My First Week in New Jersey

October 21, 2103

Hey Everyone,

Well I've made it to New Jersey.  There are trees everywhere.  It’s so beautiful and Fall is amazing.  I've been here for about a week and the weather has been great.  Well I think it has, but my companion says it freezing.  I have received my new companion and her name is Sister Varble.  We are having a lot of fun.  She is from Harrisville, Utah and has lived there most of her life. 

I'm afraid to say I have some scary news......I AM DRIVING....Yes, I could use the extra prayers.  Driving in New Jersey is basically really awful.  First of all most of the places we go have only one lane and with everyone being aggressive drivers it is just best to follow the crowd.  Unfortunately we have a device called a Teiwei and it basically tracts every time we speed or accelerate too fast.  Let’s just say we might not be driving for too much longer.  Unfortunately my companion cannot drive because she was in an accident that caused her driving privileges to be taken away.  Walking District here we come.  Though we've had a fun time in our district, the gospel in this area is really struggling.  Most people don't want to listen and the ward is not too friendly towards helping missionaries find investigators, but we hope things are changing.  I'm just grateful that I have a companion that works really hard and cares so much about people.  It has been a privilege to serve my Heavenly Father. 

One very interesting thing about New Jersey is that they have lots of interesting people.  In a lesson we were teaching to an investigator named Vito we came to the part about prophets and discovered that he thought he was one, saying something about having a direct line from God.  The people of New Jersey are VVVVERY INTERESTING to say the least.

We had a really cool experience with a man named Greg.  He stopped his car when he saw us and asked if we were the Mormons.  He was a bit confused because he had only seen the boy version of missionaries.  My companion said "We are the girl version." He also asked if we have black people in our church (he is black).  That was very ironic because that week our new bishop who was called is black.  We continued talking to him and he asked if we could come talk to him later.  After Church we went up to his house and talked to him about our church.  He told us he belongs to the Baptist church and wasn't going to change religions.  His wife came out and invited us to dinner next week.  A meal and a lesson; it’s going to be a great week.  Looks like we will be trying some collard greens and sweet potato pie.  I can't wait.

Best of Love,

Sister Rogers

P.S. Pictures will hopefully come.  We are not as updated as D.C. but we are hoping to the mini iPads soon.