Union City

Hey everyone! Great week!

I'm here in my new area of Union City. This place is amazing. It's almost completely Hispanic and is super densely populated. In fact, it's the second most densely populated city in the entire United States behind Guttenberg (which is a few blocks North of us). You can Google that. New York City is #6. The diversity is awesome. We've got EVERY country from the Hispanic world. Lots of Cubans and Venezuelans here, which I haven't had before. Very fun. People keep asking me what country I'm from. I ask them to guess, and so far I've gotten Chile, Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina, which is basically just all the whiter people.

Elder Mortenson is awesome! We have a great view of the NYC skyline from the edge of our area (we cover Weehawken), and we've got an amazing ward. They are absolutely great at fellowshipping and go out of their way to help the people that we bring. This week, a person that we brought disappeared after Sacrament Meeting and we were like "Darn, they must have run away." They had been taken by the members and brought to Relief Society. Golden. In second hour, all of the members just bore powerful testimony to everyone. It was beautiful.

The food here is amazing too. 7 dollars for a Lomo Saltado, soup, and Inca Kola combo. Yum.

Here are some people we're teaching:

Anabel: Came to church this week! We met her on Saturday and she came on Sunday. Super cool Mexican lady. She wants to learn English so we're splitting it half and half with the Gospel.

The Mendoza Family: Ecuadorian family. They're super nice and want to feed us so bad. The missionaries hadn't visited them for a while, but we went in and they're awesome. They've got a family member in Utah and were talking about moving there. Lot's of potential, but we just need to have more effective lessons, so we're setting expectations up front. Shout out to Elder Harris for helping us to keep the lesson short.

Elvis: Dominican guy who wears all Lacoste. Not sure if it's real. There's an older man who lives with him who went on a rant last time they visited and got a sword out and started swinging it around and saying that he was slaying Catholic priests and that we're the only true church. He's not a member and we have no idea who he is, but it's hilarious.

Luis: Peruvian man who had been involved in the Church for 25 years but has never been baptized. Asked us to be baptized. We asked him about all the different requirements and he was like "Of course I'll do all of that." Total baller.

Don't have a lot of time, but this weeks spiritual thought is on forgiveness. There was a great talk in Sacrament Meeting about it and how repentance isn't complete without forgiveness. Forgiving takes weight off and helps us to love those around us more. Let's try to forgive someone this week, whatever it is that they did to offend us.

Cool News: We're going to have an All-Mission Conference in August with 1 or more General Authorities which will be pretty cool. Stay tuned for updates!

That's it chicos!

Love,

Elder Reyes