Elder Helvey: New Paltz Week 2

Hey everyone! Well another week has gone by here in New Paltz, New York and things are going great! We have spent much of the week visiting members of the New Paltz Branch that have not been to church in a long time. Elder Atwood and I have had some great visits with many member families and part-member families. We have also continued going door to door and talking to people on the streets and inviting them to hear our message. We have had little success in this area but we continue to work hard and we stay positive. We have done a lot of walking and trying to contact people this week and I have been very tired. When we get home at 9 each night we plan and prepare for the next day and I go right to bed, usually sometime between 10-10:30. I fall asleep almost immediately and when that alarm goes off at 6:30 the next morning I feel like I haven't slept at all. Man, I have been exhausted! It's good though. We are working hard at meeting new people and also strengthening the members that have not been coming to church.

We visited an active member this week named William. He was taught by the missionaries and baptized about a year ago. He is blind and he is awesome! While we were there he wanted to play the piano for us and have us sing along. He played about 5 or 6 hymns from memory and we sang while he played. We all loved it! It was awesome.

Also, we met with Zelbert Moore yesterday, the man I talked about that came up to us last week while we were sitting on the bench. He's very friendly and we had a great lunch with him. He has some awesome stories and loves discussing anything and everything. Especially loved talking to me about Brazil and learning Portuguese, so that was fun. We are going to start teaching him this week and we are looking forward to that.

We also have someone new we have started teaching! Her name is Sarah and she is 16 years-old. She just moved here from Georgia to live with her grandma. Her grandma is a member of the church, Sister Menzer. I might have mentioned her last week. Sister Menzer is awesome! She loves having us over and is very happy that we have started teaching Sarah. We have also been meeting with her grandson, Ariel, who lives in the house as well. He is a member but hasn't come to church since he was a boy, he's now 20. So that is all going well and we are very excited to continue meeting with them.

We visited an awesome member couple that is in the city of Kerhonkson, New York which is the farthest city in our area. It took us about 30 minutes to get to their house but man it was a beautiful drive with some awesome views. It is beautiful here in Upstate New York. We see a lot of wildlife every day. Deer, hawks, snapping turtles, snakes, possums, raccoons, rock-chucks (I didn't know what those were haha), and we even saw a mountain lion (no joke)! It's been awesome to be in such a pretty area.

Elder Atwood and I decided for our morning exercise that we are going to start running to the church and back. It is about 2.5 miles round trip and I haven't run in quite awhile so it's pretty rough. But it's a good way to start the day!

Also, Elder Atwood and I are speaking in church this Sunday so that will be exciting!

Anyways, that's all I have to report on for this week. I am doing well and continue to work hard, and am quite exhausted at the end of each day. I hope all is going well for everyone. Thank you for the love and support!

Until next week.

Love,

Elder Helvey