Hermana Bloxham - Wow, the 6th Week!

Hey everybody!

I can't believe I've already been here for 6 weeks!

So I have a story this week that was sooo amazing and I hope that these words can portray how I was feeling in this moment.

So yesterday we taught a lesson to Mercedes. She's one of our investigators who we tracted into and she's the one who said that she can see a difference in our faces and that we have the faces of angels.... So during companion study that morning Sister Cole said, "We just have to teach her one thing to help her "get it"." We planned to read the first chapter of the Book of Mormon with her. But when we got there she was just talking and talking, like usual. She told us about a revelation she had had that morning about the world and how it is a "rebellious house"(Ezekiel 12). She told us about her prayers and how her experiences that weekend were just like that scripture. She had us read it and she talked all about how perfect it was to go with her experience that weekend. After we read that with her and talked about it, Sister Cole read John 10:16 about when Jesus Christ says that he talks to all of his other sheep, not just one nation. So that led perfectly into the Book of Mormon and how it talks about his other Sheep in the Americas. We've talked about the Book of Mormon in probably every lesson and she just hasn't read it, and we didn't know why...

I was prompted to say that the Book of Mormon isn't supposed to change or replace your Bible, but just to help you gain more knowledge of Jesus Christ and His plan for us.

That was exactly what she needed to hear and she got super excited and said, "I will read it, I am making a commitment to you both that I will read this book now." I was sooo excited, Sister Cole and I were on the verge of tears from excitement and she went on to tell us that she had always felt bad that she wasn't reading it because she loves us so much but she couldn't let it take the place of her Bible. 

She was so excited and Sister Cole and I were obviously in the clouds! We even invited  her to a baptism we are going to this weekend and she said she would come to that as well! She is finally on the path and I really hope that this was the turning point with her.

I am so thankful for this amazing miracle that we were able to experience this week! I know that everything happens for a reason and that everything works in God's timing. I am so thankful for all of you and your examples to me. I love you a ton!!

Hermana Bloxham :)

These are all of our apartment. We sleep in the front room!

These are from Manhattan when we were there to go to the temple.

Waiting for the Subway

This is a cool apartment that we were looking up a potential in

Rainy day by our apartment

Our district before transfers

Our roommates

Elder Bloxham

Hey family!! I'm excited to write to you guys today and let you know a little bit about how everything is going!!

     I wanted to start off by talking about this lady named Star Galvin. She isn't a member, but has had a lot of missionaries over in the past. She lives on this farm and has these 2 beautiful horses!! We get to do service over there once a week, and i absolutely love it!!! She used to live in Texas but moved here to be closer to her dad, and she owns an online business selling cowgirl nicknacks and stuff. She makes all of her things and then sales them. She does all her business through Facebook and it's pretty cool! When we go over to her house for service we are so excited because we get to do manual labor!! Cleaning out the stalls, chopping down trees, and hauling manure everywhere. I love it! I chop all sorts of trees down with an ax and it's a ball!!! Then she takes us out to eat and we talk a lot about the gospel! It's a win win situation!!

      Connie's Baptismal date is June 15th, but we have to move it back to June 29th because the Robbins will be out of town and they really want to go to it! So we'll wait! Whats cool is she will be getting confirmed on Syd's Birthday!! 

       I don't know if I've talked to you about Kayla, but i will talk about her anyway! She has these two darling daughters, Micah and Lena. They are just full of energy all the time! They are always running around the yard and it's so funny! But Kayla is so awesome and loves us coming over! We are meeting with her again today and i'm super stoked!!

        I've been out for almost 2 whole transfers now and it seems like it's only been a week!! Ah man, it hasn't been that long, but by how my testimony has grown I feel like I've been out for much longer. I always go back to the Book of Mormon. The Keystone to our Religion, and how much that book has influenced my life. It truly testifies to me every time I read it. The two things that I have grown a love for this past 3 months is reading the Book of Mormon and Prayer. Between the two of those i have gained my trust in the Lord!! I honestly know that Heavenly Father listens and answers our prayers! I love our Heavenly Father so much!! I feel like Heavenly Father is constantly giving me a bear hug and picking me up when I am down, or tired and think i can't go much further. I know he grabs my legs and puts one foot in front of the other and pushes me right along. I love this gospel of Jesus Christ. Without him we are nothing. Without the Atonement me will not make it back to heaven. The ultimate sacrifice from a perfect being was performed in order for us imperfect souls to become perfect and return to our Heavenly Father! Isn't that just amazing!? 

        I hope everyone has a great week!!

-Elder Bloxham

These are 2 sweet cars we saw!

My crazy companion on Preparation day! haha he didn't want to change his shirt but wanted to put shorts on haha!!

Hermana Bloxham - Flyin by as Always!!

Hello my amazing family and friends!

Man, this week has been a huge week of trials for Hermana Cole and I. During weekly planning last week we called everyone. And when I say everyone, I mean everyone! Formers, potentials, investigators, members and less actives. All who answered we made an appointment with but as it happened none of them were available until Wednesday night. So from Thursday last week until Tuesday this week we have been doing lots of praying for guidance. We also had a district fast on Sunday this week to help our ward feel like we as missionaries love them and try to get more member present lessons! Our ward is not the best but we are trying to do all we can to help them grow in testimony as well as in service! 

We didn't know how to help them so during our fast we tried to think of anything that we can do to help them "catch the wave". This weekend as well we had stake conference. We had Elder Packer and Elder Perry talk to us and it was amazingly perfect! They both talked about how the missionaries and the ward need to be as one unit in bringing people unto Christ. That is exactly what we were fasting for! It's so amazing how the Lord works! I wish I could tell you all about their talks but we had to listen to it in Spanish so I only caught the general idea haha.

Besides that, we have done lots and lots of tracting, less-active lookups, and former investigator look-ups. It has been a lot of hard hard work and tiring days of zero's in our planners. But we found 2 new investigators and 2 new potentials! That makes it all worth it in my eyes! Yesterday was one of the hugest miracle days ever! So we had plans to look up more randoms and then we called a member to see if we could teach her and she said, I would love to come out with you guys! That's money for getting member lessons! So, we switched our plans so that she could at least have one normal lesson with us. Then we got there to pick her up and found out that she didn't have a bus pass for this month..... So we switched our plans again! Basically, we didn't have any plans!

So we decided to just walk to one of our investigators house. On the way there we saw 3 of our other investigators who we werent planning on seeing and we got to talk to Walter for a while too. We also found a new investigator yesterday and she looks like she is so prepared to hear our message! I'm so excited for this next week!

Oh, we also met a guy named Mohammed, who gave us a free drink from a convenience store and proceeded to show us how to use a Hookah.... Just a little awkward haha

It's good to write out all of the blessings and little miracles that happen because it makes up for all of the hard times we have during the week. As long as we have faith that we are doing what we are supposed to be doing and working as hard as we can, Heavenly Father has promised us more blessings than we can even comprehend and that there won't be enough room to receive them.(Malackai somewhere hahaha)

Thank you all for your support and everything you are doing to help me out here in NYC! You are all the best!

Yo se que esto as la obra de Cristo y estoy muy agradecido por este oportunidad a ser un missionera! Estamos bendicido de Dios para que podamos experimentar nuestro fe y amor por el. Les doy gracias por su apoyo a mi aqui en Nueva York!

I love you all so much!

Hermana Bloxham :)

Elder Bloxham - Hello!!

  This week has just been full of surprises and crazy things going on! It has been interesting, but when weeks are like this happen, ah man it just flies by!

          We were on exchanges this week with the Dunkirk Elders and it was awesome! We spent the latter half of Thursday with them and then Friday we spent the whole day in Dunkirk and i had really great experiences! Me and Elder Mitchell talked to this drunk guy that scared the heck outta me but we got him to do some funny stuff.. Haha it was great! 

        We finished out the week strong on Saturday with 3 Solid lessons, and finding 2 new investigators! We taught Connie the Word of Wisdom to start it off and she really felt good about it. Except... Her mom makes this "amazing" sweet tea every summer.. So she is struggling with that. But once she finds the real reason we obey the Word of Wisdom she'll be fine without it. For with God everything is possible! :) Then we went to D'ann and Chris. D'ann is a member of about 3 months, but still is struggling a little, and then Chris is an investigator. They aren't married, but living together but they are trying to get married, typical Hoosier ;) but they are working hard! They are struggling with money so that makes it hard to pay their tithing.. (if you have any stories of how tithing has blessed your life that would be great) But they still pay what they can, God knows their struggles and will accept as much as they can! (Just like the Widows mite) And then we went to a less actives house, who wasn't home, so we were like well there is these former investigators that live out here! So we stop by Bill and Tammy Cook! They talked with missionaries in the past, but the missionaries got double transferred out of Winchester 5 years ago, so nobody could teach them anymore. So that's where we step in! :) They are awesome!!!! We have a lesson with them today and it is going to be sweet!!! 

      Well that pretty much sums up our week, but it was pretty awesome!! I love it :)

Love you so much!!

-Elder Bloxham 

okay listen to this!! So the drunk guy at Dunkirk was so scary.. like he is a complete alcoholic!! He was so moody and i felt like he was going to pull something crazy and hurt one of us!! but the funniest thing happened!!! So the dunkirk elders talked to him the day before and gave him a restoration pamphlet. so he says to us (andy) do you think i still have that pamphlet? and we were like yeah! so he says well i dont think you believe me, i need to show it to you.. so we said no we believe you andy! and he's like no i have to go get it, it will only take 30 seconds. (we were talking to him in his garage) And we were like okay you can go get it! So he was getting in a little huff trying to psyche himself up so he could run and grab it in 30 seconds. he then gets in this running position and about goes and says wait, i will do it in 40 seconds. so we were like okay thats fine!! haha so i get my watch ready to time him. He gets back in that position then i say go and he takes off!!!! hahahaha!!! goes around the corner, like stumbling but still trying to run fast, but you have to remember he is absolutely wasted!! (he weighs about 250 and was as tall as me) so he's a pretty big guy, just running in his house! he goes out of the garage, around the corner, to his gate and opens it up, sprinting into his house to find the pamphlet. me and elder mitchell are still in the garage timing him! haha, then he brakes out of his house like totally panting, but still running full speed!! and then runs through the garage and says "stop the time!" hahah so i stop it at 24.6 seconds! he was like almost pissed looking, trying to catch his breath because he had ran so hard! but he was so proud of himself he was practically crying! hahahah!!! he told us he loved us about 5 different times. it was great.. sooo funny!! but scary at the same time! & at the end, when we had to get going, we said alright andy we gotta get goin, and he says, " get the f*** out of my garage" so we get goin! haha it was scary.. but so worth it!! 

Hermana Bloxham - Week 4!

I am sitting in the Apple store in Manhattan New York right now! Can you believe it? Probably the coolest thing ever! Anyways! We are here to go to the temple so I'll journal about it and let you know next week how it was!

So this week we had a pretty slow week. Last week we only taught 9 lessons all week... Which is not the best... But on Monday we were all rejuvenated from our skyping with our families and we got right to it! We went to see a member of our ward who used to be less-active. Come to find out that she has an amazing testimony of the Book of Mormon and of this church! So we invited her to our lesson yesterday morning with Mercedes! They are both from the D.R. and basically the whole lesson my companion and I were trying and hoping that we were understanding their conversation. We didn't really get most of it.... It's ok though. We felt the spirit and hopefully Mercedes did too. But we did get a member present lesson and hopefully a friend for Mercedes out of it!

Earlier yesterday morning we taught another member in our ward and found out that she is really in need of our help because she's not reading the Book of Mormon regularly and she is lacking in testimony. So we have another meeting with her to hopefully find out more about her and how we can really help her. 

After our lesson with Mercedes we found out that our member we brought with us is the Aunt of a girl we have been trying to get in contact with for months. So, with the help of this member we were able to get into this less-actives house and meet her finally! So within about 3 hours we already had a third of what we did all last week combined! It was such a miracle to find this member and know how excited she is about helping us in our work!

Last night we went to visit a potential investigator named Tomas. I don't know if I've told you about him yet but he is great. He's from Mexico and he's not a member of any specific religion but he believes in God and Jesus Christ which is awesome! When we first met him he told us that he works crazy hours and doesn't have a set schedule so we couldn't make an appointment with him. But yesterday Hermana Cole and I decided to go see if he was home, and he was! And his daughter was there as well! They both seem soo excited about our message and we got their number to give them a call when we want to see them. I hope that they are as excited as we feel like they are!

I know that this is God's work and without Him, there is nothing we couldn't do. I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and a man can come closer to Christ by following its words than by any other book (Introduction to the Book of Mormon). I challenge all of you to read it every day and apply it to your lives. It is the only thing we need if we will truly follow our feelings and knowledge we gain through our reading. Words really don't even describe how amazing this book is and I know that you can all find of its power for yourselves.

Thank you all for everything that you are doing to support me and my family during this amazing time in our lives! I love you all sooo much!

Love, Hermana Bloxham :)

View of Manhattan from our apartment window!

View from the roof in one of our areas

Me and Sister Cole at Haffen Park

All of these are from the subway ride into the city

Me at the Apple Store in Manhattan

Some basketball right on the street

 Sister Malderizzi and me on our split!

On the subway

Elder Bloxham - Hey Family!!

Ah man, it was so great being able to talk to you all yesterday!! I hope Mothers day was awesome!! Nothing much has happened since i talked to you yesterday, but i'll try my best on filling ya in with some other nonsense :)

      So Connie is the one and only Progressing Investigator we have. She is 17 and she lives in Union City. (about 15 minutes from Winchester) She's come to church 2 times and she now goes to Mutual every Wednesday! Her date is June 15th and she is definitely striving for that date! She is doing awesome! We send her scriptures of the day and she will call us like 2 minutes later way excited about the scripture she read and she says how awesome it is! It's pretty cool!!

        I don't really have much to say because i told you about everything yesterday, but i love you so much and (like joe dirt says) life's a garden, dig it! just keep on keepin on! :)

Elder's Bloxham and Elquist

These are Nate being the same ole crazy kid he's always been!!

Hermana Bloxham - Week 3!!

Hey guys! I can't believe how fast this week went!! Seriously I feel like I was just here last week emailing! Anyways! Sister Cole and I are getting along just like usual haha better and better every day! I really feel like this is what companions are supposed to feel like! We have so much fun together and we teach each other something amazing every single day. I am so thankful that our Mission President was inspired to call her as my trainer after she had only been out for 6 weeks herself!

This week we have been getting kind of impatient with our investigators. None of them are keeping their commitments and they are not progressing how we would like them to. During our Zone Conference yesterday our Mission President talked about how we are teachers and as teachers we need to make sure that someone is learning as we are teaching. It's crazy how perfect our Zone Conference was for us! One of the Assistants to the President talked about how to plan to make full use of every moment of our days. That was definitely something we need to focus on. He talked about how to make A-B-C and even D plans for every day. This will get rid of the time spent wondering what we should do! It's going to help us a ton in our work ethic and effort we are willing to put in.

We are going to be going on splits with the Sister Training Leaders tomorrow and Friday which I'm super nervous for.  I don't know yet if I'm leaving my area or if I'm staying with one of those sisters. I don't know the area very well but hopefully it will all work out fine :/ I'll have to let you know next week how that goes haha.

Our investigators are all good. We've been meeting/trying to find less actives mostly this week which is very tiring and hard work. But we have also been looking up a lot of former investigators which other missionaries have taught but dropped for one reason or another. That has worked really well for us. We have been meeting a lot of new people and hopefully we'll be able to turn them into new investigators soon!

This email kind of sounds dumb but I hope it helps someone out this week!

I know that as we are working our hardest to fight against Satan and follow the will of Christ, all is possible. If there is anything you are going through that you think cannot be fixed, you are wrong. Jesus Christ suffered and died for each of us individually and He knows exactly what were going through every single day. I have an amazing testimony of the Book of Mormon. I know that it is The word of God and as we abide by its precepts we will be able to be closer to God and Christ. The answer to any one of you problems is in the Book of Mormon and I know that as you study it prayerfully, you will be able to find the answer you are searching for.

I love you all so much and I am so thankful for all of your support!

Love, Hermana Bloxham :)