Elder Tyler Jones week 83

Sounds like you guys are keeping pretty busy.

Herbert has since gotten cold feet and has decided not to be baptized. He still really enjoys church but he is a bit nervous. So we’re meeting with him Tuesday to talk to him s little bit more and to see if there’s anything we can do to help.

There’s a man named gerrardo in the branch that we’ve been working with. He’s started to get pretty serious about being baptized. He is the boyfriend of one of the members of the  branch. He is married to a woman in Mexico but lives with his girlfriend and 3 kids here. So he is working on getting divorced and then remarried to his girlfriend here in order to be baptized. It’s going to be a bit complicated but he’s determined to be baptized on may 9th. So we’re really happy for them and their family.

Alberto, the father of the ramirez-Perez family has not budged. He really is intent on not being baptized until he feels like being baptized. So we’re going to try to give him some space and hope for the best.

 

Today a member from the English ward gave the elders a giant box of chicken jerky. They own a grocery outlet, which is the west coast equivalent to aldi. They had a bunch of chicken jerky they couldn’t sell so they gave it all to the missionaries. So now we have a giant box full of jerky in our apartment.

So things are going good for us,

I hope you have a great week!

Cooking and baptisms

Elder Tyler Jones week 82

That’s crazy that church for you was cancelled. It’s hard to remember that you guys are in winter right now. It’s been in the 60’s and 70’s all week.

We had a good week, Herbert came to church again and it seemed like he likes it. This is his third time coming to church and he’s planning on being baptized the 24th of February. We’re pretty excited for that. Hopefully everything goes through with that.

We have had a lot of less active men come back.  Jordan’s dad, Marvin, has been pretty consistent in coming to church since Jordan’s baptism.  So that’s been pretty awesome.  We had 16 men in elders quorum this Sunday. 

The branch is hoping to turn into a ward at some point.  So we’ve been talking a lot about that. It still needs a bit of growing but it seems like it’s on its way. They’re definitely the biggest branch I’ve been in. We talked to the stake president and mission president this week about what would need to happen for them to be a ward but they weren’t quite sure.  They want to do a big missionary blitz like they did in my last area around Christmas time. I’m not sure how effective it was but we’ll be doing it anyway.

We had a valentines party on Saturday, where they made a lot of lasagna. We ended up having so much lasagna that after church on Sunday we all got together to eat lasagna again. Herbert came to the valentines party as well so he had a good time.

Today we went and played rugby for a few hours with our zone. That was a lot of fun. I also tried making gulab jamun. It turned out tasting like wet funnel cake. The problem is I don’t really like funnel cake. But the other elders like it so they’ve been going at it.
 

Have a great week!

Elder Tyler Jones week 81

It was an awesome week!

The Ramirez-Perez family got baptized! It was awesome, everyone was so excited a bunch of missionaries from a long time ago, which had already gone home, came back to the area to see them get baptized.  It was really an awesome service. 

We brought one of our investigators to the baptismal service and he seriously liked it. He mentioned that it was the first baptismal service he had ever been to. We talked to him for a bit and he said that he would like to be baptized. So we’re working with him to be baptized at the end of February. So we’re pretty excited about that. His name is Herbert. We found him knocking doors a few weeks ago. He’s come to church a couple times already. He’s from Guatemala and he’s living with some friends in an apartment. He works a lot to be able to send money back to his 4 daughters in Guatemala. He misses his daughters a lot and his wife doesn’t let him talk to his daughters any more, so he feels really bad about that.

Another man in the ward, named Gerardo, said that he would like to be baptized. He lives with a member and they want to get married it’s just going to be complicated to make that happen. So they’re not quite sure when he’ll be able to get married so he can be baptized.

We have transfers tomorrow. We’re all staying, so that should be good. 

I’m going to make some gulab jamun today. I’m pretty excited for that. I found it in an Indian grocery store.  There’s a lot of different types of shops and stores here from different cultures. I tried some samosas and this interesting lentil vegetable pocket thingy.

We played a lot of sports today as well. 

So it’s been pretty great!

Have a fantastic week!

Elder Ty Jones week 80

We had another great week!

Jordan got baptized! It was super awesome the whole branch showed up to support him and the family. His sister gave a talk about baptism that was super awesome. There were a lot of family members that aren’t members of the church there as well. So that’s exciting.

The Ramirez-Perez family is all good to go for this Friday. The mom and daughters are going to be baptized but the dad hasn’t decided yet. So hopefully he decides to do so. The branch is pretty excited for that since they’ve been actively coming to church for 2 years now. They’re some of the most active members we have.

We’ve got a few other people that are progressing well. So we’re excited for that. 

We had a branch party on Friday which was a lot of fun. A fair few showed up and we had nachos and played jeopardy. I ended up being the game host so it was a lot of fun.

We had a regional conference this Sunday. We all met in the stake center and they had talks by Patrick Kearon and D. Todd Christopherson. That was pretty good but it was hard to get people to come since the stake center is pretty far away.

I hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Tyler Jones week 79

it's been another great week! 

Jordan, Marvin’s son is ready to be baptized this Saturday. So we’re pretty excited about that. All the details are worked out so it shouldn’t be too much stress to make it happen. So that’ll be good.

The Ramirez-Perez family is doing well. All the family has been ready to be baptized for a long time. They’ve been active for 2 years. The dad still feels some nerves about being baptized. So the daughters and the mom are planning on being baptized feb 3 and we’re trying to get the dad to jump on to that date. Hopefully everything goes well with that.

We’ve found a couple more people that are pretty promising. One of them even came to church. We went and picked him up with the branch mission leader and it seems like he had a good time. His name is Herbert. He’s Christian and he seems to have a good amount of interest.

It’s a little bit different in Newark branch than in the last branch I served in. The last branch I served in was pretty dependent on new converts. People move in and out a lot and pretty much everyone at church was a convert of 5 years or less. Here in the Newark branch pretty much everyone is a long time member. They’re not as dependent on new converts and as such they haven’t had any baptisms in the past year. So they were a little bit confused on what to do when we brought an investigator to church. But it ended up good. It seems like he was fellowshipped well enough.

I tried boba for the first time recently. I got like a lychee slushee with little boba balls. It was super good. Boba is like little black tapioca balls that are good. Lots of different cultures in the area so I get to try a lot of different things.

Elder Tyler Jones week 78

It’s been a pretty good week for us.

There’s a less active family that came back to church this week. They have a son that is planning on being baptized the 27th of January as well, so that’s pretty exciting. They came to church and it seems like they really enjoyed it. The dads name is Marvin and he was pretty excited about his son's baptism. So it seems pretty solid for the 27th. They’re an awesome family.

Emily and Hamilton have been doing pretty well. We talked to them again and taught them a little more and they said they would come to church Saturday. They didn’t end up coming though. So that was a little disappointing. We’ll be meeting with them soon to see why they didn’t come.

The Newark branch is pretty awesome. I’ve really enjoyed serving in branches. It’s a little bit larger than the Hollister branch. It’s like a big family. They’re awesome. President Gonzales is pretty intent on making the branch a ward. So he’s super awesome and missionary minded. A lot of the members are super busy here and don’t have time to go out with us so it’s usually either president Gonzales or our branch mission leader.

But it’s been a good week. We played rugby with our zone today which was a lot of fun. Got some groceries from a Chinese market in the area today. One of the elders in our apartment got Balut from the Chinese market. He’s also from Indiana and has never had it before. It should be interesting to see him try it. We got some lychee popsicles as well which were super good.I got some sort of grass jelly drink. That was pretty interesting and pretty good. 

I’ve been having a great time.