Elder Tyler Jones week 54

That's awesome that Allie had such a good time on the high adventure. That's good that she didn't get sunburnt. I was never very good at avoiding sunburns. Come to think of it, I'm still not. He suns been alright here still. Collared shirts make some interesting tan lines. That's so awesome that dan got to go to scout camp. Sounds like he had a lot of fun. 

It's been another good week for us.

Abraham didn't come to church this week. He was busy with work this week so we weren't able to meet with him and he didn't come to church. So that was pretty disappointing but we should be able to get in with him his week. 

A less active member came back to church and brought a friend though. We talked to him for a little bit. He really enjoyed church and he wanted to come back we were able to get his phone number and we're going to try to meet with him sometime this week. Hopefully all goes well with that. 

We also decided to try with another part member family. The wife comes to church regularly and the husband is already baptized. We're going to try to meet with them this week. We talked with them at church and they seemed really nice. They think their daughter had an evil spirit though. So we gave the daughter a blessing and they were pretty happy with that.

Our mission president challenged us to read the Book of Mormon in 90 days a couple weeks ago. That's been going well. I'm in Mosiah right now and am enjoying it. 

I'm having a great time, I hope you guys have a great week!

Elder Tyler Jones week 53

Sounds like you guys had a good week. That's so exciting that the kids are going to be having some fun. That's pretty cool that Allie is going to get to go on a high adventure. Sounds like you guys are having some fun. Enjoy the meat for a week. There's a sister missionary in this ward and she's vegan. It's pretty hard to mix Mexican food and vegan so e members get creative. That's so cool that you guys are learning the scripture stories again!

It's been a great week.

We got to visit Abraham again this week. He came to church as well. He had been really busy the past couple weeks but we got to visit him and he's still excited to get baptized. He's already come to church five or so times and he's super awesome. He's doing great and will probably be baptized soon. We're going to try to figure out when that'll be with him is week.

We had an interesting experience this week. We got a referral to go see a man named Manuel at a trailer park several weeks ago. We knocked on his door a lot of times and no one ever answered. So we ended up dropping him. This week we were in the same trailer park trying to see someone else and we just knocked on his door another time just because. An older man opened the door and looked at us. We asked for Manuel. The guy seemed confused for a while and then he told us that Manuel is his brother. He told us that Manuel died just a few days earlier. We got to talking to this guy for a little bit. His name is Jose. He couldn't talk long that first day but he invited us to come back the next day in the evening. When we came back he let us in we talked to him for a while and taught about the plan of salvation. He wanted to be baptized on that first lesson. So we'll see where things go from there.

Also Douglas came to church. He wants to be baptized still he is just trying to get married to his girlfriend so that he can. He's been really busy at the same time. So he's slowly trooping along.

also, we went on a hike today. We had already gone to this one several months ago but it was still nice. It was pretty sunny and hot but it was still a really nice view. There's a lot of really nice hiking places in Portillo valley in the south part of our area.

Anyway, I'm doing great!

I hope you all have a great week!

Elder Tyler Jones week 52

Sounds like you guys have been having a good time. I'm glad you guys are having some fun... that's crazy that you guys can still catch so many fish in the pond. I'm glad the weather has been pretty nice for you guys as well.

It's been another great week!

We had a lesson with the Martinez family that went well. they're a part member family that has moved from El Salvador. The wife is a member and the Grandpa is a member. The grandpa is here for the summer to try to reactivate them. So that's been awesome. The wife and the son have come to church but the father still hasn't. They work a lot and they have a hard time getting off of work. So we've still been trying with that. We had a dinner with them and they made pupusas for us which were really good. We watched the restoration video with them and they enjoyed it. So we're hoping to get them to come to church. We finally got all of the information to get their records transferred to our ward from El Salvador.

We had a meeting with President Hunt. It was just a little meeting to get to know him and to learn about some of the changes in the mission. He's really excited and he's super awesome. So things are going pretty great. So I'm excited for how things go with the mission.

We've been working on some finding. We've found some really nice people, it's always a little hard to get them to act on their commitments but it's going alright. We were walking by and we talked to a family in a trailer park. They had a little parakeet which was really cute. It was green with a yellow head and red cheeks. It's head looked like pikachu. They let me put him on my shoulder so that I could be like a pirate. Then he started trying to bite my ear. He was really tiny so It didn't hurt, it just tickled a little. So that was pretty cute until I tried to get him off and he got scared and pooped on me. So the family thought that was super funny which was good.

Things are going well, we've been really trying to get people to come to church. The main problem people have is that they have to work a lot to be able to afford to live in even the poorest parts of this area. So people have a hard time getting Sundays off to come to church. It's going well though

One of the people getting baptized at the end of the month is moving to Los Angeles for work and he doesn't know when he's going to be back.  So we're trying to see how long he'll be there so we can know whether to refer him to the elders in Los Angeles or wait for him to get back.

Anyway, Have a great week!

Elder Tyler Jones week 51

It's been another great week!

That was awesome to hear from Allie about her trip and sounds like everyone's having a good time! That's fun to hear that all of the relatives are in town. I'm sure that must be crazy but I hope uncle Dewey and Susan had a good time on their mission.

So we got a new mission president this week. His name is President Hunt. We had an outgoing devotional for President Mella which was awesome. Everyone in the mission came together for the devotional. All of the Tongan missionaries got up and did a dance and it was all pretty fun.

President Hunt came in on June 30th. We met him at a baptism yesterday. He seemed really nice, We didn't talk much with him because he was super busy but we talked with Sister Hunt for a little bit and she seems super nice. It'll be awesome to have them here with us.

The ward had a baptism on Sunday. The missionaries found him a long time ago. He wanted to be baptized almost immediately but he couldn't as a result of some past problems. He stayed active for the whole time though. The First presidency waved the responsibility to the Mission President, President Mella interviewed him and he was able to get baptized. It was a super cool experience. There was a lot of support from the ward.

Abraham didn't come to church this week which was a bit disappointing, he had to work so he wasn't able to come. He's still preparing to be baptized at the end of July though. So we're still hopeful that all goes well with that.

Christian also didn't come to church this week, he came last week for the first time and had supposedly left on a camping trip. So we're trying to figure out what's his situation. He seemed to enjoy church the last time though so we don't know.

Also, they're starting a lot of road construction in the area so traffic has been even worse. So that's been a lot of fun to deal with. I suppose it gives me more time to listen to talks though. I've still particularly enjoyed talks by Neal A. Maxwell.

Here's a quote I like "Adequacy in the first estate may merely have ensured a stern, second estate with more duties and no immunities! additional tutoring and suffering appears to be the pattern for the lords most apt pupils". I thought that was an interesting way of looking at things.

Elder Tyler Jones week 50

Hi all, it made me happy to see you guys and Allie happy in the pictures. Thank you so much for that.

It's been an good week. Charlie got confirmed this week and there are a couple more people planning on being baptized at the end of July.  They came to church this week and we took them on a tour of the building. They enjoyed it, we showed them the baptismal font and they seemed to think it was interesting. Overall I think they had a positive experience.

We've been teaching Charlie's friend for a while and his dad for a while. They've been sort of half in about it all but after they saw Charlie get baptized they were pretty excited about it and they committed to baptism. He sort of just told us "okay, I want to learn, let's go to the table and let's learn." We ended up teaching him the rest of the night or for about two and a half hours. He had a lot of good questions and committed to be baptized.

We had our last interviews with president Mella. This Friday we're going to get a new mission president. President Hunt. It'll be sad to see president Mella go but I'm excited to get to know president Hunt. We'll have a devotional this Wednesday for their going away.

Also, brother Clemente got the priesthood and so when we went over we had him give his wife a blessing. It was so sweet and it was a great experience. They both have their temple recommends now and are planning to go to the temple soon. So we're all excited about that.

Elder Tyler Jones week 49

Hey! That's awesome that you guys are going to go to New York! I bet you guys will have a great time! I still remember going to New York years ago. That was a lot of fun. I hope you guys have a great time! That's so awesome that Dan got the priesthood as well. That's so cool to think he will be passing the sacrament soon. That's awesome to hear about Allison as well! I hope she is having a great time! send some pictures of her in Japan.

It was a good week for us. Charlie got baptized on Sunday. His family came to support him. His uncle got to baptize him. They're a great family and it was awesome to work with them. We're going to keep on seeing them because one of Charlie's friends is preparing to be baptized as well. The service was great it was just stressful getting everything together.

One of the other investigators we were trying to get baptized has kind of fallen off. He had come to Church many times and then he hasn't had time to meet with us and hasn't come to church in a couple weeks. So we're trying to get back into contact with him because he had already committed to be baptized and he'd already been coming to church for a while.

Earlier I had the opportunity to baptize one of the sisters investigators last Friday. She had been investigating for a while and we had passed by to visit them a couple times to give her blessings and whatnot. It was an awesome service and a lot of the ward showed up for it. So we were happy about that.

We went on a hike today. It's been super hot the past few days. So we've been going through water bottles pretty fast. It was a really nice hike though. The Tongan Elders went with us so it was a good time.

It's been an exciting week. I hope you guys have another great week!

Allison Japan Trip photos June 13