First Full Week in NYC

November 28, 2011

Ok first off, sorry for the misunderstanding.  I'm not in Queens and at the time I sent the letter I hadn't met my companion yet.  The mall in Queens was just like two blocks from the mission office.  We were just with the AP's then. 

My first night was less eventful than dad's, pretty calm.  Tuesday we got up got ready and went back to the mission office and that's where we met our companions and got assigned our areas.  My trainer (or dad as we call them) is named Elder Sterling.  He is from Seattle but he went to BYU for a while so he knows around Utah county somewhat.  He said he was a music major so I was a little worried that we may be a little off.  But he is really cool.  He knows a ton of music, even all the small bands we listen to like We Shot the Moon and Fun.  He has played at the Velour a few times and has hung out with Allred and J. Wride a couple times.  But ya he's really cool.

Our area is Midwood, Brooklyn.  It goes from the Brooklyn Bridge area down to like Coney Island.  It's kind of hard to explain, it's kind of just the middle of Brooklyn.  It's not too bad here, I just hope I don't get sent to zone three "the man zone" which is East Brooklyn.  That's where all the projects are and it's too dangerous to send sisters there.  But at the same time a lot of the people there are more humble and more receptive to the gospel.  I think they have more success out there than we're having.  Our district right now: Elder Sterling and I, 2 investigators (I'll talk about them more later); Elder Graham and Elder Trainor, 0 investigators; Hma. Alvarado and Hma Moncur, 9 investigators (7 of them are one family who have been going to church for years, the kids all participate in primary and everything but the dad grew up in a fundamentalist polygamist community in Mexico and he won't let the family be baptized. It's pretty sad.) 

But anyway on Tuesday after transfer meeting it started raining.  Luckily our bishop came and picked up all of our bags because that would have been a pain to take them all on the subway.  But there are no subways connecting Brooklyn and Queens so we had to take a subway into Manhattan and then transfer down to Brooklyn.  Luckily we got an express train so it only took about an hour instead of an hour and a half or two hours.  But when we got out it was pouring and my umbrella and jacket were in my bags still in transit and we had a dinner appointment to get to.  We were absolutely drenched by the time we got to the Luna's.  The food was really good but the Luna's are Dominicans which means they talk really fast and cut off a lot of their words.  I had no idea what was going on.  But Hma. Luna gave us a ride back to the church so that was really nice. 

We had a teaching appointment that night with Misael.  He is really good.  Elder Sterling says that he just pretty much accepts everything that we teach him and he wants to be baptized.  Unfortunately he hasn't been able to come to church because things keep just coming up.  Wednesday my companion had leadership meeting (he's the DL) so I just kind of sat in the church with the other elders who had companions in the meeting and had our non-leaders meeting, which just ended up being after they got tired of asking me questions of the soul - like what's my favorite food, what color is my toothbrush and stuff like that.  Afterwards we went to McDonalds and had breakfast.  

After that we went to Prospect Park to do service (we do that every Wednesday, the missionaries have been doing it so long that we are unofficial employees of the park, so we get some free stuff every now and then).  Once again it started pouring so we had to stop a little early.  So then we went back to our apartment and bought me some food and whatnot.  Then we went back to the church and helped the primary with the primary program and that pretty much took the rest of the night. 

Thursday, the white handbook says holidays are a great time to proselyte because everyone is home, but people get ticked when missionaries come knocking on their doors when their trying to spend time with their families.  So at least for our mission, holidays are kind of a day off.  We went to a park and had turkey bowl for about three hours in the morning.  We had a ward correlation meeting in the afternoon and back-to-back dinner appointments that night.  All mexican food.  It was good but it just wasn't the same.

Friday we had meetings most of the morning and early afternoon.  We didn't do too much that day.  Saturday we visited a couple less actives (which is like 2/3's of the ward).  Ward party that night (Latin ward parties are pretty wild).  Yesterday we were at the church most of the day.  The sisters had a baptism before church (we had to be there at like 8 to fill up the font). Church at 12:30, all in Spanish. Then another 8 year old baptism after church.  Our other investigator, Ana, came to church and to the second baptism and loved it so I think we can get her soon. 

Exciting news today, I've got bed bugs already!!! Yeah!!!  But this has been a pretty relaxed week to come in on.  And I'm almost out of time so gotta go.  I think my emails in the future won't be quite so detailed.

Love you guys, Elder Pearce