Wow sounds like one crazy Thanksgiving week that you guys had! We had a pretty crazy one ourselves but not in the way of weather. I definitely felt a little sting of homesickness on Thanksgiving day. We had our dinner with Dave Zumbrennan, he's like the mission dad in Jersey City and he really takes care of the missionaries. We had a lot of really good food but it really made me miss Thanksgivings back home. Another family gave us food as well. All in all it was pretty good.
Boy I'm excited for Christmas! I should tell you to send me another email before Saturday. We're doing our temple trip on Saturday so that will be our preparation day for next week so I'll email you then. It's hard to believe that it's already December! As far as clothing they pretty much have all the same stores as they do on the west coast. We live in a heavily populated city here so between having two malls we basically have everything. Just for reference, even if you already bought everything it's nice to know, for tops I wear between a small and a large and for pants it's safe to go between a 32"-34" waist.
One thing I did want to make sure and say is that I decided to not ask president to switch to the Spanish program. I've been thinking about it a lot lately and even though my Spanish has been improving a lot lately and I've been using it a lot and I really would like to serve in the Spanish program, it would definitely be because it's something that I want. If it's something that the Lord wants then the mission president will be inspired to make the assignment and I am content to do whatever the Lord asks of me. For now he's asked me to lend my talents and skills to the English-speaking people and so I am happy to serve them.
So I do have to get this out of the way, if you haven't seen it already there's a substantial withdrawal from my checking account which should appear as a withdrawal of 102$ and 62$. I realize that's a huge amount of money but there's a really cool story that goes with it.
We had gone to meet with an investigator at the Newport Mall and we decided to park in the BJ's parking lot, which we've parked in several times. We crossed the street to go to the mall but we couldn't find him there and he wasn't answering his phone so after about 15 minutes we abandoned the pursuit for that time and went back to the car. When we entered the parking lot, somewhat sad that we weren't able to meet with that investigator we both came to a complete halt. We looked around, we looked at each other, the same thought clicked in both our minds which we voiced vocally, "We parked the car right there right?" It was gone! We stood there looking around for a few minutes and probably altogether looking pretty dumb trying to figure out what had happened to the car. My first thought was that they had towed it but there was no way that they could've towed it that fast and we'd done nothing wrong that I could've thought of. My next that was that it had gotten stolen. Luckily there was a nice lady parked right behind where we had parked and we asked her what happened. She told us that she'd seen the car get towed, but what's more it had gotten towed only three minutes after we'd left the car. We called the police and found out that we weren't supposed to park in the parking lot if we weren't going to BJ's and the lot was under close camera surveillance. We went into BJ's and talked with an employee about getting our car back. They told us that we needed to talk with a supervisor who was currently stationed between isles 12 & 13. We walk between isles 12 & 13 and one of the members that we know happens to be doing their shopping in isle 12. They were flabbergasted to see us there because they had actually just been talking about us and here we come. We talked to the supervisor who told us our car was across town and was actually about to close and if we didn't get our car that night we would lose the car for the whole holiday weekend! Magically the member was right there and was more than happy to give us a ride and to convince us to keep the appointment that we had in a couple minutes which we were in the process of canceling when we saw him. We rushed over and for some reason I was just in the most peachy mood for someone getting towed. I was happy as a little toad in a swamp. On the way there I was told that we'd probably have to pay cash and the thought came that I could only withdraw in 20's so I thought hey I think I might brighten the tow guys day a little bit and give him a nice little tip with whatever's left over. We got there and found out that they didn't have change so I had to give them the tip anyway but it was good that I was in the mood for it in the first place. Anyway we rush off to the appointment which is with a referral and we have a hard time finding the place but fortunately we find it and so does the member that we'd scheduled to bring with us. We knock on the door and the man answers and starts yelling at us. He tells us that we're no good and that he read about us online and that he believes in God and we're of the devil because we believe in Joseph Smith and not God. We tried for a few minutes to explain the truth to him but he was definitely not in the mood to hear as whenever we tried to respond he would just repeat what he had previously affirmed in increasing loudness and intensity. We saw that this wasn't going anywhere and were about to leave. After we asked him if he knew anyone who would be willing to listen and he smartly told us no, the door to the apartment complex opens and out walks a young man we'd met on the street the previous week and given a pass-along-card to. Turns out that this young man is the man's son and has the same name as him only he's the Jr. He's the one who ordered the Book of Mormon. After a short meeting with him, amidst the screams and competitive shouts of his father, the young man received a testimony that the Book was true and began testifying to his father that he was feeling the Spirit and he knew that this Book of Mormon, us missionaries, and this church was from God! It was really cool in that moment to see how the Devil was doing everything to keep us from being there and God had given a way for us to be in the right place at the right time.
We saw many more miracles this week in which we met people for the first time and after feeling the Spirit were in tears at the love and mercy God was extending towards them. I'm really beginning to understand my purpose out here the more that I lose myself in this wonderful service. It really is true. It really is. And I'm loving every minute of it.
-Elder Guinto
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