Another Busy Week

May 7, 2012

Dear Familia,

Ok so first, transfers. I am staying in Jamaica. Elder Sanford is going zone leader and will be in zone 4 (northwest queens).  (I also heard that Elder Albornoz is going to go zl too, but I don't know for sure and I don't know where, but both of them deserve it). So I get another new companion.

Next, cinco de mayo. Nobody celebrates that. That is an American holiday, not a hispanic one. Even the Poblanos (from Puebla, where the battle was fought) laughed a little bit when we asked if they were doing anything for the cinco de mayo.

So this week. We had another pretty good Monday. We met with the Dominicanitos, who we were thinking about dropping but then we had a good lesson with them so that was nice.  Then after that we went to go try to find Juan, who we found last Monday. We got there and nobody was answering the door so we stopped there for a minute to figure out who we were going to try next and lo and behold, Juan gets home. He invites us in and we watched the Restoration with him and he really liked it.  It was tough though because there were five or six very drunk men in the apartment as well. It is a crazy house. Everyone there is either wasted every night or super nice super humble people (namely Juan, Eric (our English class student who walked in during the movie), and Alfonso (an Adventist guy who I had fearlessed a few weeks earlier who also walked in during the movie (he isn't as nice or as humble, but he doesn't drink))).

On Tuesday we did exchanges and I went with Elder Cortes to his pool.  In the morning we went and taught a woman named Lysette (she is the mother of the monkeys, who are two kids that Elder Cortes and his comp are teaching, the nine year old is getting baptized next Sunday, the seven year old has to wait).  Then we went home for lunch.  While we were eating the office elders called and said they were coming to pick up some stuff that the new senior couple got rid of and were storing in the garage.  So after lunch we sat and waited for about 45 minutes to let them in and everything. They never called us or anything so Elder Cortes called them and asked where they were and they said that they had already come and picked up everything and that we weren't supposed to wait for them. Whoo miscommunication!!!

Then we visited a member who had surgery a couple months ago and hasn't been able to come to church (she is crazy. she dresses like a pioneer and apparently when she was healthy had her own teaching pool.) Then we went to our dinner appointment and on the way back around 8:45 Elder Cortes gets a call saying that some of his investigators are at the church playing basketball. So we go down there and when we walk in Elder Bond is running around looking for Raffy (one of the monkeys). Apparently he and his brother got in a fight and Raffy ran and hid.  So it took us about 45 minutes to reconcile them enough to take them home.  When I was talking to Raffy I told him about how Connor and I would sometimes get in fights but he was still my best friend and he actually got me crying a little bit thinking about how much I missed hanging out with Connor.  So that was a stressful night. 

But in the three blocks between where they live and our apartment we were blessed with two crazies to cheer us up. One, there was a guy standing in the door of his building and called us over.  The first thing he asks is why are we shouting, we have to keep it down.  Then he asked us about all the arrests in downtown Brooklyn. Then he told us his dad is his god. Then he talked about how much he hates his dad. Then about how his is a prosecutor. By this point we realized that he wasn't really all there and we said we needed to go. So for final jeopardy he asked us what product we used to clean our bathtub.  About half a block away from him this old man with long hair and a beard came up and talked to us.  I won't even try to explain our conversations but it was even more fun than the first guy. 

On Wednesday we got in with Jenny and Antonio and Silda.  We read 1 Nephi 1 with them and they both started to feel more comfortable with the Book of Mormon so that was good.  They are a really fun family. We could talk with them for hours and they said next time we come they will make us dinner. Thursday not a lot happened. Friday Elder Sanford had his interview with President where he found out he was going ZL.  He said the first thing President said when he walked into the interview was "Well you have done such a lack-luster job as a district leader, we have decided to make you a zone leader." He is fun.  Then that night we had our DA pickup at the church and a bunch of people were there and the young men started playing soccer so we ended up staying and playing with them (and by young men I mean young man and two of the leaders, there are more young men but only one goes to mutual).

One Saturday one of our members called in the morning and said she was bringing someone to church for us to teach (said member (Johanna) happens to be sitting across from me in the library right now).  It was a good lesson and he said he was going to come to church and that like ten years ago he went a few times. Then that night we went to have a farewell lesson with Jenny and Co. and got the promised dinner.  We ended up being there for about two and a half hours.

Sunday was mostly just visiting and saying goodbye with Elder Sanford to members after church. The guy we taught on Saturday didn't come to church. I think he realized that Johanna is married. We went to Hna. Alarcon's house for dinner. She is a professional chef and it was really good.  She also has a box full of nametags of missionaries for like the last ten or fifteen years so it was cool looking through all of those.  Then we went to Saul and Magdiel's house to say goodbye to them.  They are really fun members (they are the young men's leaders we played soccer with. Saul is 25 and Magdiel is 27. Saul was baptized in December and we are trying to get him to go on a mission). Now today more goodbyes and some ghetto shopping.

Love you guys,

Elder Pearce