on fire! And the music was so loud. Good thing I know sign language because I could have gone deaf from that party. It was when they brought out all the alcohol when we left. Then we had two deaf lessons and they both went really well. We taught the restoration and our second lesson went so late so we weren't able to go to our third lesson.
Sunday: This morning we decided to have a district patio breakfast and I made crepes for everyone. It was so good :) makes my heart happy and everyone was in such a good mood afterwards. Nothing makes the heart happy like a homemade crepe. Then we had to go to ward council and our bishop is just so amazing and even though he is young he has such great insight for the missionary work. Then we had to interpret again this week and I don't know what was happening today but everyone was using these extremely difficult words. Thanks for making my job super difficult, really appreciate that. Then after church our ward does something called a munch and mingle and everyone stays after and just eats and gets to create stronger relationships it was so nice to get to know the ward even better. I just wish there were more strong members. Our ward is on survival mode right now trying to keep our members involved in the church. But that's why I am here right? Then we headed over to mastic for a lesson but they ended up canceling so we tried to do look ups in the pouring rain. You would think people would be nicer to let these pathetic young sisters in but no everyone is so much meaner when it's raining I have no idea why. So that was a bummer because we used a lot of miles on our car to get there and our lesson rescheduled so we have to drive back out again (by the way we have 1400 miles a month to use, usually 1200 but since we are ASL we get more, in all honesty we need way more). So once we came home we tried calling some deaf people and we found an old investigator! They want us to meet with them and were so happy we called them because I guess they have been trying to look us up but could never find us. An answer to their prayers and ours.
Well everybody that was my week. I hope you somewhat enjoy these emails I feel like it's really boring but I hope you all like them haha there's only so much I can write! At times I feel like I write too much haha well have a great week everybody! Love you all :)
Love, Sister Seay
By the for those of you who have asked my address for my apartment is
(Have fun Google map stalking me you crazy people haha)
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