October 19, 2015

Hello family!

What a week! This week flew by so fast!  Being in the YSA is making
things go even faster than I am used too.
Well we have had some amazing experiences that I have been so blessed
to be a part of this week!

First experience--The Amherst elders received a call from a lady
named Anna that needed help moving a bunch of stuff from one of her
storage units to another storage unit. Anna had missionaries help a
year ago but fell out of contact with the church. Then when she needed
help she called over 20 churches to  look for help or just someone to pray
for her. And then she remembered the Mormons and boom we were there!
Her storage unit was literally filed up to the top with just tons of

cloths. As we were helping she told us how she felt that the
Lord was pushing her towards this church and that she needed to change
her life. And also she was testifying to Tammy who was a lady that
worked at the storage unit place and was helping out.  Anna was
telling her how she felt, that this was God's true church. It was super
cool! As we were helping out we found like 8 bottles of wine and Anna
told us that she was done drinking and that we could get ride of it,
and Tammy said we could just dump it right there on the pavement and we were
just have  a blast while doing it too! Tammy thought that was on of
the most refreshing things she had seen in a while, seeing a bunch of
young men dumping alcohol on the ground!  We
also got ride of so many cloths, we took two huge truck loads of
cloths to Goodwill. It was a lot! But the best part was seeing how
appreciative Anna was. 

The elders are going to meet with her again and
will start teaching her the lessons. Tammy was also really intrigued
so we got to give her a Book of Mormon, and she wanted to learn more!
Service really softens hearts! I am a firm believer of that!

We have our sports night and for it we played glow in
the dark capture the flag! YSA is awesome! Something I didn't expect I
would do on the mish. But we are always up for new adventures.

We were walking near Delaware park in Buffalo, and we saw this
group of about two young men and 6 young women playing football.  So
we went up started talking to them and  apparently these two young
men were coaching this girl's team for the powder-puff game they had
coming up. Luckily I have a two time state champion for a companion so
we got to help out.  It was fun just playing in my shirt and tie. After that 
we just got to talk to them and answer questions.
It was a fun experience.

We met and had an awesome lesson with this young man named
Brad. We met at a McDonald's before church. And it was great! We told
him what we believed God to be. And just as we were telling him he got
this big grin and we asked him how he felt when he heard those things
and he told us that he felt happy! The rest of the lesson went very
well and he committed to reading and praying about the Book of Mormon!
And he would be baptized if he finds out it is true! Such a great
start to the day!
It has been a great week! Things are going very well for us Shellyites
in New York! I couldn't be happier! Right now, I love you all so much.
Love
Elder Todd Houghton