July 1, 2015 First Week Down 95ish to Go!

Hey Family how's it going? 

Thanks for the emails, I love reading them.

There are some weird rules with IPads. We're allowed to read emails whenever, but only allowed to respond to non members when it's not Pday.

So the craziest thing about my first week is that Elder Gallego is one of my Zone Leaders. And he and his companion Elder Gagnon are our roommates. It's so weird and random, we have a moment that feels like we're breaking a rule or something when we get to hang out after
planning every night.

My area is 170th to 185th in Inwood, it's interesting because it's only a 1/3 of the Spanish ward we're in because there are 8 Spanish missionaries in our ward, 6 Elders and 2 Hermanas. We have this strip of shops and stuff called Little Dominica because it is so densely packed with Dominicans. I'm so happy I get to start here because since it's one of the Spanish areas in the mission, I still get to be immersed in the language while I'm learning. And I can feel my Spanish
improving.

So we had a baptism on Sunday, which is kind of funny because technically he counts as my baptism, but he had already learned everything and was committed before I got here, haha. His name is M---, and he's the first Baptism from our area in like 6 months. He's Mexican and speaks really fast, so I can't understand a word he says, but my Comp speaks super super good Spanish, so he can understand him.

We taught a lot last week, but it's really hard to get people to
commit to do anything here because they can be really flaky. So we only have 1 investigator that's really progressing and then a bunch that just like to hear what we have to say, but we're gonna try change that.

Turns out that Columbia is just a few blocks south of our area, so we're gonna try to meet with Abbie sometime.  Thanks for all the updates you sent us.  It's good to hear all that stuff from home.  I love you all so much!

Con Amor,

Elder Samuel McBride

We went to the the 911 memorial on my first Pday. It was a ton different than it was when we went last year. They've built a train station thing right next to it and that dinosaur looking thing is still under construction and is gonna be like a one of those huge covered walkways and shopping centers.