Season's Changing

(Letter November 14, 2011)

Well, the leaves are turning colors, and things are looking pretty different here down in Passaic. Transfer conference was pretty intense not knowing who my companion was going to be. I always have my guesses, but I was super happy with what happened. 

My new companion, believe it or not, is Elder Alex Erikson, the elder that was in my BYU ward that I told you about when I got my call. It's super cool being together, especially since we knew each other in college, made a movie together, and played a lot of ultimate frisbee together as the semester came to an end. He was also my roommate for 3 weeks in the MTC.  We are getting along really well, although it is a pretty humbling experience to be with him. He has a lot of strengths in the work, and is one of the most solid missionaries I've ever been companions with. I'm going to learn a lot from him.

We also just had Elder Taylor and Elder Ream move in with us to take over Passaic north. Elder Taylor has been out for about 6 months, and Elder Ream is only on his second transfer. He came out as an english missionary, and has just been changed to Spanish, so he's gonna have to really get hopping on the Spanish. It's ok though, he took Spanish for all 4 years of high school I'm pretty sure. It's a pretty good apartmentship.  We still have to break the ice a little bit more. They got doubled in, and have been doing super great in their area. They even set a baptismal date with Leonardo this past week.

It was sad to say goodbye to Elder Jarrett, and Elder Guinto, who was in my first apartmentship when I got here. We have plans of maybe living together while we go to BYU, but we shall see. Transfer conference was super amazing and spiritual with 3 musical numbers, and some amazing testimonies from the departing missionaries. It looks like the transfers they made were right because our whole zone did better this week (as a whole) than we have done for a long time. I'm super happy for the zone, and hopefully we can continue seeing great growth.

The transition was pretty tough trying to teach Elder Taylor, Elder Ream, and Elder Erikson about Passaic, and especially trying to help the other Passaic area with planning. But I actually didn't do that much to help them, and I don't know if that was good or bad, but they managed to pull off a great week this week. Now we don't have too many investigators to work with, and it's something we need to work on a bunch. Now we have the outskirt areas of Passaic including all the little cities of Garfield, Lyndhurst, Moonachie, Little Ferry, etc etc... We have plans to do a pilgrimage to those lands in order to find some new people and find the bajillion members we have on the ward list that we don't know. We tried quite a few of them in Garfield, and the majority of them had moved out 1 or 2 years ago. We received a new assignment last night in correlation to clean up the ward rosters anyway, so that will make things a little more interesting.

The investigators we do have are doing pretty great though. I had the privilege of confirming Silvia at church yesterday. Also, Guillermo and Gerardo are doing really well. Jennifer (The member friend) had really been doing a lot of the work for us, and even worked things out for Guillermo and Gerardo to be able to go on the 2 days trip to Cumorah this past weekend. We haven't talked to them a lot about how it went, but yesterday during priesthood they were called to the front and asked to bear their testimonies of the experience they had. They both really liked it, and learned new things, and both of them said they would like to be baptized! They are set for the 27th although we don't know how solid that is because we haven't even met their parents, and they would still need to get permission. We need to work with them a lot more, and make sure they want to get baptized for the right reasons.

Our investigator Meri is doing pretty great as well. She had a date for this upcoming Sunday, but she didn't make it to church yesterday, and we aren't sure she is quite ready. She believes that the things we teach her are true, but Elder Erikson puts it in a way, that it's only skin deep for her. She either understands everything we are teaching her and is super prepared, or she doesn't understand very much. It's still possible for her to get baptized this week, but not likely. We really need to work with her, making sure she is reading, praying, and making it to church. We really hope to see some really change of heart. She's super nice though, and is willing to listen which is great! It just might take some more time.

   

Things are still going great here in Passaic and this week should be pretty good as we have leadership training in Morristown for 2 days. I've been to it twice before, and it's more so for the new missionaries, but all the zone leaders are going, and Elder Erikson and I have to do one of the trainings. We were assigned to train/ or do a demonstration on the role of the Holy Ghost in conversion.

I'm really happy to be where I'm at. I'm so grateful to be serving with Elder Erikson, and that we already have a connection in our companionship. We already teach in pretty great unity, and I know he will teach me a lot. He is super focused on his purpose, and knows how to get things done. Sometimes it makes it easier for me to see my weaknesses, but I guess that's how I can see how I need to improve.

   

The Gospel is True! Thanks so much for all your support. Thank you for sending the Ensign, I'm excited to get in and study it when I have some more time. I love you all so much!!