Mom,

10 Commercial Ave. Apt.# ULC
New Brunswick, NJ (I don't know the ZIP code)

It was a sad goodbye from Union City. I really started to love that place a lot. I miss it. We had some great members there. My area was really doing good as well. The area I'm in right now in New Brunswick is still a walking area! Except it's like three times as big as my area in Union City. Unfortunately, I think I might be getting shin splints... We'll see. New Brunswick is a pretty good area. It's a lot different than Union City. In Union City, the chapel was five blocks away from our apartment. Here in New Brunswick, the chapel is a 15 minute drive away in the next town over called East Brunswick. Since it's a walking area, we don't have a car. We had to call a member to pick us up on Sunday morning. I think that there are actually quite a few of members that have to call and ask for rides from other people to get to church every Sunday. Pretty crazy. I guess there are some members every week that don't go to church because they can't find a ride.

So the goodbye from Union City, we had a family home evening in the chapel on Monday night and we invited a lot of the members to come and say goodbye to us. I had made some pretty good friends in Union City. It kind of feels like my home in New Jersey. I'm definitely going to have to visit there after my mission. Many of the members told us that we're more than welcome to come back and visit. The Bishop told us that we always have a friend at his house and that we can come back and visit any time we want. Great ward!

This last week just consisted of walking around the New Brunswick area and trying to get to know the area. My companion is Elder Drewes. His family is living in Provo, but he has moved around a lot because his dad worked in the Air Force. He's an OBGYN now. I think he might know Brother Allen! My comp has only been in the mission for four months. So he's still trying to get a hold on the area. We're trying to figure out the best way to work in this area right now. It's fun, but it's a lot of walking.

There's some pretty cool members in this ward. There's a family by the name of Allongo. The dad just finished serving in our mission presidency. Just as he was finishing his service in the mission presidency, he got called to serve in the East Brunswick stake presidency. He's a pretty good guy. He does something with banks and his wife is a nationally certified Spanish-English translator. She translates things in courts. She knows English better than I do! They have two sons. One of them is named Michael. He served his mission in Germany. He is a prosecutor. He went to BYU law school. I asked him if he knew Wesley Harward. He said the name sounds familiar, so he looked up the name on Facebook. Turns out he's Facebook friends with him! He still didn't know him. But I guess they were in the law program at the same time. Also, Michael serves as the Elders Quorum President in our ward. He helps us out a lot in our missionary work. The Bishop is supportive of missionary work, but he doesn't go out of his way to help us out. So Brother Michael Allongo goes out of his way to help us out the best possible. It's pretty nice. He expects a lot from us, but that's good, because he's going to be helping us out a lot. He really has a determination to make sure this work goes as well as possible.

This family invited us over to dinner yesterday for Father's Day. They have nice house. It reminded me of home! She cooked very well and it didn't really seem like a very Hispanic dish. It was delicious!

It's going to take some getting used to here, but I think I'll be able to do it! It sounds like a fun ward!

Q of the W:

1.  What is your opinion on what is the great and abominable church?  Just wondering if anybody questions that scripture and what you tell them?

Well, Bruce R. McConkie said that the great and abominable church was the Catholic Church, but I don't think that that was ever accepted as doctrine. I think that he has a good point. I think that that it is very possible. I don't know if Nehpi was trying to describe one particular church group or many churches in one group under the category of destroying the ''plain and precious'' truths. I don't think that he specifies on that. Nehpi describes the great and abominable church as a church taking the ''plain and precious things'' away from the Church of the Lamb of God. So that includes pretty much every other church besides our church. I think that it's safe to say that any church that takes away the ''plain and precious'' truths from the Gospel would be included in the great and abominable church. I would think that it's safe to say that the Catholic Church was one of the very first churches to do exactly that. So that is my opinion.

2.   Do you know how many missionaries are in your mission?

I can't remember exactly how many there are. President Jeppson told us that it is now up to over 200.

3.  When you teach the less- actives or in-actives and they have already been baptized....what is their goal?  Just to go back to church and read the scriptures?

It depends on what they feel is important. A goal that I always tell them would be for them to get to the temple. President Jeppson told us that recent converts that go to the temple within six weeks of their baptism to do proxy baptisms have a 98% chance of staying active. Pretty high!

I liked the number 1 question of the Q of the W! Ask another good one like that!

Love you mom!

-Justin

Dear Mom,

I have been transferred. I don't know where I'm going or who I'm going to be with, but I just know that I'm leaving Union City. I'm kind of sad about that. I'm going to miss Union City a lot. I kind of hope that I'm in a driving area for the rest of the hot summer. I guess we'll see. I've been District Leader now for two transfers. I thought for sure that I wasn't going to be a District Leader anymore. I'm still a District Leader. I'm happy about that. I love helping out the other missionaries. However, since I was so sure about me not being District Leader anymore, I haven't prepared a District Meeting at all. So I'm going to have to quickly come up with something for Wednesday. At the same time, I'm going to have to pack up and unpack in my new area. STRESS.. I'm excited though.

Last Monday, one of the members, Brother De Leon, in our area went to the hospital for a surgery to take out his tonsils. Apparently, he hadn't told the doctors at the hospital that he had taken Motrin before he went in. He started to hemorrhage during the surgery and came close to death. But they fixed him up and put all sorts of tubes and things down his throat to keep him from swallowing any more blood. We were told that when he woke up he felt like he was choking or suffocating. They had to keep him asleep. On Wednesday, we took Bishop Chavez to the hospital in Paterson to go visit Brother De Leon. It was pretty crazy to see him hooked up to so many machines. He had already received a Priesthood Blessing, so we just wanted to see him and maybe share a spiritual message with him to make him feel a little better. He was sleeping when we got there. Then his wife woke him up, but he could barely wake up. He was really weak, so he just moved his hand to show us that he wanted us to shake his hand. It was sad to see him in that condition. His wife, who isn't a member because of some legal stuff and can't get baptized, asked us to give her a blessing. So Bishop Chavez gave a pretty cool blessing. I think we helped her a lot. We talked to her about the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

Later that day, we visited with a member named Sister Galicia. She's been in and out of activity. It's because of her relationship with the members in Union City though. I haven't been here for a while, but apparently, something was happening with her husband and a lot of the members starting talking bad about her and were saying things that really offended her. Sister Galicia has a super strong testimony and hasn't stopped reading or praying. She goes to church in Union City about once a month, but she travels to other wards to go to church weekly. When we visited with her on Wednesday, we read out of 3 Nephi 11, the chapter in which Jesus Christ descends from heaven to the Nephites. Later during that chapter, Jesus Christ teaches that contention is of the devil. She started crying and telling us how she doesn't have anything against any member, but she just doesn't like going to the Union City ward because of what was happening with her husband a few years ago. We helped her feel better and told her to talk to the Stake President about trying to get her records moved to another ward. She said that she would want to do that and told us that she will talk to the Stake President soon. Another reason why she had wanted us to come over that day was to bless her house. She said that for years now, she has been seeing and hearing abnormal things for years. She said that they had started out with things that weren't so scary. Then they started turning into things a little more scary. She said that one scary thing happened when she woke up in the middle of the night and saw a dark man standing over her husband. She told the man that she wasn't scared because they had the authority of Jesus Christ. She said that when she mentioned 'Jesus Christ' the man flinched back. She said that when those things happened she has never been scared of those things happening, but she wants them to stop. So I blessed the house by the authority of the Melchizedek Priesthood. We told her that it's by her faith in Jesus Christ and His Priesthood authority that those things would stop. I've always wanted to bless a haunted house!!

So this last week, we've been finding a couple new investigators, and less-actives. We've also been able get a couple more investigators going really strongly towards baptism. It's been a good week and those lessons have been fun. Well, time to move on. That's what I don't like about transfers; many times you leave when your area is doing really good and starting to see a bunch of fruits of your labor.

There is that Ikea here in New Jersey that I haven't been to in a while. Maybe I can go sometime again soon. That Brother De Leon that I was talking about earlier, he actually works at Ikea! He doesn't do anything on the main floor. He doesn't hardly speak any English, so he can't really do anything with costumers. Pretty cool though.

Awesome story from Spencer! Thanks for sharing.

Q of the W:

1.  Currently, how many ties do you own?

That's a great question, and I honestly don't know. There are many though. I'll have to count.

2.  Have you ever had a confrontation with another person about their church?

Several times. Usually people don't really fight in behalf of their church, but they fight that their church is sufficient for them and that no one can say which is a true church or not. There are also many Jehovah Witnesses that tell everyone why everyone else's church is wrong. They think that Jehovah is God the Father and that everyone worships Jesus Christ too much. They've changed the Bible and thus cannot call it the Bible, but call it the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures. They also think that the Book of Mormon comes from the devil. Boy are they wrong. I've had a couple of them tell me that we focus on the Son too much and not enough on the Father. They're just weird. It actually proves them wrong in the Bible. If you look closely, it refers to Lord Jehovah in the Old Testament as the Judge, Savior, and Mediator. It also refers to Jesus Christ as those things. They believe that God the Father is those three. They contradict themselves, that's why this long explanation was confusing. Sorry...

3.  What is the first thing you challenge people to do if they are interested in the Church?  Do you have them pray or read the Book of Mormon first?  Do you tell them about the Holy Ghost right away?

Read the Book of Mormon and pray to know if it's true. In Preach My Gospel, President Kimball teaches that the Book of Mormon is the key of our religion. That if anyone has any problem with something in the church, they should refer back to the Book of Mormon, to know of its truthfulness.

Love you mom! Miss you lots!

-Justin

Dear Mom,

I was hoping they were free! Haha! I was getting pretty tired of those Rockports. I'm going to try and walk better and hopefully these pair of shoes will last longer! Thank you so much mom! Those shoes feel a lot better. I still feel a little ankle pain when I step on something wrong, but I do feel it a lot less with good shoes. That's cool that they had my information on what I bought. Hopefully I won't have to replace any more missionary shoes. However, I have had a problem with running shoes for a while. Remember those puma shoes I came out with on my mission. Well, last fall they became pretty worn. Well, I found some other shoes in the apartment that some other missionary had left a while ago. So I've been using those shoes I found for a while, and I threw away those pumas a while back. I'm getting tired of these shoes, because they just aren't very good quality. I'm going to start looking for new running/athletic shoes soon. I might be able to buy some today. Just so you know that I'll be using some personal money pretty soon. Thanks for all the other goodies in the package too!

We'll definitely have to visit here someday. I just don't think that it would be a very good vacation for the two little girls. I don't think that they would enjoy it.

Just let me know as soon as you can about my credit card. I'll remember to run it as credit.

Update on Antonio, he left the hospital yesterday. Aparently the doctors told him to take it easy and he can't work for a month, at least. Sad, but he wasn't enjoying the hospital at all. So I'm sure he's glad to be home.

 We've been visiting with a lot more very less-active families this past week. We found a less-active member that hasn't been to church for many years. He said something like 10 years, so I don't know. His name is Giovanny. He's from Ecuador. He's pretty receptive to us. I think I talked a little about him last week. We saw him again on Saturday. We taught him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He liked it. He said that he for sure was going to come to church the next day. He never showed up. Sometimes, I just don't know how to get people to come to church.

On Tuesday, we saw two more less-active families. One of them is the Galicia family. Sister Galicia has a very strong testimony. She comes to church every once in a while, but she mainly goes to the ward down in Jersey City. Something happened to her and brother Galicia a few years back, and now they don't want anything to do with the members here in Union City. I don't really know what's going on with them, but she asked us to tell the Bishop that she doesn't want any member from Union City to even try to visit her. Kind of weird, but when I asked her if we can still come by, she said, "of course, we really want you two to come by." Interesting situation. I have no idea what to do with them. They've been to the temple and everything. Brother Galicia has a testimony too, but he hasn't acted upon it for the past couple years. He told us that it's been years since he's even prayed. When Elder Koellicker was here a couple weeks back, he promised us that if we read the Book of Mormon for at least 30 minutes every day, we will never go less-active. I'm taking that promise! Becoming less-active is very sad. I always feel bad for those members we meet that have gone less-active. They lose so many blessings and comfort from the Holy Ghost.

We also met with a very less-active member on Wednesday named Mario. I honestly think that he never really even had a testimony in the first place. It doesn't really feel like he has lost anything. He enjoys it when we come over. We started showing him those Mormon Messages on LDS.org in Spanish. He really likes those. We keep inviting him to church, but he has work at 11. But he could still make it to 30 minutes of Sacrament Meeting. He takes very small baby steps. Right now, we're just trying to get him praying and watching more Mormon Messages on his own. He's progressing, but very, very slowly. He's a nice guy and fun to work with.

On Sunday, we finally had the baptism of Brian Montes. We've been working with him for about two months. Brian is 15 years old. He's been a pretty good investigator. He was always reading. He's really good at doing his homework, so naturally he starting reading the Book of Mormon and kept reading it. He said that he believes that the Book of Mormon is true and he wanted to be baptized. It was a great baptism. We had it right after church. All the missionaries in Union City (six of us) sang Brightly Beams our Father's Mercy in Spanish with two of the missionaries playing guitar. It all went pretty well!

After the baptism, we drove two other elders back to their apartment, because they live a little further away. After we dropped them off, we drove by a small little Islam booth by the side of the road. My companion and I wanted to get a Qu-ran, but I won't ever buy one. They had a banner that said 'free books'. So we stopped by and I got out to quickly go see if I could get a free Qu'ran. They were pretty nice! They shared with me a little bit about their beliefs. They said that they believe in one God; that Adam and Eve were the first people on earth; that God has sent prophets or messengers to tell us God's will; and that Jesus Christ was a good person who stood for righteousness; and that this earth is just a temporal state. They didn't even budge the foundation of my testimony of the Church. They didn't speak any Spanish, so they asked me what my tag was. I told them that I'm a Spanish missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and then I told them that we believe that God has sent a prophet to us in these days to continue to lead us and guide us. It was a pretty interesting encounter. Men don't touch women in their culture. But hey, I got a free Qu-ran to read after my mission! I felt bad afterward because I didn't invite them to read the Book of Mormon. FAIL! I'll know better next time. You live, you learn. Now I know better when I meet another Muslim; I'm going to invite them to read the Book of Mormon!

So that's about it for this week! Remember that next week is transfers. It's very likely that I'll be transferred from Union City. SAD! I'll let you know for sure next week, and the following week I'll tell you where I've been transferred to if I end up being transferred.

Love you lots mom!

 1.  (question from Kelsie)  How many companions have you had so far, not including the MTC?  Make sure you keep the numbers to the cute ones for Kelsie.

I've had six companions on my mission so far. Haha! I actually had a missionary from California ask if he could write to Kelsie. His name is Elder House. He's black.

2.  (question from Julia) How many baptisms have you been a part of?

I've been part of seven baptisms now.

3.  (question from Kelsie..again)  What is your response to people when they ask "how do you know the church is true?"

 It really depends on the situation. Usually I'll tell them that I just know. My Heavenly Father has helped me understand and I've felt the Holy Ghost tell me that it's true.


-Justin

Dear Mom,

I think that those 5 families that Bishop asked you to choose are part of the Perry Push Plan. It's a reactivation/retention effort. I don't think that it's in Preach My Gospel. It'd be interesting to hear about that plan from Elder Perry himself. I've only heard about it. Our Bishop right now in our ward has assigned each companionship in the Union City ward with five families with which we will focus our less-active work. It seems to be working. We're starting to see a less-active family coming back to church. It's a very gradual process, but it's starting to work. The ward is going hard on home teachers and visiting teachers. The Bishop is visiting them and the missionaries (me) are going over there weekly with members from the ward. It's a big effort but they all came to church last week for the first time in a LONG time. Pretty great!

I'm a little sad to hear about Kameron as well. I remember he was in my German class during my senior year in high school and I remember that he would say that he hopes that he can go to Germany on his mission to learn German more easily. Oh well..

You should take a picture of the Called to Serve calendar. I'm getting to the point now that when people ask me how long I've been out their response is, "Wow! You've been out for a while. When do you go home?" It's been an interesting experience. Weird though. I still have to go through another fall and the beginning winter before I go home, but it's right around the corner. It's scary!! Then I have to start life...

This week we said goodbye to one of our investigators. Her name was Mabel. Her grandma lives just at the edge of our area. Her name is Rocio. She's from Columbia. She joined the church a few years back. She's the only member of the church in her family. When her granddaughter came to visit her for a month, we picked her up as an investigator. The lessons went great and she said that she believes that the Book of Mormon is true and she wants to eventually be baptized. However, we had one problem. She was going to move back to Spain where she was living previously. So this last Tuesday, she left to go back to Spain. We got her address in Spain and we had the Mission Office here send the information over to  one of the missions in Spain. I haven't heard anything yet as to if the missionaries have contacted her or not. But she's pretty much a guaranteed baptism! We prepared her well.

Also on Tuesday, I had lasagna for the second time on my mission. We went to a members house from the Dominican Republic. She cooked it very well! Still not as good as yours. I miss lasagna and other foods like that. But I don't know how I'm going to get hispanic food back in Utah, haha! Bitter sweet like always.

If you remember me mentioning Antonio Gonzalez, our ward mission leader. He had to go to the hospital the end of last week. He got pnemonia. He's doing alright, but he needs just a couple days in the hospital. A couple of us went to visit him on Saturday, and the rest of us went on Sunday after church to go visit him. He's an excellent ward mission leader and really helps us out a lot. He's a good friend of all the missionaries. He keeps in contact with almost all the missionaries. He doesn't have much family because of what happened to him when he was little. It's a crazy story, but all of it happened so that he could eventually get away to the United States and a few months later run into the missionaries! He's awesome!

Then yesterday for our preparation day, we went down into Hoboken. We went to the piers down there and I finally got the pictures that I wanted. I'll send some pictures to you. I'll have to do it one email at a time because the email can't send multiple of them because it makes the file too big... I don't know. I took a bunch of pictures for a panoramic view of the NYC skyline. Next time I'm at walmart, I'll print them off and put them together and see how it turns out. We spent some time just chilling at the pier just talking about life and gazing at the NYC skyline. It was a pretty awesome experience! I really want to do it again. Hopefully next time I can do it, I'll actually be able to go into New York. We also walked around Hoboken a little bit and went to some stores. We went into a pizza shop called Benny's and got pizza slices as big as a baby and also went to a 7-11 and I got a slurpee. It was probably one of the best pdays! It was very relaxing and wonderful. It'd be awesome to be able to spend a lot more time there, but eventually we had to walk back to the car and get back to work. That night, we found a less-active guy that hasn't been to church in many years. He welcomed us right in and agreed to letting us come back and teach him more. He knows about us missionaries and asked us a little bit about our missions. He's from Ecuador and I told him that my uncle Conrad served in Ecuador and said that he loves his country! He asked which part he served in, but I don't remember what part of Ecuador Uncle Conrad served in.

Great week this week! This week should be pretty good as well. Transfers are coming up not this weekend but the next. I'm probably going to get transfered. I'm going to miss this area!

Q of the W:

1.  I was watching the Today Show and they were at the Jersey Shore.  Apparently they have rebuilt that area and were celebrating.  Have you heard of anymore places that have overcome the hurricane?

I've just heard of the Jersey Shore. I also heard of Seaside Heights being completely destroyed. I don't know if that's up and running yet, but I heard that it's going to take another year or so to build it back up.

2.  On pday do you hang out with just your companion? or as a group?

Usually as a group. It makes it more exciting that way.

3.  Are there any huge water-parks where you are?  like our Seven Peaks?

Not that I heard of.

I forgot my PIN for my credit card..

PS. That's also super sad to hear about Channing. I became pretty good friends with him. He wanted to teach me how to ride motorcycles. He would always tell me how dangerous motorcycles were too... He kept asking me if I was going to buy a motorcycle or not. I kept telling him that for sure after the mission I was going to get one. I still want one, but I don't know if Channing will continue to ride them..

Love you mom! Talk to you soon!

-Justin

Dear Mom,

First of all, sorry for getting back to you on Wednesday. I thought that we were going to have P-Day on Tuesday, but we were informed late last week that we were going to do P-Day on Wednesday. Also, before I forget, next Monday is a holiday, so the libraries will probably be closed. We might be able to find a place to email on Monday, but we're not sure quite yet. Just so you know!

That's cool to hear about 24. I'll be home for that so we can watch that together! Woah, I think that that's the first thing that I've said that I'll be home for when it comes out. I'm coming up on 7 months left. That's not very long at all. Summer has started and then it's the holiday season and I'm home. Crazy..
 
So to start out, the meeting we had with Elder Koelliker was great! I've actually already met him. Last fall, when I was working in Plainfield in the Scotch Plains Stake, he came to talk to the Scotch Plains Stake about family history. So after the Stake Conference, I went up to shake his hand and to talk to him for just a second. I don't think he remembers at all about our encounter a couple months back. Haha! This time, he talked to us missionaries about using the ward more in our missionary work. The wards and branches in which we serve should be a huge part of our work. He also talked about the role of the Stake President. He has the keys and responsibilities for missionary work in his stake, not the Mission President. President Jeppson has the keys to preside over us as missionaries and convert baptisms. That makes sense because the members should be doing plenty of missionary work. He also talked to us about a calling that I've only heard about on my mission. It's the Ward Mission Leader. He's is the assistant to the Bishop on missionary work in the ward. He works closely with the missionaries who are assigned to that ward. In my past areas, the Ward Mission Leader hasn't really helped us out a whole lot. In Union City, the Ward Mission Leader is Antonio. He's great. He helps out a lot. So now all the missionaries know that we need to have a functioning Ward Mission Leader that is willing to help us out. It was a great meeting! We met at the Paterson Chapel for that meeting, then the Paterson members fed us lunch. The next day, I woke up with some stomach and digestional issues. It turns out that pretty much all the missionaries got more or less sick. Some sisters got pretty bad and had to stay home. I just had to make a running trip to the bathroom a few times that night. I'm all better now though. Haha! It was terrible.

On Sunday we had an interesting Stake Conference. They called it a regional conference. We had President Packer and Elder Perry speak to all the stakes in New Jersey and New York from a room in the Conference Center in Salt Lake City. We just watched a broadcast just like everyone else in these two states. It was really good and Elder Perry straight up told all the members that they aren't doing enough to help the missionaries and that a prophet of God is telling them to do a lot better and teach with the missionaries and give them people to teach. He also talked about how the members can do that better. He talked a lot about Preach My Gospel. Hopefully the members will step it up. Utah is so different! It just makes me feel so grateful that our neighbors on all sides are endowed, sealed, active families. It's going to be pretty cool to be able to think of how nice my neighborhood is going to be. That's cool. I just don't know how I'm going to continue to do missionary work when I get home...

 
Q of the W:

1. When someone is baptized, do a bunch of missionaries come or just the 2?

Usually all the missionaries that are working in that Ward or Branch come. Sometimes, if a missionary helped that person get baptized and they live close, they'll come too. Our zone leaders come to almost all the baptisms just as support from the zone.

2. Are you ready for the hot and humid weather?

Actually, these last couple days have been very humid. It's not very fun at all. That little weather station thing you sent me for my birthday said that it was about 80% humidity yesterday. I felt like I had just taken a shower and didn't make any attempt to dry myself before putting clothes on. It was a horrible sensation. Next three months, here we go...

3. Did Alan Castro leave on his mission? I saw a picture of Facebook of him with a badge on?

No, and I don't think he'll leave for a while. He just plays around sometimes. He doesn't take much seriously, and he doesn't have a job. He doesn't really want to get a job either. Haha, the Bishop isn't very happy with him right now, because if Alan does leave on a mission soon, the ward is going to be completely supporting him. Alan hasn't saved up any money and any money he does get, he spends super fast. He's a good teacher though. He helps out a lot when he comes out with us.


Love you mom! Talk to you next week!

Dear Mom,

Tell grandma that she still needs to do one next year too. I want to go to that thing again and help out and be in the Norwegian culture.

It was a lot of fun for me to skype as well. I'm really thankful for the Quezada family for letting us come over and using their ipads. We actually ended up talking to them for a little bit afterwards. They're all from Chile. There aren't very many Chileans over here, so it was a cool oportunity to be able to talk to them a little bit more about their country. Brother Quezada is from a city called Valparaiso. It got that name because it is known to many people as a city of paradise. If you pull apart that name: Valparaiso, you get 'va al paraiso' which translates as 'go to paradise'. He says that it's a very beautiful place. But then he said that basically the whole country is very beautiful. I found out that Chile and Argentina are very different from other hispanic countries. Many Hispanics aren't exactly super clean and neat and organized in their homes. However, Chileans have a lot of European culture in them. The Quezada's house is a lot different than most of the houses I go to. It had nice furniture and it was clean and everything was nice. It was a really cool family.

This last week we were able to teach Jenny, the girl that just got baptized, a little more about the Priesthood. We weren't really planning on teaching her about that, but we just ended up teaching her about it. We were talking a little bit before the lesson. Her boyfriend Josh, who is a little less-active, was with us as well. We taught her in the chapel because that was the easiest place to meet for us. We got on the topic of horror movies and creepy things happening after watching them. Haha! Jenny said that she gets scared of watching horror movies because of that. I told her what you said that grandma told you: If you watch movies like that, you're inviting Satan to sit right next to you. But, I told her that we do have more power than Satan, and that if we don't do anything to invite him, but he comes anyways, we can tell him to go away. I told her about the experience that grandma in Bountiful had when she heard the bang above her and then grandpa came in and commanded it in the name of Jesus Christ to leave, and it left. Then I related that to the story in the Bible when Jesus is on the boat with his disciples during a giant storm. Then his disciples ask him why he doesn't care. Then Jesus wakes up from his nap and commands the storm, "Peace, be still." -Mark 4:39. Then the storm immediately stops. Then I learned something new. As children of God, we are the only thing in the universe that has the ability to choose. Satan and his followers do not have free agency. Neither did the storm that was going on when Jesus and His disciples were on the sea. Neither do the trees or the mountains (Jacob 4:6). We can tell a person to leave all day long and they can still choose to stay there. However, as soon as it be the will of God, Satan and his followers have absolutely no choice whatsoever. No agency. They lose it and they are not allowed to stay. The storm in Mark 4 had to obey Jesus. It had no choice. It had no agency. It followed and obeyed Him. As children of God and those that followed His plan, we have inherited the ability to choose. I learned this while I was teaching Jennifer. Pretty cool experience. Then we talked about how we should surround ourselves with the Priesthood and remain worthy to be able to call upon the blessings of the Priesthood. It was an awesome lesson!

Great week this week. I really enjoyed talking to everyone. Next week I probably won't email on Monday, because we're going to have a zone conference with Elder Koellicker, or something like that, of the Seventy. The missionaries that are working in Zones 1,2, & 3 are going to meet with him on Monday, so we're switching our p-day to Tuesday probably. I'll let you know how that meeting goes with him. It should be pretty good!

Love you mom! Miss ya!

Q of the W:

1.  Do you go to the same ward/branch every Sunday?

Yes. The Union City Spanish Ward

2.  How was your dinner on Sunday night?  Yummy?  I should learn how to make it whatever it was called...

They are called baleadas. I don't know how to make the tortillas. But it's scrambled eggs with like cut up ham/turkey bits in it (or if you want to be fancy, steak strips), refried black beans, a creamy cheese that I don't know if you would be able to find at Walmart, and avocado. WAY GOOD! I'll pay attention to the cheese next time and maybe I'll ask her to write down how to make the tortillas. Pretty simple.

3.  How long are you able to practice piano on p-days?

Depends on the pday. Usually about an hour or so.

Dear Mom,

So for next week's call, I'm pretty sure that we're going to be doing it around 5:30 pm ~ 6:00 pm our time, so around 3:30 pm ~ 4:00 pm your time. We have already asked a member in our ward if they have Skype and they said yes. We're going to confirm with them in the next couple days. So we should be good with that. President Jeppson has asked us to keep this call to about an hour. Just so you know! :) I'm looking forward to it!

It's great to hear that everything is going well!

This week has been a crazy week. There was a lot that happened. To start off, on Tuesday, we ended up teaching Alan Castro and his mom at McDonald's. They love the missionaries! Every single time we go over to their house, whether it's just to pick up Alan to come out with us, or to see how they're doing, they ask us if we want to eat. Most of the time we say no. We don't want them to always be cooking for us. Anyway, they wanted to take us to McDonald's to feed us and we wanted to teach Alan a little bit out of Preach My Gospel so that he can be more prepared when he leaves on his mission. He's working on his papers right now. Some legal issues and some GED problems are keeping him from going right now. But he's going to be an excellent missionary! We figured out that Alan is doing what I did before my mission. He's staying up to about 3:00 am and sleeping in to about 11:00 or 12:00. I found a scripture in the Doctrine and Covenants that says that you're supposed to take care of your bodies by forming good sleeping habits. (D&C 88:124) There is also a talk that dad referred me to by Elder David A. Bednar in which he says that the Spirit cannot work through us if we have bad sleeping habits. ("Ye Are the Temple of God"). So we shared that with Alan. He realized that he should be doing better, so he said that he's going to try harder now to follow a better sleep schedule. My sleeping habit was so fun, but it's not good! Haha! It's funny how I'm teaching that now!

That same day, we met a pretty interesting guy named Edgar. He's a pretty muscular guy. We're not teaching him though. We were trying to get in contact with one of our investigators and we ran into Edgar. We started talking to him. He kept telling us how much he respects us and what we do. I'm pretty sure that this guy has been in gangs and stuff before. He also told us that he used to deal drugs and all that. Pretty cool guy though. He told us a story of when God helped him out. He said that his friend one time told him that he was going out for the night and he wanted him to go with him. He told his friend that he didn't have a good feeling and that he didn't want to go. He ended up staying home. Then Edgar told us that God had protected him because that night, his friend ''caught a body''. I was pretty sketched out by that phrase, but I asked him anyway. He said that it means that you killed someone. Yeah, he is a pretty sketchy guy. He just got out of prison like a year ago, and now he's under house arrest. He showed us the government bracelet on his ankle and everything and how much he hates it. He kept telling us how much he respects us. He told us that he's grown up in the ghetto of ghettos and no matter where it was or how bad it was, the Mormon Missionaries would always be walking down the street and nobody would ever touch them. He told us that we have some sort of special blessing on us. Then he said that he couldn't imagine how anyone could ever make fun of us. I told him that New York City already did. He didn't know about the Book of Mormon play. After that, he kept telling me, 'You gotta be kiddin' me dawg! You gotta be kiddin' me!' He was a pretty cool guy. I just don't think that I want to teach him. He practices Santaria, which I'm pretty sure is a mix between Catholicism, voodoo, native African religious practices, and Satanism. But I guess he's got our back! Haha!

Then on Friday, we had our interviews with President and Sister Jeppson again. I just love being able to talk to them! They are so much help always! President wanted me to see how much I've grown since the beginning of my mission. It's cool to see how far I've come. I still got a long road to go, but President helped me see that my mission has laid the foundation so far, and will continue to lay the foundation for the rest of my mission, for continuing to learn and grow for the rest of my life. I'm glad that I chose to go on a mission. It's been hard so far, but totally worth it!

So every month, we have a mission focus. This month is on prayer and repentance. So all the District Meetings that we do have a central focus on that topic. We also have more direction from the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve that missionaries need to spend about half their time working with less-active members. I was kind of surprised by that at first, because I thought that missionaries are all about just teaching new people about the Gospel. But then I started to think about it more and it makes sense! Sometimes less-active members have a hard time listening to other members, but the missionaries are almost always completely trustworthy. Especially out here because missionaries have played such a big role in pretty much every member's life. Whether they were baptized by the missionaries or the missionaries helped their family, it doesn't matter, the missionaries are loved. Then I was also talking with a returned missionary in the ward. He's on break from BYU-I for the summer. His name is Danvirg, and he served in the Toronto, Canada mission a couple years ago. He told me that Elder Bednar came to his mission and helped to stop the 'knocking doors all day', by telling the missionaries that they are not finders, they are teachers. Totally true! Now the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve want us to start focusing WAY more on less-actives. Half our work should be finding and teaching 'the lost sheep'. I love it! Less-actives are an excellent way to find more people that are ready to receive the Gospel and to continue to change lives and seek for deep and lasting conversion. Sometimes, members I think need to fall away for a time in order to become more deeply converted; although it is better if they don't have to. But I think that that's why we're focusing so much more on our less-active brothers and sisters.

Q of the W:

1.  Right now on your mission, do you speak more in Spanish or English?

During a regular day, I would say that I speak more Spanish than English. Days like preparation day, I would say I speak more English.

2.  Are the people in Union City generally nice? (Any kind strangers out there?)

People are only nice if you're nice to them. They'll say hi back usually. There are people that won't say hi back. I don't know what their problem is, haha! Maybe they're afraid that we'll talk to them!

3.  Did you get your package? and I hope the Toffifay didn't melt.

I did! Thank you so much! Mom!!! Did you make a copy of "All of Me"?? That would be such a cool song to play. Did you try playing it? Also, do you still practice piano? What do you do to keep up on it?

Love you mom! Talk to you next week! For the last time! The next time I talk to the family it will be Christmas, and I'll be two weeks from going home.. Crazy thought, right?

-Justin