Monday, October 26, 2009

Hey everyone! Its me Elder Doyle again. I hope that none of you are getting bored reading my weekly e-mails. This past week has been such an amazing week, it really has. Let me tell you a bit about this past week. At the beginning of the week we were by the subway station and there are these black guys in robes with these caps on there head and they are screaming and shouting. I wanted to know what it was all about, my companion told me that they are called Hebrew Israelites they are a religion they really don’t like white people they believe that one day God is going to tell them to kill all of the white people. They carry around swords with them and they are waiting for that moment to kill us. It is such an evil religion built upon hate and anger. I was going to take a picture of them, but one of them walked up to me and got all mad so I just walked away from them. They are scary guys to come in contact with.Another exciting event that happened was that we were walking and this drunk Columbian man walked up to my companion and I and wanted to talk to us about religion. He went off saying how he was a Marine in Columbia and we thanked him for his service for his country. He started getting angry, but we were being nice to him the whole time. He then started saying how he was going to kick our “A” you all know what I mean. It was hilarious actually. We just kept talking to him. He told us to watch out because he has friends that will kill us. No worries though he was just a short, drunk Columbian man.Now last p-day we were playing handball, which handball is probably one of the most exciting things you can do in the world. I love it, but anyways there was some kids that came up to us and challenged us for our court. So that being “playground rules here in the hood” you have to play them. So it was elder Werner and I that got voted to play to keep the court so we started off good at the beginning, but in the end we got whooped. I was a bit frustrated myself; it is just my competitiveness inside me.Also this week we went trakting, which trakting is one of my most favorite things to do as a missionary. I just feel a lot more comfortable knocking on someone’s door rather than street contacting them. So this week we were trakting and the very first door I knocked I got inside of the home and we have a great family that we are teaching right now they are from Ecuador, but the daughter prefers English so we have been teaching her in English. The thing is that Elder Nielsen my companion and I we both agree that the Spanish branch is a lot more fun for people and they have a lot more active members that attend church. So we might turn them over to the Spanish speaking missionaries, but we aren’t sure yet. Still trying to decide, they are so awesome and prepared to receive the knowledge of the restored gospel.Most importantly, I saved the best for last. I had my first baptism on Saturday. Margaret got baptized and she was confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Here in New York we are asked to let someone from the ward do the baptism unless they specifically want us to baptize them. So we didn’t get to baptize her, but we were witnesses for the ordinance. I also was asked to speak at the baptism on the Holy Ghost. I enjoyed speaking and the spirit was very strong. We also got a few of our other investigators to come to the baptism. So it has been a great past week.Also I am now done with my first transfer. Every Transfer is 6 weeks long. I cant believe how fast time is flying by. Elder Nielsen and I get to stay together for another transfer. I am so excited for that. Also our area is now bigger, we still have Long Island City and now we have Sunnyside as well. So I am excited about that. Sunnyside is a nice area.People here are crazy about the Yankees just like me! The Yankees are going to the World Series!!! That is so awesome. I hope they can take it all this year especially while I am here. It has been awhile since they have won it all. Well that is all for this week. I love you all and miss you all. You are all always in my prayers and I hope the best for all of you. I only get 2/30min sessions on the computer here in “Queens Library” so yeah it makes it hard to get everything done. I love you guys! Until next week.
ELDER DOYLE

Monday, October 19, 2009

Hey everyone!
I am so happy to hear from a lot of you this week. I can’t believe how fast time is just flying by. I can’t believe it. The work is still amazing I love missionary work. It is so fun and really there is nothing much to worry about. I was telling Tyler my bro that the only thing to worry about is your obedience and make sure that you are always doing all that you can as a missionary. I feel that I have already learned and grown so much from the short time that I have been out here. What makes missionary work so hard is when an investigator that you really love and care about starts to forget the feelings that they have experienced and no longer want to be taught, but the funny part about it is they love your presence and they want you to come around and still meet with them. I am so sad to see that Satan has so much control over the hearts of the people here in New York. So I have been thinking a lot about the type of missionary that I should be personally by evaluating the personal gifts and abilities that God has blessed me with. I seriously do go talk to everyone that is possible for me to talk to. I love it so much. It is so fun talking to people about Christ. Something that I need to work on is being more firm with people here in New York if you are not firm with people here on the streets they will just keep walking. I am sure that all of you that have been to New York know that the people here aren’t always very nice, and they always seem to be in a hurry. I have noticed when I speak louder and talk to them as if it is something serious they seem to listen to me a lot more. I am more firm with them but I am not over-bearing. I just know that this is how I need to be as a missionary. I am going to work on that this week and next week I will let you all know how it goes. So in past week there have been 2 Shootings and we were there both times. There really is nothing to worry about though. At night when groups of homies try to talk to us we just say that we have to go and keep walking. We always seem to keep ourselves safe. So yeah we have a BAPTISM on Saturday the 24th I am so excited it is Margaret. She is so excited and I am so stoked to see her take this big step in life. We are going to get to go to the temple with her in Manhattan in about 3 weeks to do baptisms with her. My mission President, President Nelson made a new rule that we are aloud to go to the temple with recent converts that have been baptized. He asks us to get them to the temple for baptisms as soon as we can because when recent converts get to the temple within 2 months of being baptized they are 70% more likely to remain active members of the church. So I am happy about that new mission rule. It is starting to get freezing out here in NY. I swear it went from hot to straight up cold and nothing in between. The Yankees are going to win the World Series and it sounds like the Minnesota Vikings are doing way good too so hopefully they can win the Super bowl this year. Go Yankees, and Go Vikings 6-0. I really do miss watching sports, but out here there are so many people that you can find a lot of people to talk sports with. I hope everyone is doing great I love all of you. You all have played an important role in my life that has lead me to where I am today. So I only get to get on the computers for 1 hr. Every p-day so it is hard to e-mail everyone that I want to. I think that I will be here in this area for a few more transfers after this one. So yeah we will see how that goes. I will talk to ya’ll next week. Everyone here thinks that I have a southern accent? What’s up with that? Do I really? The Hot Dog street vendors are the best. $1.50 for the best Hot Dog ever! Now that it is getting colder we don’t see our hot dog buddy out very much. He is a cool guy. Well I will keep you all updated. Got to go!
ELDER DOYLE

Monday, October 12, 2009

This week is going to be a short weekly update. I dont have much time left on the computer. This week was kind of a crazy week in the city. I have been thinking so much and it is so sad that Satan has so much control over the hearts of the people. I am so sad to see that. It really hurts as a missionary to see that. So Margaret is still Golden she is getting baptized on the 24th for sure! I am so happy for her. So now Djly is kinda sliding out of our teaching pool, but now his mom has a baptismal date for November 8th. She is such a sweet lady. I hope it all works out for her. She really wants her son to be like us. Djly just isnt keeping the commitments that we leave him he doesnt read or pray about the Book of Mormon. Without reading and praying no one can know the truth of it. We live in such an evil world with weak people. God needs his Sons and Daughters that know the truth to constantly be living the principals and teachings found in the gospel and to not yield to temptaition. Satan is good at what he does but people need to realize that they are so much stronger than he is. So on saturday my companion and I were walkin down the street and there were cops flying down the street there were probably about 12 cop cars with undercover cops too. We noticed that they were all at the Projects where we have been teaching a lot of people about the gospel. We spend a lot of time there. So we jumped on the bus, my compainion and I both decided to not go see what was going on. So we just went back to the pad for lunch. Later that night we had a few appointments with some people that lived in those same projects. Margaret came with us to go teach Djly's mom Miriam. After we were done teaching her we had another appointment across the hall with Djly's neighbor Patricia, they live across the hall from eachother on the same floor. We told Margaret that she didnt have to come with us to this next Appt. So she decided to go back to her house. We told her that we could walk her back. She told us that she didnt want us to walk her back and that she was fine. So we just let her go. We got a phone call from her about 2 minutes later and she said that there was a shooting just outside of the building we were in. There were 4 shots and someone got shot. We talked to someone and I guess someone got the cops called on them earlier that day, which was when we saw all of those cops earlier in the day. So later that night someone got killed because of them calling the cops. Life is crazy here. I heard that I am in the poorest city in the USA Long Island City "Queens" I am not sure if that is true? so if someone wants to do the research and let me know that would be great. Other than that it was a pretty good week this week. We just need to find more investigators and people to teach. Our other 2 pad mates have been in the mission field for over 1 year and they said that me and my companion have produced the best numbers that they have heard their whole mission. We taught about 27 lessons this week with 7 New investigators. So I guess that is a good week. We have been working hard every day doing all that we can. Something that I am working on is praying with more energy of heart each time I pray. It makes my prayers so much more powerful, when I do that I feel that it communicates to our Father in Heaven the desire that I have to recieve direction to become a better missionarry, but also a better person so that I can be able to fulfill the purpose here in life that God has sent me here to do. I love you all and I hope everything is going great. I love New York it can just get crazy at times and Satan is has a lot of control over the hearts of the people here, but that is why I am here is to save some of these people from the pits of Satan.

Monday, October 5, 2009

Hello everyone! I miss you all and you are all in my prayers. I just want everyone to know that this is the great work that God needs to get done. God needs everyone to have faith and believe in him and his son Jesus Christ. He needs us with our mortal bodies to bring the truth to everyone. This is Christ’s church. I would recommend that everyone listens to Jeffery R. Holland’s talk online. It was the first talk in the Sunday afternoon session. PLEASE WATCH IT! Listen to the tone of his voice as he speaks and then you know that he is a true servant of God. I want you all to listen to it and watch it, afterwards you can read it. I have seen a few miracles since I have been out here… So the lady that I have been teaching her name is Margaret, she is going to be baptized on October 24th. Anyways Margarets sister moved into her house because she was locked in a shed for 1 month and she was being raped and she was 7 months pregnant and she was locked in this shed with her 2 year old boy. So she was abused and a guy kicked her in the ribs and broke her ribs and killed the baby inside her. I was so sad to hear that. So she finally had a chance to get away from that house where she was out. She took the first chance she had and ran away and went to Margarets house which is her foster sisters house. This last week on Wednesday that same house got shot up by a gang and everyone in the house was killed. Including Women and all the guys in the house probably about 7 people were killed. It is a miracle that she got out of that house in time. At first she didn’t want to listen to our discussions she wouldn’t even stay in the apartment when we taught Margaret. Then the second lesson we taught Margaret while she was there she stayed in the house and listened. Then the third time she sat there and wanted to hear more. She told us that whatever it is that we have been teaching Margaret has changed her into such a happy person (which is so true). So…. We taught her and gave her a book of Mormon and we found out that she is pregnant again with another guy his name is Ramell. Ramell is such a stud he is the man. We showed the restoration video and after the video he had his face resting in his hands and lifted his head with tears pouring out of his eyes and happily said “ This is what I have been searching for, for a long time.” He has been such a miracle. The next day we saw him we gave him a Book of Mormon. He read up to chapter 11 in 1 Nephi. He also studied about Joseph Smith and he knew all the dates of when he found the plates and when the book was finished with translating. I was so surprised to see how much he has already learned about our religion. He is the man! He went to the Saturday morning session with us, and he also went to both Sunday sessions of general conference. He knows the church is true and he wants to be baptized. Before we even talked to him about smoking and coffee he told us that he has only had one cigarette yesterday and he only smoked a half of one when we were talking to him it was so awesome to see that. I got a picture with him and I told him that I will come see him sometime after my mission and show him this picture so that he can see how much he has changed. We have seen so many miracles happen from Margaret and her home. There is a bit more to know about Ramell but I have already mentioned the important things that you need to know. Now about my other investigator that I have been working with his name is Djly it is pronounced (Jilly) I used to think it was Jullian. I think that I have told some of you about him. The story with him was it was my first night out in the city and there was a man who walked up to us and asked if we had any money or candy because he has diabetes and he needs sugar. So my companion said to him “lets walk across the street and we will buy one for you.” Right after my companion had said that Djly walked up to that guy and he gave him the rest of his Snapple and told us that he loves us and that he loves God just like we do. My companion continued carrying on his conversation with the guy with diabetes. I had a strong feeling come to me that I needed to go talk to Djly. So that is exactly what I did. I gave him a pass along card and told him to call the number on the back so that he can get the free DVD about Christ, I also told him to allow two representatives to deliver the DVD to him and share a short message about Christ with him. So 2 days later we received a media referral and it was for the DVD called “finding faith in Christ” so we went to the apt/project house to deliver it and it was him and his mother that answered the door. They allowed us to come in and share a message about the restoration. It was so awesome the spirit was so strong. We asked him if we could come back and him and his mom both said yes and we have now taught them 3 times. His mom loves us and wants her son to be like us she went and bought her son a suit and new dress shoes and a tie. We taught him how to tie his tie yesterday before him and his mother came with us to watch conference at the church. His mom loved church and made a new friend in the ward. She told us that she loves our church and Djly asked us what he needs to do to go on a mission like us. He is looking down the road a little far but it was awesome to hear him say that. He is a 17 year old boy his mother is from Africa and he has lived in NY his whole life. He is so excited about Christs church. So we are hoping that him and his mother can be baptized on November 8th. Djly already accepted to be baptized on that day, but we haven’t yet asked his mother because she wasn’t there the last time we met. I am loving this work I am so hungry to feed and learn more about the Gospel. This is for sure with no doubt in my mind the best thing that I have ever decided to do in my whole life. I love you all I will keep you in my prayers. I just hope you keep praying for me. This is the great work that God needs to be finished. Have a good week and let virtue garnish your thoughts. Build up in love with all of those around you who you talk to everyday let them know of what is important to you and find out what is important to them. I love you all! I will e-mail again next week!
ELDER DOYLE