Dear mom,

This last week has been a pretty normal week. Unfortunately it was a little slow. We've been going around a lot and trying to get in contact with people. We have a lot of less-active members to work with and we're trying to find them all. Sometimes it can be pretty frustrating to talk to them. They know that we want them to come back to church and a lot of times they don't really care to go back to church. What they don't understand is why we are trying to do it. We just want them to be happy and have the blessings of the Gospel in their lives. So once we can finally see them and visit them, they start to understand a little more why we are there helping them.

The weather has been pretty normal here. It has still been a little cold, but nothing too miserable. I just hope winter isn't too long or too cold. It's not very fun going around doing missionary work when it's so cold. But, I'll be able to do it. It's a lot better when people let us in.

We have a goal from November and this month in the mission about the Book of Mormon. Every month we have a different monthly focus in the mission. For two months now it has been the Book of Mormon. It's a lot of fun to focus on the Book of Mormon and to learn so much more about it! President Jeppson also challenged us to read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year starting in the beginning of November. I'm a little behind but I'm reading as much as I can. I love reading the Book of Mormon!

This Saturday we did more service. We went with Brother Peck from the Scotch Plains Ward. We went to Long Island. We were all over Long Island. We had what are called work orders. It's an address, name, and phone number for somebody who requested help from the Mormon Helping Hands. Well, the first two fell through. One of them, they just needed help cutting a tree apart that fell on their fence. We didn't have any tools to cut a tree, so we went to the second one. Turns out she was already done. So we got a third one. She was a member of the church and needed some help cleaning up some things and putting containers in the shed. It wasn't too much work. We got it done in about an hour. After that, we went to a church building which was in a rented space on the street. We went there to get two more work orders. When we left the church building to start out, some other Mormon Helping Hands volunteers came through the parking lot to get another work order. They had just gotten Quiznos for lunch and were carrying it to their cars. We all decided that we wanted Quiznos too. So we went! I kind of miss Quiznos food. It was really good! Good quality. How's our Quiznos going? Have you passed by my Quiznos lately? So after, we headed out to try the next two work orders. Both of them didn't need help. Brother Peck was fed up with driving around, so he said we're going to head home. On the way home, Brother Peck said he wanted to take us through Manhattan, but that might not be the best idea. Well, he took a few ''wrong turns'' and he ended up taking us on a tour through Manhattan. I'll print some more pictures today of the Rockefeller Christmas Tree, the Freedom Tower, and some other things. We were extremely close to getting into an accident several times. New York driving is ridiculous. I was also in the front seat and his car had a roof window. It was a fun experience, but I just didn't feel accomplished because we hardly did any service. The member lady that we helped felt pretty thankful though.

This upcoming month is going to go by pretty fast. It'll be a lot of fun with lots of Christmas stuff. I'll let you know as it goes on.

Love you mom!

-Justin

 

Q of the W:

1.  Did you get your package?

Yes. I assumed it was for Christmas, but I saw the sheet music through the flaps on the box so I had Elder Jensen open it up and take out the music then tap it back down so I didn't find out what was in it! Haha.

2.  Will you be going to the Manhattan Temple soon?

YES!!! We're still planning out that trip.

3.  Are you still playing the piano at church?

No. The Branch President's daughter is playing. She's like 11 years old. She's good, however, she doesn't have a sense of rhythm or beat. It's pretty messy and it messes everyone up. Kind of funny.    I'm actually practicing every Monday. I'm getting a lot better at sight reading!