Dear Family and Friends,

     All is well here at the MTC. I'm kind of alone now. Elder Walker left for Argentina a little while ago, and just this last Monday, Elder Byington got shipped out to Dallas, Texas. We had our last goodbye for two years on Sunday. It was a pretty crazy experience. I'm so happy for both of them. It's really cool to have gone on my mission so close to both of them. I've officially been on my mission for over a month, the longest I've ever been away from home now. It's kind of wierd. All of us in my district just want to get out to New Jersey now, even though our spanish is still pretty bad. Our spanish has improved a lot though. If anyone knows spanish and wants to write me a letter in spanish, that would be some awesome practice for me! I like it here at the MTC now, but I just want to get out to the field and start doing some work. There's not much else to really talk about. Just another week gone by. The weeks are going by really fast now. It seems we just had P-Day! But when I think about it, I stil have a lot longer to go. It's cool though, I can't wait to be in New Jersey and helping people out and getting to know the Ward members and stuff. I just talked to an Elder recently who had spent a few months in New Jersey doing sales stuff with a company called Vivent. He said that the Ward he attended was in fact a Ward, not a Branch like I previously thought. He also said that he thinks there's a spanish ward too that met after the english ward. So I'm way excited to see the members out there and how strong they are.

     So we have these planners. Every missionary has them, and I think they've been around a while. Each planner has a six week planner in them. By this Sunday, we'll be done with our first missionary planner. One Elder did the math for our planners. By the end of our mission, we'll have 17 planners. So, this Sunday, we'll be 1/17 of the way done with our mission :) Kind of cool to think about.

     So the three questions:

1. I haven't heard the word "fetch" really. It's more "freak" like all the Mormon youth say.

2. My companion is okay at the moment. He's doing fine from the stomach aches he had a few weeks ago, but he just had an appointment yesterday with his doctor for his knee. Turns out his ACL has been torn for the third time, and he needs surgery. So he thinks he's going to get surgery after his MTC stay, then just recover at home for about three months. It's pretty drastic, but he can't really go on a mission with a torn ACL.

3. There are eight of us in our district. There used to be ten, but two of them left for the Dominican Republic MTC a few weeks ago. They're obviously going to serve there in the DR. As for the rest of us, we're all Elders, no sisters. All of us expect one are headed to NJ Morristown. Elder Dembinski is headed to South Carolina. We're all from pretty close. One Elder is from California, and that's about the farthest away. Pretty boring, but cool.

     Thanks for writing to me everyone. I'll try and answer all your letters.

     -Elder Justin Gajewsky

Dear Dad,

     It's good to hear that mom is doing so well so far. I'm glad everything is improving. I can't wait to hear from grandma! It's sad to hear that she can't do stuff like that right now. I'll appreciate anything she writes. I did see quite a bit of Brandon and Kyle before they left. It was really cool to see them in the MTC. It was a little bit of a comfort. Elder Magleby's dad works for Deseret Printing, so he gives him updates on what's happening. I guess some South American country like Argentina or Chile was in charge of printing all the stuff in spanish for the Church, and they were doing a pretty crappy job at it. So they're moving it back up to the States again. They're probably going to start printing real soon now, so those hymn books will most likely be back on shelves in the next couple weeks or so, so keep a look out. I've heard from some missionaries that the MTC seems like half their mission. I heard that from a spanish missionary who spent nine weeks here. So I was wondering how long did the MTC seem compared to your whole mission? I also was looking for the little cleaning brush for my shaver. I thought I packed it with me, but I guess not. Could you look for it in my bathroom or whatever? I usually clean my shaver every couple weeks and I haven't been able to find it. If you can't, I'll just wait to get myself one out in NJ. That's fine. Thanks a lot! Love you! Let me know what else is going on at home.

Dear Kaylee,

     Thanks for the valentines! I loved them. I hung them up by my desk. I'll send you pictures soon so you can see. That's really cool that you're learning spanish. Maybe when I get home, we can talk in spanish. I love you a lot! Keep writing to me.

Dear Mom,

     I really enjoyed my valentines box. Those cookies were really good! I did share a little bit, but I mostly just hogged them, haha. I hear you're doing a lot better with your ear. That's so awesome to hear about that. I really hope the symptomes don't happen in your other ear, that would be terrible. That'll be great to go to Disneyland in a couple years and to have to be able to enjoy all the sounds without that annoying thing. Maybe it'll fix your vertigo-dizzy thing completely and you'll be able to ride all the rollercoasters! We'll see. I really miss watching Restaurant: Impossible late at night. That was always a really nice way to end those days. I doubt that that show will go on for another two seasons, but when I get home, maybe we can rent them and watch one every night for a while. I keep thinking about how cool it would be to run into that one guy that helps Robert with the contruction part who lives in NJ. I forget so many things now. Everyone does. We're so cut off from the world that we don't remember things like names of actor, and movies, and stuff. I'm even starting to forget German, sad.. I think my spanish is finally starting to catch up with my german. I hope I can remember it when I get home, but I'll be glad to be able to speak fluent spanish. I totally forgot that you were reading the Great and Terrible series! Is the Second Sun, the third book?? So that means you finished Where Angels Fall? I remember that part with Azadeh. It was such a crazy part of the book. That's so going to be the first book when I read when I get home. It sounds like I'm talking a lot about stuff after my mission. A lot of us do that. We're not homesick that much or not excited to be here at all. It's just a way of staying sane and talking to each other. We're all very happy and glad to be here. We're all super excited to go out to NJ and love and help those people. I just like to look forward sometimes. I even think sometimes (before my mission too) what it'll be like to be a parent and grandparent. That's just me looking forward, and I think the same with the others here. I love you a lot! Thanks for everything!

Dear Kelsie,

     One more song please?? :) If you have time in the midst of all your crazy homework and work, I would like the song from Tangled "At last I see the light". I think that's the name of the song. English and spanish, because I don't know any of the lyrics.. Love you much! Thanks! Let me know how you're doing too. I'd love a letter from you!

Dear Grandma (Lilleba),

     I talked to Elder Magleby. There's a lot of Magleby's in his extended family that he doesn't know. He doesn't know who they are off the top of his head, but he said that he's sure that he's related to them somehow. I'm really excited to go to NJ and hear all the spanish there. I've hear that a lot of spanish-speaking countries have their own dialect of spanish in a way. So the people from the Dominican Republic will speak spanish a little differently than those from Guatemala, or Mexico, or Argentina, or Chile. They're a lot of spanish countries out there, and I've heard that the New York - New Jersey area is the melting pot of all of them. So I'll be able to meet people from all over the American Continents! It'll be really cool! I love you, and I love to hear from you! Thanks so much!

     -Elder Justin Gajewsky

Dear Grandpa (Per),

     I'm doing great. I'm loving the spanish language. It's really fun to learn another language. Even though it's not Norwegian, Spanish is still pretty cool! That's awesome about the smoke signals. I never really knew about that. Technology has come a long way since that. I'm sure email is a little faster now! I'm sending this email Thursday, Feb. 16. I'm guessing that you'll get it pretty much instantaneously. Love you lots grandpa! Thanks for writing to me!

     -Elder Justin Gajewsky

Dad!

     I just found out that they're done printing all the spanish hymn books. They should be on store shelves beginning of next week. However, Elder Magleby's dad says that the MTC bookstore will probably get them like tomorrow or Saturday. Also, I haven't told you guys this yet, but I get 40% off at the MTC Bookstore for most stuff. So, don't buy me a spanish hymn book. I'll just buy it here with my 40% off. Thanks for looking for me though! I can't wait to get a hymn book. Another thing, on my way to come email you again, I ran into Brandon Walker! I looked at him and I was thinking, my heck he looks familiar! I asked him what he was still doing here. I guess he wasn't able to get his visa to Argentina right away, so they put him in the Salt Lake mission for the past couple weeks. He says that the mission field is way better than the MTC, so that got me really excited. He's back at the MTC today just for a few hours to meet with an Argentian Ambassador and to get fingerprints and stuff. I don't know exactly when he's leaving, but I'm guessing next week sometime. I think his visa is finally going through. So it was really cool to see him. If you want, you can share this email on my blog or whatever you all are doing for my mission. Oh, and let my know what your email is, so I can email your email account too so you can get it at work right away. Thanks! Love you!

     -Elder Justin Gajewsky