Letter 9:: 11/26/ 2012

Heeeyyy familia and friends :) how is everything going back in there
whereever you are. Im just chillin here in New Jersey. haha but I got
 your email dad and that is all really cool too here John is way
 awesome and I am suuuppper excited to just do the best I can out here.
 Oh ya and you should totally send me a copy of that letter from the
 church that sounds really cool and I would love to see it!!
 So ya i dont really know where to begin.. so much has happened in the
 last week it is kind of crazy my mind is just now starting to get used
 to it a little. I guess I will tell you about my mission a little
 more... I was called to serve in a little town called Passaic it is
 sooooo sweet. It is basically a little Mexico/Dominican Republic. I am
 pretty sure we are the only ones in the town who are not hispanic and
 it is awesome. The are is pretty ghetto and the people are soo cool
 and really humble. Oh and also my companion is awesome. I am honestly
 pretty positive I got the best trainer possible in the mission. I know
 that titles dont really matter but he just served as assitant to the
 president for 6 months so he knows how to work hard, be obedeint, and
 do work. Heavenly Father definatley answered my prayers because that
 is all I asked for. Plus he is a goof and super fun to be around so ya
 I am really excited to work with him. He is from Arizona and has about
 four months left in his mission. So i might be his last companion here
 in this small town.

 But really I love it here. It definately is hard like I expected it to
 be but already I have felt so much joy out here and I know it is going
 to be a great two years. The hardest thing for me is probably learning
 the language. i feel like I know the lessons well but I cant teach
 them in spanish at all so in our lessons I find it hard to say what I
 want to or to say anything at all, but my comp. is real good at
 including me and prompting me to speak even if I dont necessarily want
 to. So I will keep working on that and I know it will come with time.
 Yesterday was my first day at church and it was great. On saturday we
 were informed that we were speaking in church.. there are four elders
 in our ward and we all live together by the way and all of us get
 along really well..but ya so I gave my first talk yesterday..in
 spanish. I was really nervous before but as I was speaking I felt calm
 and peaceful which was definately an answer to prayers cause I was
 praying sooo much before my talk that it would go well. Hopefully it
 made sense. The members told me that I did better than most new elders
 when they speak for the first time and that my spanish is really good
 for being new.. hopefully they are telling the truth. So ya there are
 four of us in a spanish branch down here in passaic. It is definately
 a lot different than Utah . The building we go to church in is a small
 building down town with a Night Club next door and Graffiti on the
 side of it but it is really cool and the members are sooo awesome and
 will do anything to help us. They also make us soo much food.. which
 probably isnt a good thing. I dont think I have ever had so much food
 on thanksgiving in my whole life. we had two dinner appointments. The
 first house had so much good food and I tried to pace myself but I was
 still stuffed,, Then we went to our next appointment and she brought
 out this huge plate of food and it did not look good.. I kind of got
 sick but we had to eat it. It was cold, I was stuffed, and I could
 barely swallow it, but we got to know the members that lived there
 really well and shared a good message with them which is what matters
 haha.Then my companion and I thought there was going to be food at our
 next appointment and I was going to die.. but thank goodness there
 wasnt :) We were SO grateful. It was a great thanksgiving. But really
 it isnt even hard to love these people because they are so humble and
 grateful and really will do anything for us. Me and my companion are
 new to this area and there werent any investigators when we got here.
 But a lot of the work we are doing now is getting to know the members
 and helping them and we just started finding some new investigators.
 It really is sooo cool teaching the gospel. It makes you feel soo good
 and you know it is the right thing to do. I have already had many
 experiences this week that have confirmed that this is where i need to
 be. Everything seems just right.

 Oh ya and also this last week we had two full day of servive with the
 mormon helping hands for the hurricane. It really put things into
 perspective about what really matters after seeing some of those
 house. we went to houses down on The jersey shore and basically had to
 tear our everything that molded because of the water which is like 4
 or 5 feet up there wall and down from there it was crazy. I will send
 you some pictures and also we went to a trailer park and some trailers
 were just completely torn apart and flipped over. I really felt for
 these people and I am not going to lie I was worried about getting my
 new shoes dirty as we started service there cuz everyones shoes were
 just torn apart but after seeing some of these people and all the
 stuff that they lost in the hurricane I decided it really is not that
 big of a deal and if that is what I have to give up to help these
 people so be it. So ya it was a lot of hard working days when we
 served and it never felt so nice to be in my bed but it was a good
 experience too and awesome to see how many people want to help. The
 people are really grateful too and hopefully it peeked some interest
 for them in the church.

 I dont know what else to say.. Oh I wont be sending my passport home
 it is locked in a safe in the mission home so we are all good... and I
 dont need any service shoes cuz I got some sweet boots for free from
 some of the members down here, Ya so LOVE YOU all, have a great week.

 Ps. my pday is monday so that is when I can email :) Oh and we get to
 go to Manhattan here pretty soon to go to the temple :) :) that is
 actually our missions temple and we get to go twice a year. So ask me
 if you have any other questions next week before monday haha so I can
 talk to you then. BYYYYEEEE!