Happy Fall Y'all

It is officially Autumn indeed. I am pleased about this. 

This week we were sick. :( Hermana Miller used our time cooped up inside to read all of "Saints", I prepared the Sunday School lesson I taught to the youth yesterday. 

J---- was called as the 2nd Counselor in the Young Women and went to the temple! We did not get to go with her, but she was well taken care of by the Relief Society sisters. 

We had two really cool lessons with I-------. After reviewing the restoration with her, she became my companion and we taught it again to her mother! This was a great way to make the lesson engaging, test to see how much she remembered, and also focus in on her mother, who is not a member. All in all, a very successful visit. We received a call from her mother later in the week asking us to come over again and talk with I------- about some hard things that had happened at school. We did so whilst coloring together on the living room floor to help her feel more comfortable with opening up. I don't think it was what her mother was expecting, but we sure did have a lot of fun and helped to smooth some things over. 

We had a lesson with N-----. She thinks the Word of Wisdom is beautiful, and is totally down to quit coffee. 

We had a visit from President Bennett of the Seventy last week. (Super cool half mission conference actually. We got to sit in the chapel and listen to trainings from him, his wife, and President and Sister Hess for 6 hours.) He said this will be a "historic" general conference. I am excited.

xoxoxo

Hermana Croft  

🐳🐳🐳

Hello!

I have missionaried in New York for forever now! Not complaining, I have loved it here. It is equal with Kearny if not above now. The ward is just too lovable. But I should be back in New Jersey in two weeks. I'll be very surprised if I finish out my mission in New York. There is technically one other Spanish sister I could go to in N.Y., but I don't think I will be sent there. So back to Jersey for me! And most likely back to a full Spanish ward/branch! Exciting things!

This last Saturday we offered service at the Salvation Army as usual. We go over every week to help prepare and serve food to the poor and homeless. We served a Thanksgiving-type meal of turkey, stuffing, green beans, and gravy. I'll tell you what that stuffing was so sticky! I was in charge of scooping it into each tray, and it was slow going. The other volunteers don't really speak Spanish, but they know a couple phrases because most of the people we serve are Hispanic. They asked how to say turkey, to explain what was in each tray as we offered it to them. I said, "Polvo". It wasn't until a couple hours later I realized I was wrong. The word for turkey in Spanish is "Pavo", "Polvo" means dust. We literally spent several hours offering people trays of dust. SOS. 

¿Qué más? I am currently listening to Hercules. My companion is a big Disney fan. Scratch that, the song just changed to the Harry Potter soundtrack. She is also a big Harry Potter fan. Speaking of Disney, the V-- H---- always talk about me being a Disney princess. They ask if birds come when I whistle to do our laundry in the morning. 

I sent a video of the new apartment. I also sent some pictures from cleaning the old one, and playing around on a fire escape after leaving a lesson. I was really happy because a lot of prayers had been answered and our investigator was able to get a car! 

Love love love!

Hermana Croft 

Hurricane prep and a new apartment

Good morning!

Another nice and rainy day for us here in New York. Seems like fall has officially kicked in. But who knows, maybe the temperatures will rise again after Hurricane Florence has passed. President Hess sent out a warning email last night asking us to stay away from the coasts and prepare for possible power outages. I'm thinking nothing will really happen. But we sure do like to be prepared here, so we will transport our water storage inside and make sure to buy some non perishable foods today in our shopping trip. The water storage is currently in the trunk of our car from when we loaded it up to move over to the new apartment.

New apartment!! Wow. What a lovely little place we have now. I say little, but it is actually quite a bit bigger than our last apartment. Other perks include: substantially better wifi, central A.C., and our own personal washer and dryer! As Rebekah might say, our flat is rather posh. 

Later

Wow! I need to stop trying to take naps on P-days. My brain knows it needs to be awake, so I just end up having these crazy nightmares as it attempts to wake me up. No me gusta.

Anyway, moving took up the majority of our week. Tuesday we packed. Wednesday we cleaned (the STL's came to help in the morning which was very kind of them. Fun fact: the STL's currently assigned to me are Hermana Smith and Hermana Kim my roommates from the MTC). Thursday we moved. We got two sets of Elders and two senior companionships to come help us. Everything went well and we now owe them all cookies. Friday we unpacked in the morning and then got back to being missionaries by the evening. I wore pants more this week than any other time during my mission. 

Also, my new address is 135 West Nyack Rd. Apt 113, Nanuet, New York 10954. But I will probably be moving at the transfer October 2nd, and I don't actually know where my mail box is yet, so perhaps it would be safer to send things to the office. 

¿Qué más? We met up with a really cool referral this weekend. He is super excited about reading the Book of Mormon. He also likes to speak really quickly about all sorts of different religions, philosophy, and astrology. It's a real mental workout to try and keep up with all that in Spanish. But we have only met with him once, so hopefully once we get into the flow of the lessons we can focus our discussions better. 

Cute little J---- taught the Relief Society lesson on Sunday. Ah! I am so proud of her! 

I------- was confirmed in Sacrament meeting on Sunday, and I got to do the translation. What an interesting experience, one I will probably never get again. 

I have 100 days left! I don't really know what to think about that. Seems like it should be significant though.

¡Te amo! 

Hermana Croft

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Throwback to the Mexico CCM...Julianne with H. Kim and H. Smith who are now her STL's.

H. Price on the end was Julianne's actual companion in the CCM and she is serving in Kentucky.  

This is the FB message that the mission president posted about getting prepared for the upcoming hurricane...similar warnings to the ones he posted when they had to prepare for all those crazy nor' easters they got last winter. (We parents are also allowed to be on the mission FB page so we get to see all the back and forth messages between the missionaries sharing tips, goals, pictures and good news, as well as messages from President Hess. It's been great fun getting kind of an inside look at what the mission is up to.)

Feliz Cumpleanos

Hi Mommy,

I'm so glad you had a good birthday! It sounds just lovely. 

How sweet of Lilian to decorate your bedroom! You deserve it. Also, I am pleased to hear Brandon has re-instituted your weekly lunches. That thought always made me smile. I think he might be my favorite 17 year old boy in the whole wide world. I'm not sure many boys his age would suggest a weekly lunch date with their mothers. I love our family. I love that we are close. I love love. 

Also, yes we did have a baptism this Sunday. Neither of her parents are members, but her two older brothers are. Cute little girl. It went surprisingly smoothly. Hermana Miller and I even taught the Spanish Sunday School class on the fly before the baptism because the teacher is out of town. I felt very accomplished about that. 

Dr. Moss sounds like a stand up veterinarian. What an interesting experience; divine design, as we would say here in the mission. When Elder Rasband came to visit at the end of my training he spoke about his general conference talk entitled Divine Design. Since then, it has been the phrase of choice whenever anything happens in which we can see the Lord's hand guiding us. It happens more than one would think, especially when you have eyes open to see every small miracle. The trick is simply remembering to keep your eyes open. 

Also, I am moving. We got a message from the mission office yesterday. Apparently the mission department doesn't want Elders and Sisters to be in the same apartment complex, so Hermana Miller and I are being moved to a different place about 5 minutes away this Thursday (I will send you my address when we get settled). From what we can tell, it looks like it will be an upgrade. 

Love,

me

Don't judge my handwriting, I had to write it all backwards to get it to show up correctly on the camera.