Great Week!

January 7, 2013

Dear Familia,

Alright so this week has been pretty good.  New Years Eve we all went down to the church and just played some games with the missionaries, then actually managed to get to bed early.

Tuesday was deep clean and Elder Bush and I decided we needed to go hard at it (it was quite a mess from all the moving and service and everything), so we ended up doing that for most of the afternoon. We got over to Luis' that night though to find out why he wasn't at church. Turns out that his son was having some asthma issues so they decided to stay home. I guess that's a good excuse.

Then on Wednesday we were able to meet with a few less-actives, plus we found some good potentials while knocking a building.

On Thursday we found our first new investigator together. She was a woman that Elder Denton and I taught a bit but then she got really busy with work and told us she just didn't have time anymore. But we went over there to check up on her and she was really excited to have us back so we will see how that works out. Then that night we had double dinner appointments, both with less actives so that was really good, if painful. Luckily the first one they didn't give us a ton of food, but the second one (which was supposed to be the caterpillars, but she got home late from work and didn't have time) they put out so much food and the whole "it's all for you two so eat up" thing, it would have been a stretch even if we hadn't just eaten.  And about having to eat everything, it really just depends on the family. The type of food usually doesn't bother me too much, it is just the amount. But we are getting some good walking in so we are able to work most of it off.

On Friday we did a hot chocolate stand down in the elliptical to advertise the service day we were having on Saturday. It was freezing cold but a ton of fun. We did a lot of running up to cars with hot chocolate and handing it to them through the windows because nobody wanted to get out because it was too cold. But it was a lot of fun.

On Saturday we did one last big service push. We tried to get the community more involved (hence the hot chocolate stand) but it ended up being mostly just our mission and the north missionaries (I didn't work with James but I had a chance to talk to him when we were finishing up). It was a good day though. Didn't get into moldy basements. We were outside shoveling sand all day. We made quite a pile of sand in the road. I took some pictures I will send out sometime but they really don't do it justice.

Then after we got home we went out and taught Luis again. We had a really good lesson with him about the Book of Mormon and recommitted him to read and pray about it. We both felt really good about the lesson afterwards so we will see how that turns out. Then after that we were walking home to go eat dinner and we saw a less active's car in her driveway. We haven't been able to meet with her since before the hurricane so we went and knocked on the door and she let us in. She is just the nicest lady in the world. We walked out of there with a ton of cookies and a really good fish dinner. She said that our parents would be really mad if we came home skinny and would come out here and beat everyone up. You know, I think she's got it backwards but whatever.

Then we went over and had another good lesson with the family who has the eight year old daughter. There was some scheduling conflict with the church to set up the baptism for yesterday but that was probably a good thing because their whole family has the flu. It is rocking New York right now. Some of the North missionaries I was talking with said a couple of weeks ago their whole zone had the flu. Luckily our mission had flu shots that seem to be working fairly well so far.

So then yesterday at church Luis came and he brought his 11 year old son too! This is the first time since about April that I have had a real investigator at church so I am pretty pumped about it. He seemed like he liked it a lot, even though it was pretty disorganized yesterday. It was fast and testimony meeting and just about everyone bore their testimonies that the Book of Mormon was true which was perfect timing for Luis, and the Spirit was really strong. At least that's what Elder Bush said. I was gone for about half of it. Like I said the Flu shots seem to be working 'fairly' well. I was getting a really bad headache and a bit of a fever and was feeling a bit nauseous and had to step out into the hallway to collect myself for a while. After church we went home and just ended up spending the day in the pad but I'm feeling mostly better today so that's good.

Over all this has probably been our most successful week since Elder Bush has got here so we are really excited to keep building off of it this week. Unfortunately this will probably be our last week together. Oh how the time flies. I really hope I stay here though through the next transfers. I love Far Rockaway.

Love you guys,

Elder Pearce