Still Serving in Inwood

HOLA! Estoy en Inwood todavia!! 

We received the calls Sunday night, and I have to admit that I was very nervous about the possibility of being transfered. But we did have some changes in our district and zone. We have a new zone leader, Elder Wilsher is now companions with Elder Kiyama and they are training! An Elder who was supposed to go to Brazil but wasn't able to get his visa. So they will be speaking a lot of Portuges. Elder Kiyama is from Brazil and well, Elder Wilsher, he had a companion in the past that is from Brazil. So we will see how that goes! The Lord knows what he's doing that is all I know. :)  

Elder Wilsher looks very entertaining!!!

Last week we had a baptism!! YAY! Dionisio was baptized on Saturday and confirmed on Sunday. It was amazing because he was there early! And it was raining and he has a bad knee! He is great and has great friends in the ward! IT FEELS AWESOME TO BE PART OF THIS! 

Also, this next week we have a baptism!! Melissa is 12 almost 13 and she has chosen the 3 of February to be baptized! I am so excited for her! She is my bud and I know that this ward is going to treat her awesome!  

Dionisio's Baptism

Hermana Rogers and Melissa

This Saturday at the Lincoln Square chapel, which is the chapel where the temple is, there was a women's conference. It was AMAZING! It was so amazing to see all these women and all of their talents! There were people who make dance clothing for professional dancers, Shabby Apple, violinists, artists, writers, editors. Seriously the women here are so amazing.  

 A sister in the Spanish speaking ward took all the missionaries (4 pairs total) to this nice Dominican restaurant. This sweet woman is so amazing! She brings “prizes” aka mugs and stuffed animals and such that you can win if you guess the number that she’s thinking of, usually between 1-10. It’s so fun! Apparently she takes the missionaries out right before transfers every cycle. 

So we received 18 new missionaries today! It was amazing to see so many sisters! There were only 2 Spanish sisters but like 10 English! We have opened up a lot of new areas up state! The work is going to spread! And by the end of April, we will have 80 more!! So crazy! I am so excited to see what is going to happen and more importantly be a part of this work! Right now! It is awesome!  

I love you all so much! I hope that this next week goes great for you all!! Love love love you! 

Love, Hermana Lancaster  

Weekly Letter of Wonderfulness!

Hello Dear Ones!

This past week has been COLD!! I cannot believe how cold it has gotten! I just am thankful it isn't summer yet. I am still trying to decide how I am going to be able to do that. The cold I can bear, I can always put more layers on but the heat, that's a different story. 

We have a baptism on Saturday! His name is Dionisio and he is from the DR. He is ready and it will be great. 

We also have a baptism date for Melissa!  She is 12 and has been coming to church with her Godfather for a while. When we found out that her parents said it was okay for her to be baptized we were SO happy. And she is so happy too! When I asked her if she wanted it to be sooner or later she said as soon as possible! Haha we love her so much. Her date is Feb 2. 

We have been going to a part member families house for a little while now to help with BYU applications! Sherley is the only member in her family and is graduating this year. She is so amazing. When the missionaries started teaching her she fell in love with it. She is such a great example to her family as well. She lives with her mom and her sister. While Hermana Rogers helps her with her applications I play guitar with her sister and we may or may not listen to One Direction...:) I am hoping that as we are able to form this friendship we can start talking about gospel stuff. Sherley's mom and sister come with her to church every week but only stay for sacrament meeting. So we are really hoping we can help them! 

Friday we had a training meeting. It was great! It was basically what was said in the sisters conference but modified for everyone. We talked a lot about the characteristics of leaders, and how in our mission calls we are ALL called to be leaders. It was awesome! Then we broke up into elders and sisters and new missionaries. Haha it was so great to go and talk with President Morgan and Sister Morgan. They asked us how we were doing and what things were the easiest or the best and which things were the hardest. I said that the best thing is when someone sets a baptism date. Not only are they showing their faith in the Lord and desire to follow Him, but that means that we as missionaries are doing the right things. We are teaching with the spirit and meeting their needs. The hardest thing is definitely getting adjusted to missionary life. It is SO different from the life I lived before this. But it is definitely a change for the better. 

This Sunday we had dinner as a district at the church! We made spaghetti and garlic bread. It was so fun! We were playing around in the kitchen and it was a blast. I love that we all get along so well together! 

Yesterday was Hermana Rogers birthday! It is her golden year as well! She turned 22 on the 22nd! She got a package from a Young Women's leader she had with all "golden" things in it! It was so cute! I made her favorite cake, yellow cake with chocolate frosting. 

I hope that everyone has a wonderful week! I haven't been taking very many pictures lately, mostly because it is so cold! But I will try and take more! I love you all so so so much and I think about you all the time! Oh, I forgot one thing!...... 

This next week is TRANSFERS! So, I may be writing from a new place next week. We will receive a call on Sunday that will tell us what is going on and then we have till Wednesday to get all of our stuff packed to move! Moving in the city is hard!! Mostly because we have to use the Subway and buses and the bags are heavy and there are a lot of stairs. But luckily we have an awesome member that takes us to the chapel in the Bronx if we are moving. But then we have to go the rest of the way by ourselves. It is fun. but is it tough work too. 

So last Sunday I saw a guy in the English ward and I was like, "he looks really familiar." Turns out, he is from Springville! He just got an internship here and they go to our same building. His name is Jason Freeman I believe. His brother Ryan Freeman was in my class and they live right by Grandma and Grandpa! I'm pretty sure they are their home teachers! How crazy is that? 

Love, Hermana Lancaster

Moving forward

HELLLO! 

I am happy to say that we are not suffering to badly with the weather here. It is usually 30-40 degrees but sometimes, with the sunshine, we get to like 45-50. So really it is awesome. It doesn't feel like winter at all! 

So first and foremost, I want to wish my little sister a HAPPY 18TH BIRTHDAY! It is her golden year! 18 on the 18th! How awesome!! 

So this last week has been kind of uneventful I am sorry to say. We have been working hard to get less actives back to church! and  actually, in this last week did get 6 new investigators!! That is pretty awesome! 

Also, we had a sisters conference this last Thursday! All of us sisters in the NY NY North Mission got together and had a nice conference. Mostly because within these next few months we will be doubled in number and all of us will begin training! Scary!! We received the "Lock your heart" talk by President Kimball. For those of you who aren't sure what that talk is about, well, lets just say we were scolded. We were told to lock our heart of the things from the world and focus on the things of Christ. We were also told not to text, or flirt with elders..hahah yeahh.. apparently we have been having some problems with that. Not with me I can promise you! (I know this type of thing would bother Ashley if she saw it happening!!!) But since we are going to be the trainers to 19 year old sisters along with 19 year old elders, we have to teach them these things quick. Because, mission goggles are real. 

So I totally had a guy give me his number, well e-mail. He slipped it into my bag! HAHAHA He goes to NYU and his name is Akiva. We made eye contact a few times on the train, and he ended up next to me on a sardined train and looky what happened, I have his e-mail. The note said, Keep in touch hermana! hahahaha oh heavens it was funny. 

We have a training conference this Friday down at the temple chapel which is always fun to travel to! We are all really excited for the influx of new missionaries! It will be so crazy! 

Well I love you all and I hope that you guys have a wonderful week!! If any of you guys have any questions feel free to e-mail me and ask! I would love to hear them!! 

Love, Hermana Lancaster

Spiritual Upliftment Here!

Ashley Serving and Making Progress

HOLA FAMILIA!

How is everyone doing?! I hope they are all good! Things have been kinda crazy around here. My companion is sick so we had to slow things down so that she can recover quickly. Luckily I haven't gotten sick, just knocked on wood, and I continue to wash my hands and liberally apply hand sanitizer. :) 

This last week we went to an investigators house who we haven't been to in a while. We were really hoping that she had continued to read El Libro De Mormon but we really didn't know. When we asked her where she was in her reading guess where she was? Mosiah 24! Holy cow! We straight up asked her if she knew this book was true and she said "Yes." We asked her if she knew Joseph Smith was a prophet and, she said "Yes." The problem is, her husband is not religious, and so she doesn't really have a close friend in the church. We have tried bringing her to our bishop's to see his wife, but it is kind of a hard walk with 2 energetic kids. She also hasn't been to sacrament meeting. She has come to English class at the church a few times. It is tough. But we have faith that she will come! And we are willing to do anything we can to help her! 

Last Saturday we went and did service in the South mission. We got into groups of 6 here, and we were teamed up with 4 south missionaries. It was really fun! We were able to go out and do what they had been doing for the last little while. It was a good experience. It wasn't a lot of hard work service, but it was fun to see the area. I saw a street named Lancaster! Unfortunately I didn't get a picture. :( 

Ashley on her way to the NY, NY South Mission area to do more clean up service

NY, NY North Missionaries heading to the South Mission to help serve in the
Hurricane Sandy cleanup

View of Manhattan from the NY,NY South Mission area

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY E!! You are 13! That, my friends, is crazy. I can remember the day you were born. I was in 3rd grade. I hope that you had a wonderful day!! Did you like your birthday card?! 

So our focus this last little while has been working with menos activos, or less actives in English. Which I think is so great because it is awesome to go out and find new people to teach but if there are baptized members not coming, we need to talk with them. So the story goes, we were trying to figure out what to do and I was like, "Hey I have a list of menos activos we can look up." So we went to the one closest to us and now, we are teaching his parents!! And we are going to try to teach his siblings as well! 

We have set a new baptism date for our other investigator. We were hoping for Jan 5 but he had some issues to work out still. So we had a DTR (?) last night and we have set a new date for the 26 of January He's ready! 

Tomorrow we have a Sisters conference! I am really excited! It should be really good. I didn't know they did these kinds of things!! It will be good to all get together without the elders. Not that they aren't fun and all. hahaha 

Well I hope you all have a great week! We are having a pretty chill day and are just going to Marshall's on 125th street to get stuff for the apartment. We don't really have any kitchen stuff. 

Love you all!! 

Con Amor, Hermana Lancaster

A real slice of New York City pizza!

9/11 Memorial and New Years Resolutions

Hollllla Familia! 

Ashley in her Christmas PJ's from Grandma Strong

So this last week has been pretty crazy. We have been busy with lots of dinners with members. 

On New Years Eve we went to have smoothies at a member's house at 5, then we had to be in at 6 because, well, that is the rule. So Sister Rogers and I ordered pizza and had a blast listening to pride and prejudice and coloring in coloring books. :) haha but really that is what we did. Meanwhile, little did we know, the Elders pulled a prank on us. I will send pictures. Luckily we outsmarted the prank and no one and nothing got hurt. :) 

"The New Years Eve Prank"

It was good to see the pictures of Grandma and Grandpa Lancaster that dad sent! Tell them hello for me! When grandma and grandpa Strong get their call let me know ASAP! 

Ashley and Hermana Rogers 

Today was P-day and we got back a little late but guess what we did!? We went to the temple, and then to the 9/11 memorial. It was AMAZING! The temple is always amazing. And so beautiful. Then to get to go to the 9/11 memorial. It was just like, I can't even describe the feeling there. Somber and just calm and like, sacred? I don't know but it was a feeling I had never felt before. 

9/11 Memorial

South Manhattan Freedom Tower 

This Saturday we, as a mission, are going down for one last clean up to the Rockaways. It is going to be FREEEEEZING but it will be a good way to start off the year. 

So as for New Years resolutions, you all better be thinking of some! Because I have 2 that I am really going to work hard at. 1st, bear my testimony more. Not only will I be speaking truth so that the Spirit can testify of the truth but I will be growing my testimony and gaining spiritual strength! That's what I'm talking about! Then 2nd is more of a me thing, I will eat better and work out. it will rock. I WILL ROCK. :) 

Ashley already rockin it in NYC!

 I love you all so much and hope you have a great week!!!

Love, Hermana Lancaster  

Yankee Stadium

?????

Christmas in the City 2012

Ashley in the Subway

Grand Central Station

On their way to the 9/11 Memorial

Elders heating water to fill the baptismal font...Seriously!

Elder Wilsher at the 9/11 Memorial