hmmmm....‏

Wed 10/28/09

Ok... so, here I am in new surroundings. the Elders here do service at the library on Wednesdays, so they figured "Hey! Why don't we just do email while we are there to save time on Monday".... I don't agree with this... so I will have to bring it up later; but for now, I am emailing you on Wednesday from the library.

Wow, I felt sooo good yesterday! I was excited, and they called me to an area I really didn't expect to be called to, Richmond Hill, in Queens. My new companion is Elder Gourdin. He is tall, 19, and has grey hair. My email time is about to expire, so I will get back on... but, right now I’m not feeling so swift. :( I was hoping I wouldn't experience the same thing I did going into the MTC, or the first week of Bushwick... but its starting to develop. :(

So... yeah. Ok. Um, the new pad is ghetto; not as ghetto as my first pad in Bushwick, this one has carpet... but the shower is no good. The bathroom and kitchen don't look like they have been cleaned in a while. There is a bunch of stuff just lying around. The first things you smell when you walk into the pad is rotting food (like at the dump) and "smelly sweaty boy" smell. There is me and my comp and 2 others (Spanish Elders). They are cool.... in a southern way of being cool. They are a little p-dub though. They sleep in pretty late, don't study, and they listen to country music all the time. They seem like good elders though; it’s not in my place to judge. I just know already though that I’m really going to miss Elders Haggard, Black, Oliverson (even though he is a little p-dub), Orr, and especially Singh. Its just not the same.

I know the lord has room to grow and stretch me now... but I don't like it. I was soooo happy and optimistic yesterday... but then it started to dawn on me that this is real, I will not see Orr or Singh until after my mission if at all now; also, things are going to be very different. I like my new comp though. :)

I guess I have my work cut out for me. I've got to not only clean up 14 pages of medias, but an apartment, while I try to be myself, learn a new area, and try to work hard and be an example. :(

So, I got mail at transfer meetings! A new record, 9 letters! Unfortunately the subject matters of the letters and the order in which I read them, on top of how I was already feeling made me quite sad. :( I'm starting to feel very confused. I'm starting to think I'm not the person I think I am, and I'm not the person my friends and family think I am. I wonder if I have been fooling myself. I don't quite know how to express my feelings; but know this, I still love all of you, if not more now then ever. I just am reconsidering my life, goals, and decisions. I need to rely on my testimony and past spiritual experiences... only a lot of them seem to contradict how I am feeling and the things people are telling me. Often what people say makes me feel guilty about things I at one time thought were the only things I really knew for sure.

Sorry for being so vague.

I am on the bottom bunk for the first time since July.
I love my MTC companion. I wish I could be with him again. I saw him at transfer meeting, he is the best! We talked. I feel a closeness to him different from any other friend.

I only have 10 min left now, so I'll send this pretty soon now.

Ok, right now. lol I love you all. Bye. Sam