Tuesday: I got 2 hours of sleep (R.I.P. sourpatch watermelon, may you find new life through your passing and sprout up a watermelon tree) said goodbye to Maria, my house-keeper (love you sister Hernandez 😉 then left my MTC-Shire around 3am. Sister Holmberg and I had some “deep-half-asleep talks” as we watched the lights fly past us and looked at our reflections in the bus window, wondering how we were already on our way to NY and talking about eternity and such. We traveled all day with about 10 other missionaries and by 5pm arrived in UTICA! I was FREAKING OUT! I was smiling at everyone and waving and chatting up a storm,  totally fearless and ready to roll up my sleeves and start dunking! Little did I know that the next few days were gunna be a bit different than what I expected haha….Silly little last week Bekah.

President Rogers and his wife picked us up and took us to this amazing pizza place. The pizza here is insane. They have fry-stuffed-bacon pizza, pizza stuffed with pasta, pie pizza, doughnut pizza, you name it they have it. I was mind-blown. The lady taking our order was named Kate! She was a little rougher but so nice. I of course knew she had to hear about the restored gospel! So, I dug up this tiny Book of Mormon I had bought and highlighted my favorite scriptures. I wrote my testimony in it, said some prayers and walked  up to her. I honestly don’t remember what I said to her because the spirit was talking, not me. When I first started talking to her, she started laughing and acted a bit pissed off at me. She knew all about us mormons and asked who made me come talk to her. I reasponded very genuinly and told her I just wanted to share a personal testimony and shared how scared I was. She softened up a bit (arms still crossed and glaring at me) and let me talk. I shared a simple testimony of my love for the Savior and how He has blessed me. I totally started crying haha – she ran around the counter and gave me a hug. We kept talking and she ended up telling me that she was a single mother working 2 jobs and needed eye surgery but had no money and how it was hard to find purpose in life. She shared that she was depressed with how awful and morally-low the world is becoming and wants her daughter to be happy and make good choices etc. She showed me a photo of her daughter – SO CUTE. I listened and grieved with her, but promised her that Christ understands her and through Him, she can find peace and direction etc. She took the Book and told me she might just have to read it because of how real I was and that she felt truth in my words. She told me she had never had religion in her life, never prayed to God, but her mother always encouraged her to. She said- maybe it was time to try it out. It broke my heart how hard life was for her and how hopeless and directionless she felt. The next 3 hours, I was compulsively praying for her haha –  just this constant pleading in my heart that she would read the Book of Mormon and find joy through it. I couldn’t help but cry that night as I pled with God to help her take to heart the things I said. I still pray for her multiple times a day. I love her so much even though we only talked for about 10 minutes. That night we stayed at the mission house. It is so cute! It was hard to sleep beacuse of how stoked I was for the next day! But eventually my eyelids got heavy and my brain shutdown.

Wednesday: We did tons of orientation and training stuff at the church building. Then at about 12 I met my new companion! It was kind of awkward because we sat in the gym and there were about 12  new missionaries and 12 trainers. We were sitting across from eachother and we had no clue who we would be with! President Rogers would call off the companionship’s then everyone would watch us get up and hug them and all that hah. I got… SISTER SAUNDERS!!!!!!! I was SO STOKED! A few minutes after sitting down and chatting with her, She told me that she was FRIENDS WITH TERIK… and worked at Zupas with him. I got a little emotional and just felt so strong that our companionship was inspired and that it was meant to be. We talk about Terik all the time. Its incredible. I love her so much. She is the most happy, positive person ever! Almost too nice.. sometimes it’s hard to connect with people that are that perfect haha! but it is good. I learn a LOT from her.

That day we met sister Nojaim, this 77 year old lady from Scottland. She was an opera singer and a ball room dancer and has a sweet accent. She was in the hospital so we went there and I shared the story in Mark 5 of the woman healed by touching Christs robe. She loved it so much. We had the elders come and give her a blessing. It was great because the same power used to heal the woman in the bible was used to heal sister Nojaim. I’m so grateful for the priesthood power. Later we went tracting (walking from one house to the next, knocking on doors and asking people if we can talk to them about Jesus! It’s SO FUN!  We’ve tracted for hours on end with zero lessons taught as a result – haha!  (Its just surprising that people wouldn’t want to talk to such adorable happy girls like us 😉 The hardest part is that half of them say “I’m good” or “I already know Jesus” or “I already have a church” We want to say – WELL THIS WILL BRING YOU EVEN CLOSER TO GOD AND MAKE YOU EVEN MORE HAPPY- AT LEAST LISTEN TO US FOR LIKE 3 MINUTES! If we just had 3 minutes to bear our testimonies, they would feel the spirit and know of its truth! It is very humbling to tract half the day and get so much rejection! But I won’t let that get me down! I will be doing it everyday for the next 18 months and it will all be worth it when I find that one person who needs us. However, there have been a couple women who have talked to us at the door for a while, but these New Yorkers! They talk and talk and talk and talk and they are nice but you can barely squeeze a word in! One woman talked to us for a good 40 minutes and we got maybe 5 sentences in-  haha. Her name was Anne and she was SOO COOL! So strong in her faith and she had thee most gorgeous 14 year old son. He loved Jesus and had super high morals. He wants to go to college in Hawaii. I told him BYU-H has really high standards and an awesome honor code (he wanted a “dry” campus) and he got way excited about it! Who knows, maybe he will end up going there and learning about the church! The other two woman were awesome too! One was this native american who had her own ancient religion called Haundenosaunee and another was super into stones and healing powers and all this cool stuff! She really was excited to read the Book of Mormon!

Oh boy-  I need to learn how to give summaries and not go into so much detail haha! I will hurry and summarize the rest of the week!!!!  Wednesday we did a lot more talking to people but didn’t get any investigators 😦 And no one lets us do service for them either! We literally offer to do service for everyone and very few accept. crazy! The work out here is slow. We only teach about 17 lessons a week :(( BUT WE WILL CHANGE THAT! OH! and my apartment is so cool! its tiny and ghetto and im obsessed with it!

Thursday- 6:30 up. yoga/exercise, shower, get ready, eat, 8:00 personal study 9:00 companion study, tract for a couple hours, taught Jon this old man who has a crazy life story, taught Alex this 20 year old ginger girl who is getting baptized next month (SO SWEET) then Paul, This recent convert who is super interesting. He wears mascara and eye liner because it makes him feel beautiful, he has 2 kids and one of them, Noel (age 10) is an investigator. We did a fun Tree of Life activity with them! They are so cool. Then we ate and tracted more. We stopped at Cynthias house. She is this young single mother with 2 adorable little boys, Roy and Angel. She speaks mostly Spanish but is pretty good with english. The sisters had taught her at the door once and this time she let us in to teach a lesson!!!! She is very interested and loves Jesus. I’m hoping she will continue to progress! Then we went to Mings. Ming is about 40 and she just moved here from China. We teach her English 3 times a week through reading The Book of Mormon with her. She loves us and she is starting to gain a testimony of prayer and said she knows the Book of Mormon is from God! I love, love, love Ming. Afterwards we went to the church and taught a Facebook lesson to Julia. Then we street contacted around the swan ponds and got some not very nice people haha! Thats ok. The people on the East coast are very different than the people on the West coast. Lets just say that. The second my head hit the pillow I was out.

Friday- Friday was so good. I learned so much! It consisted of us shivering in the cld, drenching wet with rain pouring on us, going door to door for hours with no success. I’m honestly shocked that people don’t at least chat with us for a bit. I actually loved it though. The only hard part is knowing how much happier they could be if they just gave it a  chance. But I totally understand why people avoid us. It takes very special people to open up to 2 Christian Chicks on their porch haha. I will just kinda skip Friday cuz I want to get to Saturday!

Saturday- We did service for this man named Neal. He straight up looks like the BFG but normal sized hehe! He is not at all interested in what we have to say but he let us work on beautifying his yard! And we met his super nice neighbors and we will probably end up doing work  for them too! I can’t wait! When we walk home, we always have a contest of who can pickup the most trash. It’s de best!!!! We taught more lessons Friday and visited more members. Then that night, after our lesson with Ming, the most incredible thing happened… WE BLEW AWAY ALL THE SEEDS OF A DANDELION IN ONE BREATH! We had been trying to do it all day with no luck, but we finally did it! And that means we were going to find some new investigators! WOOOO! We got jacked up and started talking to everyone on the street. Everyone freaking hated us haha but we didnt lose hope! We felt like we should walk down this random street and on it, we passed 3 guys playing basket ball. We were wayyyy to intimidated to talk to them. But eventually, I said “Okay. I’m going to do it” We walked towards them and I said, “Hey guys! Can we ball with you for a minute?” They were like “heck yeah!” (but maybe not the heck word) and I was like “today has been so long, we need a break” We played with them and they started asking more and more questions. I ended up teaching Jack the first 3 lessons super condensed and Sister Saunders taught Deangelo the restoration on the court. Tanner peaced out. Jack and Deangelo never had religion in their lives and never prayed or really knew if they believed in God or not. Jack and I got into a pretty intense discussion and I just followed the spirit and was genuine and personable. I gave him a Book of Mormon and challenged him to Pray about it. He was really interested and would just pause after I talked or asked him a question and I could tell he had a lot going on in his mind. After about 30 minutes, We decided to leave cuz it was dark and kinda secluded and there was beer all over and they were smoking and they were in their early 20s and I just knew nothing good would come from it haha. We exchanged numbers and made a deal that we would teach them the gospel if they taught us bball. It was a miricle. They are so ready to hear about Christ. I have to go but I hope you all know how grateful I am for you and how much I love you.

This week, I want to challenge you to just listen to people. More than listen- really hear people. Learn about a new perspective or religion or person and talk to people you normally wouldn’t. Ask questions and try to be genuinely interested in others! Thank you for your support! ❤

Love, Sister Folkman