May 11th, 2015

Hello from the beautiful place of New York! . . . Finally

I can't tell you the joy that filled my heart as I got to see all of
your smiling faces! I seriously thought that we were all in same room,
it was so exciting! Then once we were done and the call was over, I
had the thought oh yeah I am in New York right now! :) It is such a
blessing that we can Skype each other face to face miles and miles
away! I am definitely ok with that! Sadly there is never enough time
to tell you all the amazing experience I have been able to have. And
so you will have to deal with the small plates [letters] which I write
an small accounting of the record of this Elder. Nevertheless the
time shall come when all shall be reveled, but until then I must
continue to apologize for the Lord has not made me mighty in writing
like unto the brother of Jared, but my weaknesses may become strong
through the Lord.  Until then be patient with thy son, or brother
yeah even thy younger brother (for some).

So this week things have gotten ridiculous! Winter has become summer
in the matter of like two days; we have had some nice 90 degree
weather the past couple of days. So we have been sweating bullets! The
plus to that is I think it has softened the heart of some of the
people we meet when they look at us with our shirts and ties and dark
slacks. So I guess that makes it all worth it!

We had on kind of weird experience this week. We were walking down
the Erie Canal pretty close to our apartment and we were just talking
to as many people as we could, inviting them to the Pagent and the whole
sha bang.

We went and started to talk to this one girl who was fishing,

and as we were talking to her she was super open to talk with us and she was
asking us questions.  As she was doing it she pulled out her smart
phone all nonchalantly started recording us and our conversation.
It was pretty obvious she was recording, but that wasn't all. She is basically a hippy
and told us her love for everything around her and that she is always
open to hear new things. Also when we invited her to the Pagent she told
us she was going to sign up for it and everything, we were like
we'll do you want to know what it's about?! and we explained the Book of
Mormon to her, which fascinated her.

Then some of her friends came up and were chilling with us as well and were talking to us. It was

really random and everything. Then we had this one random guy who
walked with a strut and his head tilted up, came up and just started
pretty much yelling at this girl to not listen to us, that we were
teaching false doctrine, and said that we didn't believe in God and
Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost. . .  And all sorts of garbage, while
he was doing this the girl was recording him on her phone and
everything, it was just weird. After her and her friends came up to us
and were like "that guy is crazy! Your badges say Jesus Christ right
there!"  And so with that we testified of what was true and got
her email and gave her a Book of Mormon and she was like, “I get to
keep this!?!” We were like of course! She said she would read and
study this book! So we were  pretty excited about that.  That's the mission life!

Well great things are happening here!
I love you all!
Happy Mother's Day!
Love Elder Houghton