Sundays can be awesome

And such it was with is Sunday. Branch attendance was a bit higher than usually, and one part-member couple we have been working with came to Sacrament meeting after we hadn't been able to contact them for a week! We had a really good lesson with another part-active family, and they came to church as well (well, all except their two oldest kids who have been avoiding any contact with us. We have been focusing on the mother and two youngest daughters).

Another fun miracle was that halfway through Sacrament meeting one of the bishopric members from the other (hearing) ward brought up someone who had just showed up, and my companion took him to to sit with the elders' quorum president. The guy turned out to be a hearing ASL interpreter from Texas who is living in New Jersey for a couple months. He said he looked online for a deaf church to attend, and ours was the one that showed up first. He signed the whole time and even commented on my voice interpreting skills, as I typically do that for Sacrament meeting. He says he will be back next week, and we are hoping to teach him more about this church he has found.

Stay cool out there in the west. (Elder Miller, stay warm there in Brazil :)

Elder Ryan Turner
New York New York North Mission
American Sign Language

Feeding the Spirit

Hello everyone once more! While the work this week has been somewhat lackluster, we had an amazing opportunity yesterday to be spiritually fed and edified. Elder Randall K. Bennett from the First Quorum of the Seventy is visiting different parts of our mission this week, and many of the missionaries here in Manhattan, including us, got to be with him for a good part of yesterday. He is a truly remarkable speaker that can teach with the Spirit, and having served in France at my age and as a mission president in Russia, he has a wealth of knowledge and experience. It has really helped me stay on track and focused for the time I have left, and Elder Holloway and I have discussed some new goals and plans to execute for our area. Things should get a little bit better.

Elder Ryan Turner
New York New York North Mission
American Sign Language

May photos

Photos taken in May and sent home by Ryan

Ryan's trainer, Elder Fotheringham, visited NYC and stopped in to see the missionaries

South Manhattan from the Brooklyn Bridge

Of course Ryan found the turtles in Morningside Park near their apartment

"Random organ in the Bronx"

Ryan with Elder Bell, the missionary he trained last fall

June -- my favorite month

Hello all.

Some of you have been asking what my setup is for my final transfer. What has happened with me is .......... that I am staying with Elder Holloway in the same area. Thus, I'm finishing how I started -- with my MTC companion and probably closest friend here. My trainee, Elder Bell, has been transferred upstate to the Yorktown Ward with a Spanish companion covering mostly Spanish with a little bit of English and ASL work. He'll also help with ASL translation for the two deaf members up there just like I did in Newburgh. Elder Hill has returned to the ASL program and is with Elder West, and I am the district leader for the four of us for the next six weeks.

My roommate and former companion Elder Arines is training a new elder, Elder Ropati, a Samoan from California, and he seems like a cool guy. Otherwise, not a whole lot of other exciting stuff this week except that I and my companion taught both priesthood class and gospel doctrine last-minute, and I also interpreted for a high counselor with pretty complex speech and concepts. Always fun.

We are on our way to visit the 9/11 memorial museum, which I've heard is amazing. Still figuring out what to do the other days, but I'm sure we will figure out something.

Elder Ryan Turner
New York New York North Mission
American Sign Language

p.s. For all of you who are thinking about sending me birthday wishes/packages, might I ask that you refrain on the whole sending packages bit? Because of my fast-approaching departure. I am limited on bag space and weight. Cards/money -- whatever can fit in a normal envelope is definitely appreciated, and if you badly want to send me a package, please send it to my home address in July. Thank you for all of your support so far these past two years! (Ryan's 20th birthday is June 11 if you want to send him a card to the address in the right sidebar)

It goes on

Nothing much to report from this week. Had a stellar lesson with our investigator with the most potential with our branch president helping us, but said investigator still has not attended church, which makes his baptism unable to happen for a while. We did today help the other two ASL elders clean out their kitchen, as the new apartment they moved into has been lived in by other missionaries for a while, and they have not done a good job of keeping it clean. Lots of critters. We scrubbed most of the afternoon and still have more to do another time.

Elder Ryan Turner
New York New York North Mission
American Sign Language

The Bronx CAN be beautiful

As summer washes over the east, I can see this more and more. We spend a great deal of our time up in the Bronx, whose only touristy features are Yankee Stadium and the Bronx Zoo, and everything else is residential. However, there are several other large parks which are now covered in green, which is beautiful to me (see panorama above). That kind of green just doesn't exist a whole lot back home.

Our branch had branch conference, where leaders from the stake come and see how things are going and address the congregation. With that and three other visitors -- two RM's and a beloved member who moved -- attendance was rather high. Too bad I was upstate interpreting in another ward, so I missed it, but from all reports it went well and the stake has a little bit better of a perspective on the dynamics of our branch.

Other than that, not a ton happening except for members and missionaries reminding me that I don't have a whole lot of time left here. But, I will finish strong, and the end is still far ahead.

Elder Ryan Turner
New York New York North Mission
American Sign Language

Faith stronger than sight

A couple of weeks ago some English missionaries found someone deaf for us and set us an appointment for last Thursday. We've visited this man twice now, and though he is very willing to receive us, receiving our message is something else entirely. He is a firm Jehovah's Witness and was involved in proselyting himself when he was much younger, so he knows his stuff and how to teach it well. Especially since he has controlled the conversation most of the time. It's hard for us to invite the Spirit and teach true doctrine when your investigator brushes aside spiritual references and won't accept either our prayers or a Book of Mormon. His focus is on proving things through the Bible, and since most of our message can't be done in that way, he won't listen.

I've been pondering a lot about the seemingly conflicting concepts of faith and sight. In the Book of Mormon, the prophet Alma teaches concerning "faith -- that it is not a perfect knowledge" (Alma 32:26). Throughout the ages, people have relied on faith because so much of either God or the world was unexplainable. In these days, it is more difficult because science and theology have supposed explanations for just about everything, so when one states that he knows something is true without physical evidence or explanation, he is often rejected and mocked by society at large. I know my testimony has been rejected several times because I attributed it to a feeling from the Holy Ghost and not from clear evidences found in the scriptures.

Sometimes even to me I wonder if everything I have grown up in is correct, even when other faiths and other people seem to have the perfectly-crafted answers that oppose it. However, I have come to realize that my faith in Christ and in His church comes from something that nothing on earth could give me. I have felt the power of God in my life and ministry, and things have occurred in my life that some may call a beneficial coincidence, but when I can recall literally hundreds of these said "coincidences" that all focus back to the same general theme, and that thousands and even millions of others can do the same, that makes this "coincidence" nigh unto impossible to occur. And yet it has occurred -- God has His hand in all things, and He has not turned away from mankind! I know those miracles in my life to have come from Him, and I know the info I know to be true through the promptings of the Holy Ghost. I cannot deny that it is all inspired of God, and know that my faith is stronger than whatever proof the world supposedly has.

Love you all,

Elder Ryan Turner
New York New York North Mission
American Sign Language