Another week of adventures in Long Island. It just doesn't stop.
We finally got to meet with the Briseno's again last Monday. Unfortunately, Brother Briseno wasn't there, but with still met with his wife. We brought a recent convert in the branch with us. His name is Josue and he is about 16 years old, from El Salvador. He's a funny kid. He tries to teach me a bunch of slang from El Salvador, then Elder Mendez keeps telling me that everything he taught me is ridiculous and doesn't mean anything. It's hilarious. So we bring him with us and we taught a sweet lesson about the Atonement and how to utilize it. Afterwards, she went to get us something to drink and Josue starts telling us that we feel like naranjas secas when we teach. That means dried oranges. He called us dry oranges. We still have no idea what that means. We laughed and laughed about it. It was so random for him to come out with that. We had a good time with Josue, he's a fun kid.
Moving on from there, we had a zone conference the next day. Nothing too profound there, but it was fun to see people from the zone. Later that day, we taught English class again. We're pulling like 20 people to each class now. It's pretty awesome. We've been trying to meet with people individually, but it's not working out too well. So this week we're going to teach the restoration on Tuesday and pass out Books of Mormon to everyone on Wednesday. It's going to be a party.
We had a number of appointments this week and it seems like everybody wanted to cancel on us. We did a number of lookups on Thursday and Friday, but to no avail. On Friday evening while we were looking for people, we found a street that looked pretty Hispanic. We decided to knock a few doors. We met a couple of people who said we could come back. Then we met a woman who was cooking when we knocked the door. We chatted for a moment. She said that she had met with sister missionaries before and that we could come back another day to talk with her. Then she told us to wait a moment and she went away. She came back with two cups of some hot liquid that she gave to us. We thanked her and left. We tried the drink. It tasted kind of like arroz con leche, or rice milk, but there was something off about it. After the initial arroz con leche taste, you got hit with a strong taste of black licorice. It was gross. I tried to appreciate it, but the black licorice flavor was just too gross. We poured it out once we got home and it looked like arroz con leche, but there were like these funky herbs at the bottom that gave it a nasty smell and the gross taste. Shame. The woman was from Ecuador, so I asked a guy from Ecuador at church on Sunday. He said it's some drink called morrocho and that he loves it. Hopefully she doesn't give us more when we go back to meet with her.
The next day we were on exchanges, so I was with Elder Ozuna. He's straight from the Dominican Republic. We had a number of things set up for the day and we decided to speak in only Spanish all day. We didn't make it quite all day, but pretty much the whole day, so it was good practice. While we were eating lunch, we got a call from Elder Coca that a member from the singles ward was getting married at the chapel that day and the missionaries were invited. So we headed on over to help set up and stuff. Apparently this was super last minute and very small. The bride is from London and her parents couldn't come out, so it was just the groom's family and the missionaries and they Skyped in the parents. I luckily had that book of classical music for the piano, so I played some prelude music for them. It turned out to be a very nice event.
We got juked at our two appointments in the afternoon. We knocked some doors and looked up some less actives. Nothing too exciting. We did get to eat some pupusas for lunch though, so that was a plus. In the evening, there was a baby shower for a woman in the branch. They invited the whole branch to come, so we went for the free food. We helped set up and we mingled as they played all the babyshower games. The downside was that we had two people who said we could come back after 8 on Saturday night, so Elder Ozuna and I had to leave just as dinner was served. We snagged a plate and headed off. And on top of that, when we showed up at their houses, nobody was there. It was a sad moment for both of us. So to salvage the night, we headed down to the beach to look at the full moon over the ocean for a few minutes. Elder Ozuna was happy because it reminded him of his island back home.
The adventures continued the next day. Not too much happened at church or in the afternoon, but we had dinner with a member that night. So we show up, and when we got there, they were still making it. The daughter had a bunch of carrots and was using a peeler to peel them. She had a pretty decent pile of carrot slices and some peeled carrots on a plate. We figured they were going to put it in a salad or like a soup or something, I don't know. We ate dinner, rice and beef soup. Pretty normal stuff. Then the wife announces we're going to have postre de zanahoria, or carrot cake, in English. I was pumped. I love carrot cake! But then I started thinking. Wait. The daughter just peeled the carrots like a half an hour ago. And I never saw her make a cake or anything of the like. I tried to rationalize it, maybe she likes making carrot cake and was just getting ready for another one. Then she pulls a bowl out of the fridge. She sets it on the table and what do we find inside? Sliced carrot, mixed with raisins, covered in condensed milk. Her husband and daughter were so excited about it. Elder Mendez and I looked at each other with a mix of bewilderment and fear. It was super weird. It didn't taste bad, just kind of uncomfortable to eat. Very chewy for some reason. Worst carrot cake ever.
Here's to another week of adventures and hopefully good food.
Love,
Elder Erickson
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