30th Epistle from Elder Kaleb Erickson serving in Far Rockaway, NY

Hey Mom and Dad!      Written March 25, 2013

The work continues here in Far Rockaway!  

 

We finally met with Osiris, the Hispanic woman who got an answer about the Book of Mormon. She had met with missionaries before in El Salvador, but didn't know too much. So we taught her the story of the Restoration. She enjoyed it and when we invited her to be baptized, she said she's open to it but she wants to learn a little bit more before she agrees to a date. So we're very excited about that.

 

We also got a new investigator in Belle Harbor last week. We may have unknowingly also broken the Word of Wisdom at that same meeting. It was a super nice woman that we met when we were advertising the Restoration Concert. We came back to visit with her. She always offers us a warm drink when we come by, usually coffee or tea. We always tell her no and settle for a cup of water. When we visited her this week, it was a pretty cold day and she insisted on a warm drink. I asked if she had some hot chocolate and she said she did. She came back with a couple of flavor choices. Elder Hart and I both decided on chocolate carmel. Sounds like a good choice to me. She brought out two big cups of the stuff, lots of whipped cream on top. That's what's up. We drank them and talked with her for a while. It was not very good tasting hot chocolate. Pretty watered down. The meeting went well, we talked about faith in Jesus Christ and why that is important, then we introduced the Book of Mormon. She was very open to it and agreed to read and pray about the section we left with her. It was a really good lesson. We walked outside and Elder Hart turns to me and asks how the hot chocolate tasted. I said I thought it was pretty crappy hot chocolate. He said that it tasted bad because it was not hot chocolate, but a capuccino. He realized what it was just as he was finishing it. He recognized the taste because he used to drink a lot of coffee before his baptism. We had a pretty good laugh at that one. We'll probably have to explain the Word of Wisdom on our next visit.

 

Saturday was an awesome day because we got to go to the temple to do Baptisms for the Dead with Scott Madden. I think the most exciting part of the adventure was that we took the train all the way there. Usually we'd just take the A train all the way from Far Rockaway to Manhattan. But the A train is down in Far Rock due to damage from Hurricane Sandy. So instead we had to take a shuttle bus from Rockaway to JFK Airport where we then hooked up with the A train to take us into Manhattan. But then another part of the A train was down, so we had to go on the F train and reconnect with the A train. It was pretty crazy, but we made it in the end. And baptisms went really well. They needed more priesthood to help out, so we got to do a lot of work that day. We took the train and shuttle back and made it just in time to teach English classes at the chapel.

 

Yesterday was a really cool day because Elder L. Tom Perry from the Quorum of the Twelve came to speak in Long Island at a stake conference. It wasn't our stake, but we got invited to come. At the conference, President Calderwood spoke, the area seventy spoke, and then L. Tom spoke. It was a really nice conference. I wish we could have gotten some of our investigators there, but such is life. I'm sorry they missed out on such a great opportunity to hear an apostle of the Lord speak. He is quite the charismatic guy at 90 years old. I think that was the best part, that he was so happy during the whole talk.

 

So we're just going to have to keep doing our best and invite people to come unto Christ. We've got a lot of work to do still and we can't do any of it without the Lord to help us out. Thanks for all your prayers and support.

Love,

Elder Erickson