Letter from Justin 6-30-09

!Que pasa mis fanaticos!

Man, this week was like a rollercoaster! First of all, the Elder in my district is out of quarantine and supposedly doesn’t have the swine flu anymore. But he has major hygiene issues and has been coughing over everybody. So I’ve been a little sick for the past couple of days. I’ve seriously been sick more the past three weeks than I’ve been in the past year! Good thing I’m getting a good dose of the spirit.

We went to the Referral Center a lot this week. I talked to a Muslim man about questions he had in the Bible, and our conversation lasted for like 30 minutes! His beliefs are really interesting. I’m going to call him back on Sunday and get the missionaries over to his house. He definitely needs Christ in his life. The Spirit helped me so many times during the conversation, it was unbelievable. I bore my testimony about Christ and he said he felt “good.” Golden baby, golden. The RC is seriously the coolest thing we get to do here. We call people who requested free DVD’s or books from the Church and ask them about what they thought of it. Its way cool. I’ve heard some awesome stories of the RC and I pray every time I go that I can have cool experiences like I’m having with this Muslim man.

OK so this whole week was the new mission president training seminar, and 14 out of the 15 apostles were here at some point during the week. We weren’t allowed to associate with them because of the swine flu, but Elder Holland spoke to us on Friday. It was the coolest talk. He talked about having the Holy Ghost as your 3rd companion, and making sure he is always the senior companion. One thing he said that was way cool was that the way you exercise the gift of discernment is by looking into a person’s eyes. So anyway, on Sunday I met 2 prophets (well I guess 1 prophet and 1 apostle)! President Monson came to speak to the mission presidents. As he was leaving the MTC, somebody shouted in the classroom building, and everybody rushed outside. There was President Monson and President Eyring! I was near the front of the small crowd and so I was about 5 feet away from President Eyring. While President Monson wandered around talking to the missionaries, President Eyring was standing right next to me, talking to us about an injury he had from playing basketball with his grandkids. By the way, President Eyring is way cool! He was cracking jokes the whole time, telling us that President Monson always makes them late because he is meeting people!

Well, eventually President Monson made his way towards my part of the crowd and then stopped. He started pointing at different missionaries and asking them where they were going. He pointed to everyone around me and then….HE POINTED AT ME!! It was so freakin cool! He asked where I was going and I said, “Argentina, Buenos Aires!” He smiled and said, “I love it there! I dedicated the temple there!”After mingling a little bit more, he started to get into his car (a white Buick), and everyone started singing “We Thank Thee O God For a Prophet.” President Monson turned around and jokingly led the music! It was so awesome! Then after waving, giving air hugs, and shouting goodbye in Spanish and Samoan, the two apostles drove off.

So if you think this day couldn’t get any better, you are mistaken my friend. At the fireside that night, me and some other elders from my floor sang “I Need Thee Every Hour” in front of the whole MTC! Haha so one night these Samoan elders on my floor started singing in their room and then people just kind of wandered in and joined. We sang a couple songs together and then decided we would try out for the special musical number. And we got it! We sang it all a capella and harmonized and stuff. It way way cool and everyone said it sounded good. Afterwards, some of us got pictures with President Smith (The MTC mission prez) and his wife. So Sunday was pretty much one of the best days of my life.

Anyway, that’s whats going on with me. Thanks everybody for the letters, they really help. I’m running into tons of people that I know here, its awesome. I might have said that last part in the last email, but oh well. So how’s the outside world going? I heard Michael [Jackson] died. I just think he went to live with Elvis in Argentina. I’ll go find them both and teach them the gospel. Hales yeah. Also, thanks so much for your prayers. I can definitely feel them and I would appreciate if you would keep praying for me. Please pray for the Muslim man also. Thanks! Les amo!

P.S. Please go see Transformers 2 for me.

Justin