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