Adventures in Patchogue written April 14, 2014
We got to visit with the Briceno family again on Monday evening. We just showed up at random, so unfortunately her husband wasn't home. But we still talked with her about how to recognize the spirit. We had some sweet tag team efforts going on as I entertained the five year old kid and Elder Mendez did a large chunk of the conversing. It works out well.
Tuesday and Wednesday were largely uneventful except for English classes. Not too much new going on there either. We're starting to dwindle in numbers so we need to get some more advertising out there. It's also interesting because we've invited all of the regulars to church and to meet with us and none of them are interested. So we need to get new people coming who might have some interest in it.
We didn't have any exciting adventures until Friday. We were supposed to go meet with the Ventura family again, but they ended up not being home. So we went to look up some less actives and some former investigators in the area. We went to one house of a less active and asked if they were home. The girl told us they had moved. So we asked if she was interested in hearing our message. She said we could come back another day. And when we asked for her name, she had the same first name as one of the people in the family. Which makes me think that the family still lives there. We'll find out when we go back. The other interesting encounter was at the house of a former. This old white dude answered the door. I asked him if Blanco or Flabian was there. He starts going off on how he hates illegal immigrants and anyone who isn't American born doesn't deserve to live in his country. He went on for about five minutes before he told us that we better leave. Elder Mendez had already started backing away. It was hilarious.
Saturday we met with a new investigator. The sister missionaries are teaching someone in a house where a number of people live and they met a guy named Stalin who seemed somewhat interested. They gave us the address so we could try meeting with him. We went over and he invited us right in. We sat down and it turns out his middle name is Lenin. His name is Stalin Lenin. He said that his dad really liked Russia. I thought that was the funniest thing ever. Stalin was very willing to listen to us, he is a very nice dude. I tried to make a joke about how his father loved Russia, but our Heavenly Father loves us. I thought it was a great joke, but Stalin was unimpressed. Shame.
Later on that day we were looking for some potentials we had met earlier. It was Saturday evening, so a lot of people were having barbecues and parties or just hanging around outside. We met this guy on his front porch, named Daniel. My man was definitely a bit drunk. Probably more than a bit. But we talked with him and found out a bit about him. He told us he used to go to church all the time, but he stopped when he came to the United States. He said he really misses it
though and needs to do more for God. Elder Mendez asked him what he would do for God and he said anything. So I asked him if he would give up drinking. He said he really wanted to. I told him we would help him with it and that we would start right now. I pointed to his half empty bottle and asked if he was willing to pour it out right there. He
hesitantly agreed to it. Then he watered the plants with some Heineken. We told him we'd come by on Wednesday to help him get started. He seemed excited about it. We left him a card with the day of our appointment written on it so he has a chance of remembering it. We'll see how committed he really was.
Sunday was your average day in a small branch. I played the piano for primary, then translated for sharing time, then got roped into teaching the five year old class. We learned about the gift of the Holy Ghost. For like five or ten minutes at least. The rest of the class may or may not have been spent playing rock, paper, scissors and a few rounds of bubblegum. Classic games. After church we headed over to look up a referral from Brother Ventura. He sent us to his uncle's house. We have been by before, but never found anybody home. We got lucky this time and met with the uncle's wife and daughter. Very nice people. She didn't seem overly interested, but was willing to listen and said we could come back again. And then we finished up the day by visiting with the Ibarra family. They shared some raspberry and orange sorbet with us and we chatted about the word of wisdom. They also gave us half of a papaya because I had never tried on before. Turns out I'm not a huge fan of papaya. Luckily Elder Mendez likes it a lot, so we're good there.
And that's the tale for the week. This was the last week in the transfer and the call came that Elder Mendez and I are both going to be staying here for six more weeks. So the adventures will continue.
Love, Elder Erickson
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