October 28, 2013

Dear Mom,

I just emailed Logan Kitchen. It was pretty easy to guess his email. All the missionaries have the same set up. He emailed back pretty quickly. He didn't have much time, so it was a short message, but he's there! He had forgotten that I was in NJ. I don't know where in NY he is, but hopefully I'll find out next week when he had more time to email.

For zone conference, we had three zones meet up. A zone usually consists of about 20 missionaries. President and Sister Jeppson met with many other mission presidents and their wives for a mission president seminar about two weeks ago. During those mission president seminars they tell the mission presidents about upcoming events and other things like iPad's. President Jeppson found out that our mission will probably get iPad's next April. So I won't be able to use them at all. Apparently our mission was one of the last missions on the list to receive iPad's. We don't know why that is, but it is what it is.

It's crazy that it's already been a year since Hurricane Sandy hit. It's gone by so fast.

That's cool to hear about a new car! I've always kind of thought that I want a Cadillac Escalade. They look so fancy and nice. I think that I would be sad to not see the old suburban again, but I kind of accepted the fact that y'all were most likely going to find a new car before I got back from my mission. The suburban is a 'hole in the wallet' it seems like. Hopefully it would run nice like the truck and have few problems like the truck. I think it's a good idea. Less car problems = less stress. No dvd problems in the car on the way to Boise = happy trip.

Q of the W:

1.  What will you be doing for Halloween?

We will be staying inside. The day before Halloween and the day of Halloween, we're supposed to be in our apartments by 6:00 pm both days.

2.  How has your camera been for you?  Been taking pictures?

I've been taking a few pictures. I'll send one today.

3.  Do you need anything for Christmas?  I know it's too close to when you get home to send any type of gift...any ideas?

I've only been able to think about that a little bit. I really don't know what to do. I was thinking about just having you do presents as if I were coming home before Christmas and then I'll just open them up once I get home. What do you think about that idea?

So this last week I was hit with the realization of how cold winter can be. I've been walking around in the blazing heat for so long that I think I almost forgot how bad the cold can be! This last week the highs have been in the low 50's and the high 40's. On a few occasions, it was accompanied by lots of wind. It's been cold! I've worn a sweater every day this week. I even took out a small pair of gloves I have to keep my hands warm so I don't have to walk around with my hands in my pockets.

On Wednesday we had our zone conference. President Jeppson made that announcement about the iPad's and also informed us that this would be the last zone conference for some missionaries, including me. :( The next zone conference will be held in January. The time is running short for me now. But anyway, remember me telling you about that missionary work fireside that we did a few weeks back? At the end of that fireside we sang "Army of Helaman" in Spanish. Well, it turns out Sister Jeppson got word of that and volunteered us to sing it again at zone conference! haha! We did a great job and it turned out really, really well! The Spirit was strong in the room. It was a great zone conference. I had to get my temple recommend renewed after the meeting by President Jeppson. I first got my temple recommend because I was going on my mission soon. Having to get it renewed is just another sign that I'm ending my mission soon...

We had a cool experience with a potential investigator named Alan this last week. We finally went to his house a week after he had contacted us in the street. When he answered the door he was happy to see us but he said that he was busy cooking dinner and that we should come by another day. A few days later we knocked on his door again. He answered and said that he looked up on mormon.org and he "doesn't buy it". I was pretty surprised to hear that. We started talking to him a little more and he finally invited us in. His concern was that he doesn't think that Christianity could die out. He said that it's cool to hear that Christ came to the Americas, but that if He really did, Christianity would not have died out. He said that if He really did come, that the Native Americans would be Christians. That's a valid doubt. I saw it as a sincere faith-driven doubt shrouded by misunderstanding about wickedness and apostasy. At first I didn't even know where to begin to answer his question. I had never heard that before. Then the answer came to me. The Spirit gave it to me: We look at the New Testament and Jesus Christ Himself, the God of the Earth, was persecuted by many people, primarily the Jews. Why? The Jews had professed to believe in God and in the coming of a Messiah. So why would they not believe in Jesus Christ? Well, years after Moses, the people at large fell into apostasy. The knowledge about who Christ was was lost and when the Messiah finally came, people didn't recognize Him. People can choose to believe what they believe. Christianity was lost years before the coming of Christ in the flesh and that's why He was persecuted and killed. Luckily, Christianity has lasted in some form after the death of Christ and His Apostles. Unfortunately, the people in the Americas lost the knowledge of Christ completely just as the Jews had in Israel. We have another appointment with Alan this Thursday.

Sunday proved to be a more difficult day this week. We ended Saturday with no appointments set for the next day. We put down names of people that we could see, just hoping that people would be home on Sunday. We didn't have too much luck. It was about 8:15 and we didn't really have too many people to try. We were pretty close to our apartment so it's difficult to walk to a lot of people because by the time we get out there, it'll be time for us to head back to the apartment. We then remembered somebody that we had knocked into while looking for someone else about a week ago. Her name was Rosanna and she had some family members there as well. We decided to try them. Since it's getting darker a lot sooner now, I feel kind of bad for knocking on people's doors when it's pitch black outside. But we knocked on their door and they let us right in. There were six people in the house. We don't know how many of them are family. It seemed like a lot of them were family, but they could be friends. They were all Dominicans. One of them has been here in the United States for 19 years. Most of them have only been here four years and one of them has been here for three months. They were very surprised at how much Spanish I could speak! haha. Once I started talking to them more they seemed very surprised how much I know Spanish! It was a good feeling. We taught them a little bit about the Book of Mormon and they agreed to let us over next weekend! That's six new investigators. We're going to try and make sure that we can get all of them over there too.

Last week I bought some new khakis. We're allowed to wear lighter colored pants now. I also bought a new white shirt because all my other white shirts aren't so 'white' anymore. I'm going to wear this new white shirt to meetings and stuff when I want to look extra sharp. I bought these at Marshalls. The pants were $20. The shirt was $14 and is a little nicer than the ones I bought at Mr. Mac. That's my birthday tie too.

Love you!
-Justin