July
29
We
are teaching this kid. A less-active member's son. He's super cool and really
cool. He is going to be baptized a week from Saturday... we think haha. It's
not so sure, but maybe. The problem is that he's young and comes with his next
door neighbors (of his own will btw.) He shows up knocking on their door
telling them it's time to go to church. He's 10. Awesome. But we want his mom
to come so it's easier for him to keep coming.
Anyway,
transfers are next week. This transfer has gone by in the blink of an eye. It's
crazy! I have no idea what's going to happen. I could stay, go, get a new
companion. ANYTHING! I want to stay, so we'll see.
I
also had a cool experience where I was able to talk to a woman on the bus. She
had been having a really hard time and felt alone in the world. Thanks to a guy
named _ who knew the English missionaries, we got talking to her and gave her
the names of the people who could help her and the missionaries. I briefly
talked to her about things that had happened in my life and how this had really
helped me get out of a downward spiral of depression. She wanted to know about
our church and knew exactly where we're located, seeing as she lives down the
street. So that was incredible. She said that this had happened for a reason.
She had almost missed the bus, but knew this was supposed to happen. That was
really amazing. Who knows what will happen with her, but what I do know is that
I influenced someone for the better that day and hopefully helped her realize
that there are people out there, even strangers, that care.
Yesterday
the presiding bishop over the entire church attended our ward with some
building people. Kinda cool. More important was the (gossiped)
"reason" they were there. Supposedly they're thinking of rebuilding.
I hope not. The current church is an old Catholic church that the LDS church
bought and refurbished. You would love it, Mom. It's very nice on the inside. I
like because it's not a standard cookie cutter church. It reminds me very much
of the old St Francis.
August
5
I'm
not getting transferred and neither is my companion. So we are staying together
for another 6 weeks at least. Our district is mostly staying the same with
exception to one sister leaving. So we'll get a new sister but the other 5 of
us are staying.
I
really liked your talk, Dad. I also like when you said things would change that
we didn't quite see yet.
A
member brought the subject of gays up to me. It's funny because my district
weren't surprised that it would happen to me. Anyway, the member asked what we
do if someone confesses that they are gay. I simply replied, nothing. As long
as they are living the law of chastity the church has no problem with it. He
then asked about therapy and I explained that aversion therapy was no longer
supported by the head of the church. It was a very good conversation.
A
short voice recording is posted, but from two others I have just put in a transcript
of parts of them:
We
do service at a place called Prospect Park most Wednesdays. I’ve tar on my legs now. Tar on the legs hurts because I have harry
legs. Harry legs plus tar equals
unhappiness. Afterwards, the
missionaries do Wendy’s Wednesdays. Today
on the way there we got caught in a downpour; I was wetter than I’ve almost
ever been, but it was fun because I wasn’t in a shirt and tie—what we call
pross—because we had just done service.
Right
now I am just waiting for Elder Adams to shower so we can out and do something
productive. Things are pretty good
here. I really like it; I like my
district a lot. We do this thing we call
elliptical. The point of it is that we
mainly work around the church. We don’t
go far away but try to find people around the church. We do this so that a) they are more likely to
come to church and b) so that we can strengthen the area around the church and expand
outwards and eventually start building more churches. So, to do this, we do things we call
elliptical activities or street sweeps, which are things where we go out and
set up a table an do interesting little things and talk to people. One time we painted a tree onto a big board
and called it the family tree. We asked
people, what do you like about your family and will you write it down on this
leaf and tape it to the tree? And then,
if they are interested, we talk to them about families and stuff like
that. All in all it works pretty well
for English but not so well for Spanish, so we’re trying to figure what to do
for Spanish. We are probably going to
start teaching English class here. It hasn’t
been done here, and I am a huge fan of it.
I feel like that is where I’ve learned most of my Spanish.
Not
too much happening; Elder Adams and I just having a good time doing good things
and teaching people. We are working with
the members trying to get them to like the missionaries again. They haven’t all been the biggest fan of
missionaries. We can understand why,
because missionaries can be idiots. I
recently had an amazing exchange with a kid who I was with in the MTC, an Elder
Erickson, whose is now my district leader, and I really like him.
We
went into Manhattan for a doctor’s appointment and ran into a lot of people. We were on the subway switching trains, and I
accidentally took us down the wrong side of train tracks, and it was actually
really good that that happened because this guy stopped us and said, hey, are
you guys Mormons. And we were like,
yeah, and he said, my great great grandfather was Brigham Young. And we were like, what? No way.
That’s crazy. And he said, yeah,
and pulled out his ID to show us that his name is Young. Adams and I were both thinking, do you know
how many people have the last name Young, but we didn’t say that for obvious
reasons. Anyway it was cool, and he
talked to us and said have you seen the Book of Mormon musical; how do you feel
about it? And I said, eh, you have to be
able to laugh at yourself. He says, that
is very true. If someone were to make a
movie of my life, I would have to laugh at it too. There would be some parts that would be
offensive, if you took it that way, but I’d have to laugh at myself because I
do some stupid things. I said, that is a
good attitude to have.
So,
as we were talking to him, he says, so you guys know you’re on the wrong side
of the track. And I tried to play it off
like yeah we have to go into Manhattan for an appointment [ah, pride], and
Adams is like what, we just finished the appointment. And I am saying, no, no, we are from
Brooklyn, we’re not going to Brooklyn now.
So, then he pulls out his phone and starts to look up the route. And this is when it is better to just suck up
your pride and admit that you are wrong.
But I was just like, no, we’re good; we know what we’re doing. Because you know me; I don’t like looking
like an idiot. He just kept trying to
help us out, and so I finally looked at his phone and said, oh, you know what,
you’re right, we are on the wrong side, thanks.
Then he said, do you have a Book of Mormon? We used to have one, but when we moved we
lost it. So, we gave him one, and then
he gave Elder Adams his card. We called
him to see if we could give his information to the missionaries in Queens.
Most of the pictures are from the district P-Day trip on the Staten Island Ferry.
 |
| Current compaion, Elder Adams, on left and Elder Erickson. |
