Work in our area was weird this week, but we still had a baptism!

Mondays. The one day I wake up and immediately check my email. I love seeing Tab's name pop up knowing he's there emailing me. Sometimes he is and sometimes he's not. Today I missed him. I was bummed but his sweet letter was enough to sustain me until next week. Love my missionary!

Hi Mom! 

It appears that you are sleeping today. Maybe. 

Well, this week was kind of an odd one. We went to the temple on Thursday and that was pretty neat. It was a pain in the neck to try to keep all the missionaries in the zone together while going through New York. We took a direct route to the temple and on the subway there wasn't enough room so all of us got split up. It was really annoying. I hate Manhattan. There are way too many people there. Most people only care about getting to and from work on time so they can get pretty nasty if you get in their way. And the whole city smells like cigarettes. I would never live there. I like the temple though! And it was the first time I had done baptisms for the dead in over two years, so I really enjoyed that part. I prefer baptisms and confirmations over endowment sessions. All in all, it was a pretty regular trip to the temple. We ate at a Portuguese barbecue place in Newark on our way home and that was yummy. 

Work in our area was weird this week. We tried really hard to teach people and get at least 10 contacts a day and for some reason it was really tough. So we didn't have near as much success as we usually do, but we still had a baptism! So that's good. Natalie really enjoyed it. She is super quiet, but I know she was excited. She is Vietnamese, by the way. So we may be getting some authentic Vietnamese food one of these days. :) We lost track of a lot of our other investigators this week so we're probably be doing a restart this week (and transfer). Elder Comish is being transferred so I'll be leading out the area. I don't know it very well, but it'll be alright. I hope my new companion has a GPS. If not, I'll be asking for one soon! I'll let you know. 

Yes, we traveled a lot this week too. We usually do. Driving people around! Two of our companionships' cars have gotten hit in the last few weeks so they were both in the shop this week. We were helping them out with that as well. Then one Elder hit his head (funny story) and had to get stitches so we were driving around taking care of that. It was a busy week.

I am glad your surgery went well! The side-effects you had sound a lot like the ones I had when I got surgery on my pinky. Mine was less intense and I only was on medication for a day or two (oxycodone) and then things got better. But I hated taking that pain medication. It always made me light headed and nauseous. I can't see how anyone would get addicted to something like that. It stinks! My comps have told me that I breathe heavy at night but I doubt that it is my nose. i think it's my tonsils! need em out. Actually I think it's allergies too, because it hasn't been a problem in the winter. Maybe i should just have my nose cut off!

By the way that Masala and naan was super good so if you bought that at just any other normal store, let me know and I'll go find it. Thank you for that! I have yet to cook the Stubbs stuff but we have a slow cooker now. So I l will et you know how that goes next week. yumyum 

Other than that, this week was pretty normal. We made the stuff you sent and I ate all the oreos. Those were the best tasting oreos I've ever had, tied with mint oreos. I will be getting more at walmart. As for the indian food, I really enjoyed just dipping the naan in the sauce. It was better than the dish itself, with the rice and chicken. I got super full so I didn't even end up eating dinner that day. We ate lunch at about 2 or 3 and then my stomach was full for the rest of the day. I think it expanded in my belly. It's pretty dense food. I loved it though. From where did you buy it? 

Ahhh those food trucks! where's that at? jdawgs needs a truck and they need a taco truck.

Send me updates on the world cup! Not a link to a webpage but just a written out scoresheet or something. I like hearing about it - it makes for good small talk with the people we meet. Does North Korea have its own team? If so, are they doing well?

Have a good week!

LOve,

tab

We've been meeting lots of great people here!

Best part of my week......Letters from my boy. Still doing well and going strong!

Hi Mom! 

Oooh, I gotta try that surgery when I get home. Just straight cut off my nose so I don't have to deal with it! Hope it goes well for you. 

Question - When did we live in San Francisco? what years. I am wondering if you got hit by the earthquake. 

So I wrote another long letter to Dad. That should let you know how my week went. 

Love you!

​Hi Dad!

I had no idea that Dean Larsen was the Dean Larsen that was a general authority. I just figured he was a really good guy. I hear the name Jack Welch all the time on my mission, especially from long-time members who enjoy church history. ​I would be nervous to teach a lesson in front of them as well. This morning I read President Monson's talk called "True Shepherds" and it briefly mentions a story told by President Hinckley of when he was meeting in his home with Spencer Kimball and Thomas Monson (the Missionary Executive Committee then) and his home teacher stopped by, unanticipated. His home teacher nervously shared a quick message and then left. Your experience reminded me of that. 

So, I have humbled myself a little bit from last week to this week. Our meetings were much better yesterday. Sadly, instead of having five of our investigators come like last week, we had none. That would happen! I'm not mad, but I was a little bit disheartened. Nevertheless, I enjoyed sacrament meeting a lot. I love reading the scriptures, so I did that for much of the meeting. I enjoyed the speaker selection this Sunday. By the way, Happy Fathers Day! I wish I would have been able to tell that to you yesterday. You've been a great example for me. It helps to be a missionary - while preparing for lessons I try to think of my personal experiences with gospel topics and so I reflect on lessons learned and childhood memories often. In my patriarchal blessing I am encouraged to do so regularly. I still need to be better at writing in my journal. That just isn't something I enjoy doing, so naturally it doesn't get done. I prefer to read or just sit and think. 

We've been meeting lots of great people here and I am excited to see how things turn out within the next couple of weeks. A lot of the very "prepared" people we have met have slowly fallen away or dropped us entirely and that is sad to see. That happens a lot in this area. We teach a lot of investigators one or two or even three times and then we never see them again. Igor is one example. We haven't heard a word from him since last Sunday when he came to church. :( Yesterday, we were super fortunate and we met with an investigator we had only taught once before named Jeni. It was kind of a miracle that we were even able to visit her but the lesson we had was even better. She has grown up in a Jewish home for her entire life and so the Gospel was something completely foreign to her. We taught her about the Book of Mormon and she soaked it up like a sponge. She is really humble and I think that is why. She realizes she needs the Gospel probably better than anyone I have ever taught on my mission. So I'll let you know how that goes. I know we'll for sure be able to see her again. ;) 

The Stake President came to our meetings yesterday and so I assume that he will be calling a new bishop fairly soon, perhaps within the next two weeks. It's like the Church's version of scouting!

Anyway, thanks for the letter. The Pereira's story is a neat one! I tell it sometimes. 

Love you,

Tab

So, I've said this before. I love letters between Tab and his dad and I occassionally share them because of their message. Here is another one of those times. I loved the story Tim shared.  Here goes.........

Hey Tab.

I hope you had a great week. My week went quite well — no complaints. I kept busy, met a few deadlines, resolved some stressful issues, got caught up on some things.  Now I just need to do the same this week.  I taught priesthood today in the 14th Ward HP group on Honoring the Priesthood Keys Restored by Joseph Smith.  Brother Dean Larsen (formerly senior president of the Quorum of the Seventy) told an awesome story. He told about a time when area presidents (who were also in the Quorum of the Seventy) were starting to be called — area presidencies were a a new way of handling the growth of the church.  He told about a training meeting he was helping to lead with Elder Packer. At the time, the area presidents has been set apart in their callings and had realized that they had not been given keys. They asked Elder Packer the question, "How can we preside as area presidents without keys?" Elder Packer turned to Elder Larsen and said, "Dean, what's the answer?" Elder Larson read to them scriptures from Section 107 of the Doctrine and Covenants (verses 22-34) and taught them that they do not have keys, but that they have apostolic authority to act in place of the apostles when they are directed by the apostles to do so. They cannot initiate the work of an apostle or make the decisions of an apostle, but they can carry out the work of an apostle under the direction of an apostle. Anyway, it was a really cool complement to the lesson and added tremendously to what I was trying to teach. I shouldn't get stressed out to teach this group with Dean Larsen, Richard Anderson, Jack Welch, and others, but I do. They are all so nice and supportive.

Before I forget, Oneill said to tell you that the Miners send their love and that they appreciate the friendship that you've given to their family.

Last week you lamented a little that the Spirit was not a strong in your ward as you would hope and that your investigators were not being uplifted by the members like they could be. I've been there. In the last area of my mission, the bishop actually pulled me and my companion aside and told us that the investigators and converts we were bringing into the church were not any good and would not add to the ward and would just go inactive. This was the least successful time of my mission — we worked super hard, but had pretty minimal success.

I'm attaching a couple of pictures. The first one is of the Restinga Branch in July 1982. Restinga was considered a bit of a slum. To combat the poverty in the area, the government had built a large amount of housing projects. Most people were quite poor. Only one member had a car. We met in a school building and the branch was mainly composed of women and children. The branch president was "on loan" from a ward in the city. My companion and I were the counselors in the branch presidency. Ivan, the little black guy on the front row was one of two active priesthood holders in the branch. There were some great women in this branch (the two grandmas on the front row — one left, one center). I am certain that they will be exalted some day. Our meetings in this branch were a bit crazy — rarely did a Sunday go by that we weren't called upon to speak or teach lessons because those that were assigned didn't show up.

The second picture is of Ulisses Pereira and his wife Maria in front of the Manaus Brazil Temple, which was dedicated in 2012. Ulisses is the temple president and Maria is the temple matron. Ulisses and Maria were baptized into the Restinga Branch in August of 1982 as a young couple with two children. Ulisses was set apart as the EQ president after a couple of months and became the branch president within the first year of his membership. I'm sure he must have wondered what he had gotten himself in to. He and Maria have gone on to do many important things for the church and Brazil. My point is that you should not worry too much about the conditions in your ward. Work to help the ward improve. Do your part and the Lord will take care of the rest! He will bless your investigators.

Have a great week Tab!  You are doing great things!

Love, Dad

This week was great and not so great!

Hi!

Hope everyone had a great time on their trips! 

Dad and Colby - 

Man, sounds like you had a good time. I am jealous of Colby - trying
to get around by himself in two big cities. I would love to do that.
It's fun using public transportation even as a missionary. A few times
in Trenton we took the bus to get to church in Princeton. Making the
transfers between bus zones was difficult there, but in Newark, public
transportation runs smoothly everywhere. Newark is probably like a
small version of SF with much fewer tourist attractions. And it's more
dangerous, I would imagine. I'll show you around one day :)

This week was great and not so great! On our part, we had a lot of
success in finding and teaching. We fell short of our goal of 20
lessons, however we had five of our investigators at sacrament meeting
and had a lot of member present lessons. We have more people on
baptismal date too. One of the highlights from this week is a lesson
we had on Friday with a new investigator named Igor. He is Ukrainian
and his family members are Jewish. He speaks something like five
languages fluently (Hebrew, Russian, Yiddish, and two others besides
English) and he is only 20 years old. He is a Christian. He is
planning to go to BYU so he showed up to church during our zone
meeting and asked us about getting an ecclesiastical endorsement. He
also said that he was interested in joining the Church. So, we sat
down with him and talked about his religious background and it turns
out he knows way too much about the scriptures so we had a hard time
teaching the Restoration simply. It wasn't a mess, partly because we
were in a trio with one of the assistants, but I wish that I had been
more prepared for that. It worked out alright. He came to church on
Sunday and he said he would "absolutely" be baptized. I look forward
to going to school with him! I think right now he has a desire to be
baptized in order to join the crowd when he goes to BYU. But I am
certain that desire will change with time, especially while he's at
school. He's awesome. We had good lessons with Jackee and Jose this
week, and they also came to church, but left after sacrament meeting.
More on that later. Natalie came to church and enjoyed it as usual.
All three of them have a baptismal date of June 22nd. We're praying
for them! Igor should be on date soon, too. One of the recent converts
in the ward, Denise, brought her son who we just started teaching. He
is 10 years old. He will be baptized and join the church very soon as
well. The only reason he hasn't already is because of a custody battle
that Denise is still going through. She recently married a member in
Texas and will be moving there in August assuming she wins her case.
She is one of "the elect" if I have ever met one. So Ryan will either
be baptized here and move quickly thereafter or join the church in
Texas.

We've been contacting a lot and teaching new people, but it is
difficult for us to see them more than once or twice. I'm not sure
why. That is kinda how New Jersey rolls from what I've seen. But just
making 10 contacts a day helps us feel accomplished and it helps us
reach our goals. We see blessings in other areas of the work as a
result. Our teaching pool recycles a lot quicker through people who
are or aren't interested. Finding motivation to get our there and talk
to people is hard for me on some days. Other days I am all for it. It
helps to have a companion who can pick up the slack on the days that
I'm not feeling it. I try to do the same for him. We work well
together.

Thanks for all the snacks! We enjoyed them, especially mint oreos haha.

Love you too! Hope you all enjoyed your trips. :)

Love, Tab!

I don't want time to pass by quickly!

Well, after reading this letter I think it's safe to say Tab is keeping very busy! I love his praise for his companion. He sounds great, but he wants an extension?!?!?! I guess he's happy and Jersey Strong!

Hi Mom!

Another Monday... did you enjoy your week?

I did. We stayed really busy with stake and missionary meetings in the north. We did a lot of driving. That is the only problem with thesouth. New Jersey isn't even that big of a state! It just takes 3x as long to go the same distance in Utah. My companion and I set some good goals and we saw lots of success. We had 22 lessons, which is the first time since he has been here (at least 6 months) that that hashappened. So that was good! I ate at Smashburger again and then I had a beef brisket sandwich at Costco. It wasn't bad. I would probably eat it again. Our team up Ryan Stojka takes us out to eat every time we go with him so we've been getting lots of free yummy food. :) I had Five Guys too after our meeting in Morristown. We also had a meeting with the stake president in East Brunswick to address the problems in the units in the zone. Face to face with a Jersey stake president talking to him about the problems with the leaders in his units is really scary! It must be very humbling for him.

I sent a big letter to dad and so I'll copy it in here for you. Hopefully it answers your questions!

"Thank you for giving me an update on your trip to Alaska. I enjoyed hearing that you were able to fly around in a Cessna. Elder Traasdahl's brother in Norway was required to take a small plane like that to get to transfer conference when he was serving in Svalbard. Supposedly, the missionaries there are required to carry around shotguns to protect them from bears and other wild animals. I'm not sure if that is true, but it sounds cool.

So I'll update you a little bit on the work. We stay really busy. I am surprised at how much time we have to work in our area. We had 22 lessons in our area last week, which is something hard to do even as a regular missionary without leadership responsibilities. We lost a lot of time on Thursday and all day Friday due to stake and mission leader meetings. It takes us a little over two hours to drive up to Morristown with regular traffic. That's the one problem with this zone: it is huge and it is way down south... "down to the river to [work]!" But other than that I love the zone. We have great missionaries who are strong enough to stay busy and be obedient without the nearby presence of leaders. We only get to see other missionaries (besides the ones in our ward) once a week at district meetings. I pray for them a lot - this whole zone seems to struggle with finding and baptizing. However, my area has been fairly fruitful in the last few transfers. Since I have gotten here, things have slowed down a little bit. But I try not to let that happen!

We have a couple investigators who have baptismal dates - Natalie (June 21st) and Jackee (June 22). Natalie is very promising. She is only 14 years old, but she is very mature for her age. She has already been taught everything over the phone by sisters in Salt Lake, so all
we do is just follow up to make sure she understands everything. She has come to church on her own for several weeks. The only hold back is getting permission from her parents. I haven't met them yet, but she says they aren't interested in learning more about the church. We'll see what they have to say about her joining it! She is Vietnamese, by the way. Jackee is hispanic and she is 24 years old. She actually just broke up with her boyfriend she was living with so now she can get baptized without having to get married! She is like most investigators - super willing in lessons, but she doesn't do too well at keeping commitments. Other than that, we have taught a lot of people once or twice and then not been able to see them again. New Jersey special! People seem to just disappear...

My companion is a champ. I love him. He is what President Jeppson calls "the consumate missionary". I have a lot to learn from him. And him from me, hopefully.

Thanks again for writing! I look forward to going to Alaska with you again. Enjoy your trip with Colby! Get some yummy Vietnamese (#23 Dry - was that the dish?) for me. We've seen a couple places around here so I'll go check them out."

Haha, no I don't want time to pass by quickly! I thought about asking for an extension but I highly highly doubt they would give it to me. :) Reese will get back in time to go to the winter semester so we'll all go back at the same time :) I just have to find an apartment! Elder Traasdahl is coming too!

I'm doing great. I love you all!

Love, Tab

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

Time to say goodbye to Long Branch!

Letters from Tab were short this week. I guess he is busy. He was told he will be transferred tomorrow so his time in Long Branch is done. I guess we'll see where he head's to next - this will probably be his last area as he only has 3 transfers left. I'm looking forward to seeing where he goes. 

Hi Mom!

I'm being transferred. I have a slim chance of my next companion being a haitian so it'll be good. I'm certain to get a good companion don't worry ;) I always do.

Sak pase! he'll make me some sauce pois and legume!

You asked for more pictures of me......there's one rule and one rule only in my world:

no selfies!

love you too!

Tab

Elders McLain and Marchant

You can tell it's spring.....his blond hair is back!

McLain and Marchant

Long Branch, NJ