Saturday, October 19, 2013

59th Epistle from Elder Kaleb Erickson serving in Brooklyn, New York

New Investigator Week      written October 15, 2013

I know. What a great title. It's been roughly four transfers since I had a new investigator at church. What up. It was a good week.

Things got started with a fun exchange with Elder Goates. He and I have been friends for a year now, ever since the MTC. And it's just fun to walk around Brooklyn with him. Not a whole lot happened that day, but we taught a bomb English class that night.

Wednesday involved doing service at Prospect Park and another round with a Brazilian elder. Those are always an adventure. It was a different elder this week. He was a bit more gung-ho about his Portuguese and the guy we visited really struggled to understand him. It was still a good time though. We also visited the Quispe family, a super-less active family we've been trying to get to for a while. He is from Peru and he speaks super fast Spanish. It was just to give this elder a taste of what it will be like when he gets to Brazil. These people will talk so freaking fast and good luck understanding them. He was chill about it though, it was another successful night with a Brazilian visa waiter.

Thursday was the big day. We had a huge meeting with all of the missionaries in Brooklyn and Staten Island. And the AP's introduced us to Facebook. It's weird. We're supposed to use it for proselyting here and among our non-member friends back home. But the purposes behind it were very vaguely explained. And a lot of the rules of it were poorly explained as well. So I feel like a lot of it will be experimenting and trying to figure things out as we go. It will certainly be an adventure.

That was also the day we first met with Samuel. He is a guy who has been coming to English classes. He asked me for a Spanish Bible. I was more than happy to hook him up. When I gave it to him, I asked if he would come meet with us to hear a special message about Jesus Christ. So we met with him on Thursday before English classes. We taught him about the Book of Mormon and explained how it works with the Bible to strengthen our faith in Jesus Christ. He seemed to like it and told us he was already planning to come to church that week. We were so pumped about it. He showed up to church about 15 minutes late, but he brought his cousin and he loved it. He thought the whole thing was great. He didn't stay for the full three hours, but I'll take what I can get. We've got another lesson with him tonight, so we're really excited. Hopefully things go well with him.

Friday we had a very interesting experience. We have been teaching the Castro family for a while. I'm pretty sure I mentioned them last week. We go over there every Friday to meet with Eddie and Rosie and sometimes with their son, Jeremiah. But we went overon Friday to meet with them and they told us how glad they were that we came. They hadn't really ever said that before, so we wondered what was up. It turns out that Rosie had recently lost her job and they were having some legal issues with their son because he's adopted. But because of all the stress and whatnot, Rosie was really having a tough time and she had gotten sick. So we listened to all of their woes and then we shared D&C 121 with her, my favorite when trials come around. Then we gave her a blessing. It was cool because after we finished she told us that she already felt better. It felt significant to me because I felt like I had actually helped somebody after we walked out of their house. I felt like I had made a difference in their lives that night, no matter how small. And even though it was probably more from the spirit and the blessing than anything, I was still there and helped Rosie and Eddie feel loved. Eddie then came to church this last Sunday. The first time he has come since February. If that's not a miracle, then I don't know what is.

Saturday was fun because we got to travel out to another area to help them out with a singing street sweep again. Singing on the streets of Brooklyn and talking to random people is always a good time. Then Sunday brought in the end of the week. It was so cool to see Samuel at church with his cousin and to see Eddie and Rosie together for the first time at church. It was just a great day overall. Even though ward council went long and accomplished nothing, it was okay in my book.

So life is just grand here. Every companionship in my district now has at least one investigator. We haven't seen this for like five or six transfers here now. This is incredible. And looking back, it's amazing to see how far we've come in just three transfers. From a less-active bishop and a bishopric that did nothing and wouldn't let us visit less-actives or teach English classes. We now have a great bishopric that runs ward council every other week. We teach English classes three times a week. And we even have less-actives coming back because of our efforts. We really have come a long way here. Even though we may not be baptizing anybody, these things had to be done before anybody could be baptized here. And I'm happy to have played a role in laying the foundation to make it possible in the future. Thanks for everything and I love you guys so much.

Elder Erickson

No comments:

Post a Comment