Excerpts from mid April to June

4/21

So ends the first week of the new transfer.  Stuff has happened, but I'm too frazzled and tired to be able to
write it all down.  I'm drained right now.

We sang in sacrament and it went well. I got to say bye to one of my favorite members that is now the bishop of a different ward, so that was really nice.
Sorry this was kind of a downer email.

4/28

[J.D.’s grandmother was put in hospice, and we thought the end was near; so we got permission from his mission president for him to call.  She rallied, though, I think in part because of the lift she got from all her grandkids, although she is still in hospice.]

This week has been better.  My talk with gram went well.  She sounded strong.  We had a good 20-25 min talk.  Pres was really supportive about it and it was nice.
This week has been fairly good.  Met with a bunch of people.  Got a lot done.  Had a good lesson with the investigator family.  Definitely a better week than the last. Partially because I stopped being so angry and prideful.
Recorded some vids for Grandma, will send them today. Will record more later.
It hit me this week how close I am. Especially when I got that email about you picking me up. Less than four months. It's crazy.

5/19

Transfers are next Tuesday. I have no clue if I'm going to be staying or leaving. It's very possible for both to happen. I want to stay, but Idk, I'm just extremely tired today and my patience is very low.  Haha seems like this is normal for me lately haha.
The visit [to PA] looked fun. Wish I could have been there too.

5/25

We're going to a Mets game for Memorial Day. Guess who they're playin? The pirates! And
we all know how I hate baseball so the only redeeming quality is the pirates haha.

5/26

Well, so ended my last week in Flushing. I'm really sad about it, but I'll deal with it and move on. I had actually thought I was going to stay. I didn't think I was leaving so it was kind of a shock to me.  I'll know tomorrow where I'm going but I think it could be back to Dyker to my old pool cuz I had asked to go back to Brooklyn a while ago, and that's the only place open in Brooklyn.
I was pretty sad because finally things had started growing.  I had 10 investigators. 10! That's never happened in my entire mission. And all of them were progressing and close.  And the thing was that I wanted them to be baptized because this was the right thing for them and I knew this could help them. It wasn’t any of that getting a number stuff.  The same thing happened in Midwood. Right as I started seeing progress, I got removed. Which was frustrating.
Then I remembered a lesson we had shared two days before on the Will of God. We watched a Mormon message about it with that same title. I recommend watching it, because I won't do it justice.  In it, it talks of a man who cuts down a bush that had grown too big. He imagines the bush asking him, why did you cut me down I was doing so well?  He goes on to say, I had a better plan for the plant. Then he relates it to himself and God and God loving us enough to hurt us. Which is something I firmly believe.  To grow, we must fail.  And what I had seen for myself is not what God had seen for me, and he has a better plan. He has something much better in store.
I'm still really sad. This had been my favorite place by far. I cried a lot during my testimony, which is the first time I've cried in almost 2 years. I really love this place.
So we'll see what happens and what's in store.

6/1

So, I didn't get moved back to Dyker.  In some ways I'm sad about it, in other ways I'm fine with it.  I really like the area.  It's very nice.  Slightly ghetto but not extremely.  The members here are pretty nice.  I've had a couple of really good visits and the youth is really cool here. 

My companion is a kid named Nisguritzer.  He's from Sandy but his parents are from Argentina so he's a native Spanish speaker.  He and I started the same day, but he was only in the mtc for 3 weeks, so we would have been going home together if he hadn't torn his ACL and gone home for a few months. So now he's going home later.  I knew him a little bit before being comps, but really only because we'd had the same companion.  We think he'll be my last comp.  

I'm back to a pool where there's literally nothing, so essentially we're starting from scratch.  Frustrating definitely, but it's whatever. At this point in my mission I'm used to it... Kind of haha.