Justins Mom loves him!

Week 1 in the MTC

Justin and his roommate

Justin and his companion

Justin and his childhood best friend, Brandon Walker

Justin bought his mission T-shirt

Justin's Valentines package we sent to him

Justin had to explain how to say Gajewsky

The famous map picture in the MTC

Justin and his friend, Kyle Byington

Elder Gajewsky

To family,
     I keep forgetting to answer those questions that I got just before I left the MTC about when I get to New Jersey. I can't really remember them, but I'll try to tell you how things are going here. It's not so confusing. I'm still lost sometimes, but my companion helps me. My Spanish is still struggling I think. I struggle to get across what I want to say during a lesson, but I'm slowly improving. We've already done some tracting and street-contacting. It's tough and those people are most of the time not interested at all. But a good amount of our investigators have come from door-knocking. There's not much else that has happened in the last week. Yesterday, we had a baptism. Jeremy, who is nine years old got baptized along with his sister who is eight. I guess it counts as one of my baptisms, but personally, I don't think so. I got here after they had decided to get baptized and all that. I just watched and taught a little few last things before his baptism. My companion baptized Jeremy and their uncle baptized his sister. Their mom is a member, but less active. She's been coming back to church the last few weeks though. The baptism was pretty cool. President Jeppson and his wife came about half way through it. It was pretty cool to talk to them again. Apparently you don't really see them that much on your mission.
     Well, I missed getting mail this week. I probably won't get any mail until sometime next week if anyone sent it to the mission office. It would probably just be easier to send an email, then every once in a while send mail. I also only have Diovan to last until this Saturday. So I'm really, really low on that. I don't know if you're sending that or if you want me to go out and get it. That reminds me, I don't have an insurance card. If you did send it with me, I don't know where it is. I've been through my suitcases pretty good searching for other things, and I haven't seen it at all. So I don't know if you want to send that to me or not.
     Other than that, I'm pretty good. I'm enjoying it. I'm still way tired and I'm getting frustrated that I still can't understand the spanish people very well. But I can see improvement with myself. I miss Utah is some ways, especially the mountains, but I like being here and seeing different things and experiencing new things. I haven't quite got a hold on how to teach people the Gospel according to how they can understand it the easiest. It's coming though. I miss you guys, and I love you. Hope you can write to me soon. Love you!
     -Justin

So the thing with the mail. You can send me mail at my apartment address:

Elder Justin Gajewsky
309 Washington Ave.
Dover, NJ 08701.

You can do that, but that costs a stamp. Also, every six weeks, we have transfer conference. It's unknown when I get transferred. I could be in that same area from usually two transfers, or up to six transfers. Really depends. So what we would do is, you could just send me mail there (also packages like my Diovan, which you should send really soon now), then when a week or two before the transfer ends, just stop sending for a few weeks before I can tell you if I've been transferred or not. Another thing, you could send mail to the mission office: 1719 Route 10 Suite 309 Parsipanny, NJ 07054 (You can look up the zip codes on Google map, my comp is just guessing). If you send them to the mission office, I get them once a month, but that won't change unless the whole mission office moves, which isn't very likely. For now, send the Diovan to my apartment. You could also just email me. When have like an hour and half to write and to read, which is plenty of time. I asked my comp about Elder Jake Paker. He said he does know him. He's serving in West New York right now. There are actually a lot of Spanish speaking missionaries. It's almost half and half between Spanish and English. Then there are like six missionaries who speak Portuguese.

     So my first area is a city called Dover. I actually remember grandma Lilleba telling me that she looked up that city and found it to be majority Spanish. She's right! There are so many Hispanics. Majority of them are Hispanic. Dover is more run down. I wouldn't say ghetto at all though. Everyone should look up the city. It's definitely way different than what I'm used to. It's also surprisingly safe. We haven't had to worry about anything happening like theft or robbery. I guess other areas of NJ are different though. The thing is, most people in NJ are cool with the missionaries. Especially the gangs. As long as we don't bother anyone, and this goes for anyone living in NJ, nobody bothers us. Most people just see us as good people sharing a message about Jesus Christ. Everyone here is pretty much Catholic, at least the Hispanic community, so everyone believes in Christ. So they respect us.
     My companions name is Elder Ferrell, he's from Kaysville, UT. He's been out 17 months now, and he has a pretty good idea how to do things. This is his 3rd transfer here in Dover, and he knows the member really well as well as the progressing investigators. We have our own car, and we pretty much drive everywhere. Thursday is called Car Fast Day, where we just walk all day. That's for the whole mission to try and help keep us under the mileage limit which is 3500 miles per month. We plan wisely for Thursdays. We want to teach people who live relatively close to each other. If they live far away, we tell them that we walk Thursdays and can't visit them then. They're pretty much fine with that. Our apartment is cool. It's not the best ever, and there's spots where the paint is coming off and where the wall is chipped. It hasn't been taken care of before the missionaries started using it. We do share it with another companionship. There's plenty of room for all of us. The Elders we share it with are the Zone Leaders. The cool thing about this mission is how obedient everyone is. Everyone calls this the best mission ever because we're always so completely obedient. It's pretty cool. The weather this week is pretty much the same. A cloudy day here and there, then a few sunny days. It's usually been in the upper 60's I'd say, so maybe a little bit more warmer than Utah. We actually have two baptisms this Sunday. A nine year old boy named Jermey and his sister Najali. They're from Mexico. By the way, Spanish names are a LOT more complicated than just Jose, Juan, or Rodriguez. They're crazy and I can't spell them, let alone even remembering them. Church was kinda fun. It's super small. We're in the Dover Spanish Ward. Most everyone speaks only Spanish. The Bishop is from the Dominican Republic and the Spanish from that country is pretty much impossible to understand. He only speaks Spanish. Everyone is from different Central American countries. Some from the Dominican Republic are usually very dark and could be mistaken for black. There's Puerto Ricans, Guatemalans, Hondurans, and so forth. No one from like Chile or Argentina or anything. A lot from Mexico and Columbia. By the way, Columbian food is amazing. The High Counselor in our ward is actually from Spain. He speaks perfect English too.
     So anyways, this area is pretty cool. We team up a lot with a member named Edwin from Puerto Rico who was baptized over a year ago. He's like 30 or something, but he loves missionary work and comes with us a lot, almost everyday. He speaks English pretty well. It's fun here. The only complaint is that it's completely different than Utah, but that's not really anything I can change. The other Elders say that after a while it becomes your home here. I'll still miss Utah I think, but I'll get used to it. My experience here so far, is a little similar to the MTC. I'm a little homesick at first, don't really know what I'm doing, and the time goes by slow. Those all changed in the MTC, so I'm hoping they'll change here as well.
     So far, some of our investigators have said that they really want to come to church, and that they believe the Book of Mormon is true. Pretty cool experiences so far. We've knocked a few doors. One lady, Rosa, let us in before we could even tell her who we are. Her son is getting into some bad things and her husband just recently passed away. We have a return appointment with her, and she now has a Libro de Mormon. One of our investigators is eight years old. He's super smart and is reading the Book of Mormon. He's name is Ivon. I didn't believe my companion at first how smart he is, but when we met him, I found out my comp was right. I talked (he speaks English) a little about Astronomy and he said that he wants to find the first Wormhole or Black Hole! Yes, and he is eight, 8, years old! Pretty amazing experiences so far.
     Well, I'll let you know more things as it goes on. Thanks dad for writing to me. I can't wait to hear from you all again soon. Love you all very, very much!
     -Justin

HI! I'm at the Mission Home with the other Elders in my district. We've met the Trainers, but I don't know who my Trainer is yet. President Jeppson is here. He's awesome! They let everyone get on to email our families and tell you that I'm here safetly. Everything's alright, with luggage and the airplane and everything. I'm super tired, along with all the other Elders. It was really hard to get some adequate sleep on the airplane. For some reason, the airplane was completely full! So crazy. I got an isle seat. I got lucky and got to sit by some of the Elders as well. So yeah, I'm here. I'm doing great, besides that I'm way tired. Also, I'm going to start working later on today. We're jumping right into it. My P-Day is going to be every Monday, so I'll let you know how things are doing in a week. Love you lots! I miss Utah already.

-Justin

Dear Family and Friends,

     This is my last time I'll be writing from the MTC. I'm super close to the field now. I'm getting way excited, but at the same time, I'm a little sad. Just a little. The MTC is great because we are always with so many missionaries, and we have quite a bit of teachers that are always helping both as a class and personal to the missionaries. We also see our branch president, who by the way is probably the best branch president in the MTC, very often. They always have something to say to help us out and get us excited for our missions. President Wilkens is the Branch President. He loves all of us so much. You can talk to him so well, and he'll just tell you anything that he thinks will help you. Brother Fugal is the First Counselor and it seems like he doesn't talk as much, but when you do talk to him he always seems really happy. Also, pretty much everything he does say is funny. Brother Monson is the Second Counselor. He has amazing stories from his mission and from everybody else's missions. He could talk for hours it seems like and you would never get bored. They are all amazing, so I hope that I can find leaders in New Jersey that are as good as them.

     So it was pretty crazy this last Sunday. We have Firesides on Sundays but usually it's no one special. When I walked into the gym where they do all the Firesides and Devotionals I looked at the screen to see who was going to speak. The name Alex Boyé came up. To me, that sounded familiar, but I didn't know who that was. It turns out, I do know who Alex Boyé is. He's a famous singer, especially among the LDS community because all he sings is like Hymns and stuff. He's really good! When he got up to speak, he started out by singing a song. I could tell everyone was excited, it was kinda funny. After that, he told us a few things that I wrote down, then he went in to his conversion story. That was a really cool story. Then he told us how important missionaries are because we will change the lives of our converts forever and we will always be remembered by them. It was pretty inspiring. Then he closed by singing another song. It was pretty awesome. This past week on speakers, we have been pretty lucky. Tuesday we got an Apostle, then on Sunday we got a famous artist. I'd say this has been a pretty good week.

     It's kind of funny. I'm finally starting to get the hang of how things work in the MTC. I'm finally starting to know exactly how things work and how to do things efficiently. I'm wondering why I couldn't have done that sooner. Then I remembered a saying from someone somewhere, that it's the same in the mission field. When you finally get the hang of things in your area, your transfered. The same thing happens in the next area. Then as soon as you really learn how to be a great missionary, they send you home and your two years are up. I remember my teacher Hermano McCord saying they send you home when you finally become a good missionary, because then you're not as humble. When we're out here and we have no idea what we're doing, we are very humble and always asking the Lord for help. When we know for ourselves what to do, we're not as humble. This is another reason they don't send people like my teachers on missions, because they know what they're doing. Interesting.

 

     So here are the A of W (Answers of the Week)

1. I won't find out who my companion is until after I get there. I think they have like a big conference or something and then they'll tell me. I'll tell you more about it when I get find out, in my next letter.

2. Not really. It's still pretty hard to get up in the morning. I'm just as tired, if not more. And the lights in the halls and the bathrooms are extremely blinding in the morning, so that's not too fun.

3. That's a really good question. I'm nervous about a few things, but I think the one I think about the most is getting lost. The layout there is quite different from Utah. All the streets out there are going to be named, and not easy with numbers like in Utah. Also in Utah, I'm NEVER wondering which way is north because all I have to do is find the mountains. Especially here at the MTC, the mountains seems extra huge because we're like right next to them, so it's incredibly easy to know where I'm looking. As far as I know, there are no mountains in New Jersey. So I'm concerned about getting lost. I'm also a little nervous about my Trainer. I'm really hoping he'll be really good. I've heard that the Mission President hand picks the best ones for that job. But he also picks missionaries that are doing a terrible job to see if they can redeem themselves by training a new missionary. So yeah, I'm a little worried about that.

 

Elder Gajewsky

Hello friends and family,

Wow, a lot of things happened this week. Last Saturday, the branch president, President Wilkens, found me and my two companions and wanted to talk to us. I wasn't too surprised. Our lessons have been struggling a little, and I even told him that it's kinda hard in a three-some. After he talked to us and gave us some words of encouragement, he asked if he could talk to me alone. Once we were alone, he said that he wanted to talk to us to see if everything was working out. He said that he thought it was going well and that the Holy Ghost said it was going well, so he extended the invitation that he felt that I should be the next District Leader. I was a little surprised. I didn't think it was going to be me at all. President Wilkens said he knows that it'll be hard with a three-some but he knows that the challenge will be worth it. So I'm the new DL. It's a little harder, I'm responsible to keep a bunch of 19 and 20 year olds under control and to make sure everything is going well for each missionary. Other than a few leadership meetings during the week, I'm not much more busy than I used to be. But it is a fun job, I like it. Also, yesterday. Some other Elder walked into my residence dorm. A couple of us were in there waiting for our service time to start. (We do service every Wednesday morning. We just clean another residence hall.) He walked in, his name is Elder Ford, and asked for an Elder in my district. He told him that he's companions with him now, and that he's in our district. Apparently, his district left for the field and he still has two weeks left in the MTC. So, we got another Elder in our district now. I'm back in a two companionship, which has been really nice since I've been in a three-some for a while. So yeah, he's pretty cool.

 

So here's a cool story. Every Tuesday night, we have a devotional. Usually it's a member of the Quorum of the Seventy. Sometimes it's just someone high in the church. So last Tuesday night, we started to head off from our classroom, four floors down to where the gym was. As we're headed down, two Elders from the referral center join us. They ask us, "Did you hear who's speaking tonight?" I said I don't know. I thought I honestly don't care, it's probably someone from the Seventy which will be cool, but nothing out of the ordinary. They said that they heard that Elder Holland was coming. At first I got a little excited, then I thought, maybe they're just trying to trick us; because everyone would have heard that Elder Holland was coming. A few weeks ago, when Elder Holland and Elder Nelson came, people were lining up outside the gym like 30 minutes early to get a seat. When we got to the bottom floor and started to head to the gym, I saw the usual crowd and nothing wierd or out of the ordinary. I decided that those Elders were tricking us. So we sat down in our usual spot, which is pretty close to the front, but way off to the side. Then during our last opening song (we usually sing two or three hymns before the devotional actually starts) Elder Holland pops through the door. Everyone stood up immediately. It was awesome! I don't know if it was my excitment to see him or the Spirit he carried with him, but I felt something really cool. Elder Holland walked up onto the stand to where his seat was and just started singing with us like nothing happened. After the song, he waved to everyone and sat down. His talk was pretty cool. He told us that his mission meant everything to him and if we screw up or mess around on our mission... I don't know, I just know that I'm going againt anything that Elder Holland says. I'm kind of scared of Elder Holland. He's very intimidating when it comes to missions for him. He started almost yelling it seems like. It was very powerful. It's something very different when an Apostle is in the room. I was thinking to myself when I was listening to him, that it's pretty much impossible to think that Elder Holland isn't who he says he is. He's an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, literally. It's just amazing to think who is, when you think about it. It was amazing. I don't think there's a single person on this planet that can argue with Elder Holland and win. Elder Holland would even win in a political debate against any of the Presidential canidates. That would be way cool, because Elder Holland would probably share his testimony which would render every other person speechless. It's just so cool to hear him speak, I can't even tell you.

 

So anyway, I'm really close to going out in the field now. I'm super stoked. (Stoked just means really excited.) I probably get my travel plans either tomorrow or Saturday, so my next letter home I'll give info on how that's working out. Then the real fun starts :)  If anyone speaks Spanish, write to me in spanish. I'm pretty confident I can understand most spanish now. I love it, and that I can now talk and communicate well to all the teachers in spanish. I love learning a language, it's so much fun. Love you all. Thank you, and give me time if I haven't answered a letter yet, I'm super busy, and I'm working on writing you back.

      -Elder Justin Gajewsky

 

Dad,

Thanks for giving me that challenge to read in spanish. However, the dearelder printer or whatever doesn't want to print the accents. So everytime there is an accent, it just put ? instead, so it's a little hard to decypher, but I think I got it. Thanks for telling me about mom, are all her symptoms gone now except for dizzyness? That story about President Brown is really cool. I've heard a couple similar stories here about contacts like that. They're really cool. What they do with dearelders here is they just print them and put them in our mailboxes. So I don't print them out myself or anything. I think it'll be the same in the field, they'll just print them at the mission office or something and then mail them to me. We'll see. You should just write to me as soon as I get out there. I'm pretty sure I got a package last Friday though. I've gotten one almost every Friday here, which has been pretty cool. Speaking of packages, if you have something to send me tomorrow, that's cool. But don't send me one next Friday. I'm probably leaving on Monday or Tuesday, and I don't want to have some food that I have need to eat or try to pack. Thanks for everything dad. Love you. And I'll let you know when I'll be at the airport when I can call home. Maybe, I'll call home and if I have enough time I can just call your cell if you need to go to work.

 

Mom,

That's so sad that you had that set back. I really hope and pray that you get better soon. It's been over a month that you've had that surgery and I think it's about time you get back to a normal life. Thanks so much for all the packages. I really enjoy them. Honestly, I haven't really been trying to eat too healthy. At all the meals, I have the opporunity to drink from a variety of pops (all caffeine free). No Dr. Pepper or anything, but they do have Coca-Cola caffeine free. But I just have juice! They have a ton of juice! All from minute maid so they're really good. I like Grape Juice, Cranberry Juice, Orange Juice, Pink Lemonade, and Orange Guava Passion the best :) They have quite a bit, and I'm very content on thirst three times a day. It's great, but I'm sad to think that I won't be able to have juice all the time in the field. So I'll enjoy it while I can. That would be really cool to get a letter from Conrad. Also, if you see Sister Breton and she asks about me, ask her to send a letter in spanish if she wants. I really want to practice my spanish. That's one thing I'm really excited about the field. I can't wait to talk to native spanish people, especially in the spanish wards. Anyways, love you a lot! Thanks for everything! I get my travel plans either tomorrow or Saturday, so I'll let you know about when to expect a call from the airport. The kids may have to stay home from school for an hour or so. I'll let you know!

 

Kyle,

     I'm so glad you're taking care of my room. Go ahead and play with my airsoft guns. Just be careful... they hurt... a lot. Baseball sounds really fun. You should think about Jiu-Jistu as well. That's just wrestling mixed martial arts style. It's really fun and then none of your friends can wrestle you to the ground. You can beat them all and show them that you can take them! Think about it, baseball sounds fun too. Thanks for writing me bro! Keep it up and take spanish next year!

 

Julia,

     Thanks for writing to me! I'm glad you watched the video. When I watched it I immediately thought of you and Kaylee, so I just wanted to tell you that. Don't think of the boys at school. They're just dumb and immature, and they will be for a while. Don't worry about them and just hang out with your friends. You have good ones! Keep them! You'll be glad you did when you get older. I love you lots! Keep writing to me :)

 

Kaylee,

    Don't worry about those boys at school. They're just jealous that you like Justin Bieber and not them. I'm totally going to send you those primary songs. Just give me a few more days. I don't have much time on the computer here. So Kaylee, those three questions:

1. I do write in spanish a little. Not too much though. Mostly, I'm speaking it, and reading it a little. I read the Book of Mormon in spanish a lot, and I'm beginning to understand it a little.

2. There are a few buildings at the MTC. My residence building I'm in is about four stories high. The building where my class is in is five stories high and I'm at the very top. I have to climb those stairs several times every day because I'm not allowed to take the elevator.

3. I do so much stuff every day! We have a couple hours for personal study, where I read the scriptures. We have a couple hours to study spanish. We have a lot of classroom time where we learn how to teach, then practice. I also have time to go teach 'investigators'. They're just our teachers who pretend to be someone from their mission that they taught. We're really busy all the time. It's way fun though!

 

Kaylee! I miss you so much! I haven't seen any children except for a few visitors of the branch presidency's children. I will definately call when I'm at the airport. You may have to skip some school though. I hope that's okay ;) Love you lots.

 

-Justin