First Week with my New Companion~ Elder Ahola

Hello guys! 

So, on Tuesday we drove to Pittsford for transfers and I got my new companion. His name is elder Ahola and he is from Finland. He speaks perfect English though so no cool accent. He has only been

out for 4 months so he's pretty new still but he is an older missionary. He's almost 24 and he's already done with college and has his bachelor’s degree.

This week was good. We met with Elizabeth the investigator in our apartments a couple of times this week but it's kind of hard since her kids are pretty distracting to have good lesson. She has obligations in her church so she can't come to ours but during the summer she doesn't have to do them so hopefully we will be able to get her to come to see how great ours is. 

We had a couple of lessons with Jim from the gift store on Main Street and he really isn't progressing that well. He only reads the Book of Mormon to try and see the faults in it. Which there are none. We taught Lee and his girlfriend Mary Jane this week and hey had lots of great questions and are both progressing good. They are planning on going to the sights with us on June 20 and they are super excited! 

I had a meeting with president, the AP’s and the new district leaders in the zone this week.  It's always great to see then and to learn and to feel the spirit of those around you. We have been handing out tons of Hill Cumorah cards for the pageant coming up in July and it has lead to a couple new investigators. The problem is every new investigator I find is a college student who is going to be moving soon! 

We helped a less active family move into our ward from Greece one day and hopefully they will have a desire to come to church especially since they love about a half a mile away! 

We visited a bunch of less actives and a couple came to church this week. We haven't done much tracking this week but lots of street contacting. Most days we will just walk down the canal and talk to all of the people for a couple of hours. 

We had district meeting this Saturday. Zone conference is coming up next week in Batavia. We had church and all of our normal meetings. Today, I think we are going to go to Greece with the Spencerport Elders and do something? I don't know yet though. 

Pretty good week though! Hope you have a great week!

Love ya!

Transfer Calls~ Staying and made District Leader

Hey everyone!

Good week this week! For p-day we went and got frogs again just because some of the elders don't like basketball. Elder Haws and I love it though so that's what we are doing this week. We also had a Memorial Day picnic for the ward at a park. We made some cookies and apple crisp for the young women to auction off for a fundraiser. We also cooked some of our bear meat for the ward to try.

This week we did a ton of walking! We found a couple new investigators and we handed outa bunch of Hill Cumorah Pageant cards so hopefully they turn into something good. On day we didn't drive at all to save miles so we walked all of the way from our apartment to state street, then back to the apartment, then all of the way to Donielle Circle in Clarkson just to have a lady drop us! At least it was only 90 degrees though. Then we called Korey for a ride home and he got us ice cream so that's was good. 

The good part was Lauren the college girl who moved back to Long Island, texted us and told is that she was at a Yankees game and she saw some missionaries, then while we were walking we ran into her sister five minutes after she texted us! It's a sign!! She needs to join the church.

We went on exchanges twice this week and I went to Spencerport both times with Elder Coffey and Elder Haws! Both are awesome and we had lots of fun and miracles! We handed out 4 Book of Mormon the one day and got a couple new investigators! We found some Kingdom Builders in this huge rich neighborhood in North Chili!

The zone leaders came and did a training on Friday. Lee came to church this week with his girlfriend and they both enjoyed it. We are going to have some lessons with both of them and we are going to the sites on June 20th and to pageant with them. She is visiting from Georgia for eight weeks so hopefully we can send her back as a Mormon. ;)

The big news this week was transfers. We got calls this morning and I am staying! I'm the new district leader; my companion is Elder Ahola from Finland! Elder Gubler is going to Irondequoit and Elder Haws is going to Buffalo YSA to be a zone leader.

Well that's pretty much it for the week!

Love you!

To Mom:

That's good that Avery is going running and that you are going too!

Good for Ada going to the temple. Does Avery go too? He should. When I get home I'm going to go on lots of trips and visit every temple with some friends I've decided.

I'm doing good on money and food. It depends on how busy people are but they are pretty good with feeding us. There are a couple families who we can just call and hey will feed us. I don't need another package just yet I did think of something for later though you could send. Thanks for the honey stuff that was my favorite part. I didn't know how to use the creamed honey, but I found out that it's really good on pretzel sticks. I found some cox honey in Spencerport’s Apartment on exchanges this week. It's pretty cool that it's from our ward and in New York.

I did catch more frogs and a milk snake! It was pretty cool. It looks just like a coral snake! Love you!

Frogs for dinner?

Hey guys!

Nothing too exciting this week. First off I don't know if I told you but we found that tennis girl from the clothing closet and her name is Lauren. So we went and taught her and her sister about the restoration and they are really cool and interested in learning, but.... The moved back to Long Island yesterday. So I really need Facebook back so I can teach her that way then refer her to those missionaries.

Then some more bad news is we lost Vlad. Literally. He's not home; he doesn't have a phone or a car. He was progressing pretty good and he came to church twice but now he is lost. He went to Rochester on Monday with his friend and never came back. So, we still need to find him. If you see a bald Ukrainian guy let me know.

We did a lot of tracking this week trying to find some more people to teach. Nothing too promising. We did find a guy who came out and wanted to talk with us and learn more and we were able to teach him the restoration but he lives in Maryland.

We went and had dinner at Elizabeth's house with her family this week. We had interviews with president and the Aps this week at our apartment because they are re doing the floors in the gym at the church and it stinks right now. So that was good to talk with them.

We went to the United Methodist church and taught the youth and some others about our beliefs and our church. We stole a bunch of pictures from the library so it was a good presentation that they all liked. We had pictures of all of the temples, general authorities, etc...

One morning we went bike riding with a lady from our ward. She's blind so I rode a tandem bike while Elder Gubler rode another bike behind. We rode all the way from ridge road to the canal and Redman road then along the canal to county line road and back so it was quite a ways to pull her along. Still fun though.

Last night we went to the stake center to a fireside of Daniel Rona. It was really good!

I'll send you CDs of it sometime. Anyways that's pretty much all.

Love ya!

To Dad:

NY weather is pretty crazy! I found a bike shop but they only have a couple cool bikes and no trails. We went frog digging last p-day. It was pretty fun! I'm not very good at cooking them though. We are going to try again this p-day. I will send pictures. We also caught a mini turtle, and a snapping turtle! A huge snake went across my foot but I didn't know what kind it was so we didn't chase it. I don't know if they have poison snakes here. I will send pictures.

It was a good week!

Hello guys,                                                                        May 18^th, 2015

This week was pretty good! We found a couple more new investigators and Vlad is progressing and we are developing good friendships with all of the people here in the area. For p day we went to Greece and played ultimate Frisbee but it got way to hot and humid to do that for long. But for the most part this week was a little cooler than last. We found the tennis girl from the clothing closet that we were trying to find. She walked into Jims store while we were teaching him and we were able to give her a Book of Mormon and to talk with her a little bit. The bad news is she seems interested and wants to learn more but she just graduated and is moving back to Long Island next week. So we'll have to send those missionaries to teach her. We were never able to set up good times to teach her because she was so busy.

The good news for the week is Vlad. He is the one from Ukraine and he is almost done with the Book of Mormon after a Week! He has come to church twice, and we are going to the sites with him tomorrow. So that will be really fun. We were able to Skype with one of Bro. Britton’s friends who just got back from the Ukraine so he could understand a little more what we are talking about. It should turn out good.

We did lots of service this week for the library doing weeding, we served food at the Baptist church with the Methodist members, we worked at the clothing closet at the Episcopal church, etc.. The Methodist pastor really loves us and she is going to have is over for dinner one night and we are going to teach all of the youth in her church about our religion this week. And one of the families we are teaching are members of her congregation and she's fine with us teaching them.

Friday, one of the members graduated and we had a huge surprise party at the church for her. Pretty much the whole ward came plus some. We want to the prison again and he gets out in 40 days so he's almost done. We had zone meeting in Batavia this week and that was fun! And this up coming week we have interviews with president. That's pretty much the week for me

Love ya!

This is Wegmans from our apartment. You can barely see it through the

trees but there is a trail and a bridge over the river right to it.

Correspondence home from NY members regarding Elder Daugs