Jersey City - Week 16

Que paso familia?

Wow what a week we have had. Such a good time here in Jersey City. Things are getting cold though. Lots of talk about snow but nothing has come down yet. Lots of rain though. We have been staying warm. But seriously it was an awesome week. The zone is doing work as well. We gave our 2 1/2 hour zone training meeting this past Tuesday to the Zone and this month training focus is on finding and the spiritual focus is consecration. So we taught a lot about consecration and how it doesn't mean that we need to be perfect missionaries but it means that we need to be progressing missionaries.  We asked one of our members of the zone to give a training on finding and contacting people. We then split into groups and did a bunch of contacting scenarios. Street, Door knocking, less active finding, and phone call contacts. It was super fun. This month's zone goals are about consecration through prayer and we made this contacting calendar that everyday has something different to do. Like one is contact someone with a yankees hat, another is start every contact with a compliment, one was go into a store but something nice and then contact the cashier. Ha so we made a bunch of fun ones for the zone to do. They loved it and it was cool to see the zone's contacting numbers improve.

So we got some crazy new rules changes in the mission last week. One of them is an added extra 1 1/2 to P-days. The extra time isn't on Monday but on Friday. P day is still Monday but we have a little time on Friday as well to shop for food, write letters, do laundry, and clean. They added it because p-day was super stressful before for a lot of areas. It sounds dumb but it really has helped out everyone's' stress. P-day before was a lot of driving and picking up other companionships then rushing to emails then rushing to shop then getting home at 3 and some had to do laundry. But they gave us a little more time to prepare for the week ahead. P-day became a relaxing day instead of one of the most stressful days of the week. So we had a big zone activity last week with the Union City Zone. So there were like 35 missionaries there and the assistants came down. We got to play soccer and basketball and socialize. Super fun. The zone loved it. And then we had time to do everything else. It has been a big bonus with relieving everyone's stress.

We taught the H----- family last week. We focused the lesson all on the sacrament and the important of coming to church. They committed to come and we spent awhile finding a ride for them and Saturday night we had it all set up for them to come, but Sunday morning they called and said they couldn't come to church. Awe come on! Ha No its all good. This week we are seeing them again. Awesome family.

We taught one of our less active members named O----- about the temple this past week. He has a big testimony but just not enough faith right now to change his work schedule so that he can come to church on Sundays and take the sacrament.  So we focused the lesson on temples and really showed him how people need his help when doing ordinances for the dead. Trying to give him some responsibility and commit himself a little more.

So this new family moved into the ward a few weeks ago. They straight up live in such a nice apartment down in downtown Jersey City. Its a super rich and nice area. We have like 0 members or investigators down there. Well they are on fire with missionary work and we had a short lesson with them about how to help one of his friends who was going through a rough time. Such a fun family. He is from Bolivia and she is from Ecuador.

Things are going great hear. My companion is a boss. Hard worker and always laughing. We get along good. No worries there. The cold is definitely here though. I will send another email real quick with anything I need. Thank you again for the weekly letters and emails. Helps out more than you think. Glad Sam and Dad were safe and had fun on the trip. And DC was a blast for mom and Lex. And Chloe tearing it up in Iowa as a trainer! Such an awesome family.

Love you,

Elder Sumsion