Dear Mom,

I did get my camera back. Thanks for those extra pics by the way. :) I will try to take more pictures. I've kind of realized that I haven't been taking as much as I could. For some reason, it's just harder for me to take pictures. But I'll try. Also, thanks for the dinosaur eggs oatmeal. I've forgotten about those! 

That's good to hear about Brandon Halverson. I'm glad he decided to go on a mission.  

So many things seem like that they're changing. Those pictures you sent me the other week from Kaylee's baptism, it looks like Kyle is really getting pretty tall. It's going to be really exciting to see everything when I come back.

  

So this last week has been pretty good. I think you already know about Alan. Well, he came out with us right after lunch on Friday. Our original plan was to have him help us for about three hours. But Alan was having a good time. My companion and I were forced to speak in Spanish all the time, so Alan ended up coming with us for the whole day! He was with us until we had to go home at like 9:00 pm. I think he was worn out. But he enjoyed it. I know I enjoyed it. We had a Spanish tutor with us for the whole day. Whenever I had a question, I could just ask him. I didn't have to wait until I got home to look it up in a grammar book. It was really nice. Alan is awesome. He's one of those members I probably won't ever forget. 

We had an almost really scary moment on Friday. We were walking down one of our streets on our way to go see one of our recent converts. The recent convert is nine years old and has missed the past few Sundays. It's kind of frustrating. Unfortunately his mom is really less-active for some reason. My companion and the other Elder here before me were hoping that the baptism of the son would help reactivate his mom. It hasn't worked so far. Anyway, that's not the scary part. On that same street is another member family. A really cool family. Actually the family of Eddy de Leon who talked to you on Facebook, mom. His dad served a mission, but is kind of struggling in life with work and stuff. He really misses his country and doesn't like New Jersey very much. Lately, he's been pretty sick. Something with his throat or tonsils. He can't get proper medical care, because he doesn't have insurance. However, he can't get insurance, if you know what I'm saying. He has a strong testimony and loves the Gospel. Well, when we were walking on that street on Friday, we saw an ambulance close to the De Leon's house. We stopped for a second and thought for a second that the ambulance was at the De Leon's. We went over there and realized that the ambulance was there for something else. I was definitely relieved. We decided to go visit the De Leon family anyway. Brother De Leon is doing better. He's still sick but has some medication. On the mission, I've just really become good friends with a lot of people. I don't think they ever have that same feeling usually, because they love all the missionaries. But I think most missionaries really start to care for most of the members as really good friends, even though they only have known them for only a few months. It's really fun to get to know the members. Every one is different and you learn to love them a lot. Just like with the De Leon family and Alan Castro.

On Thursday, we had a lesson with an inactive 20 year old guy and his mom. He was baptized about five years ago, but for some reason stopped coming to church. It's really weird because he doesn't even show up on the ward list and there are just a couple members who know who he is. It's kind of an interesting situation. The mom was an investigator for a long time too. We, as missionaries, have teaching records to keep track of what we teach people so that missionaries in the future can have an idea of what they should teach and how the lesson went with the investigators, how they liked and understood the gospel principle and so forth. Well, the mom, Monica, has several pages on her teaching record. That's a lot for an investigator! She was actually very close to baptism. She had a set baptismal date and had a baptismal interview and passed. But for some strange reason, she never got baptized. We've been passing by the past few weeks to talk to the son, Antonio. We finally got Monica to sit in on a lesson. We taught them the Plan of Salvation. They seemed to follow along pretty well. Antonio seemed pretty interested and sincere about it. Unfortunately, he doesn't remember it very well. It has been five years since he last heard it though. Monica, however, said that she didn't believe it. We asked why. Then she started saying how she can't believe this and that. It was really confusing, because she was explaining parts of the Plan of Salvation, but just a little differently. It's hard to explain, but basically, she already had beliefs in the Plan of Salvation, but she didn't really think that her beliefs were essentially parts and bits of the Plan of Salvation. I told her that what she was explaining were more or less steps the Plan of Salvation. She still seemed a little confused, but sincere about it. At least she wasn't like a lot of other hard-headed traditional Catholics who say that we're wrong but can't explain why we're wrong or what they themselves believe in and why they believe in it. It was all in all kind of a frustrating lesson. I still can't figure out if was a language barrier, her understanding, or her just trying politely to say that she doesn't want to believe in what we believe. We committed both of them to pray about the Plan of Salvation. Now I just hope and pray that they follow through on their commitment. Sometimes, it's just so hard to teach people. They don't understand sometimes or don't really want to understand. Sometimes, I still think it's a language barrier which automatically means that there's going to be a culture barrier. I guess that's why the Spirit is so important. Preach My Gospel says that everyone has the light of Christ in them since we're children of our Heavenly Father. That could be the culture that everyone can share. Now just to get the lesson in a setting where the Spirit can touch them and help them understand the truth. That's the hard part!

We also had a very interesting morning this morning. It started yesterday when somebody called us, in English, from the Union City chapel before Church. He was asking for a Priesthood blessing. We got there at the chapel and met Dakota from Florida. He's was a member and he was a little lost. He was up in Secaucus, NJ delivering a load for his trucking company. He was driving a semi-truck. He got to where he was dropping of his load and he started to have a really bad tooth ache. He went to the hospital on Friday night to get some help, but the hospital turned him away because there wasn't a dentist on the job and they weren't coming in until Monday. So he wanted to go to church on Sunday. Since he was driving his semi-truck he couldn't find parking anywhere in Union City. So he parked somewhere else and spent the last of the cash he had to get a taxi to the Union City chapel to go to church and get a Priesthood blessing. He didn't know, however, that the Union City chapel only holds one service and it's in Spanish. Dakota doesn't speak Spanish. Luckily, us missionaries do! We gave him a blessing and for the third hour of church, the first councilor in the Bishopric, who speaks some English, took him back to his truck. We received special permission from President Jeppson to pick him up this morning to take him to a dentist's appointment in Newark, NJ. He couldn't drive there himself because there wouldn't be anywhere to park his truck. So we took him. Unfortunately, the dentist told him that he would need to see an oral surgeon. Dakota said that his job probably wouldn't let him go home back to Kentucky, where he's living now with his wife and baby girl, for maybe about a week. He has to endure another week of mouth pain until he can get back home and get proper medical attention. It was a pretty neat experience trying to help this guy in this desperate time. He had never been to New Jersey before and was a little intimidated by the city. He grew up in Florida on ranch and is used to the open field. He also has a deep southern accent. He's about 22 years old and has just about two years in the church. We went to drop him off at his truck and he has a quad with him and the Book of Mormon on CD. Really cool guy. It was a fun experience trying to help him out. 

That's about it for this week. I'm excited for March to come. I'm coming up soon on a year away from Utah. My 10 month left mark is coming up. Instead of thinking that in a year, I'll still be somewhere in New Jersey, I'm thinking about what kind of job I'll have in Utah in a year. It's really weird to think about being an RM. I'm enjoying it here while it lasts!

Love you mom! Talk to you soon!

-Justin

 Q of the W:

1.  What has been the best thing you have eaten so far on your mission?

Mexican tacos (Mexico obviously), lomo soltado (Peru), and Inca Cola (Peru). If you have some time and you're in Provo, look for some little hispanic store and buy Inca Cola. It's pretty good. If you don't, then just wait until I come home and I'll make you try it.. haha

2.  What person has been the most inspiring for you so far on your mission?

I will always say President Jeppson. However, there was a member that was my exact age, except he was born on Sept. 24, that was a convert. He joined the church even though his mom said that he was stupid to do it and all his cousins telling him that being a Mormon was dumb. Then he moved to New Jersey to live with his grandpa who was a member, but then passed away a short time later. He has lived such a hard life, but has given everything to the Lord. He's now serving a mission in Georgia. He's a pretty good example.

3.  What 'words of wisdom' would you give to someone who is struggling to come back to church?

That's tough. It really depends on the situation of the person. I would have to know why they're not really coming to church. There's a Mormon Message on lds.org called "Earthly Father, Heavenly Father". It's a really good analogy to help us understand who is our Heavenly Father and what his love is like. Anyone who is straying from the Lord's Church needs to understand the love of their Father in Heaven and their Redeemer and Savior Jesus Christ. They should study the scripture more and they should pray harder. They should attend the Temple as often as their schedule permits, even if it is just baptisms for the dead. Then they will recognize and understand the reason behind the commandments, which is pure love. Then they can understand that the loving advice for us in the last days comes from the mouth of prophets; modern just as well and ancient. It requires a lot of work on their part, but that's what faith is. There's a reason why faith is the first principle of the Gospel. When they have enough faith, they'll try it. When they try hard enough, they'll do it. When they do it, they'll realize that it's worth it.

FINALLY!!.....an email from Justin.... :)

Dear Mom,

That's good news to hear about my camera! I was so afraid that I was going to have to get a new camera or something. I guess it must be my charger... I bought a wall adapter for the USB port for the cord on my camera. Maybe there's something wrong with that. I don't know. I'll definitely be taking more pictures too. I guess if there's nothing wrong with it, you can send it back to me. Maybe it just misses home.. Haha. I have a couple pictures of New York City that I need to take. And yes, I did shave my legs. I wanted to see what it felt like. And I had time on P-Day.

Eddy de Leon is such cool kid. He's not shy at all. Whenever we have a lesson with them, he always wants to say both the opening and closing prayer and he wants to read every scripture we share with them. We have to tell him to let his family participate too. Haha. It's not very common that you run into people like that. Too bad he's not 16.. We would take him out with us to go teach all the time. I think he'll make a good missionary. He's a really good kid. I heard a story that a couple months ago, he was drinking some iced tea. He had forgotten about that commandment, haha. Completely innocent. It was one of those drinks at the store called something random, but it doesn't say anything about tea until you read the ingredients. The missionaries told him that it had tea in it. He stopped drinking it immediately and went to go ask the Bishop if he needed to talk to him. The Bishop told him he was okay, just to not buy that drink again. What a good kid!

I recognize almost everyone on that list. I don't recognize Helen De Lar, Claudia Vergara, and Katherine Pasley. You can accept those other ones. Let me look through some of my old planners to see if I can find those other three names. Then sound very Hispanic, so I'm sure that I've met them sooner or later. I'll check first just to make sure. But thanks!

It's kind of cold here right now. Last week it started warming up pretty well. I thought we were starting to hit spring, but not quite yet. We had rain yesterday, and it melted pretty much the rest of the snow. No more annoying snow that we have to plow through, yay! 

I'll have to ask Sister Castro to teach us how to make tacos. They usually use shredded beef. It's always about the sauce and the cheese. They use some type of Mexican cream cheese and a spicy sauce. They just buy the cheese and I'm pretty sure that the sauce is very simple. Simple recipe, but very good! I'll let you know. I'll ask about Tres Leches cake too.

We had a crazy lesson last Thursday with some investigators that have been meeting with the missionaries for a while now. When investigators have been meeting with missionaries for a while and aren't progressing very well, we call them eternigators. Like they've been investigators for eternity.. It's a missionary term. Anyway, these two people are a little older and have some crazy ideas. It's hard to explain some of the ideas that these two people have so I won't try to explain them, but they believe in reincarnation, and how Adam and Eve weren't the only two first people on Earth. Other things too that are just really hard to prove scripturally. We found one scripture in all the scriptures that talks somewhat about reincarnation. It just basically says that we die once. Hebrews 9:27 if you want to look it up. They're just really hard to teach, because every time we teach them, they bring up something else, or bring up something again that's hard to correct. We want to just say that they're wrong and then move on, but we have to figure out how to do it in a nice way. That's the hard part. We'll, this last Thursday, we started to tell them that some of these ideas were wrong and we know that through modern revelation and the Book of Mormon. The lady was taking everything okay. She agrees with most of the stuff that we teach. She likes it all and tells us every time that we're the best church that she has found, but we still lack some things. The guy all of a sudden told us that we were wrong. It kind of threw me back a little. Then he proceeded to tell us that he heard from a guy that our guy accepts homosexuality. I was thinking, weird, usually we're chastised for not accepting it. I told him politely, no we don't actually accept it. If a member tries to practice it they're actually excommunicated. He insisted, "No, this guy told me that you accept it. You accept it." My companion then proceeded to tell him that homosexuality is an abomination in the sight of God and that again, no, we don't accept it. Then I told him that we're representatives of our Church. We know our Church and the doctrine of our Church. We don't accept homosexuality. That guy just was telling you a lie about our church because he doesn't like us. This investigator then told us that this guy was a member of our church but then he left the church. He wife got a little frustrated with him. She knew better than that. She told him that obviously since he left the church he didn't like the church. He told her to stop contradicting him. He stopped talking soon after. It was a pretty intense lesson. I think it's funny how they think we're still lacking stuff. They don't know hardly anything about the church obviously. They say that they consider the Book of Mormon to be sacred, but then again, they consider any book that talks about God is sacred. Tough people. We have plans just to read in the Book of Mormon with them. There's not much else we can teach them that would help them. 

So a couple days ago, we helped the sister missionaries move into a new apartment. The sisters missionaries were working in Jersey City in Spanish. President Jeppson is splitting their area and they are now both training new sisters. One of them has been out on her mission for just over four months now. That's pretty soon for training in Spanish. We talked to the new sisters. One of them, Sister Elise Milward, is from Boise, Idaho, the Meridian area. I asked her, and yes, she knows Stephanie Beuerman! She said that she went to school with her. Cool.

Sorry I wrote so late this week. We were really busy yesterday, so we couldn't make it to the library to email. I'll try and be better at letting you know if I won't be able to email the next Monday. It seems like lately, holidays on Monday have been more and more common. 

Q of the W:

1.  I have been catching up on scrapbooks lately.  I saw a picture of your 7th birthday party at Chuck E Cheese.  All your friends at the party I believe our on missions now.  Pretty cool!  Except I wasn't sure about Brandon Halverson.  Do you know if he is on a mission?

About Brandon Halverson. When I was in the YSA Ward, I remember he came back from Marines basic training one time. I don't really know whatever happened to him. I'm pretty sure he's staying active in the Church. I don't know how much desire he had to serve a mission though.. I always remember he was pretty cool. Never too rebellious or anything. His older brother Justin Halverson served in Germany. I remember that. I also remember he didn't have any baptisms.. Sad. But I think he's doing okay. I hope he still decides to serve a mission.

2.  What have you noticed is the one main thing people have a hard time believing in about our church?

It's not really about accepting much. Pretty much everything is hard for them to accept. The hardest thing for them to do is to drop the Catholicism trap. What I've heard, is that in Catholicism, if you go to church twice a year, you're considered what we would called active. Catholicism is the easiest religion to live. It's the easy way.  "Enter ye in at the strait gate; for strait is the gate, and narrow is the way that leads to life, and few there be that find it; but wide is the gate, and broad the way which leads to death, and many there be that travel therein" -3 Nephi 27:33.

3.  Do you know how many people are in your ward?  Approximately?  Bigger or smaller than our ward?

I would say about 100. I don't know for sure. It's still smaller than our ward. About how big is our ward anyway?

Love you mom! Talk to you soon!

-Justin

Mom,
Yes, we have snow now. It's probably going to be a while before it goes away too. Last Thursday, it started to get cloudy. Friday it started snowing. It was snowing pretty good. Every transfer, we have a deep cleaning day. Luckily we had the four-hour cleaning during the day on Friday. After that, we had just a couple set appointments, and we went out to work. Surprisingly, it wasn't too cold. There was a little bit of a wind, but nothing too bad. It was tolerable. When I woke up on Saturday morning, we had about 8 inches of snow. Friday and half of Saturday was a strictly no driving time for all mission-vehicles. Good thing we're walking. Most of the other missionaries around the mission just stayed inside for the snow storm on Friday. I heard that the roads were absolutely terrible. When we were walking on Friday night, I heard sirens constantly. Which is just a little more sirens than normal. 

I told you two weeks ago that we're going to get a visit from an Apostle and a Seventy on February 16. Sorry, it's actually March 16 that they're going to come visit. Today, President Jeppson told us that Elder D. Todd Christopherson and Elder Tadd Callister from the Presidency of the Seventy are going to come. That's going to be so exciting! I can't wait. I thought at first that it was going to be sooner than I thought, but that's okay. I can wait another month.

This week we helped a family in the ward move. They moved from the other Elders' area to our area. We have certain rules in the mission that we usually can't visit with members who don't live in our area. We can visit the Bishop whenever we want and only members on special occasions. So this family, the Castro family, lived just outside our area, now lives in the middle of our area. The mom is super nice and always wants to fix us food. We all love her Mexicans tacos, and she'll fix other stuff too, which is all amazing. Alan is her only son here in the United States. Alan has 3 other siblings still in Mexico. I don't know much about why they have moved, but we could tell that they've been sad this past week as we've helped them move. They're a very wonderful family. Alan is one of the strongest youth that I've seen. He's not really youth anymore because he's 20, but he's still very, very strong in the Gospel. He told me a story when his mom read some anti-Mormon stuff and started getting to her. She started to say stuff like the Book of Mormon can't be true. Then Alan told her to stop saying that, and then he told her that he knew that the Book of Mormon is true and that he would die for it. He's an excellent example for all the youth in the ward. Speaking of which, I've told some people, including Alan, to add me on Facebook. Could you add those people for me? Maybe you could list the names of those people who have added me so I can tell you who to accept just in case somebody weird that I don't know is trying to add me. 

I can't wait to see what color the fireplace is going to be. I had no idea that you hated that color so bad. That's funny! You'll have to send me pictures of it when it's done.
That's so cool to hear about the gun class! Are there more classes than that or was it just that one 4-hour setting? I can't wait until we all go shooting! I really want to collect guns. I think they're so much fun. So much power in your hands. Very dangerous!! But fun.. It's fun to bring things like bottles of water and little stuff like that with you to destroy. I've heard of people bringing their old TVs to shoot. That's a little over the top, so I don't think I'd ever do that. 

Unfortunately, I haven't been very good at exercising lately. I'm making a work-out plan for the morning. It's really hard to work-out at 6:30 in the morning. I can't wait until my exercise is going on a morning hike! Until then, I'm going to do what I can. I think I'm getting a lot better at waking up in the morning. However, I still think the only reason I get out of bed is because it's obedient. I think if I were at home, I'd still be waking up later. Hopefully I can break that habit.

I'll be looking forward to that package then. I finally got around to sending my camera. I sent it off this morning.

Q of the W:

1.  Have you helped the victims of Hurricane Sandy lately or is that pretty much done?

That's pretty much over. I still hear that people are without power and sad stuff like that, but as missionaries, we're back onto a regular schedule.

2.  Who was your favorite seminary teacher at PG?

That's really hard. I'd have to pick a couple. Oh man, I don't know if I can remember the names exactly. Brother Taggart one that I remember. There's another one that I remember from Senior year early morning. Don't remember his name exactly. But Brother Taggart was a lot of fun.

3.  Do the members in your area talk about or hate/love President Obama?

When I was in Plainfield, they talked about him a little more. That's when the elections were. A lot of members liked him because he was ''pro-Hispanic''. I did talk to a couple members who said that they've done a lot of research and they know that Romney would be better. I can't recall hearing anything about President Obama from Union City so far.

Love you mom! Talk to you soon. I'm at 11 months left now..-Justin

PS: I do remember Sister Dicou! She was way cool. That's so cool to hear that Stephanie knows her. We did talk a lot. That's cool to hear that Stephanie knows her. 

Dear Mom,

It sounds like a really fun baptism! I can't wait to get pictures from it! I'm also looking forward to talking to Grandpa Lee more about religion. I've come to love talking about the Gospel, especially with those that have been strong members their whole lives and that are really spiritual. Like President Jeppson. I'm sure Grandpa Lee will be the same. It sounds like a wonderful baptism and I'm very glad everything went well. Too bad I wasn't there. I would have enjoyed it a lot. I'm glad to be here though.

I don't know where to look for any Spanish Book of Mormon games. Thanks for looking though! Maybe some day they'll come out with them. 

It's been pretty cold here lately. Not too much snow. We hardly drive, and it's never slippery. So we're just fighting the cold.

So, I told dad about my missionary friend who is from Texas, Elder Henretta. We talked a little bit about where he was from and where dad grew up in Texas. Well, it turns out that Elder Henretta's dad is from Sweden! So the other day, we were talking about our similar Scandinavian heritage. I told him a couple phrases in Norwegian that I know, and he could understand some of them. He doesn't hardly speak Swedish. He probably knows a little more Swedish that I know Norwegian. But that made me really want to learn Norwegian again. Haha. Also speaking of Norway. The other week, we went to TJ Max, and I found something called Voss. It's artesian water from southern Norway. It came in a glass bottle and was pretty expensive. I had to buy it because it was from Norway. Well, it tasted just like regular water. The bottle is pretty cool though. Supposedly, they don't filter it or anything. It just comes naturally to this spring in southern Norway at like 45 degrees. But, yeah, that's it. Most expensive water I've bought..

This week has been a pretty normal week. I have to say, the members in Union City have been my favorite members on my mission so far. Some of the members here are just so great. One of the members in a former Bishop. His name is Bishop Martinez. He's from Mexico. He has three kids. One is on a mission and is coming back in March. The other two including his wife have gone a little less-active. The other son is trying to come back, but he says he doesn't really like or trust the current Bishop. Bishop Martinez comes to church alone every week. He's a very good example of staying strong in the Gospel no matter what. He's very strong and very active. He absolutely loves the missionaries, and the missionaries have always loved him. We went to go with him to give a blessing to a sick member that lives a city over in a place called Hoboken. On our way back from the blessing, our appointment called and canceled. Bishop Martinez bought us dinner at a little store and brought us back to his house for a little bit before we had to go home. He really does appreciate the missionaries and how much they have stayed with him and tried to help out his family when they've started to go off the path. There has been some other family issues that he has told us that have gone on too. I'll always remember his example.

Yesterday was the birthday of our good friend Alan from Mexico City. It was a wonderful little party that we can. Very Mexican style. We had Mexican enchiladas, which were very different from anything I've tried, but GOOD. A ton of Pepsi. Hispanics are all about the Coke and Pepsi. Nothing else really. No root beer, Dr. Pepper, or Mountain Dew. It's never diet nor flavored either. Plain Coke or Pepsi. I've grown to like Pepsi a lot. Then a Mexican tradition for the cake is for the person who is having a birthday will try to take a bite out of the birthday cake. Others will try to shove the cake into his face while he tried to take the bite. The goal is for the person to be able to take a bit and not get too much cake on his face. It was a lot of fun! He got a pretty good amount of cake. This tradition is called 'mordida'. That means 'bite'. So when it's time for them to take a bite, everyone starts chanting 'mordida!'. Super fun! Then we all had cake from the part of the cake that his face didn't touch and had a good time then went home. I love Mexican culture! It's so much fun, and they're tacos are amazing!! His mom will be making us some more tacos soon.. Yum..

So that's about it for the week. Those were the fun highlights!

Q of the W:

1.  What has been your favorite city in NJ to be in so far? Probably Union City. That's hard to say, but I like Union City a lot. The view of New York City is really cool and for the most part, it's been pretty quiet here. 

2.  Who has been your favorite companion?

I would say Elder Carpenter. He was really funny and always got along really well with people. 

3.  What is the best thing you have eaten on your mission?  the worst? 

Those Mexican Tacos. SO GOOD!! Mondongo is pretty bad. That's cow stomach. Mexican tacos are absolutely amazing. They're usually very spicy too!

Love you mom!

-Justin