Email - I was like a girl in the mall when I went through the meat section

Weekly update DEC 5th - DEC 11th

Off to play some basketball in the new sweet shirt I found. 

It helps me get into the other players heads before hand. :)

MONDAY: I have some good news! I no longer have to use $30 a month to do laundry. We have a washer and a dry in the house, Idk how well they work but we have them.

Picture of my new place

 To get groceries, we went to a store called Aldi and it's not super big but everything they have in there is sooooo cheap! I was like a girl in the mall when I went through the meat section.  After that we made lunch and headed over to the Caldwell chapel (that's where the zone meets up on p day to play sports). Pretty much all we play as missionaries is basketball or dodge ball. Some zones do super fun stuff like beach volleyball or other super fun stuff but not us. Not yet ;) that evening we stopped by our new investigators house (Ronny) and he told us his wife has a super bad disease and we told him we could give her a blessing and he said he would love. We promised to come by on Wednesday. He said that he feels different when we come over, he said he feels the love we have. They are honestly the most humble and golden family! I have faith that they will be baptized soon. Please keep them in your prayers 

TUESDAY: We had to drive to Ihop in Bloomfield for a little meeting that my comp had with the other district leaders and zone leaders. So the comp of the other district leader and I had to sit at a different table. Since it was like an hour meeting, we figured we would get food... he has been in the mission like 5 days or something like that. That night we had English class and the only lady that showed up was our Chinese lady. It's crazy to listen to her speak mandarin!! After English class we walked out to find snowy slush all over our car.

 It was raining most of the evening. I'm just waiting for the snow to come! Most people here say it doesn't usually come until January:( We then went over to another one of our investigators house and I got to know them better. The dad likes fishing so to break the ice a little I talked about fishing and showed him a couple pics I had. We then taught them a lesson and it seems the dad is much more willing than the wife, she has lots of doubts about everything about us. But we are here to help her with that. They have 2 boys that are potential too! 

WEDNESDAY: I had to go back to the hospital for a follow up and I waited in the waiting room for like 1 1/2 hours and when I finally got in they spent like 2 min asking me questions and then they said I was good to go! I made some cookies to bring over to Ronny's family after lunch. We headed off to the English member named Brother Thomas and pretty much what he does is he teaches us how to teach lessons better. It's actually super helpful! After we told him the situation with Ronny's wife and he told us, he is a doctor and that he wanted to come with us to check her foot out and give his medical opinion. That evening we had brother Thomas come with us to Ronny's and he checked out her foot and told her what she had and had a super cheap prescription written for her and we just had to translate this all. After he left we gave her a blessing and they were so grateful. Now, this is the craziest thing I've heard on my mission... after the blessing she told us that the past two nights she had a dream that we were going to come over and put our hands on her head. She then said she had a dream that we would bring a doctor also. She told us it was a revelation and she knows that we are an answer to her prayers and that we are the people with the correct message! She then asked us when and where we have church so she and her family can go! 

THURSDAY: We picked up the Sister missionaries and drove over to the mission presidents house for "Traditions with the Taggarts" we got a super nice home made breakfast with the whole zone! French toast, hash brown, sausage, bacon, all sorts of good food :) We had a little zone conference thing after that. Then we went to the hospital to give an English member from Haiti a blessing. She had an amazing conversion story!! We road over to Diegos and Carols house and taught the restoration and put them both on date to be baptized! I found out in the past two years in this area, only 1 person has been baptized!! We then headed over to the Aquinos and had bomb Peruvian food! 

FRIDAY: We did service at a play like Goodwill or D.I. Afterwards they gave me a nice north face jacket!! We had a dinner planned but when we got there they said they were busy but handed us a pizza. We ate the pizza in the car and then headed to the church to help someone remove a shelf in the church. Ronny called us up and told us that his wife made us some food. We got there and he was telling us how thankful he is to know us! 

SATURDAY: Well Frisbee got canceled... because it was "too cold" idk why! It was 22 outside :) We went over to Nidias house and helped her get all her Christmas stuff out of her shed. After that we cleaned up the house a little bit and now it looks much nicer. This place is crazy. I see like 10 Maserati, 10 Teslas, Bentleys, and Aston Martins like every day!!! We helped the lady we have on date move a super heavy dresser from one house to another. That was tough! On the way home there was a group of 16-18 year old girls who were being all crazy and doing the call me sign. Girls are crazy here. 

SUNDAY: When we woke up the windchill made it feel like 14 degrees! After church we drove over to Newark and I felt like I was headed home since that is where I started my mission for 3 months!! On the way there it started to lightly snow so that was fun! We practiced singing the songs for the Christmas fireside for like 2 hours then we actually started the whole thing!! I sat by Elder Marz the whole time and that was a blast!! 

After the fireside I said hi to a bunch of the old members! When we walked outside, there was snow on everything. It was the first real snow of my mission! 

I love you all and remember that families are forever!! I have an invitation/goal for all of you!! Now that the new year is coming, I want one of the goals for the new year to be to have family home evening every Monday with the family! The prophets promise us so many blessings if we do! I love you all and the mission is great!! Here's a nice pic I liked about family home evening.

mason.davis@myldsmail.net

Email - They call me Mr. Clean

Weekly update NOV 28th-DEC 11th

MONDAY: Today is my last day in Ironbound. I didn't think I would be leaving. After the normal p day morning routine we went to the chapel and played some basketball and I had some people write in my journal. After we got home we got ready quickly and headed over to José Cuartas (one of my favorite members/ ward mission leader). At his house my comp and I made a bunch of cookies with them since that's what they wanted to do for my last day with them. We then came home and I packed some of my stuff for like 45 minutes and it was sad knowing that it was my last time sleeping in Ironbound. I really came to love the members and the area. There is a lot of work to do there. I'll miss that area a lot! I'll miss feeding the squirrels by hand too. Haha

TUESDAY: Today was the first day of my 4th transfer (if you include my 6 weeks in Mexico). I woke up for the last time in Ironbound and I finished packing for the next 2 hours while my comp slept. The Portuguese Elder then drove their car over to us and we packed all my stuff in their car. We dropped them off and headed out to the Short Hills chapel which ironically is where I am serving. All the Elders who are getting moved met up there. I got to see Elder Marz, Taylor, and Kelly. They were all in my district in the MTC! I hope I can be comps with them someday. We finished up and I said goodbye to Elder Rios and loaded up my stuff into my new car! We have a 2013 Ford Fusion which is a decent car for the mission. There are lots of 2015-2017 cars in the mission. I'll miss having bikes tho. My legs got pretty nice from riding bikes all day ;) now I'll just get fat. We then drove over to my new house and it's a really nice house.  It was just sad to walk in and see that it was a mess! The Elder who served there last just finished his mission so he didn't care what it looked like after he left. They never cleaned it in like 2 months so it was nasty! We went through the cabinets and fridge and got rid of almost everything that was in them. I think people are gunna start calling me Mr. Clean or something since whenever I get to a new apartment I throw out so much stuff! There was food in the cabinets that expired in 2012!!!!

 We then had a couple meetings and it was raining hard all day! So I was soaked anytime I was outside. While walking down the street to an appointment I found $20! 

The scary mannequin thing that is right by our front door in my new house. 

It scared the 💩 poop out of me the first time I saw it. 

I now use it as a jacket rack :) 

WEDNESDAY: Today was my first full day in Summit, New Jersey (that's where my house is) we had a little zone meeting to get to know everyone so that was fun! I have Elder Taylor in my zone now! He was my MTC companion! My companion is district leader so that should be fun! After that all the Spanish missionaries got together and practiced singing the Christmas songs and it was terrible haha. We met a super cool family from Peru in the evening and I think we can get them baptized with hard work and prayers! 

THURSDAY: My comp had a training meeting so I was comps with Elder Wargah from Brazil! He has been in the Portuguese program, English program, and now the Spanish program! He is a super cool Elder! We cleaned the house a little, talked about my area and tried to walk down the streets and contact or find some service to do. Nobody is outside here! We are trying to do the 25 days 25 ways thing, Check it out on Mormon.org and try to do the goal each day. Tell me how it goes, 

FRIDAY: We had service at a place called bridges and helped unload lots of boxes and stuff. After we finished they gave me a nice waterproof jacket. On the way home we stopped by Taco Bell and ate a lot and then had to stop at Pep Boys and get our oil changed. We talked to quite a few people in the evening and they all said my Spanish was super good so that made me feel better about the language. 

SATURDAY: We woke up and met up with like 30 people and played ultimate Frisbee for like an hour and it was tons of fun! Just a little windy. When I said I was from Mesa they all said, "Mesa is like the new Mormon capital of the world" haha. We went to the church to help the Gherkies set up for a little party and after we finished they had us stay and I got to eat white people food! So crazy!! We spent some time knocking doors and found an area with lots of Hispanic people so that was a good day! 

SUNDAY: I am not in a ward anymore of 150 people, I'm in a branch of about 35 people. Super different. Anyway it's super weird to see all these white people. Especially people my age. After church we helped a less active set up her Christmas tree and that was pretty fun!! We had a meal appointment with a Peruvian family and we got super good food! It might have been better since I ended my fast with that meal haha but I still loved it!! 

Sorry my weekly emails have been getting less and less fun. I'm trying to write just about the different things that happen!. Anyway please go to Mormon.org and start doing the light the world thing daily. I promise you will receive so many blessings as you do. I love you all and stay warm!   

mason.davis@myldsmail.net