Baptism in Hollister

Elder Tyler Jones week 74

We had another good week!

So Brisa and José Luis's mom told us that she wanted to be baptized at the end of their baptismal service and this week she was baptized! It was super awesome! A lot of members of the branch showed up to give support and it was a really great service! Also, elder Stewart had the opportunity to baptize her so it all went super great!

Getting everything planned out was pretty fun. There were a lot of complications and getting everything figured out took a good while. But it all worked out and we're happy. 

We had stake conference this week. That was pretty cool. Elder Clark from the seventy came because they were reorganizing the stake presidency. Our branch president, president Nordstrom, got called to be the second counselor in the stake presidency. So we were pretty sad to see that happen since he'll end up being released as the branch president. He's really awesome and has helped us out a lot. 

We went hiking at Pinnacles National Park again today. We had a lot of fun doing that and got to go into some caves. 

I'm a bit nervous that I'll get transferred next week. Hollister has been my favorite area so far and it would stink to leave.

I'm excited to get to call you guys for Christmas. That should be awesome!

Elder Tyler Jones week 73

We had a pretty good week!

This week was a little bit crazy. They're trying this new program in our mission where they bring together a bunch of missionaries and have them all go on exchanges for a week and work in one area. So I went on exchanges with Elder Reid. They essentially wanted us to go tracting all day long but said if we had any appointments we needed to go to we could do that. 

We had a few members from the ward come out with us which was nice. There were a total of 14 missionaries in the area. Altogether we ended up finding over 200 people over the week. But none of them came to church. So now we've all gone back to our regular areas and the elders there have to sort of have to figure out what to do with all of those people.

But we met with the Ramirez family again and a couple more people wanted to be baptized this coming weekend! So we're going to be trying to pull everything together for that. Hopefully all goes well with that!

So we've been doing pretty good!

Baptism and coconut jello

Elder Tyler Jones week 72

We had a pretty great Thanksgiving. On Thursday we went to our branch president's house for dinner. They had a lot of family in town and we had a pretty normal Thanksgiving dinner. It was really a lot of fun. 

On Friday we had a big branch dinner.  It was all American food but all of the branch members really enjoyed the gravy.  All of the Ramirez family came which was awesome.  They had a really good time. There was pretty good turn out and a ton of food.

We spent a lot of this week in preparation for he baptism on Saturday.  But it happened! Rosa, José Luis and Brisa all got baptized on Saturday and it was awesome!  The branch all came together to support them and it was a great experience.  They were feeling really good.  One of the members of the family , Carmela, mentioned that she'd like to be baptized as well. We've been teaching her but she wasn't ready yet but she came to church Sunday and after talking to our branch president she could be baptized as soon as this Saturday. 

They were all also confirmed on Sunday. They were all pretty happy after that. They wanted to make jello with us on Monday so we did that today as well. That was actually pretty fun. We made coconut jello with drawings on it. I'll send pictures.

So it's been awesome!

Elder Tyler Jones week 71

Sounds like you guys had a good trip to Odon! that's crazy that everyone is getting so old! Shelby is a freshman in college and Alex is already in his second year. That's so crazy to think about. everyones getting older.

We had a pretty good week!

So some of the members of the Ramirez family are planning on being baptized this Saturday! So that's pretty exciting! They came to church and then they're planning on coming to the branch thanksgiving dinner this Friday and then they'll get baptized Saturday! We visited them a lot this week to start getting them prepared. We're pretty excited for that. Three of them are going to be baptized on Saturday: Rosa, Jose Luis and Brisa.

It's been a pretty fun week. The sisters hit a deer with their car so we got to bike this week. It was actually pretty fun and the weather was perfect for it. It feels a bit like early fall here. So it's pretty awesome.

A guy we met on the street came to a chili cook off in the English ward. He seemed to really enjoy it. He brought a friend along as well and we introduced them to the English elders. They're both super nice and they're going to watch the Joseph Smith Movie with them at the church this Saturday!

We went to san Jose a couple of times this week. We had to go up to pick up some bikes from the mission office and then we ha a transfer two training that we went to. The training was pretty good. We got to sit in traffic for a long time on the way back.

So it's been a pretty good week!

I hope you have a great thanksgiving!

Elder Tyler Jones week 70

It's been a good week!

We had a bunch of less actives we were working with come to church this week. We were really happy to see them there. There's one family that came back and the son got to pass the sacrament. I was happy to see that.

We have a part member family that is planning on getting baptized on the 25th. We're trying to get some more members involved in that. They're always super willing and excited whenever we teach them it's just they can be a little bit flakey. So we'll be praying a lot this week that things go through with that.

We found a couple of interesting people this week. You might remember the Clementes. They're an older couple in Menlo Park that we were working with. They were just recently sealed in the temple. But anyways, this week we tracked into an older couple that are almost exact replicas of the Cclementes. They're so funny and so nice. We've been teaching them and they love it. It's been awesome to be teaching them. 

There's a family here in the branch that owns a paintball business. So today they invited us to come play paintball with some other elders in our zone. It was so much fun. We also went to help set up lights for a Thanksgiving parade here in Hollister.  So it's been a fun p-day.

Anyway have a great week!