Things have been getting better here in the NYC ASL program. Elder Aston and I got one of our investigators to church on account of a strange dream she had, and she is going to be baptized in March! She is super motivated to attend church and become clean, and it is awesome to finally have an investigator who is actually progressing in the gospel. We have also had some success with some less-active members in getting them to start coming back to church, which is awesome. The work is finally starting to move as the cycle comes to a close.
Transfer meeting is on Friday. It would normally be today, but the new missionaries are arriving tomorrow, which is a bit odd, but that's how it is this time. My world is getting flipped around, as I am being transferred out of NYC to another place in the mission that is more upstate. I am being transferred to the Newburgh area, which is south of Poughkeepsie, NY and on the west side of the Hudson River. The area mainly consists of the city of Newburgh, the town of Newburgh (yes, there is a difference), New Windsor, Cornwall, and a few other towns and villages in that area. Our apartment isn't in the CITY of Newburgh, but the town of Newburgh, which is much nicer. For what I can tell everywhere but the city of Newburgh is quite nice and peaceful. We will have some work in the city itself, but a lot of other work in the surrounding areas.
This is really the only other area we as ASL elders can go and still use our specialized ASL skills. This is because in that Ward there is a deaf group, a few deaf members in a hearing Ward, that we interpret for each Sunday. Most of the actual missionary work we do is in English with an English companion, so it is a good break from full ASL work in the city. The only odd part is that I will be companions with Elder Filoso, an ASL elder who has been there for two cycles and goes home in one more (6 weeks). I have served with him in the deaf branch here before, and now I will be his companion for the last six weeks of his mission. I am excited for this change.
It seems that the work in my companionship here is finally starting to really move, and now I am being moved away from it. I know that I have learned what I have really needed here for now, and now God wants me to continue learning in a different environment. The past six weeks have been all about personal change and less about actual missionary work for me, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I have grown so much from it, and am ready to take on the next thing the Lord wants me to. I am ready.
Elder Ryan Turner
New York New York North Mission
American Sign Language
(p.s. Ryan's address to send letters and packages remains the same -- see the right-hand sidebar at the top of the blog)
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