Our investigators are doing really good!

Hey mom and dad,
Ya it was fun at Kruger ill send more pictures. I did not get a picture of the lion though, it was too fast and my camera was in my pocket..bummer. But it’s cool I just still need to see a leopard then I will have seen the big 5. Ha-ha … and we still have the Chevy Spark. Our car is STILL NOT FIXED. Me and Elder Robinson were talking and in the amount of time our car has been gone they could have made a whole new car! It’s crazy. Oh well the spark is always going to have a sweet spot in my heart. Oh, and by the way it did not cost that amount at Kruger that I took out. I had to pay for 3 Elders because the lady at the counter was not being Christ-like, and they just paid me back in cash, just so ya know.
Our investigators are doing really good. We now have 14 on date and they are all looking super awesome. This is really crazy if you know much about Nelspruit and how bad it’s been for missionaries lately, we are for sure being blessed ... a lot. Something cool happened the other day. We were teaching this lady Irene, she has been investigating the church for like a month and is really cool. She also has a husband and 2 kids, CJ and Cheche. CJ is 9 and Cheche is 4. So we have been teaching this family, mainly Irene, and yesterday she came to church for the second time! And she says that she loves it. But the cool thing that she was telling us was that in the morning her little girl came and woke her up and asked her if they were going to church. When she asked her what church she wanted to go to her little girl said the missionaries church, because she does not really know the name … so it was pretty cool. The lord works in cool ways and her daughter is awesome. All the people we are teaching are cool though. I could sit at the computer for hours and just tell you about each one of them. When you serve here you really gain a love for all the investigators because they are just like so precious, you don’t want to lose them. Me and my companion are also doing service at this old folks home. We go and play the guitar and sing in the hallway and everyone loves it. We were first going there to just visit the lady Betty and her husband. They are both not members but we ran into Jeffery one day, her husband, and he asked us if we would come by. He is a really cool guy. I don’t think he will ever really except the gospel but he is just a neat guy and is lonely so we decided to start seeing him and visiting his wife and the old folks home … and then it just turned into this big thing. So it’s pretty cool how things work out sometimes.
That’s good to hear about your work dad, I strangely kinda miss working there. I’m glad to hear your liking your calling though mom, the girls probably love you. And tell the triplets I hope they get feeling better. I’ll keep them in my prayers. But love you all and hope you guys have a good week.
Love, Justin

One of the best weeks yet!

Hey dad,
Good to hear from you. The church is actually like the whole top floor, besides the part right when you come up the steps. OUR CAR IS STILL NOT FIXED! It is crazy. The good news is that we still have this crappy little rental car. It’s a Chevy Spark and I can’t tell you how gay me and my companion look in it. We took some pretty funny model pictures with it though that I will have to send. I have also learned how to drive a stick, because the Spark is shift so now I actually like driving manual cars a lot better than automatics.
That’s cool you got the package off. It will probably take a little longer to get to me because we are about 5 hours from the main office, so we have to wait until a transfer meeting to pick up all our stuff but I’m really excited. And no I have no idea where that DVD is. It probably got broken in half...maybe. That’s sweet about BYU. Ya people here who are like way into sports know about BYU. Most people just watch soccer and rugby but some watch even American sports and those that do know about BYU so it’s pretty cool.
This week was so good though. It was close to one of the best weeks I have had on my mission. Me and my companion are doing really well and I am sure we are setting records for Nelspruit, or at least we will soon. We have like 4 father led families and we could possibly baptize almost 16 people in April, which would be crazy because like I have said, Nelspruit is considered one of the hardest areas in the whole mission and 16 baptisms is huge for even a really good area. We also met this sweet family, who was so perfect, it’s almost just like to good to be true. So when we leave we tell people to pray about what we are sharing and the mom did and when we went back there she told us that she prayed and she got this feeling that we had something that she wanted, and she told us that she is willing to listen to anything we have to say. Her husband also said that he has been looking for the right church for some time and he says that he will pray as well. They also have 2 sons, so it was legendary.
We also went to Kruger National Park yesterday that’s why I did not email, and it was so cool. We almost saw the big 5 which is the elephant, lion, rhino, buffalo, and leopard. The only one we did not see was the leopard. It was so cool though. I don’t know how much about Kruger you know but it’s a really famous park in South Africa that has basically all the animals in Africa in it, and you drive around in the car and just go wherever and try to find them. We saw this tiger kill a monkey and run off in the trees and eat it. Lot’s a cool stuff. The animals are not tamed or anything they just live in the wild. We also got charged by 2 elephants, it was scary but after it was cool. Later we read that you are not supposed to go close to the elephants or they will tip the car, and we could like touch them for how close they were. But yes, this was the week … it was awesome.
Yes we did hear about the stuff in Japan, that’s terrible. I can’t believe how much damage it did we will definitely pray for them.
But it’s good to talk to you dad hope the week was good, how is work going? You never really let me know how all the guys are doing and how work is so let me know. But thanks love ya.
Love, Justin


Hey mom,
It’s good to hear from you. I’m excited for the package, hope it comes soon. And a lot of your questions I answered in dads email. But there are about 100 and something members in our ward and about 50-60 come to church each Sunday. And basically all the people we are teaching are from our own efforts sadly, because we are supposed to get member work going but it’s very hard because people do not realize that it is the job of the members to find people, like friends and such, because they already have that relationship of trust with them. As for missionaries it’s much harder because no one knows who we are. We are just weird people that come knocking at doors. I mean you think about it, when a salesman or a Watch Tower or something comes to our door you just basically think..crap I do not want to talk to this person. I don’t have time for this and that’s really what most people think of us. And what makes it even harder is that a lot of people here have huge gates with massive dogs and with intercoms so it makes it like extra hard to get in. So the members definitely make an impact in the work or at least they should.
But anyway that’s cool that Carrie and Mike found a place, and its cool to hear your doing well. Just remember not to get to stressed, you have to relax sometimes even though it feels like you need to be busy all the time. Try to find some quite time. Remember Elder Uchtdorf talk last conference, the things that matter most. I loved that talk it has helped me a lot so far on my mission. But I’m going to try and send some pictures from Kruger Park, but it’s good to hear from you mom, love to hear from you.
Love, Justin

This week has been tuff, but it's going well!

Hey mom and dad,
Its good to hear from you guys as always. This week has been tuff but it’s still going quite well. Our car is still not done so we just barely went to the GM dealer because he said it would be done today, and of course it was not. I accidentally kinda blew up on him and I am still a little heated. I’m tired of them just walking all over us and giving us empty promises. I feel kinda bad but he could tell I was about ready to explode so he gave us a rental car at no charge, so I guess its kinda better. It’s just very frustrating when you feel like you’re wasting the Lords time because someone is slacking on their job. My feet freaking hurt and I’m extremely tired because we have had to walk all over the place and basically run to appointment on busy highways with cars nearly hitting us....but its fine, because each door I knock my wife gets more attractive! That's what elder Robinson tells me.

But it really has been a good week. We are looking very good with our investigators. We might not have too many baptisms this month due to "car problems" but our month in April should explode. I think we will set a new record in Nelspruit. We have already almost gotten more baptisms then they had in the past year, so it’s pretty cool. We are teaching very cool people as well. There is this man called Frick and he is the most amazing man I have ever met. Sadly, I cannot tell his story over the internet because its kind of a serious matter. But let’s just say he puts Rambo to shame. He is about 60 or so and has an incredible story. I really wish I could tell you but Elder Atkinson said we can’t talk about it on-line. He is the brother of the wife’s husband who got baptized last week, the one who I was talking about, and he has such a strong testimony. We are just waiting on clearance for him to get baptized from the First Presidency. We also have many other good people on date. We are just really trying to focus on teaching people not lessons. We don’t want to baptize less actives, we are really making sure people have a testimony before we baptize them. I’m not baptizing people just to get a number and to look good for the President. I want to baptize people who are truly converted and have that change of heart.
But our church is right behind Richman Poorman store in the same parking lot upstairs. If you look, it’s in like a green gate, and we are on the second floor. There should be a sign that says Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, if the google earth thing is up to date that is. It does not look anything like a church. And that flat you saw is ours, the one with the bikes. It’s like a 2-story flat so the top is ours as well.
That’s a shame about BYU. It’s crazy, people hear have heard of the BYU basketball team. Some guy we were teaching was talking about them. It’s so crazy how popular they are getting. They are probably making history, or at least they were. I’m also really excited to get the package. I’m excited for the books and cd’s, if at all possible could you maybe put some toe nail clippers in there, that would be awesome. I cannot find any here for some reason. And mom that’s cool about your Young Woman. I’m glad that went really well. And if you could put some reeses peanut butter cups, those things are the bomb, that would be cool. I miss them quite a lot. But thanks a lot for everything, I’m always excited for the emails. Take care, love you both.
Love, Justin