Dear Mom,

So this past week, it's gotten to be pretty cold. I have a sweater on and my two-piece coat from Mr. Mac. I also have a scarf and a hat. My gloves are also very nice. I'm just trying to find some thermals somewhere. I stay pretty warm. When the wind picks up, then it gets a little more miserable, but luckily we don't have too far to walk between appointments. Most of the time during the day we don't have many appointments, so we'll be walking around for a little longer. When about 4 o'clock hits, then it starts picking up and we have a good amount of appointments. I have my little weather thing that I got for my birthday that tells me that in the morning it's about 15 to 20 degrees. Earlier on this week it stayed about that cold all day long. A few days the wind made it seem like it was way worse. Today, it's going back and forth between snow, hail, and rain. It's P-Day so we are just hanging out at the chapel. All of our apartments are too small to fit the six of us. The past few days, it's been about 30's. Not too bad. A little bit of snow, but still nothing is sticking.

So this last Tuesday we had our interviews with President and Sister Jeppson. Amazing as always. I told a story to President Jeppson that happened to me last week. I was a little concerned about how I handled a certain lesson. I don't think I told you last week. So here's the story, we were visiting one of our investigators at a member's house. Our investigator is this 16-year old girl from the Dominican Republic named Melissa. She doesn't speak English. She's spent the past few years serving a ''mission'' spreading the word of the Bible. Good for her. She wanted to learn a little more about our Church. She's come to Church a few times now. The Wednesday before this past Wednesday, we had this lesson with her and we taught her the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She seemed a little spectacle about it, which isn't a rare response. After we were done, she said she had a few questions. She pulled out a few pieces of paper and started asking some weird questions. When she was reading off the paper, I heard her say something that gave me the feeling (the Holy Ghost) that I needed to see exactly what this paper was. I asked if I could see it. She said sure. I started to read some of it, and I could tell that it was Anti-Mormon stuff. It was anti-Mormon and anti-Jehova's Witness and anti-a couple other things, but it was Anti-Mormon stuff nonetheless. Then I had another feeling (the Holy Ghost) that I needed to tell her straight up that these were lies. So I got up some nerve, then I looked at her and told how it was. I said these were lies and that they came straight from the devil and she couldn't read them if she wanted to grow closer to God. She said no and that God had directed her to find those. I said no, they are lies and if she wants the truth it is only found in the Book of Mormon and the Bible. She didn't have much to say after that. The member family was kind of happy about that, and then we left maybe 10 minutes later. For some reason, I didn't know if that was the way I should have handled that situation. So I asked President Jeppson. He said that he was proud of me for having the courage to act on that prompting to tell her the truth and that he doesn't think I could have handled it any other way. It was a pretty scary experience to tell someone that what they are holding is lies when they think they got it from God. I'm glad though that I was able to call her out on it! We had another member with us who is preparing for his mission. He's name is Alan and he's from Mexico. He was super happy for me when we got out of that lesson. He was telling me how much the Holy Ghost was with me when I called her out. Fun mission experiences!! We had another lesson with Melissa just a few days ago. She didn't take anything personal. She's a little confused right now. She told her pastor about that experience! It's good that she's confused. Hopefully she'll just draw back on sincere prayer. We'll keep telling her to read the Book of Mormon. Again, fun mission experiences! 

This last Sunday, we were able to go see a few other baptisms in our District. We saw a family of three get baptized in West New York and a mom and daughter get baptized in Jersey City. When we were in Jersey City, I ended up translating the baptism as it was going on for President and Sister Jeppson. It was really, really hard. That was actually my first time translating! President and Sister Jeppson said they were impressed. I guess I did a decent job for my first time translating! It was a 'good feeling' moment. The baptisms were wonderful and they were packed with people. Everyone in those wards wanted to see them get baptized! 

We had dinner at Tina and Milko's again last night. What an amazing family. They are from Bolivia and fed us a traditional Bolivian dish. I forgot the name, but it's beef, onions, green peppers in a sauce over french fries. It's not as good as it sounds, it's actually WAY better than it sounds. It was so good. 

This next week should be a pretty normal week. It's the last week of January, and I'm glad. I just want winter to end. I want spring. Not necessarily summer because summer is going to be so hot. I just want spring and fall. 

In his weekly letter to all the missionaries, President Jeppson announced that on Saturday, February 16, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles is going to come to speak to our mission! He didn't say who, but an Apostle!! That's about three weeks away, but I'm already looking forward to it. Before I know it, it'll be here probably. 

Has Kelsie been hanging out with William at all? Have you talked to William at all? I want to know how he's doing. I sent him a couple letters early last year, but I never got anything back. 

Q of the W:

1.  How often do you actually tract? 

Hardly ever. We contact people sometimes, but mostly we're just working on the investigators we have and as we help less-active families, we'll find family members or friends that are interested to hear more.

2.  If you could only give one piece of advice to someone leaving on a mission, what would it be?

That's hard. If someone is preparing to go on a mission, I would say to start studying Preach My Gospel and the standard works as much as possible. If someone were leaving on their mission in the next few days, I would say learn to love the members as soon as you can. The members are everything. Missionary work does not progress without the members, so do everything you can to love the members so they can trust you.

3.  When you talk to members who are less active?  Is there a common reason they became inactive in the first place?

Yes. Work!!!! I hate work!!!!! It's the reason why so many people don't come to church. Then they get used to not coming to church and then when they finally do get Sunday off of work, they have forgotten about Church and are embarrassed, or scared, or nervous, or something about coming back.

Another that isn't as common is someone getting offended. Usually some good talk about what really is important will brighten their attitude.

Love you mom!!

-Justin

Dear Mom,

Sorry for not emailing yesterday. The library was closed for MLK day.

So first off, this last Friday I tried a food this past week that I said that I would never want to try! Sushi... There's a member in our ward who is super cool. His name is Antonio. He's from Chile. He's way nice. He's probably in his early 40's or late 30's. I don't know for sure. He's single, but has had a rough life with his family. He came to the United States a few years back. He hated it at first, but when he found the Gospel, he realized why he was here. He loves the Church and now works in the Manhattan Temple. Somehow he inherited a good amount of money, so he treats the missionaries very, very well. He took us out to a Japanese restaurant. He loves sushi. When he asked us to come with him, I told him that I've never tried sushi and that I'm scared to try it. He said, if you don't like it that's fine, you don't have to eat it, don't worry about it; but I at least have to try it. So... I did. It's definitely different. The restaurant he took us to was a sushi buffet. I tried raw tuna. I tried sushi with eel in it, crab, fish, all sorts of stuff. Some of it I actually liked. Some didn't taste too good. Others like the tuna just grossed me out. They had lots of shrimp, so I ate that. My companion and Antonio made me try seaweed. I had wasabi with all of it. My companion tried to make me try calamari. He also tried jellyfish and clams. It was a definite 'no' for me to the calamari. I wasn't even about to try jellyfish or clams. Antonio also had me try all these dessert things. They were totally Japanese stuff. There were like two of them that actually tasted okay. The rest were pretty nasty. Overall, it was a pretty good experience. I'd be willing to try sushi again, but I don't think that I'm going to put the effort in to get to another sushi place again. 

Also on Friday, we went to the Bishop's house for some dinner and to get to know him a little better. President Jeppson has told us how important it is to get the Bishop's trust and to do everything he says. He, and especially his wife, are incredibly important for our work in the ward. We have to have them know that he can trust us. So we had dinner with him and his wife, who cooked very well, and then taught him about charity from Moroni 7. Our Bishop has been known to be a little grumpy and also, unfortunately, not very private when it comes to interviewing members worthiness. It's caused some members to got less-active. We call it "Chismoso" or gossipy. He and his wife really are amazing though. I don't think they do it on purpose. When we visited them, they were very nice and welcoming. Bishop seems to love the missionaries. That's good!

This last Thursday was Zone Conference. As always, it was amazing to hear from President and Sister Jeppson. They're so amazing. We practiced how to start teaching investigators by letting them know why we're here and what we want them to do. It was really good. Very inspiring. I took notes. I will always remember President and Sister Jeppson. We're going to have interviews with them later on today. I'm pretty excited to get some one-on-one with them again. I have some questions in mind that I want to ask them. It should be pretty great!

On Sunday, we went over to a recent convert family's home for dinner. They are an amazing family! They are both from Bolivia. They have a 7-year old daughter that just turned seven on January 20, right after Kaylee turned eight. They also have another daughter who is just over a year old. They are an awesome family. Two Sunday's ago, we had dinner with them. When we were eating, they asked me what my favorite food is. I told them my favorite food is my mom's food, haha! They asked what was it that my mom made that I always loved. I said that my mom cooks Lasagna really well. They said they would try to make it the next week. Last Sunday, just over a week ago, we had Lasagna! It was actually pretty good. It was the first time that they had made it too! It was the first time in a year that I've had it! Of course it wasn't as good as your lasagna mom, haha. Just this past Sunday, two days ago, they made my companion's favorite food. I forget what it's called. It's an Italian dish too. Again, the first time they had made it. They've only been members for over half a year. Milko, the dad, has had work lately on Sundays, and he's still working on trying to get those off. They want to go to the temple. Tina usually comes every week. The 7-year old girl, Nicole, wants to serve a mission some day. Great family! We taught them the Articles of Faith. It was a Spanglish lesson, since Tina reads and speaks Spanish better and the little girl is better in English. Milko is great both ways. It's pretty fun teaching Spanglish lessons. 

We have some good progressing investigators. They're just starting up or starting to progress. Nothing too amazing with them, but I think that February will be full of getting people ready to be baptized really soon. It's going to be great!

President Trent sounds like he's doing as amazing as ever. I wonder if he'll be a mission president.. It wouldn't surprise me. I can't wait to talk to him again. I really hope he's still the Stake President when I come home. I want to be able to talk to him about my mission. I've always loved talking with him. 

I've seen that soda machine before. The only one I've seen in Utah is at the Costa Vida by my Quiznos. I've seen them a lot around here in New Jersey. They're way cool. However, I usually end up just getting the regular soda. It's so cool though!

I can't believe that Morgan is already coming home. I'm also curious as to when Jaime Ricks, Patrick McMillan, and Tyler Whitely are coming home. How much longer do they have left? I forget who else is in our ward that's on a mission. I'm sure they're all getting close. Also, who else has left on a mission in our ward since I've been out??

One thing if you could send me. Sometimes we want to play a game for FHE at members' houses. I don't know how easy it would be, but if you could find a game from Deseret Book about the Book of Mormon or something in the Church that looks like it would be a fun small game, that would be great. Also, I would need it in Spanish.. If you can't find anything, don't worry about it, we've been good at coming up with games. Make sure it's a small game too, nothing too big. I'll send my camera soon.

Love you mom! Talk to you soon! 

-Justin

Q of the W:

1.  Do any of the missionaries get sick very often?  The flu is super bad here.  Just wondering if it is there too.

I haven't heard much about the flu among missionaries. I've heard about how bad it is though. I'm drinking plenty of Orange Juice!

2.  How often do you eat at people's houses in your new area so far?

Very often actually. This area loves to feed the missionaries. We probably eat at least once a day. Last night, a member took us out to eat at a small Hispanic restaurant. Sunday, we were at Tina and Milko's. Tonight, we might eat twice, once for sure though. Tomorrow, we'll eat for sure. Thursday, we have two FHE's. We'll get fed for sure at both of them. We're pretty much always eating. Good thing it's a walking area.

3.  Have you heard from your friends lately?  I wish they had a blog.  It would be fun to keep up. 

Yes. Tanner is doing really well at writing every week. He's been really good to keep in contact. Kyle every once in a while. Luke I haven't heard from in a couple weeks. Spencer I haven't heard much from. We're all pretty busy and loving it! Tanner wants to learn Spanish after the mission along with like 4 or 5 other languages. He's getting way into the languages now! It's going to be a fun friends reunion!

Dear Mom,

I think I am going to send my camera home so you all can look at it. I just don't have any time to do anything like that. P-Day is packed enough as it is. We share a van with two other companionships. It's a little harder, but we all hang out with each other on P-Day and it makes it a lot of fun.

Spanish is coming along. I still get frustrated with it because sometimes I still can't understand people and I don't know exactly how to say certain things sometimes. But I'm working on it. When I get home, it'll be easier and harder to learn Spanish. I'll be able to read more stuff in Spanish and have more liberty to watch things and read things in Spanish. But I won't be using nearly as much as I do now. That'll be sad. I'll try and find ways to use it more often. I can order at Costa Vida and Carls Jr every day... Just kidding, that would be a waste of money.

It sounds like you had a fun birthday! I'm so happy. Next year, you might have to post-pone your birthday a couple days. I don't know if I'll be home on the 10th. 

No snow storms for a while. Luckily it's been pretty warm here. It's actually been unusually warm here. About 50 degrees during the day. About 30 degrees at night. I won't be surprised when it gets super cold though. I'm just enjoying it while it lasts!

I'm so excited for Kaylee's baptism! I'm sad that I'm going to miss it, but I'm still very happy to by on my mission. I'm looking forward to the pictures.

This past week has been pretty good. I'm still getting to know the area and the members. There are some very good members in this area. There are plenty of less-active members to work with. We actually had a less-active member contact us and ask us for the Bishop's phone number. He wants to come back. He said that he needs to work out something first and that he had a problem with some ''people''. I don't exactly know what that means, but I'll let the Bishop take care of that.

We've found some new investigators that we're very excited about. We're staying positive and we are planning on setting baptismal dates with them soon. We had an awesome lesson with a new investigator this last week. We found this lady from the Dominican Republic who said that she's pretty religious and enjoys going to her church. We found her when we went to try and see a member in this apartment building. When we were talking to  him from the downstairs lobby area. We called him from the doorbell system, another girl came in the door when we were talking to him. He told us that he's busy and can't meet with us then. When we were done, the girl (early 20's) said that we could come up and try to convert her mom. I thought for a second that she might have been a member. She's not. We set up an appointment to return. We went back a few days later with a 19 year old guy in our ward. He's from Mexico and doesn't speak much English. He is super cool! Very nice and friendly and impossible to not like. He came with us to teach her. He's putting in his mission papers right now. We had a very cool experience teaching her the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She never disagreed on anything, and she had good questions. The Spirit was there and I know that she felt it. When we introduced her to the Book of Mormon, I promised her that it can bless her life more than she can imagine. She looked at the book and then asked us, "So if I don't read this book, God won't give me those blessings?" I didn't know what to say. That's a tough question to answer. Our 19 year old team up, Alan, jumped right in and said, "Of course you won't! That's why we want you to read the book." It was such an awesome moment! Alan had it perfect too. You can't receive blessings if you don't read it! I know that Alan is going to be an amazing missionary. He even shared the first vision. He had it memorized perfectly. Overall, it was a great lesson. Hopefully she responds correctly to the Book of Mormon. We've been taught that we can't 'beat around the bush' when teaching people. If we do, they won't know why we're there. They need to know it how it is, but in a loving way. Just like Jesus Christ taught. Teaching plainly and boldly the truth, exactly how we know it. Those who believed on Him, dropped everything they had and were converted to Him. Those who didn't want to, walked away and refused the blessings that awaited them. We're praying that this lady, Fabiola, will be converted to Him and His Gospel. There's others like her, but I don't have the time to talk about all of them. That was the highlight of the week.

We love our members here and are trying to help them the best we can.

Love you mom! Talk to you soon.

-Justin 

Q of the W:

1.  Did you get your 'happy halfway' package? 

Yes. Thank you so much!

2.  Do the apartments' kitchens come with all the pots and pans and other stuff?

Yes they do. Some apartment have more than others, but we have enough.

3.  When you talk to members who are not active...what is the one main question you ask them to help them come back to church?

Usually we try to get them to think about their baptism. Who the missionaries were, how they felt, and why they wanted to be baptized. That usually helps us get to know more about where we should start. Some people say things like the missionaries convinced them, or they were baptized at eight, but never went. Kind of sad, but we try our best to love them and help them.

Dear Mom,

Happy birthday this week!

My new address is: 

2029 Bergenline Ave Apt.#3 

Union City, NJ 07087

I'm in a place called Union City. Something special about this area is that it's a walking area. :) My area is from 15th street to 30th street. It's about 15 streets wide and 15 streets long. A very small area. Don't worry. I hasn't been too cold. My temperature clock thing tells me that it's about 37 degrees in the morning. During the day it gets to low 40's. I've been told that it'll get colder. Snow hasn't been here yet either. I'm sure it'll get colder but all my gear is keeping me warm. The Mr. Mac jacket is really warm and I love those finger gloves that I bought. For Christmas, several people gave me scarfs, so I'm stacked on those. I also received some hats. Although I'm not a huge fan. Today I want to go get some ear muffs. There are some really nice ones that I've seen that other missionaries have. They cost like a buck. I'm excited for this area. We're also in a ward. Finally! The ward boundaries are split up between two other companionships besides us. So there are six of us total. We're very close to the Hudson front. Union City is on somewhat of a hill. On the eastern edge of my area, there is a cliff which overlooks a small section of a town called Hoboken, then it's the Hudson front and NYC. We can walk to the edge of our area to this cliff, and I'm pretty sure that it's there that they take all the pictures of the NYC skyline. Way awesome!! I would send you a picture, but I'm trying to figure out something with my camera. It's having troubles charging the battery. It won't stay on for three seconds before it tells me that the battery is exhausted. I'm trying to figure it out. Hopefully it's a battery issue. I might have to go get it checked out and maybe buy a new battery. For now, I can't really take any pictures. As soon as I get it back up and running. I'll take a few pictures of the NYC skyline and send them! I have to tell you, seeing the NYC skyline where we were is really cool. There's nothing like it. Remember that feeling when you reach the 'G' on the mountain in Utah and when you finally get up there, you look out over the valley?? It's that same type of feeling. When we travel to NYC, we'll have to come into NJ and look at it. 

By the way, I remembered about halfway through this last week what I sent Kelsie for Christmas. I can't believe I forgot! Haha! 

The change to Union City has been interesting. I still miss Plainfield though. I think it was a good change though. I needed it. I was getting to accustomed to the area. It'll still take some time to change to this area. In Plainfield, I had the whole Branch in my area. Now I only have 1/3 of the members in my area. Getting to know the city is a little different than getting to know a driving area. In my past areas, you get to know the area as you follow the GPS to members' houses and investigators' houses. Here, we don't use a GPS really, so we just walk. I'm still just following my companion around the area. I've actually been doing pretty well with getting to know the area so far. I'm not so disoriented now. Also, we can see the Empire State Building from almost anywhere in our area. It lights up red and green at night. I'm going to like Union City a lot. I just still have to get to know the members and investigators. Something else interesting about Union City, is that the chapel here is actually one of the chapels I found on Google Earth before my mission after I got my call. I don't know if you remember when I was looking up different places in New Jersey like where LDS chapels were and when I found Linden, NJ. Well, I found the Union City chapel on there too. So it's really cool to be able to actually be here now. The chapel is actually in my area too! It's pretty close to our apartment. The chapel's address is 2501 New York Ave, NJ if you want to look it up. It has two levels of underground parking. The first level of parking is the one you will see under the chapel when you look it up. 

Nothing too interesting happened this week. I've just been getting to know everyone in the area this past week. We met with a lot of members so that I could introduce myself. It's really cool, because some people think that I'm new in the mission for some reason. But, when I start talking to them they say, "Wow, you already speak Spanish perfectly!" in Spanish. That's a good sign that I'm doing pretty good on Spanish! Then I tell them that I've been on my mission for about a year. It's cool to think that I've already been on the mission for about a year. For me, it's gone pretty quick. Now it's the countdown. I'm liking the mission a lot though. All the departing missionaries have a bitter sweet feeling about going home. They're definitely ready to go see their families again and do 'normal' things again, but at the same time, they just love to teach people about the Gospel. I'll be the same way. It'll be a very bitter sweet time. 

Well, that'll about do it for this week. Love you mom! Happy birthday. Talk to you soon.

-Justin

Q of the W:

1.  What is your companion's name and where is he from?

Elder Romrell. He's from Idaho Falls. He's really cool. His trainer is actually my trainer! We had the same trainer! So we're 'brothers' in the mission. He's a lot of fun. It's going to be a good transfer!

2.  What is your new apartment like?

It's small. A little messy and unorganized. We're working on it though. We're cleaning a little bit everyday. It's also a 2 man. We're the only two in the apartment. Not as fun as a 4 man, but we can focus better. 

3.  How was the diner you ate at last week?

We went to a place called Friendly's. It's a New Jersey chain diner. Weird. But it was pretty good. Not too expensive. It reminded me more of like Ihop or Denny's then a real diner. I think you have to go to the expensive diners to get the real 'diner' feel.

Teresa Gajewsky (tgajewsky@hotmail.com)

1/06/13