Brief expressions of gratitude for John, Jeff, Scott, and Adam
Personal History
I’m going to categorize my life history here.
NYNYS Mission August 25 to September 1, 1996
Sex and Abortion are plagues in New York City. From the number of people who live out of wedlock, to the number who have illegitimate children, to those who have lots of illegitimate children with lots of different people, to those who abort all their pregnancies. I talked to so many women that had abortions. Most I dealt with were unable to get baptized. I haven’t gotten to it yet, but the worst I was saw was a mother and two daughters who we were going to baptize, then we found out that between the three of them, if I remember right, they had 20-30 abortions. It’s hard to imagine.
NYNYS Mission August 12-24, 1996
Well along with many blessings comes humbling. I have the runs again. I had them bad for 3 days now. We just finished eating at a member’s house and had to hurry to a baptism. We were walking towards his house, I was with [Elder], my comp was with [Elder] at his house. We were 3 blocks from his home and it hit me. I had to go like lightning. All there were were buildings and fences. I ran up to a house and beat on the door. They didn’t come so I ran up to the other, nothing. I couldn’t hold it any longer. I was humiliated. Well, life goes on. I just hope my accident doesn’t ruin me by becoming part of the grapevine [gossip]. So, I ran home so nobody would see and took a shower then we hurried to the church. The baptism was so cool.
My Tokyo Drift Moment
As I was driving home from work in a snowstorm last night. I found myself sliding sideway down the freeway in my car. I tried to steer into it. Then the car pivoted, and I tried to correct it the other direction. I saw the wall, a barrier that divide the north and southbound traffic racing towards me. By some miracle, as we slid toward the barrier, the car seemed to grab the snow and we were able to slow down and avoid a collision with the barrier. It was terrifying for a brief moment followed up by many sighs of relief.
NYNYS Mission August 6-11, 1996
We got a new correlator and I’m very excited to work with him. He really wants to baptize so that’s exciting. Calls came and my comp is off to Staten Island.
I guess there was a bomb up the street from our house last night. They had 2 ambulances a bomb squad and about 6-7 police cars. Crazy. Ya, we didn’t stick around they had about 2 blocks roped off so you couldn’t go in the blocked-off area.
NYNYS Mission July 24-31, 1996
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.
Sacrament Prayer
I had the rare experience of blessing the sacrament with the priests a few weeks back. They ask people to help occasionally when there are not enough priests present. Even then, there are so many active members I think it has been 10 years since I was involved with blessing the sacrament
By small and simple means
I was at work yesterday. My boss, Davis and I were talking to co-worker about a new position they were filling. David shared a quote from I had not hear before “Slow is Smooth and Smooth is Fast”. I understand the principle, but I really enjoyed how it explained it in terms of this individual learning their new position. As pondered it more, the phase resonated with many things I knew to be true.
NYNYS Mission July 19-23, 1996
At this time, I was in Sunnyside / Woodside Queens. I talk about the airplanes making their approach to LaGuardia over Queens. I mentioned the trains in Brooklyn. My first area in East New York, our chapel was an old gas station converted into the equivalent of a storefront church. The train would pass by and it would be so loud they would need to pause sacrament meeting. That on top of the adjustable microphone that made loud screeching noises each time it was adjusted or moved. And every person who talked needed to adjust the mic.
A Candle Dream
I was interviewing or had just started with a guy when he needed to step out for some reason. I stood and started walking looking around. I came across the weird candle. It was like a short tapered vase with lots of sticks coming out the top, then a big match head on top. It was almost like they took half a box of matches and combined them as one big match head. Stuffed them inside a funny shaped candle vase.