March 10, 1996 (Sunday)
Boy, what happened yesterday? It sure went by fast. We didn’t even come home all day that was a bonus. We went out and looked for somebody we could baptize that day and found a man. He lived in the sister’s area but we took him to the church and taught him. I was so impressed with my comp. I taught the man about God and Jesus Christ, then my comp told him God calls prophets. Then we committed him to be baptized. Crazy. He wasn’t messing around.
To make a long story short, he didn’t commit. My comp was giving the last prayer and the man was doing the praises to Jesus thing. So, my comp would pause. Then when he paused once the man took right over and went on praying forever. I was thinking he was going to start doing the dead fish flop. But, he didn’t.
I forgot to say we got to the church and got in the elevator and it got stuck. And we were stuck inside, it was crazy. We couldn’t get out. But finally, we got the door open thank goodness.
So we went out this evening things just aren’t good with the Cruz family. We went out and looked up a referral I had. It turns out to be a guy who had been to the church many times before and was going to get baptized but didn’t. So we flipped him through all six discussions and he already knew it all he was so prepared. He has a testimony. I feel the spirit on it, but for some reason, I feel his story is a little more than he is has told us. That someone offended him by wanting him to take off a lot of days of work a week and not just Sunday. I almost feel he was a member before. So we committed him for the next day, tomorrow. We must call him in the morning to see if his wife will let him. We don’t know if he’s going to talk to her overnight. What a blessing you never know what heavenly father is going to give you. It sure wasn’t me. If my comp wouldn’t have been inspired to send me across the street to fearless by myself we would have never found him. Oh well. I’m glad we did. Oh yes.
March 11, 1996 (Monday)
Well, transfer calls came and I have no response. Crazy that you never know what to expect. Well, I am staying and Elder Isakson is going to be my comp again (We were comps a few months ago in Patchogue). I like him, he’s cool. I do like that it is a new experience we are having two elders who are going to move in also, I guess they are dying (going home soon).
March 13, 1996 (Wednesday)
Wow, Isakson is really cool. We have lots of fun and we try extra hard to be obedient. I guess I felt like a slacker after coming from Patchogue where we did our best to be very obedient.
March 16, 1996 (Saturday)
Elder Isackson and I are trying to do our best but boy is it difficult. I know Heavenly Father is helping but we just don’t see any baptisms. We have a bunch of people who are prepared, and we’ve been fearlessing trying to find someone to share this message with While on the street the other day I fearlessed a drunk man and he was hostile and was saying his arm hurt and then swung at my comp with a lot of force but my comp saw it coming and stepped back at the exact moment weird situation. Turns out a couple of undercover cops were behind us watching and my comp went up to their car and the guy got pissed that someone would interrupt as he was trying to go get money from us so he went up to the car and we left. It was all weird.
I did have the opportunity to call and talk to Gisella in Long Island, she’s doing so good. She’s so awesome she’s got her interests sparked and wants to go to the temple. Cool. When I heard it made me so happy.
March 17, 1996
You know it seems the times I don’t want to do something is the time I most need to. Last night we were about to give up and my comp goes, let’s go by Leslie’s one more time and I’m like NO. We’d been there 4 times that day I didn’t want to go back. I can’t. We’ve been by too many times today. But then I thought, OK. We must. So we did and got to teach them. Their dad is weird. I thought he was way cool at first but he turned out not to be. Leslie’s still cool. I think. We’ll see what happens. The moral when you don’t feel like it, or think you shouldn’t is probably the most important time too.
I need insoles for my shoes because my feet are starting to hurt from walking all over. My only good pair of shoes are trashed. My other pair are splitting and pinching my toes so I don’t wear them anymore. I guess they wouldn’t pinch my toes if I didn’t smash down the toes of them when it was raining. That’s what causes the leather to split.
My thoughts:
I’m trying to remember a lot about this area. I would likely need to pull out photos at this point. I remember nice small homes. Middle class neighborhoods. I remember this guru area that apparently, I didn’t write much about. They would have weekly meditation in this park. I think back on the areas and realize there was so much about the sites, sounds, smells, unique people and more that I just never wrote down.