Oh and by the way!! Thank you so much for the Halloween care package! Loved it! I totally forgot about Toffifay's. So yummy.


Dear Mom,

This past week has been a pretty fun week. On Wednesday, we got hit with a snow storm. I don't know if you were watching the news or anything about that. President Jeppson told everyone to go home at 6:00pm last Wednesday because that's when the storm was going to hit. I was a little worried about losing power again, but the storm wasn't anything bad. The next day welcomed us with a nice layer of snow! It's completely gone now. I guess that's fall! There's still a few trees around us that have some leaves left, but hurricane Sandy got rid of pretty much all the leaves. It feels like winter now.

Last Friday was interviews with President and Sister Jeppson again. It seems like we just barely had interviews! How time flies. It was an awesome time again to be one on one with President Jeppson. He is such a great man. Interesting experience when we got there. We walked in and I heard somebody talking in a room down the hall in the chapel. We started walking that direction. I noticed through the window in one of the rooms where President Jeppson was. We went farther down the hall to see who was talking. President and Sister Jeppson's son-in-law named Alex Boye was talking to a couple missionaries. If you don't know who Alex Boye is, it's okay. I didn't know him before my mission either. He's somewhat famous in the LDS music world. He had a really cool conversion story that he shared with us in the MTC when he came to talk there. He talked to a couple sister missionaries in England, and they softened his heart when they shared their testimonies. Since then, he joined the church, served a mission, became a famous LDS musician, joined the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and married the Jeppson's daughter. He's a really good motivational speaker as well. He talked to us about what we would have happen on our missions. He talked about Ether and how the Lord asked him what he would have happen in order to have light on their boats. So he likened that to us and our missions. He also talked about how when one plugs in their phone to the wall, they have no idea how much power they're plugging their phone into; that the electricity that we can use is beyond the understanding for most of us. Then he likened that to us when we pray, we are plugging ourselves into the power of God, and with that power we can do anything he wants us to do. It was a cool experience!

The day after that, we had the opportunity to do service at Union Beach. It was a big mission activity. Like you said mom, New Jersey was where hurricane Sandy hit land. Union Beach is right on the part of New Jersey that sticks out into the ocean. It was hit HARD! And I got to see all of the destruction. We got our yellow Mormon Helping Hands tshirt, and went out in teams to look for people who needed help. Literally, we were given an address of a fire station, which was a base camp for all the volunteers, then we just went out in teams and went house to house and asked what they needed help with. Mountains of trash lined all the streets. The city was bringing in big dumpsters to throw all the trash into. We helped a few houses with just taking out all their destroyed things and put them out onto the street. There was a group of three guys that had a metal shop/restaurant/office that got flooded with 8 feet of water. To make it worse, their restaurant had gone out of business just a few months before. The whole garage/shop area was full of a couple giant refrigerators and a bunch of stuff that was all completely ruined by water. We just helped them carry everything out onto the street so that later they could throw it all away into a dumpster. So much money wasted! So sad! These people were so grateful. I've never heard so many "thank you's" in my whole life. The one guy who we helped clean out his garage/shop wanted to make a donation to our church. President Jeppson later showed up and the guy wanted his address. President Jeppson told him that we're not here to accept money or donations, but to simply help out anyone we can. Awesome experience!

The next day, we actually did something similar. It was Sunday, and the Scotch Plains Stake was going to go help out on Staten Island. For some reason, Plainfield Spanish Branch didn't go. But we got permission from the Area Seventy to leave our mission to go to Staten Island with the Stake to help out. So we went with the English Elders to English Church!! First time in 10 months that I've heard three things: the Sacrament Prayer in english (sounded weird), an organ (wow those things are cool sounding!), and good singing (Spanish people don't sing... well... usually). We went to their church at 8am for about 45 minutes, then we all headed out to Staten Island. We carpooled with some members. We drove in a suburban! I forget how big those cars are! Unfortunately, we found a worse situation there on Staten Island. The National Guard was there. It really felt like a disaster zone. There were Black Hawks flying over, military Humvees driving around, news helicopters circling around, big dumpster trucks all over the place, the streets were dirty and muddy, houses were completely destroyed, trash all over the streets, and base camps for food and emergency supplies. It was a really weird feeling to be there. There were a lot more members and missionaries from the New York mission there helping out. You could tell who the members were by their yellow Mormon Helping Hands tshirt. We did the same thing. We went to different houses and asked what they needed help with. We tore up a floor. We tore down all the walls of a house. We helped clean out a flooded basement. There were tons of housed with warning signs on the door saying that it was extremely dangerous and therefore prohibited to enter the house. Just a crazy experience. I took a few pictures that I'll have to send.

So moving on, last Saturday night, we finally found some less active boys that are my age, 20 and 21. They have some desire to come back to church but they were embarrassed when they couldn't get the Sacrament Prayers right and had to say them 4 or 5 times. Poor guys! But, we're going to work with them to help them come back to church. The older one named Alex is learning piano a little. I told him that I could help teach him a little. I taught him FACE, All Good Birds Do Fly, Great Big Dogs Fight Animals, and All Cars Eat Gas. It was a little much for his first piano lesson that wasn't from YouTube, but I'll write it down for him. They're a cool family.

Also, we finally got in contact with Carlos and Yerlin! Hopefully you remember them. I barely do, haha. It was a really good lesson with them. We taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ which is Faith, Repentence, Baptism, the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. We only got to baptism until we ran out of time and had to go home. It was awesome to see them again! Carlos said that his mom is moving to Utah. Cool! We have another appointment with them next Monday.

Good week. Yesterday was a holiday, that's why I'm emailing today. Sorry if it was confusing.

Also, transfers are coming up this weekend. In a week, I could be heading to a new area. Hopefully no. I like this area a lot and I don't like getting to know a new area. So hold off on the letters to Middlesex for a little bit. I'll let you know next Monday.

Here are the Q of W:

1.  Do you guys at your apartment have any type of Christmas tree to put up?

 

I don't think so. Sad.. I've seen mini-Christmas trees in closets in my past areas. Maybe we'll find a mini-tree.

2.  Is there anything in particular that you need/want for Christmas before I send the package??

 

The music to Piano Man, Open Arms, and Mario. I can't really think of anything else. Something cool! I don't know. Sorry, there's not much I could use on my mission.

3.  Do you still have 8 missionaries in your apartment?

 

No, thankfully! They left Wednesday right after the hurricane. It was Wednesday right after the hurricane at noon that we were finally allowed to leave our apartment. So we were all ready to go and sitting in our apartment for 30 minutes before noon waiting to be able to leave! 

By the way, I found out that weird green and orange lightning is when a tree falls on a power line and the transformer explodes. That's why so many people lost power, tons of transformers were exploding all the time!

Thanks for the quote! I really like that one!

Tell Kelsie, Kyle, Julia, and Kaylee that I want another letter soon. I haven't gotten a letter from them in a while.

Love you mom!

-Justin