Dawsonville-Week 1

Well Justin has been transferred to Dawsonville, Georgia which is north is where he was serving.  He has been called as district leader up there.  We heard from Bishop Allphin, who Justin served with in Jonesboro, letting us know how much they were going to miss him and what an awesome missionary he was.  It does your heart good to hear that as his mom.  Justin says he was an awesome bishop and he loved working him.  So this is his update this week......I miss Jonesboro a lot but I know that I am supposed to be in this area right now.  Dawsonville is straight country and I love it!!  Everyone drives a truck, everyone has lifts on their trucks.  The people here are so friendly.  We went to a members home this week, his name is Bro. S and he owns his own farm, he has chickens, peacocks and like 7 horses.  It is sweet!!  He lives up in Dahlonega though.  So like I said it is very country people just let their chickens roam the yard and stuff, it is weird because the chickens they watch you and follow you.  The ward is broken up into two parts Dahlonega and Dawsonville.  But it is all one ward.  The Dahlonega Elders are Elders Chambers from Woods Cross and Elder Thorne from Orem, Utah.  In Dawsonville, it is myself and my companion Elder Childs, who is from Gunnison, Utah.  The district is just the four of us and we live about 15 miles from the church.  The church is like half way between both sets of missionaries.  The people here are way nice, the ward members pretty much love  the missionaries and they are like all converts.  Oh and like Magna, everyone is related, you should see the ward roster.  I am the oldest in this district by 5 weeks, Elder Chambers is right behind me.  Tiny miracle for this week....well when I got here there were no investigators at all, not one, and this week we went to work and started working through the area book and we found someone, a nice lady who was taught before, she lives in the middle of no where.  We had a good discussion with her but we will see what happens.  We do a lot of service in this area apparently.  I am excited to be here and I know that the Lord wants me here.  I love and miss y'all.

Jonesboro-Week 18

Here is the latest update from Justin this week.....The work is moving forward and we are doing our best.  It has not cooled down that is for sure.  Well....transfers are this week and I am getting transferred.  I will be going to Dawsonville, it is in Northern Georgia.  We have some people here in Jonesboro in the making, they will eventually become investigators, I think.  My companion is doing great and I hope he will miss me but I'm not sure if he will or not.  LOL!!  I visited one of my favorite families this past Wednesday and their youngest daughter decided to use what she learned from Kung Fu Panda on me..."my boys" will never be the same again.  I will be serving as district leader in Dawsonville and I will still be driving a Ford fusion.  Booya!!  I think he is excited about still having a car and not having to bike all the time.  A tiny miracle for this week would be we got in with one of our investigators, finally and she said that she was reading and we weren't sure where to go with the conversation, so I asked an inspired question and it was exactly what needed to be said.  It was so amazing.  I was very happy.  Well, that is it for this week.  Next week I will be emailing you from my new area.  I love and miss y'all.

Jonesbor-Week 17

Well this week we emailed Justin from Utah Lake while we were on vacation we tried not to make him too homesick and this was his update for the week......That is awesome to hear about your weekend, I'm gonna be honest I have missed the boat a lot this year but this is the Lord's work, which is far more important than riding on a tube in the nice Utah weather.  I think he was a little homesick this week.  Our 4th of July was good.  We had a nice ward activity where we played soccer with the spanish branch, it was a lot of fun.  The weather is hot and humid, we had a record setting day last week....107, that's hot!!  Plus we drive by Jodeco Lake like everyday, it's rough.  The work is awesome in Jonesboro.  I love it.  I think I might be leaving  this transfer but I am not sure.  My companion is legit as always.  My miracle for this week, we were trying to contact everyone we see, which is hard sometimes and we met this guy who was super nice and he actually knows quite a bit about the church and he said he would love for us to come by sometime.  He knew about Joseph Smith, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and everything it was for sure the Lord's hand in his work.  I know that this is where I need to be at this time in my life.  I know that my mission is not very long but what will come out of these two years is so great.  I love and miss y'all.

Jonesboro-Week 16

Well Justin has been in Jonesboro now for 4 months and from the sounds of it he is really liking it and having some great experiences...here is the latest update from him......This week has been pretty good.  It has been very HOT here for sure.  Like 107 degrees!!  It was crazy.   We still have to go out and work in it though.  For the 4th of July I think we are going to have a BBQ at the church with our ward mission leader and then we are going out and working all day.  Just a normal day for us missionaries.  I really enjoy being a missionary.  Jonesboro is great and we have some awesome people we are working with.  I am glad that I am not riding a bike right now.  Sometimes we do have to walk though.  I really don't have much to say this week.  Everything is going peachy here. Well my small miracle for the week was this...we are meeting with one of our investigators this week and we felt prompted to promise him if he read the Book of Mormon that he would receive a job offer in seven days, so the very next day  he calls us and tells us that he got a job.  It was so amazing.  I have gained a testimony of missionary work and have strenghtened my testimony of prayer.  I love missionary work so much, it is hard sometimes but it is worth it.  Well that is all I have for this week.  I love and miss y'all.

Jonesboro-Week 15

This is the latest update from Justin.....Howdy family, well this week has been really good.  We had a baptism on Saturday which makes it a perfectly good weekend.  It is crazy to think that I have been on my mission for this long and it freaks me out that I don't have over a year anymore.  The work is going well, we should be having another baptism in a couple of weeks and our investigators are doing really well.  We have some great brothers and sisters here in Jonesboro.  I love my area so much!!  I can get around without a GPS now.  It is starting to get very humid here but we will see how the summer goes.  The Jonesboro district is doing really well.  I am still serving with Elder Astle and are having a good amount of success.  We have a new missionary serving in the Spanish branch, he is from Utah.  And my man, Elder Sarniguet is still here and he is an awesome missionary.  We also have a senior couple who is going home this transfer...and two older missionaries in the Flint River Ward.  So here is my miracle for the week...Elder Astle and I were talking about numbers this week and we were setting goals for baptisms each month and I jokingly said....20 baptisms and he was like okay and I was like come on Elder...that is like 4 families of 5 people.  So at this baptism that we had the bishop pulled us aside and said that he had a referral for us.  He told us a little bit about the referral...like how they called the bishop asking about the Scouting program, so we talked to the referral and set up a time to come by and after talking to them I found out that they were a family of 5 people.  I know now that the Lord is serious about his work.  I know that he knows the desires of our hearts, he knows what we need before we even ask.  I hope that y'all have a good week.  Love y'all!!