Tom's River and a fantastic companion!

Transferred......to Tom's River! Now he's even more south and further away from the mission home, but from the sound of this letter I think he's quite okay with it. This should be an interesting area for him. Tom's River is an ocean township and has been filmed in lots of movies, including Jersey Shore. He is in a town called Lakewood. It's home to about 55,000 Orthodox Jews who go there to attend the Yeshiva (school where they study the Torah).  And he got a dream companion!  I know he's happy.

Hi Mom!

No, I don't need new pants :) ​ * Hahaha.......this made me laugh!

Well, the good news is my new companion is Elder Comish from Las Vegas. Oh he is so great! I have always wanted to be his companion, so here it is! I am in Tom's River, more south than I was in Long Branch. We have a pretty big area but it is a good area with lots of work to do. The ward is somewhat of a small/old ward. Lots of either really young families with one or two kids under 4 years old or old people. It reminds me somewhat of Grandma's ward in Georgia. So they've been working on that.

Yes I am emailing from a library. Lakewood wow! It's charming.

My new address:

130 Corbin Court
Lakewood, NJ 08701

​Yeah I wrote so much to dad that I don't have much to talk about

anymore without repeating myself.

My companion is Joseph, maybe Joey Comish, from Las Vegas. He's fantastic! Probably top 3 companions.

Zone 12. Nobody I knew before is in my zone besides my companion and
Elder Makai (east orange buddy)

Yes we're still near the ocean and reall far south but it's good.
There is more or less everything we need down here. smashburger, five
guys, mcdonalds, wendys, everything. Except Del Taco! they even have
an Arby's that we ate at. Twas real good. We have a car so we can go
almost anywhere. Money is the only reason we don't eat out a lot! It's
pretty expensive here.

Well I'm really gonna enjoy myself here. It's south but I don't mind.
We've got some great people to see. And my companion knows what he's
doing. I really like him. And we have a super nice apartment. It's
like a vaction home. So that's good.

Sorry I am short this week! But I'll have more for you (mom) next week.

Love you!

Tab

Hi Dad!

I'm glad you had a good trip, but it's a bummer that you didn't get to enjoy much free time. And about your trip to Alaska - I am very jealous. We'll have to go together when I get back, assuming you enjoy the trip. I am sure you will. Elder Marchant was a big-time fisherman and he LOVED going to Alaska to go fishing. I don't remember what he caught there, but I know he is a big on trout fishing. He told me they are easy to catch.

I'm happy to hear that things are working out well for the family, too. I think Mom needed some time off from her classes. I'm going to guess that means longer e-mails and more mail for me. We'll see. And it is good that Colby is working a lot.  

​

I'm working a lot in my new area, Tom's River. My companion is a champ. His name is Elder Comish. He is from Las Vegas, Nevada. His birth mother is Cambodian so he has an asian look in him. He's a very obedient missionary and he is easy to get along with. He was trained by the famous 6'9" loveable Elder Bell (Elder 7 foot full of love). I had a role play with him on his first day in New Jersey and ever since then I have wanted to be his companion. He knows what he is doing. He went to a semester of school at BYU so we have that in common. However, he is a year younger than me in school. So he is Reese's age. He's been in Tom's River for three transfers and has really turned around the work in this ward. It seems that the further south in our mission you go, the slower the work gets. But that is not so much the case for Tom's River elders. They've been doing work.

Still, the ward is quite small. Only about 100 people attend on average, and most of them are old folks. I told mom that this ward reminds me of Grandma Rozier's ward in Georgia. There aren't much youth. Everyone is very friendly, though. I met with the Bishop.  I've been praying that I'll be able to work effectively with him. In my opinion, it appears that he hasn't caught "the wave" of the work of salvation. From what I was told, he is going to be moving to Utah soon. However, most major functions are taken care of. The ward council still needs to put together a ward mission plan for this year.

I've been having pretty good studies lately from Doctrine and Covenants and the New Testament. I like Romans through John's epistles. I started reading the New Testament again about a week ago. This will be my third time through it.

Well I don't have much in the way for stories this week. We saw a few of the investigators and members in this area this week, but not all. The most progressing of them all is Natalie Nyugen (or Nguyen, not sure) who is a young Vietnamese girl. The missionaries have not met her parents yet but Natalie comes to church every week and is planning to be baptized at the end of this month. She is incredible. Her parents are not interested in the church but they are okay with her meeting with us. Hopefully we can get some Pho or pork and prawn noodle bowls someday.

That's about all from me. Keep working hard and try not to over-encumber yourself! We're going to be giving a training on Tuesday on managing stress and that will be one of the main points to talk about, not planning to do more than you can. Anyway-

Love you too,

Tab