July 8, 2015 Crazy 2nd Week

I'm gonna start off with the baseball game last Friday. It's super rare for the whole mission to meet together because they treat this mission like 2 separate missions; upstate and city. Because if you're in the city and have a Metro card, it's really easy to get around in the city, but it's expensive and complicated to go places upstate.  When you're upstate you generally get a car so it's easy to move around upstate, but expensive and complicated to come to the city. So there are only 2 times a year where the whole mission meets together
and one of them is the Yankees game. It was pretty cool to see everyone, but Elder Buckley and I were exhausted because we had a packed schedule leading up to the game. Our seats were literally the highest seats you could get which was actually kinda cool because I got a sweet pic of the city looking through the fence that was right behind us, I'll try to send it to you but it's a struggle getting an
Internet connection that can send pictures well, so if not today I'll try to send some while I'm at the church tomorrow. We only got to stay till the 5th inning, so I had no clue the Yankees won until Saturday during correlation meeting at the church when I got dads email. Sounds like it would've been a pretty sweet game had I not been a missionary
haha.

So we're having some pretty sweet success in our area. The baptism we had last week was the first baptism our area has had in more than a year.  And since my Companion has been here, we've almost tripled the lessons taught. The people here are sweet, we get let in a lot while tracting
and set up return appointments, but they "juke" the return appts. a lot haha. Sunday was awesome.  The guy that got baptized last week got confirmed, we had an "eternigator" come to church with his wife finally, and later that night we set 2 bap dates with a teenager and his sister in-law.

I'm sweating so much. It never feels 'hot' but sometimes I feel like I'm sitting in a bathroom with the shower running turned all the way hot. Elder Buckley says that he was the same way when he came out and eventually you just start sweating less and less, so... Fingers crossed. Other than that nothing's really bothering me. Spanish is coming little by little, I'm not losing weight because if you're in the city the members don't feed you a whole lot so you get a few extra
dollars every month and buy all your own food.  My companion, Elder Buckley, is awesome.  I get to hang out with Elder Gallego every day, which is awesome, but still feels weird, and probably best of all we're having real success in an area that hasn't really seen any for awhile.

Thanks a ton for the package! I just got it yesterday because
sometimes it takes a bit for the Office Elders to bring the mail down to the city. We had to come in before 8 on 4th of July which was nice because we had some extra time to relax but was a bummer because it was some prime time to meet with some people that are tough to get ahold of. We just hung out in our apartment and talked about deep doctrine haha.

We get to go upstate on Friday to a new Missionary meeting, so luckily I'll get to spend some extra time with the new Pres. I'm excited because last time I was up there I was so distracted by the "holy cow I'm on a mission" feeling that I didn't really take in how awesome upstate NY is. We're taking a train up there, too, which is way better than the mission van that I got driven down in.

I love you all so much, I'm gonna try to send some pictures and I'm gonna send another email with some comments about your Abraham observations, Mom.

Con Amor,
Elder Sam McBride

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir sings the National Anthem at Yankee Stadium.
The entire mission got to go.

The view behind the stadium.