I'll share the other story in this letter. Last week I helped a lady who was on the computer next to me figure out some things with her resume so I didn't have much time.
Tell Kt, "Sounds like a plan." I don't know what "tangled" is but I'm willing to see it in a few months. Hey what's all this hanging out at guys' house nonsense I keep hearing about?!
The storms at the beginning of the week were insane! The bulk of the storm all happened on Sunday and it was gail winds, crazy snow and then thunder and lightning. It burried our car under 5' of snow and then when our landlord snowblew the lot he piled it on to our car and then we had over 6' of snow on our car! It took us 4 hours to dig it out and when we finally dug it out the car battery was totally dead! I'd accidentally left my gps charging in the car because we'd used it on Sunday. So we walked all week. It was actually quite enjoyable but we couldn't be nearly as effective as if we'd had a car. Most, basically all, of our investigators live in the "more humble" parts of Jersey City called the Greenville district which is the southern 1/3 of the City. We live in Journal Square which is the just below the heights so it takes a while to walk down to Greenville. It was hecktic but fun.
That's got to be real exciting starting a new job. I guess what I can equate it to is getting transferred into a new area. You don't know anyone there, let alone the person you work and live with and you have really not much of an idea the experiences that you'll have there but you know that God has put you there for a purpose. You always know that He's going to be right there with you every step of the way and that you can always count on Him no matter what happens. I'm sure you'll do great things there and you'll fit right in. Be outgoing even though it may be uncomfortable.
I was reading a talk this morning from Clayton Christensen and he was talking about how some of the most valuable and lasting friendships that he's gained were born of a chance taken to share the Gospel. In his experience he said that every time he's invited someone to learn about the Book of Mormon they haven't been offended or damaged their relationship but rather enhanced it as they've felt the sincere love from someone who's been blessed with something great trying to share it with others.
I have one small request. I don't know why but my childhood sense was tingled this week and I have no idea where to find them, but if you could send me a bag of those animal crackers that are covered with the white and pink frosting and sprinkles with the sd card and pictures that would be awesome! I know that's a super odd request but I thought it wouldn't hurt to ask.
Not much happened this week with not having the car. We did have cool experiences with one of our investigators receiving an answer from the Spirit that the Book of Mormon is in fact the word of God and Joseph Smith was a prophet. It's really kind of cool to see how once someone really knows for a fact that those two things are true everything else falls into place. We taught him about the word of wisdom this week and he started telling us how it just came at the right time. There are a few things that he's been trying to kick for a while and this was just the thing that he needed, to know that not just others but God wanted him to stop, in order to get everything together. He's really powerfully driven by the Spirit and he's ready to do everything. We're so excited for him.
Alright the story that I had to share was the recent convert's, who got baptized last week, conversion story. We met him on the street one day and we gave him a pass-a-long card for the Book of Mormon. That month we had set a goal for the zone to fulfill the talk given by Pres. Ezra Taft Benson (awesome guy) entitled, "Flooding the Earth with the Book of Mormon." We were contacting massive amounts of people and testifying of the divinity of this testament of Jesus Christ and the impact that it's had in our own lives. He went and called the number to get the Book for free and the referral accidentally went to the wrong area so they gave it to us after about a week. We go to the address of the referral and the guy with the name that we got answered at the window and we set an appointment to get him copies in French and also Spanish and English. The hour before we met with him was when we got towed and we had all those miracles happen that were able to get us on his front step in time. The guy we scheduled the appointment with started yelling at us and telling us that we were from the devil, that he'd read about us on the internet and we worshipped Joseph Smith. We tried to explain what we really believed but he was in no mood to hear anything and just kept yelling at us. We were about to go when the door to the apartment opens and out walks the guy we contacted a week ago who has the same name as the guy who was yelling at us but he was the Jr. We talked to him and within seconds he received a testimony that the Book of Mormon was true and he was testifying to his dad that he knew it and that we were sent from God. We come to find out a little later that Sr. is a pastor from a pentacostal church and that turns out to be a big struggle because he fought us the whole way as we taught Jr. Jr.'s had some amazing experiences as we've been teaching him, from dreams where God told him to follow the Restoration to seeing worlds of opportunities open up for him as he does what God asks. One thing that impressed me about him is just how much he's sacrificed beyond anyone to be baptized. He's truly fulfilled the scripture in where we must forsake family to follow Christ. Or rather his family is forsaking him for the choices that he's made. It was tough, for us and him, to get him baptized but, eternally, we all know it's been worth it.
We're really excited for our next zone goal, we're going to be focusing on getting our investigators to church and we've created all kinds of cool things, like a miniature of a church with people and everything, to get everyone pumped up for it and we're just ready to see what the Lord has in store for all of us!
-Elder Guinto
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