Monday (July 1, 1996)
Calls came and I got called back to the English program. Shocked. But they called back later and told me I was moving to the same area (Woodside / Sunnyside, Queens) Spanish speaking with [Elder] The excitement to leave was so great. I couldn’t sleep and I was awake pacing around and around.
July 4, 1996 (Thursday)
Was cool we went right to work. First, we had a street meeting in Long Island City, and it was cool. Some Jehovah’s Witnesses came up and asked me, “So what do you guys tell people?” and I told them that “God called a prophet in this day, his church is on the earth today, he has a living prophet, and he has commanded us to go and command all people to repent and be baptized into his church.” They asked, ‘Oh, which church is his church?” I said, “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” […] Then I said I’m sorry, I’m busy ladies. They tried to stop me by saying, “Oh, but the bible says…” but I was out of there. […]
July 6, 1996 (Saturday)
[…] We finally taught our first discussion together. Walking down the road we saw a woman and a voice said fearless her. […] I did, and we did teach her in front of her home. It was cool and I liked the lady. We had a street meeting in our area. I did the box the whole time and it was cool. I got a fearless and talked to some cool people. One older lady who was a Muslim and loved the Mormons. She was cool. We talked for a few then she left a little while later. Another lady started talking to me. […] She was so nice but then while I was talking to her the other lady, the Muslim lady came back and gave me a drink, a Snapple (Pink Lemonade). I told her thank you. Both of them were so worried about me being healthy. […]
We met a young lady named Bridgit today. She was so cool. I thought to myself, why is she so happy? I don’t know but she really had a true sense of happiness with her. She was strapped in a wheelchair and her hands didn’t work. How could you miss the buckle that held her in? Or the wound on her chest from the problems she had to suffer through. But she was so happy. You could see it radiating off of her. […]
July 7, 1996
Wow, we had appointments all day today. They all juked us. Ouch. We had nothing going on. But we were trying to get people to church. It was hard. We tried and tried, but nothing. We were so desperate we were trying to drag people off the street to the church. Nothing. We taught 2 discussions in the street. I haven’t taught in a house here yet. […]
July 8, 1996
This is the day I wanted to talk about. We had a 10:00 appointment. It’s when we got there the building didn’t exist. We’re like, OK. There was no one on the street but an old white lady and then the other way about 10 feet away a Spanish man sitting on his porch. So, I said, let’s go teach him comp. OK. So we did. He was way cool and committed to be baptized. After him, we had nothing, so we just walked, next thing you know we started walking towards Manhattan. We usually stay in a little, box of our area, 40-50 street, 40 to 50 Ave, we walked to 21st street. We stopped and asked an old lady if Spanish people lived around there. She said actually everyone’s gay that lived around here. She says, oh, but they’re such nice people and so clean compared to the Spanish then she ripped on Spanish people for a while. She was clearly not a nice woman. She pointed out all the houses they lived in and then said oh, ya, they live there where I used to live. It’s all of them pointing to a big building. We finished talking to her and I didn’t feel anything about the houses, so we started to walk away, and I saw a Spanish man going into the building the lady used to live in. So, I ran over as he was going up the stairs. Behind him playing was his little girl. She was the most adorable thing I have ever seen. Then I fearlessed him and he was so cool. So we taught him and his wife . She was even cooler. But this is the thing that got me. The little girl would growl like a tiger. […] Latter that same day we had a cita (appointment) with a lady named Grandelya we fealressed and she was so cool. I was so excited to go and see her. But we were 10 minutes early and her brother said she won’t be back for half an hour so we left. And I felt there was someone prepared nearby. We tried a house or two then I felt we should go down along the freeway (it was at the end of the block) Down there we talked past a house with an old man and he had a dog just like Maximilius (Dalmatian) I had to stop and pet it. It was so cute. Walking along the freeway a car honked that was my inspiration to take the next street we turned the corner and I turned to my comp and said, there is someone prepared here. It’s either this house on the corner 50-69 or the house with the red-head sitting on the porch. Choose. He chose the red-head . Wow was she prepared. It was so cool. I’m excited she needed us. So after we went back to the other lady’s home a little more than half an hour later. Wow, she was better than I thought. She said, “we felt there’s something that we are missing” “We feel there’s greater happiness out there and you can help us find it.” Needless to say I came home whooped after this day, oh ya. So many times we got blessed in just one day wow. I love it. […]
July 11, 1996 (Thursday)
[…] We went to one and it was a false address. The guy who was there didn’t want to talk to us so I started going off on baptism. How we need to be baptized like Jesus was baptized, then I asked him if he was, and he said no. Then he let us in to teach him. He still sucked though. Then more citas junked then the two I was waiting for at the end of the night weren’t home, Guadelupe and Wanda. So, we kept coming back finally caught Guadelupe at 8:30 we were supposed to see her at like 7:30. But we had someone we had to go see and so we said we would be back around 9:30 PM so after walking all the way across town to no avail, we got to her house and taught her. […]
July 14, 1996
I’ve never worked harder in my life as I have here this day. I couldn’t even walk when I got home all in the name of trying to get someone to church. So they could get baptized. Pretty cool huh? We were all over the world and creation and nothing we went to church one hour late and left one hour early.