Side Note from Dad's weekly email: "Well, this boy is growing! I am taller now (I don't know how much) and I've put on 15 more pounds.
Out in front of my apartment
The City Streets
Weekly update:
Well this is my second week here in Ironbound New Jersey!! This week went by much faster than the first week! So I was thinking of just doing a paragraph for each day or a couple sentences so email me if you liked this email better when I go in chronological order! I'll write it like it's a journal or something... let me know if u like it!
MONDAY: Today was my first P Day!! I did the same thing I do every morning. Woke up at 6:30 and prayed. Then I get up and shower and then make breakfast! This week most of my breakfasts were eggs and hash browns mixed together! It's actually bomb! And then I have a bowl of cereal and after that I have some blueberry egos. Then at 8 I started personal study (the first 7 hours of the day are usually the same except p day and Sunday) then at like 8:30 we left to do our laundry. It was my first time doing laundry at a laundry mat... it's a lot more expensive than I thought! As the clothes washed we did comp study. After the clothes were dry we headed off to Walmart to buy groceries! (The best part of the week) I got a ton of food for the week and I also got a little George Forman grill which has been a life saver! I use that thing twice a day! Making chicken and stuff:). After Walmart we went home and emailed for like 30 min then we decided to go to the church and play some volleyball and basketball. We played till like 5:30 and then we went home. We went out contacting and set up two appointments which was pretty good! Most people we talk to don't even smile or say hi back but that's alright! That evening I saw a huge group of people so we went over and in the middle was a guy unconscious and then the cops showed up and a couple min later he woke up but didn't remember his name or what day it was or where he was... pretty crazy stuff so we left.
TUESDAY: Today I was on an exchange with Elder Trask and he was a Korean speaking elder for the first 7 months of his mission which is super cool because my dad went to Korea on his mission! He has been and English elder for the past 4 months! They don't even have the Korean speaking mission here in jersey anymore... They got rid of it right when I got here! He was super cool and I leaned a lot from him! We had tons of appointments which is different from the Spanish elders... Elder Trask said almost everyone they talk to will set up an appointment with them! We have to talk to people all day long to set up 1 appointment! Anyway it was a good day and I got to do it in English but I kinda missed the people in my area and missed speaking Spanish! Also his area we walked and rode busses everywhere! My area is supposed to be a walking area but we were given bikes by a member!
WEDNESDAY: I was still on the exchange today and we were serving in north newark which has some pretty nice places and has some really ghetto and hood areas! We had to go to a meeting pretty early that day and it was just over an hour drive! We had to go to East Brunswick for the meeting. We left like and hour and a half before the meeting started and it was only 1 hour and 5 min drive so we planned on being early.... except we took like 3 wrong turns and ended up on toll roads and had to pay like 10 dollars in tolls... long story short we were like 15 minutes late! Which is super scary because the presidents moto is "15 minutes early is on time, being on time is late, and being late is unacceptable" any way the meeting was like 7 hours and I learned a lot but I hate meetings! Sister Taggart did make us super good BBQ sandwiches for lunch though! We had a long drive home and I needed to go back and pack up to go back to my area... it was raining super hard when we got to his house so by the time we got to the front door we were already soaked and they took forever to unlock the door! They also had NO food at their apartment which sucked! So that evening I went back home and we started street contacting and as we were headed home I saw something walk across the road. I thought it was just a cat but then It came out from under a car and it was a possum! The first one I have seen!
THURSDAY: I woke up and got ready for the day like usual and had breakfast. From 8-9 we do personal study and I have just been reading the Book of Mormon which is super good! I am almost done with 1st nephi! Then from 9-10 we do companion study then from 10-11 we do "12 week" it's what the trainers do with us and help us learn what we need to know during the first 12 weeks on a mission. Then from 11-12 we do language study which is usually on my own... I'm trying to get my comp to help me more but I'm sure he will help me more soon! Then from 12-1 we have lunch. This is pretty much how the first have of the day goes everyday! After lunch we went to the church to help with the English class. We teach people English and it's a really good way to have people become investigators! After that we contacted and that night we had an appointment with investigators who made us something pretty weird... she got egg whites and whipped it up and put it on an Icecream cone for us... and some weird oatmeal water stuff... it wasn't terrible but definitely wasn't good!
FRIDAY: The days are going by much quicker than last week! We started the day with studies and then we went to a service project but we got there and it was supposed to be yesterday... so we came back home and I grilled some chicken and made some corn! I love cooking here on the mission! We knocked a lot of doors today! But we never really have luck knocking doors because nobody has their own door, it's a door to like 5 different houses so they can't hear it. They do have door bells but idk if they work often because very few people actually came to the door! We got hungry so we went to Elm Street BBQ! It was super good Portuguese food! It was a Brazilian BBQ! If any of you don't know what that is well it's a choice of meat, a pile of fries, and an even bigger pile of rice... it was so good! After that we went to the park and some Jehovah witnesses talked to us for a while. We just talked about the Bible and stuff. They were super surprised on how many things we had in common and they were even more surprised that we were nice to them and didn't want to argue! We went home a little early so I decided to clean my room where we study because when I got there it was so dirty and disorganized so I spent like an hour getting it all organized and it was worth it for sure! I hate being dirty and unorganized! I got that from my parents which I'm super grateful for!
SATURDAY: today was a pretty eventful day! I started the day as usual and then we had a meeting at the church. When we got there, there was a crazy member that said "follow me" and we told him we had to go somewhere and we were about to be late but he replied and said "do you guys want to go home?! If not then follow me, this is much more important than whatever you are about to do!" So he showed us a little bit of graffiti on the top floor that said some things... anyway he told us who he thinks it was and then we walked in late to our meeting... after the meeting we rode our bikes home from the church which is like 3 miles from home. As we rode home we went through the park and we talked to someone and taught him a lesson and put him on date to be baptized! After that we had lunch and started knocking doors. Not much success with doors as usual! But we kept at it! We then went to contact at the park but nobody was interested in hearing more about the gospel. As we were riding around a man stopped us at the park and asked us if we could help him find his lost grandson so we started looking. The mom and sister were screaming and crying and were going crazy! After a while of looking the police showed up with the boy so there was a good ending to that story! Later that evening we talked to a lady who said she wanted to hear more about the religion so we sat down and started talking. She told us so many things about her life... she was really struggling with the word of wisdom so we taught her a lot about that and about repentance. She really enjoyed the talk and wanted to know more so we invited her to church and she said she would come!! (This whole time we were talking to her she kept flirting with me so that was pretty awkward) she said she wanted to be baptized so we put her on date as well! After that we were going home and then two people started fighting so we watched for a second and then left and went home.
SUNDAY: well I started the day as usual then we went to church. We had like 5 investigators who said they would come to church but only 2 of them came but 2 less actives also came so that was pretty neat! We were sad when we didn't see Isidoro show up but it was probably because his phone... also when I was at church a member gave me a cool ring so that was nice!After church we got home and had lunch then went out to the park and started contacting as always! We hoped we would see Isidoro there but we never saw him... we talked to a couple people who kinda seemed interested but we only set up one appointment. I swear every single person here is Catholic! We were at the park talking to people until it got dark and set up 1 more appointment and handed out lots of cards with a picture of Jesus and our number! I also found out that they found 5 bombs like 5 min from my house! That was pretty crazy!
Well that was my week! I feel like its way too long but just let me know what you think and if I should keep doing it like this. I love this gospel and all the blessings it provides! I know that this church is true and there is so many people here that need to know about the church! I love listening to EFY and church music! The Book of Mormon is awesome and I invite you all to read it or continue to read it! There is so much help that can come from that book! Remember who you are and don't forget to pray often, love everyone, work hard, and never forgot who you are a son or daughter of! Keep your standards high and don't let anyone let you lower them! I love you all! <3
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