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
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Monday, February 8, 2010
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.
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.
Monday, February 1, 2010
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
-Elder Guinto
Monday, January 25, 2010
E-mail received 1/25/2010
J's baptism was amazing! the spirit was there so strong and we got a surprise and President B came to the baptism! it was such a blessed occassion. she's getting confirmed next week! she's such a great person. she's really captured the spirit of the church and she's practically more active than half of the members already. she's great and we're so excited for her. One miracle that happened with her is she got really really sick the day before her baptism. we came and gave her a blessing in the afternoon and that night she called and she was completely healed! it was awesome! i'm excited for t! that would be so cool if he got a job with microsoft because then he'd live closer to us! and then he could help out k and m. i can't beleive m got fired! i thought he would finally be able to get a good job and he'd start to straighten out his life but he messed it up! you need to get them to church! by whatever means possible! they're not going to do anything or go anywhere without strong pushes in the right direction, that much is clear. I can't wait to see pictures of M with braces! i'm so happy everyone seems to be doing alright. oh by the way, this should make you laugh, you know how i've been losing a lot of weight? and i've been saying i wouldnt need new pants because i have an awesome amazing ratchet belt? well guess who's awesome amazing ratchet belt is too big now. MINE! i've hit the end of the little nitches in the belt now. it's only a little too big right now but if you could send me a smaller one that would be greatly appreciated. on the upside i look pretty good now! (; i'll send you guys pictures of the baptism. then you can see brother s and j. there truly is no greater work than this. sacrificing two years of my life so that others may live for eternity! tell t that i'm praying for him and p and that i know that no matter what happens with microsoft he has more than enough skills to make it anywhere and that God will always provide a way. keep encouraging k and m to study the scriptures, on their own as well as as a family. oh and by the way i dont know how i lived life without sweet potatoes! they're amazing! I hope everyone is doing well and you are all in my prayers! The work continues to plow forward and i love every minute of it!
-Elder Guinto
-Elder Guinto
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
E-mail received 1/19/2010
My first baptism is this week! J is getting baptized on the 24th! i'm so pumped! she's come a really long way to get here. i got the package and yes i'm writing it. i'm actually keeping like three journals: one regular journal, the mission journal, and my count your blessings journal. in the count your blessings journal i write down one miracle that happened that day. it's really cool to go back and see how i've literally had a miracle happen every day so far. it's really cool to see how the Lord blesses us. It's been a lot warmer this week but apparently there's always a warm week before it plunges below zero. fun. anyways i hope you guys have a great week and keep reading your scriptures! (katelyn and maleah!) you can't treasure up the words of Christ and learn from them if you don't read them!...so do it!
-Elder Guinto
-Elder Guinto
Monday, January 11, 2010
E-mail received 1/11/2010
Cool. I hope M does alright with school. Keep encouraging her to read her scriptures. the scriptures have all the words of comfort and counsel we could ever need but if we dont read them then we dont get any of it. simple as that. K...dont date. period. yepp, sounds about right. The bishop wants to talk to me about trying to reactivate V because she's been on the do not contact list for a long time. from what i heard from the members it's J P who'll be the hard one but we'll see. i still think that it's no coincidence that my first area in a mission full of them all the way across the country there's a less-active member of my family. Call it what you will but i consider it a sacred trust from my Heavenly Father and so i will strive to do all that i can. I'm not bald anymore. most of it has grown back and it wasnt completely short it was like a 2. so just extremely short. umm i dont know if i told you guys to send me my line of authority, but i really need that. so that would be great. of course T will get a job at microsoft. he's brilliant! he'll be a millionaire within the week. that'll be cool to have them close. i like P. she's pretty cool. umm not much news this week other than the new missionary is elder b. he's pretty cool. he's from san diego. umm one thing i would really like is if Dad feels like it wouldnt be too much of a burden if he would give me his Tagalog Book of Mormon. I've really started to take an interest in my Fillipeno heritage and so if he could do that that would be amazing. Know that you have a Heavenly Father who loves and appreciates you and also a Son who is eternally grateful for the many gifts you have given me and who's love you will always be worthy of.
-Elder Guinto
-Elder Guinto
Monday, January 4, 2010
E-mail received 1/4/2010
That's cool about V. Elder T and i were tracting and we found her. She recognized me as a Vella right away and i was taken a back quite a bit. But i eventually recognized the resemblance between her and P so it was pretty funny. Yeah we're planning on reactivating her. Neither Elder T and I are being transferred. Which is so nice! I was really worrying about it but all of our district except for an Elder who got E.T'd is leaving (I think he meant staying). He was developing a very inappropriate relationship with one of the youth so he had to get pulled out. He got sent to Paterson but we're getting a new elder in tomorrow. i'm pretty stoked that elder t is staying because i dont know if i could've taken total control of the area this soon. by next transfer i should be good though. I ordered my gps. it should come tomorrow. i had a sister from the ward order it for me because she could get a real nice one online for cheaper than i could get a bad one at the store. so she ordered it for me and it should come in tomorrow. i have a few recipts to send you. i bought a lighter weight jacket today. i needed it. it is so cold here. we were tracting one day and we left a bottle in the car for like twenty minutes and came back and it was frozen solid!it's so cold. the thermal garments help but it is just so unbearably cold here. it'll take some getting used to because it only gets colder. oh when you get the recipts if you could send me in an email what my current balance is that would be great. thanks! in some ways i'm glad that the other guy got E.T'd because it meant that Elder R, our district leader, stayed because there were rumors he was going to zone leader and i was going to district leader but thank goodness that didnt happen. life here's going pretty awesome. besides the cold we have a lot of investigators who are progressing really well and we're finding a lot of new people to teach. J continues to progress with trying to stop smoking and drinking coffee. It's hard for her to take these bigs steps in the right direction but something that helps her a lot is support from the members. The members are so important and critical in missionary work because they can be there when we can't. She's developing a good relationship with the S's who are being just awesome. Brother S is our ward mission leader and he's awesome. we had dinner with them last night and J came with and we had a great lesson and set good goals with her to quit smoking and drinking coffee. there's something different about having members in a lesson who both care and are eager to help someone progress in the Gospel. She started crying in the middle of the lesson and said, " I can't beleive there are so many people in this room who care about me so much to invite me into their home and to try and help me with this." One thing that impresses me so much about the Gospel is how it is truly a Gospel of love. The truthfulness of the church is here for one purpose: love. we have a heavenly father who loves us and cares about us and so he sent his Son here to die for our sins so that we could return into his lovingly outstretched arms. And as we follow the example of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ we learn many things but all fall along the lines of the great commandments: love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy strength and with all thy soul, and love thy neighbor as thyself. The Spirit carries that love to the heart of the hearer and it is by love that souls can come unto Christ. Oh i should tell you. right now i'm in a threesome companionship with Elder T, Elder R, and myself because the other elder got E.T'd so we're over the ENTIRE Sparta area! It's really not fun but we're getting the new elder on tuesday so then we'll split the area again. i must say i'm a little disappointed because you guys are the only people that emailed me this week. I was really hoping for an email from A because B was giving her my address but i guess i can hope for next week. Oh and i took some pictures today. that should make you guys happy. the only pictures i've really taken so far have been of my other companions on exchanges and of our threesome. oh another thing. i shaved my head bald... i tried to cut my own hair and found out that that is one of the gifts God did not give me. long story short: i'm bald now. it actually doesnt look that bad. being vastly skinnier doesnt make my head look as round so it actually looks decent. atleast now i wont have to cut my hair for two transfers! anyway i'm glad we survived transfers and we're still together and i'll be in this ward to see J baptised! i'm so excited!tell k sorry i havent sent her a letter yet but i will. we're so short on time because we're over all of Sussex county that i never have time for anything. That's cool that you saw e and d! we had rice pudding at an investigators house the other day and it reminded me of her! I'm sorry about J. Don't worry about me breaking the rules. i've actually been complimented several times at how obediant of a missionary i am. i don't think the rules are stupid i just think our black box which every once and a while won't let us drive anywhere is stupid. but i follow every mission rule as exactly as i can. so don't worry about me. i'm doing great. the church is true and i'm proclaiming the Gospel as the Lord directs my paths and prepares his children for the blessings of heaven!
-Elder Guinto
-Elder Guinto
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