December 5, 2011

Hola Familia,

Ya bed bugs are pretty awesome.  Missionaries never settle for co-habitation, we kill.  Unfortunately they don't die (and yes I have been bitten, but my diabetic blood isn't as sweet as my companions fortunately for me).  It's just us in the pad but we have been staying at the other elders for like the past week.  We got rid of our entire bed, washed everything that could be washed, twice.  We cleaned absolutely everything.  Fortunately they are only in our bedroom so we have been able to focus our efforts there.  We have gone through four or five full bottles of permethrin and five bug bombs.  Every day we still find more though.  We are worried some of our neighbors might have them and they are crawling through cracks in the walls.  Ya our pad isn't very nice, and it's on the fifth floor with no elevator (that's really fun after walking around all day and then you get home exhausted and have to climb five flights of stairs).  But anyway we have pretty much just decided to quarantine off that room and just set up the new bed in the other room with our desks and dressers.  That's the report on bed bugs for the week.

As for transportation, we take the subway and buses when we can. Unfortunately most people don't live right by the subway and the buses are very unreliable.  So ya we walk a lot.  As for exactly where we are, our pad is on 16th street, just east of Newkirk Plaza.  That is actually in the other Elder's pool (we divide the area into three pools, the sisters in the south, other elders in the middle, us in the north).  In Prospect Park (which is our pool), we have raked leaves the past two weeks, but we really just do whatever needs doing.

I am sleeping alright.  We will find out once I am actually in a bed (I have been on couch cushions for most of the week).  We have dinner appointments most days, other meals we just fend for ourselves.  The weirdest thing I have eaten so far is probably cactus, which isn't really that weird.  Blankets I am definitely fine on right now.  I don't know how I will survive the summer, I am sweating like a pig here and it's winter.  Most of the members are saying it's going to get colder though.

I think coming out here may have cured me of diabetes though.  Even on a heavily rice and beans diet away from the pad and a heavily pasta diet in the pad, and a lot of juice and soda, I rarely give myself insulin for meals, and I have had to lower the basal rate.

Misael has been really hard to get an appointment with this week.  We're hoping that he really has just been busy and hasn't had a change of heart.  Ana, we had a good lesson about keeping the Sabbath day holy but she still doesn't seem to keen of following that yet.  We haven't found any new investigators this week but I will keep you guys posted.

That's about it for this week,

Love you guys,

Elder Pearce