Newburgh es dulce!

Hello!

This week was a great week!  Newburgh is sweet!  I feel like it's a weird combination of the Bronx and Cache Valley in a North Georgia setting, if you can even imagine that.  I thought I was coming upstate to a calm place, but come to find out the actual city of Newburgh is the only place in the mission where sisters aren't allowed!  That's probably not something I should send home, but after surviving Harlem and South Bronx, I'm feeling a-okay.  The work is definitely different, but I'm getting used to it.  Being the only missionaries in the branch is almost overwhelming because there is so much that we can do and so many people that we can visit.  People working all the time kind of hinders our ability to work with so many people, but as we get to know more people, we'll find out who we can visit in the afternoons and such.

Anyways, I'll tell you a little about each day:

Wednesday- On the way home from transfers (that long adventure), we had a Wendy's.  Elder Lewis got food poisoning from the so that knocked him out for the night.  We got some groceries, but he was throwing up on the way home, so we didn't visit anybody.  I took some time to settle in.

Thursday- Elder Lewis was still not feeling so hot, so we stayed in.  I unpacked everything (which took like two weeks in my last area), organized everything and just did some good reading.  I checked out the area book and tried to get to know people through the area book.  We did a little weekly planning when he was feeling better, but other than that, we didn't do much.

Friday- We took it easy for the first part of the day, finished weekly planning, then we went out to Newburgh (we cover a massive area- half of Orange County, and even then the other half isn't covered by Spanish missionaries, so we might venture over there every once in a while.  Anyways, Newburgh is where most people with whom we work are in Newburgh, so that's where we spent most of our time).  We mostly tried to drop by a bunch of people's homes but we only got in with a couple people.  We then went and visited Paul, a guy from the English ward.  He's great!  A little crazy, but super likable.  We go over to his place every once and awhile because he likes the missionaries and is just a great, serving guy.

Saturday-  We tried dropping by a couple people's houses and we got a couple of lessons in.  We then went to a graduation party for a member of our ward and then a birthday party of the child of a less active.  The party was great because it brought together like forty less actives/people in part member families, all part of the same extended family, so we're going to work with them a lot.  It was also great because it was a Mexican party (una pachanga), so they had great food and a pinata!  So yep, Saturday was great because I met a ton of people.

Sunday- We have church at 11:00, which is perfect.  Church went well- we had a family show up that are not members.  They were referred and brought to us by a lawyer who is from New Jersey and working with them.  We're going to go see them tonight!  After church, we had tithing, after which we went and visited a couple of members.

Monday- Our branch president invited us over for breakfast, so we went to that before studies.  We had district meeting, and then after already having planned things out, we were told not to go into Newburgh because there were some protests or something going on dealing with the Treyvon Martin court case, and two white guys going into that probably wouldn't turn out well.  All of our plans and back up plans were in Newburgh, so instead we went out and bought a couple maps and things to make a map of our area with people with whom we work.  I think since working at Domino's I've liked working with maps, so in my other areas, we've always used a map to plan and figure out what to do.  We worked on that and then we tried stopping by some people, but to no avail.  We ended up going over to Paul's house again, so that was good.

Tuesday- After studies, we went and did some yard work for a lady in our branch.  We then came back and took it easy for a bit because I was feeling some symptoms of heat exhaustion.  We went on splits with the guys in the Galo family, a good family who has a son that'll be heading out to BYU soon, so I went and taught a couple people with the son while Elder Lewis went with the dad and the other son.  That was sweet because in two hours we got four lessons with members.

Today has been good.  We're about to go play basketball in Middletown with other people from our zone.  It's like a thirty minute drive, but it'll be fun seeing other people.  Later tonight we've got some lessons to teach, and that's about it.

I'm loving this area and Elder Lewis is great!  This cycle is going to fly by and then I'm probably going to get shipped away just because I'm loving it here.  But if that's the case, I'll be grateful for what time I did get to spend here!

Thanks for the support- I hope everyone is doing well!  I hope you guys have a great week!

~Elder Griffiths