October 21, 2013

Dear Mom,

You can for sure plan out a fun birthday for you. I'll be glad to do whatever. Especially a movie. It's going to be fun. I've heard that it's a tough experience getting released as a missionary as well.

Wow, that's crazy about William. I knew that they were going to want to go to CJ's and talk! That definitely sounds like William. When I found out that he was coming back for knee problems, I knew that I was going to be able to go to CJ's with him, haha. Hopefully I can talk him back into going on a mission, even though it'll take a while for his knee to get better. A year is a long time to wait to go back on a mission. I think that it's harder to go back on a mission because when you're on the mission you realize how much you actually don't have from the world, like technology and communication and your time. Once you’re in that and come back from it, it's hard to go back into that consecrated time. There is a missionary that I got to know pretty well that went home and then came back out. He said that it was pretty hard to come back out, but he's super glad that he got to come back. He loves the mission now. He struggles with Spanish but he has a super strong testimony and knows why he's here on a mission. He's a really good example of that.

I had no idea that James Pickard was even on a mission. That's super cool to hear that though! I'm happy for him. Does it say if he's speaking a language other than English? Also, if you could try and figure out about Logan Kitchen. I've been dying to know if he's left on a mission or not.

Q of the W:
1. What do you do when you can't reach your investigators during the day?

Sometimes if we really need to get a hold of them, I'll call them several times throughout the day. Many times, if I call them around 9 o'clock, I'll get a hold of them.

2. Is it common to stay in the same place transfer after transfer?

It's pretty common to stay in an area for four transfers, which usually equals six months. I haven't heard of too many cases where they're in an area for more than that. I'll probably be in this area for five! It's also pretty rare to only spend one transfer in an area, which I did towards the beginning of my mission in Paterson. So I guess one never really knows.

3. In your opinion, are the members there super strong in the church or does it just vary among people?

It really depends on the person. I think more people are stronger in the church in Utah and on the west coast where the Church is more prominent. But I have definitely seen some super strong members out here. Our Bishop is one of those people. He's a convert. He was baptized when he was 17 or 18. Served a mission. Married a returned sister missionary. Has three kids now. Another super strong member is Mercedes. She's in my area and she's been a member for about four years. One of her favorite parts about church is visiting teaching. She loves to visit other people. The only thing she ever complains about is about other people complaining not wanting to fulfill their duties about members. She says that she doesn't understand why people don't want to do home teaching and visiting teaching. She doesn't understand why people don't want to come to church every Sunday and take work off on Sundays to keep the Sabbath holy. She's awesome. I don't think I know of many other people like that.

This last Wednesday, we had an appointment with a less-active member. We decided to watch part of President Uchtdorf's talk from the Saturday morning session of this past General Conference. He talked about how much everyone does in the Church and how much we sacrifice. Then asks the funny question, "Why would anyone want to join such a church?" Our less-active member, Juan, laughed. He knows about the Church still and remembers a lot about what we do. Then later, President Uchtdorf asks another good question, "If the Gospel is so wonderful, why would anyone leave?" I feel like that really hit Juan. He didn't respond vocally or physically when President Uchtdorf had asked that question, but I certainly felt that it was a good inspired question directed to him at that moment. Juan didn't come to church yesterday. I wasn't quite expecting him to either. I think that the journey for a lot of people takes them a little while longer before they come back into full fellowship; not because God doesn't want them to come back so soon, but because they choose to not be ready to come back right now. Juan was baptized a few years back and remained active for a little time before going completely inactive. Not many active members know who he is. So that's tough. He doesn't have anyone he knows in the church right now. I learned from that lesson that General Conference truly is inspired for not only those who attend in the moment, but for many people to study in the weeks, months, and even years to come.

We had the chance to meet the husband of a less-active member. She has been a member almost her whole life. She attributes her nine years of less-activity to busy work schedules and no time. She wants to come back to church and she wants her nine year old son, Marco, to be baptized. So we've been teaching him. Since the day we first met her, she's talked about how her husband used to meet with the missionaries a lot and cook for them every time they came over. She always told us how he loved to visit with the missionaries. Her husband, Hector, also has a really good friend that lives in Texas who has been a faithful member pretty much his whole life, and who also served a mission in Chile. So it sounded like Hector had a lot of potential to be baptized. So every time that we've gone over there to teach Marco, I've asked about when we could meet Hector. Well, this last Friday, we were finally able to meet him. He cooked for us :) It was a delicious pasta too. Tons of cheese, but not too much to over do it. He was very enthusiastic and a very cool guy to be with. He was born and raised in New York, but his parents were from Puerto Rico. So his first language is English. The less-active member, Jackie, has learned English, and she teaches at an elementary school. But throughout their marriage, Hector has learned Spanish. He speaks Spanish better than I do. He's very fluent and sounds almost native. He enjoys speaking Spanish with us too. We had a fun time visiting him. He loves to joke around, so it was hard to have a serous lesson with him, but we got in a lesson. It was an interesting lesson. He mentioned how he loves the Book of Mormon. His comment was, "It's an amazing book. John Smith couldn't have made it up." Haha. He's been away from the missionaries for a while. He said that he wants to be a Mormon some day. We're going to work on his testimony. He has a great attitude about it all, but I think right now, he's more converted to the church and its people rather than the Savior and His Gospel. No problem though! He's a great guy! Hopefully in a few more months, they won't be a less-active part-member family anymore.

We also got to see the Munoz family this Saturday. At least two out of the four of them. They haven't been reading the Book of Mormon. I asked Brother Munoz why he hasn't read. He said that he just doesn't like to read. So we talked for a little bit and then we decided to read a couple chapters out of the Book of Mormon with them. We read out of 1 Nephi 6-7. After we finished reading, Brother Munoz told us that another reason he doesn't like reading the Book of Mormon is that once he starts reading it, he doesn't want to put it down because the stories are so interesting and cool. He said that he doesn't like to read for so much time. It's an interesting excuse to why he doesn't like to read the Book of Mormon. I didn't really know how to respond to it. Haha. The Munoz family is great. They are just a little lazy! They didn't come to church again, ever after I committed them to do so. There's not much else we can do to help them out. They're really on their own right now.

Well, this upcoming week is zone conference. We'll get trainings from President and Sister Jeppson and hear some news about the changes coming up. President Jeppson found out that our mission will probably receive iPads April 2014. A little late for me, but hopefully I'll have something similar of my own by then.

Love you mom! Talk to you soon!

-Justin