Old Pictures

A while back, Justin sent a bunch of pictures that I couldn't get to work on the blog for some reason.  I think I finally got it figured out, so here you go...better late then never :)

Most of these were taken just before he left Botswana.  Sorry it took me so long :)

More and more tracting...

Hey mom and dad,
Good hearing from you like always. That is crazy that Matt gets home soon, I can’t believe it. Well I’m not really too sure of what to talk about in this email. We have just been doing a lot, and some more tracting. We are really trying to find some more people and it’s been quite hard but everything is going well. We went and got this huge map from this Home Affairs building and put it up in our room. It’s huge so you can see each of the plots, and when we go tracting we come back and mark the map where we tracted and put different colors on the homes depending on how they acted. For example; Red dot - not interested at all, don’t go back. Green dot - nice but not interested, go back later. Purple dot - seems interested, check on. Orange dot - former investigator. Blue dot - member.  I know this probably seems boring to you but we were both really excited. We think that this will really help the area grow in the future. So I hope it will help. We have currently been bringing Neilson with us teaching which has been awesome, he loves coming teaching with us and he really wants him and his wife to go on a mission some day. It’s funny though, we were at Frik’s house and we were in his room and he had all these canes, like to walk on, and Neilson was looking at them and he realized that like all of them turned into swords! It was really funny. Frik by the way is like the Rambo guy and he just has like all these crazy weapons in his room and he is like 60 something. So Neilson was getting a good kick out of that, it was really funny.
Thank you for the pictures by the way they were awesome. If you can keep sending them. Dad looks awesome by the way it looks like you have lost a lot, and I can tell Mike has been hitting up the iron, even though he is wearing a thin jacket.
So, I’ve been thinking about stuff for the package, and I was thinking you could send me some just regular t-shirts from like D.I. I need some more shirts. I was also thinking about maybe some pop-tart smores, for some reason I have been craving pop-tarts, I have no idea why. And I think I will just buy like an electric razor here if that is okay, my face is getting cut up now from the dull razor I have and I think it would be better if I just buy one of those and not worry about it anymore. But that’s just all the stuff I can think of. Thanks though for everything. I wanted to send pictures but I left the thing in the car. Take care though love you all.
Love, Justin

I have a new companion!

Hey mom and dad,
Its good to hear from you, and no I did not get transferred to Witbank. Witbank is on the way to Joburg and we passed through there when I dropped off my companion and got a new one, his name is Elder Williams. He is from Canada and so far we are both getting along very well. I just keep waiting for the Lord to give me a hard companion but I just continue to get really good companions.
Nelson has not got his I.D. yet and things are still going a little heck-tick with him. But he just continues to smile and to thank God for everything. He received the priesthood yesterday and we are going to teach him how to say the sacrament prayer for next time. It’s going to be really cool, I’m really excited to hear him say it. He has come a really long way.
Well, the week has been pretty good. Been doing a lot of tracting. I’ve been getting a little stressed because we do not have enough people for our trimester of ten and we are like 6 behind so we have just been trying to do a lot of finding, which has not been too successful. A while ago, me and Elder Robinson were tracting this street and this one house did not answer, just like many houses, and I always felt like we should go back to that house but we never did. But when Elder Williams came I was trying to find that house again. We finally found it and they actually let us in. It was a pretty wealthy family and we were able to get a return appointment, which usually does not happen with these types of homes. So I hope that will turn out well.
Oh, and I also got proposed to the other day. So far I have been asked out on a date a few times but this was a new experience. We were teaching a recent convert, Bongiewe, and her sister was there. And as we were teaching, just randomly she asked me if I was married. I began to explain to her that we do not get married for 2 years and we get married when we go back home. Then it just got super awkward and she was telling me how I need to come back to Africa and get married there … and it was just super awkward. Everyone in the room was just laughing and yes ... I got proposed to.
We were also able to go play with the orphans again this week. We bought them a soccer ball and they went crazyyy! We played with them for a while and I noticed that they were all playing with their shoes off, so I thought well … if a little boy can play with his shoes off I’m sure I can. So I did and my feet were all cut up and bleeding within like 5 minutes, I swear to you. And they are just sitting here playing for hours with their shoes off … while owning us I might add in the process. But the week has been good, not too much to update you on just a hard but good week. Need to do a lot more finding.

That’s pretty cool you saw Terik today. Next time you see him tell him I say “Call of Duty!” I’m excited to see all those guys when I get back. I guess Matt gets back fairly soon as well, it’s crazy how fast time goes. Ha … I was laughing pretty hard by the way dad said he was going to build an ark. I can sadly kinda picture that going on in our back yard. Might be kinda cool, you should try it....just in case.  But thanks for everything I’ll be looking forward to hearing from you guys next week. Take care, love ya all.
Justin

Hello!

Hello!
Hey it’s good to hear from you guys again. Yes the elephant ride was really fun. I think it was like a once in a lifetime thing so that was cool. I don’t think I will be leaving this fiery pit till August....but I really do love it here. We set a trimester goal of 10 which is extremely high for Nelspruit so once my companion leaves this Wednesday a lot of the pressure is on me to make this goal, I’m sure everything will be fine though. The week so far has been really good.
I gave a talk yesterday on family's and it went really well. I spoke after 2 of the recent converts that we baptized. That was also really cool to hear them give a talk. In my talk I was talking about mom and how you have such a fear of bears, and whenever we went hiking you thought a bear was going to kill us. Everyone was laughing. I can’t really explain to you how that fit in with my talk but it did and everyone told me to tell you that you should come to South Africa because there are no bears here.
Things are going well here though, we are planning on baptizing this family of 5 so that would be super cool. They’re a very good family and they have come to church 2 times and have seemed to like it. On Saturday we were helping them repair a roof and as we were walking up to their house some strange white people walked out of their house and looked at us and said "are you the Mormons?" And we said yes, then they just walked away … it was Jehovah’s witnesses, boom score 1 for the missionaries! They were mad because they knew that they had no chance.
Ha that’s really funny about Jared I cannot ... cannot picture him dancing in any shape or form, but that's cool. You just need to get dad up there now :) I hope you took pictures of that.
That’s also true about what you said when we see people with those type of possessions, it makes us realized how blessed we are. Every Saturday we go to this old folks home and play the guitar, they all seem to like it and I think that same thing when we go there.
So I have decided to start the Book of Mormon over again, but this time I am marking everything in blue that talks, gives reference to or just talks about Christ at all. It has made me realize how much the Book of Mormon testifies of Christ and just points people to him. I decided to do that because it seems like a lot people’s concerns lately have been that we are not Christian..which is absolutely crazy. A Christian obviously is anyone that teaches about or focuses on the teachings of Christ, and recognizes him as their Savior and Redeemer. So that’s what my studies have been about lately. Even if you just go in the back of the index and search Jesus Christ..there is like a billion things talking and testifying of him. Some people are just funny and don't understand. Oh well, the Lord knows who He wants in his church and we are really just along for the ride.  There is a scripture that I really like in the Book of Mormon in 2 Nephi 33 that talks about how the Book of Mormon will point you to Christ because that is its main purpose. But I am done talking about this now. Thanks for the email though, I will let you know how everything is going with Nelson. We are going to go play soccer with him today. But hope you guys have a good week love you guys.
Justin 

Happy Mothers Day!

As most of you know, this past Sunday was Mother's Day.  So Justin was able to call home and talk to the family!  It was so great to hear his voice and talk with him.  My mom said it was one of the best Mother's Day gifts ever!  Justin is doing very well and seems to be getting used to the life of a Missionary.  He has truly grown so much, is loving South Africa and it's people and is developing a strong Testimony of the Gospel. We were all able to talk to him a little bit. I have to say that it feels like we just finished talking to him from the time he was able to call home at Christmas!  Time seems to be flying by so fast, Justin said he also felt like we had just talked and that time was going by so fast for him.  He misses all of his friends and family, and says Hi to everyone.  He also thanked everyone for their support, it has helped him a lot.  On his P day he was able to go on an Elephant ride!  He did not write a letter this week because he was able to talk with us, but he did send some pictures of the fun time he had riding. 

I have to apologize that I have gotten behind on the post's.  This month has been a crazy month for me and my family, so I had a hard time getting to a computer.  I am all caught up now and recently put on about 4 letters that he had sent in the last month along with some pictures.  I hope you are all enjoying reading Justin's letters, and I hope you all had a wonderful Mothers Day! 

Love Tara

 Justin getting into the baptismal font

 Looks like fun!



We had a crazy storm!

Hey Mom and Dad,
Ya the storm was crazy I will try to send some pictures of it. And ya, it was awesome when we heard Nelson was able to get a job, so the baptisms for this month are going to be on the 24th, and we should be getting 7 in total, which is crazy because as of the last year, missionaries had 3.... so its pretty amazing. Not saying that I am this great missionary, but just to all the missionary's who paved the way for us. Sometimes I honestly like to think that its me and my companion that all the credit is for but its not that way at all. All the credit goes to those missionaries who knocked empty doors all day and felt like they had no success when in reality they were just paving the way for us. Then obviously all the credit goes to are Heavenly Father.  We have also just been continuing to find people and now we have found 2 more father led family's that seem pretty good. So really everything is going well.  I'm so excited for Frick to be baptised and really everyone, its one of the coolest things on a mission to just slowly see the progression in all your investigators and just to see how they really change and become converted.
Its good to hear everything is well at home. And Dad, how is your throat doing?  It seems like you are doing well so that's good. Its probably nice being home alone sometimes. I think about what its going to be like when I go home and there is someone not always by my side. I think its going to be very strange. I have just seemed to have gotten so used to it, everything is just becoming 2nd nature to me. I have noticed when you really just start getting up in the work time goes by sooooooo fast, its really quite crazy, and scary. Ha ha that's funny about moms "shrine". It's nice that she saves everything that we have given to her over the years.  I have not got the package yet but it should be here on Friday because that's when the zone leaders are coming up and they have all are mail and so I'm hoping I'll get it then along with other letters and things. I'm really excited to watch general conference we are going to watch it this week on Saturday and Sunday, so I'm excited for that. That's really really true what you say about how there is temples in every room of the house, for some reason it seems like we have been teaching that alot lately, about how we are all temples and its very true and something that we all should take seriously. Well nothing super crazy has really happened to us this week, its just been a good week to see all of are investigators getting ready for baptism.  I will try to find little things in life that make me happy. In my journal I feel weird writing to myself, so I have just decided to write down miracles in my journal that I see everyday.  I have just decided that I like doing that better, and sometimes its not everyday that you will see some crazy miracle happen but even realizing the small things that we should be grateful for add up, and that's when you realize how much you are blessed and how much God loves you.  Love you guys very much! I will talk to you guys next week.
Love, Justin

4 new baptisms this month

Hey mom and dad,

Sadly I do not have a ton of time to write, because it took some time to send the pictures, but this week was really good. We got a total of 4 baptisms this month and achieved our trimester goal, something that has not been done within the last 6 years in Nelspruit. And our Zone also did the best in the mission, so we all had a really good few months. I hope we can keep it up.

I am super tired right now. We went on a pretty big hike this morning and I’m tarnished (I don’t know if that’s the right word but it sounds tiring). But Neilson finally came back from training from being a fire fighter. I can’t remember if I told you this but before he left I told him that if he read the Book of Mormon every day until he reached the end he would speak English perfect. So we went to his house when he told us he was back … and we’re just catching up, and I asked him if he had been reading like I told him. He reached up on his book shelf and grabbed the Book of Mormon, turned it open and showed me where he was. He was in 3 Nephi! I could not believe it. For someone that hardly speaks any English and read that far in 3 weeks, it is nothing short of a miracle. You could not believe how well he can read and how well he can speak now. His testimony is so strong and he told us that he has to be baptized, it was a really awesome experience. Frick (Rambo) was also baptized and that was super powerful. We also baptized this girl Nolwazi who is also a really awesome girl. It’s just been a really good week, we should also have a really good month next month as well.

I can’t tell you how much the lord has blessed us. Me and my companion were just talking the other day about how we could not even imagine our lives without our missions now. It’s just crazy, you can’t even picture it or picture were you would be if you were not here … it’s a great feeling.

I’m sorry to both you though for not being able to answer all your questions. I’m afraid it’s going to be the same this week. I just won’t send any pictures next time so I can just spend time writing. But I am reading the books you sent me. We are reading Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith with this really awesome recent convert Barney. His brother in-law is Frick by the way. And so we are going to be doing that. And on my personal time, which is not much, I have been reading Return. It’s a very good book I like it a lot and. I will have to check out that page about missionaries mom, thanks.

We also had a funeral this week for one of our members daughters. It was sad but the way they do funerals here is really cool and interesting, especially at the burial site. Everyone just like brakes down in traditional African music and dances (it sounds super cool), while all the men take turns shoveling the dirt into the hole. Also something kinda funny happened to my companion. On the program it said that he had to dedicate the grave! Ha-ha, it was funny because he had no idea how to do that and no one told him, so he just did the best he could.

Also I have a question. My companion wanted to do this thing called Elephant Whispers, were you get to like ride elephants and stuff, it’s very cool. He wanted to do it before he leaves. It coasts like 50 bucks so I don’t know if you got the money from my air-soft guns or not, or if that’s okay to do. Just let me know if you sell my air-soft guns. I guess just do them for whatever price. Dad, I think, should kinda know about the price. But thank you very much and tell everyone I say hi. Love all of you and have a good week.

Love, Justin

 Nelson, Nolwazi and Frick

Neilson got a job!

Hey Mom and Dad,
Dad, sorry to hear your not doing well after your surgery, I wish you a speedy recovery. I like how mom was looking on the upside of things saying that you will be loosing 20 pounds, that was kinda funny. Ya Nielsen is so cool, its crazy all the stuff he has been threw but I have really good news, HE GOT A JOB! Man,  I wanted to cry when he told us. He somehow got a job as a fireman, and now he is training for a couple of weeks, it was a huge huge blessing and shows that god really does care, if we are able to endure are trials well, god will bless us, and Nielsen does deserve this more than anyone. I love that guy! I want to send pictures of him they are not on my camera though. I think I sent some to Angie of him, but I cant remember. But ya we have not seen General Conference yet. It takes some time to get here, we should be watching it later in the month, I'm excited though.
So this past week we had a crazy storm, the worst storm I have ever seen. I didn't know if it was on the news or anything but it made a lot of damage. Nothing happened to us though, but some homes were torn down, walls knocked over and trees where just like flying down the road, it was crazy. The funny thing is though is there is this tent here where this guy performs "miracles" and it has been a huge thing here. but guess what happened to his little tent. It flew away!  To bad :).
Its been a good week, are investigators are doing well my companion did not get transferred and Frick got clearance from the first presidency! So I will have baptised the REAL Rambo, I will have that be known!
That's really cool they are talking about temples. Last night we were watching the Joseph smith movie. The long one with this lady Irene, who is on date for the 24th and we had a really good talk about temples. Oh, and dad, I don't know if you know this but what does the MPC stand for on the stands in the Kirkland temple? Me and my companion where trying to figure it out and we have no idea. I'm guessing something about there priesthood but I'm not sure.
And, about my air soft guns.  I don't care how much you sell them for, all together they are probably worth like 200 maybe.  But I really don't care what you sell them for.
Thanks for the email, I hope you getting feeling better dad. I will pray for you. Love you both! Hear from you guys next week.

Love Justin