July 24, 1996
Wow, P-Day. We went to Jamaica to see Alisia. She is so cool, oh ya. It made me very happy to see her and her son Ricardo. I gave them little CTR Rings in Spanish HLJ and they loved them. Then we went to the library and got on the net and took a surf. It was pretty cool. We looked for guitar tabs. We found the tabs to every song ever made, literally every song all free. {…] We got to the church and the church was locked so we climbed the fence and found a door open. We got 2 ladders, 1 on each side of the fence so the sisters could climb over. […]
Did you know there are fireflies here? They tripped me out. I thought I was having a flashback. All these little lights zipping around and disappearing. Wow. Trippy little things. I saw a little boy with his arm stuck out and one on his arm then it flew away and its little light came on. The little boy thought it was cool. I like them.
July 26, 1996 (Friday)
Wow, 1 year has gone by.[…] We had a cool zone mgt in Bushwick today. The leaders dressed up like prophets and taught us. It was so cool.[…] The mission is at 185 baptisms and 226 is the record. It’s going to get smashed. Bushwick zone the record is 39, they have 36 already and will blow the old record out of the water. […] Then there is my area. We are at Zero 0. Oh well. I tried. I did my best to help the Lord and let him lead us. Just praying we’ll baptize at least 4.
July 27, 1996 (Saturday)
Wow, I was up all night last night puking and diarrhea. It was bad. I only got like 1 hour of sleep. It went on all night so I stayed home.[…]
July 28, 1996
What a day. We took a lady to church today who was way cool. After sacrament, we threw her into a baptismal interview and she had only 1 ½ charlas so we hadn’t gone over the commitments with her and we found out she wasn’t married. Who is? We went thinking we were going to baptize her but no. After the end of our meeting, we tried to get other families there, one sent her little girl down to tell us she wasn’t home so we sat down on the stoop. A minute later I heard voices and her husband came around the corner. I jumped up and ran over and said “Hay, what’s up?” It was her. She was a little shocked. At that, I was like change your clothes, come to the church with us, then a lot more lies came out of her mouth. We worked her but she wouldn’t budge so she’s at home. I don’t care. It was about the same with the other lady. We’ve tried all month and gotten so many people close to baptism and they fall right through. Slips through the cracks. […]
July 29, 1996 (Monday)
I have felt a lot of pressure to baptize and if I don’t by Wed an AP is coming on a split with me. Heaven knows I’ve tried. I’ve done all I could.
July 30, 1996 (Tuesday)
Wow, we got ready to leave and left this morning going to a street meeting. As we walked down the road not more than two streets from our house a drunk man stopped us. We had passed him and he said “Hay you!” We went back and he said, “Hay, you talk about God, ya?” We said, “Yep.” He acted a little weird and denied the first time he was drunk and I would have left but he said, “Come to my house and talk to me about God.” I thought wow, street meeting or give him a few minutes? So we went with him to his house. I know he was plastered beyond belief. He had a wife and 2 kids. He rules over them with an iron fist. I boldly started with God, Jesus is Christ, and we can follow Jesus Christ by being baptized. Will you follow Jesus Christ by being baptized, he said yes. I asked his wife. She said yes. So I said, there are things you need for baptism, faith, repentance, then I gave them the big stuff. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Then the word of wisdom. He spilled it after that. I drink. It’s going to be hard to quit. I told him if you quit in 7 days we’ll baptize you next Tuesday. OK. He said OK. Then I looked at his wife. Do you follow these? She said yes. Then will you get baptized now? The spirit was so strong. She said, yes. So, we got in the car and went to the church. The ZL’s met us there and they interviewed her. I had only known the lady for 1 ½ hours and she was baptized. (Acts 2) Before the Holy Ghost, [Elder] gets up and tells her about it in the Book of Mormon saying, “They probably talked to you about…” I immediately thought, oops. Actually, I thought they did that in the interview. After the scripture about the Holy Ghost, he asked her if she had any questions. She said, yes. Then she told us a long story about her previous experience with Mormon’s. She had met the sisters once before and she was not pleased. She has a very strong belief in God and Jesus Christ. She always follows the Holy Ghost that’s why she got baptized. She felt the spirit so strong, she couldn’t resist. When the sisters came over they didn’t even talk about God or Jesus Christ. I guess they only talked about Mormon. So I guess God was kinda slapping her around because showing her it’s not about Mormon. She was baptized and hadn’t heard the word Mormon out of our mouths. It’s not Mormon’s church. It’s not mine. It’s Jesus Christ’s. And he knows who he wants in his church. Her. It’s like wow, I’m a Mormon now. She always follows the spirit and sure did today. […]
July 31, 1996
One year after I started on my mission, this month, we baptized 305. We were a part of it. We weren’t afraid to baptize. We worked all day today slaving trying to find someone to baptize and then tonight we were walking, my companion’s morale was low, but I had faith I would keep pushing for it until 9:30 PM. At about 9:05 PM we were walking under the train on Roosevelt and I saw out of the corner of my eye someone came out of a Bodega then go into a door right next to it. I stopped and went back. I called for the person as they were about to close the door and they came out. It was a young man 19 years old named Tony from Pueblo Mexico. I asked him to take his food up first, put his milk in the fridge then come back and talk to us. So he did. He believed in God and Jesus Christ so I told him about baptism and asked him to follow. He said yes but had a little concern. OK, you need faith and repentance. He had another question. Don’t I need to read the bible? Ya I replied. Then I added; by the way, there is another book called the Book of Mormon. But what if I do something wrong? That is what the Holy Ghost is for. Will you follow? I don’t have enough faith. (Ester 12:6) He was toast. We called a cab. He was going down. We knew this person less than the person yesterday (time-wise) but we made sure this time we talked about the Book of Mormon. There were 4 people with him being baptized. It was awesome so spiritual. He loved it. He felt the spirit so strong. Yes. I love it. He was so happy. When we got home we found out the mission had baptized 305. On Sunday, the Mission only had 256. In 3 days almost 50 people were baptized. Wow, 6:30 Am here we come.
We ended up at 306 for the month.
NOTE: I’m going to need to explain a few things.
1 – I had a guitar on my mission, I purchased it from another missionary. There were so many opportunities to play it. Having that instrument. It may not have been 100% right, but getting some free guitar tab off the internet was a great way to learn some songs and further develop my skills. I have many fond memories around the guitar on my mission. On top of that, the first church song I ever wrote called “Open Your Heart” was written while serving in East New York towards the end of my mission.
2 – The number of baptisms. Well, these are some pretty blunt statements and experiences concerning the number of baptisms. I remember being given a tie that all the missionaries in the mission were going to wear until we hit 300 baptisms. This took a full year of my mission. I wore that tie faithfully for a year until we hit that goal. These goals and contributing to them were a big deal for me on my mission. It may not be looked at by others as correct, but they were truly a huge part of my mission experience.
3 – That Bushwick record. A few months before the end of my mission my zone baptized 44 in a single month, in East New York. I believe it was the 2nd highest in the mission history.
4 – Baptizing people the day you met them. I must say I did that a few times. Was it right or wrong? Either way, it is sure to stir up some controversy. Were they prepared enough? What was your retention rate? At this point in my life, I can’t change the past. I strove my whole mission to be challenging and testifying. I was taught and I desired to baptize everyone. If they said they were ready and willing, we baptized them.
5 – Today I probably would have written these experiences out differently. But, I left them in their original structure with only minor embellishments in the translation process so it made sense.