Happy to Serve

11th Epistle from Elder Kaleb Erickson  serving in Far Rockaway, New York  11/13/12

Hey everybody!

Every day is an adventure out here in New York. Not a whole lot has changed since my last email. We still go to Far Rock and do service every day. Things look a little better every day, it's cool to see the whole place start to improve. But there are some stories to tell along the way.

So last week I told you that my companion and I had gotten metro cards because we ran out of gas in our car. The trip out to Far Rockaway is pretty round about. If we're lucky and catch the limited bus, it only takes us an hour and a half to get out there. If we don't catch the limited, it's a solid 2 hour block of the day, just taking a bus and a train to get out there. And that's just one way. So it's a pretty long trip. We would leave around 8 in the morning and usually get out there by 10 to start the day.

By this point, most people have their basements drained and most of their things have been hauled out to the curb. So now begins the super fun event of tearing out basements. I am getting really good at using a crowbar and a hammer to do some solid damage. We always wear gloves and masks, don't worry about me getting sick or hurt from anything. People are usually good about providing us with masks if we don't have them.

Things started to get really organized last week. Most of the mission is in full service mode at the moment. We don't really have an area to proselyte in, so we just do service every day. For the areas with places to proselyte, they trade off every day between service and teaching. So there's always a big group of missionaries working to help the people. We've been in Far Rock just about every day, but I know there are a bunch of people in Staten Island and out further on Long Island working as well. The whole mission has really come together to help with this disaster.

It's awesome how the attitudes of the people in Far Rock have changed since we started working. We wear yellow vests that say Mormon Helping Hands on them and people are always stopping us to ask for help. We would get one assignment and just walking to get to that house, three or four people would stop us to ask for our help as well. There's so many people to help, President Calderwood set up a list that people can put their names on and then the assignments can be distributed to the elders to work on. Now that we're organized, things are really getting done out there.

The weekends are really cool. Every Saturday and Sunday they bus in members from surrounding areas to help clean up. On Saturday we had almost 700 members from other parts of New York and from Philadelphia and Maryland. I'm sure there were other areas, but I only met people from those places. There were yellow vests everywhere. We did so much work. And even better, on Sunday we had 800 volunteers. Those days were really just incredible. People are seeing the good work that we do and we are able to help so many people. It's amazing.

Saturday our apartment in Far Rockaway finally got power again. Elder Wolfe and I decided to head back there to save gas. I forgot to mention that on Thursday we were finally able to get gas. There was a member of the mission presidency out here who has been driving way out to New Jersey and Philadelphia to get gas in cans and bring them back for the missionaries. It was impossible to buy gas in the city. There was huge demand and not enough supply. There were people fighting in gas stations in some areas. So we were really grateful that they provided gas for us. But as of Saturday, we are moved back in to our apartment in Far Rockaway. We have power and warm water, so all is well there. And a comfy bed again. That's the best part.

Normally Monday is our P-day, but they switched it to Tuesday so we could do service yesterday. It was only missionaries yesterday, but we still did a lot of good work out there. We usually work from 9:30 until 4 in the afternoon. After then it starts to get dark and without power in the area, it's really no good to do any work. But that is still a long time to work and we can usually rip out quite a few basements in that time. Then we have the last few hours of the day to relax and prepare to rip out a new basement the next day. I'm not sure what the schedule is for next week, but I will send a new email on either Monday or Tuesday.

Last Thursday was a very interesting day. The day before there was a big snowstorm in New York. We were worried about the areas already hit hard by the storm, but they were pretty much fine. Just cold and lots of snow. So because of that, we couldn't do service on Thursday. Elder Wolfe and I decided to do some laundry and he got the call that he needed to get a ride with some other elders to go get gas in another city so we could get out to Far Rockaway easier. 

We had just started the laundry though, so someone needed to stay to switch them over and the other would go. So we decided to go on splits with the elders we were staying with, Elder Bond and Elder Solis. Elder Bond went with Elder Wolfe and Elder Solis and I stayed in Richmond Hill. We finished the laundry and we had nothing else to to that day. It was a clear day, maybe 40 degrees outside, so Elder Solis said we should go proselyting. I had my suit and there was nothing else to do, so we headed out to go knock some doors.

Elder Solis had only been in the area for about 5 days before the hurricane hit, so he didn't know the area very well. And I knew nothing about it, so we were about even. The upside is that Elder Solis is from Mexico, so he is super good at Spanish. And we were in a Spanish area, so we had to go find some Hispanics to teach. The area is about a 15 minute train ride from our house, so we headed out, picked a street, and started knocking.

We didn't have too much success. We talked to a couple people, but the problem with Hispanics is that a lot of the time they will pretend to be interested and tell you to come back, even though they really aren't interested and don't want anything to do with you. Then when you come back, they won't be home. So it's hard to be sure when you talk with people, whether they are really interested or not. And it's also hard because we talked with a lot of Dominicans and I can't understand them very well. They talk way too fast for me. But I had Elder Solis with me, so I was set. No worries there. If the person spoke English, I would take it, and then we would trade off on the Spanish ones. So even though we didn't have too much success, it was good practice for me. I did give out a Book of Mormon in English to a guy who seemed genuinely interested, so that was pretty cool.

But at one point, Elder Solis and I both had to use the bathroom. We didn't want to go back home because the train ride would have been 15 minutes. Way too long. He said, oh hey I know an investigator in the area, she would let us use her bathroom. We called, but got no answer, so we decided to just go to McDonalds and buy something so we could use the bathroom. As we were waiting in line, she called us back and she lived just nearby, so it was perfect.

We knocked on the door and she let us in. Her name is Rosa. I introduced myself and she said, "Oh yeah I know you! I read the story you published!" I was super confused at this point, because I've never really published anything. She explained further that she read the story I put up on my blog about the hurricane. She lives with a member, named Maya, who I guess found my blog with the emails I send home and showed it to Rosa. Rosa was interested in it because she loves stories and she has a sister who lives in Far Rockaway. She told me that when she read it, she knew that she would meet me someday. I was blown away by it all. It was crazy that she had read this and was able to quote parts of it, so I knew she had actually read it.

We stayed there and talked with her for a while. She's a very nice woman with two super cute kids. She spoke Spanish, but thankfully she spoke really good English so I was able to talk with her without any concerns about understanding. Eventually Elder Solis said that we should teach her about prayer. It seemed like a good idea to me. Rosa was hesitant at first; she didn't want to be committed into anything. Then she stopped and told us this was crazy. She said that she was having Deja Vu, like she had been in this same spot before. I thought that was pretty cool. I had heard once that when you have Deja Vu, it's because two potential soul paths are crossing and it means you are in the right place. I forget who told me that, but I've always liked that explanation of it. I told her that and she seemed to like that. She was much more open to it after that. So we taught what prayer is and Elder Solis had me give an example prayer. Then we told her that when we left, we wanted her to try saying a prayer.

She was super nervous about this. We kept on telling her it would be alright and it would be easy. We talked for a while about other things and then the time came that we had to leave. It was perfect timing because the member who lives with her, Maya, had just walked in the door. She came in and joined us and helped give Rosa a bit more confidence with the whole prayer thing. Once Rosa started praying, it was incredible. She just kept going once she started. It was an amazing and really heartfelt prayer. Granted, I missed a couple parts of it because it was in Spanish and she talked really fast, but I got most of it and the Spirit was there, so that's all that really matters.

I told her that I was going to have to write about all of this in my blog now. I told her I felt famous because somebody knew who I was. She didn't like the idea of me writing about her very much, but agreed that I could as long as I mentioned that Elder Solis slipped and fell on some steps while we were out tracting. He didn't get hurt, his feet slipped right out from under him and he landed on the steps. It was pretty funny to watch actually. So there you go Rosa, our deal is complete. And as a sidenote, Maya is going to serve a mission soon, so good luck to her as well!

That is more or less the extent of my adventures at the moment. Things are very slowly getting back to normal, although I have no idea when we'll stop doing service every day. It's all we have planned for the next week or so. Maybe by mid-December we'll get back to regular things. But I doubt it. There's too much to be done in Far Rockaway for things to be back to normal any time soon. Oh and in my last email, I was wrong about some facts on Far Rockaway. The streets go way past 136th street. They go up to like 150, then there's a bunch of open land, then there's a whole other community out further on the peninsula called Breezy Point. That's where the huge fire was that destroyed some 100 homes from the hurricane. We haven't been to that point yet, but we did some service out on Breezy Point the other day.

But life is well here. There is a huge camp set up on 129th street where they have supplies and food for victims and volunteers for the hurricane. So we always get a warm lunch out there. It's hilarious, when people come up to us as we walk down the street, it's either for two things: To ask for help or to offer us food. The whole community has really come together to provide food for volunteers and for the needy. That and to ask how many wives we can have. I've been asked that a lot. People always seem surprised to hear that we only get one wife. So I guess you could say I'm still doing teaching while I'm serving as well. Thanks for all your support and prayers, I'm happy to serve the people out here and I'm learning a lot every day!

Love,    Elder Erickson

Elder Kaleb Erickson welcomes letters.  Please write to:
20-02 Seagrit Blvd #5F
Far Rockaway, NY 11691