In Justin's last letter regarding the surprise phone call with his dad, Justin said, "Sounds like dad got scared for a second when I told him I was at the police station! I knew that one would get him." Justin got a kick out of that!
He also told us about his trip up to Lima. He and his companion, Elder Gil left Sunday night to go to the next city up towards Lima to spend the night. As he says, "It sucked. I had to sleep on a tile floor, they didn't have a bed. Then at 4 am Elder Avalos and I woke up and we got on a 3 hour bus ride to Lima. Then a lady from the church offices picked us up and we went to interpol to do fingerprints and take pictures for our visas. We went with 7 or so missionaries from Bolivia, they are doing them in groups day by day." Afterwards they had a couple of hours in Lima so they hopped in a taxi and went to a food court in a mall type place. In Justin's words, " It was amazing. There was Pizza Hut, KFC, Burger King, and a ton of stuff. I had Pizza Hut. It was great. It was weird in the food court though. It was so clean with big TVs just like America. Elder Avalos and I literally felt like we were back in a nice mall in the states. It was weird. Everyone looked and dressed like a North American, there were actually a few white people there. It just felt weird. But good at the same time to feel like I was back at home for a second." I thought it was interesting that Justin felt it was weird to be somewhere that he normally would've thought as normal and nothing special. He goes on to say, " It's because the people here are either really rich or really poor and they don't really mix. The wealthy stay in their part town and the poor in theirs. My old pension in Lima was telling me how the people who lived in our area couldn't really go to the nicer areas because the people there considered them cholitas and they just weren't really welcomed. It's like there are class distinctions. It is weird." That is a good thing that Justin saw the class distinctions and hopefully saw how wrong it is. We are all children of God, no matter our wealth, poverty or color. We should not look at each other with judgement. I'm glad Justin thought it was weird. We all should! Living in such humble circumstances has taught him something nothing else could have. I hope it sticks!
Justin is also done with trying to contact 100 people every week. The whole zone was not having success with their investigators because they did not have time for them. They had to constantly try to meet their goal of contacting 100 people. It was not working. As he said, "I was not called to baptize a specific number of people, but just to serve with all my heart, mind and strength and if I do that and have zero baptisms at the end, I have still 100% completed what I was called to do. We just have to do all that we can, ask the Lord to do his part, and have the patience to accept his timing and will."
Well said Justin.
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