On to the New Year December 28, 2015

Hey everyone,
Merry Christmas! It's been a good week of celebrating and talking with the fam. Christmas Day I got to see the beautiful faces of my family and talk with them for a wee bit, but leading up to that we had a glorious morning of opening packages from our families with the other missionaries that serve in nearby areas and eating breakfast with them too. We had a little hiccup though when the smoke from the food set off he fire alarms and when the firemen came we had to evacuate the building until they turned off the alarm. So that was fun. But overall it was a really fun week of eating with members and celebrating with them. Something that was really cool that we did this week was have a member family write their testimonies in the front of 5 copies of the Book of Mormon and wrapped them up like presents and had one of the members pray to ask us to be guided as we went to give people these books. I have never felt so guided by the spirit in my life. The impressions of where to go and where to leave the books were just there, I knew in my brain what to do next, so that was super cool! So it's been a really great week! No puke stories in spite of eating like pigs. I did feel like puking a couple times though. And that's pretty much it! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and I hope that you all celebrate the New Year safely. Love you guys!
Elder Jordan

Skying with the family on Christmas day.

IIIIIIt's Christmaaaaaas December 21, 2015

Hello Everybody!

It's finally starting to cool off over here! No snow for Christmas though, it's gonna be 60 on Christmas day so hopes are pretty low for me. Things are going really well though! I have a new companion, Elder Obley, who is from Samoa and he's already served in this branch before so we're gonna have a good time looking up some of the people that he knows from when he was here last year. Something that's pretty fun is Elder Obley likes to street contact people. Stopping people in their tracks and talking with them about Christ. I used to be terrified of this, but it's interesting how you get used to things. That's not to say I don't get a little nervous doing it though. But doing it in the Cold is especially delicious because people aren't about to hang out outside for anything! We stop them anyways and try to talk to them, but it's been really good to see what people's thoughts are on Christmas. Their favorite parts and what it means to them. There's some pretty good people out there that like to keep Christmas simple! In all the talking with people though I did get the chance to talk with a guy about his various drug abuse, good stuff. 

We also got together as a mission this week to do a little Christmas celebrating and listen to some talks about Christmas. Always good to see some friends from the mission and in the spirit of Christmas too! Something that my wise father told me last week is that this is a really beautiful time of the year because, whether your Christian or not, you're thinking of others. Be it in regards to a gift for someone or in a desire to serve a little more in this season, people aren't worrying about themselves as much for once and it's a beautiful thing. So that's my random thought on Christmas for ya, I guess just keep thinking of others more often and you'll stay happier. Although I'll definitely be missing some family traditions this upcoming week, I'm definitely happy where I'm at and know it's a small sacrifice to make. I can still feel the love and even catch some of the smells from this far away and know that my new family over here is taking care of me real well. Love you all! Have a very Feliz Navidad! 

Elder Jordan

Staying in Passaic! December 14, 2015

I'm staying!! Get to spend Christmas with the area most notorious for stuffing missionaries full! We'll see if it doesn't yield any more barf stories ... I'm super excited though! Things have been going swell over here. We've been working on a list of members trying to figure out where everyone is at and have got some good info, but decided to take a break from that and just knock some doors last Tuesday. Well guess what, 3rd door, a less active answers the door! So I guess there's no getting away from that for us. Other than that it was a good week of saying goodbye to members and investigators, always pretty sad, but that's the way it is. One of the member families we visit we had the wonderful idea to sing Feliz Navidad to. So, naturally, we decided fake mustaches and a sombrero were a good idea as well! So we went to their door, knocked, and when they opened up, we sang! It was a beautiful moment indeed. Pretty tranquilo week though! Life is good and the people here sure are taking care of us.
Love you guys and hope the winter is treating you well! Looks like we won't even be having a white Christmas over here ... a little disappointed with that. But I'm happy to be staying in Passaic! Take it easy my friends!

Too much sitting December 7, 2015

Greetings all!
This week was a good one! Had some good times seeing other missionaries and going to the temple, but it didn't leave us too much time to hit the streets like usual. On Tuesday the entire mission was together at a smaller chapel and it was pretty amusing squeezing all those missionaries into that gym. It's always good to see mission buddies though! The day after that we had a temple trip for our zone, so we headed off to NYC for the day. The trip there was pleasant, but man, on the way back there was wayyyy too many people. I would get tired of that trip real quick if I had to make it on a daily like some people do. It was awesome to get to go to the temple! I was just kind of done for the day afterward though.
 


This week we had a pretty awesome lesson with one of our investigators, Sagrario. She says she's a Mormon, just hasn't been baptized yet, we're working on getting her to church. This go around though, we were dating counselors for her, it was sweet. That's how you really know your helping people right there, talking about real life problems and using words of the modern day prophets to address them. She just wants a solid man, so we've got some work to do for sure.
Other than that, I'd say the highlight of the week was on Friday. We were on exchange, I was in the area that covers the other side of Passaic and boy, did we eat. The first meal appt was with a family that is notorious for killing missionaries with the amount of food they give. We made it through that one though, what did us in was going to visit a family that doesn't usually feed the missionaries that just happened to be cooking when we showed up. It was spaghetti with some sort of fruit juice. It was tough. I had to swallow the spaghetti down with the juice like pills. I polished it off though! I finished it! My fatal mistake was accepting another glass of juice ... I took two big gulps of that stuff to try to get it down quickly and man, I knew right there if I stood up I was going to throw up. So I stayed seated, crunched over to keep it down, and it settled a little bit, but I still wasn't feeling like I was gonna make it very far. So I politely asked if I could go to the bathroom. Upon entering the bathroom, my worry switched from puking to the family hearing me puke. I'm happy to report that the substance exited in a smooth fashion that required no heaving. I pretty much just exhaled and let the food come back up with it. I'm not proud. But a the lesson I hope to convey to you at home is that if you happen to feed the missionaries, please don't order them to "eat more." Rather, of you prefer no leftovers, offer them to take it home. That is invaluable to us and helps us have to worry about  groceries even less! I definitely appreciate being fed by members and nonmembers alike, and I appreciate that they enjoy the way and the amount that I eat. I would just ask of those who are within the reach of my voice (or keyboard? Blog I suppose)  that you not be offended if the missionaries arrive to your house full. Even if they know you feed them, it's kind of a first come first gets to serve basis. We will never turn away food, we just sometimes won't be able to finish it. Love you all! Sorry you had to read that. Keep it up my people!
Elder Jordan

Turkey Day November 30, 2015

Hello Everybody! 

We had a beautiful week of playing some football and eating like kings. Thursday was definitely one of the better days of the week, when you start off with a couple hours of playing some football you can't go too wrong. After playing some we went to see a few people and got fed three times, we were prepared for it though, so it wasn't too bad. On Saturday however, we weren't expecting it, so I make the fatal mistake of taking seconds at our first stop then feeling like death when it came to round three of eating. The member let us take the food home thankfully. It was interesting talking to people about Thanksgiving in this area though, many of the people we teach just work like dogs 100% of the time so it's just another day for them, or a day to take care of some things that they have to on their down time. It was still good to go around and do the classic "What are you grateful for?" and see what simple things people are thankful for. This week we had a couple of lessons with a family that we've been teaching. We got to the end of the lesson and invited the father, Fermin, to be baptized, but he said that he had a concern that he wanted to talk about away from his kids. That kinda worried me, but after the lesson he said that he didn't want to be baptized because he feels committed and more needed elsewhere right now, so he doesn't want to make that commitment, but at the same time he wants his two sons to feel completely free about choosing to be baptized, whether or not it be in our church. That was a relief! It made me value a lot though the freedom he gives his sons and the freedom that my parents gave me. And they're good kids too! But man, he's a good dad and a good man. It's getting a wee bit cold over here and people sure are getting ready for Christmas, I'm pretty stoked to see what it's gonna be like being a missionary with some snow on the ground. We had a good week, things are tranquilo as usual for us, just a couple of crazy people that talked a ton this week. I hope you're all doing great and had a spectacular Thanksgiving! 

Love ya!

Elder Jordan

Ya Viene el Frio November 23, 2015

Hello everybody! 
I hope you guys are staying dry wherever you're at, because this week, we had some fun in the rain. So in this area we have a car, but on Thursdays we don't use it because that's the rule of the mission, and on Thursday it happened to rain like no other in Passaic, NJ. Just beautiful. Before that I felt like I was coming down with something, and after walking around in the rain all day, you bet I'm feeling a little slow. No worries though! That was the only day of rain, it's just been cold out here this past week, no snow yet though. We had a pretty cool week of visiting some members, and even though we didn't have too many people that we visited this week, some of the ones we visited felt it enough to come to church on Sunday! So I'd say it was a good week nonetheless.
This week we also swung by the quinceañera of one of the members in our branch and holy moly man ... A little background here, when a girl turns 15 in at least some of Central American culture, it's a huge Daggum deal. So this Mexican family threw this ginormous party, we're talking like wedding reception, with a mariachi band and tons of food. It was sweet. So we stopped by for a bit to grab some food, because that's what missionaries do, wished a happy birthday and got outta there. The next day was a primary program for the branch, where all the kids younger than 12 are organized to sing and share scriptures and whatnot. Our little brach was low on numbers, especially compared to the ward back home. The teachers definitely carried a lot more of the singing, but little people speaking Spanish is the best! Little kids sharing their little testimonies is something else. There's some beauty in the simplicity.
Well, that's about it I do believe. Still trucking along even though my nose is clogged and I'm stoked for some thanksgiving action this coming Thursday. Gonna be sweet! Love ya!
Elder Jordan

More less active action November 16, 2015

Full Headers Printable View

Hey everybody! Been another good week! We've been focusing on finding people who were baptized, but haven't been coming to church in a long time, so we spent some time driving around from house to house trying to figure out what happened to these people or where they went. No really crazy experiences from that just yet, but standby, I have some high hopes. Something funny that did happen looking for a less active was that we went into this building and as we went up to the floor she lived on this kid about 12 years old was outside of her room looking down the staircase. After we told him who we were looking for and clarified a couple of time so that he was sure, he turned towards the room and said "what'd she do now?" Haha! Too good! He definitely thought we were cops. The room was rank with the smell of weed and after he went in to talk to her he conveyed the message that she wasn't feeling good. As we left we were sure to let him know that we're friends.
On Friday night we went to visit a part-member family (the wife and kids that are old enough are baptized, but the father isn't) and showed up when only the husband was home, so we were talking to him when he brought up what was going on in Paris. He turned on the TV for us and man ... Unbelievable.
It's easy to get angry and to blame people, including God, but something that we've been talking about with a single mom who is super concerned for her daughter is that God has given every single one of us the ability to chose and will never take that from us regardless of whatever is going on. He'll warn us whether what we're going to do is wrong or not, but a lot of people, myself included, seem to ignore that. Don't blame God, the blame lies with the men who did it. We will definitely pray for those who past on and those lost loved ones though, make no mistake about that. He is waiting to help those that hurt, but won't stop us from hurting ourselves. So pay attention! Ask him to help you out, and keep on rocking it over there. 

Love you guys.
Take it easy.
Elder Jordan

Buscando los errantes November 9, 2015

Had a pretty spectacular week! Something that was really cool this week was that we were searching around knocking some doors his week, and we found 3 people that had already been baptized into the church, but had stopped from going for quite some time. It's pretty funny to approach them like they have no idea about the church and out of nowhere they say that they've been baptized already! Good stuff. 2 of them were really nice and willing to listen again, one had been tainted though and didn't even want to hear the name Joseph Smith. It's pretty funny how often time people like that say that others need to open their minds, then won't even let us talk about the BoM and other things hat are unique to our message. Still though! Had a good week and I'm happy to have found out that I'll be staying in the area I'm in for the next 6 more weeks! Love you guys and I hope all isgoing well! Keep on living the good life out there!
Elder Jordan

Little opposition never hurt November 2, 2015

Hey! Not a whole lotta time, but things are going good! Getting cold,
the opposition dealio is about this last week we've been trying to see an
investigator named Sagrario, but her mom didn't even want us to know
of their new address after the moved. Daggum. We'll get past it
though! 
This week Halloween was pretty dang cool! The streets were
full of little niños going from store to store. It really just looked
like a mob going through Passaic. Helped some people move and had some
sweet lessons. 
Sorry it's short this week! I'll probably have some
more time next week. Love you guys! Keep living the good life!
Elder Hordan

picture of a Halloween party with some kids

The district

Suprise visit from my Aunt Emily

Some Spiritual Finding October 19, 2015

Hey everyone! 
The cold came this week for sure. It may or may not have gotten below freezing, but the wind was enough to make it pretty chilly. We had a good week though! Nothing too crazy at all, did try to talk to a wide-eyed black guy who was not interested in the least, so that took me back to some Newark days. We also got so snack on some crickets from down in Mexico, they honestly just tasted like beef jerky, so I enjoyed them! This week though we had a really cool experience with knocking doors. We got the door slammed on us pretty good on the first door we tried, so that's always a good spirit booster, but then we kept plugging along and eventually got to a small apartment building and after ringing all of the bells simultaneously, because that's a lot quicker than ringing them one at a time and waiting to see if someone is actually going to come, a dominican lady came on down, we told her we were sharing a video, and she let us right in. Her name is Alejandra and she was suspicious that we were sent by her family because they're members and they've talked to her about having the missionaries come over before, but she's always refused evidently. After we assured her we were just knocking we shared the video with her and it was evident that it touched her, and she said that she has felt support from Christ in the past. After which Elder Mendez talked about the Plan of Salvation and shared his testimony of how he knows he'll be able to see his grandma, who raised him, in the next life. It was powerful stuff! She was crying by the end I'm stoked to see her this week and to help her learn a little more. I'm definitely learning a lot from this Honduran guy, he's a powerful teacher. That's pretty much it for this week! Things are going smooth, nothing too huge going on right now, I'm happy out here though! Love yas! 

Elder Jordan

the video we showed Alejandra

https://www.mormon.org/easter

Short Week October 12, 2015

Well, not too much to catch you guys up on for this week. Had to get a flat tire fixed and Elder Mendez got pretty sick, so our week was pretty mellow. We had a little thunderstorm action on Friday, it rained so daggum hard I couldn't even see out the windshield. Super grateful we had a car that day. Something that was truly beautiful was that we got to do some service this week for a part member family that is moving into our area, some good ole painting. Took me back to the times of working for James. Sorry it was a pretty mellow few days. Did see another naked Hispanic child running around an investigators home. But that's about it! Hope you're all still doing swell. I'll talk to you in another week! Love yas!

Elder Jordan

Transferred for the first time October 7, 2015

crickets for dinner

New companion, Elder Mendez

Hey all! It's been a real good week with some big changes going on. First off, it felt like I left home again last week. I think I mentioned, but just in case, the missionary leaders send out a text on Sunday night with the names of those that are leaving the area. Turns out, my name was there, which is what I expected. It was tough saying goodbye to everyone I had come to know over there though. I have a lot of people in Newark I'm gonna miss and it felt like I was saying goodbye to my family. Then, last Tuesday they have a big meeting where it's all a surprise as to where you're going and who you're new companion is up until they announce it. So I've been called to Passaic East, which is full of Mexicans and has a couple of Dominicans running around as well. The area is actually huge, there's just only one part that we actually work in because everywhere else if full of Italians. My companion is Elder Mendez. This guy is legendary. He's a litte fireball from Honduras that has lived in NYC for the past 11 years. He's turning 27 the 14th of this month, so he's pretty old for a missionary, but we get along real well. He's a great missionary and I'm excited to learn a lot of Spanish and teaching skills from this guy. 

Transfer meeting

Other than the transfer it's just been running around trying to get to know people this week. The good thing is that there's plenty of people to visit in this area and it seems like people actually answer the door here, so that makes our job just a wee bit easier. There was a little bit of a hurricane scare for us, it was supposed to hit on Sunday, but it didn't even rain that day! So we're free and clear. 

So, the reason I'm writing today instead of the usual Monday is because we had a pretty cool opportunity to help put a new park together in Passaic as part of a big service project and we had about 80 missionaries there alongside community members that wanted to help out. It was a pretty sweet deal. Some people from the Today show even showed up! They really just slowed us down though, it was pretty lame. So that was Monday, then Tuesday we have meetings so I think they didn't want to have to shift those around, so P-day is today! Yesterday we were surprised asked to share a message at a funeral too! No big deal at all, except for the fact that it was a Catholic Funeral. Elder Mendez told me about how he had done something similar before and made some people angry, so we kept it really generic, went a little non-denominational on them to keep everyone happy at the funeral. (hehe)  And that's pretty much it! No more drugs and drunks and crazies! Just some interesting situations and some good changes. I hope you're all doing real well back home! Keep rockin' it back there! Love you all! 

Elder Jordan

http://www.today.com/news/watch-matt-savannah-reveal-their-shine-light-playground-t48386

"Shine a Light" service project.  Elder Jordan is wearing the orange bucket hat.

Gettin' outta Newark September 28, 2015

Well, the day has finally come everyone, I am leaving Newark, my beloved city. Yesterday the leaders in the Mission send out texts to every companionship with the names of those who are leaving, and I'm getting gone. On Tuesday we have a big meeting in the mission with all of those who are getting transferred and their companions and there I'll find out where I'm going and who my new comp is just before heading off to go do more work. I'm gonna miss this place, but I'm pretty stoked to be getting into another area! This was a really interesting week though. It'll be hard to explain without a map, so I'll just tell you simply that Elder Hebertson and I found out on thursday that the Zone leaders will be taking over our area of North Newark and Elder Hebertson with his new companion will be taking over an area that was once covered by a sister companionship. We're not getting enough missionaries in to keep up with the number of areas that we've had in the mission. So basically either way I was going to have new people to work with, but I'll actually be moving into a new apartment and everything now too. So after Thursday was mostly saying goodbyes and whatnot. We were able to see most of the members in our area and the investigators that we've been working most with and take pictures and everything. One of the best goodbyes though was with good 'ole Hermana Cruz. She's so nuts. As we were with her getting ready to eat, somehow the fact that she has written songs was brought up, so she started looking for some of her songs and even sang for us! It was spectacular. Then, for the lesson, we had her read scripture on one of our ipads and she accidentally swiped it to a different page and consequently swore in English with a word that starts with S. She's too much! Luckily, the scripture was about using our ability to choose, so we encouraged her to choose to use better language after that. She's such a crazy little wrinkly old lady. She's the best. Other than that it was just mellow goodbyes, there was one lesson we walked to last night where on the way there was this celebration of Dominican Independence, where they had closed off a whole block of a major street and had a band up on a trailer at one end and little street vendors along the sidewalk like at a fair. It was nuts! Then, on the way back home after the lesson, there was just tons of bottles and cups strewn all over the street. Ridiculous. So gnarly. We made it home safe and sound, witnessed just one fight, and now we're here. I'm excited to be getting to my new area and tell you guys all about it. Love you all! Keep living it up wherever you may be. Stay Sweet. 

Elder Jordan

A Visit from an Apostle September 21, 2015

Hello Everybody! Some good stuff is going on over here in Newark. First off though, we had the opportunity to have an Apostle, a leader in the church, come to Newark to form a new stake, or geographical area that consists of certain congregations, in the area. Basically it means that things are moving along in the work of the Lord over here! There'll be a couple little changes in the local leadership, but nothing that will affect us as missionaries. It was really cool though because we had a couple of our investigators go to the meeting and to have them get to listen to the words of a servant of the Lord that works with other leaders of the church. Definitely helped them to feel the spirit and truthfulness of the message no doubt. 

Beside that though, this week was kind of strange. It felt weirdly slow, but we still saw the second highest number of people I have since being out here. I got a little food poisoning action halfway through, so that probably had some to do with why it felt weird, but really the highlight was the Apostle coming to the mission and getting to hear him speak. Plus, us and the other missionaries serving in Newark got to direct traffic to where the parking for the event was. That was pretty funny, we had a few non-members follow our directions to where the parking was and they were severely confused. 

One of the funniest things this week though was this tiny little wedding this part member family had so that the husband could get baptized. He's in the area of a different pair of missionaries, but they always drive us to church because they're the closest ones with a car and so we went to the wedding to help out and because we know the wife. So, evidently Juan, the husband, was joking around the entire two weeks leading up to the wedding, then, during the ceremony when our Bishop was performing the services, after he said a few words, said, "Alright, we'll get on with the ceremony and get you two married." And at that point, Juan made a gun with his hand and pretended to shoot himself in the Head! Too Good! It was hilarious! Twas a hodge-podge little spanish wedding, but they both said yes and now they're working towards making their family eternal. That's what it's all about.

Well, that's about it! I hope you all had an excellent week and are enjoying the turn of the weather, I sure am! Stay sweet. 

Love, Elder Jordan

Hard work is paying off September 14, 2015

Hello Everyone!

Things have been pretty spectacular over here I must say. So, last week we had the greatest week ever for finding people, and thus, this week, we had the most lessons in a week that I have ever had. It feels good to be busy, no doubt about it! After walking so much when I was first assigned to Elder Hebertson, looking for people to teach, we finally have got a couple. It's just a relief to have people that will meet with you on a regular basis. This couple that we're teaching, Rocio and Javier, who goes by Jimmy for some forsaken reason, are SUPER awesome! They came to church last week after only visiting with them once and they've been meeting with us twice weekly. I'll probably have to leave this area before I can see them get baptized, but they're well on their way and it's awesome to see their desire keep growing. The way we found them too was just visiting a less active member, we kept trying this less active after not seeing her for over six weeks and we were finally able to see her three times before she was leaving the area and in one of our visits, Javier started talking to us, just like that, and now we're rolling. 

Some of the lessons from this week did come from some crazies though, as per usual. On Wednesday we were walking on down the street and there was this guy walking toward us that looked white, but as we were going to walk by, he asked us, in Spanish, if we spoke Spanish. Of course we said yes and he immediately followed up with the request of a blessing. I asked him if there was anything in specific, and as per the trend with these sidewalk blessings, he just wanted a blessing for life. So I said a little prayer and asked for him to be blessed and afterward he pretty much ordered us to come to his house. It was rather interesting. In the back of my mind I was worried something bad was going to happen once we got there, but as we walked we talked with him and found out he's from El Salvador and such. We got to his house, started talking, and not much of what he was saying made a whole lot of sense. He told us he was concerned how he didn't feel the love of God when he went to his church, but then when we asked him if he'd like to learn more about our message, he just said no, nothing more. He's super catholic too, and would ask us doctrinal questions about the church that sounded like he was gearing up for an argument, then he'd completely agree with us. Well, that first lesson ended with us blessing the home and he invited us to come back the next day to share some more. We went back, and we discovered that he would like to learn how to read from us! So as we were trying to teach him, he took this tall bottle that had been hidden in a box next to his seat the whole time, and took a good swig. Elder Hebertson asked, "What are you drinking?" And with no hesitation, "Water." "That's not water." Again, no hesitation, "beer." Good stuff. We set up another appointment for Tuesday, but then, as we were leaving he asked us to come back that next day again. We ended up showing up the next day a little late, and he wasn't home, but we talked to his nephew who lives on a different floor of the same building and come to find out, this guy takes a month or so of the year off of work and just drinks until he goes to the hospital for a detox dealio. So yeah, we happened to catch him during his rough time of the year. We'll see how things go with him though! 

Sorry for how long that was. For how interesting meeting that guy was, the best highlight of the week by far was getting to see our recent convert, Edis, pass the sacrament at church. I felt like a proud dad! I just wish I could be here to see him baptize his own little daughter. Maybe! That's pretty much it though, things are going along great for us and it's starting to cool down that's for sure. I enjoy it. I hope you all had a wonderful week and know that no matter how much fun you are having without me, I'd rather be here! Haha! Love ya all! 

Elder Jordan

Puttin' her into overdrive September 7, 2015

Hey everybody!
We had another dang good week! So it started out all pretty regular, we went to a cool Graffiti wall for p-day last Monday and after that we got fed some sweet Puerto Rican goodness. Then, on Tuesday, we had another exchange, where we swap companions, and I went to a different area with a new companion for the day while my companion stayed in our area, and man, Elder Hebertson did Daggum work. He found 6 new people for us to teach! He had a stellar day! So the rest of the week we were pretty busy getting to see all the people that he talked to. We got fed 3 times the next day, so that was a little rough, but something I'm definitely appreciative of! The rest of the week was pretty dang mellow though, just meeting all the people Elder Hebertson found and even finding a couple of others as we were walking from place to place. That's not to say there wasn't any opposition, we did talk to one guy in specific that wasn't happy to see us really at all, but it's all good! What's one person to the many people that were willing to talk to us?! Plus! A couple that we found came to church! Elder Hebertson talked to them on Tuesday, we met with him and his wife on Friday, and they were at church on Sunday with their little girl! It was awesome to have some people come to church again after a little while! Nothing too crazy happened this week, one guy tried telling us we are a cult, we tried explaining that we're not, but you know, what do we know about our own church? All in all an awesome week though! I hope you all had a sweet week! Keep on rockin' it back home, love ya!
Elder Jordan

Finding for Days! August 31, 2015

Greetings friends! So, this week was a good one, we did lots of good 'ole knocking on doors in an effort to find some people to teach and had a pretty good time doing it! There were a few people who didn't exactly appreciate to see us standing at their door, and proceeded to tell us reasons why they didn't want to hear from us as they shut the door. My favorite from this week though, was this one lady who was clearly on something when she came to the door. When she answered she just said no over and over as she ran away from the door and back up the stairs. She didn't really close the door though, so I just pushed it open and told her that we were looking for Antwon, a guy who we had talked to at that house before. Upon returning to the door the first thing out of her mouth was "Are you guys cops or somethin?" As she twitched and whatnot. Pretty stellar! She told us that Antwon was around the corner (a lie) and left us with that. She thought she was busted for sure. 

We did find some awesome people this week too though! There was a little family that let us in the door upon just introducing ourselves, which was awesome! I've only had that happen one other time! The father, Joel, was really interested just in that fact that we do what we do, and we got to see him twice this week, his wife and brother were not as interested and weren't there for the second lesson, but man! Joel is a really cool guy! It's pretty refreshing to be teaching someone that respects our time and is straight with us on whether he'll be home or not. Along with those 3 we found a young guy that was just cool with listening to us, we haven't been able to see him a second time though. And finally, Marin is a lady we contacted last week, but had our first appointment with her this week. And she has talked to the missionaries before and has a lot of family that are members too! It's pretty cool how many people have talked to missionaries in the past in another country that somehow have found their way into New Jersey. 

Lastly, one other highlight of the week was a bus driver that we had, this guy was pretty legendary. Pretty much whenever he stopped the bus, whether it was at an actual bus stop or at a stop light, this guy would yell out the door of the bus to people on the side walk, "Hey! Is that your money?/You dropped some money!/Money!" Then say "Gotcha!" And drive off. Too good! He also had a rule that the made sure everyone knew, if you are caught with food on the bus, you have to share with the other riders and if you're caught with alcohol, you have to share with the bus driver. He was a funny dude. I wouldn't mind catching another ride with him one of these days! We had some good times this week though! That's for sure! And I hope all of you were able to enjoy yourselves as well. Keep on living it up over there! Love you all! 

Elder Jordan

Surprises! August 24, 2015

We had an awesome week this week! We were in lessons most of the time, so we didn't meet anyone too crazy this week, but it was good to teach as much as we did! The best lesson of the week by far though was with a guy Elder Hebertson found while on exchange with another missionary and this guy is awesome. He's not someone you'd think would be too interested in the message at first glance, he appears more or less, for lack of a better word, like a thug. Upon meeting him though he was a super cool guy! His name is Domingo and he's interested in what we do and really friendly. We walked with him to a little restaurant and got some drinks and I was expecting for it to be a pretty regular 1st lesson, talking about the Book of Mormon, but we started talking and had one of the most spiritual lessons I've had out here. He started talking about his life and was just humbly asking for our help to know what he can do. What's sad though is that he doesn't feel ready, he thinks something needs to change before he can commit to anything, but he's got it backwards! It's the commitment to act that makes the change. He's a super cool guy though, and we're excited to get him on his way. We were also able to find a lady that has talked with the missionaries before out of the blue! We went to try someone after dropping off some food we were given and after they didn't we started making our way home and as we were walking Elder Hebertson said, "lets try this house!" We give it a knock and a ring and sure enough, a lady, whose name is Rocio, came to the door from doing laundry downstairs. She told us she was busy, but that she had talked to missionaries like us before. "Elder, I think was one of their names ..." she said. Haha! Maybe! We're gonna go see her on Tuesday so stay tuned for that. One of my favorites from this week though was this older guy sitting on a metal chair out on the sidewalk, Juan, who was just super smiley! He seemed really happy to see us, so naturally we stopped to talk to him. As we get talking he had some serious trouble remembering words and would get really frustrated with himself for a little bit, even hit himself on the head, then would forget about and go right back to smiling! He was too awesome! He told us he has Alzheimer's, or something like unto it, and that's why he was having trouble remembering, but he still chose to be super happy! It was pretty awesome talking to a guy who was just happy to talk to us. 

We had a rockin' week over here! Got to see a couple of guys taking a leak right out in public, middle of the day even, so that was cool! We're having fun over here and I hope that you're all doing awesome! Let the good times roll my friends. Love you all! 

Elder Jordan 

2nd Dates August 17, 2015

Hey everyone! 
I hope everyone is all doing awesome wherever you may be reading this from. Things have been rolling right along over here and we've had a couple of second dates! There's an interesting situation we face as missionaries when it comes to the second lesson. Between working around peoples schedules and whether people actually want to see you for a second time, it gets hard to meet with people. We had some luck during an exchange this week though! So exchanges are when another companionship and your own companionship swap one person each, so one person stays in their area and another person goes to a different area with a different companion just for the day. So we exchanged with some missionaries that are getting ready to go home this Tuesday and my companion stayed in our area with a different missionary and they had a few great experiences with seeing some people for the second time. One family they saw for the second time after not being able to see them for over a month and from what I've been told it was spectacular! Celiclia, the mom, and her children were excited to hear about the plan of salvation and see the necessity of baptism. We're hoping to put them on date this coming week! 

So we definitely had some excellent lessons, but this week I felt like my spanish had digressed a little. I don't know why, I was just feeling tired a couple of the days and my brain could not process spanish. There was one instance we talked to this lady on her front porch and I was trying to ask if we could get her number to see if we could come see her some other time and I couldn't even muster the spanish to say, "I can't speak spanish right now." It usually loosens 'em up a little when you say that then buys me some time to think through what I need to say. But I couldn't even manage that! It's all good fun though, the awkwardness gets pretty thick some times with some of the people we talk to because spanish can still be a bit of a barrier depending on how fast they talk or what kind of accent they have. We had a pretty good week though! Lots of laughs and as always a couple of drunks and some drug paraphernalia here and there. I love this place! I hope you all have an excellent week and are living it up back at home. 

Love ya! 

Elder Jordan

Skyline from the roof of our building, may or may not have been legal
for us to be up there ...

Gracias a Dios August 10,2015

Hello everybody! 

So, we had a pretty darn good week over here in Jersey. On Tuesday we had a little miracle day of finding people, we found 5 people in the span of less than an hour! One of them was a member of 30 years whose husband is against the church, so she hasn't been in a long time. It was cool to get to talk to her though! And the rest were lovely people who were willing to see us again! So the rest of the week we worked on seeing them. Something that all of these Latinos always say when we talk to them though is "Gracias a Dios." Which literally means thanks to God. And they say it for everything! 99% of the time if we ask how someone is doing and they speak Spanish, the response is, "Good! Thanks to God!" Pretty nifty. I like it. We had a good week this week, and it's thanks to God. That's not to say we didn't meet some more characters! This week I think I've talked to more drunk people and more Jehovah's Witnesses than the rest of my mission combined! (not that that is very long, but still) There was one guy who ran up to us in broad daylight, squeegee in hand, yelling at us at the top of his lungs to give us money. Once he got up in front of us though he dropped a knee and demanded a blessing, all the while using very colorful language. We said a prayer as he knelt and asked that God would help him in his life, and afterward he stood up, crying, and demanded money again. We stood there, didn't say anything, then he laughed, got solemn, and began to cry and talk about how he misses his mom and kids. At the end of it all he said that he was our best brother and gave us a hug to say goodbye. Definitely the most confused I'd been out here was in that moment. I was a little scared after the prayer, I thought he was gonna come at us with his squeegee, but man ... Good stuff! He didn't smell drunk when we hugged him either, so we're thinking he's just nuts. The rest of the encounters for the week were rather pleasant though! A drunk guy bought us some soda and another drunk guy just talked to us about life. Pretty dang exciting. I hope you guys are doing great back home! I'm alive and well and feeling good, gracias a Dios! I'll talk to ya in another week! Love ya! 

Elder Alan Jordan

local cathedral

Not Catholic yet ... August 3,2015

Hey Guys! Had a pretty good week this go around, gave some blessing and got some people into the chapel on Sunday, which always makes my heart sing! But my favorite crazy person story of the week is pretty good too. So! Elder Hebertson and I were walking home for dinner or something and had were walking by a bus stop that is no more than 50 yards from our door and as we walked by this lady waiting at the stops says to us, "Are you Catholic yet? When are you gonna be Catholic?" And repeated to say it a couple of times as we looked over and stopped to pay her attention. She then proceeded to tell us how the catholic church is true because of some bible scriptures and because Satan is trying to destroy the catholic church, but only that church, so it has to be true. At the end of it all she invited us to write a letter to God to know if it was true and told us about this website we could go to to become a member of the catholic church only after reading a couple of paragraphs on a webpage. Sounds fantastic to me! So that interchange was pleasant enough, but then, she happened to get on the bus with us and despite our efforts to look busy talking about random nothingness and pointing to a ward list, she politely interrupted to talk to us about birth control and animal neutering and all of her cats. Anywho, it ended up getting kind of weird with everyone on the bus looking our way as we tried to tell her that we aren't supposed to discuss political matters and such, which seemed to kind of offend her. At the end of it all she was nice enough to say God Bless though! But yeah, some crazy peoples.

The rest of the week we saw a lot of less active members and found some new people to teach the gospel and stuff. There's some super nice people out here believe it or not! and it was a good week for getting to know a couple of em! Well, I hope you all had a splendid time last week and are enjoying life as it should be. Vayan con Dios! Love yas!

Elder Jordan

Old train bridge over Broadway

Summer Avenue

Doing Some Finding July 27, 2015

Hey all! It's been a splendid week full of some good people over here in Jersey! This week one of the highlights was definitely a primary activity that the missionaries were able to take part in, we were practiced a little for it last week and one more time this week, then finally on Saturday was the big day. It was a stake activity, so we performed the story the Mulekites and how they met up with the Nephites for 3 groups of kids and their parents. We killed it no doubt, I got to be Zarahemla, pretty sweet. 

The rest of the week was a lot of walking again, we met some good people though! We talked to some drunks and a guy that was sweating profusely on a pretty mild day, he was pretty wide eyed to, so our guess is that he was on something. One of the crazy guys we talk to every once in a while happened to be on a bus we got on to and he was in a super good mood! He talked a little about how he was just being himself and then asked us if we could explain the meaning of life in one word. (He really likes simplicity/one word answers) So our answer was joy! And he was very happy with that and I am too, really we're out here spreading joy. If the Gospel does nothing else it sure does bring us joy. 

It's pretty incredible how opposition works and how much joy a little thing can bring after some sorrow. We were struggling on saturday after the primary activity, just both really tired of walking, and we were close to home. We knew we couldn't call it though. We had ourselves a little prayer, walked around the block, and made our way up an apartment building trying to teach some people. It's pretty funny sometimes, we've been introducing ourselves as representatives of Jesus Christ and some people will just talk to us through the door and say things like "No!" and that's it. One guy told us to go next door. But anywho! We made our way up this building and on the 4th floor this nice lady opened the door right up and we got ourselves a new person to teach! And that one lady made all the walking and all the people that are "too busy" and all the people that aren't ready worth it. Good stuff. 

Well, I hope you all had a great week! I'm living it up out here and am figuring out how to teach people through the door. Love you all!

Elder Jordan

A school that looks like a prison.

July 20, 2015

Hey all! Hope everyone had a good week! The weather was nuts over here, got some lightning, some pouring rain, then sweltering heat, all within 24 hours or so. Good stuff. We had a different week this go around. My companion and I are doing awesome, we get along well and he's really gung-ho for contacting, which is something that I've been needing to work on. So we're both learning together as we go along! As a result, we've had some awkward encounters and some really good talks with people just sitting on their porch. One of my favorites for the week though was as we were waiting at a bus stop this lady came up to us and asked us for money, not out of the ordinary at all, but after we told her we didn't have anything we could give and she left, she came back and asked us if we were the Mormons. Of course we told her yes, and she replied with "you guys classify a 'burning in the bosom' as divine revelation, right?" 

(For my nonmember friends, there are certain scriptures that tell us that as you receive answers to prayers or when the Spirit is testifying of truth, that the Holy Ghost "will cause that your bosom shall burn within you." Which can be interpreted to literally mean that you'll get a warm feeling or that you'll experience any good feeling as a result of the spirit.) 

At this point our bus was approaching. We told her yes, and I turned to start to get on the bus, but she continued to talk to my companion and said, "last night I ate a pepperoni pizza and it made my bosom burn. Does that mean that the pizza was divine revelation or that I was receiving divine revelation?"

As I was getting on the bus I heard my companion say, "Nope." and get on after me. Beautiful frankness. 

The majority of our contacts this week went really well though, so we're excited to hopefully have a few new investigators this coming week. 

We had a couple of stellar meal appointments this week too, the primary had a "surprise" for all of the missionaries of the ward, so on friday night we went to the chapel and were fed a nice spaghetti dinner by the primary children and got to sit down and eat and talk with them. It was awesome! It's kinda funny hearing little people speak spanish, I don't know why, but their funny little latinos. That was definitely one of the highlights, eating with a bunch of kids. Then, on the other hand, we were fed by Hermana Cruz again, the crazy, old, recent convert. for dinner she oiled up a pan real good, took a frozen TV dinner out of her fridge, pulled out the fried chicken, and threw it on the pan! Too good. Then, upon eating it we discovered that it was definitely still really cold in the middle. We eat to make her happy though. 

Looking back, we walked a lot last week, but we met some good people. I hope you all had an excellent week and are all doing great! 

Love you all and I'll talk to ya in another week!