52nd Epistle from Elder Kaleb Erickson serving in Brooklyn, New York

A Slow Start    written August 26, 2013

This was the first Sunday with our new bishop. Things aren't magically perfect, but the wheels of improvement are definitely in motion. Ward council still resulted in a lot of pointless arguing, but at least the bishop took control and gave out assignments. If people will actually do them, we will get things moving again. It will be great.

The party got started last Tuesday. I had an exchange with one of the zone leaders. Every transfer the district leaders have to go on an exchange with one of the zone leaders. I was with Elder McDonald. It was a pretty uneventful day. We did the usual missionary stuff. It was interesting because he is an English elder and I'm Spanish. So he would talk to English people and I would talk to Spanish. We only had one lesson that day, but I just taught it. It went pretty well. He tried to keep up with our conversation, but the guy we were teaching liked to talk really fast. I was struggling to keep up, so McDonald didn't have much of a chance. It still went well though. He gave us some deli sandwiches that were super tasty. It was a great day.

Wednesday we went to visit a family that we dropped from teaching a while back. We found out that the mother had recently had a stroke, so we made them cookies and went to see how she was doing. She was in bed, so we chatted with her husband for a bit. They were very grateful to us for the cookies, it was nice to take them over to show that we still care about them.

Thursday was my year mark! Hurray! There was a practice that day for a big musical event in Queens. Four people from my zone were asked to be in it, so we all traveled out to the practice. It's funny how long it takes to get from Brooklyn to Queens by train. It's ridiculous. But we went and practiced and we're going to perform at a food court in Queens in September. It should be fun.

Friday we finally had a much needed interview with Brother Cuevas, the now 1st counselor in the bishopric. He has been placed in charge of missionary work, so we met with him and discussed what we were going to do in the ward with missionary work. It was really helpful. That's where we finally finalized English classes to start on September 3rd.

Saturday we had the year mark celebration. There's another elder in my district, Elder Goates, who was in the MTC with me. So it was both of our year marks. And it was one of the sister's 6 month marks. So we all went to Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch. It was awesome. There is nothing like a party at Buffalo Wild Wings. The day continued when we had a meeting with the ward mission leader and he randomly decided to bring us a pizza for dinner. Such a great day.

So things are going well. Not immediately better, but definitely looking up. And what more can I really ask for?

Love,
Elder Erickson