October 29, 1996 (Tuesday)
What a day we had so much success today. […] We taught a bunch of discussions. The people were a little stubborn and so you never know. Well, we had transfer calls come tonight. I’m staying with [Elder] but we’re having a lot of cool people move in; [Elder, Elder, and Elder] Wow, it’s going to be a crazy month. I’m very excited. We’re gonna have a lot of fun and a lot of success. […]
October 30, 1996 (Wednesday)
Wow, on the train today I saw a girl with the back of her neck pierced. A bar with two balls like 1 ½” apart. Crazy. I’ve never seen that before.
Then there was another train experience. A man in ragged clothes came on the train. He walked around telling us he saw the other side and he wanted people to give him money for an experiment called “Utopia.” He said he went back 15 million years and found the cure for cancer and he was in Ulysses S Grant’s grave and a lot of other jacked-up stuff. He talked about how strong his spiritual powers were and everyone started laughing at him. But even more, when he asked for money, he wanted no less than $1 bills, bills only, no change. Boy, they really ridiculed him.
I talked to President Bailey and he told me thanks for doing a good job helping the greenies. That was cool. […]
October 31, 1996
It was a good day. Lots of cool stuff happened. Oh ya, and also we had fun. We worked hard until nightfall and then at night, wow, wow… It was weird, everyone always trick-or-treats all the stores. I guess it is because they are safe and the houses [neighborhoods] are not. So, down on 5th Avenue, wow, hundreds and thousands of kids and parents were everywhere trick-or-treating. And hundreds of kids with eggs all over right in front of everyone throwing them everywhere. It was like a battle zone, with eggs flying everywhere, nuts. Some elders came from East New York tonight and they said it was like a war out. The cops wouldn’t let them go on the street (leave the subway station). Nuts, we were walking down the road and [Elder] said stop. Just then like 6 or 7 eggs come flying across the road and splat, splat on some man cleaning off a window. That was close, we only had those thrown at us and a few others, but we were protected.
So, last night we had few people in the zone over. That was nice. We drank maltas and played guitar and stuff. That was nice. But then it got late and we got crazy. Then they started a new game of 20 questions (Anything goes) I couldn’t do it. They tried hard to get me to stay and play. There is no way I couldn’t say all those things they were all curious about me. […] I didn’t give in and Ieft and went and played guitar then fell asleep. Then in the morning, they said oh it was probably good you didn’t play. Ya, I think so.
NOTE: That game was the perfect example of young missionaries being misguided. Being up too late. Doing things they probably shouldn’t be doing. I’m going to leave that right there.
As for Malta, it’s a drink that was popular when I was out in New York. There is Malta Goya and Malta India. I preferred Malta India. I also preferred it slightly slushy by putting it in the freezer for a while. Don’t leave it in the freezer too long or you will have a huge mess to clean up.