Dear Mom,

Do you know how to get General Conference tickets? I would love to go to one after my mission! Now that I know a lot more about the Gospel and stuff, it would be great.

I haven't bought the stuff personally for that Bolivian sauce. I think I'll try and do it next week though.

That's so sad to hear about my Quiznos. I was really looking forward to going there after my mission and seeing Larry.

It's snowing right now. It just barely started snowing a couple hours ago. I'm kind of getting used to the snow. When we were doing laundry this morning in the laundromat down the street and I saw something about a ton of snow in Pennsylvania. I hope that that's not coming our way. It's almost April, we should be having spring weather.

I've heard about the Les Miserables movie from the new missionaries coming in. I've heard that it's different than most other musicals, because they don't do voice over. When it shows them singing in the scene in the movie, they are actually singing in that moment. At least that's what I've heard. Correct me if I'm wrong. I can't wait to see it. I've heard that it's good and that Hugh Jackman has a really good voice.

That Disneyland idea during Spring Break sounds like a great idea! I would love to do that! I would like to come back to New Jersey and NYC as well. That would be really soon after my mission too. We could even visit President and Sister Jeppson. I've heard of missionaries coming back to New Jersey and they are able to visit President and Sister Jeppson at the mission home for a little bit. The only problem is, I don't think any of the other kids would like it. I would enjoy it.. I would also love to go to Disneyland as well. I guess we can think more about that and talk later. I'm sure that you would love to meet President and Sister Jeppson!

Kelsie needs to keep that job at Cinemark! I want to go see some movies when I get home! Good for Kyle. I'm glad to hear that. Any chance of him taking a language any time soon?? I want to come home and be able to speak with somebody in the house in Spanish, haha!

This week was a crazy week. We had transfers. I got a new companion. His name in Elder Morrill. He's from West Jordan. There was a missionary from every Union City and West New York companionship who was transferred. That means that there was five missionaries getting transferred and only two vans to do it. The missionaries in Union City that weren't getting transferred had to stay; that included me. I wasn't able to go to Transfer Conference. Those are always really fun because you get to see where all the missionaries are going to. You make a lot of friends with other missionaries and then you hear about different areas and you want to hear who's going to you're last area. It's always a very exciting time when President Jeppson announces the transfers. I couldn't go because there wasn't enough room in the vans. So Elder Henretta, Elder Nilson, and I had to stay behind and figure out what we were going to do during that time. So we just tried some potentials and some less-active members. Nothing too excited happened. We were really hungry and we didn't have any food in the house. So we went to go buy a couple pizzas at Little Ceaser's. Then it started to rain as we were carrying the pizzas home. It was one of those moments that I said to myself that I'll look back on this moment after my mission.

So Wednesday and Thursday we spent our time going around and trying to see as many people as possible for my companion to get to know the people here. Friday and Saturday were crazy as well. There was a special training in Morristown for newer missionaries. My companion is somewhat new so he went. The other new companions of all the other Elders in Union City were also new. So we got put back into our little trio again of Elder Henretta, Elder Nilson, and I. We've been together now for a little while and we've become good friends so it was a lot of fun to work together. On Friday, we just worked in my area. Somehow I ended up with a bunch of set appointments, so we just worked my area. On Saturday, we worked the area of the other Elders. We visited an older Columbian lady in my area on Saturday. She's really nice. She always makes us home-made Pineapple juice. She says that you just cut up a pineapple, put in in a pitcher of water, add some sugar, and let it sit in the fridge over-night. I asked her how much sugar she puts in, and she just said however much you want, haha! On Saturday, we visited with an excommunicated Bishop who wants to get baptized again. From what I've heard, he was excommunicated because he made a dumb mistake... He's in the other Elder's area, so I don't have to worry about teaching him. He was really nice though!

Friday night, there was a homecoming party for a Brian Martinez. He returned from his mission in Sao Paulo, Brazil. We had a ward party for him. He said that on his mission, he only spoke English with American companions, and Portuguese. He didn't speak Spanish hardly at all. He only typed Spanish in his letters home to his parents. His Spanish is pretty rough.. It's mixed up with Portuguese a lot. It's kind of funny. He says that he misses the mission a lot. I think that he's going to want to come out with us and help us teach. First he's going to Utah this next week to see some friends and a little more family. He's really cool. It kind of made me wonder a little about my homecoming. Weird...

We we're going to have a baptism this next Sunday! Her name is Jenny. She's about 18 years old and has a good friend at church. She really likes our church a lot. I've made sure that she knows that the Book of Mormon is true. I've heard so much about people getting baptized and then going less-active very soon after baptism. If she really knows that the Book of Mormon is true, then she won't ever have a good enough reason to not come to church. Her little sister, who is 16, is also meeting with us. She can't meet with us as often because she's a little more busy. But I think that she'll eventually get baptized as well.

So that's about it for this week. Good week.

Love you lots! Talk to you soon!

-Justin


Q of W:

1.  Have you watched the Bible videos on LDS.org at all?  They are so wonderful!

I have seen a couple of them. I do like them. To me, Jesus is a little too monotone at times. That's just me though. Overall, I do like them a lot, but haven't seen too many of them.

2.  Ronnie was in NJ last week!  Ya!  But he said he was 100 miles away from you but said they wouldn't have allowed him to see you anyways.  Is that true? or have you ever heard of relatives (besides Mom and Dad) visiting Missionaries?

I don't know for sure. There was a time when the aunt of an Elder Kakiva came to New Jersey because her husband was playing for the 49ers against the Giants and she took Elder Kakiva out to lunch. I went with him because he needed a companion. Before she did that, she called President Jeppson to ask permission. He said yes. So maybe if Uncle Ronnie is in New Jersey again, you could give him President Jeppson's number and he could call to see if he could come see me for a few minutes.. That'd be awesome!! If he did it soon, he could talk to Elder Henretta a little too. He has a ton of family in Sweden!

3.  Have you ever been hurt or scared of an animal while walking such as a dog?

I've stayed away from some dogs before. Luckily, I haven't had any terrifying experiences with any animals yet. There are a lot of people here in Union City with pit bulls. They're kind of scary. In Dover and in Plainfield, we heard something in our ceiling.

Dear Mom,

Elder Christofferson was amazing! The first time I've ever met an Apostle! He was so cool to listen to. He wanted to shake hands with all the missionaries too. He asked us our names and where we were from. He said that he lived in Lindon for a while!! I don't know when or where though. One really interesting thing is that when he was serving his mission in Argentina, for most of his mission his mission president was President Richard G. Scott. He says that it's really interesting to work with his former mission president in the same quorum. Cool fact! Not only did we get to listen to him speak to us on Saturday, but he spoke at a special stake conference to the Caldwell Stake and Paterson District on Sunday. The Union City ward belongs to the Caldwell Stake so we got to go! It was just like General Conference, but in person with a lot less people. At the end of his talk in the Stake Conference, he gave a break to the translators and bore his testimony in Spanish! He still speaks Spanish very, very well. All in all, it was a wonderful weekend. I wish I could spend more time around Apostles.

I'm staying in Union City. I have been called to serve as a District Leader. Again! I did not see that coming at all. I'm a little nervous because this district is a little bigger than the other district I was in. It's time for extra stress again.

We've found two new investigators recently. They are Jen and Jelanny. They are 18 and 16 years old, respectively. They're really cool. Jen is the girlfriend of a less-active guy named Joshua. He's about 20 years old. Joshua's mom is a active member and is really cool. We visit her once a week in her dog wash shop. So Jen has been to church a couple times with Margarita (the active member). Jen says she likes it a lot! We talked to her about why she likes our church more than her church. She says that she doesn't have to pay for classes here and everyone is so much more social. She told us that at her church they're are only a few "regulars'' and every week there are new faces. She keeps coming to our church. Just a few weeks ago, we saw Jen and Margarita at church and Margarita told us that Jen's sister (Jelanny) is coming after church because she wants a Priesthood blessing. No, Jelanny is not a member and she has never been to our church before. Apparently Jen told her sister that we can give blessings. We talked to Jelanny when she showed up and she said that whenever she gets angry, she gets depressed and then she feels some dark outside presence that tells her to do bad things to her body. Scary... So we gave her a Priesthood blessing and told her to feel better. We met with her last Friday and taught her and Jen about the Plan of Salvation. We followed up with Jelanny about how she has felt. She said that a day after the blessing she felt a LOT better and full of energy. She hasn't felt anything strange since the blessing. Now we've started to teach them both. Both of them went to the Stake Conference with Elder Christofferson and loved it. We gave Jen a baptismal date for the end of this month. She could do it! We'll see how she feels about it when it gets closer. That's a testimony builder!


For that Bolivian sauce you don't need anything special. It's just a tomato, two small Jalapeno peppers, and some salt. Super basic. Very good! Maybe just one jalapeno pepper for the little girls. Let me know how you like it!

The charger... It might be easier for me to buy a new charger. It would have to be the cable, because the wall charger adapter thingy works just fine. I looked for camera batteries at Wal-Mart last week, but they don't sell camera batteries there. I'll be able to find a new cable for sure though. I guess I'll try that. I hope it's not a waste of money...

I'm actually glad I'm being fed too much rather than not enough. Whenever I'm trying to stuff food down at a members' house, I just think about how many other missionaries probably didn't get fed very much.

I don't know about college yet. I kind of don't want to deal with it on my mission. I just want to focus on the work and once I come home, then I can deal with annoying things like applying for school. However, I'm pretty sure that President Jeppson talks to everyone about stuff like that. I think that it's around this time in the mission that President Jeppson talks to the missionaries about thing like that. That's when he talks to them about schooling, going home a few weeks early to make it in time for school, or extending the mission, and things like that. I don't know right now. I guess the next time I go in for interviews I'll bring that up with him. I have been thinking about what I'll do once I get home. I was thinking about just trying to find a job and then maybe move into school for a small summer semester to get into the schooling mindset and then to hit it full on during the fall. I'm sure President Jeppson will give me plenty of feedback on that soon.

That's awesome for William! Where in California is that? Way cool for Kelsie!

By the way, I told Alan Castro to add me on Facebook.


Q of the W:

1.  Have you made that banana bread yet?

Not yet. I've kept it out. I really want to make it.

2.  Do you know what you will be doing for Easter yet?

Not a clue.. Probably like four dinners...

3.  What are some of your favorite Easter Candy?  I don't want to send you candy that is gross to you...

I like little candy bars, like Twix and Snickers. I don't really like random little chocolates. I don't like those classic easter egg chocolates either. I do like candies like sweetarts and those little super sugery candies like that. I don't like little suckers like dumdums that much either. (Side note: On the east coast, they are known as lollipops. 'Suckers' is an insult and they look at me weird when I say it, to those who speak English.) Starbursts are good. I don't know what else... I can't really think of anything else.


Love you mom! Talk to you soon! Like in two months it's mother's day!

-Justin

Dear Mom,

Bad news, my camera isn't working again. Same problem. I'm going to try and go buy a battery this time to see if that fixes the problem. I'll let you know next week.

Transfers are coming up this next weekend. I'm pretty sure that I'm staying. Good thing too, I really like this area. It's finally starting to warm up a little bit. On Saturday it was really nice. I only needed a sweater when we went out. It was really nice. It dipped back down a little colder yesterday and today. I just have a light coat on. It's a lot better than a heavy coat, scarf, gloves, and hat.

Milko has internet on his phone so we watched it on that. If a member does have a computer we'll just have them put it on. If they can't figure it out, we jump in and help. We're allowed to go onto our missionary email, lds.org, and mormon.org. That's it. We're not allowed to use members computers at all, but if they're having trouble getting somewhere on lds.org or mormon.org we'll help out. We just can't be dumb with it.. I'm not.

That's a super funny story about Chubs! Poor dog.

Thanks for those tips on teaching kids. I do have one of those Gospel Art Books. I guess I should use it more often. I want to sit in on Primary when I get home. It sounds like fun!

We've been eating a lot lately. Unfortunately, it's hard to spread out the dinner appointments. Some days, I'll get home and make something to eat. Other days, I come home and I am stuffed to the max. I can't believe how much I eat sometimes. Saturday we had a crazy food day. First off, on Friday, we went over to a members house (the Ernest family) to see if we could visit them for a few minutes. It turns out that only the older lady in the house was there. (By the way, we're not allowed to enter a house unless there is another man present over 18 years old.) So we couldn't go in. She asked us if we had an appointment with them the previous night because Brother Ernest had made some hamburgers for us. We doubled checked our planners to make sure we hadn't set an appointment and had not shown up. We did not have an appointment. So the older lady (who is also a member) she called up Sister Ernest and it turns out that their home teachers had made an appointment and didn't come. So she wrapped up the sandwiches, put them in a bag with two cans of soda, two bottles of water, and two bananas, and sent us on our way. Very nice! I saved the sandwich until the next day during lunch. So Saturday for lunch, I had a really good hamburger. We had a lunch planned for 3:00 that day, so I had made sure that I didn't eat anymore. That sandwich filled me up more than I had thought though. Then we went to go pick up Alan Castro to come out with us. When we got over to their house, Sister Castro asked us if we were hungry. We said no. Alan said that yes, we were hungry. We said no again. Alan said "No mom, they want to eat." She made sandwiches for us. An hour later, we went to the Robles family to eat. She's from Peru. She gave us something called Causa. It was pretty good, and filling. Then I realized that she hadn't served us the main dish yet. ... I couldn't finish it. Somehow, Alan kept eating! It was so hard to try and eat so much. It's such a terrible feeling to be so full. I guess that's part of the mission experience. We eat another time later on that night. We had pizza.

There's another cool story before that too. The same day. This takes place when we went over to Alan's house to pick him up. He texted us earlier on that day to tell us that his back hurts and he can't come out with us. He's been joking with us lately about not being able to help us out and then saying that he actually can help us out. He's basically been 'crying wolf'. I knew this would happen. So we just went over to his house anyway just hoping that it was another joke. It turns out that something had happened to him while playing soccer the night before. He was lying on the couch and said sorry that he couldn't come out with us. We called a few people and no one else could help us. We were trying to do this an hour before our lunch appointment, in which we needed another man with us. Eventually Alan said that he would help us out if we gave him a Priesthood Blessing. So we gave him a blessing and we headed out (after eating those sandwiches)... While we were walking, Alan started getting pretty excited that his back was healed. Alan has a lot of faith! I don't doubt that his back was hurting pretty bad and that the blessing helped. It was pretty cool. Then Alan wanted to start contacting people. He contacted a few people. We handed him pass-along cards as we headed to our next appointment. It was awesome! Most team ups hardly say anything during lessons. Alan does much more than that! He's going to make such an awesome missionary!

We had a crazy day at Church on Sunday. Last week, we had a crazy (very unnecessary) discussion in Elder's Quorum on all the little things that are 'supposed' to happen when passing the Sacrament. Some good ideas came up on how to make the Sacrament 'proper'. Other ideas were just crazy and they came from some old guys. I think they've lost it a little bit. The counselor in the Bishopric was leading the class. He didn't really know what to do about all the ideas. The discussion was crazy and everyone was trying to say how you're supposed to do it this way or that way. So this week, we had our usually Elder's Quorum teacher teach. His name is Brother Quesada. He's from Chile and a returned missionary. Very smart! He taught a good lesson and then for the last 15 minutes of Elder's Quorum, he brought up the Sacrament discussion we were talking about the previous week. He taught the basics on how the Sacrament is passed by the Deacons, prepared by the Teachers, and blessed by the Priests. He taught out of the teachers manual. Then he taught us how all these little things about the Sacrament: (taking the Sacrament with your right hand, passing it with your left arm behind your back, that you have to wear a white shirt and tie, and things like that) are all traditions, and should not be required. One guy kept insisting that taking the Sacrament with your right hand is a requirement. Brother Quesada kept explaining that they are just traditions. Brother Quesada had studied a lot this past week to prepare for his lesson. I talked to him afterward and he said that he read numerous talks from Apostles and Prophets, and searched in the scriptures, and read out of some books all about the Sacrament. No where does it say that you must take the Sacrament with your right hand. However, it is good to do it with your right hand because your right hand is considered the hand of the covenant. Then Brother Quesada ended his lesson with explaining how these traditions are what take us away from the meaning of the Sacrament. The Sacrament should be sacred to us. We should just make sure that we are worthy and clean and ready to partake of the Sacrament every week. He also taught that the First Presidency has said that Sacrament Meeting is the most sacred meeting that we have in the Church. Over all I learned that Sacrament is sacred and we should treat it as such, and that Brother Quesada is one of the best teachers I've seen. He really is very good! He knows a lot about the church!


Q of the W:

1.  How long are your transfers?  One Mom told me that they changed it to 5 weeks now?

Just this last transfer was 5 weeks. It was to accommodate all the new missionaries coming in. So yes, I will be home a week earlier than we thought! I'll be home for your birthday! Yay!

2.  I can't believe I forgot to ask you, but how was that storm this week?  Did you get lots of snow and wind?

About four inches of snow and good wind. It's pretty much all melted now.

3.  Have you had super good salsa there?  If so, you should get the recipe.  A good salsa from a cute Spanish lady from your mission would be the best!!

Bolivian sauce to go with just about anything: One tomato, two small jalapenos, a little bit of salt. If it's too spicy, throw in another tomato. Blend it up until desired consistency. It's really good!


Love you mom! Talk to you soon!

-Justin


PS. Elder Christofferson is coming this weekend! Yay!

Dear Mom,

My camera is working great. I've actually been carrying it around with me a little more so I can have it if I ever want to take pictures. I guess I just don't think about the camera or if something is a 'camera moment'. I just can't think of anything ever to take a picture of. I think tonight I'll be taking more pictures. We're having an FHE in the church to say good-bye to a member in our ward. He's leaving on his mission. His name in Norbert. He's really cool. He's a convert. His sister is too. She's in Provo studying right now. Unfortunately, his mom is what we would call a traditional Catholic. She is a completely inactive Catholic and believes all the traditions that her completely inactive Catholic parents taught her. Norbert is great. He's about 22 years old and leaves on March 12 for Brazil. There should be a lot of members coming tonight so I'll try and take some pictures.

I think that Boise trip sounds really good. I was thinking about that too, because I'll get home just a couple weeks after Christmas, so I'll miss everyone at Christmas.

I think this next year will go by a little bit faster. We go by transfers in the mission, so that makes it go by a little faster. Usually transfers go by pretty fast. In two weeks we'll have our next transfer, the day after Elder Christofferson visits. Then the end of next transfer will be all the way into April. It does seem to be going by pretty fast. I'm enjoying it though!

This last week didn't really have many interesting things happen. Friday was a full day. We got to teach seven lessons which is considered a full day in New Jersey. We told a couple less-active members that Christ and his blessings are waiting for them at church and if they don't come they will miss out on those blessings. That was an intense lesson and the Spirit was strong. They ended up not coming to church. I think there's a deeper reason why they're not coming to church than they have troubles waking up. We also finally got to meet up with another member that's been inactive for a while. Her family joined the church about ten years ago. Her ex-husband and her three kids were baptized, then a few years later, she was baptized. A year after her baptism, she got a divorce. Her kids grew up. Two of them live in Utah. Another lives in Florida. She doesn't know if they're active in the church or not. She doesn't know about her ex-husband either. It makes me wonder. The membership of the church has reached just over 14 million. How many of those are completely inactive and don't live the Gospel of Jesus Christ at all.. Who knows. I guess they have their agency. Then we visited with some investigators. One of the investigators is an older man. He has some crazy ideas. He told us that our church is false if we don't believe in the stuff he believes in. It was a humbling lesson, because I knew I had the capacity to to prove to him wrong in his beliefs and fight against him. As he was practically yelling at us (this is an old man who is disabled from the waist down, so I wasn't scared at all), I felt a peace come to me. I knew that this wasn't his time and that I needed to give a Christ-like response. We let him finish his little (false) sermon, I said "okay", then I looked at his wife (who is more open and nice, but also still not ready at all) and we bore pure testimony. The Spirit came back into the room. He had driven away the Spirit and was too prideful and stubborn to listen to the Spirit. She was as well too firm in her traditions that she couldn't hear the Spirit telling her that what we were saying was true. We decided to stop teaching them. They have certain strange beliefs that they are not willing to give up. "Because of pride, and because of false teachers, and false doctrine, their churches have become corrupted, and their churches are lifted up; because of pride they are puffed up." - 2 Nephi 28:12. Satan is working. He does succeed sometimes. Hopefully they will accept the truth later on in their lives. 

Then on Sunday, we visited with Tina and Milko again. Milko just recently lost his job. However, he is an amazing example. He's very calm about the whole thing. He knows what he needs to do. He is also very capable. Once we started talking to him, he started saying how he actually thinks it's a blessing in disguise. He's been missing church lately because of his job. He says he can actually participate now. He says it's a chance to start fresh and to also make sure that his next job he won't have to work on Sunday. We showed him a Mormon Message: http://www.lds.org/pages/mormon-messages?lang=eng#the-will-of-god . It really helped him and Tina out a lot. I really loved this Mormon Message a lot. Tina and Milko are amazing. They're just wonderful people. They don't belong in New Jersey at all. I would say that they have a Utah personality. They're so nice to everyone and just want to be everyone's friend. Wonderful family!!

We also had an amazing lesson teaching the Restoration to two new investigators at a members house on Sunday. We taught them two weeks ago about the Atonement of Jesus Christ through the Book of Mormon. The Spirit was so strong in the lesson. When I shared the First Vision, the lady, Claudia, started to cry a little bit. She felt the Spirit! When we started to set an appointment for the next week, they were actually thinking hard about how to make it possible for a return appointment. Lot's of people will just tell us a day that they're ''usually'' available. Then we offer a time and they say that they ''shouldn't'' be doing anything at that time. That's a bad sign. These two people were actually working with us and thinking about what they're going to be doing next Sunday. They seemed legitimately interested and willing to learn more. I'm very excited for them!

Good week! We got a new Ward Mission Leader. It's Antonio. Our other Ward Mission Leader started to get overwhelmed and lazy. He didn't want to meet up with us to talk about missionary work. I guess there's too much going on in his life and he's really stressed out. Our Bishop told us that. So Antonio, who already helps us out with missionary work, is our new Ward Mission Leader. We're excited. He should be able to do a lot more! Speaking of him, he says that I'm still not friends with him on Facebook. He's taken pictures at a birthday party and he wanted to send them to my family. 

Q of the W:

1.  What is the hardest word for you to say in spanish?  (if any)

Centro de capacitacion misional. That's how you say Missionary Training Center is Spanish. It's literally translated into: Center of Mission Training

2.  What is your most common dinner you make yourself at your apartment?

I usually don't make dinner, but I make lunch a lot. I'll do quesadillas, or those frozen burritos. Sometimes we'll have leftovers. I'll make sandwiches a lot too. I'm starting to buy the really good meat at the deli at Walmart. We also get really expensive good cheese from a member in our area. They're good sandwiches.

3.  What is lomo soltado?

French fries, with beef (or chicken), tomatoes (that I pick out), onions, peppers, and some special sauce. Rice on the side, as always. For Hispanics, a meal is incomplete without rice. Always.

I have a couple questions:

1. We teach a lot of kids. Do you have any tips on teaching kids and helping them understand. Sometimes I feel that my teaching is really boring for kids.

2. Can you send me the recipe for banana bread?

Love you mom! Thank you! Talk to you soon!

-Justin