Alive and well in Brooklyn, NY. Written June 24, 2013
Things are going well out here. The announcements yesterday at the missionary conference were crazy. Facebook for missionaries? Hanging out at the
church all day to give tours? Things are getting crazy here. Of all the
times to be made a leader. It will definitely be an adventure and there
will be stories to tell.
Also, I got the call the be a district leader here in Midwood, starting
tomorrow. I'm not super excited about it, but I guess I might as well
step up and try to make something happen. I would much rather stay as a
regular missionary, responsibility is not a fun time. But I
can't really turn down a calling, so I'm just going to do my best.
This week went by fast and nothing really exciting happened. I had these two Restoration
concerts that I was asked to play for. I ended up with 9 songs that I
was supposed to play. One concert was in Brooklyn in an area called
Dyker Heights and the other was on Staten Island. The one in Brooklyn, I
was the pianist for all eight of their songs. The one in Staten, I was
supposed to play two songs. The problem I have with playing songs for
concerts like this is that I have to go find people to practice with and
set up times that work for them. Learning the songs myself isn't so
much a difficulty as finding a good time and place to meet with these
other people. So all of last Tuesday was dedicated to practicing with
people. I was on exchanges with the district leader that day, and we
spent all day at the Dyker Heights chapel practicing with people. We
left at two in the afternoon and didn't get back until nine. Wednesday
we had a dress rehearsal for the Staten Island concert. Luckily, I was
able to meet one of the people for the Dyker Heights concert there and
practice with them at the same time. Thursday was the dress rehearsal
for the concert in Dyker Heights, so I finally met with the last few
people I needed to practice with there.
Friday was the first day of the big concerts. We got a ride out to
Staten Island in the afternoon. Elder Rodger's aunt lives out there and
she is very less active, so President Calderwood asked him to go visit
her. He got the chance to go with another missionary and have dinner
with her and her family while I stayed and played for the concert. It
went pretty well, they had maybe forty people show up. That's a solid
turn out for an all Spanish concert. Saturday was the concert in Dyker
Heights. It was also all in Spanish. I was the pianist of the night
there, it was a good time. They had about the same turnout, it was a
very nice concert.
Saturday morning at about 7:15 in the morning, I got a call
from the Zone Leaders telling me that I needed to be at the Bushwick
Chapel by 9 for an interview with President. That threw all of our
morning plans out the window. We headed over and that's when I got the
call to be a District Leader for the Spanish Midwood district. I get
started on that tomorrow after transfer meetings. The biggest downside
to being district leader is that I have to go to a lot of boring
meetings and that I'm responsible for a lot more now. It's not a super
big deal, but it would be a lot easier to just stay as a regular
missionary. It will be especially crazy with the announcements made
yesterday. I have no idea how the use of internet and the tours of
chapels will go. Especially when our chapel is hidden in a largely
Jewish community. But I can't dog on an idea until I try it. Hopefully
President Calderwood has some guidelines for us on how these things are
supposed to work. Apparently our mission is one of the go-to missions to
try new things because we're in such a diverse area. So I'll let you
guys know how things turn out.
I'll hopefully have some investigator stories for you guys next week now
that we're back to regular missionary work. Until next time!
Love,
Elder Erickson
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