Sometimes, I feel as though I need to explain myself at times. My mission was crazy. In New York City you are exposed to everything you can imagine. There really isn’t any way around it. And the missionaries trudge along doing their job with intensity. At times things may have gone slightly off the rails, but we worked hard, really hard. Baptisms, we baptized a lot. I remember my mission president once telling us that he had come to the mission prepared with a direction and programs to implement. But the Spirit told him that if the church was going to grow in the New York New York South mission, we needed to baptize everyone. So we did. He taught us and encouraged us to baptize everyone. Then he put the churches close to the people, in their own neighborhoods. It truly was the most amazing mission, and the most amazing mission president. I have nothing but the utmost respect and love for President Bailey.
I was continually vexed by my past while on my mission I often struggled with thoughts of my past taking root in my mind. Even to this day, they linger. I fight like hell to release them and dwell upon holier things. I have always felt it would have been better to have never done those things.
I saw lots of fights on my mission. Everything from two people duking it out to rumbles with 50 people fighting. The worst was domestic violence. I saw women and children beaten by who should be loved ones. In some ways, I am ashamed to say I was never had the courage to intervene.
Every once in a while you would find drugs on the street. I found a few dime bags of marijuana. The baggies were always imprinted with different designs. Other times it was crack vials. I remember once walking on a street where there were almost more crack vials visible on the sidewalk than concrete. It was just a weird place to be.
From my past, I knew a life that most people would never personally experience. I felt living in New York City had a lot of similarities, I also lived a life in a place, that most people would never personally experience. It was crazy on another level.
March 22, 1997 Saturday
We went to the dentist for me today. It was cool I didn’t get a root canal. No, I’m OK. I just got a patch put over my tooth. And we’re hoping it will work good until I get home. But, the lady coming to church with us on Sunday is awesome. We found her finding Monday morning. Cool huh? Her and her 3 kids are all baptizable.
March 23, 1997 Sunday
How depressing that I had 6 people at church and we had no baptisms. […] 6 people and no baptisms […]. Augh. I’m crushed. Well that kinda depressed me but we’ll just have to have a big mind-week. 6 baptisms ya, tu sabes.
March 24, 1997, Monday
We had surprise interviews with President Bailey today. Wow, I went in and for the first time, he prayed for me. I was amazed at the words he said. He said how they were pleased with my stability, strength, and dependability. He said if I didn’t turn my thoughts away from my past and never look back, I would be turned into a pillar of salt. […] [He asked me.] Do you know how much you’ve changed or gown? I said ya. He said, no. Do you really know? Because you have. […]
March 25, 1997, Tuesday
Well, we tried hard to baptize today. We started the day with a little Zone meeting then I left and had a very crappy day. The kind you cry about.
March 26, 1997 Wedensday
Today was a Manhatten Trip. I went to the Fashion Cafe […], China Town to buy sunglasses. That was it. Oh no. We went to a Virtual Reality place too. […] I played virtual Pac-man and won. They hooked me up. I also hear I’m gonna be comps with [Elder]. I’ve kinda thought I would for a while. We’ll be stacked here. Me, [Elder], [Elder] as ZL’s. […] Us 3 have 17 of our zones 22 baptisms. […] We went to see Clara. […] She cooked for us and a lot of the things we talked about were way cool. Except for the fact that she keeps saying she wants her daughter to marry a good guy like us. […]
March 27, 1997, Thursday
To start off, we walked down the street and in 10 minutes found 3 people. […] Then we had 3 English people fearless us. Interesting. We went to teach a referral from New Jersey a girl who was waiting for her uncle to baptize her there. Bad, move New Jersey. […] She was balling as I talked to her and then we just did it. On the bus was the filthiest-mouthed girl I’ve ever heard talking about trash and sex. Oh well, after the baptism we saw some guy beating his wife. I didn’t do anything about it. […] If I tell you the truth, I was scared. […] Then we saw a lady who got her kid kidnapped and we went and looked and nothing. We couldn’t find him. She was horrified. […] it was like 70 degrees today. Everyone was out. I didn’t wear a jacket all day. […] Down in the dead zone on a dark hot night. Bad. [I was told by someone tonight] “You‘s in a pretty bad neighborhood after dark white n***a.”
March 28, 1997, Friday
Nice and warm. 2 days without jackets. […] We found a [dime bag] of marijuana. 2nd time. […].