We finally got an email from Jeremy after Hurricane Sandy came through.  I knew from the news reports that I could find on the internet that his town had been hit pretty hard with flooding from the Hudson River, high winds, power outages, road closures etc.  He didn't mention any of that in his letter, just that they were all fine.  He did mention that he and his companions had been inside for three days and that he was doing lots of studying and getting a little silly.  Since it was Halloween and he didn't have a pumpkin, he carved an apple and made up a little story about it.
 The caption for this one was:

 1. At first we didn't get along.

2. We talked about it.

 

We read some scriptures

 

We played Battleship

we played hide and seek

 

 

Jeremy says that they will be doing a lot of service soon.  The mission president also mentioned that in his letter to the parents when he let us know that all of the missionaries were safe and accounted for.

Since Jeremy has not included a specified "Blog Post" for the last month or so, I thought that I would fill in some details.  A few weeks ago, he was transferred from Manhattan to Newburgh.  It is a town on the Hudson River just north of West Point.  It was about a two hour drive from Manhattan to Newburgh.  In Newburgh there is a very high percentage of the population that speaks Spanish so he is having more opportunities to speak Spanish.  Despite the fact that Newburgh was once considered the "most American town" in the United States (a designation it won in the 1950s I think because of its picturesque setting) it now has a serious crime problem particularly related to gangs.  The missionaries have strict rules about where they can go and when they should be in.  He has met many members and investigators that he enjoys visiting with.  He has also had lots of chances for service.  Here are some quotes from his letter on October 31.

"Everything is really far away so half the day is spent in the car.

I have gotten to do a lot of service though. I don't know if I've told you this yet but my service projects have included:
Gathering firewood
Building a house
Catching Chickens (they're mean)
and, you probably guessed it, mowing lawns.
I've mowed two lawns while I've been here and they've taken a long time because there are always toys I had to avoid. One of the ladies caught us mowing her lawn and, like any nice little Spanish lady, made us food. The only problem is she took forever to make the food and she wouldn't let us go. When we finally left we rushed home, changed into church clothes, and drove to a less active members house only to find them not there.

All the people in the branch work every day all day. It's impossible to ever catch them at home. There is this one family we are teaching that has been home. They are less active but they want their child to have the discussions before he's baptized. He's a funny kid. I have found one weakness though. I cannot teach children. I use to many big words and I speak really fast. Fortunately I speak really well. I've been working hard on my Spanish. I can now carry on a conversation with the members. It's really funny though because even the people that don't speak a lick of English still throw in random English words. Estoy tired, estoy lazy. Yo fui al mercado y compre juice.  

There is also this other family that that husband use to be an operatic tenor.  I told them that you (mum) were a singer. They got all excited and started asking me about all these Operas I had never heard. I was able to fake my way through it by mentioning that I had seen the Magic Flute (was able to mention some names) and that I had seen "La Traviata"(I couldn't remember if I had seen that one, so inorder to fake my way through that one I just said "Oh! that one song she sings when she is sad is really pretty" and I'm pretty sure I said something along the lines of "When that guy hits the high note in that one song...fantastic"....those two things do happen right?)"