Tyler and Pablo

Elder Tyler Maxwell Jones Week 22

Hey mom,

I'm glad things are fun with the kindergarteners. That's crazy that Courtney's getting married this month. Sounds like things are all around going pretty well in Indiana.

It's been a fun week. Near the beginning of the week we had to help set up for a Christmas crèche they have in this stake every year. Apparently something like 10,000 people come to it. They just decorate a church building extensively and they have a bunch of nativity sets all around and some Christmas music. We were only there for four hours and we hardly made a dent in the amount of decoration that they were doing. There were 16 missionaries there as well.

We haven't been able to find Silvia again which is a bit disappointing. We've stopped by her house a few times and never found her. 

We went to go make and serve food to seniors at a retirement home this week. That was fun. One of the guys there taught us how to peel an orange with a spoon. They were having a silent auction with fake money. They were getting pretty in to it.

We've had a couple more good lessons with Christie. She came to church again. Her Mom wants to come to church as well. Our ward mission leader taught gospel principles and he's awesome. He does a great job of making things really simple. One of the members sort of just walked into the class though and kept on making comments. At one point he was trying to explain the abrahamic covenant and his literal/ adopted seed. So that was fun. She was a bit confused but we tried to refocus the class and it wasn't bad.

Friday night between our two bikes we got three flat tires. Something in the road had punctured both of my companions tires and one of my tires. We were about three and a half miles from our apartment when that happened. We tried patching the bikes on Saturday. We were able to patch two of the tires but one of them already had 5 other patches on it. So that one wouldn't hold together. So we're going to have to work all that out with the vehicle coordinator this week.

The Tongan elders have been taking us around everywhere today for P-Day. The Tongan elders are great. We also had interviews today. That went well.

Things are going great here. Hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Jones

Elder Jones Week 21

Hello,

That's so exciting to hear about your class. The classroom is looking awesome. That's great that you had a good thanksgiving. Good to hear a lot of people are coming to gospel principles. 

It's been another good week. We got to go to the branch presidents house for thanksgiving. He's a really good cook and apparently had been cooking since 5:00 in the morning. So it was a lot of food and a lot of good food. 

It rained a lot this week again. I guess it just rains in the winter here and never at any other time of the year. But that was alright. 

We're still trying to get in contact with Silvia. We're going to drop by her house Wednesday and maybe another time this week.

Christie is doing well. She came to church for the second time yesterday. She still seems to really enjoy it. We've had a few really good lessons with her. 

We're still focusing on trying to find a lot of new people. The problem is that there's usually not too many people outside in the rain. However the church's Christmas initiative is starting to come out and so it's easier to share a Christmas message with people to begin talking with them.

I got to teach gospel principles this week since the teacher was out of town. It wasn't too bad. We had a good few people there. People liked to make comments so it made it easy to teach.

The Chinese elders in our district had a baptism this week. So that's awesome. 

Hope you guys have a great week.

-Elder Jones

Elder Tyler Maxwell Jones Week 20

Hey, sorry I didn't write yesterday. Our Pday was switched to Tuesday because of a service we had to do. That's awesome to hear that Allison is going to go to Japan! That's super exciting! Sounds like a lot of things are going great. 

It's been a pretty awesome week. We had zone conference this week. That was fun. It goes on for 7 hours though and we were in traffic for 2 hours after that. The Tongan elders gave us a ride there and back. That was nice of them. I saw one of my old companions, Elder Jackson, there. 

Everything's still going well with Silvia. We had a good lesson with her on Wednesday. We taught about the Book of Mormon. Unfortunately, we couldn't get any members to come with us. But we arranged to have one come with us this Wednesday. Hopefully, all goes well with that. 

One of the Less actives we've been working with brought one of her friends to church. Her name is Christie. She's really interested in the gospel. We've already had a couple lessons with her and she met a lot of the ward at the linger longer. We've been arranging to get the young women's president to come teach her. It seems like everything's going well with her. The branch is awesome and they do a good job of just loving anyone that comes. 

It rained a lot in the latter part of the week. Biking in the rain isn't as fun. It was alright, though. We went to go visit a lady and she gave us a big bag of cookies. Apparently, she just loves to bake and always has a ton of cookies and she's just looking for people to take them. 

We did a thanksgiving service yesterday. It's basically distributing food for the needy on thanksgiving. What we were doing was just moving a ton of frozen turkeys. We probably moved more than a thousand frozen turkeys. It was a lot of fun. We did it with the Vietnamese elders. It required a lot of throwing frozen turkeys from a truck into bins. Whenever the Vietnamese elders would throw one of the frozen turkeys they would make angry bird sounds. That was pretty funny. All the other people volunteering there thought it was hilarious too. The Vietnamese elders are pretty awesome.

Hope you guys have a great week.

-Elder Jones

Elder Tyler Maxwell Jones Week 19

Hello,

Glad to hear you guys had an exciting week. That's awesome to hear about your Job offers! Our address is 501 West hacienda Avenue Apt. D30 Campbell, California. Sounds like a lot of fun with the Pumpkin sling shot. 

It's been a great week. We spent a lot of time in the Spanish Ghettos and looking for Potential investigators. Our teaching pool is starting to build up a lot more. We've got a few people we're teaching. So that's awesome. There's a few neighborhoods where we can almost always find a bunch of people walking about. We have a lot of less actives that live in those areas as well. So we've just been going and visiting them and talking to everyone we can on the way. 

We met a man sitting out on the side walk in a lawn chair. His name is Nacho. Apparently he had been in a car crash last march and is recovering from having several ribs and other bones broken. We talked to him for a while and he invited us back. We didn't think we heard his name right the first time he told us. We asked him again and he said "Nacho, Como Nacho Cheese". He seemed like a really pleasant guy. He was also pretty interested in the Gospel lessons.

We also have another investigator named Silvia. She has a son that's about 5 or 6 years old named Fransisco. We found her as we were walking around in one of these neighborhoods. We've had a couple lessons with her. We're also trying to get one of the members of the ward to come fellowship her. She seems decently interested. This Wednesday we're going to try to commit her to prepare to be baptized. So I'm excited for that.

We talked to a bunch of other people but those are the ones that stood out the most. I'm just happy to have people to teach.

Also this week, We went on exchanges for a while when new missionaries were in a meeting. I ended up going on exchanges with one of the Mandarin Elders. His name is Elder Wei. He's super awesome. We actually went contacting in one of those neighborhoods I was talking about. We covered basically all of the languages there. There were a lot of people that only spoke Spanish or Only spoke Mandarin. So that was a lot of fun. 

I got to go to church in the Moorpark ward this Sunday. This was the first time since last week was Stake Conference. It seemed a little bit weird going to an English ward again. It was also testimony meeting right after the election. So that was interesting. We had to teach Elder's quorum in the Spanish Branch since the teacher wasn't there. It went well. We just talked about President Henry B. Eyring's conference talk "that he may become strong also". It's not that hard to prepare a lesson in this Spanish Branch since everyones more than happy to comment so it's more like a discussion which is awesome. It was also nice to finally get to meet everyone in the Ward and Branch.

It's been a good week. Things are going well here. I hope you guys have a great week.

Love,

Elder Jones

Elder Jones Week 18

Glad you guys are having a good time in Fort Wayne.  That’s exciting that Allison has her Japan Interview, Hope that goes well. Good to hear Fat Tina’s back. Sounds like Dan’s having a good time with the Pumpkins. That’s insane that it took four and a half hours to vote. I guess a lot of people are voting this election.

So I got transferred here on Tuesday. We’re covering the San Tomas Branch and the Moorpark Ward. So that’s going well.  I’m with Elder Bishop. He’s super awesome. He’s willing to work and we’re having a good time.

Our area is about ten miles by thirteen miles. Our apartment is about a Mile and a half outside of our area. So we’re getting to do a lot of biking. Apparently within the last few Months missionaries have crashed nine cars in this mission. Which poses some problems with managing areas.

Anyway it’s good. We get to do a lot of contacting and it’s easier to talk to people. So apparently the finding strategy of the missionaries before us was just teach lessons to active members and ask for referrals. So there were basically no investigators when we were coming into this area. But Elder Bishop is super willing to work so we’ve been out contacting less actives, recent converts and their families. We walked around the Spanish ghettos a lot looking for people to teach. We’ve gotten a few investigators this past week. But I think we’re going to do better this week now that we kind of understand the area better.

I think we’re going to have a good week this next week. Were just going to be focusing a lot on building our teaching pool.

We got to meet some interesting people this week from going and seeing Less actives.

We met a man named CJ. CJ is pretty awesome. He’s already quit drinking we’re just trying to work with him to be able to quit smoking now. We talked to him a little bit this week. He doesn’t want to try to ease off of smoking; he said that trying to ease off doesn’t work for him. So he’s just going to try to quit cold turkey. So we’re hoping that goes well. He’s also hoards a lot, so his apartment is pretty messy. We helped clean up a little bit with him.

We do a service in this zone that’s a lot of fun as well. Once every other week we go and wrestle an investigator. He has some sort of psychological problem where he doesn’t like people touching him. So what he does is he takes muscle relaxants and wrestles missionaries. Every other week he just takes a little bit less and wrestles again. So hopefully this should help him with that. His name is Mark. He’s about 57 years old but he can dead lift something like 375 pounds. He’s huge. We don’t do regular wrestling though. We do something called submission wrestling. In regular wrestling the goal is to get them on their back for 3 seconds. In submission wrestling your just trying to get them to tap out. So it’s more about putting pain on the other person. That was a lot of fun.

I guess being a district leader and a trainer is good. It seems like there are some missionaries that are really want and are excited about getting leadership callings and whatnot. I, kind of, think that’s dumb. It’s sort of just another thing to stress about. Although I’m glad I’m with Elder Bishop. He’s awesome. I’ve sort of tried just solving Rubiks cubes when I’m stressed about anything. That’s pretty fun. My fastest time for solving a Rubiks cube now is 43 seconds.

Anyway, it’s been an exciting week. I hope you guys have a good week in Indiana

Love,

Elder Jones

Elder Jones Week 17

I got the package you guys sent. Thanks for that!  That's exciting for Allison, wish her good luck for me. It's crazy that Courtney and Hal are getting married so soon.

It's been a great week. We got a referral this week for a man named Luis, we went to go see him and had a really good lesson. He seemed to be really positive and he even came to church yesterday with his girlfriend which was awesome. So that's exciting.

Still haven't gotten in contact with Nathan, he doesn't respond to any calls or messages and we don't know where he's living now. So we haven't made any progress there. However, Gwen got baptized this week. It was really awesome. She was a lady Elder Smith and I found and taught. We had ended up referring her to the English elders though. I'll send a picture of us at her baptism. 

We had our ward Halloween party on Saturday. It was combined with the English ward. None of our investigators came which was a bit disappointing. There's a family we're teaching that lives in a neighborhood where they can't go trick or treating. We thought for sure they would come. 

Other than that it's been a good week. I got to play the piano again in sacrament meeting. There was a meeting for all of the adults the 3rd hour of church so they had us just go take care of the primary. They just put on one of the Book of Mormon cartoon videos and they were completely fine. I still remember watching those videos as a kid.

Transfers are tomorrow. So I'm just now finishing my training. I'm getting transferred to Saratoga. I'm going to be a trainer and a district leader there. I think It's a smaller area so I think I'm going to get to ride bikes which I'm really excited for. It's a lot easier to do contacting while you're on bikes. Also, bikes are just fun.

We're not allowed to go out tonight after P-Day because of Halloween. so I don't know what we're going to do. Probably nothing. Just more study time I guess.

Anyway, I hope you have a great week.

Love,

Elder Jones

Elder Jones Week 16

Glad to hear you guys are having a good time. I got a flood of dads letters this week after the mailbox being broken for a while. That's funny that Allison just now got my letter. That was quite a while ago. Has Dan gotten his yet? That's so cool that about Allison and the Japan trip. That'd be awesome if she gets to go. 

So since last week Nathan hasn't answered any of our calls or messages and didn't come to church. It seems like he just dropped off the face of the earth. It's reminiscent of Herick. Whenever we have a very promising investigator that progresses a lot they just sort of drop off and we can't get in contact with them. So I guess that's alright, we'll keep trying to contact him.

However a less active just showed up with his family, out of the blue, at church. None of the members of his family members are members. So that was awesome. 

Gwen, the lady Elder Smith and I taught and passed on to the English elders is getting baptized on Saturday which is awesome. I'm really excited for that. 

We found a couple of investigators a few doors down from our apartment. One of them grew up in a Mormon foster home so she already has good feelings towards the church. They're both pretty religious and read the bible every day. So that's awesome.

Something kind of funny this week was that for church this week I played The Battle Hymn of the Republic. In Spanish it's a bit difficult to keep up with the pace of the song just because of the words. I tried slowing it down a bit but everyone was still jumbling up the words. So that didn't go so well. 

We had a big fireside for Spanish speakers this week. A couple of less actives were able to come which was awesome.

Anyway, I hope you have a good week.

Love,

Elder Jones

Elder Tyler Maxwell Jones Week 15

Hey guys,

Glad to hear that everything is going well in Indiana. Our mailbox is fixed now. Apparently San Jose just has an absurdly bad homeless problem. It seems like there are more here than anywhere else I've seen. 

Sounds like an interesting conference, glad Allison had the opportunity to take that Japanese class. Sound like a lot of fun. That's awesome that dans doing well in Band. People are sort of going crazy over the election here. Someone told me that there's some big bill to legalize marijuana in 24 states and that people were getting agitated about that as well. Anyway, glad you guys are doing well.

This week was really awesome. We had a few really good lessons with investigator. Quite a few are progressing now and Nathan will likely be baptized at the end of the month. We were able to get Juana, the lady we had to confirm in her house, to church yesterday. She brought two of her kids: crystal and Andrew. So that was awesome. 

On Saturday we got to go to the Oakland Temple with Nathan. We went to the Visitors center and walked around the Temple. He seemed to really enjoy it and he liked hearing more about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon in the visitors center. We've taught him everything and he really likes it. He even really wanted to pay tithing so he filled out the form and gave his tithing to the bishop before he's even been baptized.

There's a retired couple in the ward that are really helpful. Whenever we go over they're always asking us to bring our investigators over for lessons. They suggested the temple trip with Nathan and brought him with us there. We went to go help paint their house this week and they made us Lunch. They've been really helpful with Nathan.

This week when I was playing piano for sacrament meeting I got a fun surprise. Every week they will ask me what 3 or 4 hymns I can play during sacrament meeting. I generally just learn a few hymns during the week to have them ready for sacrament meeting. I gave them the 4 hymns I was playing this week to put in the program. Then when the meeting started they announced the hymns and began. Only 1 of the 4 hymns I had chosen they actually used. I didn't know how to play the other three. I don't think they realized that I don't just know all of the hymns. But that was fun.

We took the bus down to Santa Cruz today during P-Day. That was fun, we watched sea lions for a while, they were fighting one with another for the best spots to lie down and sleep. We watched them do that for nearly an hour. That was fun.

I hope you guys have a great week.

Love,

Elder Jones

 

Dan's 6th Grade Band Concert

The Trios

Elder Tyler Maxwell Jones Week 14

Hello,

Glad to hear you guys are doing well in Indiana, they're working on fixing the mailbox, it should be done soon. That's awesome that you guys had a gourd sale. Sounds like a lot of fun. We're getting fed plenty, you don't have to worry about that. Spanish is coming along well. I can basically express what I need to say. It's not by any means perfect yet but I've figured that it's better to just go at it with false confidence, pretending like you know it really well and people are more likely to listen to you.

So this was a crazy week. We got a call Tuesday that we were going to go pick up a new companion on Wednesday. So we're a trio now. His name is Elder Jackson. He's pretty awesome. We had to move in a bed and desk for him on Tuesday as well. It's kind of awesome since there's another trio in our zone we often go on splits turning 2 trios into 3 companionships so that we can get to more lessons.

Nathan came to church again. He stayed for all 3 hours which was awesome. We had 3 investigators in church this week which was awesome. They seemed to really like it. We got a bunch of new investigators this week again. It seems to work better if you're just bringing in a lot of people. A lot will drop off, but then you always get a few that will stay and progress.

One of our investigators, Dario, is doing well. He used to be praying to this Santa Muerte statue. He had a necklace and bracelet with La Santa Muerte on them as well. He started reading the Book of Mormon this week though and he took off his necklace and bracelets and gave away his statue. So he's doing well. 

Oh there's apparently been some big problem with homeless people breaking into the church building that the ward council was trying to deal with. They always ask us to make sure they leave after church and make sure they didn't unlock any Windows. A stake counselor came to tell us about a rule that sisters shouldn't go into the church buildings without a Melchizedek priesthood holder there as well. Apparently they've found people sleeping in the church like 7 times. The sister missionaries weren't very happy about that. They argued with him for like half an hour.

We were talking to the Elders in the English ward and apparently during testimony meeting one of the guys that always breaks into the church got up and apologized to everyone for "vandalizing the church" and "leaving his needles everywhere". So that was interesting. 

Anyway, that was alright. It's been a good week nonetheless. I'm having a great time.

Love you guys,

Elder Jones

Elder Tyler Maxwell Jones Week13

I'm writing a bit earlier today to compensate for the late letter last week. Also, someone smashed up our apartment complex mail box so I won't be able to receive Mail here for a while. Apologies for that.

Sounds like things are keeping on there in Indiana. I always loved fall weather. It's getting a bit colder her in San Jose but its remaining relatively invariant. That's crazy that the election is next month. People here aren't too pleased either. Good to hear Courtney and Hal are still going about being goobers. That's exciting to hear about Allison, that would be super cool. I got dan's letter, that was nice.

It's been a good week. It proved more difficult to get people to general conference than to regular church. We didn't end up getting anyone to conference even though we had devoted so much time to trying to get people to it. Nonetheless, I really liked the conference. We were permitted to watch all of the sessions which was great. A lot of really good talks, my favorite was probably Henry B. Eyring's in priesthood session. 

We got a good bunch of investigators this week. It seems like the pattern is that if we teach a lot of people, many will fall through but the ones that stay will be decently solid. We're teaching a member's sister. It's usually most convenient for them to have us come over on Mondays for family home evening to teach her which has been good. She's come to church a few time and really liked it. However she wasn't able to make it to general conference. It's coming along well though.

We had exchanges this week. I went with Elder along and Elder Brayton in the English program. We got to do bikes again which was a lot of fun. There's a hill right in the center of their area which is really fun to just glide down. They've got bike lanes all over the place here as well. We had a couple lessons. They went alright, the person we were teachings sister was in the room who was relatively hostile to what we were sharing. So it ended up that we were mostly just trying to abate problems with that. It ended up alright anyway. We don't usually have problems like that in Spanish, Latinos are so nice.

We had interviews this week so we had to drive up to the mission office. Everyone was a bit behind on schedule so we sort of just rushed through the interviews. It was just a sort of nice 3 minute check up. While we were waiting we spent time just talking to our vehicle coordinator about an issue this week.

Earlier this week we had parked our car in a parking lot to walk to a lesson. The lesson went well but when we came back there was a giant dent in our back bumper. There wasn't a note or anything. So we had to spend the entire next morning sitting in the police station filling out a report. 

Something kind of fun is that in some neighborhoods whenever we walk through the kids will run out around us, cup their hands together, and blow into their hands trying to imitate bird sounds. That's always fun.

I've learned a good few hymns on the piano now. It's getting easier to learn them now. I really like playing the piano. Last night while my companion and the other zone leader went to go take numbers at the church, I just started playing the piano. Elder Brayton is learning how to sing so I just play the hymns while he enjoys singing along. That's a fun part of the week. Numbers usually take an hour or so.

Oh, as well. Something kind of funny that keeps happening to us. All the members get the biggest kick out of seeing my companion and I eat the hottest peppers they can find. There's a little red one that they commonly use. It basically just stings the second you bite into it. Last night at dinner, the hermano just got the biggest grin and then pulled out a bag full of raw habaneros. So my companion and I each downed a few of those. That was less fun.

Anyway, hope you guys have a good week.

Love,

Elder Jones

 

Hello Dan Dan the mustache man. I'm glad to hear of your efforts in mustache growth. That's funny you were running in the rain. We don't ever get rain here in San Jose. That's awesome that you get to study some cool things and that you got into accel math. 

That cat has a very good looking mustache. I hope your mustache looks as good as that cats.

Hope you have a good time in school and cross country.

Love,

Elder Jones

Elder Tyler Maxwell Jones Week 12

Sorry for late email. Today's been crazy.

That's awesome to hear about Caleb. I'm so excited for him. Really
excited for general conference as well. Sounds like you guys are
having a good time in Indiana. Tell Dan to accelerate his mustache
growth.

This was an awesome week. We got some new elders in our zone that are
all super cool. So something fun happened this week. Our mission
president called us and told me that I was going to be a participant
in an experiment. I'm the only one in this mission but they're getting
missionaries from all over. Apparently it's going to be about how
technology affects language learning. So I got to go in a Skype call
with the guy conducting the experiment on Thursday which was cool.
They're going to have me using Duolinguo and apps like that to assist
in language learning and they're going to track my progress. So that's
exciting.

Oh, we got iPads this week. They wait until your second transfer to
give them to you. It's nice to finally have a planner. I had just been
looking off my trainers planner the first transfer.

We had a pretty good week for missionary work. Nathan, the one who
walked 6 miles to try to get to church came to church this week. We've
had a few really good lessons with him this week. We started teaching
a less actives girlfriend while reactivating him. She's been really
receptive as well. We've got a good hand full of people that are just
doing well.

One of the people I had gotten to teach during transfers got baptized
this week. We got to go to the baptism which was nice. We've gotten a
lot of new investigators this week as well so we'll see what comes of
that next week.

We had a family home evening tonight with a members sister tonight
which went really well. She's going to come to conference which is
exciting.

Anyways, it's been an awesome week.

Love you guys,
Elder Jones

Elder Tyler Maxwell Jones Week 11

Hey Guys,

That's still so crazy that Courtney's getting married. Sorry Dan and Allison had to run out in the rain. It never rains here in San Jose. I'm glad you're enjoying your new job.

So this was an awesome week. Exchanges are tomorrow. Fortunately Neither I, nor my trainer have to go anywhere. Just a couple people in our zone are leaving. We went crazy with missionary work this week. Our Bishop gave us a list of less active members to go visit and we visited them this week. We got a bunch of really solid investigators from it. We went to go teach them and they would end up wanting us to teach their non member family members. On top of that, this week we got a few really awesome referrals from the members in the ward.

We had also talked to an interesting man this week just while we were out contacting. We had started talking to him and he had some interesting ideas about how Jesus had already come and that everyone left on earth is garbage and that we're all doomed. So that was a fun experience.

We had stake conference this week which was awesome. They had us go to all the sessions of stake conference. They had my companion do the translating into Spanish which was interesting to see. None of our investigators came. We had gotten a message about half way through stake conference, we got a message from one referral that he was on his way. He had been trying to walk to stake conference. We couldn't get him a ride. We went to meet up with him to talk with him. He had ended up walking about 6 miles to try to get there. He seemed super positive when we went to talk to him and he seems like he is genuinely interested. He's been homeless for about 3 months now. We're probably going to be trying to connect him to employment resources. The employment resources center is in our ward building which is nice.

Something I don't think I've mentioned yet is that the amount of diversity just among Latinos in San Jose is crazy. We're teaching all sorts of people from pretty much everywhere in Latin America. All the members are from all over the place as well. One sister in our ward is from El Salvador and she taught us how to make Papusas. Papusas are super good. They're basically this special batter that you flatten out into a circle, put whatever you want inside, ball up the contents inside the batter and then flatten it out again and cook it. It's super good.

Anyway, this has been an awesome week, hope you guys are having a good time in Indiana. I'm doing well here in San Jose

Love you guys,

-Elder Jones

Elder Tyler Maxwell Jones Week 10

That's crazy to think that Courtney's going to be married so soon. Tell Dan to start growing out his mustache for me. Also, tell Allie to stop being a goober and get to bed on time. I'm glad you enjoy your job. I got some envelopes and stamps so I'm sending dad a letter today.

So this week was awesome.

We were able to talk to Herick earlier in the week and he was committed to getting baptized. Later in the week we weren't able to get in contact with him. He wasn't at his apartment, he didn't answer his calls or messages. He didn't go to church this week as well. So that was disappointing. We're just going to give him a bit of time and come back.

Gwen, the lady that said "thank you Jesus" came to church yesterday. We had referred her to the English missionaries and seeing her in church was awesome. Veronica is progressing really well. Her and her wife were interested in the temple in a lesson we gave and got really excited about it. So we're in the process of organizing a temple trip for them. So we're excited about that. We met a man named Edibierto this week. He's awesome as well. We've been teaching him and he's been keeping commitments and such which is great. He wasn't able to come to church though.

We picked up some more awesome investigators this week. We had zone training meeting this week. That was nice, they had me play the piano for that. The sisters in our ward had a baptism and I had to play piano for that as well. There was also a district leader meeting this week. So during that I went on transfers into the English program. We got to ride bikes all day which was so much fun. It's so much easier to contact when you can just do it whenever you're on your way to your next appointment. Apparently they rarely have Spanish missionaries biking since we cover a much larger area. We got to contact some Latinos on the way as well. I was surprised that I was able to speak with them so well. I think it was a bit like taking of the training wheels. Without a companion that knows any Spanish its more important to really clearly understand everything they're saying.

There are transfers next week and everyone's freaking out about it because apparently they're expecting a lot to change in our zone. I'm kind of content where I'm at right now so I hope I stay but no one knows apparently.

Anyway, I'm having a great time and meeting a lot of awesome people.

 Love you guys,

Elder Jones

Elder Tyler Maxwell Jones Week 9

Sounds like you guys are keeping busy. That's unfortunate that the van broke down. I assume that dad went fishing in the pond behind grandma and grandpas house. Sounds like cross country is wearing lil Danel out.

This week was pretty great.

We had gotten a referral from the English Missionaries that there was a less active member who had a wife that only spoke Spanish so he wanted Spanish Elders to come teach him and his wife. Their names were Arturo and Victoria. We had a couple really great lessons with them this week about the restoration and the Book of Mormon. They even came to church yesterday. They both really loved it. So I'm really excited for them.

Herick decided that he didn't want to get baptized right now and that he'll call us when he wants to start having lessons again. We've been trying to get in contact with him again after that but we haven't been able to.

We're teaching a man named Mannuel as well. We had actually found him while he was just sitting in his truck. We started teaching him and then earlier this week we stopped by his house and we started talking to him. He had drunken a lot that day and he was crying about how he's going to be kicked out of the room he's renting and that he wants to stop drinking. We talked to him a little bit but came back later this week. We talked to him again. He didn't get kicked out but he still really wants to stop drinking. He's having a hard time with it.

We had exchanges this week. I was in the English program for a day with Elder Long while an English Elder was in the Spanish program for a day with my companion. It was a lot of fun. Elder Long is great and we had a good time. We did a bit of contacting. English speaking people aren't as nice as Latinos. We had a good time though. We talked to some people and had a few lessons that wen't pretty well. We had dinner with the Bishop of English ward that night and he had the exact same mannerisms as Uncle Pat which was fun to see.

I got to play Piano again in sacrament meeting which is always fun. Didn't have to talk this week. There was a man that lives in the church building that was raiding the kitchen fridge. The Bishop asked us to go talk to him and keep an eye on him during church. So that was an interesting experience. 

Anyway, It's been an awesome week, hope you guys have a great week as well.

Love,

Elder Jones

Elder Tyler Maxwell Jones Week 8

When I got to zone conference, They gave me a couple of dad's letters. I was happy to get those. My Apartment mailing address is 750 N King Rd. Apt. 1207 . Weather is perfect here. It hasn't rained since I've been here and I'm pretty sure it never rains here.

Sounds like you guys are keeping busy in Indiana. It is kind of weird to hear that grandma's selling the house. It seems like it will probably be for the best though.

Anyway, this week was fantastic.

My companion and I got to go do a little bit of yard work for an old lady nearby. While we were talking to her we learned that she was from Iran and that she had been living there in the 1970's. So she was super cool and had some cool stories. She made us some Persian food for lunch which was also really good.

On Wednesday every one of our appointments fell through.  Which was a bit challenging but it was alright. That day was less fun. However on Thursday we tried stopping by Herick's apartment again and he was there. So that was super duper awesome. Apparently he had been really busy with immigration lawyers and whatnot but we got to talk to him and start teaching him again. He's really cool. He had actually referred himself after he had just decided to go to the temple visitors center one day. He had watched the restoration video there and filled out a form online to have missionaries come see him. So he's awesome. So he has a baptismal date for two Saturdays from now.

 On Thursday we had also been walking down the street after another one of our appointments fell through and we saw an old lady that was trying to sweep out the door. We offered to help her. She's from Louisiana and has kind of a southern christian demeanor to her. When we offered to help her she had said "thank you Jesus". We had started talking to her and she said that she had had surgery recently and that she had been praying for someone to help her. She was happy to sit down and talk with us for a while. We had taught her about the restoration. She seemed to really like it. She told us that she had recently left her old church and was looking for another church to join. She was super awesome. Unfortunately, we're not going to get to teach her though. She doesn't speak Spanish so we referred the English Elders to her. I'm excited for her though.

We finally got to confirm Juana. She had been baptized about a month ago by the elders before us but she didn't go to church the next day so she hadn't been confirmed. Everyone was kind of getting on us to find her and confirm her. The Bishop and Mission President had just told us to confirm her in her house if we found her. But it was good, we got to sit down and have a conversation about the holy ghost with her and then confirmed her.

Saturday night we got a call that My companion and I were going to be giving talks in church Sunday morning. Fifteen minutes each... Spanish. So that was fun. It really wasn't that bad. I was able to pretty much say what I wanted to say. I took up all the time I needed to as well. It seems like Latinos really like to see people try to learn Spanish. Sacrament meeting was kind of busy both giving a talk and playing the piano but it was fun.

We had an appointment with a less active member and his non member wife this morning. We went to go teach them and they both seemed really excited about the gospel and the wife seemed really enthusiastic about wanting to come to church. She was also happy to see that I was trying to learn Spanish.

Spanish is coming along much easier. I can pretty much say whatever I need to say. I just need to figure out subjunctives and learn more vocabulary.

Anyways, I'm happy, hope you guys have a great week.

Love,

Elder Jones

Elder Tyler Maxwell Jones Week 7

That's so exciting to hear about Courtney. Dan needs to start growing out his mustache. unfortunately I'm not allowed to. Anyways sounds like you guys are having a lot of fun there. How does Dan like Middle school?

This week was super duper awesome. 

We finally got in contact with Herick.  Herick is someone that the past elders had been teaching and had actually set up a baptismal date with but he had gotten really busy right around the time of his baptism so they couldn't baptize him. We're still trying to set up a time where we can meet him next week. We went to see Rosa again. She's been to church already three time and she's getting close to being able to commit to baptism. We finally got to meet Juana as well this week. She had actually been the first person we tried to get in contact with when we got into the area. We had gotten to meet her for the first time this Saturday night because she has been really busy as well. She had already been baptized and she just needs to receive the holy ghost. We invited her to come to church so that she could receive the holy ghost and be confirmed but she didn't come on Sunday. She has the craziest funniest little five year old though. He had used his magic to turn me into a rabbit and Elder Smith into a shark. So we had a lot of fun meeting with them. We had met with Brichie only once this week and he wasn't at his house the next time we came. It was alright, we had a good lesson with him on the book of Mormon. We're starting to get steady lessons with Dario. We actually have a lesson with him at 5:00 today. He likes the message a lot, the only thing is that he has a Santa Meurte necklace and a Santa Muerte statue in his house that he prays to Jesus through. He's super nice though and he likes to get the lessons. 

We've also done a lot of contacting this week. We've met a lot of nice people. It's great that there are plenty of streets where we can pretty much guarantee that everyone we meet is going to know Spanish. We met a lot of people that we're really nice. We had taught a couple of people sitting out on their lawn. I think I'm starting to realize how many different christian beliefs there are out there. The guy we had been talking to is catholic but he believes that you can only worship Jesus through Mary. But we had a nice discussion with them and we might go back to see his friend some time this week. We had also met another group of people sitting out on their lawn. We started to talk to them and they invited us to sit and talk with them. A little bit in their daughter had told us that both of them were nearly deaf so it was interesting teaching the restoration by nearly yelling the entire thing. One day it was about 3:00 in the afternoon and we were walking down the street to find people. We asked a man that had walked past us how he was and he replied saying he was very bad. We had asked him why and he responded because he doesn't believe in god. At this point we start talking about how we are able to know if there's a god. He went on a little tangent on how everything in this world is logical. At this point he had gotten a little closer to us and we could smell alcohol in his breath. He asked us if we knew what there was before god. We just told him that god is eternal. He told us that's not possible,  that there had to be something before god. Then he told us that he knew what was before god and with wide eyes he just told us: Aliens. He told us how he read it in a book once. Then he sort of just walked away giggling.

We got to eat balut this week. I think that's how you spell it. A Filipino family had given it to us. Basically what it is is a hard boiled fertilized egg. It's essentially just got this black soupy liquid inside, egg yoke and a little baby chicken inside. It's best to not look at it when you eat it. Nonetheless, it made my companion vomit. It didn't taste too good. If you crack open the egg and pull away the yoke, you can distinctly see the little baby chicken inside it as well, With the head, eyes, beak and everything. I'm pretty sure Filipino families just give it to missionaries for the entertainment of seeing them eat it.

We're also going to be getting a new investigator. This man had gotten a blood clot in his brain and was going to need to go into surgery for it. However, he had gotten a blessing and after a few days the clot had gone away with any operation. So now he want's to meet with the missionaries. So we're really excited to get to teach him.

Spanish is coming along well. I've been getting better at being able to understand people. It was pretty hard to understand everyone with all of their different accents at first. It's getting a lot better now though. I've gotten to start to be able to go and contact people on the street in Spanish and actually get through a normal conversation with them which is exciting. It seems like Latinos are really nice about helping people learn Spanish though. So even if they're not really interested in our message they're willing to talk with us and let me practice Spanish. All the Latinos are just so great.

Anyway, it's been an awesome week, I hope you guys have a good time.

Love,

Elder Jones