September 3, 2013

Dear Mom,

I have not been transferred. I'm staying here in New Brunswick for another. My companion Elder Drewes is being transferred. We don't know where yet and I don't know who my new companion is either. I'll let you know next week.

If Mr. Mac can't give me another pair, I'm pretty sure that I can survive another few months on the ones that I have. My Rockports are holding out pretty well. I probably won't bring them home. I think that in the next few months, they'll start wearing down pretty bad again. I'll probably just wear the Florsheims home. The outside of that pair of shoes has lasted pretty good, but it's just the inside that's falling apart.

I feel like August went by super fast. It's been cooling down here in New Jersey a little bit. We still have hot days, but nothing near like June or July. It's not too humid on those hot days either. I'm excited for fall to come.


1.  Are they preparing you in any way for hurricane season?

Nothing so far. President Jeppson mentioned in his weekly letter to us today that hurricane season is here. He said that it was two years ago that hurricane Irene hit and about 11 months since hurricane Sandy. He also said that there are no hurricanes in sight right now. I'm kind of hoping for another hurricane... I want to do that service stuff again, but it was just so sad to see how many lives were affected by that.

2.  Do you hear about Eddy de Leon?  I see on facebook that him and his family went to the temple.

I haven't heard anything about it. That's cool to hear about that though!


We taught the Munoz family again this last week. I've been growing tired of trying to help them out. They are plenty able to come to church. They have a car, so transportation is not an issue. They know when church starts and they have alarms on their phones. They don't have any excuses. They haven't come to church for the past little while. We talked a little bit about the roles of each member in the family with them this last Wednesday. We read parts from the Family: A Proclamation to the World with them. It was a really good lesson with them. They knew we were coming over so they ordered pizza for us. It was a good lesson with them. Brother Munoz said that he learned that he has to set the example in leading the family in righteousness. I'm glad he knows that now! Now I hope that he does it! I do really like that family a lot. They're all amazing.

This next month and transfer is going to be really exciting. These past few months we've been working hard on just finding people that are ready. This last week or so, we've found several people who we think are getting baptized really soon. The first one we found is the son of a less-active member. He's almost nine years old, so it's going to be up to us soon to teach him everything and prepare him for baptism. He's only been to church a few times in his life (which goes to show how long the mom has been a less-active member). She says that she has always had a testimony of the church, but things of life just get in the way and we choose not to follow the path anymore. She told us that she wants to get back on the path now that her first son is old enough to be baptized. Unfortunately he doesn't speak too much Spanish. His dad is from Puerto Rico and doesn't speak much Spanish at home. (The dad, by the way, isn't a member but has talked with the missionaries in the past and is also a potential baptism.) We just visited this less-active sister this past Sunday and we'll be visiting them again this Sunday.

Another kid that we found is named Luis. He's a 17 year old boy from the Dominican Republic. He speaks both languages just fine, but he speaks Spanish with us. He visited with the missionaries a month before he moved to the United States with his returned missionary cousin and his other active cousin. I think I talked about him a little bit last week. We visited him yesterday to check up on him and set up another time when we could come by. Luis is really into music. He has played this Dominican type drum since he was eight. He plays another couple types of little Dominican instruments. He's also been playing the piano for the last couple years and has a guitar that he wants to learn to play. I told him that I play some piano and he's excited to hear what I can play this Thursday. We also gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon yesterday and he said that he's excited to read it. We're pretty sure that he's going to get baptized soon! He's a cool kid!

On Saturday, we helped a member family move. It was Jorge Bastidas and his girlfriend. Because of some financial difficulty and Jorge's desire to get completely back on to the straight and narrow, they have decided to split up for some time. He moved across town. He still lives in our area so we are going to continue to visit him. Stephanie, the girl friend, moved to Perth Amboy to live with her parents for a while, which is out of our area. They want to get married and back on their feet before they move in back together. I'm excited for them. They actually asked me to bless their one year old baby this Sunday during Sacrament Meeting. I'm pretty sure that that was the first time I've ever blessed a baby. Afterwards I was thinking that that's going to be the last baby I probably bless until I have one of my own. It was a cool experience. They asked me to do it Saturday right before we started moving their stuff out. We're still working with Stephanie. She's not a member, but she likes learning what we teach her. She still hasn't made the decision to be baptized. We'll continue working with that, but she's reading the Book of Mormon like crazy and she comes to church every week.

The monthly focus for this month in our mission is love and teaching people, not lessons. One of the more interesting points that we've talked about are the three levels of why we obey the Lord. They are, from the lowest to highest: Fear, Duty, and Love. Obviously the fear part will bring the smallest amount of power. If we look at the why behind everything that Christ did, nothing he did was out of fear nor duty. It was completely out of love. Read Moroni 7:45-46. After you have read that, read it again replacing the word 'charity' for Christ. It gives another perspective to Christ's perfect attributes. So the purpose of looking at those three levels of obedience is to gauge our progress to obeying and serving the Lord out of obedience. Especially as missionaries, we can generate the most amount of power and bring the Spirit stronger as we work, serve, and teach out of Love for the Savior and all of Heavenly Father's children around us. Also see John 13:34-35 and John 14:15, 21. Something that we taught to a member family this last weekend that struggles with obedience with the Sabbath Day is that if we really have love towards the Savior we will do everything we can to make sure that we obey His commandments. Usually there is quite a bit we can do to make sure commandments are kept, especially concerning the Sabbath Day. I'm excited to learn more this month. I'm still a district leader and I'll be giving three district meetings on love and teaching people, not lessons. The part about teaching people, not lessons is to make sure that we focus on the needs of people and not just reciting a rote lesson, exactly like what the missionary discussions used to be.. As we focus on teaching people and not lessons, our investigators will progress towards baptism and those we teach will learn more and know how to apply it better in their lives. Missionary work is improving in EVERY aspect! I love it!!

It's going to be a great month! I'm super excited for it. I'm excited for it to cool down. It'll make walking around not so bad. I think the best time to be in a walking area is when it's cool enough to wear a sweater outside.

Love you mom!
-Justin

PS: I'm going to try and send a package or two home. I'm trying to lighten my load. I've realized that I'm trying to carry too much stuff around. So I'm leaving stuff that I've picked up or I'm sending it home. Either way, I don't need it!