August 26, 2013

Mom,

I can't even imagine the change that has happened at home. Kyle says that it's weird that he's the oldest one at home now. I really hope that I can help him with school and stuff. I've been thinking a little bit more about what it'll be like with Kyle in high school and Kelsie away at college. I'm sure it's going to be fun! I'm just scared for myself. I just don't want to catch the 'laziness' bug again like I did when I graduated high school. I enjoy being busy on the mission.

I'm super sad to hear that President Trent is going to get released. I was just thinking the other day that I just have to get through one more Stake Conference in the Lindon West Stake and I'll be sure to have him as my returning Stake President. Ah well. It's always exciting to see a new Bishop or Stake President. I remember last year, close to this time, I was in the Scotch Plains when they got a new Stake President. The Stake President at that time had been there for at least ten years! That's so long! Even though I didn't personally know that Stake President or the newly called Stake President, I felt the excitement and the Spirit during that Stake Conference. I imagine that this upcoming Stake Conference will be somewhat like that. I'm looking forward to finding out who the new Stake President is. I guess it is time for President Trent to spend more time with his family and rest a little.

Kelsie sent me a picture of 'her space' at her new apartment. That looks very similar to how I've been living for the past year and a half! haha! Hopefully she will be at home better than I have. I can't say I eat better in general, because I know that the Hispanic food I've had will beat anything she eats in Price, UT. By the way, what college is it that she's going to?

I can't believe that I have just over four months left. It seems way longer than that. I just think that I'll be going home right after Christmas, but Christmas still feels like forever away. I'm starting to get nervous thinking about going home. I just don't want to stop teaching people. This last week was a great week!

Q of the W:

1.  Who is Neal Ferrell?  old companion I think? He posted a picture of you and him on facebook.  It's awesome!

Neal Ferrell was my trainer. He's been working in the Washington DC area, but he made some time last weekend to come up to New Jersey with a couple other mission friends and visit the mission. His last stop before he headed back down was to come and say hi to me. It was really cool to see him after such a long time.

2.  So when I read in Nephi, I tend to skip the chapters that say 'compare Isaiah'.  How have you learned to understand his words?

I'm still trying to figure that out. I've heard a lot about how amazing Isaiah is if you can understand it. He speaks a lot about Jesus Christ. In the chapter headings of many of the chapters in Isaiah, it says that he speaks Messianically. I can't see it sometimes. I've planned that I'm going to find an Isaiah study guide from Deseret Book and spend some time in Isaiah after the mission.

3.  Has President Jeppson mentioned anything about having missionary reunions in the future?

He hasn't said anything. I'm sure it'll come up though once he starts nearing the end of his mission.

So first of all, this transfer is coming to an end next week. I may have a chance of leaving, but we'll see. I just want to let you know.

Last Monday, we had a very annoying lesson with a man named Fabio. He's a Seventh Day Adventist. That's a very annoying religion. Fabio was just stubborn. The Seventh Day Adventist church says that the Sabbath day never changed with the Apostles. That's basically all they focus on, hence the name of their church. Any time on my mission that I have met a Seventh Day Adventist, they ask my two questions: Do you keep the Sabbath day holy? and, what day do you keep the Sabbath on? Even if they haven't said what religion they belong to, once they ask that first question, I know exactly what church they go to. It's super annoying, I hate that church. Not the people! Just the church. Anyway, Fabio was saying how could the Book of Mormon be true if it's telling me that I need to keep the Sabbath Day on Sunday when that's not true. Very annoying. We stopped visiting him. I could have destroyed his beliefs with the Bible on other topics that would have proved his church wrong, but I knew that that wasn't what we were there to do. It was very tempting to do so, but that would have driven away the Spirit. He's just simply not ready to accept the Gospel. After the mission though, I think I might be a little more ruthless to people who do stuff like that.

Last Sunday something funny happened. We were in the hallway at church right after the last meeting had gotten out. We were talking to a member named Brother Paz. He was asking us if we wanted to go out to eat with him during the week at a restaurant. We said okay. He doesn't have family to go out with so he likes to take the missionaries to go eat so he doesn't eat alone. That's not the funny part though. That's the tender part. The funny part was right after he walked away, another member who had overheard our conversation came up to us and asked if we knew where he was taking us. He said that he wanted to take us out to eat as well, haha. A little competition. So we went out to eat twice this week paid for by those members. Being a missionary has some temporal benefits sometimes too.

We also had a nice lesson on Saturday with a returning less-active member and his girlfriend who is an investigator. His name is Jorge and he has been a member since he was little. His girlfriend, Stephanie, has just recently started meeting with us. She's still thinking about baptism. I'm pretty sure that she'll get baptized. We had a lesson with them on following the prophet and then switched to the Word of Wisdom. It was a great lesson, because during the first few previous lessons, her understanding wasn't very good. We were worried because we thought that that might make her a little frustrated that she couldn't understand leading her to not want to continue learning. Fortunately, her understanding was very good during this last lesson with her. As we left, we had high hoped for her. The word of wisdom made sense to her. She's been reading the Book of Mormon diligently and she's now starting 2 Nephi. We told her it was okay if she wanted to skip the Isaiah chapters. She's coming to church every Sunday and she likes it. Jorge has born strong testimony of every lesson so far on how much he loves the Gospel and how much he regrets ever growing away from the Church in the first place. He knows that he missed out on blessings. He was also talking to us and he was telling us how blessed we are as missionaries to go to so many homes and to see different parenting styles and families and to be able to know how to raise our family so well in the future. So true! There are many things that I've seen on my mission that have made me say, 'I will definitely do that in my family.' Also I've unfortunately said to myself, 'I will never do that.'

Sunday was an amazing finding day for us. We received a referral from Plainfield the other week. Her name was Marisa. We finally were able to stop by at the right time to find her home. She's from the Dominican Republic. She seemed excited to learn. We had a quick lesson with her because she said that it would be better for us to come by during the week so we could teach her along with her husband and her four kids. Wow! I'm excited!

Later on that night, we stopped by someone's house that we had met just a few weeks prior. She's been hard to get in contact with. When we knocked on the door, a 17 year old Dominican by answered the door. He told us to come in. As we talked to him, he said that about a month before he moved from the Dominican Republic, he started meeting with the missionaries. His two cousins in the DR are already members and one of them had served a mission! He seemed pretty excited to see missionaries here and to have them knock on his door! His little sister as well hopped in on the lesson. She's 15 years old. Every time I see how big 15 year old kids are, I think of how wild it is that Kyle is their same age. We have a return appointment with them both next Saturday.

The work is moving forward in the Garden State! I'm loving it!

Love you mom,
-Justin

PS: Now my other shoes, the Florsheims, are starting to wear down too. The inside of them is falling apart. I was wondering if Mr. Mac would be able to do the same thing with those as well...

August 19, 2013

Dear Mom,

It sounds like the suburban is finally about to die, haha. Have you thought recently about getting a new car? I can't believe that she's going to college already. She just doesn't seem old enough. Archery! Wow, that sounds fun.

Man, I feel bad for Kyle. I want to try and help him out when I get home. I want to help him with school and stuff and make sure that he does well. I'll have some time before I start school up later on, so hopefully I can help him make some good habits at studying.

Is the book Added Upon the same book that you found at grandma and grandpa's house? Or is that a different book? You'll definitely have to save that book for me when I get back so I can read it. I've been thinking about trying to get a job at Deseret Book when I get back. That way I can look at all those cool books... and maybe get a discount, haha.

Speaking of Mt. Timp, I found a picture of the Timpanogos Temple in our apartment. It's probably my favorite picture of that temple because they shot the picture at an angle to where you can see all the mountains behind it. In the picture you can see the tiny little dot where the shack sits at the top. It also shows a part of the American Fork canyon where Seth and I hiked multiple times. It doesn't quite show the "G" though, but that's fine. It's an awesome picture of that temple though. I'm excited to hike that mountain again. I hope that Kyle is into hiking next year around. I'd love to hit the mountains a lot.

I have no idea when I get the itinerary for my departure from New Jersey. President Jeppson didn't say anything about my age in the mission other than, "You're in the fourth quarter of your mission Elder Gajewsky! You're a veteran!" So I guess it'll come when it comes.

Q of the W:

1. In the scriptures, you know the story of the Brother of Jared when he prayed to Heavenly Father about it being dark in the barges? Was it Heavenly Father or Jesus that he saw touch the stones?

It was Jesus Christ. From what I've seen in the Bible and the Book of Mormon, the only time when the Father really shows up at all is to bear testimony of His Son. In that part in Ether, Jesus Christ actually tells the Brother of Jared that the body that he sees in his spirit body. (Ether 3:13-16)

2. What is your favorite book in the Book of Mormon?

I would say that I love the ending chapters of 2 Nephi the most. I also really love Moroni a lot. I would say it's a tie between those two.

3. Did you hear they changed the missionary dress and grooming standards? Have they told you anything about not carrying backpacks?

I have heard about that. I did hear that they want to get rid of the backpacks. I don't know why exactly. But they did tell us that they're slowly fazing them out. I'm guessing Kyle will not bring a backpack with him on his mission, but I'm also guessing that they won't make me buy a shoulder bag. Maybe it looks more professional.

This last week we had it a little rough. People didn't show up for their appointments too often. When they do that, we call it juking appointments. It's really annoying and it makes me pretty frustrated. That happened a few times this last week and it just makes it hard. We did make up for it on Wednesday and Friday when we were going to appointment after appointment and we got a pretty good lesson count in.

On Saturday we had an interesting experience in giving a blessing to an older lady. She is actually originally from Italy, but she served a mission in Uruguay a long time ago and then ended up living there for like 30 years. She knows Spanish just as well as she knows Italian. She hasn't been active for a while, but she wanted a blessing from when she had fallen. It was cool. Hopefully she'll come back to church soon.

Well, I'd love to tell you a few more experience from this last week, but the other missionaries really want to go now, so I have to go. I get a little frustrated at this too sometimes. They email faster because they only send one email out, but I want to talk to other people. Can't wait til I have more time...

Love you!
-Justin

August 12, 2013

Dear Mom,

This week was a great week. Last Sunday, we received a text from our Bishop about a returning less-active member and how his fiancee wanted to learn about the Gospel. So on Monday we called up the less-active member. His name was Jorge. He was born in Columbia but he was raised in Ecuador and came over here to the United States later on. He was baptized when he was littler but now he wants to come back to the Church especially with his fiancee and he wants to raise a family in the Gospel. We set up an appointment for that night and we taught her the Restoration of the Gospel. She thought that it was pretty interesting and she said that she wanted to start reading the Book of Mormon. This is what is really difficult about a Spanish-speaking mission in the United States. She speaks English better than Spanish and he speaks Spanish better than English. But he speaks English better than she speaks Spanish. So we obviously taught her in English so she would understand better, and she's reading the Book of Mormon in English. So our question is, should they go to Church in English so she understands better, or should they go to church in Spanish so he understands better? But she already has people she knows in the Spanish program. We're still trying to figure it out, haha! But we run into this problem a lot. Usually it's with kids though. We just have to teach the kids in English and then they go to Church with their parents in Spanish. Oh the joys of state-side Spanish. But aside from that, she's really interested in learning as much as she can. We visited them again on Friday and she had read six chapters in the Book of Mormon which is a lot more than people usually read between the first and second visit with the missionaries. We were impressed! She likes it. The second visit, we taught her the Plan of Salvation with a special video at the end. We watched with her "Earthly Father, Heavenly Father" off of lds.org. From what we've seen so far, she doesn't really have a relationship with Heavenly Father, and that makes it difficult to follow Him. So we're trying to help her establish that relationship and gain that desire. We just have to overpower her with the Spirit. :) She'll get baptized though. I'm sure of it.

Also, this last Thursday we had interviews with President and Sister Jeppson again. Great as always! He asked how my family was doing. I told him how scary it was to think that my little brother is driving soon, haha. He didn't talk to me about anything about going home so I'm pretty sure I'll just come home as scheduled! Right before your birthday.

This week has been pretty full of finding. We found five new investigators this week which is slightly above average. We were very excited! We should be finding about the same this next week. We're just trying to stay as busy as we can. We're trying to find a bunch of less-active members on our ward list and that's helping us find new investigators. Many times those less-active members don't live there anymore and so we just contact the people that do live there and then we start to teach them. It's pretty awesome. Most of those new investigators that we've found so far are just in the beginning stages. Nothing too huge from it yet, but we are finding and we are staying busy! Missionary work is the BEST when you're busy. It's painful and long when you're walking around all day doing nothing.

It sounds like everyone had a good time for Kyle's birthday. Next one, yours! And I'll be home for it too. It better be a good birthday mom! I can't wait to go up a tour SLC again. I've been remembering a lot of fun things about SLC.

You should send me a list of what classes Kelsie has. Is she taking any cool classes or all generals?

Q of the W:

1.  Alma 32:34.  I don't understand why, after someone dies, they wouldn't realize that God does exist and wouldn't not want to learn the gospel.  Wouldn't it be like a 'duh'?  I've never been able to understand this.

I've thought a lot about this question. In the scriptures it talks about the Gospel being preached to the dead. Well, we know that the Gospel is faith, repentance, baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. Well, those people in the Spirit World need to take all those steps as well, including faith. As Moroni explains faith is believing in something that is true and not seen. So if they, in the Spirit World, have to walk by faith, that means that they won't see God. Now there's the scripture in Alma 40:11 which says that we shall go back to to the God who gave us life. There was something I read about that from commentary from a latter-day prophet and I can't remember what exactly he said, but he said that it doesn't mean that we will go back to the presence of God. Because the presence of God is the Celestial Kingdom. That would mean that when Christ died and went to the Spirit World, His visit there was just as marvelous as His coming in the Americas. Now that doesn't mean that the Spirit World won't be cool. I've heard that the Spirit World, at least in Paradise, is WAY better than this world. Plus, we won't have to fear anything. It's not like we can get hurt or anything. We won't have a body! I'm still studying it out more and there's some scriptures that I could use, I just don't have much time..

2.  Do you ever find people who have researched our church online and they have it all wrong?

Not really. Usually it's, "I heard you Mormons do this...." If they do some real research they'll find lds.org or mormon.org and those are really good websites for people.

3.  How would you explain 'faith' to someone?

I like to make sure people understand that faith includes action. If we don't act on our faith, then it's just a belief. Faith is believing in something that's true and then acting on it.

Love you mom! Good questions!

-Justin

August 5, 2013

Dear Mom,

There's also another video that I just remembered that's way cool. It's called "How Rare a Possession". It's about a guy in Italy who goes to NYC and finds a Book of Mormon but the cover is worn off and he doesn't know which church it belongs to, but when he reads it he comes to know that it's completely true and that it comes from God. He searches most of his life for the Church it belongs to. It's a way cool story.

I'm excited for August now too. I'm happy for the hot weather to finally be going away. These last few weeks it's been on and off with the rain. It's nice when it rains because it's not so hot. When it's not raining, fortunately it hasn't been nearly as hot as it was in the middle of July. I hope that it stays that way. When we walked out of our apartment today to get picked up to go to the library, there was a cold wind outside and I thought to myself that it feels like summer is starting to die off. I don't think that it'll get too cool for a while though.

That's a way cool story about that biker guy! I showed a couple of the other missionaries that I'm with right now the story and they said they liked it too!

We had a really frustrating lesson this last week with a guy named Juan. He was a referral from a less-active member in our area. We finally got in contact with him. He was maybe in his 50's and was from Mexico. He let us right in and said that he likes to listen to the word of God. Well we taught him the first lesson and we found out that he was just crazy. He kept telling us that he was born Catholic and that it would be a mockery of God if he started going to another Church. We kept trying to explain the Great Apostasy more simply and bolder. We finally got to the point where we straight up told him that the Catholic Church has no authority. He just kept telling us that it doesn't matter, he was born Catholic and he just can't change religion. We left pretty frustrated. It was crazy because he just didn't understand anything we were teaching him. He thought that we were just there to change his religion, which is partially true. But it's for the better. Some people just don't get it. I guess he wasn't ready. I question if he'll ever be ready though.

Then on Friday we were able to teach a somewhat less-active member named Rocio. She's only less-active because she can't hardly ever find a ride to church. Her husband isn't a member. But her family joined the church in Honduras so she grew up going to seminary and everything. So she knows the Gospel pretty well. Her husband has been taught by missionaries before. We didn't really know too well how he took the missionary lessons before. So this last Friday we asked him what he thinks about the Book of Mormon and he said that he believes that it's true! We asked him if he wants to be baptized but he said that he couldn't because of work. He can't ever get work off on Sunday's. So we decided to fast for him this last Sunday for him to get work off on Sunday or to be able to find another job in which he wouldn't have to work Sunday's. We haven't been able to follow up with him yet on how it's been going. We told Rocio that she should fast as well. I don't expect an immediate job right now, but I'm excited to start working with him more and trying to get him to work harder at finding a new job. As soon as he gets a new job or whatever it is and he can start coming to church, he's going to be baptized! I'm excited for that!

This last Saturday we were going to have a lesson with one of our investigators named Ishmael. He's a big black guy from an island in the Mediterranean called Antigua. He married a lady from the Dominican Republic and he learned Spanish so he could communicate with her. Well she was baptized many years ago and her mom was just baptized last year (crazy side story: I actually interviewed her mom for baptism when I was a district leader back in Plainfield. I drove up from Plainfield to interview her for the Elders that were working here about a year ago! And now I'm teaching her as the missionary in her area!) Now it's Ishmael's turn to be baptized. He's been meeting with the missionaries since about January of this year. He doesn't want to be baptized yet because he says that he's not ready. He says that he'll tell us when he's ready. So he comes to church almost every week with his wife and mother-in-law. Well our Bishop decided that it was time for Ishmael to get in the water. He wants him to be baptized soon. So we planned with the Bishop to go over to his house on Saturday night to talk to him about the temple. He wanted to specifically talk about the temple so Ishmael can start seeing that the big picture is actually the temple, not just baptism. So we go over there and we come to find out that they were actually planning on a huge family reunion for Ishmael's family. His wife knew about it but she didn't want to tell us because she wanted us to teach his family and she didn't want us to come over another day. It was sweet of her to do that but they Ishmael definitely wasn't planning on us coming over that day. We talked to Ishmael and he said that it would be better if we came by another day. But Bishop wanted to at least show all of them what we were about. So we did a quick run-down of the Plan of Salvation. None of them were really interested. They said that the Plan of Salvation was interesting, but we really didn't get any feedback. Haha, it was kind of a flop. But it was kind of fun to teach a large group of people. There was only one lady who thought that we had said that we'll get a second chance to accept the Gospel in the next life. So she kept asking us about that after we had finished. Bishop kept telling her that we hadn't said that. Some people are funny. So I started studying a little more on the Spirit World. Well it turns out that the Gospel will be preached in the Spirit World. That means that faith will be taught. So my guess is that we will still have to act upon faith in the Spirit World. However, those that have no interest in the Gospel in this world probably won't have any interest in the next. (Alma 32:34) But we can't say exactly who will and who will not accept the Gospel. That's why we have to invite everyone!

 Q of the W:

1.  Has your name tag ever worn out or broke?

Not yet!

2.  Have you had any more problems or pain with your ankle?

No. My shoes are doing okay. I think the shoes were problem

3.  Are you able to find out how the people you have taught in previous transfers are doing?

I usually just ask the missionaries in that area every once in a while. All the missionary phone numbers are listed in every phone.

4.  Do you sleep really good every night?

I'm pretty sure I get enough sleep. But I still wake up every morning feeling like I need another two hours of sleep.


Love you mom!