Happy

Ni Ho.!!

(I think that's hello in Chinese.) Ellie correct me if I'm wrong :) 

It's already halfway through April and that's freakin me out!! 

Let me just tell you something. Warm weather is the best thing ever. I CANNOT EXPLAIN MY LOVE FOR THE SUN. 

Today's P day activities: we went to China Town with my favorite member. (She knows all the cool fun places) we went to a Buddhist temple and to Chinese ice cream and so many more cute fun little places. and now we are going to a museum. This museum is mega cool. I will explain what it is. So a looooong time ago there was a man named J P Morgan. And he was the richest man in the world. (Or something like that..) Well he had a mansion (or somethin) here in NYC and when he died, they left his mansion untouched!!! And now it's a museum. He had a HUGE collection of books and one of which was an ORIGINAL Book of Mormon from the 1800's. Pretty coolish if you ask me!! So yeah that's way fun. 

Emails get rough when not much happened in the week... I'm just still kickin it in New York City. Haha. 

Here's a list of random things in my mind.

*Its been SO WARM. Which causes New Yorkers to be happy and skippin along. 

*Contacted SO much in Central Park and Riverside Park. Literally so much.

*Hit my halfway mark! So celebrated a little with some PINKBERRY.

*Also we went out to eat at some freaky NICE restaurants!! (Tavern on the green, & Boathouse in Central Park!) LOVED it. There's just something about eating out at a nice restaurant in NYC, let alone Central Park. Eating out in NY is a dream. 

*We have some pretty flakey investigators right now that are so not committed. But that's not a complaint. Just a fact.

*Went on a split with Sista Redford. In my area. Taught like 1 million lessons. Walked like 100 miles. 

*We are trying to find find find find. 

*We had an APF in Central Park. Talked a lot about families. (And boy do I love and miss my family) :)

*Took the tights off for the first time. AH. Hahah. Snow White.

*Ores, our recent convert, got the priesthood which was exciting!

SO. We have CLEARLY been having a hard time finding people to teach. (Tracting the same building and contacting all day long can only get you so many noncommittal New Yorkers..)  haha. So one of our bigger focuses lately has been trying to get REFERRALS from members. Because we ALL know how much cooler it is for an investigator to have a friend at church. Life is just better for all of us when members and missionaries WORK TOGETHER. We have been calling every single member in our ward and sharing a missionary message with them to try to get them to focus more on missionary work. (Yes, I called my favorite blogger to set up an appointment. What life am I living?? Hah a good one that's for sure.) It's been good!! Definitely takes a lot of courage to go into these busy New York members and tell them that they need to remember to do missionary work... Haha mega keeps me praying for the help of the spirit. (No way could I do this on my own.) We use a quote from Elder David A. Bednar's talk in 2008 called Ask In Faith. It's AWESOME. (You should look it up and LISTEN to him say it. He says it best.) He is so bold and SO RIGHT. I love to be bold. Here's my favorite quote from him:

"We properly pray for the safety and success of the full-time missionaries throughout the world. And a common element in many of our prayers is a request that the missionaries will be led to individuals and families who are prepared to receive the message of the Restoration. But ultimately it is my responsibility and your responsibility to find people for the missionaries to teach. Missionaries are full-time teachers; You and I are full-time finders. And you and I as lifelong missionaries should not be praying for the full-time missionaries to do our work! If you and I would truly pray and ask in faith, as did Joseph Smith-if we would pray with the expectation to act and not just to express-then the work of proclaiming the gospel would move forward in a remarkable way!" 

Let me repeat: "Missionaries are full time teachers; You and I are full time FINDERS." 

HE IS SO RIGHT. Am I right? I love love love it. As missionaries we love to FIND and street contact and tract and to talk to people etc. But let's be honest.. Investigators that come as member referrals are more likely to be committed and real about finding the truth. Yeah? You follow? I love missionary work. I never knew that my heart would be so IN it. I am SO grateful for this opportunity that I have been given to teach the gospel in New York City. I invite ALL of you to ASK IN FAITH for missionary opportunities. Pray for specific names who might one day be ready to hear the wonderful message of the restored gospel. (You don't have to know all the doctrine, you just have to have a testimony and INVITE others.) Open your mouth!! Invite people to church! It's not scary. The gospel is REAL, it's true and EVERYONE needs to hear it. 

Ta-ta for now! 

Love you!!!!!

Love Sista Abbey Dunford