Picking up where I left off…
I had been at Temple Square in Salt Lake City for about nine months when I received notice that they were sending us away for a while. Since Temple Square isn’t a typical proselytizing mission (going door to door), they wanted us to have the experiences that other missionaries have. To do this, they would send the Temple Square missionaries out for four months to different parts of the United States. But after arriving in SLC, I was told that this was no longer the case. I remember being so disappointed because I wanted to see how the other missionaries lived, but I accepted the change in plans and threw myself into the work.
You can imagine how shocked I was to one day find out that not only would we be going after all, but that we would be leaving within a matter of weeks. I was so excited – I had no idea where I was headed but knew that I would go wherever they sent me and that I would do my best.
A short while later, and I was here:
Well, not downtown Manhattan exactly. I actually ended up in the New York, New York South Mission
which included Queens, Brooklyn, Long Island, & Staten Island.
My first area (out of the two in which I stayed) was in a little town called Bayside, Queens.
Our apartment was not the most elegant of places but it served its purpose and we really didn’t spend a lot of time there anyway so it didn’t matter. (Perhaps that’s why we didn’t keep it very clean?)
This was me on my first day in New York. Can you see the look of fear on my face? I was trying to be strong and brave but I have to admit that, although excited, I was definitely out of my comfort zone.
But I had great roommates and a really cool “companion” (what we called our partner or the person that we did missionary work with).
We drove around in a little green station wagon that we called the “Mint Chip.”
Our area was pretty wide spread and we got to see such things as the site of the 1964 Worlds Fair in Flushing, Queens,
as well as the infamous Coney Island Beach in Brooklyn.
We didn’t always drive, though, sometimes we rode the subway like the time we visited NewKirk, Brooklyn.
And we taught adorable families who were from places like Trinidad.
On Sundays we went to church in cool buildings like the one here in Little Neck, Queens.
We even got to visit the coast when we taught a guy who lived on a houseboat in the seaside town of North Hempstead.
It wasn’t all work though, we got to play sometimes too. We were able to make a couple of visits down to the big city, which was very exciting for a Southern girl like me.
We visited Times Square,
the Empire State Building,
and the 40th floor of the Marriott Building.
(No, it’s not a tourist site, we just wanted to ride the glass elevator. Not the best idea for someone who’s afraid of heights)
These trips downtown were fun, especially since the rest of our time was spent working so hard.
I have to say that loved my first area and the two months that I spent there. I loved being in a location that was completely different from anything I had ever known. I loved trying new foods (like curried goat) and experiencing new places. And I especially loved all the great people that I met and worked with.
Too bad my time there was coming to an end and I was moving on to my next stop – the city!
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