Thursday, December 26, 2013

69th Epistle From Elder Kaleb Erickson serving in Patchogue, Long Island

Christmas Adventures            written December 23, 2013

The musical whirlwind that is Christmas has begun! And it's only about
halfway over. The big event this week was the Christmas concert back
in Midwood. We also had our branch Christmas party this week where I
got to play the piano too. More on those later.

So I have always had this dream of coming to the island to serve.
Because I have always wanted to put this genius idea into action. It's
called Explore Your Area Day. Essentially, you set out a chunk of time
to explore your area and get to know it better. But there are some
other things involved too. Namely, start out with a map and mark out
specific areas you'd like to check out. Highlight potential
neighborhoods that would be good to knock and try to find small
communities that might have potential. Then, once you've mapped out
your path, go get a big drink and start exploring, while taking notes
about the areas and neighborhoods you drive through. The big drink is
crucial here. Arguably the most important part of the whole event.
This is what we did last Tuesday. It was awesome. We didn't quite find
hte communities we were hoping to find, but we found a pretty decent
area to start knocking in. We also admired a lot of really nice
looking houses along the way. Like dang. All in all, I'd say that
Explore Your Area Day was a huge success.

We taught English classes twice again this week. In all of my other
areas, we've always spread the days out a bit, but here we teach them
Tuesday and Wednesday, right in a row. It's nice to fill up those two
evenings like that, but they're over with so quickly, it always
surprises me. Those are going well though. Our investigator, Luis,
finally came back to the classes, (he hadn't come in two weeks) but he
was too busy, so we couldn't teach him. Hopefully we can get in touch
with him this week and talk with him. I tried to talk with another one
of the students to have him come early to meet with us, but he wasn't
able to make it. Shame, but there's always next week.

Thursday we got to knock some more doors with the English district. I
really like that activity. We split up so that every Spanish
missionary is temporary companions with an English missionary, then we
go knock doors. It's nice because when you talk to English people, you
don't have to explain that you are Spanish missionaries so some other
guys are going to come back. That always confuses people. And it's fun
to work with other missionaries to see what their approaches are and
to hear their thoughts on life. That night we also went out caroling
with some of the leaders in our branch. They picked out specific names
of less actives and others they wanted to visit. Then we all went out
and sang with them. It was a lot of fun. And it was nice to see the
leaders working hand in hand with the missionaries.

Friday was the big day of the concert. We had to leave early because
of traffic. It took us two hours to drive back to Midwood. We got
there and started setting things up. We didn't really have any
decorations, so we had to improvise a few things. We scoured the
church building to find any and all decorations laying about, then we
scattered them in the chapel to make things look festive. The concert
was scheduled to start at 7, but we knew nobody would be there in
time. So we mentally planned to start at 7:30 to allow time for people
to arrive. I had the all the musical numbers and performers ready by
7. The next task was getting the narration readers together. I had 8
parts to be read. I had already talked to the 8 people and had printed
out and numbered all the scripts for them. I just needed people to
show up. By 7:30, I had 6 of my 8 people there. But we couldn't keep
pushing the start back, so I just asked two different people to help
out. Thankfully, people were very willing to help, so it went well in
the end. Then we had refreshments afterwards for everyone. It went
really well. I was so happy for the turnout and for how the songs
went. It was a really nice event. We had two investigators there and
two non-members and a bunch of the ward members. Everybody seemed to
enjoy it. I don't know that any huge miracles will come from it. But I
got a text afterward from one of the members, Sister Viera. And she
told me that it was a beautiful concert and it helped her find the
spirit of Christmas. And that was a success to me. All of the
frustration and stress was worth it. It was my final goodbye to
Midwood.

I don't know if you guys remember an investigator in Midwood that I
helped teach on occasion. His name is Alberto and the other
missionaries were teaching him. I taught him three or so times on
exchanges. He was wavering on his decision to get baptized and things
were looking like he wasn't going to. But when I was there, I asked
how he was doing and Elder Fine told me that he has a solid baptismal
date for the 11th of January. That made me so happy. I didn't have all
that much to do in teaching him. But we found him through the English
classes. And if Alberto is the only thing that comes from those
classes, then I would say that they were a roaring success. He is so
great, I'm so happy that he's finally making this decision.

Saturday night was our branch party here in Patchogue. It was a sweet
event. They had a small musical program, dinner, and music and dancing
afterward. I was going to take this as a chance to go around and meet
all the members. But I met a non-member guy named Leonardo from
Columbia and we got to talking and I lost track of time. He was a way
cool guy. He had learned English really well and so we talked about
the difficulties of learning language and the different facets of
speaking Spanish and English. Then we moved on to talk about school.
He was going back to school to become a mechanical engineer and so we
chatted about that and physics and debated what I should do with my
life. He was super cool. I mean to move the discussion toward the
Gospel, but when we got up to get dessert, he disappeared. Shame, but
at least I made a new friend. I also met a less active named George.
Nice dude, 23 years old. He was just messing around on the piano, so I
went over and we talked music for a while. His mom is a really strong
member, but if guess he fell into a rough path. I'm hoping to start
working with him more to bring him back. It sounds like he could use
some support.

And that brings us to Sunday. Elder Mason woke up really sick, so we
ended up staying home from church. He had a sore throat and just
didn't feel well all day. So we pretty much just chilled at home. We
got out to do some more caroling in the evening. It was nice to get
out. People always love carolers, so it's my favorite activity. It's
just a shame we can't do it to much longer.

So I just have one more concert left for the Christmas season. We have
a Christmas mission conference tomorrow and I'm signed up to play some
7 songs at he event. It should be an adventure. Merry Christmas
everybody!

Love,
Elder Erickson

No comments:

Post a Comment