YONKERS (YI-RAQ) (Sept 10, 2014)

Hello everybody!! I hope everyone is doing awesome! Please don't take your life for granted. It's a huge blessing and that's something I have learned here. We have the richest city in America in our mission and the poorest. We call this place Yi-RACK because it's crazy! I would say about 98% of the people are knocked up on drugs and are complete drunks here. This is the most "depressing" area on the entire mission according to the other Elders and many elders choose to be sent home here because they can't take it. I refuse to quit!! Never will I quit!  I haven't seen one white person here all week. I am the only one along with one of the other sister missionaries who serves here. They are all black or some form of Hispanic.  Race doesn't matter to me, but it matters to them. Most of the people here don't like white people. Unfortunately, our little church is in the worst part of Yonkers and right now we don't have a car because the last elder bashed it up, so we have to stay around the church so we can go to lessons. Drug deals go down everywhere here and EVERYONE is blasting hard core trap street rap and doing all kind of drugs from sizzurp to coke lines on the streets and nobody cares. They don't have cop cars here, they have swat trucks. They're always buzzing through the streets. It's crazy because the places in LA that you just don't go because you will be killed look a lot better than the area I am in. It's so weird, because the vibe is so different here. The gang activity is not as prevalent and I'm glad I spent some time down in LA because I kind of know how to survive here.  The people here are very rude and there is no such thing as common sense here because everyone is so knocked up all the time. Everyone wants to cause trouble. Here is a picture of our church.