August 31, 2011

Hey Nicki!

Great to hear from you this week! I'm doing great and it's good to hear that you're doing good as well. And yes! I have about 5 months left in the mission! Time is super passing by. That's good you were able to see the pictures that we took of auntie Badette taking us out. It was really fun and I'm thankful that we got to meet up with her. She was really nice and took us to eat at all these great and fun places. We went to eat lunch at this Filipino restaurant. It was soo good! I haven't had Filipino food in such a long time! We had stuff like sinigang, bopis, pinakbet, kare-kare, sisig and crispy pata which is fried pork knuckles. It was way good food. We also had halo-halo. I was so stuffed after that. We then went to Red Ribbon and bought pandesal! It was awesome! First time to have pandesal in forever! We then drove around Manhattan and auntie took us to this place called Veniero's. It is this Italian cafe that serves all these awesome pastries and stuff. There was a lot to choose from. I just had a NY cheesecake with different berries on top of it. It was really delicious! The berries were really fresh tasting and the cheesecake was probably the best that I've tasted! It was really good. Definitely a place I would go back to. We had a good time and auntie Badette was really kind to have taken us to all these places. She said she would meet with us again soon. I was really thankful that she was able to take us out when she had time during her busy schedule.

But I guess lots of people weren't too busy in the aftermath of the hurricane that passed over this past weekend. Hurricane Irene became a threat to us over the weekend. It began Saturday with the announcement that all transit would stop in preparation of the hurricane. Apparently it was tearing up the East coast. It was a level 2 hurricane which isn't too bad but is still pretty dangerous. So we were pretty much stuck with no transportation. We really couldn't work because there was no way for us to travel. It was a tough two days because we had to stay in both Saturday and Sunday. Church was cancelled in all the stakes in the city. It was way crazy and we were expecting the worse. Luckily the hurricane started to die out by the time it reached New York. We received harsh rain on Saturday night but beside that there wasn't too much to worry about. We were starving a lot though because we didn't have lots of food and lots of the stores were closed because of the weather. We got through the weekend though and on Monday it was such a nice day. Nice and sunny with a gentle breeze. All seems to be back to normal. There has been nothing but sunshine since the weekend. It's definitely an experience I will remember. Man, it makes me miss the West coast weather. The weather here is just so unpredictable.

It's good to hear that you have been enjoying your last weeks in San Diego. It really sounds like you had a great summer. Now it's that time again for school and I know you're excited about that. I know you'll do great this semester. It's good that you were able to land such a good job this past summer. It seems like it was really fun. The two boys you were nanny for look like they really liked you. Man, you are also way lucky to have gone to Disneyland so much this past summer. I want to go a lot when I come back. I miss going there and riding all the fun rides. It's good now that you're not scared to ride any of the rides. You now know what you've been missing! Took you long enough to man up and ride the "scary" rides. Hahaha. All in all I'm glad you had a great summer. Now it's time to kick butt in school. I know you'll have another great year and come new year time you'll be getting ready to see your big brother soon enough! I'm trying to live out everyday I have left to the best that I can possibly live it. Doing all that I can to proclaim the word of the gospel and just enjoy living here in New York as well. I'm actually considering coming back here to study journalism. I just get endless amounts of people telling me if that's what I want to do, I have to be here in New York to do it. So it's something to consider when I come back home and decide on what I want to do for schooling and such. I just hope I'll be able to jump back into life smoothly. It'll be tough but nothing in life is ever easy. I know going back home and staying and going to school locally is the safe way out but what about being sure of what you want to do and knowing where to be to do it. Definitely with the time winding down I've been thinking a lot about what it is I want to do when I come back home. Ahhh! The future is scary sister!!

Anyways, I hope you enjoy your last week at home and be safe going back to Idaho! Do all you can to help mom and dad while you're still there and make the best of the time you have with your sisters. Enjoy this school semester and I'll see you in no time! I miss you and I love you little sister! You're growing up fast. Take care and I'll talk to you again soon!

Love always,
Your big brother Elder Derrick Joseph Castro

August 17, 2011

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELDER CASTRO!!! 21!!!

Hey family!

I'm writing to you this day as a whole because I planned a pretty packed day for things that I want to do for my birthday! We just got to the library not too long ago and we are planning to go to the chinese buffet in the Bronx afterwards with all us ASL missionaries. Although on the mission it feels like any regular day I'm thankful that it was a P-day so I was able to see all your e-mails wishing me a happy birthday! I miss you and I love you all and I'm thankful I got an e-mail from each one of you this week! The two young girls were the first ones to wish me a happy birthday! I'm also glad to be around such great elders who all greeted me a happy birthday this morning when we woke up. Elder Melkonian is even offering to buy a nice cheesecake later on today so we can have it for my birthday. He did the same thing last year. Thanks for sending me some money mom and dad. I know funds are tight so I'm thankful that you were still able to give me some extra money for my spending here. I'm probably going to use the money to buy some new clothes like some new pants for everday proselyting. Pants can get easily messed up here. Then I'll probably get some other things I migt need as well. Thank you for that. :) And also tell auntie zeni and grandma thanks for giving me money for my birthday too.

I'm glad you all enjoyed your time at Disneyland! That is always the best place to be to celebrate an occasion and I could see from the pictures that everyone had a blast! That's good everyone was able to go and have a good time. We should all make plans to go there when I come back. I do miss going there on our family trips. It must be really awesome now that you all have annual passes. That's good you were able to snag a few free tickets too so that you wouldn't have to pay for admission price. I hope we can all go there again as soon as I come back! Celebrate the two birthdays I missed at home. :D

Nicki!! Happy birthday!!! Wow.. I can't believe you are 19 now!? I hope you enjoyed the other day. I made a card for you but I was always so busy I forgot to put it in the mail but I will do it today. It's really cool and I hope you like it. It's has a New York theme and you can even set it up on your desk when you go back to school to remember your big brother and that he's coming home soon! :) Make the best of this year little sister. You're doing great things. Continue to set forth an example to your younger sisters and continue to excel in your schooling! You have a major yet? I know you will do great things in the next year. We will have to hang out lots and catch up. You seem so grown up now doing your own thing and all. Continue to strengthen and uplift and support the family.

Our mission work is going great currently. We have a few investigators in the teaching pool who have a real potential to progress and eventually become baptized. With that we also received the news that we will receive a new missionary in October with the departure of Elder Gervacio. It's good to see more and more elders being called. Hopefully these new missionaries will be able to bring their determination and hard work and put it into what we are building now and we'll be able to see this branch grow. Having more missionaries in the program at one time seems to be really working well. We'll see how it all continues to progress.

Mom, thank you for the pictures you sent this week. There were a ton of pictures this time! It's good to see them all and catch with all of your guys' adventures back home. It seemed like you enjoyed all those times. I particularly enjoyed the pictures from the dos picos camp site. Isn't that the same exact camp ground from when we camped before? With that gazeebo and everything? Wow.. Hope the branch decides to go there again. I want to go camp there again. It would be fun to see the place again. Continue to send pictures and I will continue to do the same when I can.

Well, not much time left so I will end my e-mail here. Once again I want to thank you all for your birthday wishes and greetings. I miss you and I love you all. Mom and dad, thank you for everything. Can you believe your one and only son is twenty one now? Your kids are just getting older and older. But I know we all wouldn't be where we are if it wasn't for you both. I am truly grateful for all the effort and love and care you put into raising us. I had a moment not too long ago when I was sitting waiting for a train and I was sitting on the benches just thinking back about how I got to that point where I am and how I got there and where I was going and it's obvious to see that I wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for you both. And also for you three girls. My younger sisters, I love you three. You make living fun. I hope you continue to enjoy growing up and you know you can always count on your big brother to be there for you in times of need. My family, I love you and I miss you all. Thank you all for the birthday wishes once again and thank you for all writing me this week. I will talk to you again next week and I hope you all enjoy celebrating my birthday there as I will here. Continue to do good and be well. I always pray the Lord bless you with the strength to continue to live everyday to the best you can. I'm lucky to have a family like you guys and not too long I'll be back, we'll be a complete family again. 


Once again, I miss you and I love you all!!!! Talk to you soon!!!

Love always,

Your son, big brother Elder Derrick Joseph Castro

July 27, 2011

July 6, 2011

Hey you three,

 

Sorry I didn't get to e-mail you guys last week. Was really crunched for time. We had to hurry off to an apointment that night. We got to doing our e-mail late. Hope all has been well with you guys this past week. Looks like you had a good time during the 4th of July in Seaport Village! You guys brought the UKE! Now, do you guys really know how to play or are you just using it as a prop "pretending" like you know, hmmmm? Haha, just kidding I'm sure you guys are working on your skills! Keep it up and maybe you can be better than me at UKE! We have a guitar here and I play it at night before bed sometimes. I'm getting better at it. It's fun because Elder Gervacio and I always bust out into song. The other night we harmonized on "Here's to the night" by Eve 9. Don't know if you guys know that song but it's a good summer song that's pretty old. We have good times. Good to see you all smiling in the pictures. You're all growing up super fast. Danica you are tall yo! Stop growing or you will be taller than me! Ahh! How were the fireworks? Awesome I bet. I didn't get to see fireworks. We have an early curfew on the 4th of July. It stinks but it's for our safety. We saw fireworks from our window but they were far. Then there was all the illegal fireworks people were setting off in the streets. It was going on all night! Ahh, really hard to sleep with all the noise. I think you just get used to the noise here in New York. You just learn how to block out the annoying sounds of the many Domini-cabs passing by, hahaha. It was cool though. We took pictures of the stuff we cooked and all so I will send those to you next week! Did you get my pictures from last week? Pretty silly ones huh? I figured I'd take some pictures because I haven't sent any in awhile. I'm trying my best to take as much pictures as I can only because mom has been doing that a lot lately. So I thought I would share more of New York with you guys. I should already be doing that. Just need to be better at it.

 

Today is our P-day so we went to the Bronx zoo today! It was fun! But it was hot! Boo.. It was donations day so we only had to give like a dollar to get a ticket to get in. It was cool. The zoo is pretty huge compared to just looking at it from the outside. It was fun being there but there were a lot of people and that coupled with the heat was just badddd! We only stayed there two hours and then went to get lunch at Burger King. We took pictures today too so I will send those to you guys next week as well. All the pictures are on another Elder's camera. I was too lazy to charge mine. It was a fun day but I feel tired because of all the sun hitting me. I have a slight headache.

 

So you guys are going to the girl's retreat soon huh? Who will all be going to that? Some of the cousins as well huh? Cool thing you'll be there Nicki. You can keep an eye on all of them and you get paid to do that, haha. Hope it will be fun for you all. It will be a great fun bonding time with sisters and cousins. I heard you guys always have sleepovers too! Just like every summer huh? That's fun. You guys must going swimming a lot too. A lot of the pictures mom sends me is of you guys swimming! Haha. Don't swim too much or else you'll get dark.

 

Nicki, how is singles ward doing? Hope you are still enjoying that. Are you able to go to all the activites you guys have with all your work and all? Hopefully you are able to do so. But it is also good you are working. Keep saving and spend wisely! Been definitely learning how to do that here. Especially since we don't get members who feed us on the reg like the English program does. It stinks but I think it also helps me learn how to budget and not just waste money on useless snacks and stuff.

 

I hope you all continue to have a good summer. Enjoy the time you have and make sure you are safe with whatever you are doing. I can't wait to spend next summer with you all at home. That will be a fun time. Maybe we'll be able to go on that cruise that we've planned for so long. That would be fun. Also! You guys should try to convince mom and dad to send me one of those awesome picture taking cameras. Whose camera did you use on the 4th of July? Those pictures were really good. Was it Chrisette's? You should have her give suggestions to mom and dad. Maybe you can get it for my birthday? :D Haha. Anways, I hope you all take care of yourselfs. Enjoy summer and stay safe! I love you three and I miss you all. Help and take care of mom and dad around the house. They do a lot and work hard so it's important we do our part and support them any way we can. I"ll talk to you guys again soon! Write me back and I look forward to hearing from you! Take care and until then..

 

Love always,

Your big brother Elder Derrick Joseph Castro

June 29, 2011 - pictures

"We are goof ball missionaries in the deaf branch! Haha!"

June 23, 2011

Hey sistur! haha

What's up? I am doing well this week. Just here at the church. We be
emailing and eating Taco Bell. Yum! Hahaha. It's been a good week.
Good weather and lots of fun here. Yesterday night we stayed an extra
hour after the deaf institute class finished because we were doing ABC
and 123 stories. That's when you take the signs 123 or ABCs and you
use them to tell a story. It was really fun and we all had a good
laugh about it. I love those things about ASL when you just have to be
really creative and stuff. It's really lots of fun. Haven't done much
today for P-day. It was a rather chill day today just because there
was transfers. We didn't go to the transfer meeting because nothing
was changing with us in the ASL program. They are creating a new zone
in Manhattan though, they are calling it Manhattan Central zone.
Weirdy because they took lots of missionaries from the North and South
zones and put them to the middle of the island. But I guess there is a
need for more missionaries in that area so I think they are going to
test how that goes. We don't know if we will be moved from South zone
to the new Central zone. It does take us a while to travel for
district meetings on Monday but I think we're used to it. We'll see
what happens though.


That's sweet you are enjoying the BMB. Looks like you guys have lots
of cool activities. I'll probably have to check it out when I come
back home, haha. The sock wars thing looks like it was lots of fun.
Thanks for sending me pictures BTW. It's cool to see that you are
having fun with the branch and that you are just enjoying everything
where you can. Looks like a good balance between work and your
activities which is always good. I wasn't having too much fun working
a lot when I was home but then again I wasn't doing much at home when
I wasn't working so I guess it was good, haha. But cool that you are
still enjoying going to the branch. I'm sure you will kick butt when
you give your talk on Sunday. Just let the spirit guide you as you
prepare the talk and as long as you are good and prepared you will be
able to give an amazing talk! I have had lots of time to prepare lots
of talks here in the deaf branch because we speak practically every
month! Crazy huh! I will probably touch on every subject in the gospel
principles book when I am done here, lol. The branch sounds like it
does lots of cool activities though and that's good. I think it's
always good to have lots of activities where people can interact, oh
singles branch. lol.

That's awesome that you like rollercoasters now! Sheesh, about time!
lol. That's good though so now when we go to theme parks you won't be
scared to ride the rollercoasters. Shoot you were missing out before
but at least now you'll be able to enjoy them more. That's cool that
so many of you have annual passes at Disneyland. It is most definitely
different when you go to a place like that with your friends rather
than family. Depends though. That's cool though you had fun with that.

Funny thing about BYU-H. We met a member here that goes there and she
was totally selling BYU-H to me. It does really sound like an
interesting place to go to. It would be fun to be in school in Hawaii
so it's something I will consider.

Aw man, the Del Mar Fair is amazing. I can't wait to go next summer.
It will be awesome! I would love to try some of that fried food. Some
of it sounds really interesting. Fried Kool Aid sounds.. Weird! But it
would be good to try it just to try it. I always loved going there and
I can't wait to go again. We should go to the fair as a family next
summer. That would be fun.

That's good you are starting to write a blog. In this new age of
technology it's a great and easy way to document all the things you
do. It's good to keep those things in memory so that you could always
look back at it and see the fun things you have done in the past. It's
always fun to look back at good times. I'm trying my best to write
down special events that happen on my mission. It's been good to read
back and see the things I have done since I started my mission. I read
back when I reached my year mark. It was cool and interesting.

The Mormon.org ads are so cool! We've seen some already on Taxi cabs!
It's really cool to see those ads and know other people are looking at
them too! I hope lots of progress in the work comes from it. We get
people that walk up to us and talk with us all the time now instead of
the reverse which is really cool to see. Definitely everything going
on here is just changing the work if not making it more effective with
the ads. Our work has been great lately. Might get changed companions
because the other two aren't really getting along but we just hope to
continue what we are doing here in Manhattan. I love being a
missionary, especially during this time.

I hope all continues to be well with you. Hope your job is going well.
Take care of the girls and help mom and dad all you can. Especially
with what happened to dad recently. I hope he's alright. Look after
them. I love you and miss you sister! Hope your week goes well and
write me again soon! Talk to you again soon okay?

Love always,
Your big brother Elder Derrick Joseph Castro

June 22, 2011

Dad hey!

 

Things are well here. It has been a little rainy lately but things are fine. Nothing we can't handle weather wise. Just need to use an umbrella. The weather lately has been good though. Nothing too bad. I hope you had a good Father's day. I wish I was there as with Mother's day too. I heard the girls all cooked for you and stuff. That's good! I will be home for both mother's day and father's day next year so that will be good! I gave a talk on Sunday for father's day. I got to "introduce" you to the branch. It was cool and I loved speaking about you and just telling them about it. It was fun and I felt like I could have gone on forever because I had lots to say. I had tears running down my face talking about how much I love you and am thankful for how you have raised me up to get me to where I am today. I just have to say thank you for that dad.

 

As for my shoes, they are fine for now. Believe it or not I still am wearing the Clark's shoes we got a while ago. They are still going strong. Not the best for rain because water gets into them easily but they work well. Shoes are shoes and I don't think I have to worry about them for now. There are pretty cheap shoe places here though like outlet shoe places that have good shoes for good prices so if I ever need a new pair I'll be sure to let you guys know. They have good brands like Cole Hann and stuff. Shoes are still a little expensive so I try to take care of the ones I already have so I can get the most out of them.

 

I see by the pictures that everyone seems to be enjoying summer break. Everyone looks like they are having lots of fun! That is good you are all keeping busy with fun activites while still balancing all you have to do with work and all. That's good and I hope that can continue for the rest of the summer. You should all go to the Del Mar Fair. I love going there. It's always so fun to just walk around and see all that they have set up there. Haha and that's just like the girls and cousins to go swimming a lot and get dark! That's funny I remember you always limiting their swim time so they won't get dark. That is good though because too much sun isn't good but at least they have a fun time swimming. Hope you can also enjoy biking more since it seems like you'll be able to have more time to do that with classes cancelled for the summer. I think it's good that you can somewhat relax a little bit more and just enjoy some time to go and bike and do the things you like to.

 

All work here is well. Still working on cleaning up our area books. Since our branch president will soon be replaced we are looking to I would say start fresh too. We're cleaning up area books and getting a better look at our areas to see how we can effective tackle specific portions of Manhattan island because we have so much area to cover. I think the next six weeks of this cycle will be good.

 

Thanks for the greetings from the branch and ward. Be sure to greet them for me back. It's really hard for me to believe that I am going to be home soon enough. Time is going fast and I will only have 4 months by the time Elder Gervacio leaves in October. I'm just trying to make the best of my time here doing all I can to help further the work of the deaf branch. I love you and I miss you dad. Hope you continue to be healthy and safe. Hope work goes well and that your rest of the week goes good too! I will talk to you again next week and look out for the pictures I will send you! Talk to you again soon!

 

Love always,

Your son Elder Derrick Joseph Castro