Springtime in the City

HOLA! 

So I'm currently sitting on a bench in my favorite room in the MET next to paintings of Monet. I'm so incredible blessed!! Wow. But someone definitely just took a picture of us....uhhh hahaha. I guess four sister missionaries sitting on the bench in the middle of Monet paintings writing emails is quite the sight haha. 

Well this week was pretty amazing. With the new 3 hours of finding everyday we've been seeing so many tender mercies and miracles! We definitely have quite a few funny stories as well...tracting and street contacting in Manhattan never ceases to be exciting. I won't recap EVERY experience, but I definitely have to include a few that were just TOO good. Last Wednesday night going to deliver our media referral bibles we stopped to talk and help 2 people find Rivington...and one of them knew about Mormons and had been to Salt Lake so that was cool but then as we were about to part ways the guy tried to hug us, and I just awkward stood their all stiff and it was just really hilarious to look at I'm sure. Haha ALSO that night one of the bible referrals ending up being this man named Joel. He's super curious so gave we him Spanish bible, and then we went back with a BOM and pamphlets the next day. His daughter was there the second day, but we're hopeful something will eventually happen! 

Thursday we tracted into this guy named Eddie. We had an incredible door lesson with him (despite some crazy teenagers in the hallway) ,he became a potential for the English sisters, but it was just such a blessing to answer questions like where people go after they die. Bringing that happiness and hope into people's lives is so incredible! 

Friday = 27 contacts. That may not seem like a ton, but for us was super amazing! One of those contacts was a lady named Kenny we tracted into, she immediately let us in (super rare). We showed He Lives and talked about how our church is different (ie: restoration) and we found out she actually lives in Brooklyn so we had to send her over to the South missionaries. But she is so prepared!!! Miracles can happen from tracting.

One more miracle is that we went back to two Spanish families we had found last Tuesday and one wasn't available so we went to the other (Angeles who let us in last week) and started to have kind of a How to begin teaching lesson....AND THEN in walks the other lady we had tried to follow up with!! Apparently they're friends. So we kind of had a lesson with both of them, and set a return appointment, it was so cool that they both were there at the same time!! I'll keep you posted on them.

So one funny story before I wrap up this section of my email...so we tract into A TON of Chinese people and usually they laugh at my attempt to say "free English class" in Chinese but at this one door this week this (probably really old) Chinese lady starts knocking on her side of the door...and saying hello hahaha we were dying. Not every day does the door knocking turn to you in reverse. 

Few random updates: We got to see Gladys this week! And her son who's a member in Harlem came in at the end too. We also had a big east coast stake conference broadcast from salt lake Sunday which was super cool. And then Sunday night we went over to Maria's for dinner and she is so funny. She gives us this HUGE plate of spaghetti. In one of our conversations we tried to explain that we only call our families twice a year and she freaks out and brings her phone out and tries to get us to call our families right then...uhhhhh. Haha so awkward. But no worries we finally explained it better. I guess my Spanish isn't clear enough to combat stubborn people haha. 

Well other fun things from the week: we walked on the Highline to street contact, passed by a movie being filmed and actually saw an actor this time! Had some yummy pizza with one of our favorite members Art, had a very confused Chinese lady call us like 20 times asking who we were (including at like 10:45 at night), learned some ASL so we can communicate with our brand new elder in our Zone who is deaf!! (I'm so excited!!!) 

Hopefully that all made some sort of sense...emailing while in the city sometimes gets a bit crazy. But I love you all so much. Hopefully wherever you are you can go out and enjoy some gorgeous spring weather today or this week! Our Heavenly Father sure does spoil us in the spring, everything is so pretty! Love you all!! 

Con Amor, 

Hermana Smart