November 4, 2013

Dear Mom,

I like that idea about Christmas for me. I guess maybe just some snacks or something small that I can eat up really quick. But for sure I'll need some clothes and stuff once I get home. (I'm also going to need more garments. My last laundry load, all the ink on those tags that say the size and everything of my garments are pretty much washed off completely. They're not that white anymore.)

I sure do hope that I can get a career in which I can utilize my Spanish. I'm thinking more and more of the FBI. I know it won't really be anything like criminal minds, but I'm thinking a job from the government would be stable and have benefits. I guess we'll see about that once I get home and can start researching stuff like that.

1.  Does your curfew change now that we are off of daylight savings time?

No. We still work until 9:00 pm.

2.  How often do you get rides from the members?

Not very often. There are a few members that come out with us quite often, but they don't have cars either. We'll get rides to correlation meeting on Thursday afternoons from our ward mission leader and we always have to call around to find a ride to church on Sunday.

3.  Just for fun - what is the first movie you want to see when you get home?

I'm pretty sure that it's going to be Batman!

Well last Monday, after P-Day, we had an appointment with a guy that works in the building in which we live. His name is Miguel. I've seen him around a while and he always has said hi to us. Back in July or August, I remember he told us that he wants to talk to us about God one day. Well, I finally asked him a couple weeks ago when we could come by and see him. So we got to go over there and teach him the Restoration last Monday afternoon. He has his own story just like everyone else. He told us that his ex-wife is a member of the church here in New Brunswick. We noted down her name and looked it up on the ward list and there's nothing even close to her name. So... I don't know. Also, the only time Miguel has ever been to any church was when he was super little in the Dominican Republic and he doesn't even remember it. So he's basically never been to church before in his life. After we taught him the Restoration, he said that he needs to read the Book of Mormon! He seems promising. He didn't come to church even though he said he wanted to. Which I can imagine it's probably scary going to a church for the first time in your life that you remember. We have another appointment with him tonight! It's great to find receptive people that actually take interest in what you have to share.

We met with a lady yesterday. She's a former investigator. Well, after our visit, she's still a former investigator. We taught her the Restoration very well and I felt that the Spirit was there. She told us that she's good with where she's at. She doesn't go to church yet she claims herself as Catholic. But she thinks that as long as she reads the Bible and does her best that she'll be good. When she said that, I said to myself that obviously she doesn't understand the Bible. I went about my best trying to teach her that authority to baptize is essential and that a correct church is more than important. She still didn't change. I expressed my thoughts that we need to follow the example of the Apostles of Christ and show humility to what we thought was correct and be willing to change. She told us that she doesn't want to change. I told her that this is a chance to find out if Christ's original church is truly on the earth. She said that she believes that all churches are good and that it doesn't matter which church you belong to. She just plain didn't get it. She said that she's not willing to change and there really isn't much that we can do about that. Sad...

Wednesday and Thursday, we got home at around 6:00 pm. I just read Jesus the Christ pretty much the whole time. It was a weird feeling to have nothing to do. I did read a very interesting part in Jesus the Christ when Jesus is in the temple in Jerusalem and the Jews start to question him. There's a great video on that part in the Bible videos on lds.org. The video is called: Jesus Declares: I Am the Light of the World, the Truth Shall Make You Free. One thing that James Talmage clears up in the use of the name "I am" at the end of the video. "I am" is another name for Christ. Christ declared Himself as "I AM that I AM" to Moses when He appeared to him. It means a few different things in Hebrew and has a lot of symbolic meaning. Well, for the Jews in that time, the mention of the name "I am" or "Jehovah" was strictly forbidden. It was too sacred to say. There was only a certain time once a year during a certain ceremony when some priest would use the name. Other than that, if you said it in public the punishment was extremely harsh. So while Jesus is talking to the Jews in the temple, their conversation leads them to talk about Abraham. Then the Jews ask Jesus how He knows Abraham. Then Jesus says, "Verily, verily I say unto you. Before Abraham was, I am." Not only does Jesus use the name when it ''wasn't allowed'', but He claims it as His own. James Talmage describes how mad the Jews were during that time. In the Bible it talks about how the Jews took up stones to stone Him, but then Jesus just walked out of the temple. It wasn't His time to die, so He chose not to die. So cool!

Saturday I got a few comments on my Spanish. We were trying to find some guy that we contacted earlier during the week and we came into contact with a couple other people on some stairs in front of a house. After a minute or so of just talking to them and answering some questions about what we do, one Honduran guy looks at me weird and then tells me, "Wow, you really speak Spanish!" He asked me how I learned Spanish and I told him that I just learn it talking with people. He said, "No, where did you really learn it." I told him that I read the scriptures in Spanish and I have a grammar book that I study. It was a confidence booster and it made the day better knowing that Hispanics think that I really speak Spanish. Not ten minutes after that, when we were waiting for a member to meet us at an appointment, a little boy maybe 9 years old started talking to me in Spanish. He asked me what we were selling. I told him that we're missionaries. I had a Spanish-English dictionary in my hands and he asked me what it was. I told him what it was. Then he asked me if I speak English. I said yes and asked him if he speaks English. He said a little. I asked him how he was doing and what his name was and he didn't know what I was saying, haha! I talked to him a little more and gave his dad a pass-along card. It was cool because there aren't very many kids here that don't speak English. Usually they all speak English; many of them better than Spanish because of school. It was good to know that I can understand what kids are saying in Spanish. Usually they're pretty difficult to understand. Also, to add onto all of this, members can tell that I'm close to finishing by how much Spanish I can speak. They'll tell me that they can tell I'm almost done because I speak Spanish so well... :)

Well, that's about it for the week!

Love you mom! See you real soon!

-Justin