Elder Tyler Jones week 67

Hey Mom - that's so crazy that you hit a deer!  I'm glad everyone's alright and that there wasn't too much damage.  Sounds like you had some fun with the babies this week.  Sorry to hear that everything's been so crazy.

We had a good week,

We've still been working with the Ramirez family.  Two of them are members and the rest aren't.  This week the two members and two that weren't members ended up coming to church.  The family was planning on going to the temple visitor's center this weekend but weren't able because of work.  They still seem like they really want to go though. The two members in the family are Mayra and Agustyn.  They went inactive essentially right after their baptism but it's been awesome to get them back into church.  Them with all their kids and family take up like a third of the seats in sacrament meeting.  Agustyn got the Priesthood this week! We brought him to meet with president on Wednesday and he was ordained after church on Sunday. That was super awesome! 

We passed by a less active member of the branch this week that I haven't met before. His name is Frederico. He's probably in his late 60's and has some problems. He lives with his daughter. He sleeps on a cot in their kitchen. We went to visit him and he was super nice. Also, his daughter and his daughter's family was super nice to us. We shared a quick message with the family. The daughter ended up telling us that she felt like she needed God's help with some problems she's having with one of her sons.  So she asked us for the church address and wanted us to come back so that wen't really well.  They're an awesome family and we'll see what happens with them. 

I've got to go now. 

But it's been an awesome week!

Elder Tyler Jones week 66

Sounds like you guys had a good week. 

We had a good week.

We've been try to get members to church a lot. It's hard for them because they work so much. But we're still trying to push them to come. A lot of people just stay for sacrament meeting and then head out. 

We had a couple of pretty cool experiences this week.

We've been working with one of the recent converts in the ward and he's been pretty fired up about missionary work. He's been inviting a lot of his friends to come to church and to meet with us and everything. So he's doing awesome. Last week we found a couple of his friends at his store. We talked to them for a bit and ended up teaching them the restoration. They seemed to really like it. But we came back this week and they said they really liked the restoration pamphlet that we had given them. They said it answered a lot of their questions. They said they read it like three times and that they had practically memorized it. So that was pretty cool.

We've been working with another part member family as well.  2 of them are members and 8 of them aren't. It's been hard to congregate them all together. But this week we had a lesson and a family home evening with the whole family. In the lesson we talked about the plan of salvation and it seemed like they really enjoyed it. When we came back for the family home evening we had a little game that they really enjoyed. They were all laughing and having a good time. Then we had a lesson about temples and eternal families. That went really really well. They said they'd love to prepare to go to the temple some day. They also committed to prepare to be baptized this November. We're really happy for them.

We had a bit of smog this week because of the fires in California. It was a little bit weird since it looked like fog but then it smelt bad as well.  It wasn't terrible though. We're far enough south that we didn't get it very bad at all.

Anyway, I'm doing well.

I hope you have a great week!

Tunnel under the road

Elder Tyler Jones week 65

We had a pretty good week!

Elder Dalley left on Tuesday. So I was with the English elders that were coming in for a couple of days. They were whitewashing the English ward in Hollister so It was interesting to see them trying to figure that out while also trying to accommodate some of our Spanish appointments. They're two great elders so they're doing really well. The English ward is super on top of things here. They're super missionary minded and within an hour of us getting back the ward mission leader had already called them and was getting them situated and appointments aligned. It made me a little jealous but our little Spanish branch is super awesome still. I love the people in the branch.

Anyway, Elder Stewart got here on Thursday. He's from Idaho Falls and he's awesome! 

There was a kid from a semi-active family that got baptized this week. We stopped by the night before to see if they were all ready to go for the baptism. They weren't really so we ended up getting everything together for the baptism the night before and the morning of. But it was still great. There was a lot of support from the branch and it was a great baptism. We hadn't practiced enough with the dad enough for how to do the baptism so when he went to do it he ended up grabbing him around the neck and sort of just smacked him into the water really quick. The mom was a bit frightened by that but he went completely under water so it was alright. 

Everyone in the branch got to meet Elder Stewart this week and they're all super awesome. They're so loving and great members.

We got some news about Mannuel. He's on his way back here with his family. Mannuel has assisted to church a couple of times and had a baptsimal date before. But he had left to go get his family. They should be arriving sometime this week. We're hoping all goes well with his travels. Mannuel is super awesome, a couple weeks ago in elders quorum he bore his testimony about everything that we had been teaching him and he's been reading out of the Liahona magazine. When he comes he'll have to get married to his girlfriend but he feels ready to do so and is willing to get married. So that'll be awesome if we can see him sometime soon.

Other than that We've been working with a lot of members and their friends. We've found a few new people to teach through working with members and they seem like they'll be pretty awesome.

There's a man that was baptized recently named Armando. He owns a little Herbalife shop that sells smoothies. We've been trying to get him to come back to church. The problem is that he forgets about things. He's been doing awesome with missionary work This week he introduced us to three of his friends at his shop and we started teaching them. Armando is always so happy. He loves to laugh and joke. He was one of the first people Elder Stewart and I saw together. It probably wasn't the best person for Elder Stewart to start practicing his Spanish on since Armando has maybe 3 teeth total and can be a bit hard to understand. But it's been going well.

I hope you have a great week!

Elder Tyler Jones week 64

We had a pretty good week this week. We learned that Mannuel has gone to mexico to be with his family but we learned this week that he is now planning to move back with his family to get baptized. Hopefully he follows through with that. He has changed his plan several times now so it's a bit hard to know for sure.

Conference was really awesome. We watched a couple of the sessions with some members and we also watched a couple of sessions at the church. We ended up having a less active family come to conference with us on Sunday morning so we were super excited about that. For the Saturday morning session we watched it in one of our members store, they put up a projector and pulled together some couches and it was really nice.

We had a really good lesson last night. One of our members had been talking to someone about the gospel and she called us and asked if we could come right now to come see him. We came and he was really interested. We taught him about the restoration and he said he'd be willing to be baptized. So that was super awesome. His name is Francisco. He's Seperated from his wife and has a daughter. He asked a lot of good questions and he said he'd read. We've got a lesson with him this Wednesday.

We went to Monterey today with a member. we got to see some seals and Jelly Fish so it was really cool. The member said she would be sending pictures to you. It was a lot of fun. Monterey is really beautiful. There were a ton of people there. There were like six or seven places giving out samples for clam chowder. I got a couple of free magnets as well from a member that owns a gift shop there.

So we figured out that Elder Dalley is getting transferred this week. He's going to Gilroy which is still in the stake. So I'll still see him around. He's covering another branch in the stake. Other than that I learned that I'm going to be training again. They're also whitewashing the English elders here. So all the other elders in Hollister are leaving. 

Anyway, I'm doing well.