Fall is in the Air

August 27th 2018~I'm So Happy That You Got To Meet Elder Mitonzi & Go To His Homecoming!!!So Glad That You All Had A Great Week At School!

Hello to my dear and awesome loved ones! Wow, What an amazing week you all had! Thank you all so very much for the amazing pictures and emails! You always make me so happy and I loved hearing about your week and I'm so happy that everything went smoothly with school starting back up! You are all looking so happy and like you are having so much fun! I love hearing all about your week and I'm so thankful for your emails! I am really excited to talk to you today and I'm so happy we can talk back and forth! I have so much to tell you and lots of fun things that happened this week! First of all, I'm so happy that you had such a fun week and that school was a success! It's wierd to think that when I left, everyone was in 10th, 7th, and 4th grade and now you are in 12th, 9th, and 6th grade! I'm doing so great and I love this area and the ward! It has been such a neat experience and the leaves are changing colors and falling really fast! I hope that we can do lots of taking service projects! Well, here goes my week! Enjoy!

Last P-day was a really awesome and fun day! I had tons of fun emailing you and I loved being about to talk back and forth! The weather has felt a lot cooler around here lately and we can tell that fall is in the air! I seriously feel like it was just fall about 20 minutes ago! Hehe! The leaves are slightly changing colors and so I'm very excited to see how pretty it gets! It was cool to hear Dad say that it looks just like Pennsylvania since he has been there before! It was fun to think that we have seen some of the same parts of the East Coast! I forgot to mention that we had something really cool happen in the parking lot before we went grocery shopping! There was a guy riding his bike and he was a little bit drunk and kept tipping to the side and when he saw us, he stopped and asked us if we were from a Church! We excitedly told him that we were and that we would love to give him something to read so we can teach him! He said that he had said a prayer a few days ago that someone would be placed in his path that could help him and so he was surprised and excited to see us! He told us that we were an answer to his prayers and that is just always a huge testimony builder for me and I know that Heavenly Father watches out for us as missionaries and loves us all! He placed Victor in our path for a reason and it was such a cool, faith building experience! I have loved serving as a missionary because it really is a once in a lifetime opportunity and I love wearing your name and Jesus Christ's name on my nametag so much! After our fun P-Day ended and we sent off the last of our emails, we went over to the Church to have dinner with Sister Campbell! She is a very nice lady and we are so thankful for her feeding us! Every time we are with her, I always mention how much you appreciate her too! She also invited the Sister Missionaries to come as well since we found out that Sister Webb is getting transfered and so Sister Campbell wanted to have a special meal and we had sausage, homemade tomato sauce, noodles, carrots, garlic bread, and peanut butter pie for dessert! She was a little bit late and so we got to call a few investigators and conform a few appointments that we had and then I felt prompted to share a scripture from the Book of Mormon and it had to do with President Nelson's revelation on using the full name in everything that we do!

"7 Therefore, whatsoever ye shall do, ye shall do it in my name; therefore ye shall call the church in my name; and ye shall call upon the Father in my name that he will bless the church for my sake.
8 And how be it my church save it be called in my name? For if a church be called in Moses’ name then it be Moses’ church; or if it be called in the name of a man then it be the church of a man; but if it be called in my name then it is my church, if it so be that they are built upon my gospel."

We also talked about the spiritual promptings that we recieve and how the Holy Ghost guides us and protects us! I shared about when that tragedy happened on Chambers Street in Manhattan where that guy drove the car down the bike path and how Elder Brown and I felt prompted to get out of there and go visit Brother Eades and Brother Forbes 30 minutes before it happened. We probably wouldn't have been on the bike path but we were in that area just a little while before it happened last fall. It was a great evening and Sister Campbell is so nice to the missionaries and makes it feel as much like home as she can! It was so great to talk to each one of you today! LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!!

Tuesday was such a great and awesome day! I just want to wish Brandon a very fun game at Ben Lomond and I hope you win! I'm so excited to hear how your team did and how much fun you had! GO RIVERHAWKS!! I was thinking about you all day and I was so excited for Brandon to have his Freshman orientation! I said lots of prayers throughout the day that everyone would have such an awesome day and Happy Back To School!!! I read a conference talk that Uncle Dan sent to me from President Eyring called "Continuing Revelation" and also read 3 chapters in Jacob! We had a very great day tracting and we even had a set lesson with the guy named George from Cuba! For some reason, he wasn't home at the time that he told us to come over but we did meet his wife and she said that he had to work unexpectedly and so she asked us to come back on Thursday at the same time. So then we decided to do tons of tracting and it was really successful! We just keep planting seeds everywhere and we are going to go back and visit those people that we were able to talk to a little bit and introduce to the Book of Mormon! We had some pretty funny things happen while we were tracting a huge street! Hehe! First of all, we were standing at a door and it was really quiet and all of a sudden we heard rustling in the trees and then a racoon popped out of the trees and ran off with some sort of food from a nearby garbage can! Then we knocked on a door and a lady opened, took one look at us and yelled, "It's ok! I already do my taxes!!!!" and then slammed the door. It was really funny! We felt prompted to knock on a door that was behind George's house and a man yelled through the window "Are you Jehovah's Witnesses?" We told him that we are from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and he said "Ok, come around back, I'll talk to you." He seemed to be in a big rush but we asked him about his religious beliefs and how we talk about how we can strengthen our relationship with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and how we can pray and ask for comfort. He was in his 50s and had a Yankee shirt on and asked if we could leave him with a pamphlet and our number instead of teaching him right there. It was cool how interested he was! I looked at the clock and it was about time for Brandon to start his game and so I cheered inside my head for him! I couldn't even believe that school starts tomorrow and everyone will be back into the swing of things! I was also thinking about Mom and Puck as they went to back to school night and I hope that everyone had an amazing and fun day! We got to do more tracting after dinner and we passed out a ton of Family History cards. It was in a pretty area and a very nice part of Lake Hopatcong! One of the first doors we knocked on, a lady was just about to go get her son from Football practice and so it made me think of the boys! We passed out a ton of Family History cards and got to teach people about the Book of Mormon and introduce them to the Gospel by asking them questions. One of my favorite things to ask someone is if they know if one of their neighbors is going through a trial or if they recently lost a loved one. Almost every time, they will refer us to someone or they will be really friendly about it and tell us thanks for being so considerate. Today was a very awesome day and I sure was thinking about you a lot! Have so much fun on your first day of school everyone!!! Love you all tons!!!!
Wednesday was such a great day! HAPPY BACK TO SCHOOL!!!!! I hope that everyone had a very awesome and fun day back to school and loved their teachers and seeing your friends! I hope that everyone had fun starting a brand new school year! I was sending lots of thoughts and prayers to you! I do have to say that it is looking a lot like fall around here! People's yard already need to be raked because of all the leaves in their yard! This is my favorite time of year and it is so pretty! The temperature has gone down quite a bit the last few days and even got down into the 60s! It has been so pretty up here! We went to the 1st district meeting of this transfer and I was excited to meet all of the missionaries that just got transferred into our district! It is hard to believe that I've been in Sparta for over 6 weeks now! We had a very special visitor come to our district meeting! President Hess! Since we are in the Morristown Zone and we are all so close, he decided to come and visit us today and it was so great to see him! He also made an announcement that this transfer's interviews will be this coming Wednesday! I feel like we just had interviews but he said since we have a mission conference coming up in the middle of September, then we would have interviews early this transfer and so we will be in Morristown next Wednesday! President Hess is just so nice and loves missionaries. He is so personable with everyone and is so humble. Then we ate some lunch and I have some excited news! We were finally able to meet with Patience! She is the lady that we met tracting and she is from Ghana Africa and we had an amazing lesson with her! She doesn't live at the house that we knocked on but she works there and takes care of a man who can't care for himself and so she enjoys when we come and teach her because she grew up in a strong Christian household and believes most of the same things that we do but hasn't heard of the Restoration. She can be hard to teach because she talks a lot and so we have to adjust our teaching to meet her needs. We were able to show her a video about what our sacrament meeting services are like and she was so excited to learn that we take the sacrament just like Jesus Christ told us to! She says that she was a teacher in Ghana for 23 years and taught religion and English! It was so cool that we found her because if she can come to Church, she will feel the spirit and love the Church and the members! We are praying for her to get a ride because she doesn't have a car but miracles happen and I know that things will work out! It has been a slow but rewarding process to teach her and things are really looking good for her! We are still praying so hard to find someone prepared for baptism! Elder Caccioppoli mentioned to me that it takes so many more contacts to get a baptism and takes so much longer to contact the same amount of people than it does in the city. People aren't as busy up her but there are less people. It has been such a fun area and I'm so thankful to be here! On the last street that we tracted, a man that was living in an old wooden, Brown house answered the door and we couldn't see his face and he had a deep, voice and we introduced ourselves and we still couldn't see his face but he said "You boys best get going, there's coyotes and bears out there!" We have only seen 1 bear and it was off in the distance but it was just funny how he said it! Hehe! It kind of reminded me of the Velveeta commercial where the guy says "Get yer own liquid gold!" Only he said "There's bears out there boys!" He sounded kind of like that guy! Hehe! We drove back and the drive was just so nice! The leaves are falling like crazy and most of the trees haven't even changed colors but there are some kinds of trees that have already changed and fallen and so I'm very excited for fall because it is so pretty! I hope that the kids had the best day ever going back to school and that all of their practices and work went well! You are all the best and I love and miss you so very much! You are in my every thought and prayer! LOVE YOU ALL TONS!!!!!

Wow! Thursday was another very awesome day! I have been thinking about you a lot and you have all been in my every prayer! I pray for your health, safety, and happiness every day and I have felt so many prayers from you all back at home! We woke up to bright, sunny skies and we had some cooler temperatures and it got down into the 50s! In my morning studies, I read about the Priesthood and I am very thankful for the Priesthood in my life and having men like Dad bless all of our lives! I studied the Priesthood because I knew that the kids were getting a Father's blessing for school! Our day was just so great and we worked so hard! By the end of the day, we are beat and ready for some sleep! We got to do our weekly planning and everything went really well! We do have some news about 2 of our investigators though. So we called Emily and Janelly and that is the Mom and Daughter that came to Church. Brother Thompson has been trying to get a hold of them for a few days now and it would always go straight to voicemail. We called them and were able to get a hold of them and Emily, the Mom, told us that her husband came home from work after a business trip and was not happy that they were meeting with us and that they went to Church. So Emily told us very politely that her husband didn't want us to meet with them anymore and so we were pretty sad about that but we just told ourselves, "time to go and find more people who are ready!" It can be hard to have someone who really loved Church and felt the spirit tell us that they don't want to meet anymore because of what someone else told them but we just told them that they are always welcome and have a big Family when they come to Church! We know how much the Gospel would benefit them but it just isn't their time right now to learn. We were just so happy that we were able to meet them! The work moves on!!!! Then we got picked up by Daniel for our split and he is just so awesome! He is very funny and makes everyone his friend! We got to visit with a few less active sisters who we usually can visit unless we have a 3rd male with us and so it is great to have Daniel with us so we can visit them! So we went to visit Sister Goodbar and Sister Cerrano and they are both less active but love the missionaries! We got to know them and Sister Cerrano is from Brooklyn. It was a great visit and we shared Ether 12: 4 and had a great conversation! We found out that Daniel loves taking bus rides to different cities and do some sightseeing and he has been all over the place. Tonight he is going to Columbus Ohio by bus and loves sleeping on the way. He tells people that he is "a quarter of a century old" instead of telling people that he is 25! Hehe! He makes people laugh! After dinner, we went tracting on a street called "Butternut Way" and it was such a pretty area. The skies were bright blue, and when I mean blue,.......I mean BLUE! There were people out walking their dogs and so we stopped and talked to them and we also met a friendly Bhudist and he looked like he was from the Philippians. The houses were gigantic and it made me wonder what people did for a living because it is really expensive to live here. Then we met a guy and he grew up Christian and remembers the commercials that the Church used to put out! Elder Caccioppoli says that he is pretty nervous to go home and isn't quite sure if he is ready yet. He has been fun to work with and is very, very quite. He has a hard time talking to people and so I'm trying to help him be bold and excited to talk to people. He is a great guy and I love having a New Yorker as a Companion! I was thinking about you the whole day and hoping that the Football games were going well! I hope that you are all well and happy and can feel my love because I can sure feel yours! Love you to the moon and back!!!!!

Friday was so very awesome! I woke up and was really, really excited to see your email about Brandon's games! CONGRATS Buddie! I was so proud of him for his awesome games and that he got to play both offense and defence! It sounds like his team is going to do amazing things this year! Guess what, we woke up to some pretty cool temperatures and I always check your weather over there in Nibley as well! It was 55 in Nibley and 65 here in New Jersey and it felt really nice! There was a slight breeze the whole day and so as you can tell, we REALLY enjoyed being outside! We got to meet the new Sister Missionary that will be companions with Sister Wagner and she is from Rigby Idaho and so it was fun to know that we live an hour away. It's just funny how we can both travel so far and know where each other lives! The food pantry was SO very busy and there was a line out the door. We get bread from Shop Rite down the street that was either overdone or is about to expire and so they drop off huge boxes of bread and fruits and vegetables and we have plastic bags and they can take as much as they need. It always amazes me that there is so many people in need and they rely on the food pantry for help and it's fun to help them! During my studies, I read in Jacob and how Heavenly Father knows our trials and will help us and can shape us into become better people and I love thst simple truth! I also found a quote that I really like!

"Gratitude is not just a reaction to our quality of life-it is how we determine our quality of life."

I read a talk about the Blueprint of Christ's Church and it talks about how just like no 2 Houses are the same, Christ's Church can only be matched up to 1 Blueprint that is exactly the same and that is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints! I'm so happy and glad to be a part of this Church and how happy it makes all of us! This truly is Christ's Church and His same Priesthood authority that we have today! It's such a blessing to know the things thst we do and have the scriptures to guide and comfort us! We got to tract for the rest of the evening and we had some great conversations with people! It must have been a great time to catch people at home because lots of people answered their door. Most people will say that they feel good when they go to Church and they are content with their religion and so we invite people to test it out by coming to Church and have the spirit help them gain a testimony of their own. We usually have a scripture for people to read about Faith or gaining a testimony of the Book of Mormon and it is cool to watch people read the Book of Mormon for the 1st time right there on their doorstep! We tracted a really cool street that we felt prompted to go to and it was back country roads and houses were tucked into the trees. We met this guy who lives alone and he has one of the coolest voices ever. He kind of sounded like Al Michael and had a cool P.A announcer voice. I could almost picture him saying, "And now, your starting lineup! At offensive and defensive guard, Brandon Lindberg! At Wide Receiver, Parker Lindberg"! Hehe! He said that his Sister did a lot of Family History and so he knew where the Church is. He is a Buddhist and says that religion is personal but he was surprised to see us since he lives in the back country. We were able to pass out some Book of Mormons and the night went so well! On our way back to the apartment, we had about 10 police, fire trucks, and ambulances pass us and so we aren't sure what happened but it was really crazy! I hope each of you had the best day ever and that you are all well and happy! If there is anything I can do for you, let me know! I can feel so much love all the time and it makes me the happiest person in the world to have a Family like you! You are the BEST!! Love you so very much!!!


Saturday was a very awesome and busy day!! HAPPY SATURDAY EVERYONE!!! I am SO VERY HAPPY & EXCITED right now that you got to meet Elder Mitonzi!!! How awesome is that!! Seeing pictures of you with him is so surreal because we were JUST serving in the Bronx together and now he is in our living room! That was so nice of him to do and I am so thankful and grateful that he took the time to do that because that is so very special! He is such a great guy and I loved serving with him! I'm so happy that you go to meet him! WOW!!! Thanks so much for the pictures and fun email! It made my whole day!!!! I hope that the kids all had a great first few days at school! I always think about you and I'm always keeping you in my prayers and I love each one of you so very much! I have some exciting news about what we got to do today! Guess what I realized!?!? 4 months from today is Christmas!!!! Can you even believe that!?!? It was crazy to think that we are almost to September! I forgot to mention that yesterday we stopped by to set an appointment with Sister Marvin and her girls and they were home! They were in their backyard and we were able to set up am appointment for today! We were very excited to have a lesson with them because they have been really busy with it being summer. They start school in 2 weeks and so they should have a more solid schedule. It was cool to be in the right place at the right time and be able to set up an appointment! So we were excited for 1:00 to roll around for our lesson! In my morning studies, we studied the Plan of Salvation lesson to teach the Marvin girls and I read this really cool poem from President Monson and I thought you would like to read it! Enjoy!

"I met a stranger in the night
Whose lamp had ceased to shine.
I paused and let him light
His lamp from mine.

A tempest sprang up later on
And shook the world about.
And when the wind was gone
My lamp was out!

But back to me the stranger came—
His lamp was glowing fine!
He held the precious flame
And lighted mine!"

I truly know that we are a light and the Gospel gives us the light to help others and I'm so thankful for the happiness and joy that we are so blessed to have!

I also read my patriarchal blessing and I love how different things jump out at different times! It guided me as I prepared to serve my mission and every time I read it, I remember back to that snowy day in December when we drove over and I got my blessing! It was such a neat experience that I will never forget! I just love you all so much and you are my greatest source of happiness! I say it a lot but I can't say it enough: LOVE YOU!!!!! I have grown so much in my testimony and I owe it all to you and for the experiences that I've had on my mission! It has been such a special, humbling, and life changing blessing to me to serve a mission! I feel so good and I'm ready to put into practice what I have learned and apply the things I've learned after my mission! I couldn't do it without your love, support, prayers, blessings, notes, emails, and pictures! I am so thankful for you and I love you SO, SO, SO very much!!!! After lunch, we had something very exciting happen! We had our lesson with the Marvin Family and guess what!?!? We set 2 Baptismal dates for September 22nd which is 2 weeks before Elder Caccioppoli goes home! We are so excited and thrilled that we were able to set a date with them and that our lesson went so well! We taught them the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Plan of Salvation and it was a very great lesson and they remembered a lot from when they were taught a few months ago by the sisters! We set a date with Vanessa and Adrianna Marvin and we are praying that we can teach them and they can start to meet in a more consistent basis once their school starts! It is so fun to see our hard work and prayers pay off! Thank you SO much for all of your many prayers! There is such a strong power in prayers and we are seeing miracles! After our lesson, we were so happy that it all went so well and we did some tracting on a really pretty street and we met this lady who was interested to come to learn more about Family History and the Book of Mormon! The temperature was just right and so nice to be outside! We had some very cool things happen while we were out working for the night! We drove to Montague to visit Patti and she was the lady that was so interested in learning more about her ancestors! Her husband told us that Patti was away for a few weeks but we were able to do some tracting in that area and we found 3 guys in 3 different houses all in a row that are very cool! The first guy was in a rush but we told him about Family History and he said that he would go to the free class and then we met a guy from Mongolia and he says that his Family is all over the place and so it would be hard for him to find his ancestors but he was willing to have us come back again and teach him more about the Book of Mormon and the Restoration! Then we met the coolest guy of the day! He was outside working on his huge yard that he had and it must have taken him all day to mow it but it turns out that he is from Syria and so he believes that Jesus Christ is a Prophet and he loves reading scriptures! So we gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon and promised him that if he reads, he can overcome the desire to smoke because he mentioned to us that he hates smoking and wants to quit. I testified to him because I saw the miracles and obstacles that Robert was able to overcome when we would go over and read from the Book of Mormon with him! To make my day even better, I got your exciting email and was so excited for you all and I was beyond happy that you got to meet Elder Mitonzi!!!! That is so very cool and I'm so happy that he came to visit! You are all looking so good and I am so happy that you are happy! It was so awesome to see you all and I loved seeing your smiling faces! I'm so excited for your email tomorrow and I hope you all have an amazing Sabbath! LOVE YOU SO VERY MUCH!!!!

WOW! Sunday was so very awesome! I'M SO EXCITED RIGHT NOW to talk to you about your fun visit with Elder Mitonzi! I couldn't wait to get your email and see your pictures! Sunday night's are always so exciting! We headed off to ward council first thing in the morning and had a great meeting before Church started! It has been a fun experience to see how a ward council functions and how much the ward does for the members and how they help each other out! Today was one of the best Sundays in this ward so far and we had some really great lessons! We had a senior couple speak and they are from Idaho and they are in charge of the Insitute class for the New Jersey Morristown Mission and they talked about the scriptures and how important it is to gain our own testimony that the Bible and the Book of Mormon are the word of God. Brother Lloyd also spoke and he is moving to Utah with his 93 year old Mom and they have been here for over 27 years and so lots of tears were shed by the members who have been in this ward ever since it was a branch. He talked about his conversion story when he was 30 years old and the whole meeting was just so awesome! It was interesting how I could tell how the senior couple had an accent that I hadn't heard in a while. I have noticed a difference from West Coast and East Coast accents! Hehe! Stan Stankovich was able to get a ride from Brother and Sister Marecic and so it was great to have him there! Our lesson in Elders Quorum was about the talk by Brother Durrant in this last General Conference about Families and I had fun thinking back to all of our many amazing memories and there were lots of fun memories shared with the members of the quorum and it was a great lesson! Then we got invited to a couple of dinner appointments with the ward members and so we were excited about that! School starts up next week for most of the schools here and so people are having some vacations going in this week. Sister Asay gave us some yummy cookies and they tasted exactly like Mom's and Grandma's! I thought that you made them and sent them to her to give to me because they were just like yours! We found out today that Bishop Jensen is most likely going to get released next Sunday and so I'm excited to find out who the new Bishop will be! This ward is really awesome and the members take care of the missionaries that's for sure! It seemed like the theme today was about Family and so I was thinking about each of you all day and sending my love and orayers your way! After we had some lunch, we studied before going out for some more fun work! I was so very excited to see that you got to go to Provo and hear Elder Mitonzi speak! I'm so happy that you all had such a fun time! It was so fun to see pictures of you and know that you were with one of my mission companions! It puts a huge smile on my face and is so fun to think that you got to go to his homecoming! I was able to study the Christlike attributes sections and then we got the Sparta ward list of Families that they didn't assign Ministering members to because they didn't know much about them and so they assigned us to visit as many as we could that live in our area to find out more about them! It has been a cool assignment so far gathering information about these individuals and Families! The rest of the night was just awesome and the highlight was your AMAZING email and pictures! We got to visit a few members in the ward who are now returning to Church and it was great to feel their spirit because they have deep testimonies. We were able to find a lady named Shannon that lives in an apartment that a member used to live in! She might have lots of potential but she was really busy and asked us to come back next weekend! It was a really great way to end the day by finding someone! I was so happy and excited to read your email and I'm so glad that this last week was such a success and that you all got to do so much! Your email was so very awesome and I was smiling from ear to ear!!! You are the greatest Family ever and I love each one of you so very much!!!!!!!

Well my dear Family! I had a blast writing this email and remembering the great week that we all had! Have read your email a few times and loved every word as always! Your emails make me so happy and I feel so much love and I feel like you are telling me face to face all about your week! You guys are so awesome and I just want to thank you for everything ghat you do for me and all of your love and support! I'm so grateful that you take the time to support my companions as they come home and spend the time to drive up and see them! It was funny to think that Elder Mitonzi mentioned me! I still remember that day so clearly when we got our calls to serve in the New Jersey Morristown Mission! It was dinner time and I can vividly remember that moment when we saw President Smith on the caller I.D and just how right it felt that we were supposed to serve here! I am so excited for this next week and to hear how everyone's school, Work, Football, and other activites go! It will be an exciting week for sure! Again, thanks so very much for the fun email and pictures! It means a tons! I love, miss, and appreciate you all so much I know that this Church is true! I hope you all have a great day and I'm really looking forward to talking to you! LOVE & MISS EACH ONE OF YOU SO, SO, SO VERY MUCH!!!!!

Love You Always!
~Elder Lindberg