The Gathering of Zion

Well where to start? I have been in Toms River for about two weeks now, and now that we are done moving into the other apartment, we actually had time to do real missionary work this week! I am getting to know the members and the area better too. 

 

So we live in Toms River and our chapel is in Toms River, but we spend most of our time in Lakewood because that's where most of the Hispanics are. Lakewood is an interesting place. I've heard that it has the highest concentration of Jewish people anywhere in America. So a lot of the missionaries here jokingly call this place Zion because of all the Jews. About 45% of the people in Lakewood are Jewish, and about 30% are Hispanic. So we still have plenty of Hispanics to find and teach. The largest groups here are Mexicans and Peruvians. 

 

There are soooo many trees here. Very different than Union City haha. A couple times this week we drove to areas other than Lakewood and Toms River to visit some people, and out there it's just endless trees on both sides of the highway. I actually had a couple of deer run out in front of the car while I was driving! Whereas the extent of the wildlife in Union City is pigeons and stray cats haha. 

 

Our area is one of the biggest (I wouldn't be surprised if it was THE biggest) in the mission and we spend a ton of time in the car. We drove 300 miles this past week. 

 

It snowed a lot this week. There were a couple days when we were told we couldn't drive cars because of the icy conditions. 

 

So there's this Puerto Rican lady in the branch named Titi. She is 83 years old and she was just baptized two years ago!  She is so cute and sweet! She always says "the only thing I don't like about the Church is that the missionaries always have to go." She doesn't like it when the missionaries here get transferred out haha. We visited her this week and she is just the sweetest thing ever haha. 

 

Biggest miracle this week: A lady showed up at the church building and found the wife of the bishop of the English ward and told her she was an inactive member who wanted to return to church. She gave her information to the bishop's wife who gave it to us because she is Hispanic. We visited her on Saturday to get to know her better. Her name is Ana, she was born in Colombia but grew up in Venezuela and has lived in America for 45 years now. She said she was baptized in the 80's but stopped going to church a long time ago. Yesterday she went to church for the first time in 20 years and she loved it! She told us that she wants to be completely active again and participate in everything. She was already making friends with the people in the branch when she came yesterday!

 

This mission is awesome!

 

<3 Hermana Harris