65th Epistle from Elder Kaleb Erickson serving in Brooklyn, New York

Getting Colder     written  November 25, 2013

This weather is not for me. The wind is just so killer! At least I'm not right on the beach like I was last year. That was some cold weather. It's still cold, but I think it would be worse on the beach.

So it was a nice week again, here in Midwood, aside from the cold. Last Wednesday we got to visit with the Luna family. It's been a while since we have been to the Luna's house. After they were kind of solid in coming back to church, we switched with the sister missionaries to have them visit the Lunas for a while. They have two daughters ages 15 and 17, so the sisters go over to try to help the girls out. But I missed visiting the Lunas, so we went to visit them this week. And it was so much fun to be back there. Sister Luna made us this delicious Dominican dish called Asopao. It's nothing too complex, mostly just rice, beans, chicken, various vegetables, and sauces all mixed together in a big pot. And it is delicious. Served with avocado and some tostones on the side? You really can't go wrong. We chatted with them about Thanksgiving and about giving thanks for our blessings. It was a nice lesson and Brother Luna even came to church on Sunday. We haven't seen him in church with the rest of his family for a couple of months, so that was nice to see. Somehow the topic of cartoons came up and Brother Luna was so excited to show us a video on Youtube of a cartoon he used to watch when he was a kid. It's called "Sam el Rey de Judo!" Which translates to Sam, the King of Judo. It was this oldschool cartoon about this kid who was trying to avenge his father, who was murdered by a one-eyed man. This show was golden. I only wish we could have seen more than five minutes. Spanish cartoons are just too good.

Anyways, our English classes have been dwindling recently, so we had a big district advertizing blitz. It essentially entails everybody meeting and grabbing a bunch of flyers, then canvassing the whole neighborhood. We did that on Friday, so hopefully it brings some new faces to our class tomorrow evening.

Friday we got to visit with my old friend Gabriel Osorio. He has been struggling recently because the place he worked at got shut down. We worked with him for three months trying to get Sundays off and two weeks after he gets Sundays off, his work shuts down. Poor dude just can't win. He's pretty concerned about it, so we went with a message of hope for him to try to boost his spirits. The dude is a champ. You can tell how worried he is, but he is determined to stay strong in the Gospel, regardless of what happens. We gave him a blessing before we left. I made Elder Spencer do it, even though he didn't want to. It was his first blessing ever in Spanish. And he did an excellent job. I have never heard him speak Spanish so well, as he did during that blessing. It was a really cool moment. I hope that it helps Gabriel too.

Saturday we got to visit with another less active named Jose Membreno. He's an interesting dude because he's solid in the church, but he just doesn't come sometimes. It's like every two or three weeks he comes. But he likes everything. He's in the temple prep class working to get his temple recommend again. He tells us that he loves the church and that he has a good testimony. But then he doesn't come, I don't get it. He likes to visit with missionaries, so we go over there when we can. He decided that he wanted to give us a special treat so he cooked us up some meat and rice. That was a nice surprise from him. It was pretty tasty too. We had a great lesson with him and he told us that he was going to come to church for sure on Sunday. He didn't come, so apparently we need to get back over there and try again.

Sunday was a fun day because it was the primary program. Those are always the best days in sacrament meeting. I got to play the piano for the kids. It was so much fun. The rest of church was pretty uneventful, but we did have the most successful ward council I have even been to after church. It was incredible. It was only 40 minutes and we actually accomplished things without arguing. A miracle as far as I'm concerned.

And that's about it for the moment. Thanksgiving week should be a party. We have a number of dinners lined up, so we're excited to dine and chat with people this week. It will be a fun week and a great opportunity to give thanks to our Heavenly Father for all the wonderful blessings he gives us.

Love,
Elder Erickson

Editor:  Kaleb is now active on Facebook and has posted some interesting pictures there.