Elder Tyler Jones week 63

Hey, sorry to hear about the heat there.  That doesn't sound like much fun. We had a big heat wave a couple weeks ago but now it feels really nice.

We had a good week this week.

It turns out that Manuel may be moving to Mexico. So we're not exactly sure about if he's going to stay or if he's going to be baptized. We're going to talk to him tonight to see what's going on with that. He's super awesome and wants to be baptized. His initial plan was to bring his family here but he might just head back to Mexico. So we'll see what happens with that. He came to church again and really enjoyed it.

We ended up knocking a lot of doors this week. We had a lot of fun doing that. We were able to find a bunch of people to teach. A lot of them said yes just to get us to go away, but I feel pretty good about a few of them. We'll see what happens with them in the coming week.

We've been seeing a lot of less active families and teaching them as well. We were teaching a less active family this week and while we were teaching one of their friends came in and started to listen as we taught. He seemed to like it and we have an appointment with him this Thursday. He said he's come to church with the family before and that he really liked it but he hasn't gone as frequently because the family doesn't come. So we'll try to get the members to church and hopefully he comes with them.

I got to do a couple of baptismal interviews. Both were very good experiences.  One was in Spanish and one was in English.  They seemed ready and excited and both were baptized.  So that was a nice part of the week.

We've been working with a recent convert recently. He called us up this week because he was feeling really stressed and we met him at church. He has recently got a new calling and he feels really anxious and stressed. We talked with him for almost two hours just because he wasn't doing too well. He seems like he's doing better. He came to church this Sunday and he seemed happier so it seems like he's doing well.

The Branch is doing really well. We've got some members coming back into activity and church attendance has been going good. Everyone's getting pretty excited for conference.

I hope you have a great week!

Elder Jones in costume

Elder Tyler Jones week 62

We had a good week. We had two big branch parties over the weekend. We celebrated Independence Day on Friday and then there was a quinceañera on Saturday. So we were handing out invitations and inviting people like crazy. We had a goal of getting a hundred people to the party on Friday and we had a lot of less actives come and a bunch of investigators. So that was really awesome. We probably had about 90 people there. So it was really great.

We ended up doing a little dance for the party. Everyone was all excited about doing a dance and then no one actually wanted to dance. Everyone they asked to do it said they were going to be out of town during the party. And then they showed up for the party anyway. So we did a little dance. We didn't really get to practice but it went alright.

The only problem was that people seemed pretty partied out by the end of the week and church attendance was sparse for the branch this week. There were probably 30 at sacrament. It was good though. I was the final speaker this week. President told me to prepare 15 ish minutes but to be ready to extend it or shorten it dramatically because you never really know how long people are going to talk in the branch. The lady before me went on for a long time so I ended up shortening it to about a four minute talk. It was about he Book of Mormon so it wasn't really a hard talk to give.

Mannuel is in Mexico right now getting his girlfriend and his kids to bring them here. He's getting back tonight. So we'll be excited to see him again tomorrow. President is going to come with us to talk to them about getting married. So hopefully all goes well with that.

 It's been going great!

View from one of our members' back yard, and Elder Freeman

Elder Tyler Jones Week 61

New to our mission is that they're letting us use Facebook now. They left us the option of not using it if we don't want to.  And I kind of don't want to.  So as for now I'm just not going to use it.  It shouldn't be too much of a problem seeing  as a lot of the people we teach aren't actually online all the time and many also don't have facebooks.  So unless it poses some difficulty in the future, I'm probably just not going to be using it.

Nonetheless, we had a great week!

First of all we had to push back Manuel's baptism. He's going to Mexico to pick up his girlfriend and his 4 kids. So when they come he'll have to get married. He's already expressed that he's happy to get married and he's going to have president Nordstrom marry them in October. So when the family comes we'll be able to teach them as a family.

We've been working with a part member family and they came to church! There are about 2 members and a bunch of non members. Not all of them came but those that did seemed to like it. They had some crazy kids, too, which are always fun. We're teaching the family and we had a family home evening with all of them. They just recently moved to a new house and it's a lot nicer than their last house. It's also a lot closer to the church which makes it easier for them to get there on Sunday.

We had a zone conference this week. We went to Monterey for the conference. I got to see Elder Freeman there again. So that was super cool. Also, in driving through our area to get to Monterey it made me realize how incredibly beautiful our area is. There's a lot of hills and trees and greenery and it's all just super pretty. So it was a nice drive. It took us about an hour to get there.

We also have soccer every Thursday night. We went this week because we were bringing Mannuel. There are a lot of non members that come and it gets pretty intense but it was a lot of fun. There's a guy that sort of leads the whole things and he's not a member. But last week he came to church and brought his family. He's Latino and speaks Spanish but his kids don't so they went to the English ward. So that's awesome for them.

Anyway, it's been a great week. And I'm loving serving in Hollister.

Elder Tyler Jones week 60

I'm glad things are going well with you guys, and neat to hear about Mom's experience with the Burmese family.

We had a pretty good week. We taught a man that came to church and we were teaching him about the gospel of Jesus Christ. He came to church and felt good going there. As we were teaching him about baptism, before we invited him to do anything he said that baptism sounds really great and that he wants to do it. So he's preparing to get baptized on the 23rd. So that's pretty exciting.

Our ward mission leader didn't end up being able to come to church this week. At his work they told him to just finish cleaning the floor and then he could go to church. But then that apparently took forever and the other workers didn't know what they were doing so he had to do a bunch of things for them and so he wasn't able to leave work. He's sort of the ring leader for a couple of less active and part member families. So we didn't have as many people at church this week.

We're teaching a really cool family. They're a younger couple but they have two young kids. They're super cute. We ended teaching them pretty frequently. They had been investigating a while ago. The husband at one point was preparing to be baptized but his wife had some worries about he Book of Mormon and the church so they didn't follow through with it. But we've been teaching them and reading the Book of Mormon with them. They're reading on their own now as well! We had some members come with us to our lessons and it went super well. We asked the wife how she feels about the Book of Mormon now and she gave the sweetest testimony of the Book of Mormon and she's pretty excited to come to church. She's only able to come once a month because of her work schedule but we're really excited for them.

The branch here is awesome. The San Benito branch is like a cute little family and all of he members are just awesome. It was my companion's birthday this week and they had a little surprise party for him. So that was super awesome of them. So I'm really happy to be here in this branch.

I'm doing great!

I hope you guys have a great week!