Merry Christmas

Christmas Devotional

First of all MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

For some reason this week has been really warm and humid, like 60 or
65 degrees. it's been weird, we have been sweating like crazy and it's
almost Christmas, and right now the temperature for tomorrow is saying
that it's suppose to be 71 which is super crazy because everybody has
told me that winters in New York are super cold but it's already the
end of December and it 65 haha. Anyway this is what happened this week

Thursday we had to go down to Manhattan because Elder Wilson has to go
to the doctors every 3 months and so this was the month for him to go.
We got to the train station and these 2 guys started talking to us one
was pretty old and one was young, and one asked where we were from and
how everything was going, he seemed to know a lot about missionaries
and so we told him that we were doing good and we are just going to
Manhattan, we got on the train and they both sat next to us and we had
a pretty interesting conversation, this old guy is like a host for
foreign people or anybody and he does this thing called couch surfing
and that is when anybody around the world can go on it and ask to stay
at his house anywhere in the world. And so he had this kid with him
and he was from Russia he came here like 5 days ago because he is gay
and apparently Russians don't like gays or something like that and so
he wants to get a citizenship here and this old guy is helping him to
get it, it actually worked out great because this old guy is also gay
and so he is letting his stay at his house with his husband,
personally I thought it was kinda weird and I felt creeped out to talk
to them but it was all good and they were actually really nice.

After the appointment we went down to Dairy Queen because Elder Wilson
had a gift card for it and it was delicious.

Friday we had a awesome Christmas devotional that was all made up and
run by the missionaries and they sang some awesome songs!! The main
person in charge of it was Eliza Smith she is a sister missionary here
and she was pretty much the one who put it all together and finalized
it and she is the Sister that is from Montana and is best friends with
Whitney. I talked to her for a little bit after because we got food
and she is pretty cool and also she is majored in opera and is super
good at singing.

There is a man in our area his name is Mr. President nobody actually
knows his real name but this past week we have been running into him a
lot, we saw him like 4 different times and this guy is CRAZY! He is so
crazy that I don't even know how to describe him but every time he
comes to church on Wednesday all the kids get scared of he because he
acts super weird. We saw him on the street and he came up to us and he
had a super fat lip and we asked what happened and he said that he was
peeing on the street in public and somebody told him to stop but he
didn't so they just punched him right in the face and ran away, I
kinda felt bad but then he wanted to punch us because he never got to
punch anybody after he got hit, likely the bus was coming and we left,
but this Sunday we were sitting in sacrament meeting and out of know
where he just shows up and just sits next to us and we didn't know
what to do with him so we let him sit down with us and after about 2
minutes he just stood up and started clapping as loud as he can and
started doing all these weird hand gestures and it totally ruined the
spirit but we were able to calm him down and like 5 minutes later he
wanted to go to the bathroom and so he left and the people behind us
were like you guys have to go with him before he breaks or does
something crazy, so we followed him and he came out of the bathroom
completely drenched from head to waste and he wanted to go back into
the chapel but we not unless he goes and dries himself off, so he
dried himself and we went back and after about 10 minutes he couldn't
take it and decided to leave so we had to escort him out to see if he
actually left, and so that was what I did in sacrament... babysat a
crazy guy.

Monday we had a awesome lesson with a sister of member her name is
Rocío, she didn't read or pray because she said she had a lot of work
(that's pretty much 95% of the people here) but the lesson was good
and I could feel the spirit and we had her brother testify as well,
most of he time she acts like she doesn't care but we could tell that
she really does and we can't wait to meet with her again.

Yesterday we had interviews with president and my interview was really
good, and I left the interview really surprised because how in tune
President Smith is with the spirit because he was just saying
everything that I needed to hear and before I thought he was just
kinda a robot but he was really personal and he knew me really well
even though I have been here for 4 month and he has like 170
missionaries to worry about. I'm really grateful that we have a
awesome Mission President!! Also yesterday we did this thing were like
6 or 8 missionaries go and set up a table on Fordham road (busiest
road in our area) and we just talk to people and show them the new
video and see if they would like to learn more, we didn't have a whole
lot of success mainly because nobody wanted to stop and talk or even
make eye contact but we got a few people who were interested.

Let's see what else oh ya I stepped in poo 3x yesterday it was awful.
Nobody cleans up after their dog here but what can you do it's the
Bronx.

Today we are going with Jay to Manhattan to see all the awesome
Christmas lights.

I hope everybody is having good holiday and Merry Christmas!

Elder Pugmire