38th Epistle from Elder Kaleb Erickson serving in Brooklyn, NY

Chillin in Brooklyn, NY      written May 20, 2013

I thought this day would never come. I finally made it to my second area in my mission! I am now serving in an area in Brooklyn called Midwood. It covers a couple of different areas in Brooklyn, but the chapel is in Midwood, so that's why they call it that. Working here is a completely different world than in Far Rockaway. There are so many different types of people! It's unbelievable. You walk down the street and you'll run into people from five or six different countries. And that's just on a normal day. Back in Far Rockaway, we did most of our work in English, so we didn't focus too much on Spanish. But here, I'm actually in a Spanish ward, so we only work in Spanish. As a result, I have already gotten better with the language. It's so sweet. Just hanging out with Hispanics all day really helps you learn Spanish.

We have a really young district here. There are six of us, and four of the missionaries are in their third transfer or less. I'm in my sixth and the district leader is in his eighth. His name is Elder Kitchen, or Elder Cocina if you want to speak Spanish. He and I are really the only ones in our district who are confident in our Spanish yet, so we help out a lot when it comes to ward correlation and meetings with the bishop. We have two sister missionaries, me and my companion, and then the district leader and his companion. It's nice that we're all relatively young in the mission though because it means nobody is burnt out or has bias against certain ideas yet. So we're trying all sorts of fun finding ideas out here. We did a free shoe shine on the street last week to meet people, we have a sports day where we go play soccer at the park, and this Saturday we're having a Spanish movie night. We're going to watch Up in Spanish, so we've been distributing flyers everywhere for it.

My companion's name is Elder Rodgers. He is a nice guy from Bountiful, Utah. He's not incredible at Spanish yet, but he has no fear of talking to Hispanics in the street. It's awesome when he goes up to invite people to church. He is a champion.

Since we're in the city, we don't have a car or anything. We have our feet and an unlimited Metro card. But we're trying to work close to the church, so there's not too much of a need for the Metro. We take the bus if it's already nearby, otherwise we generally just walk. And the subway is best for when you have a long ways to go, but that's pretty much only to visit members who live a ways away. I enjoy the walk in the city though, and I'm already losing weight after only five days. I'm going to need a new belt if this keeps up much longer.

I'm still getting to know the area, so I don't have too many stories yet. But this week we have some plans to make some awesome lessons happen. So look out for the tales from Brooklyn in the future!

Love you!

Elder Erickson

P.S. Never fear, Brooklyn is here!