December 31, 2013

Mom,

I definitely will need a cell phone. That's awesome that you were able to get an IPhone 5! I don't know what the 'c' means, but it sounds cool. I'm very, VERY excited to see the grandparents.

Everything sounds great!

Q of the W:

1.  Do you just keep on working everyday as normal up until you leave?

Basically. I'll be doing goodbye visits and everything, so it might be a little different.

2.   Would you be interested in flying to Texas with Dad and I for Melanie's funeral/ceremony at the end of January?  I would love to have the Texas family see and talk with you!  I asked Dad to buy you a plane ticket too - I think it would be fun.  It's not for sure yet but I wanted your opinion.  We haven't bought anything yet.

I would absolutely love to make that trip. I'm all in.

3.  Do you have any plans for New Years Eve/ Day?

Tonight, our ward is putting on a party. We'll be going to that, but we'll have to be home at regular time. President Jeppson has asked us to be home at the regular missionary time.


The Statue of Liberty!!!

It was super, super fun! So here's what went down: We all met up at the Newark chapel. The mission has a big van that can sit a total of 11 people including the driver and passenger seat. We all fit perfectly. President Jeppson drove us with Sister Jeppson in the passenger seat. There are nine of us going home, so we all fit perfectly in the van. Also, a senior couple, the Hendricksons, came along beside us in their van. They pretty much set up the whole trip. They set up the trip every time there are departing missionaries going to the Statue of Liberty. They're awesome. So we went to a dock in a city called Bayonne, or at least a city close to that. We entered a pretty good sized ferry that first took us to Ellis Island. Before we entered the ferry, we had to go through security. But we all got onto the ferry and then went to Ellis Island. We watched a short film of 30 minutes about the history of Ellis Island and what the emigrants had to go through to finally get to the United States. It was crazy what they had to go through. It would definitely be a scary trip. After the little film, we were able to go around the museum a little and look around. I bought a couple souvenirs. After we boarded the ferry again and we were taken to Liberty Island. The ferry took us around Liberty Island and we were able to see the Statue of Liberty from all angles. Way cool. We got off onto the island and we had to go through security again to be able to enter the statue. Right under the feet of the statue there is a little part that you can walk around. (I'm going to send a couple different pictures.) We were able to walk around and just spend time looking around. Unfortunately, we were not able to go up to the crown, despite how much the mission would love to take us up there. I was talking to Sister Hendrickson about that and she said that you can only buy tickets to go up to the crown with a credit card and you have to do it in advance. However, you're only allowed to buy four tickets at a time and you can only buy them every six months on that one credit card. Too much of a hassle, so the mission can't take us up there. When we come back to visit New Jersey/New York, we could go up. The ticket I had said that the whole Statue of Liberty trip only costs $17 a person. I guess it adds up pretty quickly in a big group, but I thought that that was a decent price, especially since we're here in the tri-state area.. After we were done on Liberty Island, the ferry took us back to the dock in Bayonne. Once we returned, we went to a 9/11 memorial just down the road from the docks. I don't know what it was called before, but now it's called the Empty Sky Memorial. There are two walls with the names of victims that were citizens of New Jersey written on them. Before the events of 9/11, those two walls lined up perfectly with the Two World Trade Centers. Now they don't line up with anything... :( Right in front of that memorial is a few of the truss beams from the fallen Twin Towers. Then we headed over to another 9/11 memorial. It's called the Russian Tear Drop. I guess the Russians were really sad for us, so they made a memorial and gifted it to us. The tear drop represents the tears shed for the victims of 9/11. Finally, to conclude our trip, we headed back to Newark and went to a Catholic Basilica. It was huge on the inside! We were the only ones in there. I guess that it's always open for anyone to just walk in and look around. We sang a couple hymns inside, because it's known to have really good acoustics. Haha, we sang a few hymns of the restoration: "We Thank Thee oh God for a Prophet", "Praise to the Man", "The Spirit of God". We sang a few other hymns and also "Army of Helaman". Something was definitely different about that Basilica compared to our chapels and temples. But that was basically it for the trip!

This last week was just basically visiting our investigators and doing normal missionary work with our members. This week will be a little different. I'll be doing a bunch of good-bye visits with members and some investigators. This Thursday I am going to the temple with President and Sister Jeppson and right after the temple trip I'll have my departing interview with President Jeppson. It'll be a fun week, but because of everything going on, I won't be able to do as much missionary work as I would be able to do in a normal week. I'm excited though. I'm grateful and happy to be a missionary. I will definitely miss this time being a missionary. It's two years I will never be able to live again. I've grown a lot. However, I miss the family a lot. Both immediate and extended. I miss my friends as well. I'm excited to hang out with Jesse and William. Kyle Byington will return just a couple weeks after me. Seth will be coming back later on this spring. Then Spencer, Tanner, and Luke will be coming home in that respective order.

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

December 16, 2013

Mom,

That's so cool to hear about the new car! I'm super excited to see it and ride in it. It does sound like a very luxury car.

I did get those two packages this last week. I was pleasantly surprised to receive that smaller package from Julia. I thought that the thing she had sent me was the two things of Hi-Chews when you sent me the CD's. So it was pretty fun to get it and I really enjoyed her little letter that she sent me as well.

Yay for Kyle and braces!

Q of the W:

1.  Do you know the latest count of how many missionaries in your mission lately?

I think it was just below 250 missionaries. Probably about a hundred more missionaries than when I first arrived in the mission.

2.  So after almost 2 years of waking up early every single day....Can you honestly say that you are used to it?

I think that I am officially used to it. We use our cell phone as the alarm every morning. Sometimes we'll forget it in another room in our apartment or we'll forget to turn up the volume so we won't wake up to it. We always have it set to a few minutes before 6:30 am. When that does happen, I'm always awake before 6:45. Still tired! But awake nonetheless.

3.  Have you noticed that the members who do have cars are willing and offer to drive those to church who do not have cars?

Yes. They're usually very willing.

Big news that I forgot to tell you about last week. Last Thursday we went to the temple again! I'll send you some pictures. Very fun as always. All the missionaries were super excited to see the new temple movie. Well, when we were about to start the session there was a lady who only spoke French. They gave her a translator, but the new video hasn't been translated into French so we watch the old one... We were all super disappointed. I really was. President Jeppson told us that the new video is phenomenal and that he loved it. We were all super excited for it. Unfortunately, most of the missionaries that went have to wait all the way until next summer to go to the temple again. I will have a departing missionaries temple trip with all the other departing missionaries and President and Sister Jeppson. That'll be right at the beginning of the year, I think. Plus I'll be able to go to the temple as much as I want once I get home. NYC was fun. It seems to get more and more worldly every time I go there. Kind of sad, but I'm excited to go there when I'm not a missionary anymore to go to fun restaurants and do other things. I'm definitely not excited to not be a missionary anymore though.

On Saturday we were going to have the New Brunswick ward Christmas party. That was also the day of the ''snow storm''. I don't think that New Jersey is very used to snow. Which is weird because they should be. It snowed pretty good on Saturday night; only about three inches fell though. They cancelled the ward Christmas party because of it and nobody was told until Saturday so we had nothing planned for that night. We did get one appointment in later on that night, but we really just walked around trying to find people. From what it looks like they're not going to reschedule the Christmas party. I don't know why, but I think that they're just not going to have one this year. Pretty sad, but there's not much we can do.

Our Sunday was pretty packed. We weren't able to get out and work. Right after church ended there was a special program for a young man that's leaving on his mission this week. His name is Roger Sarabia. He's going to be the first missionary in his family since his parents are both converts. He's super excited. He's going to serve in the Nebraska Omaha mission, Spanish-speaking. He came out with us to help us teach every once in a while. He lives a little far away from us and his whole family shares a car so it was hard for him to get out to us a lot. He's going to be a great missionary! He has a very strong testimony. After that program we went home and an hour later we rode with some other missionaries up to Union City for the member/missionary Christmas fireside. I was SUPER excited to go back to Union City for the night! I saw many people from former areas that I've served in: Dover, Patterson, Plainfield, and Union City. I had one really good friend named Edwin in Dover that I saw. I asked him about a nine-year old Dominican kid that I helped baptize name Ivan. Edwin says that he's still doing great! I saw the branch president from the Patterson Spanish branch. He found out that I only have three weeks left and he told me that if I come back to visit NJ that he'll feed us Seviche. Ask Uncle Conrad about that Ecuadorian dish. I'm not too sure that I'll enjoy it... The branch president and a hand full of members from the Plainfield branch also showed up. I was surprised to find out that they still remember how to properly pronounce my name! I was really happy to see them. I also got to see several people from the Union City ward. I had a good friend named Alan in Union City from Mexico City. I also made good friends with some investigators named Claudia and Jose when I was working there. Claudia is Honduran and Jose is Dominican. They started to really enjoy our visits when I was in Union City. A few months after I had left Union City I found out that they had gotten married and were baptized!! They were very excited to see me and tell me the progress they have made. They thanked me many times for me having helped them. It's the best thing in the world to see the fruits of your labors. Even though I wasn't the one there baptizing them, they still remember me by name and were super happy to see me. I'll send a picture of me with them as well. They're happy and active at church! The Christmas fireside at Union City went super well. We had many musical numbers and all the Spanish missionaries sung the song "This is the Christ" in Spanish. It was a very powerful moment. It was definitely a highlight of my mission to talk to so many people from all my areas. There were a lot more people that weren't there at the fireside that I was hoping to see there. I think that it would have just been so overwhelming if everyone had shown up. I guess I'll see them when I return to NJ later on.

It was a good week. We didn't get too much done work wise because of all those crazy events that went on this past week. This week won't be as packed, but I'm thinking that people are going to be pretty busy with preparing for the holidays and everything. Hopefully people will still let us visit them. This Friday we will be having our all-mission Christmas activity. Alex Boye will be the guest star. I don't know if I told you before but he is the son-in-law of President and Sister Jeppson. It'll be a fun Christmas activity.

Love you mom!

Talk to you soon!

-Justin

December 9, 2013

Mom,

Did you ever take any pictures of what Kyle did to my room? I would be interested to see how he liked it.

In exactly one month, I'll be home. WHAT!!

Q of the W:

1.  Is there snow yet?

It snowed a few days ago. It was perfect timing for when we saw the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. Most of it has melted today though.

2.  How bad does the weather have to be for you to have to stay indoors all day?  Too cold?  Too snowy?

If it gets too snowy during a snow storm, President Jeppson will tell everyone that we're not allowed to drive. I'm not driving so that won't really affect me this year, haha. I haven't heard of anything happening to where they told us to just stay home because it was too cold.

3.  Do you still have that Christmas CD that Kelsie made for you last year?

Yes. And I've been enjoying it along with the other two CD's.

So first of all, we had a surprise baptism! Marco got baptized yesterday! This last week, his mom, Jackie, called us. It turns out that her husband isn't going to have another weekend off of work until past Christmas. Jackie didn't want to push off Marco's baptism anymore. Marco was also excited to get baptized sooner. So she called us this last week to see if we could do it that weekend. We said sure! So we had one last lesson with Marco to make sure that he knew everything he needed to know for the baptismal interview. It was a great baptism. Like I've said before, his mom is a returning less-active member. She definitely wants to start coming back to church and Marco's baptism is really helping with that. Also, Marco's dad isn't a member yet. He really wanted to be at his son's baptism because he says that one day he wants to be baptized as well. It's hard to visit him on a regular basis because of his busy work schedule, but hopefully we'll be able to visit him sometime this week.

We had a really cool experience this last week with one of the families in our ward that is balancing between less-active and active. They really love the church and live Gospel principles. They just let work things get in the way of church attendance maybe more than they ought to let it. But they come on their own free will when they can. Early on this week, the mom, sister Pelaez, called us and told us that one of her friends wants to meet with us. She said that her friend is having some struggles in life right now and that she wants some help. Obviously we were pretty excited about it. We set up an appointment for Wednesday afternoon. The day of the appointment, sister Pelaez called us and cancelled. She said that her friend, Maria, wasn't going to be able to meet with us that night. So we set up an appointment for Friday. When we passed by on Friday, we were disappointed to find that her friend wasn't there. Sister Pelaez wanted us to just go knock on her door (which was just a few houses down the street), but we wanted her to invite her over to her house. We tried to convince her that her house would be a better place to meet since the Spirit was already there. So Sister Pelaez called her and invited her over. Then she told us that the other day she found out that Maria and her husband are actually members of the church! They've just been inactive since before they moved to New Brunswick more than 10 years ago. She said that lately Maria was especially missing the church. Maria was about to leave to go somewhere with her husband and kids. So we decided to run out to just meet them right before they left. So we were able to say hi to them and introduce ourselves. We'll be trying to get in contact with the Pelaez family early this week to try to set up an appointment with them this week.

On Saturday morning we had an activity with the Jeppsons at the Mission Home. They call it Jingle with the Jeppsons. It was super fun! It was just our zone, so it was like 20 missionaries. They do it for every zone in the mission, just on other days of the week. We had a great breakfast with them and then we had a bell activity. We were all given a bell, but there were different notes on other bells. President and Sister Jeppson made poster boards with a song written out on each board with each corresponding note and we had to follow along and ring our bell when our note came. It's a pretty clever idea. Then President Jeppson shared the nativity story from Matthew and Luke. He did an amazing job inviting the Spirit. It was great! I love being at the Mission Home.

Also on Sunday night, we were able to go to the church to watch the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. I thought it was amazing! I was a little confused as to why it was called the First Presidency Christmas Devotional since only President Monson talked and he only talked for like five minutes. I still thought it was amazing though. I loved Elder Nelson's part! I hope you got to see it. If you didn't, I would highly recommend it.

Love you! Talk to you soon!

-Justin

December 2, 2013

Dear Mom,

I'm glad I didn't get transferred too. My new companion is Elder Smith. He's cool. He's from West Jordan, Utah. He's been out about 9 months. We're pretty good friends already, so we're having a good time.

Got the CD's!! Thanks so much! I've been listening to them every day. I love the song "This is the Christ". It's amazing. I just remember every time before General Conference, they always have the Mormon Tabernacle Choir doing the Spoken Word and it brings a Spirit-filled reverence into the room. I wanted to make our study room like that right before studies. It works! It's amazing!

Elder Pike was assigned first to a mission in Mexico but he asked to get reassigned because he's allergic to beans. So they reassigned him to New Jersey Spanish-speaking. I found him on Facebook before the mission and we talked about seeing each other in the mission. He previously lived in Utah, but during his mission I think his family moved to Idaho, so maybe that's why he won't be in my flight.. Who else is in my flight group? Cool to hear about Brandon! So I could probably go to his homecoming then too!

I guess I'll start shipping stuff after Christmas. I don't want to start shipping stuff right now. Hopefully the crowds will die down a little right after Christmas.

For Thanksgiving, we had two dinners. The first we had was with a less-active member named Dennis Garcia. He's really nice and loves the Gospel. We can't really figure out why he doesn't come to church often. He doesn't have a car and can't drive, so we think that maybe he doesn't like asking for rides. When he does miss church and we ask him why, it's always something different. And they're not dumb excuses either so it's difficult to really figure out how to get him to church. But he had Thanksgiving day off of work, so he invited us over. Another member named Javier has a friend that we've started to teach a little bit. We invited him over as well to Dennis' house to eat and to watch the movie the Testaments. The friend ended up having to work that day, but we watched the Testaments anyway. After that, we went to another less-active family named the Pelaez family. They're cousins of an active family in the ward so we had dinner with both the families. This is the family we asked about Thanksgiving and decided to do something for us. Super nice of them. At Dennis' house we had rice, beans, and chicken. At the Pelaez family we had chicken, stuffing, tamales, and sweet potatoes. No turkey this year!

I'm excited for that new car!

Q of the W:

1. Does New Brunswick decorate their streets or parks for Christmas?

I did see decorations in the downtown part of New Brunswick, but I haven't seen anything in the parks in other parts of New Brunswick. Something kind of interesting about the Christmas season out here. Nothing says anything about Christmas. It's always 'Happy holidays' and other things like that. All the decorations and stuff never says anything about Christmas or Christ. There's a large Jewish and Muslim population out here so they have to be careful about advertisement.

2. Do you know what you will be doing or where you will be yet for Christmas Day?

I don't know exactly. I heard that the New Brunswick ward will have some sort of party. From what I heard, it's going to be on Christmas day. I don't know about that, that's kind of weird to me, but we'll see what happens.

3. Is it okay that we go to Chili's for dinner after we pick you up from the airport? If you remember we went there the day before you left and we talked about going there again right when you came home. Just an idea. We all really want to take you somewhere public with your missionary tag. If you think about it - we have never seen you with your missionary tag on... If you would rather go straight home we totally understand. Whatever you want....

That would be cool. I'll have to think about it though. I haven't really thought about it yet. I'll let you know.

We finally met a certain less-active sister this last week. She told us to come by Saturday morning, but then the day of, she cancelled the appointment. She told us to come by Monday morning. She also said that she felt bad for cancelling so she would bring a box of donuts and hot chocolate from her work: Dunkin' Donuts. Monday morning she was sleeping. She works the graveyard shift every day. She basically has a nocturnal schedule. She called us later on that day and apologized several times for having fallen asleep before we got there. She told us to come by the next day. So we stopped by the next day and she was there with a bunch of Dunkin' donuts hot chocolate and donuts. She gets them for free because she takes the donuts that they want to throw out. They're still good donuts, but it's just that they don't want to sell donuts that have been sitting out for a certain number of hours. So she took a bunch and gave them to us! It was awesome. Haha. She was telling us how much she wants to come back to church and how she feels so bad for not reading and doing things like that for such a long time. She told us that she wants us to continue coming by. She also made it very clear that if we, or any other missionaries, ever want donuts, all we have to do is call her and she'll bring us as many donuts that we can eat. Less-actives for some reason usually always love the missionaries. I haven't called her back yet, but I'm thinking about it this week... We also do need to visit her to help her grow in the Gospel.

We had a crazy experience this week with a Catholic man. Elder Smith really had to use the bathroom. I talked him into just waiting until we got to our next appointment with some investigators. It turns out that they weren't there! The next convenience store was a little while away so he just decided to knock on the neighbor's door to ask them if he could use their restroom. So we knocked. They said okay and I started to talk to them a little bit. This guy started talking to me about what we did and how he thinks it's cool and he respects what we do. I asked them about their religion. They said they were Catholic but that they don't really go to church at all. (Those are what typical Catholics are like around here.) So we kept talking and we talked more about Christ and His Apostles. For some reason, this guy didn't completely understand about repentance. He was talking about how even the Apostles were sinners and that there's no point in repenting because we'll always keep making mistakes. I agreed and said that the only perfect person was Jesus Christ and we have to trust in him. He shook his head and said that Jesus wasn't perfect. He said that the only perfect person was God. I was a little confused about his idea because Catholics believe that Jesus is the same thing as God the Father. I told him that the Bible teaches that He was indeed perfect. He said that it doesn't. I asked him if he's read the Bible completely. He said that he had and that it doesn't teach that He was perfect. I invited him to read it again and Elder Smith invited him to ask his pastor if Christ was sinless. We ended up leaving shortly after that because it was hopeless to try to convince a non-believing, non-practicing, self-proclaimed traditional Catholic that his beliefs don't agree with his church nor the Bible. It was sad to see how hard-hearted he was. He was also the father of maybe five kids. I felt bad that those kids have to grow up with that kind of confusion in their home. After we had left, Elder Smith and I were talking about that experience we had with him. We were laughing pretty hard about it. Then we realized that it's actually not too far-fetched idea for him to disbelieve in the divinity of Christ. Last week I talked a little bit about how pretty much everyone else has very little understanding of the Atonement. Catholics and other Christians don't know hardly anything about the Atonement. To us, not understanding basically the Atonement will hinder our understanding in pretty much every other phase of the Gospel. We can't have faith without the Atonement. We can't repent without the Atonement. If we can't repent, we can't become better so there is no point in getting baptized. If we can't repent we can't have the Holy Ghost with us. The Plan of Salvation as a whole would not make sense and could not work without the Atonement. We better understand our purpose in life because we have an understanding of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. This man doesn't understand what the purpose of Christ was here on earth. No wonder he doesn't believe in Him; he doesn't even know what it would mean to believe in the Savior. That makes me wonder why other religions believe in Jesus Christ if they don't hardly have an idea of the most important part of the life of Jesus Christ - His Atonement. We've realized the mistake we made talking to him... we didn't mention the Atonement to him. Maybe one day he'll have another opportunity to learn about the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

Also, another funny story. We started fasting on Saturday and we had two unexpected dinners. Couldn't say no so we just decided to fast next week. That defines missionary work, trying to do something you want and not being able to do it, so you have to do it at another time when it's not at all convenient.

Marco is not going to get baptized this weekend, but they have decided that he will for sure get baptized the 21 of December.

Anyway, that's the cool stuff for the week!

Love you mom!

-Justin

November 25, 2013

Mom,

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

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

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

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

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

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

Q of the W:

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

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

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

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

3. Did you get the CD's?

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

Love you mom! See you soon!

-Justin

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

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

November 18, 2013

Dear Mom,

Haha, I can't wait to talk to Grandpa Lee about Gospel-related topics. I'm sure that he still knows a ton more than I do. I don't know anything about Church history either. I'm sure he knows quite a bit about that. Hopefully I can continue my studies as well as soon as I get home so I can keep up how much I'm learning. We don't know exactly what we're doing yet for Thanksgiving. There is the Allongo family that has invited us over for Thanksgiving dinner. We're trying to get permission to go over to their house because they're out of our area. I'm sure though that we'll get permission. We've also received permission to have a Turkey-bowl. Half of the mission is going to go to the Princeton University stadium and the other half of the mission is going to go to some place in Newark to play football that morning.

I did hear about the typhoon in the Philippians. I haven't heard much about it though. That's an amazing miracle about those four sister missionaries! I'm down for whatever the week after I get home. In fact, if you want you can plan whatever for those two weeks or so. I've only been able to think of a couple things that I want to do. I want to visit Jesse Rackiewicz. I don't think he has gone anywhere. I don't know if Seth is going to be in town or not, but I want to visit him as well. That's all I can really think of.

Q of the W: 1. Will we still be able to skype you at Christmas?
YES

2. In the scriptures - some of them such as Lehi, Nephi, Mosiah, ect. end their book by saying they are dying or soon to be. Do you think they knew when they would die or was it their way of saying they were old?

I think that it's possible that they knew approximately when they were going to die. I think that as well when they were closing up their parts in the Book of Mormon they were probably old, haha. I think it's a mix of both knowing that they were going to die soon after and that they needed to make their last remarks in the scriptures before they passed away. I think as well that many of them ended in that way, not necessarily because they knew that they were going to die soon thereafter, but that they knew that their part in the scriptures was near completion and that they needed to finish up and hand them down.

3. Do you know how long President and Sister Jeppson have left on their mission?

I think that they're going to end their mission in July. I'm definitely going to that homecoming!

So this last Friday was interviews with President Jeppson. That was my last regular interview with him. The next interview I have with him will be a few days before I go home. I don't know what exactly he talks to us about in that interview, but I heard that he gives some good advice and going home and helping us feel ready to do it. I guess I'll find out. It was a great time being with President Jeppson. He advised me not to talk too much about going home. Something common among missionaries is being ''trunky''. The term comes from missionaries starting to live out of their trunk the last few weeks/months of their mission so they don't have to pack anything once the time comes to finally go home. Today it has more reference to missionaries slowing down in missionary work and always talking about going home and stuff. I can really have a bad effect on missionaries sometimes. When they let it affect their missionary work, the work in their area slows down. President Jeppson advised me to bust through the finish line tape at full speed! That's the best way to end a mission! So far the idea of ''going home'' hasn't affected me too much. I am excited, but I'm still working hard!

We should be having a baptism coming up in the next few weeks. Most likely on the first of December. It will be for a nine-year old boy named Marco. His mom Jackie was less-active for years and years when finally we found her. We were just going through the ward list and knocking doors and calling phone numbers of members that we didn't know. We got in contact with Jackie and during our first appointment with her a few months ago she told us that she wants her son to get baptized. It's been hard to get him baptized soon, because she's really busy with Marco and her other younger son and her job as an Elementary school teacher. But he's getting prepared. He's good at learning what we teach him and remembering it. Hopefully we'll be able to see him get baptized soon.

So on Sunday we had an appointment with a member couple. The sister is named Isidra Nunez. She's usually at church every week, but her husband, Santos, hasn't been to church for probably ten years. Isidra told us that he got baptized and then soon after when they wanted him to do home teaching, he stopped coming. Kind of sad. We haven't ever really been able to talk to him about his experience with church and religion and all that. Last week we were able to visit her and he sat in on the lesson. I started thinking about him a little more and I had the feeling that it would be good to invite some leaders over to the ward to start fellow shipping him more so help him feel invited and wanted at church. So yesterday, we brought the Elders Quorum President and the first counselor in the Bishopric over with us. As we talked to him, he didn't show that he ever really felt like the Book of Mormon was true or that the Church was true. From talking with him, it sounded like he was just following what his wife was doing. His idea was that there can't be a true church, because any church, like all the churches now a days, claim to have all the truth and that it causes tension among everyone. It's a good point that he has and that's why there are so many people that are against organized religion. They believe that they can worship God in their own houses in their own ways and that they'll be good. Unfortunately, from the experience I've had, most of those people hardly do anything on their own. If they really read the scriptures sincerely and prayed sincerely, they would feel obligated to do more to serve their God. I felt God's love for Santos during that visit, and I really wanted him to come back to Church. The first counselor in the Bishopric and the Elders Quorum President are very strong members and are also both converts in their adult years. They both bore powerful testimony of the Book of Mormon and the truthfulness of the restored Church and the prophets and apostles. (Side note, the Book of Mormon was the key in their conversion for both of them. I learned that even for us who have been born into the church still need the Book of Mormon to be the key of our conversion.) The Spirit was strong in that room, but I really felt like Santos wasn't going to come back to church quite yet. We'll keep working on him.

There have been a few people that I've met that have expressed feelings that they think that all the churches are just different ways to get back to the same God. It's hard to put that doubt to rest. Christ clearly taught that He was the way to get back to the Father. I really don't like comments like those. I honestly feel like that is something that the adversary puts into the hearts of as many people as possible. It keeps them from desiring to learn more and from thinking that there is one truth. One example I like to use with people is the example of Judaism versus Christianity. They both teach us to believe in God, but the Jews completely reject Christ as the Savior, so who's right? The Christians or the Jews? Was Jesus the promised Messiah or not? It's a frustrating doubt to get through, but I've seen that the example of the beliefs of the Christians versus the Jews really gets people to realize that there is one truth. That's when I can tell if people are just making excuses or if had sincerely believed that concept. Unfortunately, it is usually an excuse. Oh well, people have their agency.

There's a few other interesting insights from Jesus the Christ. I'm starting to come to the end of the book. I've been reading basically about the Savior's Atonement this week. In the Bible, Luke makes an interesting comment. In Luke 22:44 it says, "And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground." James Talmage says that many Bible Scholars doubt that He actually did sweat drops of blood because of the way Luke says it. James Talmage gives thanks to modern scriptures in that it clarifies many of the aspects of the Atonement of our Savior: "...for behold, blood cometh from every pore, so great shall be his anguish for the wickedness and the abominations of his people." -Mosiah 3:7. When I read that, I really felt the Spirit and realized what an enormous blessing it is to have the Book of Mormon. President Jeppson has advised all missionaries to refer to the Book of Mormon as "The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ" when introducing it to people. Another interesting thing that James Talmage talks about is the illegality of the trials of Jesus Christ. It was against the Jewish law for someone to be arrested at night, like Jesus was. The scribes and the high priest then commenced to hold a trial that night, which was also against the law. During the trial, the vote was unanimous to put Jesus to death. In their trials, if someone was ever convicted of death unanimously, they were to try them again and again until it wasn't unanimous. They did this to avoid those judges of secretly conspiring to put people to death. Jesus was convicted of death, and they held no second trial. As well with the death penalty, it was required of law to hold at least two trials in the case of death penalty. Again, no second trial. They also required witnesses against people to punish them. They couldn't find any witnesses against Jesus, so they found false witnesses but their 'witnesses' didn't agree with each other. Jesus was convicted for blasphemy. As Talmage words it: Jehovah was convicted for blasphemy against Jehovah. The only witness they had of His blasphemy was from His own mouth. Their law didn't allow for anyone to be convicted upon their own confession, yet that's exactly what happened to Jesus. There's even more things that were completely illegal about the trail of Jesus. But it's really interesting to read about it all. During that whole time, Jesus was completely calm. He was this way because of what He had previously said to His disciples: "but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." -John 16:33. He had indeed overcome the world and there wasn't anything in world that had power over Him. He was ultimately in charge, yet His will was perfectly in line with that of the Father's.

Love you mom!

-Justin

PS: Next week is transfers! I'm guessing that I'll stay here for my last.

PS: I accidentally hit something on the keyboard that prematurely sent my letter.

One more thing, Could you send me a CD or two from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir? I don't have any music from them, and I was thinking about how nice it would be to be able to listen to that every morning. If you could, I want one CD with the song "This is the Christ" on it. Thanks!