I already sent a pretty detailed response to your questions today, so I think I'm just gonna tell a story. That's why I named this email what it is, I had a few of them this week this one was just the most ridiculous.
Tuesday's are long because we don't have anything but proselyting time and they're usually a bit slow. We usually have a lot of appointments but a bunch of them will fall through, so we spend a lot of time walking from place to place trying to find someone to teach on Tuesdays. Yesterday was exactly like this. We had a few appointments
either bail on us or just not be home when they told us to come by and hadn't answered their phones earlier. So we spent awhile just walking around and taught a couple lessons then we had a member, who we were supposed to teach later that night, text us and tell us that he's going to a birthday party for a 1 year old girl. We thought he was going to cancel on us so we were kind of bummed, but then he invited us to go with him. We were really confused, but accepted because we've been looking for an opportunity to meet an awesome family to teach, that has already been exposed to the church by a member. So we said we would and met up with the member and his friend, the dad of the niña, and went to this party. Turns out we underestimated this 1 year old girls birthday party, it was supposed to be in a park but it got rained out so there was like 50 people squeezed into this apartment, super loud music was playing, the all the adults were drinking except for us and the member we went with, and it was super hard to move around because of all the people. We didn't leave for a bit, even though we were super uncomfortable, because they were all being super nice, giving us food and cake, and we didn't want to leave our member there alone because we're pretty sure he didn't know anyone but the father of the girl who's birthday it was. We did do some missionary work though. We became friends with the dad of the girl, and we talked to the member about the new thing we're starting to do with our investigators and members that we teach, to try to help them keep the commitments that we extend and that they accept, where we challenge them to read the Book of Mormon every day and we promise to text them and remind them every day. He accepted the challenge. So yep, that's my story of going to a rager birthday party for a 1 year old girl as a missionary and still technically teaching a lesson (Principle taught, Commitment extended).
Not a ton of things to update on this week. We've been finding some people who might actually pan out recently, so fingers crossed they will open their doors and answer their phones again. It's weird hearing about Alex's mission. Here it's really easy to find people that are interested and will talk to you once or twice then tell you that they don't have time because they're always working. They have to because of how expensive it is to live here. In a family both parents almost always work, the kids are home alone if they aren't old enough to have a job when they're on breaks, and the only adults we ever meet that are home most of the time are old women who we aren't even allowed to teach because there's never a 3rd male home, so we keep the Sisters busy. We still have people who are interested and are trying hard though. And some of the members that we teach are awesome.
So things are going well here I love you and hope you have a great week. I'm gonna put a picture of one of the libraries at Columbia.
Love ya
Con Amor,
Elder Sam McBride
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| We went to Central Park to play frisbee a few weeks ago. From the right its the lady who took our picture's finger then, Elder Buckley (my companion) making a really funny face, then Elder Gore (one of the AP's), William (President's son), and Elder Reid (The other AP), Elder Gagnon in the back (Elder Gallego's comp/ZL), Sisters Hobbs and Thompson (English Sisters in our zone), me, Then Elder Gallego (ZL/Roommate/buddy from home). There are some sweet weird smiles in here because we could totally see the lady's finger on the lens. |
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| A Library on the campus of Columbia University |
Questions & Answers
1. What are your current addresses?
I'm not supposed to give it to you but the closest intersection to where I live is 187th & Fort Washington if you wanna street-view it or something haha.
Do you get mail at your apartments?
We're not allowed to
And do packages always need to go through the mission office?
Yep it's pretty annoying but way safer and less annoying because they either leave it at the door so it could get stolen and I wouldn't even know or you have to go pick it up at the nearest ups/fed ex/post office if you don't want them to just leave it.
2. How is the language coming along?
It's coming along my companion says I'm doing really well but it's kinda hard to judge how well I'm actually doing especially since I was the only person learning a language who came in when I did.
Do you have to use Spanish all the time, Sam?
Yep all the time, my zone is the most pure Spanish zone in the mission, and there's a chance my area is the most of the 3 areas, so yep I'm speaking Spanish a lot.
3. Where do you go to write letters?
I usually write my letters either on the subway or waiting for the subway. Sometimes after we're done with our chores I take like a half an hour to finish them up and then we either send them off in a Dunkin donuts, the church, or an A subway station because they have pretty good internet.
Can you print things or do you just read them?
I have my iPad so I don't really need to print but I probably could if I need to.
4. Do you need anything? How are your clothes holding up?
I'm doing pretty good. They're doing good one of the zippers on one of my pants has some
issues but it's not a big deal.
Your shoes?
My shoes are doing really good, the brown ones are fantastic to walk in, the black ones are good but not as nice to walk around all day as the brown ones.
Do your feet hurt?
Sometimes one day it rained super hard and I got a blister in between 2 of my toes but it healed up pretty quick.
5. Where are my pictures??? I need more pictures.
I took some pictures today I'll try to send them if I can get good enough internet but, where I am there's not a ton to take pictures of and even if there was we would still barely ever have time. I'll send you what I've got. I'll put a picture of When we went to Central Park with some people on this email for you and I'll try to send some more
when I send my bigger email.
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