Saludos de Staten Island, New York (July 27, 2020)

 If you would have told me when I was sent to Peru back in December, that within six months I would be on a porch on an island in the biggest city in America eating Oreo icecream... Probably would've thought you had a little more than uno al año (Borracho joke). 

But by the same token, if you would've told anyone in December that our society was about to be plunged into a worldwide pandemic, they probably would've thought the same. 

Well it feels like it's been forever but hey everybody, I am once again el Elder Baird. I was reassigned to the New York City, New York mission, to serve until I am able to go back to Peru, or until my time is over in December of 2021. 

My thoughts on the possibility of being sent back to my original mission are confused and wildy different. On the one hand, Covid-19 effectively shut down society as a whole for more than three months and although some places, specifically New York, are seeing a decrease in the amount of cases and are opening up, other areas are only on the rise with little to no precautions. With that sense, and having some experience in the Peru atmosphere, I doubt that the borders will open up completely by the time I leave, or at least very close to it. However, on the other, I have been a personal witness to the miracles of God throughout this entire experience, and I know that at any moment when the virus is no longer deemed necessary, it could essentially disappear within days. As such, I have decided to follow instead of struggle to lead. 

This montra of mine reminds me of a song which I sadly was never able to put behind a "Peru Mission Montage" the song being "Life Changes" or something akin to it. One of the lines of that song is, "Life changes, you can't stop it, just hop on the train" and I really think at some point in everyone's lives, you need to realize that your plans do not dictate the future. You are powerless to stop what is coming (not a threat) and so we need to develop a flexibility in our lives, so that things such as a hard day at work, a mission reassignment, or even a worldwide plague will not cripple us in the future. I don't know what the future brings, but I refuse to believe that we will never have another earthshattering circumstance in which in order to grow, we must first bend. 

I imagine that the next couple of emails that I send, or perhaps all of them, will have glimpses of memories and things that I have learned from these past six months. 

I am undoubtedly grateful for the time I have had so far in Staten Island. I still have some of the same struggles as before, the language here is not just Peruvian Spanish, but also Mexican, Dominican, Puerto Rican, Venezuelan, and many more that I am going to discover. The humidity is much the same. My companion and I have been in isolation for the past seven days since we both were whitewashed into the area, but next week I will be able to go see a bit of the place where I live now. Fortunately here exists un bendición de Dios, air conditioning. Also, rain. I've missed rain. We have a view of a stone church right from our porch, behind it a bridge that crosses a bay. Elder Palmer (my companion) is undoubtedly one of the better missionaries of this mission, and we seem to have lived similar lives. For the first time in my life, I have a full sized bed, of which I only use half of out of habit. We live on the sixth floor, and excersize in the stairwell, and we both have high goals of becoming shredded before Christmas. I'm down to two minutes to solve a rubix cube, but within the next week I hope to be at a minute and a half. And other than starting sentences with conjunctions, calling people, studying and the cube, we don't have much to do but we are here doing the Lord's work, and I couldn't ask for anything better to be doing. 

I wish you all a wonderful week, and hope to hear from you as well. We have more time here to write emails so I should be able to respond to those that I receive. I promise not to write such a book of an email next time, and I'll see you guys next week, same time, same place. 

Sincerely yours, 

El Nuevo Misionero, 

Elder Baird