May 14, 1996
Nothing more counts than doing your best. What does it matter if someone is better? Will you become worse because you are focusing on them (something you are not) and not focusing on yourself (something you are)?
I am starting to respect my companion a lot. He’s actually a very good guy. He has a lot of excellent qualities. I am very much loving his companionship.
Wow, what a day today. It was the leaders meeting today. It was pretty good. Then went on splits again. Boy, there have been a lot of these lately It rained all day. I went with Elder Hoelzer (I think that is spelled right) my roomie. It was pretty cool. We had fun. We biked to an appointment next to JFK (airport), wow we got wet. Very wet. Then walked somewhere, then biked again. It was miserable the first part of the day. After a while, I was used to all the water in my face and my legs. It was actually very fun today. It was crazy we got to the second house and they juked us so we sat in the garage for one hour waiting for her to get back, but she never came, so we sat there cold. I shredded one of my cuffs on my pants and my chain jammed. The water is not going to help my athlete’s foot because my shoes were full of water all day.
Through it all, we taught 8 discussions today. It was a good day if we weren’t so busy having success I would say the day sucked. I taught an old man 2 discussions (Charlas) all by myself. It went good. Committed him for baptism too, and to go to church.
May 17, 1996
We played ball today with some local homeboys. They went off on my companion. “You play in the NBA?” “You played college ball?” all this, it was just funny. They were just little punks and funny ones too.
We saw a nice fight on our way home tonight. Two old men scrapping and a whole mess of kids cheering them on. The men fighting were probably 35-40 years old. The youth were yelling; Go Pops! Go, Gramps! It was a sorry sight. How do they live like this? The parents aren’t much of an example. It was in a part of town that police don’t really mess with.
May 19, 1996
First, we went out until about 12 noon. And ended up at the church for correlation We left the church on splits again, 3 days in 4 we’ve gone on splits… So I went with Elder Doyle. We walked around all day and found excellent people. It was such a blessing. We were walking through a black part of the area. I would just look at the houses and I would see some and say, that’s Spanish and it was.
It all came down to food. We were hungry, especially for Spanish food so we hunted and found some. We had to go do interviews for some other elders so we started off on the way we saw a member home and their kid was sitting his head out the window so we said hi. It was above a bodega. Next to my old house. Turns out it was a birthday party and the girl asked for a dinner instead of cake. Our lucky day! I ate so much food. Now that I think about it we were very blessed this day.
We did interviews until 11:00 PM I played ball with kids and played guitar, it took 4 hours so so long. Thank goodness we ate good. I got so bored. On our walk home, we got a few blocks from my house. We had a sleepover. A member saw us and gave us a ride home. Excellent. I wouldn’t argue.
You can tell summer’s coming. People are on the street, thousands everywhere. It feels good. I love this time of the year until it hits 100 degrees. Things are good. You got to love New York.
My comp was talking to a crack addict and he (the crack addict) goes “I’ve got some” and my companion goes “Let’s see it” so he pulls it out and shows us. My companion goes “Hay, comp! Look, crack!” I smiled that nice. Oh, how sad. How do you help? How do you help? This place went through a bad crack epidemic and it is still around. It’s worse in East New York.
May 20, 1996
Wow, what a day, it was 98 degrees outside but we were in a nice air-conditioned building all day thank goodness. It was zone conference today.
I feel like my fire coming back. I love it. I desire to work so hard. I have so much I can give. I do believe this is going to be a season of great blessings. My vision is coming back. It fell, but it is coming back. The Lord is going to bless us with mighty miracles.
May 23, 1996
On Sunday in the park, my companion started talking to a lady. My companion is really tall. This lady was sitting on a park bench and if she looked straight ahead, she would be looking at him ½ way up. He puts his foot up on the bench next and leaned on his knee while talking to her. I’m thinking, no don’t do it. Don’t do it. Then he goes to work scratching about at her eye level. One foot away from her face. I was so embarrassed, but it didn’t faze him a bit.
Yesterday we went out to Patchogue. Gisella took us up to Port Jefferson to eat. It was funny. She asked, you have a tee shirt underneath your shirt. You can take it off your shirt and tie. We kind of smiled, no it’s OK. We went to her house and ate pig. They killed and cooked the pig. And then fed it to us. Crazy. Last time I was there I was petting the pig. She tasted good.
PS, there was a standing ovation for a proud recipient of a baptism in Bushwick last night. New York, you’ve got to love it.
Then there was our confrontation with a Pentecostal today. She was calling us freaks, yelling it over and over. We’re like “what”? Her preacher teaches her we’re a cult and worship a blonde hair blue eye devil. We shot the bull for a minute then split.