December 23, 2013

Mom,

So for Skype, we're planning on doing it at Michael and Shannon Allongo's house at 1:30 my time, so I guess 11:30 your time. President Jeppson has asked that everyone keep their calls to 1 hour max. Michael is the former Elders Quorum President in the New Brunswick ward. He's now the 2nd Counselor in the YSA Branch Presidency, but I'm still pretty good friends with him so I was able to talk to him and we set up a time for us to be able to Skype at his house. I will text you if I have any questions.

So first off, we had an amazing Christmas fireside on Friday. Everything was great! Alex Boye did an excellent job and I was able to get a picture with him. I'll send you a picture. To start off the meeting, we were able to hear from almost all the Stake Presidents in our mission in the chapel. They just shared a few thoughts and thanked us for all our work. We were also privileged to hear from our Area President. He came and visited for a few minutes and also shared a few thoughts. There were a few things that I wrote down that impressed me. Isn't it interesting that the God of the Universe would agree to be born on the Earth in such humble circumstances? One of the greatest gifts that we can give to the Savior during the Christmas season is to help someone else come unto Him through using His Atonement and Gospel. There is nothing in this world that can change lives more than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Alex Boye sung two songs about Christ during that first little meeting. After that part, we headed into the gym, and we were fed a wonderful lunch made by the ward in Morristown. We had ham and funeral potatoes and corn. It was a really good lunch. Toward the end of the lunch Alex Boye sung a couple of Christmas songs. He's really entertaining and funny. I should have recorded something on my camera... oh well. Then we went back to chapel to hear from President and Sister Jeppson. I'm going to miss them a LOT. They sang us a Christmas song and then to end the meeting Alex sung "I Know that my Redeemer Lives" accompanied by President Jeppson on the piano. Then they both sang "How Great Thou Art" together. Both were amazing. My mission president is amazing. Then we ended the meeting by all of us picking up our Christmas packages. So I have the package and letter you sent me.

This week has seemed a little slow. I think people are getting pretty busy with Christmas stuff and everything. We haven't been able to visit a whole lot of people. However, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day we should be pretty busy. I found out that pretty much everywhere but the United States, they celebrate Christmas Eve more than Christmas Day. Especially in the Hispanic culture, they do everything on Christmas Eve and hardly anything on Christmas Day. I found out one really good thing in that nobody does anything on Christmas Day, including work. So we're getting appointments pretty easily for Christmas Day. Our Ward Mission Leader, Carlos Ibarra, has his birthday tomorrow, on the 24th. So we're planning something cool for him. We found out that he was already going to another Christmas Eve party at another member's house, so we called that member and asked if we could do a little something for Carlos that night as well. This past month, I've been able to figure out his favorite drink and candy. He likes mango nectar and anything/everything dipped in chocolate. So we found a chocolate fountain that we're going to use. It should be pretty fun!

This last Saturday we were also able to see the Munoz family. We haven't been able to see them in a while. It honestly felt like they were avoiding us for a while. I don't know if that was the case or not, but we had a good visit with them on Saturday. When we were talking to Brother Munoz, he said that he felt the Spirit last week during his nephew's mission farewell (that was the farewell of Roger Sarabia. I believe that I told you about him last week.) He said that that event made him want to come back to church. He didn't say exactly what it was that the Spirit told him but he did say that he wants to come back to church. He's told us something similar before, but it only lasts about a week or two. Hopefully this experience will be an enduring experience for him. The whole family has partial feelings about coming to church. They said that they would like to come to church, but they just don't really put forth enough effort to get there. Really, I think that Brother Munoz is the one that needs to make the decision. He's the head of the family and has the responsibility to lead the family in those things. Fortunately, that experience happened to him so hopefully he will take the initiative now. They're a great family! I really love visiting them and I hope the best for them.

Yesterday, on Sunday, we were able to find a new family to teach. They're actually former investigators. They already have a teaching record filled out that's in our area book. I found it a little over a week ago and I wanted to go and try them again. They live in our same building as well, so they're super close to us. There are three kids in the family, but some of them were doing homework when we went over on Sunday at 6:00 pm. We talked a little bit about their former experience with the missionaries in the past. They said that it was probably about four years ago since the missionaries had last passed by. They always enjoyed the missionaries' visits, but for some reason the missionaries stopped passing by. The teaching record is usually supposed to tell us why they discontinued the visits, but unfortunately the missionaries who stopped visiting them didn't write that part on the record. So we don't know exactly why they stopped getting visits. We didn't want to take up too much time, so we decided to teach them the Atonement of Jesus Christ through the Book of Mormon. I thought that it was a fitting topic for how close we are to Christmas. We wanted to be sure to explain to them that the Book of Mormon explains the Atonement of Jesus Christ better than the Bible, but that the Book of Mormon doesn't replace the Bible. Just like most other people, they didn't know what the word 'Atonement' meant despite their life long experiences being Catholic. It was a great lesson and they really liked learning about the Savior more. We have another appointment with them next Sunday. I'm excited to see where this family goes!


By the way, next week I probably won't email on Monday because I'll be at the Statue of Liberty. I might email on Tuesday instead. I'll be getting back from the Statue of Liberty trip probably around 3 or 4 in the afternoon, and that won't give me enough time to email that day. So expect an email late Tuesday.

Anyway, I think that's about it for the week. I'll talk to you in two days!

-Justin