Dear family and friends,

 

I have been transferred to a place called Paterson. It's towards the city. Around the area, it's not bad. Just like other places in New Jersey. Lots of trees and plants. However, we live in the city and we work mostly in the city. It's dirty and ugly. I don't like the area very much. But, the members are AWESOME. We work in the Paterson 1 branch. Yes, branch. Not too big at all. The members are great. They love working with the missionaries. The Branch President, President Campos, is from Ecuador. He and his family are amazing. Super nice. It's called Paterson 1 because Paterson 2 is the English Branch. We room with those Elders. Both Paterson Branches use the same chapel, which is their own building. I'm glad to be in another building, not just a rented space. I've met a few members from the English Branch and they seem just as cool. I'm already pretty good friends with another guy in the ward named Isaily De La Rosa. He's about 18 or 19 and his parents are from the Dominican Republic. Since he's from the DR, he's pretty dark. He reminds me of Will Smith. Isaily is way cool. His parents kicked him out of the house when he joined the church when he was 16. Very strong member. He just turned in his mission papers a few days ago. He comes out with us teaching often. He'll be a great missionary. We also go with a member named Brother Galvis. He and his wife are from Columbia. They LOVE the missionaries. He told me to always talk with him so I can perfect my Spanish and so he can help me out. We are Brother Galvis' patners for home teaching. So we go with him several times a week to help him with that. He's a great teacher! The other night, we were at the Galvis home. They wanted to feed us. They brought out some pasta and orange juice. I was a little hungry, so it was a pleasant surprise. Then they put the plate on the table and I saw the nastiest, biggest, juiciest middle-slice of a tomato sitting right there on the top. (For the tomato-lovers out there, it probably looked like the best tomato you've ever seen in your life. I hope your jealous.) In hispanic culture, you never refuse food and you always eat EVERYTHING. That's the key to getting them to love you. You eat all their food. So I ate the tomato. I didn't taste too bad, but I still don't like them. I still love the Galvis Family.

 

So last week, I couldn't email as long. We were planning on doing normal email time. We decided to go hiking as a zone to a place called the Del Water Gap. It's to see the Delaware River. We went to a place towards the edge of New Jersey close to Pennsylvania. We planned on it taking about 3 hours. Haha. It took a little longer than that. We hiked around for a while. We were trying to get to the Delaware River. It was a really fun hike. I realized how much I miss hiking! We finally got towards the end of the trail. Then we found a road. Off the road was another small path that finally led us to the Delaware River. A couple of us went ahead earlier because we were just hiking faster. That was me and a couple others. We went back to the road to wait for the rest of us to catch up. Then we realized that it's probably going to take a long time to get back to the cars. We decided to take the road and see if that would take us back to the cars faster. So the few of us faster hikers started off walking on the road. The road was a long time to walk. It led us to the highway. I-80 in fact. We could actually take that all the way back to Utah. We walked in the grass and the schrubs on the side of I-80. It took a while, but we finally got back to the cars and drove back to pick up the rest. Then it was about a 45 minute drive back to the library. That pretty much took most of the day. I only had like 30 minutes to email last week so that's why I didn't want to take the whole time to type this story.

 

Mom,

I have a favor to ask. My Spanish scriptures are being beat in my backpack. I'm afraid of the rain getting them too. I've tried looking around a little for these certain cases for LDS Spanish scriptures. Apparently they are only found at the MTC Bookstore. I was wondering if you could try and see if you could get into the MTC to see if you can get a hold of those Spanish Scripture Cases. I'll try and describe them. They're all different colors. Mostly darker colors. It looks like a very South American color pattern. I'm pretty sure the MTC gets them from Argentina or some other country down there. They're are made from a base black case with a zipper to hold the scriptures shut. There are two cases: one for the Bible and the other for the Book of Mormon. There's also one for a small Spanish Hymn Book, but I don't want that. If you could get those, that would save my Spanish Scriptures. Use my credit card for them. 

 

Also Mom,

How are the Great and Terrible Series going for you?? Every once in a while in the Book of Mormon, it talks about the Great and Terrible times. I think of you and grandma when it says that. I wrote those books down on a "Don't forget" piece of paper in my journal so I don't forget them when I can read them again. It's pretty crazy to think I'm almost a quarter way done. To me it doesn't seem that long. It also seems I have a long way to go. I'm excited though. I've made some really good friends in the mission so far that'll be here for a while too. How is your ear surgery recovery going? Back to normal? No more symptoms? I've prayed a lot for that. Love you mom! Talk to you soon

-Justin