10-4-10

I am currently serving in Richmond Hill. My companion is Hermana Winfield from WA. She graduated in Financing from BYU in Dec.

The picture with food is what I ate. I ATE A FISH HEAD!!!! What? Yep. The power of prayer is real. lol

Hermana Winfield and I on Sat before conference

A view from our Apt



Hey Family!

OK-lets see how much I can write out in 20 min. Thank you for all of your beautiful e-mails. They lift and inspire me. There is so much I would like to tell you about. Right now I am serving in Richmond Hill, NY. There is a Spanish ward and an English branch here. There are a lot of people from Peru, Colombia, El Salvador, Mexico, and...everywhere. In Brooklyn the people were mostly from Mexico. My companion is Hermana Winfield. She's great. This is her 2nd transfer. She has only been out for 6 weeks but her Spanish is great. Honestly it is better than mine but that just means another opportunity for me to learn more humility.

The area here has been struggling. Last transfer they had two baptism which were great. It was a mother named Cl* and her 9 yr old daughter. Coming into this area with Hna Winfield being so new has been as if we have been whitewashed or blinded in. There are a lot of things that both of us want to change and improve upon. Its really exciting to change things up and have a companion that sees the need for it as well. That is on thing I've been really grateful that Hna Winfield is willing to do. We both see a great need for change here. We have spent a lot of time planning, printing off maps of the area, and setting goals. Last week we went through lists of people and made a list of our own of who is closest to baptism. As of right now we only have 1 investigator but there is a lot of hope for other people. There are a lot of part member families and people that have come to church for a long time but have never been baptized. I feel like this has been a personal calling of mine. As Hna Winfield and I were making a list of people that could realistically be baptized this months, this is the last month of year for the goal our mission has, we both felt very strongly about a girl who is 10 yrs old.

Her name is Al*. Her mother, sister, and grandma are members. To make a long story short we both felt that this was her time to be baptized and that we needed to start working with her more. On Wen. we saw her at the church as we were making copies of ward lists, maps, and everything else you could think of. She was taught by missionaries before and was asked to pray about a date she would get baptized. She said she wanted to do it on her birthday in Feb but then after she prayed she had a dream and said she wanted to be baptized on Dec 9 and thought that would be cool. Hna Winfield and I both felt the spirit. It was not a typical setting for us to feel the spirit, children were running around, Al* was dancing as we talked to her, I then said, "How cool would it be to be baptized on 10/10/10." She thought about it and then Hna Winfield said, will you pray about it tonight? She agreed. Yesterday we talked to her mother about Al*. Her mother said she wanted to be baptized this Sunday, 10/10/10. All we did was suggest the date and ask a little 10 yr to pray about it. She did and with out us asking had already talked to her mother and the Bishop. Miracles do happen. We will be meeting with her every night while her older sister is in seminary. They have seminary at night in the ward.

I have realized more and more that I need to have greater faith and trust in the Lord and in this work. I have felt more and more that to develop the greater spirituality that I need that I need to read the entire Book of Mormon this transfer. It is going to be difficult but I will do it. Things are going great here. It has been hard and I sure do miss Brooklyn but as hard as it is to say, I know this is exactly where I need to be right now. I apologize for this letter being so short. We don't have as much time to e-mail here. What a blessing it was to attend conference.

I love all of you so much. Have a wonderful week and don't be shy to drop a letter in the mail :)

With great love,

Hermana Banaszewski