E-mail received 3/8/2010

I'm glad you got the photos. Yeah i've lost more weight since then. I'm down to 217! Woo! I'm not so much getting slimmer anymore so much as I'm getting ripped. (pronounce rip-ed) I can print pictures myself here at the walmart so if I want prints of pictures I can get them myself. However pictures of people back home would be nice. Like people in the ward and how they're doing and if you run into any of my friends a picture of them would be nice too. Elder Q is fine. I definitely have grown to appreciate Elder T a lot more. We argue sometimes but we solve it pretty quick. All and all we get along just fine. He's definitely from Utah that's for sure. Growing up in a place where the Gospel is generally accepted breeds a different kind of missionary in most cases. Hopefully my future eternal companion and I get along better. I think we'd have to before I'd be comfortable enough to pop the question. Being with a companion out here really does in many ways prepare you, I think, to have an eternal companion because of the love that you have to "make" so that you can stand being 24/7 with a person. Definitely makes me think about the people I've dated in the past and what, really, were their traits that I admired and traits that I probably could do without for eternity. Eternity is a pretty long time. I definitely have a lot more to think about than I have been. I feel like I have really grown out here just in the way I think about things. I was reading my old journal entries last night and I laughed a little bit about how immature I thought I was, and that was only about four months ago! The weather here has actually gotten really nice and sunny. Elder Q hates the heat but I love it! I really miss the warm West Coast. A couple interesting stories this week. I had my first run in with the cops. We were tracting in Andover, NJ and we got in our car to go to another appointment and the cop pulled up next to us. Apparently someone had complained about us going door to door. He was nice enough because we really weren't doing anything wrong. Proselyting is different than soliciting so they can't do anything to us but we were encouraged to go and apply for a soliciting permit just so things go smoother the next time someone complains. We've actually done a lot of good work this week from following up on referrals we've gotten from members. We've been teaching this one guy who's really interested. The Gospel just seems to really hit home with him and he really likes it. He came to church for the first time yesterday and he really like the lesson in elders quorum about moral courage. I think he'll be in the water in no time but it really is great to see the Gospel touch someone in such a profound way. A couple of our members haven't been coming to church so we visited them to find out why. We eventually found out the main reason they haven't been coming is because they really have been slacking on reading their scriptures. I believe it was Gordon B. Hinkley who said that in order to bind people to the church they must have a friend, a calling, and be nourished by the good word of God. While we seem to always strive for the first two, I believe the nourishing with the scriptures is by far the most important. It reminds me of when Dad always said that we needed to be spiritually fed and I would come up with some literary rebuttal to try and escape family scripture study but now I know that is probably the most important part of our day. We spend each morning, for two hours, studying the words of the prophets and nothing but that could really prepare us for the challenges ahead. I hope that you all are doing diligent and faithful scripture study for as the Lord said in Section 103 of the Doctrine and Covenants that all victory and all glory comes to us through diligence, faithfulness, and prayers of faith. I hope that Katelyn and Maleah are diligently making time to study their scriptures on their own and greater that all of you back home are making concerted efforts to study together as a family from the words which promise to bind us and to bring us together unto Christ. There is no other name given by which salvation cometh. I pray that you all may receive something from the scriptures that will strengthen and fortify your testimonies of the truth this week but that must start with you actually going to the scriptures to find that answer. If you feel like you aren't getting answers the real question you should ask yourself is "Are you really looking for them? Or are you just hoping that the answer will come spontaneously?" Something Mom always said is "You won't find it by standing there. Look for it!" Similarly you won't find the answer by sitting there. Look for it! In the scriptures. As you do you will find what you seek. Seek and ye shall find. But it starts with seeking. This I say in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

-Elder Guinto

Pictures at last!

We finally received Kyle's latest pictures.  Enjoy! http://picasaweb.google.com/dvguinto/Mission3#

New E-mail Address!

Just a heads up. I have a new email address because they decided to upgrade to a new system. it is kyle.guinto@myldsmail.net

E-mail received 3/1/2010

Hmm i am concerned that you haven't gotten the photos yet. I sent them like two weeks ago. They should be there. Sorry I didn't get to write last week. We didn't have much time to do email and I didn't get one from you so I guess I forgot about it. Sorry. Tell Katelyn not to worry. I did remember it was her birthday. Just ask everyone here in Sparta, I made sure everyone knew. I'll probably send her an entertaining card or something. It's been a busy week. Sounds like we pretty much have a new member of the family with this Polish girl. Hopefully I get to meet her someday.  I got the pictures you sent and everybody looks real nice. I really like Maleah's braces! She only got them on the top teeth? You'll be pleased to know that I haven't been losing weight lately. I've pretty much leveled out at 225. I'm gaining muscle at pretty much the same rate i'm losing fat now. I'm sad that the Ds moved! I really liked them. Now you get to hear about my companion! His name is Elder Q. He's from West Jordan Utah. I'll be honest he's pretty interesting. I'll print off some pictures today and send them to you. Actually I'll just send the card I think this time. He's about average height and blonde. He's pretty geeky and he's into computers and video games and that kind of stuff. Definitely a big transition from Elder T. We get along fine enough but we argue a lot about finer things. He's got a pretty "Utah" way about things and definitely has grown up where the Gospel is "common sense." It's definitely different teaching with him but I think it'll just take some getting used to. I'm definitely seeing where I'll need the patience and understanding with my companions that my patriarchal blessing tells me about. I hope we can be blessings to each other. We got a huge snow storm this week. At our apartment we got like two and a half feet which took us two and a half hours to shovel out! We did a lot of shoveling these past few days so now we're in great shape! Down at Lake Hopatcong we had to wade through about four feet of snow to get to an investigator's door! It was crazy. And we just keep getting more! I'm pretty sick and tired of winter in New Jersey but we keep on trudging on. It was real nice to get a lot of mail this week from Grandma and the Teshners and the Falters. Mail is always a sweet reminder of home. I'm gonna try and get better at responding to mail. I still have to write Aunt Kelly, Sister Mulks, the Falters, the Teshners, the Browns and Grandma. I'll make time for it today though. It's so hard to find time in our super busy day to do anything. I'm loving the work out here. Not much update because the work was really hindered by the weather but the truth of God continues to go forth boldly, nobly, and independant! I hope you guys have a great week!
-Elder Guinto
P.S. Katelyn and Maleah better be reading their scriptures like I told them to!

E-mail received 2/16/2010

Note:  By way of explanation for the first part of his e-mail, Kyle told us at Christmas that he wasn't going to send us any pictures of him because he'd decided that "we saw him when we left and couldn't see him again until he returned."  Last week he sent us pictures from his first baptism but he cut himself out of the pictures.  In my letter to him I let him know just how I felt about his "no pictures" policy.

That's funny because a couple days ago we had a huge snow storm and i decided i'd tortured you guys enough and so i took a couple pictures of the snow and a couple with me and the rest of the district and sent them to you guys so you should be getting them shortly. Nothing to be upset about. I'm sure dad probably had a big fit. I'm not lying about losing the weight. I just kinda wanted you guys to see the big change when I came back. Half of why I don't usually send pictures is because I haven't taken very many and even less of myself so there aren't many pictures of me to send anyway, but like i said though I printed up a bunch of pictures and they should be there soon. By the way, transfers are today! So i'll be getting a new companion. Elder T and Elder R got transferred and so Elder B and I are companions for the day and I should meet my new companion around four today. It's weird thinking about spending the next six weeks 24/7 with someone else because I've been with Elder T for the past three months. It'll be a big adjustment but hopefully it'll be a good change. Everything's been going great. This week was a little slow for the work because we had a lot of meetings that we had to go to in Morristown. We still met the standards but we didn't excel like we usually do. We started this week off strong though and we've helped out a lot of people. We've been working really hard whenever we can and the blizzard we got on Friday grounded us for the first time. We went out and shoveled a couple people out but shoveling driveways with a foot of snow on them is a little harder than I expected. I'm not sick anymore but i'm definitely looking forward to some sunny weather. We're working really hard at setting the people who we are teaching with dates when they can enter into the covenant of baptism and receive all the great blessings that come with it. We're excited about the coming week and i'll email you next week with who my new companion is! I hope you can forgive me and my "evil ways." I don't take many pictures because I'm trying my best to focus on the work and not waste any time. Some missionaries take too many pictures and I think that it can really be a deterrent for dilligent service. I don't take that many pictures because i'm lazy but because I feel a better use of the Lord's time is doing his work. I'll continue to send the few pictures I do take but know that I am trying to keep an eye single to the glory of God so that I continue to qualify for this work. (D&C 4:5) I love you all and I hope that you have a great week!
-Elder Guinto

E-mail received 2/8/2010

Dear Family,
We actually just missed the blizzard. We didn't get any snow thankfully. The storm only hit as far north as Hackettstown which is only like twenty miles away! We got really lucky though. I was really sick but now i'm all better. it was just a cold. The cutting the belt worked only now i need to cut it again. I can't wait to see pictures of Maleah with braces! I'll send the pictures of the baptism along with a couple other pictures today. With the expansion we are going to be inheriting about 40 missionaries so it'll be an interesting move. transfers are next week so it's likely that a lot of the missionaries will start getting moved into the new areas.  This week was actually a really great week for Elder T and I. We taught 43 lessons! That's more than double what the standard missionary teaches! We worked our butts off for it and we definitely saw great blessings from dilligent work and not wasting an ounce of the Lord's time. One cool opportunity that I got was to meet the S's this week. They're an old couple who live in Sparta right on Lake Mohawk and they've been together for over 63 years! We visited them and we saw that they had just gotten a shipment of china dishes and we immediately offered to help. They're great people and they've been through everything together. They were highschool sweethearts and she waited four years for him while he was in the service! Great people. Brother S said something about the church that i really liked. He said, "Our church will always be leaps and bounds ahead of other churches because of how we treat other people. You treat everyone you meet like they're your family. The moment you elders walked in the door you asked how you could help us and that is family like." The knowledge that we are all children of God and treating each other with the utmost degree of kindness and affection is the greatest thing we can do to show others the love of God and bear our testimony of it through the silent actions that we do for other people. Another interesting experience: We were in a teaching appointment that was going very well when a ring at the door came. In walk two people from the Faith Baptist Church in Sparta. I thought to myself," Oh boy, this outa be fun." We exchanged pleasantries and we talked for a little bit. Apparently they had been visiting the family for a while and they were just stopping by. They were nice enough to us for a good five minutes until he said something that I knew wouldn't end well. He said, "You guys read from the Book of Mormon while we prefer to read only from the truth of God." As soon as he said that I thought to myself, "Ok Elder Guinto, time to buckle your seatbelts!" He started into a huge tyrade about how we were preaching evil and sedition to the people, right in front of our investigators! He said that we were teaching darkness with light and we were creating division in the hearts of the people we were teaching. I stood there and listened as he kept going on about how evil we were and then he started attacking Joseph Smith. He said that he was a lier and that God doesn't talk through angels and all this kind of stuff. He started getting more and more aggressive with his comments and even his companion, who was a girl, looked pretty nervous about some of the things he was saying and the accusations, which of course were false, he was making. There were so many times when I wanted to jump in, show him he was wrong and refute him but everytime I felt like i wanted to jump in the Spirit told me," Don't you dare! It's not worth all the work you've done here!" Though my entire body shook with anger at the slanderings he professed against the Lord's annointed I excersised every measure of restraint within me to keep myself from knocking the kid out! (Which i could've easily done, he was a small asian teenager.) He ended his tantrum with something to the effect of he respected me as a person (which of course didnt mean much when he ended with) but he hated and despised everything that i stood for and did. They left and we sat down and our bewhildered investigator asked," Why didn't you defend yourself?!" As soon as she said that I knew why I didn't. With every stroke and evil-speaking we took without retaliation it was a testament to her who was a true servant of God and who fought to tear down the riteous doctrine restored to us by a loving Father in Heaven. As Christ took the stripes and slanderings of an unriteous people and still stands as the standard of riteousness and truth so does the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, and God's holy prophets stand persecution, mobs, armies of sin and columny as the great standard of truth against all opposition and all odds. The truth of God goes forth boldly, nobly and independent and will until it has penetrated every continent, visited every chlime, swept every country and sounded in every ear. We told her of the power of our testimony and the testimony of Joseph Smith. Of no matter what any power of heaven and earth says or does we cannot deny the manifestation of the Spirit within our hearts and the events of the Restoration which did in reality happen. I testify that our testimony of the restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is our most powerful ally against any foe and any trial. The truths we hold dear can get us through any storm the adversary seeks to put in our path and as Elder Jeffery R. Holland so beautifully put in the last session of general conference a testimony for which Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, and many other persecuted and tormented saints died for. This is my testimony, the Book of Mormon is the most true of any other book and if not the very words of Christ and if President Thomas S. Monson is not the very prophet of God called on earth to minister unto his children in this day and age then man would be without hope and without compass to guide us through what would be a pointless and frivolous life. But we know that we have a Heavenly Father who loves us beyond our understanding and we know these truths to be self-evident, irrevocable, and above all undeniable. This is the truth, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

E-mail received 2/1/2010

Life's pretty good here. We got a random snowstorm which melted fast but then it was four below the next couple days. I'm pretty sick but i'm getting better. Tell M that she has to send me a picture of her with braces or you guys arent getting pictures from the baptism! That otta loosen things up. Yes i got the email from J M and i'll try it. hopefully i dont cut it too short. That's cool that you got to meet L and that T got the job! Where is he going to be living? Hopefully close enough to visit. And hopefully he can talk some sense into K. Yay for tax returns! hopefully it'll grow at least a little bit by the time i return. One cool story that happened this week, we were visiting a nursing home because some of the members live there and so we visit them pretty regularly. On our way to one of the members rooms we were stopped by an old man and he asked if we were from some religious group. We told him we were from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and that we had a message of joy to share with him. He invited us to come in and talk with him a while and we shared with him the message about the Book of Mormon and how we have a Heavenly Father who loves us. Love so great that He sent His Son so that we could return to Him and live forever in His presence. He loved that the message is a message of love and of joy and not the message of damnation and fear that he had heard growing up. He told us that not seconds prior to us running into him he had just gotten his glasses back from repair and had asked himself, well now what am I going to do with the rest of my life, and then as he said,"You guys appeared out of nowhere. You know what that is? A blessing from God!" We're meeting with him next week and we're so excited to be able to teach him. It just goes to show that we really have to teach when we find and find when we teach God's children and that all of His children; young, old, black, white, need the Gospel and can benefit from it's great blessings.
-Elder Guinto