Twenty-three Nineteen. We have a Twenty-three Nineteen!

Well this week has been pretty fun I must say. 

We've been doing a lot of finding since we don't have many investigators right now so we spend all our spare time looking for new people to teach.  We met with the Gospel Principles teacher and talked about our Former Investigators with him and he gave us some insight on the best way to recontact them so that's been super helpful. Unfortunately with the T we can only reasonably visit like 3 potentials a day so it's slow work.

The assistant Ward mission leader has a pet hedgehog and he let me hold it. 

My companion and I get along real well but that happens when you spend 4+ months with the same guy 24/7. He's probably gonna get transferred at the end of this transfer so I gotta make sure that I make this last one count. He's spent six months here in Boston and it's his first area. Of course if I stay here one more transfer as well then I'll be here for six months too! Which is awesome to spend half a year in Boston!

Me in front of the Paul Revere statue. Cool story. The guy who sculpted this is the same guy who sculpted the Angel Moroni on the Salt Lake Temple. 

On Saturday we went to visit this family. The parents have 5 kids but the two oldest kids are the only ones who are members but I see so much potential with the whole family. We went over with our sisters ( Braswell and Thompson) to see if we could teach the whole family, except they were doing their spring cleaning so we said "what do you want us to do"? and they put us to work for two hours. It was so awesome! 

We also set up a time this week to go play Softball with the whole family on Friday! I was talking to The mom and she was telling me about all these churches she's investigated in the past so I asked her if she was still looking and she said no because she had already found it. She said it was our church but she was just too overwhelmed with life right now to make the changes she needs to to accept it. We tried to tell her that making those changes is what would help her the very most in life so we'll see how things go. This family is really great and I hope they get baptized while I'm still here in the area! 

Anyways we're gonna go to the zoo today as a zone so I've gotta be heading out! Love ya

-- 

Elder Trevon Turley

Me in front of a really cool boat

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All we gotta do is build ya an act! Make ya a star. A headliner! Dumbo the grrreeeaaat!

Today is Patriots Day which is pretty big here in New England. It's also the Boston marathon which is real exciting. So this week has been pretty great missionary wise but honestly I think I'm just gonna write about today as I'm limited on time. 

 So we got up at 3 am to make it to a re-enactment of the first battle of the revolutionary war. The actual battle only lasted minutes and America actually lost but that's alright. Never have I felt such a deep sense of patriotism towards the land of my fore-fathers as I did at that time. Plus Pres. Packard was there too so that was fun to see him. We also went to the Boston Marathon and that was a lot of fun! There were so many people there from all over the world! It was amazing how many members were there too. It was a pretty miserable day weather wise and a lot of the runners were walking around shivering because of the cold. it took us forever to actually find the race because so many roads were blocked off and there was a lot of security checkpoints everywhere. Although we finally got there and it was super great to just sit on the sidelines and cheer people on as they killed themselves running! Maybe one day I'll work up the self motivation to run a marathon. Maybe. 

Anyways I'm sorry this letter is pretty lame and not really gospel related but I didn't have much time and I knew I could write about this fairly quickly. Just know that I am busy doing the Lords work. 

-- 

Elder Trevon Turley

So this is me & my companion, our mini missionary & the sisters riding the subway. 

This is from inside a members house overlooking the skyline. Pretty nice view. 

This one is a poster of a girl at a stop & shop. She is pretty much their poster child for a fundraiser for children's cancer. The cool thing is we met her & we get to give her a blessing before she goes in for her next round of chemo. 

Have the days of miracles ceased? I say unto you nay!

Hello Everybody!

Have the days of miracles ceased? I say unto you nay!

We got into Ward Council. This hasn't happened since ever. It's very exciting and we talked about people that we're working with and what the auxiliaries can do to help them. It was so great and I'm super grateful for answered prayers.

We've had our mini-missionary with us for like 5 days now and he's pretty great. His name is Justin and he is so funny! He's 20 years old and he's joining us for two weeks to see if he can handle the stress of going on a mission. He has Turrets and the things that set him off are sudden noises, bright lights or anything that causes some degree of dis-contempt like police cars. He's a really great guy and I know he'll make a great missionary.

Harry was finally confirmed on Sunday! It took way longer than it should have but he's now finally a member of the church! So weve decided that we believe he was originally contacted by one of the three nephites. We thought he had requested a Bible on Mormon.organd that's how we found him but apparently that's not the case. He told us that he was in a Chinese restaurant talking to one of his friends about God when some guy from across the restaurant walks up and starts talking to him about God. Eventually the guy says well give me your number and I'll have our missionaries call you in a week. Harry never saw the guy again and we called him in exactly a week but that's because we got his number off of the referral page from Mormon.org. The crazy thing is that he only gave the guy his number but his info on the request page included his home address and his email as well. Every single time we teach this guy I learn something new about the Gospel. He is probably the smartest person I've ever met.  

Well thanks for all your support and enjoy life!

-- 

Elder Trevon Turley

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A mission has changed my life and helped me to find true happiness

Hey so transfers came and I'm staying here with my companion for another six weeks.  Although we're picking up a third missionary for about two weeks. He's a"mini-missionary" although he's not sure if he can handle the stress of a mission because of medical reasons so he's going to come live with us and be a missionary for two weeks and see how he does. We'll pick him up either tomorrow or Wednesday so that's exciting. 

Well this week has been pretty great and it was so aweosme to finish it off with conference! I really like the guy who talked about the music of the gospel. Pres Christofferson came and had a discussion at Harvard a few weeks ago so Pres. packard went to it and he told us that pres. Christofferson was asked what the biggest struggle of the church currently and he said that too many saints are just going through the motions. He said that we need to internalize who we are as disciples of Jesus Christ so that when we're put in a situation where it may not be convenient by the worlds standards to be a disciple of Jesus Christ that we won't back down but that we'll proudly remember who we are as children of God. I also really like the talk where the guy who was called as a mission president went and told his boss that he would be leaving and when his boss asked him when did he make the decision to leave the future mission president told him the he made the decision when he was 19 years old in the temple of God where he convenanted to follow Jesus Christ wherever it led him. i thought it was some pretty powerful stuff. On Tuesday we had exchanges and that was great. I was with Elder Welker who's a Haitian missionary in my District but he used to be a Zone Leader and he only has like 4 months till he goes home so I felt like he was teaching me a lot more than anything I was doing to help him. 

I'd been sick for about 4 days and I wasn't getting better so on Wednesday I  basically spent the whole day sleeping until the evening when we went out with our Ward Mission Leader to visit Auxiliary leaders. I love our ward mission leader. He got his Md from harvard but he's no longer a practicing doctor he didn't like the stupid logistics of Healthcare so he started his own non profit company that's working to revolutionize the competition of healthcare. And on the weekends he goes sledding with his kids and comes out teaching with us. He's super smart obviously and has established a wonderful system for us to build good relationships with the ward to help hasten the work. He's not content to rest when things aren't efficient as they should be so we're constantly revising what we do in order to make things better.

I love Boston and the people in it. Everybody has a story that needs a happy ending and the Gospel can give it to them regardless of how unique their circumstances are. I know this to be true because of how it has changed my life and helped me find true happiness. As we continue to seek ways to refine our character we can experience a greater degree of freedom that comes from living God's commandments. 

So these are photos from just us and the sisters who share a unit to our district including the Haitian elders to including the senior couples within the district as well. 

I also have a testimony of repentance in our everyday lives. In the Septuagint which is the greek bible which is the one used during the time of Christ the word for repentance was metanoeo which essentially means a change of breath, mind, heart and soul. It's not a tangible change and it comes from the little efforts we make in our lives that make us better people. We don't need to sin in order to feel the soothing effects of repentance all we need to do is seek for ways to improve who we are. For example someone who doesn't have a good habit of reading the scriptures and then undergoes the change will allow them to have the fortitude and strength to develop good study habits is also part of repentance.  

Anyways I hope that makes sense but I've gotta be heading out. I'll send pictures

I love you and am praying for you 

-- 

Elder Trevon Turley

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