It was a good week. Lot of good stuff going on. Coordinating a baptism and all that stuff. My homie Jimmy was at church yesterday and walked in holding his BoM and I laughed because he’s a funny kid. All good things. This next week is my last zone conference and I get to share my “dying testimony” which you give when you’re leaving which is SO WEIRD because I never thought I would actually get to this point. Surprise. I did. But in all aspects of missionary work my life is the quintessence of normal. I’d rather tell you about funny people in my life. So I will do that. 

Let me first of all tell you a story of my favorite lil Haitian grandma that we visit. She was a member early 2000’s but hasn’t been active since but we found her and visit her regularly. She’s seriously so so funny. I don’t even understand her most of the time but my companion translates and it somehow retains it’s hilarity. She’s was telling how she loves eating too much for her age and when she eats too much sugar or something she goes and showers and gets in her prettiest clothes and just sits by the phone and waits until she feels something and then calls the ambulance to come pick her up. When she told us I literally died. She’s the funniest lady. Love her. Another funny lady is this investigator we visit that yesterday made us like a gallon of papaya shake (which used an entire can of condensed milk) and we drank all of it and it was so heavy that we all fell asleep while reading the BoM lol. She fell back asleep when my companion was bearing his testimony and he ended it by saying, “Aviole, I know all these things are true and they can bless you even though you’re asleep right now.” And it was just really funny. Last one I feel deserves mention is my man Peter. Peter is a returned war veteran who was in an explosion that left him a little off and he needs some assistance. But this man, who is like now 70-something, has no kidding, thousands and thousands of dollars of signed yankee memorabilia. The man lives in a basement with a rat problem but literally even the dust in the corner is signed by Mickey Mantle. I like him. Whenever we don’t understand him and he has to repeat himself he yells super loud like we’re super far away even though we’re right next to him and I laugh. We visit some funny people. I love them. 

I love asking the question of "Have done any good in the world today". I think it’s important to remind ourselves of that. I’m very excited about the Church’s emphasis on lightening the burdens of others with the whole ministering initiative. I love the church for its doctrine and all that good stuff but I also love it for it's day to day caring level. 

​​Today we’re going watercoloring with our artist lady. She’s funny and needs company and we aren’t doing anything today so why not. YOLO amiright. 

Other than that, know that I am good and happy and healthy and I love you so so so so soso so so soso so osososossosososososososossoso much. Don’t forget it. 

Talk to you in a bit! I love you! 

—your boy! 

 Hi mom! Only six more weekly emails from me and we’re done! What a weird feeling! I’m really happy that I get to stay here in Nanuet for my last 44 days. I like it here. I’ll be staying with Elder Merizier as well and he’s a funny guy. 

I’m writing you from my little desk looking out my rainy window. I like rainy days. This past week it got into the 70’s which was crazy because my body didn’t know how to handle it after being a cold guy for so long. We had a really good week this week! I literally had to make an investigator lunch so she would come to church lol. But we actually have several really cool people we’re teaching. Yzabelle should be getting baptized the 29th this month. She’s cool. And we’re teaching this 17 year old kid named Jimmy who is the only white person I’ve ever taught in my entire mission. He’s really cool and he and I are homies. We visit a lot of really cool people that I really love a lot. So life is really good. I went to Passaic again this past week which was nice as well. I do miss the spanish program quite a bit so I went out of my way to get some good tacos. I didn’t see any dead bodies. I got released as a District Leader last night (which usually happens so you can spend your last transfer just proselyting) and I am, for the first time since Red Bank, now a Regular Proselyting Missionary. Not a trainer or District Leader, or Zone Leader or anything. Just me doing me. Swaggin. So I’m excited for this upcoming 6 weeks.

I still teach a lot in Spanish and I translate every hour of church into Spanish which is super hard but also kinda fun. My French is ok. Enough to make people laugh and what else do you need? Not much. 

I’m really excited to come home and be Sam's best friend. Gonna love that dude to pieces. Send him down to Cedar whenever you want to because I love him. I can take him to fun places. Speaking of family, Family Search just told me that I’m related to Wilford Woodriff so I'm going to check that out today. If so, that’s pretty lit. Wanna grow a beard like his.

I really like the scripture you shared and it’s been one of my favorites on the mission fun fact. One of the things that I think is really cool is that in Moroni 8:16 he says “and I fear not what man can do; for perfect love casteth out all fear.” And in 1 John 4:18 it says “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear.” And I think that it’s cool that the same concept almost down to the wording was revealed to two different men at two different parts of the world at two very different times. When we say that the gospel is everlasting, it really is. And the influence of the Holy Ghost is prevalent in all time and space, even down to a repeating one-liner written on two different hemispheres at least 300 years apart. Pretty cool.

Sorry this took so long to get to you. Elder Merizier and I invested in a ping pong net and put our dinner tables together and we pong like it’s our job. I’m still dinner table pong king. Don’t forget it.

I love you. Talk to you in a little bit. I love you with a perfect love.

-xoxoxo
​your boy