Dad,
It really does feel like a sauna here sometimes. I heard that the other day it got to like 110 degrees. I don't remember it being that miserable though. Every day is usually pretty hot. A few days ago though it was pretty bad. Last Thursday aparently there was a tornado warning in New Jersey. Crazy! There was a pretty nasty storm with a ton of rain for about an hour or so, then it calmed down. I've been thinking that it'd be pretty cool to go through a hurricane like Hurricane Irene that came through last year. A few missionaries were here last year and they said it was pretty crazy. Then for the next few weeks they were just doing a service mission and cleaning up all the mess. They said it was weird because they would have Sacrament meeting in jeans and a tshirt then go out to work cleaning up. Sounds fun. Haha, but scary. I don't want a tornado to come through though. That would be way too scary. The last few days it's been rainy here. We get some wicked lightning. At some points, the lightning was pretty much constant. It was random throughout the sky, but there was still lightning that was going on all the time it seemed like. Usually the lightning lasts only about 30 minutes or so. New Jersey storms are very random.
The Branch where I'm serving at is pretty small. Sometimes it's hard, because there just isn't very many members to help us out. There are a few members that are really good with the missionary work. They give us people to teach often. They're just so busy, that they can't help us teach very much. I think there's more primary children in the Lindon 5th than all the members in the Plainfield Branch!
This past week has been picking up just a little bit. We're getting to know members a lot more. My companion hasn't been here too much longer than I have. Just six weeks longer, so both of us don't know the members too well. This last Sunday, we met a few more members at church and are planning on seeing them this next week. It's really fun meeting the members. I think it gets funner when you can actually speak Spanish and talk to them. I've been doing better with that. I think getting transfered to a new area really helps with learning Spanish. When you're in one area for a while, you get used to the way the members speak Spanish there. When you go to a new area, there's new people speaking Spanish their way. It's not really exactly different Spanish, it's just the way people speak it. Some people speak it nice and clearly, then some people speak so fast and sloppy that it takes a lot of concentration to understand what they're saying. It's a lot of fun. Here in Plainfield, most people are from Guatemala and El Salvador. I love meeting so many people from different countries.
We were talking to some members this last week. They're from Peru. They were talking about how they don't like New Jersey very much. Then they said that they don't really want to move back to Peru. They said that one time they traveled to Utah and loved it there and they want to move there. I told them that I'm from Utah. They started asking me how it is in Utah. I told them that the mountains are beautiful and everyone is super nice. I told them that the crazy thing is that my ward is like two blocks, and everyone on my street are active members except for one house, and that the people behind me are in the other ward. These Peruvian members were saying "Wow! I can't imagine!" Haha, I can't imagine what it would be like to grow up with the church so far away and no one around you are members. We are blessed in Utah! They really great members and I hope that they can get that chance to live in Utah. They would need to learn English more though. I don't know how many Spanish wards there are in Utah. They do have a YSA Stake in Apline, Utah which is basically unheard of out here. They do have a YSA Ward in New York that some people go to sometimes. So you never know what they might have in Utah.
Great area! I love it here. Somehow in every area, you find the part of town where the ghettos are. I found that here. We don't go there very often, but it is a little more scary. Lots of black people there. They always seem like they're staring you down. We are two white boys in nice clothes driving a Chrysler though, so that might help. Oh yeah, we have a pretty nice car in this area. It's a 2009 Chrysler Sebring. Pretty nice. Not the best preformance, but still really nice. These other missionaries close by just got a brand new car. They got a 2012 Toyota Corolla. I drove it the other day on an exchange. They got it with 8 miles on it. I was driving it with about 2000 miles. I always think of the suburban when I think of miles. The suburban had like over 200,000? Wow.
Anyways, not much to talk about. Love you dad! Thanks!
-Justin