November 25, 2013

Mom,

I am not getting transferred. I'm staying in New Brunswick which means that I'll finish my mission here. I'm excited about that. I've grown to love the people here and I'll be able to really say goodbye to them with notice. It's always hard getting transferred and only having a few hours to say goodbye to everyone. But now I know exactly when I'll be leaving so that's nice. My companion is getting transferred. I don't know who my new companion is, but I'll find out tomorrow when we go to transfer conference.

I am totally fine with doing the homecoming talk on the 19th. That'll actually be kind of nice. I was thinking that it would be a little stressful having to prepare a talk in only a couple of days. So it'll be nice to have some extra time to prepare a talk. That'll for sure be an awesome birthday for Kaylee!

I got an email from Kyle Byington today. He said that his mom received his flight itinerary this last week. He's coming home the 22nd of January and his flight lands at 1:18pm.

I actually got to know Elder Pike pretty well. It'll be fun to travel home with him. I never got to be his companion, but we actually did go on an exchange at the beginning of this year. I was wondering about Brandon Walker as well. I imagine that he would come home the same day, but I don't know what hour it would be.

Six weeks it is. Today is the official start of my last transfer. Pretty much just six weeks left. It's hard not to count... It'll be a good transfer. Lots of Christmas stuff and activities with the ward and mission. Should be great!

Poor Kyle. Mouth things and braces aren't very fun. It really limits what you can eat.

Q of the W:

1. This is a strange and weird question I'm sure but I thought of it one day. Do you wear your missionary badge while you’re in the temple?

No. We take it off once we put on all whites.

2. Do the Spanish members fix the same type of food for Thanksgiving as we do?

Not really. If they even do Thanksgiving they just fix their typical food. Which is still really good.

3. Did you get the CD's?

Not yet. I'm sure they'll get here soon. I'll let you know next week.


So I don't know if you remember a guy named Carlos Hernandez. His wife is a member and she's not too enthusiastic about helping her husband out with the Gospel. He's a really sincere guy and I really think that he'll get baptized soon. Well, we had another lesson with him this last week. I was on an exchange with an English Elder so I was the only one teaching. When we usually go over to their house, we meet with most of the family. We always ask the wife if Carlos is going to come and join in on the lesson, but she's always a little negative about it and tells us that he knows that we're here and that he'll come if he wants. It's always hard to get her to help him out. So when we went over this last Tuesday, I asked her if he was going to come. She told her daughter to go and invite him. After a minute or two he finally came out! It's been almost two months since we've been able to visit with him. He's always very nice and welcoming to us. So we sat down and we taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ. During the lesson, I noticed that he teared up a little bit. I talked with the other Elder with me and he said that even though he didn't really understand what was going on in the lesson that he felt the Spirit there and that he's sure that Carlos felt the Spirit. Then, Carlos came to church yesterday! Progress!!

Later on that night we had another lesson with a guy named Alan. He speaks English, so the other Elder was able to participate in the lesson as well. We're probably going to give him to the English missionaries since he speaks English a little better than he speaks Spanish, but we wanted to have another lesson with him. We decided to teach him about the Atonement of Jesus Christ out of the Book of Mormon. The specific scriptures we used were Alma 7:11-13, then Alma 34:8-10, and then we finished by using 2 Nephi 9:21-23. It was a great lesson and he even though he had been to church many times, he didn't really know anything about the Atonement. It was a powerful lesson and Alan actually pointed out that no other churches that he has been to share ''testimonies'' like we do. He said he liked it :) If you remember, he's the one that we went to for the second time and said that ''he doesn't buy it'' - referring to the idea that if Christianity had existed on the American continent that the American Indians would have been Christians. Now he really wants to start on the Book of Mormon. We're going to try to visit him another time this week probably with the English missionaries to help him feel comfortable talking to other missionaries.

It's really interesting that many people that we talk to, even though they have gone to church most of their lives and have learned about Christ and God, hardly know anything about what the Atonement is. All they know is that Christ died for us. They are surprised, and always willing to believe, that Christ actually suffered for all our sins in the Garden of Gethsemane. They don't really know anything about the Garden of Gethsemane. Before I teach the Atonement, I almost always ask if they know or have heard of the Atonement before. The answer is almost always ''no''. It's so amazing how much more knowledge we have about the Atonement of Jesus Christ through modern revelation. We wouldn't know, and most of the world doesn't know, hardly anything about the most important part of Christ's mission without the Book of Mormon. When teaching people about the Book of Mormon and how it testifies of Jesus Christ, I like to explain that the Bible gives us the story of what Christ did and the Book of Mormon teaches us and explains to us the doctrine of what he did and the ''why''. The Book of Mormon truly contains the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

We visited with Jackie Torres and Marco again this week. Marco is the nine year-old that is going to get baptized soon. They pushed his baptismal date back another week again.. They want to set a goal for Saturday, December 7. I'll be praying for that soon. Their original goal for him to get baptized was for the end of October. They've pushed it back a lot. It was a really good lesson though. We were a little worried that Marco didn't understand the Restoration. It's always a little hard to get kids at that age to really be able to understand those things. They can learn it, but the parents really need to be teaching them up until their mission I would say for them to really retain that. So we decided to watch the Restoration DVD with them. It's a 20 minute short video basically about Joseph Smith's experience trying to find the true church and then has a great part about the First Vision. It has the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing "Joseph Smith's First Prayer" while Joseph walks into the Sacred Grove and during the vision. It always brings the Spirit. Afterward we talked about it a little more with Marco and Sister Torres. Sister Torres said that she really felt the Spirit when Joseph Smith saw Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. The Spirit always testifies of the truth!

We ended the week on Sunday with a great first lesson with a man we contacted this last week. We told him last week that we would try to pass by on Sunday. He was actually expecting us! We taught a good lesson about the restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Spirit was in the lesson. Unfortunately his wife didn't want to join in on the lesson because she doesn't really like listening to religions and stuff, but I just laughed to myself because that was the same attitude that the first counselor in our Bishopric and the Elders Quorum President had when they first met the missionaries. They didn't want to talk to the missionaries at all. After the lesson with this guy he said that he would read the Book of Mormon and that he wants to visit with us this next Sunday. I have a good feeling about this guy.

Well, we should be okay for Thanksgiving this week. We have a couple appointments so far so we should be staying pretty busy. It'll be fun!

Love you mom! See you soon!

-Justin

I ordered a couple things off lds.org. I wanted more thermal garments, so I bought a couple more pairs. Just so you know :)

Also, now that I know that I'm staying here in New Brunswick for my last transfer, I want to start thinking about how I'm going to get some stuff home. I probably want to ship a few things home so my bags don't exceed 50 lbs. I know that Christmas is coming up and that shipping things is going to be very hectic. What would you suggest on when I should ship those things? Should I shoot for before Christmas, or would it be good to ship them after Christmas? I would prefer to keep things here with me as late as possible, but what do you think would be best?