Philly, but no cheese steak August 29, 2016

Hey everybody! 

Pretty cool week this go around. Lots of meetings and a long trip on Saturday, but definitely a memorable week. First off, the mission was visited by a general authority, Elder Dube. He is straight outta Africa and has a sweet accent to go with it. He was smaller than I expected him to be, but he was a super humble funny guy and it was pretty cool to have him talk to us as a mission. So we had two meetings with him this week, which ate up a pretty big chunk of our days, but the other highlight was that on Saturday, we got to go to a temple open house in Philly.

So when a new temple is built for the church they have a period of about a month where anyone, members or nonmembers, can take a tour through the building to see what it's all about and learn about what it is that goes on inside. So Elder Page and I got to go on a trip with the singles ward to the temple that was just built down in Philly. It was super cool! We piled into a bus with about 40 other people and drove about an hour and a half down to the temple. Wen, the chinese investigator that we've been teaching, got to come too! They also had built a big church building right across the street so we all filed into there, were organized into groups, went into a room to watch an intro video, then went on through the temple. It was my first time being in a sealing room! Pretty neat. They definitely played off of the history of the US in the decorations of the temple and the church building. It was really cool. 

After going through the temple we went up the the museum where Rocky runs up the steps in the movie, so we took a little run! I can now say I ran up those same steps as Rocky. Legendary. At that point we had been promised philly cheese steaks as well, but we got subway instead ... that was rather disappointing. It was a super cool trip though! I didn't realize just how much American history there is in that city, and you can just tell it's older by the look of the buildings. It's a pretty cool place! 

That's pretty much it though! Nothing too exciting regarding crazy people or anything like that. We're plugging right away though! Talked with some pretty chill people and got got some more people excited about going to the Philly temple, that's about the extent of it though! I hope you're all doing real well and staying healthy! Take er easy! Love yas! 

Doors on Doors August 22, 2016

Hey guys! Sorry I suck at emailing. I think this is my first email since coming to Union City. It's hard on the iPads, way too easy to get distracted when you're trying to write emails in the chapel with other missionaries. But hey! Here we are today.
So! Cool thing about Union City, it's one of the most densely populated cities in the US. So that's nice for missionary work! There's just tons of houses in our area and we only cover 18 blocks across 7 streets! Got plenty of doors to knock. Every single one of these people works over in NY though, so sometimes it's hard to find em at home. So E Page and I are gonna start focusing more on talking to some people in the street and see what we can get going.
We are working with some cool people right now though! In this area we cover a congregation of Young Single Adults, kids 18-30, as well as a regular Spanish ward, so that's pretty cool! In the Singles ward we get to translate, so that's pretty neat! We wear a little mic dealio that hooks up to headsets people use and we speak what we hear at them in Spanish. Listening and talking at the same time can get a little tough, especially with how fast some people talk! There's just a couple of people that listen to the translation, so if it ever goes really downhill I'll just apologize over the system. One time this guys read some CS Lewis quote and there was no way I was gonna know what the translation of the words was, so after going "uhhhhhhh" I made eye contact with and investigator that was listening to the translation and told her, in Spanish, "he's using really big words, sister ..." Haha! She just laughed. I gave her a general idea of it afterwards though! With the same guy though I missed like full sentence because he was going so fast, so if you ever have a translator, be sure to take your time and pause for effect!
Just one person I wanna tell you about. Wen. Pronounced just like "when" unless you're trying to talk like Hot Rod. Anywho! She's coming straight outta China, and it's super cool teaching her! She has pretty much 0 background whatsoever when it comes to religion. I think she had heard about Christ before we taught her, probably from her member friend that she lives with, but we're teaching her from absolutely nothing. It's sweet though! Of the Chinese people I've met they're all really humble and Wen accepts everything we say even though she's "exploring the possibility" of God in her own words. I think it's the coolest teaching experience I've had this far. That's pretty much it! Things are going good! Hope you all are doing well! Sometimes I sweat a lot, sometimes less. Missionaries say I've lost some weight though! So that's good.
Love yas! Have a wonderful week!

We played with some dental lip-puller-backer things. We had to blow a
bubble. It was hysterical.

Union City! and Facebook ... August 1, 2016

Well. We got it. Facebook is here. So that's that! I'm gonna be making a few changed to my account and whatnot for sure. So I'm not messing around breaking the rules when you see me on there! But just so you know, I won't reply to any messages or anything like that from folks back home.
Apart from that, this week I got moved outta Newark! It was a long time coming, I had been there for another 6 months and had spent a year in total in that area. Sad to go, but I was ready to get out! Union City is where I'm at now, it's a super densely populated place, just houses on houses out here. Right across the river from NYC too! So the view just got better! Other good news is that it's a walking area too and we don't get fed quite as much, so there is hope for some weight loss in this place! Not too many crazies though, so there might be a little lull in the stories. We did talk to this white washed Mexican guy from down south who went to a bible university in Florida and he voiced some disagreements about the priesthood and whatnot for about an hour. So that was a glorious use of time!
Something interesting is that in this area we cover two wards, or congregations. The Union City Spanish ward, which is just like a Spanish ward in Jersey usually is, and the Hoboken YSA (Young Single Adult) ward. The two wards overlap their service times in the chapel, so it can be a little bit of a challenge with visitors in both wards. It's pretty cool though! Because in Union City Spanish we got all of our Spanish people from Southern and Central America, but in the YSA ward there's people from all walks of life! Got a few white boys back from their missions, Chinese people here for school and whatnot, Spanish people that live in the area, and that's pretty much it! In the YSA we have to translate sometimes too because it's all in English and not everyone speaks it! Some of the Chinese people don't speak it too good either, so it's a lot of fun!
Did have a baptism this Sunday! Obviously I had very little to do with the whole teaching and conversion process seeing as I just got here, but he's a really cool Chinese guy named Leo! He's my man too, basically laughs at everything, so we get along just fine! And for his baptism there was another Chinese girl visiting with a roommate of hers and it was definitely the most positive reaction I have ever seen to coming to church from a nonmember. She ate it up man! Chinese people are way cool.
Other than that we got some more solid people we're working with in the YSA! Maria is the friend of a returned missionary and started listening to the missionaries after helping us out by down a teaching eval, where she came to receive a lesson just to evaluate our teaching and tell us how to improve. She ended up liking it enough to have is over a few more times! We made some sushi with her and some other friends this week, so that was pretty cool.
All is well though! I'm stoked to be in the area and ready to meet some new people! With FB it's shaking things up quite a bit too. Pray for me! Hahaha! Love you guys! Have a wonderful week!
Elder Jordan

I'm Alive! July 18, 2016

Hey! Just so you all know I'm still living! Things are good! Jose Jerez is getting baptized next week! He's a member's man (not married yet) and when we went to visit after not seeing them for a few weeks he said he wanted to be baptized! So the last two weeks we've been teaching him like mad to get him ready for it, he's solid though, he's really made the decision already. We're really just there to make sure it happens as it should. So that'll be next Sunday! Other than that there's a lot of people that we've been contacting, calling, and not really seeing. So yeah! Working through that. Chances are I'll be getting moved not this Tuesday, but the one after that. No clue where I'll be headed to! Things are great though! Working hard, sweatin' lots, and eating like kings. Life is good. Love yas!
Elder Hordan

This is my comps weekly email June 27, 2016

Wow. The days just fly by, it's already Monday again!
 

This week traffic and driving have been just that. Lots of traffic. But hey, we are finding ways to contact people to car to car while in traffic, so that is quite fun let me tell you.
 

While doing a table stand this week, we met a little old lady with the code name of "Silver Bells". I promised I wouldn't tell anyone her real name so Silver Bells it is! She was quite interested in learning our message and signed up for us to come by later that week, but after words she started giving us some tips about how to survive in Newark like she has. Rule number one, don't talk to black people. Rule number two avoid groups of black people. Rule number three, if five or more black people are walking towards you, immediately call the cops and just put in the phone in your pocket just in case. Then if all else fails, we were instructed to call her and say her code name...Silver Bells. Then practically on queue, five black kids were passing our stand and she like flipped out. We were trying to convince her not to call the cops so instead she just got by us and acted all tough so they wouldn't try to mess with us. Just imagine a little old lady, ready to fight, trying to step in between us and five full grown men who had no intentions to do anything. It was so hard for my companion and I to not just start busting out laughing, it was a sight to see...I think she was a little racist.

Also yesterday we were walking past a house when we noticed a large refrigerator hanging off a third story balcony with like 6 Hispanics trying to get it from the second floor to the third, hanging out of windows and such to lift it. I thought someone was going to die! I wish I had a picture to show how crazy this thing was! We yelled, "necesitan ayuda", and they were like "Si si si, por favor!" So we ran up their stairs and were able to add just enough power to lift this refrigerator over the railing onto the balcony. Afterwords they said we got there just in time, otherwise it probably would have fallen...haha I believe it! Then we realized that the wife of the man were talking to was someone we street contacted the other day and was not interested at all. However after this act of service they both glad accepted us to come by and share our message! Must have been inspired!

This area is so awesome. Great stories and many miracles to come I'm sure!


Elder Clement

I always had my suspicions about this river, then I saw this sign...only in Jersey.

 

 

Contacted some people from Ecuador on the public bus. Started talking about how good the bread looked they were eating and they just gave us some! Turns out they know some members and want us to come by!

Temple! June 6, 2016

Hey everybody!
Had a pretty stellar week with a little temple trip on Friday. So, being a zone leader (bow to my glory) my companion and I are over a group of 22 missionaries serving in areas bordering each other. So for the temple trip we went as a zone, meaning all 24 went at the same time and it was up to me and my companion to plan it all out. Believe it or not, it went well! Got to navigate a couple of train and subway stations and we all made it through together! No one got lost! We got close with one of the senior missionaries though ... Passing through turnstiles can be a bit of a challenge I suppose. But no! All went well! It's about an hour long trip and we all made it out alive! Even got to go to a joint in NY for a burger and a shake after.
Good stuff.
So that was last week. This week, I went to the temple again with my old friend Elder Gates. We planned a trip for Javier, Rocio and another Rocio who has been a member for quite a while longer to go to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. It was super cool to get to be there with them for the first time! And in a small group like that too, it was sweet! Other than the two temple trips it's been back to the grind over here. The people we've been teaching have been busy with work and it's been hard to meet with them, so we gotta get back to finding more people to teach and getting them rolling. It's been good though! Elder Hilton is always super positive and he has a lot more faith in people than I do, so that's good. I'm doing real well though! Just sweating like a pig as always over here. Love you guys!
Take er easy!
Elder Jordan

Sweet Victory May 2, 2016

Sergio got the spirit! Finally! And Javier was able to get the spirit and the Priesthood at the same time to baptize his woman. It's a beautiful thing.
We went to do service at this place that is super southern baptist status. People shouting yes and Amen during prayers or whenever someone paraphrases a scripture. At that same place I talked to this old lady, Elizabeth, who laughed every other sentence like the old guy from that chess animated short from Disney.
This fast and testimony meeting, after receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, both Sergio and Javier went up to share their testimonies. That was sweet yo.
Love yas!

Sickness April 11, 2016

Well, it's been another whole week, and I got some gnarly throat thing going on right now. On Friday we went to go proselyting in another companionship's area because it recently got opened up and they're struggling a little with the amount of people they have to teach. So we did some work in the rain and I was not prepared for the weather. So by Sunday I wasn't doing too good. Doing better now though! Another sickness that struck though was that on Friday as well, Sergio, who was baptized, got kidney stones and he is stuck in the hospital until today, when he's supposed to be operated on to have the stones removed. So he wasn't able to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost on Sunday, but we're good to go for next week! I don't have my notes for the week, so those are the biggest events of the week. Sorry the email is lame today, but that is all!
Love you guys! Take it easy!
Elder Hordan

General conference. Booyah April 4, 2016

Greetings everyone!!
Pretty solid week with General conference this weekend, I realized that General conference is basically spring break for missionaries, definitely one of the more relaxing weekends you'll ever have as a missionary. But even despite that we had some good times this week! First off, Javier and Rocio, a couple that has been taught since my first time being in Newark, are really starting to get fired up. After I left Newark the first time they were going pretty strong and working towards getting married so that they could be baptized. (For some reason people don't like marriage) So after a little time of working with them to get them married and some unsuccessful attempts they both ended up falling away and stopped talking the the missionaries for a while. Upon coming back into the area, he shot us a text and we've been seeing him a bit now. We were about to stop seeing them a couple of weeks ago because they weren't coming to church and when we went by to let them know, that put enough fire under him to get him out to church last week! So after talking with him some more we worked it out to get him another bed and getting them separated so now he can be baptized! He could do it next week if he wanted, but he wants some good time to make sure it's serious. We're gonna have to work with her a little more to get her going, but he's ready to rock and roll for the end of the month. So that was cool! Big week for them.
General conference was sweet! Lots of good talks. Something fun was that we had a homeless guy come in and just chilled in the church during the conference sessions. He had his random bags of who knows what and he came in the chapel and said a prayer up in there and called it good. The leaders had to get him outta there at the end of it all, he didn't seem to be too much of a bother though. Pretty tranquilo week though!
Keeping busy and havin fun. Love you guys! Take 'er easy!
Elder Jordan

Rollin' in the van

Things are starting to bloom.

Happy Easters! March 28, 2016

Happy Easter Everybody!! 
Hope you all had a good time with family and whatnot remembering the sacrifice and resurrection of Christ. It was a pretty cool week to be a missionary! 99% of the people we talked to this week on the street and whatnot were super grateful for what we were sharing and seemed happy to talk to us. That being said, it's been a week of moving on from those that we have been teaching. That's something that's rather hard about what we do, we meet these people, get to know them as we teach, see a desire grow in them to change and come closer to God, but then they don't do it. If we could force people to do things it'd be a lot easier! But it's all about their choice and it's pretty hard when people choose not to act. We did meet some good people this week though! Looking to get them going and the hope is that they'll decide to act.
We had a real good week with crazies! We had a day where some other missionaries borrowed the car so we had to walk and just in that one day we had our picture taken by some random photographer, and as we were walking through a park to an appointment, we some homeless lady squatted next to a tree taking a dump no more than 40 yards away from the street running through the park. Fantastic. Probably the most gnarly thing I've seen so far.
Good news for the week though is that our man Sergio decided to get baptized! It's been awesome to hear him talk about how he's changed and whatnot. Love that guy a lot and am super grateful to have been able to teach him. Pretty cool he got to be baptized on Easter too!
Love you guys and hope you all had a great week! Take it easy!
Elder Jordan

Curve balls March 21, 2016

Hello everybody! 
So, background to the week, after observing a few crazies this week, Elder Gates proceeded to say "God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy." I don't know how many of you know the Billy Currington song, but it sums up most of our experiences pretty well. To start off the week we had some pig ear tacos at a Mexican family's house. That was interesting. Not too bad at all though! There was really just a bunch of little things this week that inspired the bringing up of "God is great."
Really one of the most eventful things this week was that we helped some other missionaries move into a new apartment. The curve ball of the week though was when Sergio, our investigator, was in an FHE with some other members and after talking about repentance for a bit he just drops this bomb that he doesn't feel the need to be baptized again because he's already been baptized twice as an adult and doesn't think it's necessary. So we had a little chat with him on Sunday and now we're gonna go back through the Restoration with him and try to help him see why. He'll be good to go for next week though. That's pretty much about it though! Plugging right along and we're gonna have to work to start getting some new investigators rolling. Hope all is going well for all you though! Love you guys!
Elder Jordan

Smokin' March 14, 2016

Hello everybody! 
Pretty regular week, we did have some fun taking out the member of our ward who is the leader of the missionary work. He came out with us twice to visit a couple of people and in the first one we went to visit an investigator family, a younger couple from Ecuador with two adorable little daughters, the Lazos. We went in there planning on teaching the Plan of Salvation, and got up to our life on earth, but then Juan, the dad, mentioned something about overcoming issues and repenting in this life and then his wife jumped on him for his smoking problem. She even beckoned the littlest daughter into the room, who is like 5, and had her tell about how he smokes. I felt bad for the man! Hermano Vallejo, the member who came out with us, turned out to have smoked liked 70 cigarettes a day in a past life, so it was pretty good to have him there, Juan was just getting attacked by these people though! So we tried to encourage him a little, just hoping he didn't get offended with how intense the lesson was. Let's just say Hermano Vallejo ended up walking outta there with a pretty new pack of cigarettes.
Well, I was gonna write more, but the time passed me by ... Love you guys!

Crazies from a Distance March 7, 2016

Hello everybody! 
Yet another solid week out in the hood! The only bad part is that it's hard to have so many wonderful experiences with all the crazy people when you're rolling in a van the entire time. That's not to say that we still don't get to enjoy them though! First one for the week was when we were coming out of a lesson with a kinda less active lady, Luz Mary, she has these black guys that are living in the second floor of her house and they like to chill out on the front porch, so whenever we come by they're always there to talk to us. So this time as we came outside and were walking towards our van one of them stood up from his chair and said, "Hey, I don't know where you guys parked, but if ANYBODY messes with you they mess with ME!" We're pretty positive that he was drunk, but I don't really care because I've been waiting for someone to tell me that my entire mission. Sweet victory! On top of that, there is this recent convert family that we go visit and for some reason outside of their house there's always this guy who's getting down with his bad self and dancing as he walks down the street, it's classic.
Aside from seeing crazy people we had a really good week of teaching as well! I'm not sure whether I told you or not, but Sergio, a Mexican we've been teaching for a while now, is getting a new job will finally be able to come to church this week! So that's exciting. But also, Sergio and Debbi, El Salvadorians that are related to the recent convert family, are loosening up quite a bit too. We had a very interesting lesson with them this past Saturday. So we picked up the recent convert family to go visit them with us and do a family home evening little dealio and things were going really great! The kids we're running around torturing their poor cat but we were trying to share a short message/activity thing. Time rolls around for us to go home, and her youngest son, Noah, just starts puking all over the place! So we tried to keep the other kids from running through the barf while it was getting cleaned up, but the little guy didn't stop puking! There was a lot of food in that little belly of his. So after it's all cleaned up and Debbi is in the bathroom washing him up, we grab the food they had bought for us and headed out because it was getting to be close to our curfew. The next day we texted Rocio, one of the recent converts that came with us that night, and asked her how the rest of the night went. She said everything calmed down and that it went well up until the cat got up on the table, crawled into a bag and took a leak right on the Daggum table. Sergio was having none of that and was so done for the night that he took the cat and chucked it right out the window! (They live on the first floor) but yeah! That pretty much sums up the week! Things are still going super awesome and we're getting more food than we know what to do with, but despite that the members say I look like I've been losing weight! Yeehaw. Hope everything is going awesome for everyone back home!  Love you guys!
Take it easy
Elder Jordan

February 29, 2016

Hey everybody! Elder Gates and I are over here still getting wrecked with food. For some forsaken reason our ward thought we weren't getting fed and organized a meal calendar, so now our ridge is chock full of leftovers and meals that were just given to us. We do our best to make sure nothing goes to waste, but you know, sometimes circumstances arise. Speaking of food, Sergio, our investigator, has been giving us a lot of fruit at the appointments we have with him and so with the fruit we have stashed up in the van we are feeding the beggars. They get food and we don't feel like heartless wretches, it's a win win! Well, we driving by a spot where we had given a guy some fruit and there, sitting on the concrete wall, was the apple and 2 oranges we had given this guy ... That irritated me a little, but we'll keep on giving out fruit.
We had a couple of appointments with Sergio this week and were very happy to find out that he'll be quitting his job and moving on to construction in another week and a half so his Sunday's will be free! We won't be able to get us quite as much fruit, because he's leaving the supermarket, but we'll take the trade off. He's doing really awesome and plans on getting baptized in March once he can come to church consistently. His roommate was pretty stoked about the activity night too! He said he's gonna be coming back next week and he even told my companion during the activity, "I'm not a Mormon, but I'm gonna be!" Haha! Just got to get him to switch work too now. Things have been going really good though! We're keeping really busy and seeing a lot of good people, it's just a matter of getting them to church.
Aside from them, we were going around some certain apartment buildings looking for some people to teach. We met some good people to teach, and especially these two guys from Honduras that happened to be getting into the elevator at the same time as us. We were going to the same floor and once we got out of the elevator we just talked to them about life and stuff for a good 10 minutes. The whole time I was just thinking how many things had to go right and had to happen in a certain order and at a certain time for us to be able to meet them. Stoked to get to teach them some more. Things are warming up over here and lots of good things are happening throughout the entire mission.
Thanks for the prayers and the love! I'm doing great and hope you guys are too, take it easy! Love ya!
Elder Jordan

Mabissa, she is awesome!

Elder Gates

February 22, 2016

Hey everyone! Pretty cool week! I was out of our area on exchange quite a bit, so I feel a little like I didn't see a whole lot of the people that we usually teach. In spite of that, with just walking back to the van from an appointment, a black man was able to stop us, ask us for a pamphlet, then invite us to go smoke some weed. So there's that! 
Something that's super cool that happened this week though was that Elder Mendez, my past companion, and I along with his current companion got to go back to Passaic to see a lady that we all taught be baptized. It was sweet! Not only to see those from the Branch back there, but to see her get baptized was sweet man. Other than that we were busy in lessons. Rocked and rolled this week. That's about it though.
Love you guys! Take it easy!

Beautiful day in Newark

Happy Valentines! February 15, 2016

Hello everybody!
Had another beautiful week, not a whole lot of time, but it got super cold this week, just down to 1. My come and I are both bad about taking pictures, so that's a bummer deal. We're still meeting with Sergio the atheist and his wife, they're doing pretty good! Just had a really cool Q&A session with them. Other Sergio couldn't make it to church.
Saw some prostitutes in the freezing cold weather, I felt bad for them. Lots of homeless people have been wandering around the intersections too, so we bought some granola bars for them today.
Things are awesome though! Still rolling in the mini van!

Still in Newark! February 8, 2016

Man people, I'm really just loving it up over here. I'm super grateful to be back in Newark. On Tuesday night a younger guy, Ronald, who's been working on his papers for a while got his call and invited us and a bunch of other members to the chapel to see him open it. We showed up a little late coming from an appointment and when we walked up to the group of members around Ronald they started to realize who I was and it felt like coming home. I wanted to hug every single one of em! Some of them didn't even believe me when I told them I was back for good in the area. It's been a super good week of seeing some old friends too, even though some of them weren't actually in my area last time, we worked pretty close with a lot of them and just going to church was super awesome to see how the ward as changed for the better. Happiness. I just feel super blessed to be in such a busy area! There's a ton of people over here that we can visit and a lot of members are telling us about their friends and family to go visit, so really it's not hard at all to keep ourselves busy. This week was pretty intense lesson wise. We talked to the cousin of a guy who was just baptized, he was raised Christian, but is now atheist, his name is Sergio. When I first came out I honestly never thought that an atheist would be one  of the people that I care for as much as I do right now. We had an awesome lesson just about praying and getting started. He didn't end up praying at the end of the lesson, but it was a really cool experience to just straight up talk to him about it all. 
We haven't seen anything too crazy so far, we have a sweet minivan that we roll in, so I think that'll keep the crazies away a little just because we're not outside 100% of the time. It the newest vehicle I've ever driven in my life though! Except for motorcycles and stuff. It had less than 500 miles on that puppy! Pulls like a champ too. I love that thing. All is well over here, stoked to be over here. Hope you guys are doing just fine. Love yas Take it easy!
Elder Jordan

Back to Newark!! February 1, 2016

I got some fantastic news this morning. So every six weeks they do transfers, and this Tuesday is when they're going to be switching a bunch of missionaries up with new missionaries coming in and the ones that finish go home.  So this morning, we got a call from the mission president and after he let me know that his computer was being slow and a nice long pause, he told me I'm going back to NEWARK!!! I'm gonna have the same area I had when I was brand spankin new with some add ons too. I'm Daggum Stoked!! Super happy to be going back! So that's definitely the highlight of this week. We went sledding last week and had a ball doing that, but a lot of the week was gearing up my companion for heading home. He had some serious packing and last rites to run through. It was cool to say goodbye to some people that he's taught and getting to see how he's touched their lives. I'm really looking forward to getting to see some of the people that I've come to love. Gonna be getting pretty good coming up here! Love you guys! Hope you're all doing just fine. Take it easy!
Elder Jordan

Fermin and family

Snow's here! January 25, 2016

Hey everyone! Pretty interesting week. Lots and lots of snow as I'm sure you've heard, which meant a lot of shoveling! Felt good to do some serious service action. We made the mistake of putting off digging out our car until later at night. It was all for not though, battery is super dead. Pretty stoked to actually get to go and play in the snow today. Also got to play with Sagrario's nice little nieces this week, they have the best Spanish ever. I'll see if I can send a video. Living it up over here! Hope you all are just swell. Love ya!
Elder Jordan

January 18, 2016

Hey everybody! Had a pretty dang good week! The snow showed up, but nothing major, just a little flurry. It hasn't gotten too bitter cold just yet, but we're just waiting for that. This week Gabriela was able to get confirmed and we talked to a few of the people that we've been teaching about being baptized. Now the trick is getting them to not disappear on us! Other than that there's nothing too exciting to report. Our car battery ran out and so we went and knocked on a couple of people's Windows to ask for a jump and the First Lady we tried was just sitting there on her phone in her car and she was not pleased at all that we asked her for a jump. She threw her phone down in the passenger seat and just drove away. Yeah. We ended up getting a jump from a couple of Mexican guys, they were much nicer! Pretty tranquilo week though. Met some nice people and had some solid lessons. Hope you all had a good week and are staying dry and warm. Love you guys!
Elder Jordan

Grindin' January 11, 2016

Hey Everybody! 

Things are plugging along over here, I'm getting a little frustrated with the amount of people that are talking to us, people are getting a little colder with the weather, so that's what we're dealing with right now, but with more work we'll find some people! Just gotta keep workin. That's not to say that we don't have good investigators we're working with right now! Fermin, the dad of Charlie and Richard, has expressed to us that he feels like he's committed too much elsewhere to make the commitment of baptism, which we respect, but he's totally down to keep bringing his kids to church, so some members are surprised to hear that he's not baptized. We talked to Charlie and Richard about baptism this week though and they're both pretty excited to be baptized! So hopefully we'll have some more news coming up on that. So for now it's just that! Working till we find more and keeping consistent with those we have been teaching. Also, we found scooters while out trying some doors. Pretty sweet to have another mode of transportation, just the cracks in the sidewalk can be a bit dangerous sometimes ... Love you guys and hope that all is well! Talk to you in another week! 

Elder Jordan

Sickness Strikes January 4, 2016

Hey everybody!

Pretty interesting week this go around. Elder Obley caught something and in fear that it would get worse if we ventured out into the cold, we had a couple days of him resting up to try to get it gone as quick as possible. That left me with a lot of time to ponder, so I brushed up on my solitaire skills. It had been a while for sure. Despite that we still managed to talk to a drunk guy who had taken the lessons before and even got yelled at by a pregnant lady who was very apologetic at the same time. She knowingly acknowledged she was hormonal. Despite a rather uneventful week we had the opportunity to baptize Gabriella this week! I don't know if I mentioned it or not, but last week we were supposed to baptize her, but the water was too cold because we were unaware that we had to turn on a heater. Well, being prepared this time around, that water was daggum bathtub warm status. It was beautiful. Probably the warmest font water I'll ever step into. Poor girl has a little phobia of water though, so she was breathing deep during the prayer and got pretty scared when she went under, but after she got out she was all smiles and perfectly fine! That's pretty much the gist of the week though. I'm just over here getting fat on Christmas candy. Nothing special for New Year's Eve. I went to bed at the usual time and slept right through all the festivities. My comp says he heard fireworks. That's all though! Another week in. I hope you all celebrated safely this week and are living up out there! Love ya and have a great week!