1st Email from Erik in Detroit!

Erik emailed us on Monday the 27th (his first P day in Detroit!)  He said Detroit is cold and dark and he was kind of culture shocked the first few days but he thinks he is getting used to it. Nothing has been stolen yet-( In answer to Mom’s question) and his companion is from Bluffdale Utah. Elder Parker Erickson told him that the gangs usually leave the missionaries alone.

They don’t have enough members in the area for a ward, so they just have a branch with not much Priesthood leadership so they have to bring in other people from other wards and stakes to fill the major roles like Branch President.

They are teaching a few people.  His favorite so far are 3 –19 year old guys names Jeremiah, Tyree and Phil.  2 days ago they had an awesome lesson with them and commited them to baptism.  They are seeing them again next Saturday and will hopefully put them on a baptism date.  Other than that, they haven’t had much success with investigators. 

From Erik:   Tracting is all most useless out here.  Nobody answers their door before noon because they’re all asleep, and nobody answers their door after 6 because it gets dark around then and they think you’re either a copy or a gang member.

We only had one confrontation with a guy at a bus stop.   He was high and drunk and basically just wanted us to tell him that Jesus was black.  Everyone is pretty nice overall.

I started writing down my experiences everyday so I can send them home to you. That way I don’t have to try and write a long email before my time runs out. So you’ll get to read all of my experiences in my snail mail letter.

Detroit has been interesting since I’ve been here. My companion said that it has been ‘extra ghetto’ lately. One of our investigators has a marijuana plant growing on her front porch. She says it’s her cousins and not hers but…. I don’t think I believe her. I’ve learned a few handshakes already too. I know how to do the ‘Detroit Handshake’ which is one that almost everyone in Detroit does. And right now I’m working on the ‘6-mile gang’ handshake. There are gangs everywhere here but we don’t see much of them. I guess that everyone LIVES on the west side of Detroit where we are but the do all of their Dirty work on the east side.

 All of the streets are named here. There are no numbers so it gets pretty confusing at times. But basically the gangs are all named after the streets. You just get a group of guys and claim a street and boom, you have a gang. So there are the Schoolcraft boyz, Z8NE, 6-Mile, P-Rock, 7-Mile… All the major streets are gangs.

Well I’m running out of time so I better log off. Hope you’re having fun!

Love

Elder Rushton