Dear Mom,

Let me know what the title of that book is. I did read one book that's called Chosen Soldier. That was the last book that I finished before I left on my mission. I'd love to have a good book to read when I get home.

Too bad Kyle didn't want to take a language. I was looking forward to helping somebody with a language class when I get home. I can image that it was hard to get a class with Mr. Embley. I don't think he teaches very many other classes besides German. From what I remember, he taught all German one day, and other classes the next. What are the names of Kyle's teachers? I'm wondering if he has any of the same teachers that I had.

Grandma told me that Roy's new sandwich shop (Quiznos, whatever it is) already opened. I'm really curious to how similar it is to Quiznos. Grandma told me that the some of the Johansen kids went up to help it open up. Grandma is impressed with Josh! I can't wait to see Josh again. It's been so long!

How often does Julia play as goalie? Is that her favorite position?

That's really cool to hear about Kelsie. What kind of leadership position is it? Is it like student government for the college or what? When does she start?

How did you end up getting a pull-up? Haha! That's great! Have you and Kelsie been keeping up with P90X?

I'm excited for Julia and the piano. I was talking to another Elder this last week. He's way good on the piano. He's like Brother Drake that plays the organ. You give him a sheet of music and he'll had a million notes onto the music. This Elder also can just make up music on the spot by knowing the chords and what notes go well with which chords and knowing all the minor and major chords and scales and stuff. I want to work to be like that. He said the secret is just hours and hours on the piano. He was taught a little bit, but he just spent hours and hours on the piano just messing around. I think that Julia is going to be the same. She's just going to be ridiculously good at it.

I'm looking forward to Skyping as well!

Yesterday we had the confirmation of Jenny. She was really excited. We had a lesson last Wednesday about missionary work. She wants to start inviting her friends to hear the Gospel. She does have a friend in mind that came to her baptism that is willing to chat with us. Jenny told us that her friend doesn't want to convert, but is willing to talk to the missionaries. Jenny is excited to do missionary work. Then on Saturday, we had another lesson with her to teach her more about the Holy Ghost. It was a good lesson. She's going to be a good member for a long time. After she was confirmed, she came up to me and told me that she felt the same feelings I was talking about when I go into the temple. She felt really calm and quiet and a really good feeling. It is experiences like that that you want to have, because when hard times come you can always go back to those last spiritual experiences. Jenny should be going to the temple in the next few weeks to do baptisms for the dead for the first time. She's really excited to go. She has a good friend in the Church that's studying at BYU-I right now. Her name is Christine. She should be coming back to New Jersey soon to visit, so they'll be going together. Pretty awesome!

On Friday, we had a zone conference. President and Sister Jeppson were there. They both gave great talks and there were a couple other missionaries that gave great talks as well. We all learned more about what it means to be a good missionary. We also really focused on the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how to teach it. It was a really good conference. It took up most of the day. We had lunch there provided by the local members. I love these conferences. They're always so spiritual and kind of a quick break from teaching all the time. We get some instruction instead of giving instruction.

Later on that night, we got to visit the Robles family. They are a great little family from Peru. The two little kids are 6 and 8. The mom has been a member a long time, but went less-active when she moved the United States. She's been wanting to come back into the church for a while now. She really likes the church. Her husband isn't a member but wants to learn more. Unfortunately, he's extremely busy with work and it's really hard to get in contact with him. We're still trying though. The kids really like the missionaries. They always look forward to when we come by.

After that, we met up with a couple other missionaries at the Bishop's house. Every once in a while, we all visit with him to talk a little bit about the ward and some other things. His wife loves to cook for us. She cooked what are called Baleadas. It's a tortilla with scrambled egg, meat, a really good Mexican cream cheese, and avocado. It was a good night.

Then on Friday, we went out to lunch with some other Elders. One of the Elders comes from a richer family who sent him $50 in gift card to Red Lobster. So we went to eat at their lobster fest. I tried lobster tail and crab legs. Not bad at all! Very expensive, and I don't think that I would pay for it, but it was good. Lots of butter! I guess you can't escape the sea food in New Jersey!


Q of the W:

1.  Do you want me to find a cord for your camera for you and send it to you?  Let me know and I will.  I want you to be able to take pictures...

I had a really nice member buy me a cord by surprise. Unfortunately, it's not the cord that's the problem. I don't what it is. I'm going to go to a Radio Shack today to see if I can't fix the problem.

2.  Have you ever heard from people about a ice cream shop called Jersey Freeze?  I saw it on Food Network and it looks like the best.  They serve soft serve ice cream only but lots of different flavors.  They are in Freehold NJ which is south of you.  Just wondering if it's that famous or not...

I've never heard of it. I'll keep it in mind if I ever go to the Freehold area. I know that there are missionaries that are living in the city of Freehold.

3.  Seth e-mailed Kelsie today asking about you!  What other friends have you heard from lately?

I've been in light contact with Seth. He seems to be doing okay. Tanner is great at emailing. All my other friends aren't. Tanner wants to talk to Jesse. So we're trying to figure that out right now. Other than that, nothing.


Love you mom! Talk to you soon!

-Justin

Dear Mom,

I really enjoyed General Conference. At the Union City chapel, they brought a TV into the Relief Society Room and transmitted it in English. All the other Elders were there along with some members who speak English and wanted to hear it in English. We weren't too packed into that room. When Elder Christofferson came up to speak as the last speaker, it was cool to say that I met him! It was even cooler when he started quoting from Les Miserables! Now I want to see that play again.

I can't remember where, but I remember hearing about that thing for Jurassic Park. I thought that that would have been something cool to see.

That would be super cool for Kyle to do an Eagle Project for my mission!

That's so cool for Kelsie! When does she get back? I'm not going to be going to the temple in the month of June. That would be way cool to run into her. But the JFK airport is so far away from New Jersey. From what I remember, JFK is pretty far from Manhattan as well. How long is her layover in JFK. Where does her flight go after JFK? I'm super excited to hear about her trip!

I'm excited for Kyle and a foreign language. That'll be cool to see what he wants to do. Has he said anything yet on if he wants to take a language?

That's super sad to hear about the Quiznos. That's good to hear about Roy and him opening up a new shop. I wonder how that will go. I guess there's no more stress about Quiznos anymore. I can't wait to try Roy's new store. Keep me updated on how that goes. Do you know when it's supposed to open? Is it going to be pretty similar to Quiznos?

Well, I can't wait to see everybody again! That's funny to hear about Linda! We've got a good family!

So last Monday, we visited a family in our ward. The Martinez family from Mexico. They're a great family. The dad was Bishop just for a couple years until a family problem came up and he was released. It wasn't his fault at all. I think if that problem hadn't come up, he would still be Bishop right now. He's in the High Council for the Stake now. Half the family is somewhat less-active. However, they just had their son return from his mission in Brazil. His name is Brian. He's way cool. He took us out to eat at a small Peruvian restaurant between the two Saturday sessions of Conference. Unfortunately, he has to leave again in two weeks to start a job in Minnesota. He's going to sell security systems, knocking doors! Haha. He's not looking forward to it to say the least, but it pays well. He's been a great help, because many, many less-active members love him. He would be a great help in activating some members. So we're trying to work with this family and helping some of them get more active in the Church. It's kind of hard sometimes. But I love that family. They absolutely love the missionaries. Every time we go over there, the dad always says, "Have you already eaten? Do you want something to eat? Something to drink? We have gatorade. We have juice." Then we say, "We're okay. We're not hungry." Then he says, "Are you sure? I can go grab something really quick. It's just down the street. It's no problem." Then we say, "No Bishop. We're fine. Thanks!" Then he asks us if we're sure again. We always end up drinking some gatorade though. We have to accept something they're offering! It's a great family! I won't forget them.

Then on Wednesday, we found an amazing guy. I told dad the full story because I thought that he would enjoy it more. So we found a guy named Andrew. He's only 26 years old and he's worked in Afghanistan in the Special Operations. While he was serving there, his humvee got hit by a bomb. He was sitting on the top, so he was blown from the vehicle about 30 feet. When he got up to go back to the humvee, he was shot twice in the chest. He had on his bullet proof vest, so it didn't hurt him too bad. It did break some of his ribs though. When he fell to the ground after that, one of his ribs punctured his lungs. He had some other crazy experiences. Something else happened to him last year and he can't walk without a cane. He's really cool. He's from Puerto Rico. He speaks English mostly, but he is native Spanish. We didn't share too much with him. Tomorrow we're going to teach him again.

On Friday, I had a training for District Leaders at the Mission Home. I always love going to the Mission Home. It's the only place that feels closest to home. It's nice and peaceful there. It's an actually house with it's own yard and driveway. It's just really nice there. We had a little training from President Jeppson on how to be better District Leaders. Then they fed us lunch. Spaghetti. It really tasted like a home-cooked meal. I like Hispanic food, but I really like American mommy meals sometimes too. It's always so great to see President and Sister Jeppson.

Later on that evening, we went to go see a returning member (from less-activity) family. It's a mom of two girls (11 years old, and 15 years old), and their grandmother. We watched a couple of those bible videos about the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Those are pretty cool videos. I wish I had time to watch them all. Do you know if they've compiled all those into one movie?


Q of the W:

1.  When you watched Conference, where did you eat between sessions?  Did they have food at the church?

We had a special mission fast after our evening meal on Saturday until after the final session on Sunday. But between sessions on Saturday, Brian Martinez took us out to lunch.

2.  How is your camera lately?

I haven't had time to go look for a cord. I haven't been able to take pictures.

3.  Have you been writing in a journal?

Yes I have. I'm about a week behind, but I'm keeping up on it.


I have a couple questions:

I remember that we had the piano music to a song called "The River Flows in You". That's a song on a CD that another Elder has. He can play it on the piano. If you could find that, could you send it to me. I'd love to learn it!

Also, how do you know if Clorox has chlorine in it? I want to start using bleach on my white shirts. The tag says that I should use a non-chlorine bleach. I don't know how to find that. I think that during the summer, the sun and heat does more damage to white shirts. They might start turning yellowish....


Love you mom! Talk to you soon!

-Justin

Dear mom,

Yes. I did get the package! Great tie! I love it. I wore it at church yesterday. Thanks for all the candy and stuff. I like it all.

For Easter, we only had two dinner appointments. They weren't too big. I don't think the Hispanic culture is the same as the American culture during Easter. I didn't hear of anything doing anything special. We did have those two dinner appointments, but I think that we would have eaten even if it hadn't been Easter. Last night, we went to a members house. The mom is from Peru, and the dad is from Guatemala. He made us his famous hamburgers. They were pretty good! It's been a while since I've had a good hamburger. It kind of reminded me of a nicer restaurant!

We also had an Easter baptism. President Jeppson was really busy with several other baptisms yesterday that he and Sister Jeppson weren't able to make it. He did call later on yesterday and talked to us about the baptism. Yes, I did baptize her. Cool experience! She's one of those golden investigators. We didn't do very much to get her baptized. With so many other people, we try and try to get them to come to church and they don't know about getting baptized. Jenny was pretty fast though. She already had some friends in the Church, a couple of them less-active. Now they're starting to come back. I think that those are the people we should be looking for. Those that come to church because they already know that it's something that they have to do. I think as soon as we taught the Restoration of the Gospel, she realized the importance of coming to church. She's quick to understand. As missionaries, we really helped her out a lot and we answered a lot of her questions. We're good friends with her now. At the baptism, we had Bishop Chavez give the welcoming to the ward for her. He said something really cool. He told her that she's the pioneer for her family. The Gospel in her family starts with her now. She now has to work with her mom and her sister and with her cousins. He then asked her how old she was. She's 18. He then said in a year we'll talk about serving a mission and he started laughing! Haha! Our Bishop is amazing! Jenny laughed too. I really think that Jenny has potential to serve a mission. She'll get confirmed in two weeks, since this next week is General Conference.

This last week has been pretty tough. For some reason, a lot of people have been setting appointments and then they don't show up. It's really frustrating. A lot of them are members too. I don't understand that. I was talking with another missionary a couple days ago, and he's been running into the same problem lately too. People just put us on the bottom of their priority list a lot. Sad, but true. I think that for some reason, people have been more busy these past couple days because of Easter, so they're not home as often. So that's been pretty frustrating. Hopefully this week will improve since there isn't much going on any time soon.

Last Friday we had a youth come out with us for a day. The Stake that we're in did something called Ammon Academy. They took all the youth from 16-18, and set them apart as full-time missionaries for a day. Then they sent them with us missionaries to see what real missionary work is like. It was kind of a weird set up. We got a youth that goes to the Union City Ward, but he lives in the area of the other Elders. So when we saw a couple members, he was just visiting members in his same ward, so it wasn't anything too weird for him. I heard that other youth missionaries went a little farther than that. It was cool though. His name was Oscar Salomon. We got to know him better. Now when we see him at chuch, we know him a little better. That's cool.

Well, the rest of this week has been pretty boring. Nothing out of the usual. I'm glad that the weather is finally starting to be better. I don't have to wear my heavy coats anymore, which is really nice. Yesterday, I just had a light sweater on. I loved it!
 
I do know Angel Cordova! He's a member in West New York. West New York is just north of Union City. We'll do exchanges with missionaries in West New York every once in a while, so I've met some members from there. Angel is cool. He reminds me of someone, but I can't remember exactly who. Angel just recently got his mission call to Madrid, Spain. I think he's leaving end of July or August, something like that. He's cool though!

Oh man. If Kyle is going to PG, try and get him to take German!!! Or at least get him a class with Mr. Embley! Mr. Embley will recognize that name immediately. I remember when Kelsie had started to sign up for her Junior year, maybe, at PG and she had signed up for a history class or something with Mr. Embley. I remember Mr. Embley asked me one day if I had a younger sister that went to PG. So he'll know our name! It'd be way cool if Kyle talked to him and let him know how I'm doing. But Spanish would be cool too. I wonder if any other teachers will recognize that name. There were a couple other teachers who know our name now at PG.


Q of the W:
1. Will you be watching General Conference at somebody's house?
They should broadcast General Conference to the Union City chapel in Spanish and in English. We'll just watch it there.
2. Time to ask again....Do you need more Diovan or contacts?
More contacts in the next couple months.
3. Have you ever had a companion that got sick where you had to stay home all day?
Not too often. Usually we'll tough out a cold for a couple days. I think one time I had to stay home. I just read a little more in the scriptures and relaxed. It wasn't too fun. I couldn't go outside or do anything.


Love you mom! I'll talk to you in a month or so!

-Justin

Dear Mom,

Do you know how to get General Conference tickets? I would love to go to one after my mission! Now that I know a lot more about the Gospel and stuff, it would be great.

I haven't bought the stuff personally for that Bolivian sauce. I think I'll try and do it next week though.

That's so sad to hear about my Quiznos. I was really looking forward to going there after my mission and seeing Larry.

It's snowing right now. It just barely started snowing a couple hours ago. I'm kind of getting used to the snow. When we were doing laundry this morning in the laundromat down the street and I saw something about a ton of snow in Pennsylvania. I hope that that's not coming our way. It's almost April, we should be having spring weather.

I've heard about the Les Miserables movie from the new missionaries coming in. I've heard that it's different than most other musicals, because they don't do voice over. When it shows them singing in the scene in the movie, they are actually singing in that moment. At least that's what I've heard. Correct me if I'm wrong. I can't wait to see it. I've heard that it's good and that Hugh Jackman has a really good voice.

That Disneyland idea during Spring Break sounds like a great idea! I would love to do that! I would like to come back to New Jersey and NYC as well. That would be really soon after my mission too. We could even visit President and Sister Jeppson. I've heard of missionaries coming back to New Jersey and they are able to visit President and Sister Jeppson at the mission home for a little bit. The only problem is, I don't think any of the other kids would like it. I would enjoy it.. I would also love to go to Disneyland as well. I guess we can think more about that and talk later. I'm sure that you would love to meet President and Sister Jeppson!

Kelsie needs to keep that job at Cinemark! I want to go see some movies when I get home! Good for Kyle. I'm glad to hear that. Any chance of him taking a language any time soon?? I want to come home and be able to speak with somebody in the house in Spanish, haha!

This week was a crazy week. We had transfers. I got a new companion. His name in Elder Morrill. He's from West Jordan. There was a missionary from every Union City and West New York companionship who was transferred. That means that there was five missionaries getting transferred and only two vans to do it. The missionaries in Union City that weren't getting transferred had to stay; that included me. I wasn't able to go to Transfer Conference. Those are always really fun because you get to see where all the missionaries are going to. You make a lot of friends with other missionaries and then you hear about different areas and you want to hear who's going to you're last area. It's always a very exciting time when President Jeppson announces the transfers. I couldn't go because there wasn't enough room in the vans. So Elder Henretta, Elder Nilson, and I had to stay behind and figure out what we were going to do during that time. So we just tried some potentials and some less-active members. Nothing too excited happened. We were really hungry and we didn't have any food in the house. So we went to go buy a couple pizzas at Little Ceaser's. Then it started to rain as we were carrying the pizzas home. It was one of those moments that I said to myself that I'll look back on this moment after my mission.

So Wednesday and Thursday we spent our time going around and trying to see as many people as possible for my companion to get to know the people here. Friday and Saturday were crazy as well. There was a special training in Morristown for newer missionaries. My companion is somewhat new so he went. The other new companions of all the other Elders in Union City were also new. So we got put back into our little trio again of Elder Henretta, Elder Nilson, and I. We've been together now for a little while and we've become good friends so it was a lot of fun to work together. On Friday, we just worked in my area. Somehow I ended up with a bunch of set appointments, so we just worked my area. On Saturday, we worked the area of the other Elders. We visited an older Columbian lady in my area on Saturday. She's really nice. She always makes us home-made Pineapple juice. She says that you just cut up a pineapple, put in in a pitcher of water, add some sugar, and let it sit in the fridge over-night. I asked her how much sugar she puts in, and she just said however much you want, haha! On Saturday, we visited with an excommunicated Bishop who wants to get baptized again. From what I've heard, he was excommunicated because he made a dumb mistake... He's in the other Elder's area, so I don't have to worry about teaching him. He was really nice though!

Friday night, there was a homecoming party for a Brian Martinez. He returned from his mission in Sao Paulo, Brazil. We had a ward party for him. He said that on his mission, he only spoke English with American companions, and Portuguese. He didn't speak Spanish hardly at all. He only typed Spanish in his letters home to his parents. His Spanish is pretty rough.. It's mixed up with Portuguese a lot. It's kind of funny. He says that he misses the mission a lot. I think that he's going to want to come out with us and help us teach. First he's going to Utah this next week to see some friends and a little more family. He's really cool. It kind of made me wonder a little about my homecoming. Weird...

We we're going to have a baptism this next Sunday! Her name is Jenny. She's about 18 years old and has a good friend at church. She really likes our church a lot. I've made sure that she knows that the Book of Mormon is true. I've heard so much about people getting baptized and then going less-active very soon after baptism. If she really knows that the Book of Mormon is true, then she won't ever have a good enough reason to not come to church. Her little sister, who is 16, is also meeting with us. She can't meet with us as often because she's a little more busy. But I think that she'll eventually get baptized as well.

So that's about it for this week. Good week.

Love you lots! Talk to you soon!

-Justin


Q of W:

1.  Have you watched the Bible videos on LDS.org at all?  They are so wonderful!

I have seen a couple of them. I do like them. To me, Jesus is a little too monotone at times. That's just me though. Overall, I do like them a lot, but haven't seen too many of them.

2.  Ronnie was in NJ last week!  Ya!  But he said he was 100 miles away from you but said they wouldn't have allowed him to see you anyways.  Is that true? or have you ever heard of relatives (besides Mom and Dad) visiting Missionaries?

I don't know for sure. There was a time when the aunt of an Elder Kakiva came to New Jersey because her husband was playing for the 49ers against the Giants and she took Elder Kakiva out to lunch. I went with him because he needed a companion. Before she did that, she called President Jeppson to ask permission. He said yes. So maybe if Uncle Ronnie is in New Jersey again, you could give him President Jeppson's number and he could call to see if he could come see me for a few minutes.. That'd be awesome!! If he did it soon, he could talk to Elder Henretta a little too. He has a ton of family in Sweden!

3.  Have you ever been hurt or scared of an animal while walking such as a dog?

I've stayed away from some dogs before. Luckily, I haven't had any terrifying experiences with any animals yet. There are a lot of people here in Union City with pit bulls. They're kind of scary. In Dover and in Plainfield, we heard something in our ceiling.

Dear Mom,

Elder Christofferson was amazing! The first time I've ever met an Apostle! He was so cool to listen to. He wanted to shake hands with all the missionaries too. He asked us our names and where we were from. He said that he lived in Lindon for a while!! I don't know when or where though. One really interesting thing is that when he was serving his mission in Argentina, for most of his mission his mission president was President Richard G. Scott. He says that it's really interesting to work with his former mission president in the same quorum. Cool fact! Not only did we get to listen to him speak to us on Saturday, but he spoke at a special stake conference to the Caldwell Stake and Paterson District on Sunday. The Union City ward belongs to the Caldwell Stake so we got to go! It was just like General Conference, but in person with a lot less people. At the end of his talk in the Stake Conference, he gave a break to the translators and bore his testimony in Spanish! He still speaks Spanish very, very well. All in all, it was a wonderful weekend. I wish I could spend more time around Apostles.

I'm staying in Union City. I have been called to serve as a District Leader. Again! I did not see that coming at all. I'm a little nervous because this district is a little bigger than the other district I was in. It's time for extra stress again.

We've found two new investigators recently. They are Jen and Jelanny. They are 18 and 16 years old, respectively. They're really cool. Jen is the girlfriend of a less-active guy named Joshua. He's about 20 years old. Joshua's mom is a active member and is really cool. We visit her once a week in her dog wash shop. So Jen has been to church a couple times with Margarita (the active member). Jen says she likes it a lot! We talked to her about why she likes our church more than her church. She says that she doesn't have to pay for classes here and everyone is so much more social. She told us that at her church they're are only a few "regulars'' and every week there are new faces. She keeps coming to our church. Just a few weeks ago, we saw Jen and Margarita at church and Margarita told us that Jen's sister (Jelanny) is coming after church because she wants a Priesthood blessing. No, Jelanny is not a member and she has never been to our church before. Apparently Jen told her sister that we can give blessings. We talked to Jelanny when she showed up and she said that whenever she gets angry, she gets depressed and then she feels some dark outside presence that tells her to do bad things to her body. Scary... So we gave her a Priesthood blessing and told her to feel better. We met with her last Friday and taught her and Jen about the Plan of Salvation. We followed up with Jelanny about how she has felt. She said that a day after the blessing she felt a LOT better and full of energy. She hasn't felt anything strange since the blessing. Now we've started to teach them both. Both of them went to the Stake Conference with Elder Christofferson and loved it. We gave Jen a baptismal date for the end of this month. She could do it! We'll see how she feels about it when it gets closer. That's a testimony builder!


For that Bolivian sauce you don't need anything special. It's just a tomato, two small Jalapeno peppers, and some salt. Super basic. Very good! Maybe just one jalapeno pepper for the little girls. Let me know how you like it!

The charger... It might be easier for me to buy a new charger. It would have to be the cable, because the wall charger adapter thingy works just fine. I looked for camera batteries at Wal-Mart last week, but they don't sell camera batteries there. I'll be able to find a new cable for sure though. I guess I'll try that. I hope it's not a waste of money...

I'm actually glad I'm being fed too much rather than not enough. Whenever I'm trying to stuff food down at a members' house, I just think about how many other missionaries probably didn't get fed very much.

I don't know about college yet. I kind of don't want to deal with it on my mission. I just want to focus on the work and once I come home, then I can deal with annoying things like applying for school. However, I'm pretty sure that President Jeppson talks to everyone about stuff like that. I think that it's around this time in the mission that President Jeppson talks to the missionaries about thing like that. That's when he talks to them about schooling, going home a few weeks early to make it in time for school, or extending the mission, and things like that. I don't know right now. I guess the next time I go in for interviews I'll bring that up with him. I have been thinking about what I'll do once I get home. I was thinking about just trying to find a job and then maybe move into school for a small summer semester to get into the schooling mindset and then to hit it full on during the fall. I'm sure President Jeppson will give me plenty of feedback on that soon.

That's awesome for William! Where in California is that? Way cool for Kelsie!

By the way, I told Alan Castro to add me on Facebook.


Q of the W:

1.  Have you made that banana bread yet?

Not yet. I've kept it out. I really want to make it.

2.  Do you know what you will be doing for Easter yet?

Not a clue.. Probably like four dinners...

3.  What are some of your favorite Easter Candy?  I don't want to send you candy that is gross to you...

I like little candy bars, like Twix and Snickers. I don't really like random little chocolates. I don't like those classic easter egg chocolates either. I do like candies like sweetarts and those little super sugery candies like that. I don't like little suckers like dumdums that much either. (Side note: On the east coast, they are known as lollipops. 'Suckers' is an insult and they look at me weird when I say it, to those who speak English.) Starbursts are good. I don't know what else... I can't really think of anything else.


Love you mom! Talk to you soon! Like in two months it's mother's day!

-Justin

Dear Mom,

Bad news, my camera isn't working again. Same problem. I'm going to try and go buy a battery this time to see if that fixes the problem. I'll let you know next week.

Transfers are coming up this next weekend. I'm pretty sure that I'm staying. Good thing too, I really like this area. It's finally starting to warm up a little bit. On Saturday it was really nice. I only needed a sweater when we went out. It was really nice. It dipped back down a little colder yesterday and today. I just have a light coat on. It's a lot better than a heavy coat, scarf, gloves, and hat.

Milko has internet on his phone so we watched it on that. If a member does have a computer we'll just have them put it on. If they can't figure it out, we jump in and help. We're allowed to go onto our missionary email, lds.org, and mormon.org. That's it. We're not allowed to use members computers at all, but if they're having trouble getting somewhere on lds.org or mormon.org we'll help out. We just can't be dumb with it.. I'm not.

That's a super funny story about Chubs! Poor dog.

Thanks for those tips on teaching kids. I do have one of those Gospel Art Books. I guess I should use it more often. I want to sit in on Primary when I get home. It sounds like fun!

We've been eating a lot lately. Unfortunately, it's hard to spread out the dinner appointments. Some days, I'll get home and make something to eat. Other days, I come home and I am stuffed to the max. I can't believe how much I eat sometimes. Saturday we had a crazy food day. First off, on Friday, we went over to a members house (the Ernest family) to see if we could visit them for a few minutes. It turns out that only the older lady in the house was there. (By the way, we're not allowed to enter a house unless there is another man present over 18 years old.) So we couldn't go in. She asked us if we had an appointment with them the previous night because Brother Ernest had made some hamburgers for us. We doubled checked our planners to make sure we hadn't set an appointment and had not shown up. We did not have an appointment. So the older lady (who is also a member) she called up Sister Ernest and it turns out that their home teachers had made an appointment and didn't come. So she wrapped up the sandwiches, put them in a bag with two cans of soda, two bottles of water, and two bananas, and sent us on our way. Very nice! I saved the sandwich until the next day during lunch. So Saturday for lunch, I had a really good hamburger. We had a lunch planned for 3:00 that day, so I had made sure that I didn't eat anymore. That sandwich filled me up more than I had thought though. Then we went to go pick up Alan Castro to come out with us. When we got over to their house, Sister Castro asked us if we were hungry. We said no. Alan said that yes, we were hungry. We said no again. Alan said "No mom, they want to eat." She made sandwiches for us. An hour later, we went to the Robles family to eat. She's from Peru. She gave us something called Causa. It was pretty good, and filling. Then I realized that she hadn't served us the main dish yet. ... I couldn't finish it. Somehow, Alan kept eating! It was so hard to try and eat so much. It's such a terrible feeling to be so full. I guess that's part of the mission experience. We eat another time later on that night. We had pizza.

There's another cool story before that too. The same day. This takes place when we went over to Alan's house to pick him up. He texted us earlier on that day to tell us that his back hurts and he can't come out with us. He's been joking with us lately about not being able to help us out and then saying that he actually can help us out. He's basically been 'crying wolf'. I knew this would happen. So we just went over to his house anyway just hoping that it was another joke. It turns out that something had happened to him while playing soccer the night before. He was lying on the couch and said sorry that he couldn't come out with us. We called a few people and no one else could help us. We were trying to do this an hour before our lunch appointment, in which we needed another man with us. Eventually Alan said that he would help us out if we gave him a Priesthood Blessing. So we gave him a blessing and we headed out (after eating those sandwiches)... While we were walking, Alan started getting pretty excited that his back was healed. Alan has a lot of faith! I don't doubt that his back was hurting pretty bad and that the blessing helped. It was pretty cool. Then Alan wanted to start contacting people. He contacted a few people. We handed him pass-along cards as we headed to our next appointment. It was awesome! Most team ups hardly say anything during lessons. Alan does much more than that! He's going to make such an awesome missionary!

We had a crazy day at Church on Sunday. Last week, we had a crazy (very unnecessary) discussion in Elder's Quorum on all the little things that are 'supposed' to happen when passing the Sacrament. Some good ideas came up on how to make the Sacrament 'proper'. Other ideas were just crazy and they came from some old guys. I think they've lost it a little bit. The counselor in the Bishopric was leading the class. He didn't really know what to do about all the ideas. The discussion was crazy and everyone was trying to say how you're supposed to do it this way or that way. So this week, we had our usually Elder's Quorum teacher teach. His name is Brother Quesada. He's from Chile and a returned missionary. Very smart! He taught a good lesson and then for the last 15 minutes of Elder's Quorum, he brought up the Sacrament discussion we were talking about the previous week. He taught the basics on how the Sacrament is passed by the Deacons, prepared by the Teachers, and blessed by the Priests. He taught out of the teachers manual. Then he taught us how all these little things about the Sacrament: (taking the Sacrament with your right hand, passing it with your left arm behind your back, that you have to wear a white shirt and tie, and things like that) are all traditions, and should not be required. One guy kept insisting that taking the Sacrament with your right hand is a requirement. Brother Quesada kept explaining that they are just traditions. Brother Quesada had studied a lot this past week to prepare for his lesson. I talked to him afterward and he said that he read numerous talks from Apostles and Prophets, and searched in the scriptures, and read out of some books all about the Sacrament. No where does it say that you must take the Sacrament with your right hand. However, it is good to do it with your right hand because your right hand is considered the hand of the covenant. Then Brother Quesada ended his lesson with explaining how these traditions are what take us away from the meaning of the Sacrament. The Sacrament should be sacred to us. We should just make sure that we are worthy and clean and ready to partake of the Sacrament every week. He also taught that the First Presidency has said that Sacrament Meeting is the most sacred meeting that we have in the Church. Over all I learned that Sacrament is sacred and we should treat it as such, and that Brother Quesada is one of the best teachers I've seen. He really is very good! He knows a lot about the church!


Q of the W:

1.  How long are your transfers?  One Mom told me that they changed it to 5 weeks now?

Just this last transfer was 5 weeks. It was to accommodate all the new missionaries coming in. So yes, I will be home a week earlier than we thought! I'll be home for your birthday! Yay!

2.  I can't believe I forgot to ask you, but how was that storm this week?  Did you get lots of snow and wind?

About four inches of snow and good wind. It's pretty much all melted now.

3.  Have you had super good salsa there?  If so, you should get the recipe.  A good salsa from a cute Spanish lady from your mission would be the best!!

Bolivian sauce to go with just about anything: One tomato, two small jalapenos, a little bit of salt. If it's too spicy, throw in another tomato. Blend it up until desired consistency. It's really good!


Love you mom! Talk to you soon!

-Justin


PS. Elder Christofferson is coming this weekend! Yay!

Dear Mom,

My camera is working great. I've actually been carrying it around with me a little more so I can have it if I ever want to take pictures. I guess I just don't think about the camera or if something is a 'camera moment'. I just can't think of anything ever to take a picture of. I think tonight I'll be taking more pictures. We're having an FHE in the church to say good-bye to a member in our ward. He's leaving on his mission. His name in Norbert. He's really cool. He's a convert. His sister is too. She's in Provo studying right now. Unfortunately, his mom is what we would call a traditional Catholic. She is a completely inactive Catholic and believes all the traditions that her completely inactive Catholic parents taught her. Norbert is great. He's about 22 years old and leaves on March 12 for Brazil. There should be a lot of members coming tonight so I'll try and take some pictures.

I think that Boise trip sounds really good. I was thinking about that too, because I'll get home just a couple weeks after Christmas, so I'll miss everyone at Christmas.

I think this next year will go by a little bit faster. We go by transfers in the mission, so that makes it go by a little faster. Usually transfers go by pretty fast. In two weeks we'll have our next transfer, the day after Elder Christofferson visits. Then the end of next transfer will be all the way into April. It does seem to be going by pretty fast. I'm enjoying it though!

This last week didn't really have many interesting things happen. Friday was a full day. We got to teach seven lessons which is considered a full day in New Jersey. We told a couple less-active members that Christ and his blessings are waiting for them at church and if they don't come they will miss out on those blessings. That was an intense lesson and the Spirit was strong. They ended up not coming to church. I think there's a deeper reason why they're not coming to church than they have troubles waking up. We also finally got to meet up with another member that's been inactive for a while. Her family joined the church about ten years ago. Her ex-husband and her three kids were baptized, then a few years later, she was baptized. A year after her baptism, she got a divorce. Her kids grew up. Two of them live in Utah. Another lives in Florida. She doesn't know if they're active in the church or not. She doesn't know about her ex-husband either. It makes me wonder. The membership of the church has reached just over 14 million. How many of those are completely inactive and don't live the Gospel of Jesus Christ at all.. Who knows. I guess they have their agency. Then we visited with some investigators. One of the investigators is an older man. He has some crazy ideas. He told us that our church is false if we don't believe in the stuff he believes in. It was a humbling lesson, because I knew I had the capacity to to prove to him wrong in his beliefs and fight against him. As he was practically yelling at us (this is an old man who is disabled from the waist down, so I wasn't scared at all), I felt a peace come to me. I knew that this wasn't his time and that I needed to give a Christ-like response. We let him finish his little (false) sermon, I said "okay", then I looked at his wife (who is more open and nice, but also still not ready at all) and we bore pure testimony. The Spirit came back into the room. He had driven away the Spirit and was too prideful and stubborn to listen to the Spirit. She was as well too firm in her traditions that she couldn't hear the Spirit telling her that what we were saying was true. We decided to stop teaching them. They have certain strange beliefs that they are not willing to give up. "Because of pride, and because of false teachers, and false doctrine, their churches have become corrupted, and their churches are lifted up; because of pride they are puffed up." - 2 Nephi 28:12. Satan is working. He does succeed sometimes. Hopefully they will accept the truth later on in their lives. 

Then on Sunday, we visited with Tina and Milko again. Milko just recently lost his job. However, he is an amazing example. He's very calm about the whole thing. He knows what he needs to do. He is also very capable. Once we started talking to him, he started saying how he actually thinks it's a blessing in disguise. He's been missing church lately because of his job. He says he can actually participate now. He says it's a chance to start fresh and to also make sure that his next job he won't have to work on Sunday. We showed him a Mormon Message: http://www.lds.org/pages/mormon-messages?lang=eng#the-will-of-god . It really helped him and Tina out a lot. I really loved this Mormon Message a lot. Tina and Milko are amazing. They're just wonderful people. They don't belong in New Jersey at all. I would say that they have a Utah personality. They're so nice to everyone and just want to be everyone's friend. Wonderful family!!

We also had an amazing lesson teaching the Restoration to two new investigators at a members house on Sunday. We taught them two weeks ago about the Atonement of Jesus Christ through the Book of Mormon. The Spirit was so strong in the lesson. When I shared the First Vision, the lady, Claudia, started to cry a little bit. She felt the Spirit! When we started to set an appointment for the next week, they were actually thinking hard about how to make it possible for a return appointment. Lot's of people will just tell us a day that they're ''usually'' available. Then we offer a time and they say that they ''shouldn't'' be doing anything at that time. That's a bad sign. These two people were actually working with us and thinking about what they're going to be doing next Sunday. They seemed legitimately interested and willing to learn more. I'm very excited for them!

Good week! We got a new Ward Mission Leader. It's Antonio. Our other Ward Mission Leader started to get overwhelmed and lazy. He didn't want to meet up with us to talk about missionary work. I guess there's too much going on in his life and he's really stressed out. Our Bishop told us that. So Antonio, who already helps us out with missionary work, is our new Ward Mission Leader. We're excited. He should be able to do a lot more! Speaking of him, he says that I'm still not friends with him on Facebook. He's taken pictures at a birthday party and he wanted to send them to my family. 

Q of the W:

1.  What is the hardest word for you to say in spanish?  (if any)

Centro de capacitacion misional. That's how you say Missionary Training Center is Spanish. It's literally translated into: Center of Mission Training

2.  What is your most common dinner you make yourself at your apartment?

I usually don't make dinner, but I make lunch a lot. I'll do quesadillas, or those frozen burritos. Sometimes we'll have leftovers. I'll make sandwiches a lot too. I'm starting to buy the really good meat at the deli at Walmart. We also get really expensive good cheese from a member in our area. They're good sandwiches.

3.  What is lomo soltado?

French fries, with beef (or chicken), tomatoes (that I pick out), onions, peppers, and some special sauce. Rice on the side, as always. For Hispanics, a meal is incomplete without rice. Always.

I have a couple questions:

1. We teach a lot of kids. Do you have any tips on teaching kids and helping them understand. Sometimes I feel that my teaching is really boring for kids.

2. Can you send me the recipe for banana bread?

Love you mom! Thank you! Talk to you soon!

-Justin