Happy Monday. Jack is doing so great. He's happy. Yesterday he had a baptism and today he is playing "March Madness" with all the Elders in his mission.  Thanks for all your support. Here's some of his email home;

Yesterday was so great. Yomairy is the best. She wants to serve a mission when she gets old enough. And after the baptism her mom was like "I want all of my kids to be baptized like that!" So we have a lot of work to do. The baptism itself was lovely. I've gotten pretty good at organization (shocker, I know) and everything went so well. We had the seminary students sings a song and some youth give little talks. And she was confirmed in the same day because of GC next week. She thanked us for changing her life and we cried and it was really sweet. And the ward is so awesome here. Hermana Ortiz made a ton of Mangu and a bunch of other people brought different types of food. They all adore Yomairy so much and that makes me happy because we won't be here forever but they will. But it was just a really spiritual and sweet.

Other than that my week has been pretty normal. I went on an exchange with Elder Justice and it was so fun. During our free time from 9:30-10:30 we watched all the 12 Step videos that the church has even though we are not addicts. They're just really good videos.

Wow. I just took the longest nap. Hello world. I wake up every day at 5:00 because I like to have more personal study and other stuff and I'm usually super fine all day but my desire to sleep gets pushed onto p-day and I just took a nap that was borderline a coma.

Also so last Monday we were playing football right and Elder Harding (who I call fifty cent, based on rapper of same name) gets hit in the face and gets knocked out for a few seconds and it like splits his lip open (not that bad) but this week he couldn't smile normally so he smiles like this emoji 😬 and it is so funny.  What a cute guy. Love him. Hope I stay with him for another transfer. SPEAKING OF WHICH WE FIND OUT THIS SATURDAY! Stress but also not worried.

I'll send you more of an email in a little bit but I just wanted to tell you that I love you. 
   Xoxo
--your boy

Short and sweet from Jack today. As his dad would say, "He had a 5 lbs. day to fit in a 1 lb. bag"...but he's doing great. We just want him happy, and he is. Thanks for all your support. Here is a little bit of his letter home this week. 

Today is loco and it's ironic that the days that stress missionaries out the most are p-days. We woke up at 4:00 to go plan and teach seminary and then we came back and went to Walmart and then I got my hair cut and then the zone leaders picked us up and now I am here. And right now we're going to go play football in a combined activity with zone 5 (elder Dove's zone) and basically I just wanna sit down and talk to my mom. Because I like you and I love you. How are you? I hope you're such a happy mom. I love that video with grandma. I wish we could do that! But sacrifice is an eternal principal I suppose. Nonetheless I love you and I'm so happy and I need you to know that.

This week was great. I went on an exchange this week so I was in Woodbridge and it was nice. We did service at an old folks Catholic home and we helped them play bingo for like 2 hours and man, old people get sassy as flip. It was so funny. I loved it.

Yomairy is getting baptized this week! I'm so excited about it. She's the best. I can't wait. I''m so proud of her and we're going to start teaching her whole family and that's super awesome. Transfers are in a few weeks and that freaks. me. out.  I really hope that  I get to stay here in Elizabeth port because it's so nice and the people are the best. I mean there's a saying here and it's that "the church is almost not true in NJ" and sometimes I feel like Paul on his first trip to Corinth where he basically like, "everything that you're doing right now, stop it." Just kidding. But a little serious. I love it here so much. I love NJ and I loved going to NY and I love MY MOM!

NY was so fun. We went pretty early and got everything figured out with their family names and whatnot. But we went and it was really fun and I even saw a family from Red Bank at the temple! So fun. And then
they took us out to eat after (in Elizabeth) and it was really nice and we ate the best food. When I get home I'll make you all sorts of hispanic food and it'll be nice.

This week is going to be fairly normal. But I just wanted you to know that I'm so happy and that I love you so much. I love my family. There isn't anyone else that I would want to be with forever.  ❤️

xooxoxoxxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

-your boy.

Here is the latest news on our cute missionary. Have a great week! -K

We had a really good week this week. I mean, It was really normal, which by default is really good. Yomairy is super cool. She's getting baptized in a few weeks. She literally walked to church yesterday in the 10 degree weather. Like what. She's so cool. She wants to serve a mission too which is pretty cool. We're also going to start teaching her whole family this week. At least, we're going to try. But other than that we've had a really good week. Yesterday I ate so much food after fasting that I almost went into a coma.

​The plants I'm growing are doing really good. I'm a plant dad. You know that Jesus story that's like "I'm the gardener here, and I know what's best for you"? I say that all the time because I literally am the gardener here. I'm making salsa today with cilantro that I grew myself. I'm so funny. Also today I'm going to see how little groceries I can buy because last week I had to buy more shampoo and soap and toothpaste and it punched me in the face. But that's just life and I'm a really happy guy. 

So I have a homework assignment for you that I read this week. Read the King Follett Sermon by Joseph Smith on LDS.org. It's super interesting. It's where the instigation of Baptisms for the Dead and also of divine potential. I just wanted to share it with you. It's just a small example of how I've come to really know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. Anyway. 

 Other than that stuff, everything is normal with me.  We went on an exchange with our zone leaders and it was really fun. And I'm ping pong champion in our apartment. Oh! Also guess what! I'm going to Manhattan this Saturday! We're going with our recent converts to do baptisms for the dead and my homie Camilla is going and so are the zone leaders and it's going to be super fun and we're going to eat lunch and it'll be fun. I'm super excited because I love New York because I spent a really nice week with my mom there once. You know what I'm excited for? Coming home and squeezing you to death.

Well, we are heading out but I love you so much. Have a good week!

Your boy, Jack

Everything is going so well with me. We taught seminary again today and it was literally my favorite. I love teaching seminary. I like teaching youth I've decided. But it was really fun. We had two investigators come to it; they come every day for seminary. Like what? I couldn't even go to seminary. Somehow passed though. But that's besides the point. I'm going to talk about them for a second. Yomairy and Lenin. They're siblings that we found over Facebook. They're literally so cool. We have Yomairy on date for the 26th. She reads the Book of Mormon every day and is trying to finish it in two weeks. She literally texted me and asked "So how can I become a member?" Like I don't even understand. She's so prepared. She comes to basically a church activity every day. And her brother Lenin lives in the sisters area so it's fun because it's like a team thing. But they're super fun to teach. Other than that, this week has been pretty normal. We had a movie night on Saturday where we watched "meet the mormons" and it was cute. Also we had 4 investigators at sacrament meeting which is a mission record for me. Basically I'm a happy guy. Elder Harding is doing super super good and he literally is the funniest guy. Like you would never guess because he doesn't like to talk to people in general but he and I are close friends and he is so funny. Love that guy.

Last P-day we were eating at noches de Columbia: my favorite restaurant, when this man walks up to us and says "Is one of you named Jack?" And I was like "what is going on here?" but he goes "Hello! I'm Miguel Luna. I just bought your whole table dessert (7 missionaries). Also, come see us next Monday." Miguel Luna is this guy that lives right by us and he and his entire family has read the entire Book of Mormon. He just works so much that they can't go to church and get baptized. But we're meeting with him today and I'm super excited. I've been trying to get in contact with him for a while but he's always busy but I'm also very persistent. So that's a kind of cute story and we're going to see him tonight. What a nice guy.

There was a scripture that I really liked that I read this week so I wanted to share it with you. In the words of the Apóstol Paul from the New Testament: "Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." And I like that. Ive been thinking a lot about repentance and kind of the entire plan of Salvation and I've come to realized that the only eternal detriment to our progression is the inability to accept the atonement of Jesus Christ. There's a quote from that one talk that I shared with you that says "No unclean thing can dwell in the presence of God, but brothers and sisters, no unclean thing will even want to." And I think about that all the time. Because it's true. And I'm still trying to learn and what I've found about the education of spiritual things is you can't really make a dent in all of the things you can learn, which I adore. You know how much I crave learning things so I revel in the fact that I am enthralled in a research of knowledge of which I cannot exhaust. Because it's like literal quantifiable knowledge, which is a thing of which I had never supposed. But at least I understand now.

Right now we're going to go grocery shopping and then I'm going to take a nap on the church couch because I've been awake since 4 o'clock. But I'll be online all day so I can talk to my best friend who is also my mom. I hope you know how happy I am. I am really, really genuinely happy. And I just hope you know that.

Here's some funny pics and vids. You're cute. I love you. So so so much.

--your boy.

PS you know that old woman that calls me seashore? She literally knitted me a blanket. When she asked for my favorite colors I said "all colors" hence the lack of color scheme. Nonetheless she called me every day asking "is it ok if I but blue in it?" Etc. Love her.