his first email from NYC!

11-15-10

Hey family!

I'm finally in New York, the Big Apple!! I wrote a letter home last Monday, so I'll just start from there. Monday night we met Pres. Nelson and the AP's, had a delicious dinner and welcoming mtg. at the mission home somewhere in Suffolk I think, it is a colonial style house/cottage that reminds me of LaDawn and Danny's house in Maryland. All the stairs are super steep and narrow=)

Tues. we got to meet our trainers; I'm with Elder Kerby, from Mesa, AZ. He's super friendly and nice, likes outdoors stuff, camping, snow/wake boarding, and likes to work out, so that'll be good for me to actually do push-ups etc.. We had meetings at the chapel/mission office all day since it was a transfer day and leadership mtgs. Kerby is the district leader of our district, and Elder Jacob's (elder Patchett, the missionary from my district at the MTC that came to NY with me, Jacobs is his trainer) is another DL in our zone so Patchett and I were comps basically all Monday and Tues. We did a service project and went and picked up trash for a couple hours. One of the weirdest things about NYC is the litter. No one uses garbage cans, everyone just drops everything on the street; there is trash everywhere! Pretty disgusting, but just adds to the big city feel I guess. Then that night we got to our Pad (Apartment in New York), which is a tiny apt. above a member's home. It's fun, we have 3 bulbs, and half the lights don't work so we have to move the bulb into the kitchen when we want to cook or-- I just made my spaghetti one night in the dark. The shower has never gotten above ‘luke-cold’---almost to being luke-warm, but not quite, but that's after you let it run for 20 mins. which seems like a waste of water to me so I just usually take cold showers, but Elder Craword likes to wait. We share our pad with Elder Crawford who's training Elder Cortez, who already speaks Spanish since his parents are Salvadorian so he was only in the MTC for 3 weeks. Its fun living together and getting to know them better, but apparently we're moving soon.

The field! Everyone here is either black, or Hispanic. We're literally the only white people. I could count the number of Caucasians I see every day on one hand, so it's fun. We're in the E. New York zone, also called the Man Zone because no sister missionaries are allowed in our Zone, it's too dangerous which is always comforting=). I ride the subway everywhere. I have a nice little metro card for unlimited use and we use it to get everywhere. All the Hispanics are pretty much from Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico (is that where Esther went and LeGrand went to Costa Rica?) also some Mexicans. So far I’ve been fine with the language and the food, my 2 biggest concerns coming here. I can't speak amazingly well at all, but I usually can convey what I want to say, especially when teaching since that's what 90% of my vocab is, --gospel related terms, but I’m excited to learn! I can mostly understand people too, they talk ridiculously fast, and for some reason DR's (Dominicanos) don't pronounce the letter S ever so that throws me off, but I’m getting the hang of it! We're what's called being ‘blinded in’, neither Elder Kerby or I(obviously) have ever been in this area, the pool (teaching pool) is pretty dead in that there is no progressive investigator, so we've just been doing a lot of finding! ‘Fearlessing’ people in the streets, subway, busses, or knocking doors, so I've walked miles and miles, up and down these crazy crowded little streets. All the cars and stores have music blaring, and everyone shouts at each other across the street, out of windows, houses, cars, so it's pretty loud, and then added to the noise is the metro which, in my area is mostly above the street. It screeches really loud and shakes the street. But it's been great!

I love the culture here, getting to know so many diverse people from Sri Lanka, Jamaica, or any other country you can think of, its fun! Teaching is also great, sharing our message of Christ and being bold. It is pretty awesome and I’m excited to get better at it! Hopefully we'll be able to get people to start progressing! Awww, I have so much more to say about the branch here, our investigators, but we gotta go! I'll write a letter if I get time! I love you all! The gospel is true, remember to talk to everyone and always be a missionary.

Love,

Elder Lewis