Friday, September 22, 2017
September 19, 2017
3 1/2 years of Baer missionaries has come to an end. It has been a blessing filled time for all of us. I am eternally grateful for my children's example of faithfulness, for their service to their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and to the people in the areas where they served. They have grown in their testimony of the Book of Mormon, the power of prayer, and of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. So much to be grateful for. I am now grateful to have my children home.
Jacob - September 11, 2017 THE LAST!
Hey Family, so this week went super well. It was definitely one of
those weeks that we were able to see the fruits of our labors. This
Sunday we had 8 investigators at church. One was the family that we
found, the parents came and also the majority of their children. We've
been also teaching that family pretty frequently and have a lesson
with them tomorrow. There was another investigator that came that we
have been working with for the past few weeks. She has some health
problems at the moment, but she lives in the complex with a lot of
members and so one of the member families brought her yesterday, we
also have a lesson with her tomorrow. Lastly there was a less active
mom that was baptized about 3 years ago that came and her 2 children.
The kids aren't baptized so we are hoping that as the mom becomes
active again, the kids will be able to progress more. Other highlights
of the week, on Saturday we had the Dia de Hispanidad. It's a giant
stake activity at the stake center. All the wards go and eat food and
have a good time together. Also at the end of the day, probably around
6 or 7, they have a cultural dance from each ward. The ward I am in
wasn't able to perform because we were informed a bit late about the
dancing part. But it's all good. My comp and I didn't stick around
because we had work to do up in our area. Also Saturday we had a
Temple Tour, we went down because we were expecting some people to go,
but on the way down we were informed that none of our investigators
would be able to go... So that was a bummer, but I was able to have a
good conversation with a man returning to activity. We spoke a little
bit about the Gathering of Israel and the establishment of Zion. These
were probably the highlights for this week. I can't recall much else
about the week besides service, teaching & finding, and district
meeting. But it was a pretty good week. This upcoming week i'm going
to be pretty busy. Thursday I'll be going to the temple with President
Golden as well as with all the dying missionaries. Friday we'll have a
"farewell Dinner," that'll take all the night... It goes from 6-9pm.
Saturday is going to be the adult session of Stake Conference, we'll
probably have people there so we'll most likely go. And then Sunday
will be the General Session of Stake Conference. Should be a pretty
good week.
Love you all! I've been hearing a lot about natural disasters so I
hope you all stay safe!
Elder Baer
those weeks that we were able to see the fruits of our labors. This
Sunday we had 8 investigators at church. One was the family that we
found, the parents came and also the majority of their children. We've
been also teaching that family pretty frequently and have a lesson
with them tomorrow. There was another investigator that came that we
have been working with for the past few weeks. She has some health
problems at the moment, but she lives in the complex with a lot of
members and so one of the member families brought her yesterday, we
also have a lesson with her tomorrow. Lastly there was a less active
mom that was baptized about 3 years ago that came and her 2 children.
The kids aren't baptized so we are hoping that as the mom becomes
active again, the kids will be able to progress more. Other highlights
of the week, on Saturday we had the Dia de Hispanidad. It's a giant
stake activity at the stake center. All the wards go and eat food and
have a good time together. Also at the end of the day, probably around
6 or 7, they have a cultural dance from each ward. The ward I am in
wasn't able to perform because we were informed a bit late about the
dancing part. But it's all good. My comp and I didn't stick around
because we had work to do up in our area. Also Saturday we had a
Temple Tour, we went down because we were expecting some people to go,
but on the way down we were informed that none of our investigators
would be able to go... So that was a bummer, but I was able to have a
good conversation with a man returning to activity. We spoke a little
bit about the Gathering of Israel and the establishment of Zion. These
were probably the highlights for this week. I can't recall much else
about the week besides service, teaching & finding, and district
meeting. But it was a pretty good week. This upcoming week i'm going
to be pretty busy. Thursday I'll be going to the temple with President
Golden as well as with all the dying missionaries. Friday we'll have a
"farewell Dinner," that'll take all the night... It goes from 6-9pm.
Saturday is going to be the adult session of Stake Conference, we'll
probably have people there so we'll most likely go. And then Sunday
will be the General Session of Stake Conference. Should be a pretty
good week.
Love you all! I've been hearing a lot about natural disasters so I
hope you all stay safe!
Elder Baer
Monday, September 4, 2017
Jacob - September 4, 2017
Hey family, it's good to hear from all of you. It's good to hear
things are going well. I'm trying to think of a few more things that
have happened recently to talk about. As you already know, we had a
temple trip which was super cool. When we were there i saw a family,
well a couple back from San Juan Ward. They were there to get there
endowments and after the session they got sealed. Super cool. On
Saturday we were on exchanges. I was in a different area with elder
Reinsch. He's from Nebraska so he knew a little bit about Iowa, he
lived a little bit south of Omaha, I think it was a town called
Lincoln. But I had a good day with him, we were able to teach a few
lessons and it seems he's doing a good work in that area. Sunday was a
miracle day, some investigators came to church. They are a part member
family that had a brother and sister get baptized about 6 years ago. A
lot of the ward knows them and they have a lot of desire to be a
Christ centered family. They have the most real intent that I have
seen in a long time. They are currently on date for the 8th of
October. That was probably the highlight of Sunday. I also shared my
testimony with the ward since it was fast Sunday. I spoke a little
about receiving revelation especially the importance of prayer,
scriptures and going to church. (The fundamentals). Today we had an
elders activty for all the Spanish elders. That was super fun. We had
a 4v4 basketball tournament. I think there was a total of 5-6 teams
and mine got 3rd overall. Me and another elder were sort of carrying
the team, but it was a lot of fun and a lot of good sports from
everyone. The stacked teams of course played the championship any my
comp won the whole thing with his team. Other than that we are just
taking care of a few things. We are at the office now and hopefully
we'll get some haircuts done later today. Anyways I love you all. It
was good hearing from you all once again. Take care!
Elder Baer
things are going well. I'm trying to think of a few more things that
have happened recently to talk about. As you already know, we had a
temple trip which was super cool. When we were there i saw a family,
well a couple back from San Juan Ward. They were there to get there
endowments and after the session they got sealed. Super cool. On
Saturday we were on exchanges. I was in a different area with elder
Reinsch. He's from Nebraska so he knew a little bit about Iowa, he
lived a little bit south of Omaha, I think it was a town called
Lincoln. But I had a good day with him, we were able to teach a few
lessons and it seems he's doing a good work in that area. Sunday was a
miracle day, some investigators came to church. They are a part member
family that had a brother and sister get baptized about 6 years ago. A
lot of the ward knows them and they have a lot of desire to be a
Christ centered family. They have the most real intent that I have
seen in a long time. They are currently on date for the 8th of
October. That was probably the highlight of Sunday. I also shared my
testimony with the ward since it was fast Sunday. I spoke a little
about receiving revelation especially the importance of prayer,
scriptures and going to church. (The fundamentals). Today we had an
elders activty for all the Spanish elders. That was super fun. We had
a 4v4 basketball tournament. I think there was a total of 5-6 teams
and mine got 3rd overall. Me and another elder were sort of carrying
the team, but it was a lot of fun and a lot of good sports from
everyone. The stacked teams of course played the championship any my
comp won the whole thing with his team. Other than that we are just
taking care of a few things. We are at the office now and hopefully
we'll get some haircuts done later today. Anyways I love you all. It
was good hearing from you all once again. Take care!
Elder Baer
Jacob - September 1, 2017
Hey everybody so this past week and a half has been really good. My
companion and I are finding lots of people to teach and we are
excited. Some have some baptismal dates set for October and they seem
pretty willing to do their commitments. Hopefully some will come this
Sunday. Also this past week we had President Interviews and that was
good, I sort of asked a "trunky" question about what lessons he wished
he knew/was grateful when he was returning home from his mission. He
shared some good advice. Also one of the families we met are super
prepared. They've met missionaries a while back, about 5 years and so
and some of them were baptized. But we found them and about 7 or so
can be baptized they are all willing to listen. The mom went to an
activity this past weekend, we didn't even know about an activity so
she has some member friends or something. Super cool. But I can't
really think at the moment of more things to say.. so if I forget
something I'll write more about it in like 2 days. Love you all!
Elder Baer
companion and I are finding lots of people to teach and we are
excited. Some have some baptismal dates set for October and they seem
pretty willing to do their commitments. Hopefully some will come this
Sunday. Also this past week we had President Interviews and that was
good, I sort of asked a "trunky" question about what lessons he wished
he knew/was grateful when he was returning home from his mission. He
shared some good advice. Also one of the families we met are super
prepared. They've met missionaries a while back, about 5 years and so
and some of them were baptized. But we found them and about 7 or so
can be baptized they are all willing to listen. The mom went to an
activity this past weekend, we didn't even know about an activity so
she has some member friends or something. Super cool. But I can't
really think at the moment of more things to say.. so if I forget
something I'll write more about it in like 2 days. Love you all!
Elder Baer
Monday, August 21, 2017
Jacob - August 21, 2017
Hey family, first things first because I'll probably forget to mention
it if I don't write it now. But I won't be writing this upcoming
Monday because P-day will be on Friday. It'll be a Temple day so
that's the reason why, I'm pretty excited. But this week for us went
by pretty well. We dropped a bunch of people and in turn we met a lot
of new people this week. Some have already began reading in the Book
of Mormon. We have a lot of good expectations, especially one because
she is friends with a less active and the less active is helping her
read and learn, hopefully she'll become active in the process. Also
this past week we had a zone conference. We spoke about Diligence, the
new mission standards of excellence, dignity, & how to more
effectively plan. It was a good conference, I especially liked the
comments about diligence, it's probably my most favorite attribute of
Christ. Also this week we had an exchanges with the district leader, I
was with elder Wilkinson up in his area. We had a good time together
and it was a pretty quick day. We taught a good amount. I'm not sure
if I can say I learned anything new, not sure if that's a bad thing, I
wanted to use the Book of Mormon more on street contacts, but the
areas we went to didn't really present opportunities to do so, so I'll
have to do it here in my are throughout the week. I've been studying a
lot of agency scriptures to share, trying to motivate people to choose
to follow God and not be passive about it while at the same time
warning people of the consequences of sin. Some scriptures I liked
were: Hel. 14:30, 2 Nephi 2:27 & Alma 42:27. Some of them are a bit
fuego(y), but there all super true. 2 Nephi 2:27 is probably the best
one for street contacts. Anyways as I've said, things are going well
in the area. We have a LOT of people to follow up with. This past week
we took some time to go through our area book to look for people we
had met before and found like 20 or so names that we need to go follow
up with. So we are going to be trying to find the balance between
finding and teaching the investigators that we already have. We are
looking forward to the challenge and we already have some lessons with
our ward mission leader and bishop set up. This past Sunday we got a
new ward mission leader, Hermano Cuevas, he is super cool and pumped
for missionary work. We can tell he doesn't quite know what it
entails, but he is ready to go to work. Also this week I finished
reading the B.O.M. in Spanish so that's I think number 5 for times
I've read it on the mission. It's a super good book, inspired by God
and every time I read it, something new sticks out at me. For the
remainder of my time I'm going to try reading the new testament. I'm
looking forward to this week and the one that is coming. We also
received news that Elder Christofferson is coming to our mission, well
actually to the stake conference coming up. It'll be interesting
though because this past transfer, one of the ward's was moved from
the Anaheim mission to the Irvine Mission and the stake center falls
on the Irvine side, so we are going to need permission from a Seventy
to go to that, but it's decently far still so I'lll worry about that
later. Lot's of cool things are going on in the mission though. But
this is it for this letter. I love you all and I'll talk to you soon.
Take care!
it if I don't write it now. But I won't be writing this upcoming
Monday because P-day will be on Friday. It'll be a Temple day so
that's the reason why, I'm pretty excited. But this week for us went
by pretty well. We dropped a bunch of people and in turn we met a lot
of new people this week. Some have already began reading in the Book
of Mormon. We have a lot of good expectations, especially one because
she is friends with a less active and the less active is helping her
read and learn, hopefully she'll become active in the process. Also
this past week we had a zone conference. We spoke about Diligence, the
new mission standards of excellence, dignity, & how to more
effectively plan. It was a good conference, I especially liked the
comments about diligence, it's probably my most favorite attribute of
Christ. Also this week we had an exchanges with the district leader, I
was with elder Wilkinson up in his area. We had a good time together
and it was a pretty quick day. We taught a good amount. I'm not sure
if I can say I learned anything new, not sure if that's a bad thing, I
wanted to use the Book of Mormon more on street contacts, but the
areas we went to didn't really present opportunities to do so, so I'll
have to do it here in my are throughout the week. I've been studying a
lot of agency scriptures to share, trying to motivate people to choose
to follow God and not be passive about it while at the same time
warning people of the consequences of sin. Some scriptures I liked
were: Hel. 14:30, 2 Nephi 2:27 & Alma 42:27. Some of them are a bit
fuego(y), but there all super true. 2 Nephi 2:27 is probably the best
one for street contacts. Anyways as I've said, things are going well
in the area. We have a LOT of people to follow up with. This past week
we took some time to go through our area book to look for people we
had met before and found like 20 or so names that we need to go follow
up with. So we are going to be trying to find the balance between
finding and teaching the investigators that we already have. We are
looking forward to the challenge and we already have some lessons with
our ward mission leader and bishop set up. This past Sunday we got a
new ward mission leader, Hermano Cuevas, he is super cool and pumped
for missionary work. We can tell he doesn't quite know what it
entails, but he is ready to go to work. Also this week I finished
reading the B.O.M. in Spanish so that's I think number 5 for times
I've read it on the mission. It's a super good book, inspired by God
and every time I read it, something new sticks out at me. For the
remainder of my time I'm going to try reading the new testament. I'm
looking forward to this week and the one that is coming. We also
received news that Elder Christofferson is coming to our mission, well
actually to the stake conference coming up. It'll be interesting
though because this past transfer, one of the ward's was moved from
the Anaheim mission to the Irvine Mission and the stake center falls
on the Irvine side, so we are going to need permission from a Seventy
to go to that, but it's decently far still so I'lll worry about that
later. Lot's of cool things are going on in the mission though. But
this is it for this letter. I love you all and I'll talk to you soon.
Take care!
Jacob - August 14, 2017
Hey everybody, this week went by well and pretty quick. I have a new
companion named Elder Mckellar. He's been around a few different
places, but lived the majority of his life in Iowa. He's really nice
and kind and has a fire to do the work. All the missionaries here do.
We had a good week together. We contacted tons of people, it reminded
me a lot about the first week i had with elder cooper. We've also been
able to visit several members and encourage them to share the gospel
through social media. Sometimes that was successful. I think the
members around here don't really have fears about posting stuff, but
could do better at following up with the people that comment and like
the posts. So we are going to try and help them on that aspect. We
weren't able to teach a ton of people this week, people are stubborn
to let us teach them even though we are persistent. So hopefully as we
follow up with people this week that we will find some more prepared
people. Also this week I had my "my Plan" Meeting, that was good, just
a meeting to help me think about what I'm going to be doing with my
life. Nothing I guess to crazy. But everything is going well here.
Still finding joy in the work despite the challenges that come. I love
being here in SoCal, the people here are the best!
Elder Baer
companion named Elder Mckellar. He's been around a few different
places, but lived the majority of his life in Iowa. He's really nice
and kind and has a fire to do the work. All the missionaries here do.
We had a good week together. We contacted tons of people, it reminded
me a lot about the first week i had with elder cooper. We've also been
able to visit several members and encourage them to share the gospel
through social media. Sometimes that was successful. I think the
members around here don't really have fears about posting stuff, but
could do better at following up with the people that comment and like
the posts. So we are going to try and help them on that aspect. We
weren't able to teach a ton of people this week, people are stubborn
to let us teach them even though we are persistent. So hopefully as we
follow up with people this week that we will find some more prepared
people. Also this week I had my "my Plan" Meeting, that was good, just
a meeting to help me think about what I'm going to be doing with my
life. Nothing I guess to crazy. But everything is going well here.
Still finding joy in the work despite the challenges that come. I love
being here in SoCal, the people here are the best!
Elder Baer
Monday, August 7, 2017
Jacob - August 7, 2017
Hey everybody, today has been a crazy day with moving and what not,
I'm not sure what else more we have in plan for the day. Fortunately
all the stressful stuff is taken care of. We got all my stuff in a new
apartment, it'll be my last one. My companions goes home tomorrow back
to Texas so we'll spend this last night together and then tomorrow
I'll be with my new companion. But this week was good. Lots of the
normal finding and teaching. We haven't been able to find many solid
people so we are still working at that. But with a new companion, I'm
sure it will bring a lot of good to the area. We've slowly been able
to try new areas to proselyte where there are Hispanics, it'll just be
the challenge of finding those that are prepared. It always is that
way. But I'm confident that we will find success together. We do have
a lot of good things happening, we've been helping a lot of members in
our area and some are doing very well. So we'll keep up on that. I
finished the Book of Mormon this past week (in English) that was good.
I'm not too far behind on my Spanish study either, right now I am in 3
Nephi 20, so I'll finish that in the next few weeks or so. But all is
well for me. I love you all and hope you have a great week!
Elder Baer
I'm not sure what else more we have in plan for the day. Fortunately
all the stressful stuff is taken care of. We got all my stuff in a new
apartment, it'll be my last one. My companions goes home tomorrow back
to Texas so we'll spend this last night together and then tomorrow
I'll be with my new companion. But this week was good. Lots of the
normal finding and teaching. We haven't been able to find many solid
people so we are still working at that. But with a new companion, I'm
sure it will bring a lot of good to the area. We've slowly been able
to try new areas to proselyte where there are Hispanics, it'll just be
the challenge of finding those that are prepared. It always is that
way. But I'm confident that we will find success together. We do have
a lot of good things happening, we've been helping a lot of members in
our area and some are doing very well. So we'll keep up on that. I
finished the Book of Mormon this past week (in English) that was good.
I'm not too far behind on my Spanish study either, right now I am in 3
Nephi 20, so I'll finish that in the next few weeks or so. But all is
well for me. I love you all and hope you have a great week!
Elder Baer
Jacob - July 31, 2017
Hey everyone, this week was sort of a tough one. It was one of those
weeks where we got out to work, but not much happened. Sort of a
patience tester I guess, but we're keeping at it. I think that's the
one thing that i've noticed in this mission how areas seem to just go
through phases where things are going super good and then they sort of
decline until more people are found to be taught. As of now we have a
decent amount of people that we are trying to follow up with and work
with. But the tough thing is that most of them are hard to find, we
see them once and teach them a lesson and then they fall off the face
of the earth. But we are staying diligent. This week will be an
interesting one, it'll be my comp's last week and he's got a bunch of
different events for the week. But it'll be a good one. Hopefully
we'll be able to flip things around and meet some new people. This
past week we had a zone conference about understanding the role of the
Holy Ghost and doing the small things to be worthy of his
companionship. We listened to a talk by Elder Holland called "TheDivine Companionship," that was super good. He certainly know how to
teach using stories. The story he shared was about how a 18-20 year
old ran from his house in idaho and joined a biker gang and got caught
up in the evils of the world. He lived in New York for a time and then
moved to Southern California. One day as he was on his porch, two
missionaries stopped by and at first His dogs were super aggressive,
but then stopped and went back to the owner. The missionaries went in
and talked with the man. Turns out that the man, in the biker gang,
was the older brother of one of the missionaries. That was the first
time they met, the older brother didn't even know that he had a
younger brother because he burned all bridges back to his family. But
turns out the older brother cleaned up, repented and ended up getting
sealed at some point in time. Super inspiring story about the miracles
we can experience on the mission. I can't recall of experiencing a
miracle of that magnitud, but I know the Lord gives us miracles. I
remember reading a talk a little bit ago about the Tender Mercies ofthe Lord by Elder Bednar (General Conference April 2005), It helped me
understand how all the miracles we see in our lives are just tender
mercies that the lord sees fit to bestow us. He bases his talk off of
the scripture in 1 nephi 1:20 "But behold, I, Nephi, will show unto
you that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he
hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the
power of deliverance." I really like how Nephi chose to word this
scripture, that the tender mercies are for those that the lord "hath
chosen, because of their faith" in Elder Bednar's talk, he essentially
explains that it is up to us whether we decide to be chosen of the
Lord, or not. It is dependent on our faithfulness which is dependent
on our Obedience. (James 2:17) I'm not sure why i'm going on this sort
of rant, but I know this principle is true. I love you all and
encourage you to be faithful so that you may receive the tender
mercies that the lord has in store for you. I love you all! Se Cuidan!
Elder Baer
weeks where we got out to work, but not much happened. Sort of a
patience tester I guess, but we're keeping at it. I think that's the
one thing that i've noticed in this mission how areas seem to just go
through phases where things are going super good and then they sort of
decline until more people are found to be taught. As of now we have a
decent amount of people that we are trying to follow up with and work
with. But the tough thing is that most of them are hard to find, we
see them once and teach them a lesson and then they fall off the face
of the earth. But we are staying diligent. This week will be an
interesting one, it'll be my comp's last week and he's got a bunch of
different events for the week. But it'll be a good one. Hopefully
we'll be able to flip things around and meet some new people. This
past week we had a zone conference about understanding the role of the
Holy Ghost and doing the small things to be worthy of his
companionship. We listened to a talk by Elder Holland called "TheDivine Companionship," that was super good. He certainly know how to
teach using stories. The story he shared was about how a 18-20 year
old ran from his house in idaho and joined a biker gang and got caught
up in the evils of the world. He lived in New York for a time and then
moved to Southern California. One day as he was on his porch, two
missionaries stopped by and at first His dogs were super aggressive,
but then stopped and went back to the owner. The missionaries went in
and talked with the man. Turns out that the man, in the biker gang,
was the older brother of one of the missionaries. That was the first
time they met, the older brother didn't even know that he had a
younger brother because he burned all bridges back to his family. But
turns out the older brother cleaned up, repented and ended up getting
sealed at some point in time. Super inspiring story about the miracles
we can experience on the mission. I can't recall of experiencing a
miracle of that magnitud, but I know the Lord gives us miracles. I
remember reading a talk a little bit ago about the Tender Mercies ofthe Lord by Elder Bednar (General Conference April 2005), It helped me
understand how all the miracles we see in our lives are just tender
mercies that the lord sees fit to bestow us. He bases his talk off of
the scripture in 1 nephi 1:20 "But behold, I, Nephi, will show unto
you that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he
hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the
power of deliverance." I really like how Nephi chose to word this
scripture, that the tender mercies are for those that the lord "hath
chosen, because of their faith" in Elder Bednar's talk, he essentially
explains that it is up to us whether we decide to be chosen of the
Lord, or not. It is dependent on our faithfulness which is dependent
on our Obedience. (James 2:17) I'm not sure why i'm going on this sort
of rant, but I know this principle is true. I love you all and
encourage you to be faithful so that you may receive the tender
mercies that the lord has in store for you. I love you all! Se Cuidan!
Elder Baer
Jacob - July 24, 2017
Hey everybody, this week went well for me. Lots of finding and
teaching. Nothing too crazy. I can't really think about too much
things to write about. We did end up having an activity this past
friday that was a lot of fun. We had a bunch of small "minute to win
it" sort of games. There was a bean bag toss, the game where there are
golf balls held together by a string and tossed to spin around 1 of 3
bars (i forget what its called), a basketball free throw competition,
a tenis ball toss to knock down a pyramid of cups, hoolahoop contest,
bounce a penny into a cup, we got empty tissue boxes and tied them to
people and put ping pong balls inside and the people would have to
dance to get them out, a game where we got pantyhoses and put a tenis
ball through one of the legs and put the waist part on the heads of
the people and they would have to swing the tenis ball to knock down
water bottles. Lots of fun and there was a pretty good turn out. It
took all of the night to get things set up and put down, but we know
the ward had a good time and also the investigators that came,
afterwards there was some pizza and a bunch of deserts as well. Also
this past Monday we had the opportunity to take out a Joven with us to
do finding. We walked in a neighborhood that was pretty close to where
she lived. It was her first time doing something like that, but she
enjoyed it. We could tell she was pretty nervous, but she was able to
talk to a few people and share some stories so that was cool. She is
almost 17, but thinking about serving a mission so we are trying to
motivate here as well as the other jóvenes in the ward. This Sunday we
had a Less Active come to church, that was pretty cool considering
that we were the first missionaries he has seen in at least 3 years.
We met him about 2 weeks ago and he lives in a complex where 4 other
member families are. We hope he becomes active once again. Other than
that I can't recall much more about what to write about. It was just a
bunch of working this week. We don't have a ton of people with
potential, but we are talking with lots of people and inviting
everyone to learn more, people just seem to say no more than yes, but
we don't let it get to us. We just have the hope that the next person
will say yes. We've met a few cool people this week thanks to just
keeping up on talking with everyone on the streets and in the
complexes. But that's my week for this week. I love you all and hope
you each have a great week!
Elder Baer
teaching. Nothing too crazy. I can't really think about too much
things to write about. We did end up having an activity this past
friday that was a lot of fun. We had a bunch of small "minute to win
it" sort of games. There was a bean bag toss, the game where there are
golf balls held together by a string and tossed to spin around 1 of 3
bars (i forget what its called), a basketball free throw competition,
a tenis ball toss to knock down a pyramid of cups, hoolahoop contest,
bounce a penny into a cup, we got empty tissue boxes and tied them to
people and put ping pong balls inside and the people would have to
dance to get them out, a game where we got pantyhoses and put a tenis
ball through one of the legs and put the waist part on the heads of
the people and they would have to swing the tenis ball to knock down
water bottles. Lots of fun and there was a pretty good turn out. It
took all of the night to get things set up and put down, but we know
the ward had a good time and also the investigators that came,
afterwards there was some pizza and a bunch of deserts as well. Also
this past Monday we had the opportunity to take out a Joven with us to
do finding. We walked in a neighborhood that was pretty close to where
she lived. It was her first time doing something like that, but she
enjoyed it. We could tell she was pretty nervous, but she was able to
talk to a few people and share some stories so that was cool. She is
almost 17, but thinking about serving a mission so we are trying to
motivate here as well as the other jóvenes in the ward. This Sunday we
had a Less Active come to church, that was pretty cool considering
that we were the first missionaries he has seen in at least 3 years.
We met him about 2 weeks ago and he lives in a complex where 4 other
member families are. We hope he becomes active once again. Other than
that I can't recall much more about what to write about. It was just a
bunch of working this week. We don't have a ton of people with
potential, but we are talking with lots of people and inviting
everyone to learn more, people just seem to say no more than yes, but
we don't let it get to us. We just have the hope that the next person
will say yes. We've met a few cool people this week thanks to just
keeping up on talking with everyone on the streets and in the
complexes. But that's my week for this week. I love you all and hope
you each have a great week!
Elder Baer
Monday, July 24, 2017
Jacob - July 17, 2017
Hey Family, so for this week, i'm not too sure what to write about. It
was a good week, we definitely are working hard, but we aren't seeing
a ton of results from the labors we are putting in. Not sure if we are
just using the wrong tools or maybe not using our tools right. We
don't have a ton of people we are teaching. The people we are trying
to work with are pretty mas o menos too. Doesn't seem like many people
are willing to put in the work, to commit. So we will see what happens
with them as we try to follow up with them. I'm going to be reading in
chapter 9 to think of some more ideas to find the people that are
willing to listen to us. We have an activity coming up this Friday (if
all goes well), we are going to have food at the church and lots of
small "minute to win it" sort of games. I'm sort of skeptical on it,
because there has been zero announcements for it. I think chances are
it'll be moved to another day in these following weeks. Something good
that is going on is that we are developing more relationships with the
members in our area. We have been able to visit a few of them and so
that's going well. We are also working with the young men and women
too. We have plans to take one of them out tonight and to do some
follow up/finding in a neighborhood close to them. hopefully that goes
well. Something, sort of random, but I figure you all like it when i
write more, regardless of what I have to say. Anyways i've been
teaching about faith in the "how to begin teaching" with the people
that we meet with. Such a big difference. I feel like the sooner we
understand that Faith is a principle of action and power, the more
quicker we are to understand the need for obedience and commitment. It
is through our actions and obedience that our faith increases. Faith
in the bible dictionary says that it is a trust in something or
someone. Faith can be in many things, but Faith in Christ is the only
Absolute Assurance, nothing else can bring greater peace, joy and hope
that He can provide. I feel like the sooner we understand faith, the
clearer our purpose becomes. After all, faith is the first principle
of the gospel. I like to think of it as the "motivator," the reason
why we act. That was kind of a rant, but i've noticed a difference of
understanding between us and missionaries and the people we teach as
I've mentioned this precious principle. People have come to understand
out purpose far greater than I have noticed at any other time in my
mission. I guess some lessons are learned later than sooner, but
nonetheless, I'm grateful for them. But just want you to all know that
I love you. Hope all is well in all that you do. You are always in my
prayers.
Elder Baer
was a good week, we definitely are working hard, but we aren't seeing
a ton of results from the labors we are putting in. Not sure if we are
just using the wrong tools or maybe not using our tools right. We
don't have a ton of people we are teaching. The people we are trying
to work with are pretty mas o menos too. Doesn't seem like many people
are willing to put in the work, to commit. So we will see what happens
with them as we try to follow up with them. I'm going to be reading in
chapter 9 to think of some more ideas to find the people that are
willing to listen to us. We have an activity coming up this Friday (if
all goes well), we are going to have food at the church and lots of
small "minute to win it" sort of games. I'm sort of skeptical on it,
because there has been zero announcements for it. I think chances are
it'll be moved to another day in these following weeks. Something good
that is going on is that we are developing more relationships with the
members in our area. We have been able to visit a few of them and so
that's going well. We are also working with the young men and women
too. We have plans to take one of them out tonight and to do some
follow up/finding in a neighborhood close to them. hopefully that goes
well. Something, sort of random, but I figure you all like it when i
write more, regardless of what I have to say. Anyways i've been
teaching about faith in the "how to begin teaching" with the people
that we meet with. Such a big difference. I feel like the sooner we
understand that Faith is a principle of action and power, the more
quicker we are to understand the need for obedience and commitment. It
is through our actions and obedience that our faith increases. Faith
in the bible dictionary says that it is a trust in something or
someone. Faith can be in many things, but Faith in Christ is the only
Absolute Assurance, nothing else can bring greater peace, joy and hope
that He can provide. I feel like the sooner we understand faith, the
clearer our purpose becomes. After all, faith is the first principle
of the gospel. I like to think of it as the "motivator," the reason
why we act. That was kind of a rant, but i've noticed a difference of
understanding between us and missionaries and the people we teach as
I've mentioned this precious principle. People have come to understand
out purpose far greater than I have noticed at any other time in my
mission. I guess some lessons are learned later than sooner, but
nonetheless, I'm grateful for them. But just want you to all know that
I love you. Hope all is well in all that you do. You are always in my
prayers.
Elder Baer
Wednesday, July 5, 2017
Jacob - July 3, 2017
Hey everyone, so this week was littered with miracles. Elder cooper
and I did so much work that I'm still trying to wrap my head around
all that we were able to do. It was pretty tough in the aspect that we
didn't have AreaBook or a members list. Our goals leading into the
week were to try and have a meeting with the bishop, get to know the
members of our area, and also follow up with current investigators.
But due to our situation with a lack of resources, we weren't able to
really accomplish those goals. We also didn't have a phone for a few
days and Bishop is out of town. But despite that aspect of the work,
we met so many people and fortunately we had some members that signed
up for dinner for us, so we got to know them pretty well. There are
some great people here in Buena Park. Something else I've noticed is
that the people here are overall more friendly, people here just seem
to be open to talk. So we've been enjoying that. I will say though
that one struggle we have is that we live 20 minutes outside of our
area, so that kills us time wise, we usually come home every night at
9:30 just because we are so busy and talk with so many people that
time just seems to fly.
Also the reason for the title, I think it's something I've sort of
neglected to mention, but our mission President, president Taggart
ended his mission this past week. And so our new President and his
wife are the Golden's. They are super kind and we are excited for him.
He is a super smart man. He was quoting scriptures left and right when
he presented himself at a meeting a few days ago. Him and his wife
spoke mostly about faith, obedience, and obtaining a testimony of the
atonement of Jesus Christ. I look forward to working with them, they
are great people.
A few miracles about the week:
1.) We had a service opportunity this Tuesday where we went to this
second hand clothing store that sells "professional" styled clothing.
We just did a bunch of miscellaneous stuff there, cleaning and
sorting, but I noticed that they had a pair of really nice, almost
new, shoes that were size 15. I then remembered my companion, elder
Bean (the super tall companion I had a few months ago) anyways his
shoe size is 15 and he says it's super hard for him to find shoes, so
I bought them for him. They were only $8, closer to $6 with the
discount. But later that day when we were walking to dinner with our
member, I saw a wad of cash on the ground that turned out to be $16
dollars so that was pretty cool. Case in point we are blessed when we
have charity, in some cases it turns out to be physical blessings.
2.) This week we met a girl from El Salvador, she's been in the states
for about 2 years. But she was super excited to see us and recognized
us right away when we knocked. Turns out she had a friend back in her
home country that invited her to church and to the activities and they
were really good friends. We had a really good conversation with her
and set a return appointment. When we came back, we introduced some
members that live in her same complex and offered her a ride to
church. She said yes and sure enough she came yesterday and now had
plans on coming back. We are super excited for her and she mentioned
how her mom wants to come too, but got caught working. We are going to
keep working with her and hopefully everything will go well. It was
pretty cool to see fruits from the efforts we had given, especially to
have an investigator at church after only 1 week and also white
washing.
I'm trying to remember other stuff to write, but I think this is it
for now. I love you all and hope you have a great 4th of July! Take
care!
Elder Baer
and I did so much work that I'm still trying to wrap my head around
all that we were able to do. It was pretty tough in the aspect that we
didn't have AreaBook or a members list. Our goals leading into the
week were to try and have a meeting with the bishop, get to know the
members of our area, and also follow up with current investigators.
But due to our situation with a lack of resources, we weren't able to
really accomplish those goals. We also didn't have a phone for a few
days and Bishop is out of town. But despite that aspect of the work,
we met so many people and fortunately we had some members that signed
up for dinner for us, so we got to know them pretty well. There are
some great people here in Buena Park. Something else I've noticed is
that the people here are overall more friendly, people here just seem
to be open to talk. So we've been enjoying that. I will say though
that one struggle we have is that we live 20 minutes outside of our
area, so that kills us time wise, we usually come home every night at
9:30 just because we are so busy and talk with so many people that
time just seems to fly.
Also the reason for the title, I think it's something I've sort of
neglected to mention, but our mission President, president Taggart
ended his mission this past week. And so our new President and his
wife are the Golden's. They are super kind and we are excited for him.
He is a super smart man. He was quoting scriptures left and right when
he presented himself at a meeting a few days ago. Him and his wife
spoke mostly about faith, obedience, and obtaining a testimony of the
atonement of Jesus Christ. I look forward to working with them, they
are great people.
A few miracles about the week:
1.) We had a service opportunity this Tuesday where we went to this
second hand clothing store that sells "professional" styled clothing.
We just did a bunch of miscellaneous stuff there, cleaning and
sorting, but I noticed that they had a pair of really nice, almost
new, shoes that were size 15. I then remembered my companion, elder
Bean (the super tall companion I had a few months ago) anyways his
shoe size is 15 and he says it's super hard for him to find shoes, so
I bought them for him. They were only $8, closer to $6 with the
discount. But later that day when we were walking to dinner with our
member, I saw a wad of cash on the ground that turned out to be $16
dollars so that was pretty cool. Case in point we are blessed when we
have charity, in some cases it turns out to be physical blessings.
2.) This week we met a girl from El Salvador, she's been in the states
for about 2 years. But she was super excited to see us and recognized
us right away when we knocked. Turns out she had a friend back in her
home country that invited her to church and to the activities and they
were really good friends. We had a really good conversation with her
and set a return appointment. When we came back, we introduced some
members that live in her same complex and offered her a ride to
church. She said yes and sure enough she came yesterday and now had
plans on coming back. We are super excited for her and she mentioned
how her mom wants to come too, but got caught working. We are going to
keep working with her and hopefully everything will go well. It was
pretty cool to see fruits from the efforts we had given, especially to
have an investigator at church after only 1 week and also white
washing.
I'm trying to remember other stuff to write, but I think this is it
for now. I love you all and hope you have a great 4th of July! Take
care!
Elder Baer
Jacob - June 26, 2017
Hey everybody, this was a crazy week, bunch of just random things
happened, one being something that I had never seen before in the
mission. Anyways first things first, this week was the last week of
the transfer and the news is that I am moving to Buena Park with Elder
Cooper. Not sure if you recall, but Elder Cooper was a Zone Leader up
here in Santa Ana North. So he was released as a zone leader and I was
released as a district leader. I'm super stoked. We are going to be
white washing once again. 3rd time for me and I believe 3rd or 4th
time for him as well. So we've been around the block a few times on
this and ready to get working. I don't really know how hispanic the
area will be, but I figure nothing can be worse then Garden Grove, not
that it's a bad area, just tough to find and teach people there. But
anyways this past week was pretty good. We've continued to find some
new people. We found this cool family that we think have good
potential. It was sort of funny because we originally had ran into the
mom where she said to come back Friday when her Husband would be home,
she mentioned they had been going through some challenges together and
that she wanted to see if our message could help them out. But here
was the catch, she wanted us to come back as if we were knocking again
and have it be a "surprise". So when we came back she opened the door
and acted all surprised by our visit and turned to her husband and
said "Pueden pasar?, 5-10 minutos, pueden pasar por favor?" To wrap it
up, we got in, taught the restoration quick while got to know them a
little better and now they are new investigators. We are hoping they
take the time to read and do the things we ask them. Other than that
there was a lot of following up this week with some mas o menos
investigators. Lots of them are having struggles with keeping
commitments. We've had a hard time finding people with real intent, a
lot of the people do enjoy our visits, they just don't keep
commitments. I imagine elder Schoen will be dropping a few when I head
out. It's just a process in missionary work. Something I've noticed is
how if we do the basics, the tings we are suppose to, then when the
time comes to meet someone that is ready, we will already have an
understanding of all that needs to take place for them to be baptized.
All of the baptisms I've had and seen on the mission have usually just
come out of miracle moments or through member referrals. But back to
the week, so I think it was Tuesday, my comp and I were inspired to
visit an investigator that has had a lack of real intent, so while
teaching and reading from Alma 34, we heard a loud crashing sound. So
we looked out the window and saw a car flipped upside down! So we ran
out and helped pull the people out of the car. Fortunately everyone
was ok, there was 2 young kids in the back and a teenager in the
passenger seat and then the mom that was driving. The teenager had
some crazy shock going on after everyone was out, he only had a few
scrapes and a cut on his hand. It was a really bizarre accident, we
still aren't exactly sure how it happened since they couldn't be going
more than 20 mph. Wednesday was a normal working day with district
Meeting, that was good, not too much to mention on that day. On
Thursday a member took me, my comp and another companionship to a
restaurant close by, we ate papusas and it was good. Can't every
complain with papusas. Friday was a normal working day. Saturday the
district got together to celebrate the birthday of one of the elders.
I used a gift card that
Lexie gave me a while back and bought an ice cream cake at Dairy
Queen, that was tasty. (A little sad that I didn't get the cake all to
my self, but it was worth it, he had a good time.) Sunday was also a
good day, we just went around seeing some people that we had worked
with, letting them know I was heading out. Most of them weren't home.
Another family that we were excited about ended up dropping us, but I
think my comp is going to pass by and figure out why. Overall that was
pretty much my week. Love you all and hope you have a good one!
happened, one being something that I had never seen before in the
mission. Anyways first things first, this week was the last week of
the transfer and the news is that I am moving to Buena Park with Elder
Cooper. Not sure if you recall, but Elder Cooper was a Zone Leader up
here in Santa Ana North. So he was released as a zone leader and I was
released as a district leader. I'm super stoked. We are going to be
white washing once again. 3rd time for me and I believe 3rd or 4th
time for him as well. So we've been around the block a few times on
this and ready to get working. I don't really know how hispanic the
area will be, but I figure nothing can be worse then Garden Grove, not
that it's a bad area, just tough to find and teach people there. But
anyways this past week was pretty good. We've continued to find some
new people. We found this cool family that we think have good
potential. It was sort of funny because we originally had ran into the
mom where she said to come back Friday when her Husband would be home,
she mentioned they had been going through some challenges together and
that she wanted to see if our message could help them out. But here
was the catch, she wanted us to come back as if we were knocking again
and have it be a "surprise". So when we came back she opened the door
and acted all surprised by our visit and turned to her husband and
said "Pueden pasar?, 5-10 minutos, pueden pasar por favor?" To wrap it
up, we got in, taught the restoration quick while got to know them a
little better and now they are new investigators. We are hoping they
take the time to read and do the things we ask them. Other than that
there was a lot of following up this week with some mas o menos
investigators. Lots of them are having struggles with keeping
commitments. We've had a hard time finding people with real intent, a
lot of the people do enjoy our visits, they just don't keep
commitments. I imagine elder Schoen will be dropping a few when I head
out. It's just a process in missionary work. Something I've noticed is
how if we do the basics, the tings we are suppose to, then when the
time comes to meet someone that is ready, we will already have an
understanding of all that needs to take place for them to be baptized.
All of the baptisms I've had and seen on the mission have usually just
come out of miracle moments or through member referrals. But back to
the week, so I think it was Tuesday, my comp and I were inspired to
visit an investigator that has had a lack of real intent, so while
teaching and reading from Alma 34, we heard a loud crashing sound. So
we looked out the window and saw a car flipped upside down! So we ran
out and helped pull the people out of the car. Fortunately everyone
was ok, there was 2 young kids in the back and a teenager in the
passenger seat and then the mom that was driving. The teenager had
some crazy shock going on after everyone was out, he only had a few
scrapes and a cut on his hand. It was a really bizarre accident, we
still aren't exactly sure how it happened since they couldn't be going
more than 20 mph. Wednesday was a normal working day with district
Meeting, that was good, not too much to mention on that day. On
Thursday a member took me, my comp and another companionship to a
restaurant close by, we ate papusas and it was good. Can't every
complain with papusas. Friday was a normal working day. Saturday the
district got together to celebrate the birthday of one of the elders.
I used a gift card that
Lexie gave me a while back and bought an ice cream cake at Dairy
Queen, that was tasty. (A little sad that I didn't get the cake all to
my self, but it was worth it, he had a good time.) Sunday was also a
good day, we just went around seeing some people that we had worked
with, letting them know I was heading out. Most of them weren't home.
Another family that we were excited about ended up dropping us, but I
think my comp is going to pass by and figure out why. Overall that was
pretty much my week. Love you all and hope you have a good one!
Jacob - June 19, 2017
to town with following up and just working hard. Unfortunately no one
came to church.. but we've met a lot of new people that we are excited
about. One of them is the family Portio, they are from El Salvador
that live in the same complex as a member. So we went to visit the
member and we saw this family on their balcony and stroke up a
conversation with them and they ended up letting us in so we shared a
small message with them and when we asked for a return appointment
they said sure and that they would make us papusas (my favorite Latino
meal) so we came back the next day and had a dinner lesson with them.
It was super cool and we are excited about them, they have a lot of
beliefs that are already in line with what the gospel teaches. Also
this week we had zone Conference which was super good. We learned
about our missionary purpose, the role of the Holy Ghost in conversion
and also teaching repentance and baptizing converts. It was really I
souring and I learned a bunch. The mission at the moment is at a hard
point with as far as baptisms have been going and so we've been
encouraged to increase our faith and I've been noticing a difference
since the conference. Lots more motivation and dedication. Not that
I've been bad at those things, I'm always excited to work. But
hopefully we'll find more success as our faith grows. Also another
highlight was an exchange we had with the zone Leaders. It went really
well, I was with elder cooper, he's from Texas. But we taught a bunch
and just worked hard. It was a good day. There was some other families
we've met, but nothing super crazy to write about. Actually there is
someone we met a while back that she was taught by the missionaries
about 6 years ago and we went to look up the records in AreaBook, but
the record we found had a wrong address, but we think it's her. She
went to church when she was being and so we hope to help her start the
lessons. Um, that's about it. Today on P-day we saw a bunch of horses,
it was something different, but a good time. One of the sisters in our
district loves horses and so she was telling us all about them. I've
got a bunch of pics to send home so y'all get to see what I've been up
to.
Sunday, June 18, 2017
Jacob - June 12, 2017
Hey everybody, this week went well. Nothing too crazy to write about,
just the normal "teaching and finding." Monday though was a pretty
cool day, we had an FHE with the ward, not many members, let alone
investigators came unfortunately. But it was really cool for the ones
that did come. The ward has the idea and goal of having an FHE every
month, we weren't able to do one last month in April so we took the
theme of April and applied it to this month which, as you can imagine,
The Atonement of Christ. Each companionship prepared a segment of His
last few days/moments. My comp and I shared and spoke about the Last
Supper, another companionship spoke about the Garden of Gethsemane,
another The Cruxifixction and lastly the Resurrection. It was really
spiritual and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Hopefully next time more
people will come, investigators and members alike. Tuesday, nothing
too crazy happened, we went to service and came out with some cookies
from costco and some other goodies. Probably the free snacks is the
best thing about serving there. I also grabbed a box of that Velveta
macaroni, my comp said it's better, but i made it and don't agree with
him. Wednesday was sort of a hectic day. It was District Meeting which
went really well. We spoke about having a vision, setting goals and
making plans, and lastly a little bit about accountability and working
with church leaders. It was a good meeting, but getting to the meeting
was the crazy part. The church building we originally planned to go to
was being cleaned, so we went to a different building which had
another zone there, so we thought it best to go to a different
building again. So when all was said and done we spent like 45 minutes
more than we had originally thought which made a dent later in our
day, but stuff like that happens. Thursday, I can't recall what
happened, we probably just worked a ton that day since it's one of our
"free days" (no meetings, no service, just work!) Friday, we weekly
planned, we also tried to get my comp's new debit card up and working,
but that was sort of crazy. Some way or another some information was
entered wrong so the information he'd give to confirm his identity
wasn't what the system had, but he was able to figure it out and it's
now up and working. Saturday I was on exchanges with Elder Dionicio
Bocaletti, he's from Guatemala, but speaks English and Spanish. We
spoke a lot of spanish with one another, makes me wish I get another
Latino companion before I die. We had a lot of fun together, he's a
hard worker and it was nice being with a companion that cares about
the work just as much as I do, not just being outside, but during
studies and planning too. Sunday was good, church was interesting, the
stake presidency came and used the last 2 hours of church to discuss
with the parents about helping the kids remain active in the church.
It was a good discussion, I feel like it's a matter of doing the
basics. Family prayer, scripture study, FHEs, things like that. But
there was a lot said both by the presidency and also the members of
the ward. Really interesting discussion. Oh also before I forget, on
the exchange we saw a bearded lady, it was quite the site. But that's
my week for ya. Hope y'all have a good one. Love you!
Elder Baer
just the normal "teaching and finding." Monday though was a pretty
cool day, we had an FHE with the ward, not many members, let alone
investigators came unfortunately. But it was really cool for the ones
that did come. The ward has the idea and goal of having an FHE every
month, we weren't able to do one last month in April so we took the
theme of April and applied it to this month which, as you can imagine,
The Atonement of Christ. Each companionship prepared a segment of His
last few days/moments. My comp and I shared and spoke about the Last
Supper, another companionship spoke about the Garden of Gethsemane,
another The Cruxifixction and lastly the Resurrection. It was really
spiritual and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Hopefully next time more
people will come, investigators and members alike. Tuesday, nothing
too crazy happened, we went to service and came out with some cookies
from costco and some other goodies. Probably the free snacks is the
best thing about serving there. I also grabbed a box of that Velveta
macaroni, my comp said it's better, but i made it and don't agree with
him. Wednesday was sort of a hectic day. It was District Meeting which
went really well. We spoke about having a vision, setting goals and
making plans, and lastly a little bit about accountability and working
with church leaders. It was a good meeting, but getting to the meeting
was the crazy part. The church building we originally planned to go to
was being cleaned, so we went to a different building which had
another zone there, so we thought it best to go to a different
building again. So when all was said and done we spent like 45 minutes
more than we had originally thought which made a dent later in our
day, but stuff like that happens. Thursday, I can't recall what
happened, we probably just worked a ton that day since it's one of our
"free days" (no meetings, no service, just work!) Friday, we weekly
planned, we also tried to get my comp's new debit card up and working,
but that was sort of crazy. Some way or another some information was
entered wrong so the information he'd give to confirm his identity
wasn't what the system had, but he was able to figure it out and it's
now up and working. Saturday I was on exchanges with Elder Dionicio
Bocaletti, he's from Guatemala, but speaks English and Spanish. We
spoke a lot of spanish with one another, makes me wish I get another
Latino companion before I die. We had a lot of fun together, he's a
hard worker and it was nice being with a companion that cares about
the work just as much as I do, not just being outside, but during
studies and planning too. Sunday was good, church was interesting, the
stake presidency came and used the last 2 hours of church to discuss
with the parents about helping the kids remain active in the church.
It was a good discussion, I feel like it's a matter of doing the
basics. Family prayer, scripture study, FHEs, things like that. But
there was a lot said both by the presidency and also the members of
the ward. Really interesting discussion. Oh also before I forget, on
the exchange we saw a bearded lady, it was quite the site. But that's
my week for ya. Hope y'all have a good one. Love you!
Elder Baer
Tuesday, June 6, 2017
Jacob - June 5, 2017
Hey everyone, this week went well. Lot's of work and things are going
well. We just saw a lot of the same people that we've been working
with. We picked up this "former" investigator and it's a weird
situation with her. She's going to need some miracles to get baptized,
but hopefully we'll be able to at least get her going to church again.
She's met with missionaries for a long time, I think first contact was
in 2013. Other people we are meeting with are doing sort of good.
They are really good in lessons, but they don't do their commitments
very well which makes it difficult for them to progress. But we are
working hard with them and trying to find new people as well. There's
a lot of hispanics in this area, but being in garden grove made me
forget that just because there are people, doesn't' mean they will all
be interested in the message. We here the same excuses on the regular.
For example "we are catholic" or "it's the same God, right?" It can be
frustrating, but we are staying patient and just try and help them see
the difference in what we believe. This past week we also went on an
exchange with an assistant to the president. It went well, but not
quite as crazy or special as I thought it was going to be. It was just
like being with another elder that works hard so nothing terribly
different than what I already am used to. He did share with us some
cool ideas and asked some thought provoking questions, I think we
asked him a few good questions too. It was a sort of strange exchange
because he was in the English program before being called to be an
assistant. So during the day he spoke minimal spanish, he knew enough
to say "hola", "como esta?", "le podrÃa dar una tarjeta?" Really basic
things, but it still went well. Granted we live in the states, there
was plenty of English speaking people that we ran into. Overall that's
pretty much what my week was like. Nothing out of the ordinary.
tonight we have a cool opportunity to do a FHE with the ward. We are
going to be speaking about the last few significant events of Jesus
Christ namely: The Last Supper, His sufferings in the Garden, The
Crucifixion, & His Resurrection. We are excited and hope lot's of
people come. But that's it for this email. Love you all and hope you
have a great week!
Elder Baer
well. We just saw a lot of the same people that we've been working
with. We picked up this "former" investigator and it's a weird
situation with her. She's going to need some miracles to get baptized,
but hopefully we'll be able to at least get her going to church again.
She's met with missionaries for a long time, I think first contact was
in 2013. Other people we are meeting with are doing sort of good.
They are really good in lessons, but they don't do their commitments
very well which makes it difficult for them to progress. But we are
working hard with them and trying to find new people as well. There's
a lot of hispanics in this area, but being in garden grove made me
forget that just because there are people, doesn't' mean they will all
be interested in the message. We here the same excuses on the regular.
For example "we are catholic" or "it's the same God, right?" It can be
frustrating, but we are staying patient and just try and help them see
the difference in what we believe. This past week we also went on an
exchange with an assistant to the president. It went well, but not
quite as crazy or special as I thought it was going to be. It was just
like being with another elder that works hard so nothing terribly
different than what I already am used to. He did share with us some
cool ideas and asked some thought provoking questions, I think we
asked him a few good questions too. It was a sort of strange exchange
because he was in the English program before being called to be an
assistant. So during the day he spoke minimal spanish, he knew enough
to say "hola", "como esta?", "le podrÃa dar una tarjeta?" Really basic
things, but it still went well. Granted we live in the states, there
was plenty of English speaking people that we ran into. Overall that's
pretty much what my week was like. Nothing out of the ordinary.
tonight we have a cool opportunity to do a FHE with the ward. We are
going to be speaking about the last few significant events of Jesus
Christ namely: The Last Supper, His sufferings in the Garden, The
Crucifixion, & His Resurrection. We are excited and hope lot's of
people come. But that's it for this email. Love you all and hope you
have a great week!
Elder Baer
Sunday, May 28, 2017
Jacob - May 22, 2017
Hey family, this past week was good. I also enjoyed talking with you
all this past Sunday, good to see and hear that everything is going
good. This past week was just another working week. There were a lot
of little cool things, but nothing too crazy. I know that it'll be
different this transfer than how the last one went. There's a few new
missionaries in the district, we all get along, it's just different
with the different personalities. Our investigators are doing so-so.
Some read and pray really well, but they haven't been coming to church
so we are trying to work on that. We'll probably try getting members
to offer rides to them and see where that goes. This week we also had
President Interviews. That went well, I've been trying to work on
Humility these past few days and so I asked him what advice he had
about it. He mentioned a talk called "Beware of Pride" by Ezra TaftBenson, It's a good one. I've also been reading a few other talks and
trying to understand it better so that I know what I can do to improve
it. That's probably the big thing that stood out from the week.
Everything else has been teaching and finding. But it was a good week
to start of the transfer. We found some new people that we are excited
to work with, one of them we'll be seeing tonight. I can't really
think of much else to say.. Everything is going good and smoothly so I
don't have much to say. But I love you all and hope you have a great
week!
Elder Baer
all this past Sunday, good to see and hear that everything is going
good. This past week was just another working week. There were a lot
of little cool things, but nothing too crazy. I know that it'll be
different this transfer than how the last one went. There's a few new
missionaries in the district, we all get along, it's just different
with the different personalities. Our investigators are doing so-so.
Some read and pray really well, but they haven't been coming to church
so we are trying to work on that. We'll probably try getting members
to offer rides to them and see where that goes. This week we also had
President Interviews. That went well, I've been trying to work on
Humility these past few days and so I asked him what advice he had
about it. He mentioned a talk called "Beware of Pride" by Ezra TaftBenson, It's a good one. I've also been reading a few other talks and
trying to understand it better so that I know what I can do to improve
it. That's probably the big thing that stood out from the week.
Everything else has been teaching and finding. But it was a good week
to start of the transfer. We found some new people that we are excited
to work with, one of them we'll be seeing tonight. I can't really
think of much else to say.. Everything is going good and smoothly so I
don't have much to say. But I love you all and hope you have a great
week!
Elder Baer
Jacob - May 8, 2017
Hey family, I'm going to go a head and jump into how my week went. I'm
not sure if i'll have a lot to write about, but I'lll do my best. This
week was another normal week. Lot's of finding and teaching. On
tuesday I had an exchange where another elder named elder Reinsch came
to my area and we were able to have a really good day. We taught some
super good lessons and had lots of success. Wednesday was just another
working day. Thursday we had zone conference which was really good.
They announced some new changes to the mission, well they've actually
been in play for a while, but our mission wasn't told for some reason.
Anyways zone meetings aren't a thing anymore because we have zone
conferences every transfer, so that'll be interesting. Since I'm a
district leader I usually prepare the district meeting outlines and
what we discuss, but I might use the zone leaders more so that they
can provide training as well. During the zone conference we learned
about following the spirit to help discern and resolve other people's
concerns, how to extend appropriate and powerful commitments (PMG
chapter 11), and also about helping other over come addictions/
addictive behaviors. It was a really cool zone conference and our
mission president used a really cool analogy to the first vision about
overcoming those shortcomings. Just how when Joseph smith was being
overcome by satan during his prayer, he prayed more earnestly and put
all his focus and effort in his pray to god, then he was liberated.
Pretty cool connection. On friday we just weekly planned and taught a
few lessons. We have a lot of people we are working with, but it's
hard to catch people home and some aren't doing their commitments very
well, but we just keep working, trying to help these people out. This
week's district meeting is about "how to begin teaching" so that'll
probably help us out in our teaching, making sure people understand
our purpose. Saturday was another work day and so was Sunday. But
something cool was that there was a Recent Convert and an Investigator
that shared their testimonies and it was super powerful. They both
shared some super cool things and the spirit was really powerful.
Overall that was my week, another good one. I hope you all have a good
one. I love you all and I'll talk to you this next Sunday.
(Me, eating a Papusa, Soooo Gooood!!!!)
not sure if i'll have a lot to write about, but I'lll do my best. This
week was another normal week. Lot's of finding and teaching. On
tuesday I had an exchange where another elder named elder Reinsch came
to my area and we were able to have a really good day. We taught some
super good lessons and had lots of success. Wednesday was just another
working day. Thursday we had zone conference which was really good.
They announced some new changes to the mission, well they've actually
been in play for a while, but our mission wasn't told for some reason.
Anyways zone meetings aren't a thing anymore because we have zone
conferences every transfer, so that'll be interesting. Since I'm a
district leader I usually prepare the district meeting outlines and
what we discuss, but I might use the zone leaders more so that they
can provide training as well. During the zone conference we learned
about following the spirit to help discern and resolve other people's
concerns, how to extend appropriate and powerful commitments (PMG
chapter 11), and also about helping other over come addictions/
addictive behaviors. It was a really cool zone conference and our
mission president used a really cool analogy to the first vision about
overcoming those shortcomings. Just how when Joseph smith was being
overcome by satan during his prayer, he prayed more earnestly and put
all his focus and effort in his pray to god, then he was liberated.
Pretty cool connection. On friday we just weekly planned and taught a
few lessons. We have a lot of people we are working with, but it's
hard to catch people home and some aren't doing their commitments very
well, but we just keep working, trying to help these people out. This
week's district meeting is about "how to begin teaching" so that'll
probably help us out in our teaching, making sure people understand
our purpose. Saturday was another work day and so was Sunday. But
something cool was that there was a Recent Convert and an Investigator
that shared their testimonies and it was super powerful. They both
shared some super cool things and the spirit was really powerful.
Overall that was my week, another good one. I hope you all have a good
one. I love you all and I'll talk to you this next Sunday.
(Me, eating a Papusa, Soooo Gooood!!!!)
Tuesday, May 2, 2017
Jacob - May 1, 2017
Hey everyone, this week went well. To be honest it was just a lot of
finding and teaching, but it went well. We have a good teaching pool
and we are excited about the people we have. I had the opportunity to
go on exchange this Tuesday with elder beyhmer, we were in his area
and had a good amount of success. We had a really cool miracle where
we went to visit a member at about 4:15 and we had dinner at 5:00. The
member we were visiting decided to give us food even though we told
her we had a dinner soon. So we ate there because you can't say no to
Hispanics and the food was really good. We then went to dinner to find
out that the family wasn't there so our dinner pretty much cancelled.
But fortunately we were able to eat a little bit and were fine for the
rest of the night. Pretty cool, small way to see the hand of God. This
Wednesday we had a zone meeting on chapter 10 of PMG (how to improve
teaching skills). That was really good and using scriptures was
emphasized a lot, which is also cool because later in the week we saw
a less active with the coolest scripture marking organization I've
ever seen. I'll share with you a pic, it's hard to explain so
hopefully this picture helps. Thursday, Friday & Saturday were just
working days, I can't recall what to mention about them, Sunday though
was super sweet! We went to our ward for 5th Sunday, I guess that's
not out of ordinary, I can't remember if Ely did this, but every 5th
Sunday is missionary Sunday, so we had talks about missionary work and
also the doctrine of Christ. It was super cool. After sacrament we
went to another ward so my comp. could do a confirmation there. Turns
out though there was a visiting seventy, elder weatherford t. Clayton,
he spoke in this last session of general conference. So he was there,
elder Acosta was there (an area seventy), our mission President,
president Taggart and his wife was there and also the Spanish stake
presidency and many high council members. Pretty crazy, my comp was
nervous to do the confirmation in front of them all, but did great.
But we got to hear from elder Clayton and during it he had translators
for his talk, but when he gave his testimony he had the them him go
sit down. He said his testimony In English, but it was so powerful, so
firm and with lots of conviction, idk how someone can't not be a
member after hearing it. Super cool experience. Anyways that's pretty
much my week this week. Love you all! Take care!
finding and teaching, but it went well. We have a good teaching pool
and we are excited about the people we have. I had the opportunity to
go on exchange this Tuesday with elder beyhmer, we were in his area
and had a good amount of success. We had a really cool miracle where
we went to visit a member at about 4:15 and we had dinner at 5:00. The
member we were visiting decided to give us food even though we told
her we had a dinner soon. So we ate there because you can't say no to
Hispanics and the food was really good. We then went to dinner to find
out that the family wasn't there so our dinner pretty much cancelled.
But fortunately we were able to eat a little bit and were fine for the
rest of the night. Pretty cool, small way to see the hand of God. This
Wednesday we had a zone meeting on chapter 10 of PMG (how to improve
teaching skills). That was really good and using scriptures was
emphasized a lot, which is also cool because later in the week we saw
a less active with the coolest scripture marking organization I've
ever seen. I'll share with you a pic, it's hard to explain so
hopefully this picture helps. Thursday, Friday & Saturday were just
working days, I can't recall what to mention about them, Sunday though
was super sweet! We went to our ward for 5th Sunday, I guess that's
not out of ordinary, I can't remember if Ely did this, but every 5th
Sunday is missionary Sunday, so we had talks about missionary work and
also the doctrine of Christ. It was super cool. After sacrament we
went to another ward so my comp. could do a confirmation there. Turns
out though there was a visiting seventy, elder weatherford t. Clayton,
he spoke in this last session of general conference. So he was there,
elder Acosta was there (an area seventy), our mission President,
president Taggart and his wife was there and also the Spanish stake
presidency and many high council members. Pretty crazy, my comp was
nervous to do the confirmation in front of them all, but did great.
But we got to hear from elder Clayton and during it he had translators
for his talk, but when he gave his testimony he had the them him go
sit down. He said his testimony In English, but it was so powerful, so
firm and with lots of conviction, idk how someone can't not be a
member after hearing it. Super cool experience. Anyways that's pretty
much my week this week. Love you all! Take care!
Monday, April 24, 2017
Jacob - April 24, 2017
Hey everyone, I'm going to attempt to write a decent letter this week,
but we'll see how it goes. The week went well, we did a lot of finding
and on the spot teaching. We have a decent amount of people we are
working with. But they are all mostly still at the beginning phases of
their progression. There are a few people that have received the
lessons for a while, we are thinking about dropping them since they
aren't doing very much to progress. But that's missionary work for
you. One of the people we found recently is a high school girl and
she's pretty cool, really open and reading. We'll be seeing her again
this Tuesday, but we need to get permission to teach her and get her
family on board. Also this week I went on an exchange with elder Carr,
it went really good, he's from Sioux City, Iowa. We had a good time
together and we were able to explain how Iowa is with the members we
were eating with. That was fun, we talked a lot about corn. We then
had district Meeting on Wednesday, that was good. Thursday was a
normal day.. Friday was super fun. I didn't get any pictures and sort
of regret that, but we did this super cool service project for a bunch
of disabled kids/adults. We got to hang out with a guy named Curtis
and played baseball (he didn't miss a single swing), we saw a bunch of
dogs, played basketball, soccer and football. Then there was a
concert, the band was ok, but the music definitely wasn't missionary
approved. But they weren't bad songs. Anyways on saturday I got to do
baptismal interviews for a family of 4. They mostly passed except for
one, but the missionaries are going to do some reteaching so that they
can all be baptized the same day. It's pretty cool and they are a
solid family. Sunday went well, we found some new areas within our
area that have a good Hispanic population. We then were able to see
some other investigators and saw some members as well. Overall this
week went well. Like I said it was a lot of finding so it's hard to
remember all the details. Oh something else we learned is how to make
chile using a mortar and pestle (something like that), I'm just going
to use a blender, but at least I know the ingredients. I can't
remember much more than that. But I hope you all have a great week!
Love you!
Elder Baer
but we'll see how it goes. The week went well, we did a lot of finding
and on the spot teaching. We have a decent amount of people we are
working with. But they are all mostly still at the beginning phases of
their progression. There are a few people that have received the
lessons for a while, we are thinking about dropping them since they
aren't doing very much to progress. But that's missionary work for
you. One of the people we found recently is a high school girl and
she's pretty cool, really open and reading. We'll be seeing her again
this Tuesday, but we need to get permission to teach her and get her
family on board. Also this week I went on an exchange with elder Carr,
it went really good, he's from Sioux City, Iowa. We had a good time
together and we were able to explain how Iowa is with the members we
were eating with. That was fun, we talked a lot about corn. We then
had district Meeting on Wednesday, that was good. Thursday was a
normal day.. Friday was super fun. I didn't get any pictures and sort
of regret that, but we did this super cool service project for a bunch
of disabled kids/adults. We got to hang out with a guy named Curtis
and played baseball (he didn't miss a single swing), we saw a bunch of
dogs, played basketball, soccer and football. Then there was a
concert, the band was ok, but the music definitely wasn't missionary
approved. But they weren't bad songs. Anyways on saturday I got to do
baptismal interviews for a family of 4. They mostly passed except for
one, but the missionaries are going to do some reteaching so that they
can all be baptized the same day. It's pretty cool and they are a
solid family. Sunday went well, we found some new areas within our
area that have a good Hispanic population. We then were able to see
some other investigators and saw some members as well. Overall this
week went well. Like I said it was a lot of finding so it's hard to
remember all the details. Oh something else we learned is how to make
chile using a mortar and pestle (something like that), I'm just going
to use a blender, but at least I know the ingredients. I can't
remember much more than that. But I hope you all have a great week!
Love you!
Elder Baer
Jacob - April 17, 2017
Hey everyone, this week was good. We're still getting a grip on
everything, we don't have many solid investigators so that aspect it's
a little tough. A pattern that I've been noticing is that we set a
good amount of return appointments and find in those areas that we go
and set more appointments, but the appointments fall through more
often than not. So we are building a good potential list, but it's a
little slow with finding cool, willing people. But we are still
working and so far things are going good, we are just staying patient
and hoping for the best. But some of the highlights from this week
are: district Meeting, it's pretty cool when one can see the promises
of the lord come true in regards to receiving revelation for others
like me receiving revelation for the district. That was a really good
meeting about finding. Up next I was able to interview a girl that got
baptized this Saturday. That was good. Also I went on exchanges with
elder Porter, he's a zone leader and has only a transfer more than I
do. We had a good time together. We learned a lot even though a lot of
lessons fell through. Oh also Sunday was good, I felt really strange
throughout the day with fatigue and a stomach ache, but it was nice to
ponder about the significance of Easter during church and to think
about Christ's sacrifice. I've really enjoyed my studies these past
two weeks, I've been reading a lot of General Conference talks about
peace and I've learned a lot about how Christ offers peace. I've come
to understand that the principles of peace aren't just about peace,
but also they are principles of conversion. Two quotes that I liked
from my studies is: "Peace comes from knowing that the Savior knows
who we are and knows that we have faith in Him, love Him, and keep His
commandments, even and especially amid life’s devastating trials and
tragedies" (personal peace: the reward of righteousness) "Knowing God
and becoming His friend comes with the conversion process. Enos found
it. King Benjamin’s subjects found it. Alma found it. It is available
to all who will repent and obey the commandments" (bringing peace and
healing to your soul). Maybe you can't see the connections I see, all
I know is that keeping the commandments brings peace and conversion so
y'all can ponder about that. But this is all I can think to write
about for this week. But I love you all and hope you have a great
week!
Elder Baer
everything, we don't have many solid investigators so that aspect it's
a little tough. A pattern that I've been noticing is that we set a
good amount of return appointments and find in those areas that we go
and set more appointments, but the appointments fall through more
often than not. So we are building a good potential list, but it's a
little slow with finding cool, willing people. But we are still
working and so far things are going good, we are just staying patient
and hoping for the best. But some of the highlights from this week
are: district Meeting, it's pretty cool when one can see the promises
of the lord come true in regards to receiving revelation for others
like me receiving revelation for the district. That was a really good
meeting about finding. Up next I was able to interview a girl that got
baptized this Saturday. That was good. Also I went on exchanges with
elder Porter, he's a zone leader and has only a transfer more than I
do. We had a good time together. We learned a lot even though a lot of
lessons fell through. Oh also Sunday was good, I felt really strange
throughout the day with fatigue and a stomach ache, but it was nice to
ponder about the significance of Easter during church and to think
about Christ's sacrifice. I've really enjoyed my studies these past
two weeks, I've been reading a lot of General Conference talks about
peace and I've learned a lot about how Christ offers peace. I've come
to understand that the principles of peace aren't just about peace,
but also they are principles of conversion. Two quotes that I liked
from my studies is: "Peace comes from knowing that the Savior knows
who we are and knows that we have faith in Him, love Him, and keep His
commandments, even and especially amid life’s devastating trials and
tragedies" (personal peace: the reward of righteousness) "Knowing God
and becoming His friend comes with the conversion process. Enos found
it. King Benjamin’s subjects found it. Alma found it. It is available
to all who will repent and obey the commandments" (bringing peace and
healing to your soul). Maybe you can't see the connections I see, all
I know is that keeping the commandments brings peace and conversion so
y'all can ponder about that. But this is all I can think to write
about for this week. But I love you all and hope you have a great
week!
Elder Baer
Jacob - April 10, 2017
Hey everyone, thanks for emailing, sounds like you are all doing good.
My week went well, we handled white washing like pros. We were able to
see most of the current investigators, some are tough to find and
don't answer phones, but we'll try and see what's up with them. We
were able to find a good amount of potential investigators and also
were able to set some baptism dates for the 7th of May for Adrian and
Jenoveva, they are different families, but we are excited about them
and we believe they have a lot of potential. Hopefully they'll do
their commitments to progress. Also this week we were able to visit a
good amount of members, trying to establish relationships with them
and help them out. Maybe we'll get some referrals as well. We also had
a meeting with our Bishop, he's a good guy. Sort of just let's us do
our thing so it's mas o menos, but i'm sure we'll get a lot of work
done with him. Working in car is strange, i'm not a fan to be honest
or maybe I'm just taking time to get used to it. I feel like I'm not
working when driving and that we do lot's of driving, I could be
wrong, but it's different. Overall I enjoy the area, I'm going to have
a lot of fun here. But this all I can remember for this week. But I
love you all and hope you have a great week!
Elder Baer
My week went well, we handled white washing like pros. We were able to
see most of the current investigators, some are tough to find and
don't answer phones, but we'll try and see what's up with them. We
were able to find a good amount of potential investigators and also
were able to set some baptism dates for the 7th of May for Adrian and
Jenoveva, they are different families, but we are excited about them
and we believe they have a lot of potential. Hopefully they'll do
their commitments to progress. Also this week we were able to visit a
good amount of members, trying to establish relationships with them
and help them out. Maybe we'll get some referrals as well. We also had
a meeting with our Bishop, he's a good guy. Sort of just let's us do
our thing so it's mas o menos, but i'm sure we'll get a lot of work
done with him. Working in car is strange, i'm not a fan to be honest
or maybe I'm just taking time to get used to it. I feel like I'm not
working when driving and that we do lot's of driving, I could be
wrong, but it's different. Overall I enjoy the area, I'm going to have
a lot of fun here. But this all I can remember for this week. But I
love you all and hope you have a great week!
Elder Baer
Jacob - April 3, 2017
Hey mom and dad, glad to hear you enjoyed Conference, I certainly did.
It was cool because elder Costa from the 70, the one that talked about
what investigators should do. He visited our mission when we saw elder
oaks and he shared the same story he shared in Conference. But also
there was a lot of good other talks, I too liked the one about
"standing up on the inside." This week was good for me, my last week
in jardines (garden Grove). I was transfers today to the Fullerton
west area with elder Schoen, he too is from garden grove so we will be
white washing for both our second time. We are excited, but the area
is super different, as of now I am driving (first time in a year).
It's a little different, but so far so good. I'll let you know next
week what happens. This past week I had two exchanges, one with elder
Castillo, an elder I know pretty well. Also with elder Galleguillos,
my trainer from forever ago. My exchange with him was like going down
memory lane, lots of fun and cool to see how each of us has changed.
Also Saturday I had a unique experience of teaching an investigator
from my first area, the YSA sisters are now teaching her and wanted
elder Galleguillos and I to come so that we could be the "familiar
faces." It was a cool lesson, imagine 4 super experienced missionaries teaching
the restoration right after conference. Super spiritual lesson. Lastly
we also had service this week on Costa Mesa and that was good, nothing
worth writing about. But that was my week for this one. Love you! Take
care!
It was cool because elder Costa from the 70, the one that talked about
what investigators should do. He visited our mission when we saw elder
oaks and he shared the same story he shared in Conference. But also
there was a lot of good other talks, I too liked the one about
"standing up on the inside." This week was good for me, my last week
in jardines (garden Grove). I was transfers today to the Fullerton
west area with elder Schoen, he too is from garden grove so we will be
white washing for both our second time. We are excited, but the area
is super different, as of now I am driving (first time in a year).
It's a little different, but so far so good. I'll let you know next
week what happens. This past week I had two exchanges, one with elder
Castillo, an elder I know pretty well. Also with elder Galleguillos,
my trainer from forever ago. My exchange with him was like going down
memory lane, lots of fun and cool to see how each of us has changed.
Also Saturday I had a unique experience of teaching an investigator
from my first area, the YSA sisters are now teaching her and wanted
elder Galleguillos and I to come so that we could be the "familiar
faces." It was a cool lesson, imagine 4 super experienced missionaries teaching
the restoration right after conference. Super spiritual lesson. Lastly
we also had service this week on Costa Mesa and that was good, nothing
worth writing about. But that was my week for this one. Love you! Take
care!
Jacob - March 27, 2017
Hello Family, this week was good. I'm having some troubles of
remembering everything that happened so well see how this email goes.
This week went by pretty well. We are doing good at finding new faces
to teach. We are climbing out of our investigator problem, now we just
need to try and stay in contact with them, but that'll keep us busy.
This last week my companion and I were busy the whole time. We had a
church open house that we did and also a baptism for an 8 year old in
our ward. The activity turned out ok, there wasn't a lot of
investigators that went to it, but the members did a really good job
at presenting their organizations. I felt the spirit pretty strongly
so hopefully that touched the people there. After the activity I
interviewed a guy for baptism, but he had some question 4 concerns and
turns out he'll have to wait at least 2 years before he can be
baptized.. But fortunately he understands and hopefully we'll stay
faithful for time being. Tuesday I ate swordfish tacos, those were
tasty. Wednesday I lead a super spiritual district meeting. I really
enjoyed that. Thursday I had a crazy exchange, but it went well.
Nothing crazy happened, but it's hard to explain. Friday was the
activity and we also had soup kitchen service earlier that day as
well. Saturday was the baptism of the 8 year old. That went really
well. Saturday was the only day that was a normal work day. But also
throughout the week we've been able to find some cool people, people
that have a lot of changes going on in their lives so hopefully
they'll see how the restored gospel can help them. Sunday was also
good, we did a really cool activity with the primary. There was 10
stations set up, each representing part of Christ's atonement or
during those few days. So all the missionaries had the chance to teach
and testify of the Atonement. Overall that was how my week went. I
love you all and hope you have a great one!
remembering everything that happened so well see how this email goes.
This week went by pretty well. We are doing good at finding new faces
to teach. We are climbing out of our investigator problem, now we just
need to try and stay in contact with them, but that'll keep us busy.
This last week my companion and I were busy the whole time. We had a
church open house that we did and also a baptism for an 8 year old in
our ward. The activity turned out ok, there wasn't a lot of
investigators that went to it, but the members did a really good job
at presenting their organizations. I felt the spirit pretty strongly
so hopefully that touched the people there. After the activity I
interviewed a guy for baptism, but he had some question 4 concerns and
turns out he'll have to wait at least 2 years before he can be
baptized.. But fortunately he understands and hopefully we'll stay
faithful for time being. Tuesday I ate swordfish tacos, those were
tasty. Wednesday I lead a super spiritual district meeting. I really
enjoyed that. Thursday I had a crazy exchange, but it went well.
Nothing crazy happened, but it's hard to explain. Friday was the
activity and we also had soup kitchen service earlier that day as
well. Saturday was the baptism of the 8 year old. That went really
well. Saturday was the only day that was a normal work day. But also
throughout the week we've been able to find some cool people, people
that have a lot of changes going on in their lives so hopefully
they'll see how the restored gospel can help them. Sunday was also
good, we did a really cool activity with the primary. There was 10
stations set up, each representing part of Christ's atonement or
during those few days. So all the missionaries had the chance to teach
and testify of the Atonement. Overall that was how my week went. I
love you all and hope you have a great one!
Sunday, March 26, 2017
Jacob - March 20, 2017
Hey family, My week went pretty well, my comp and I did all of stuff that we've been doing these past few weeks. Just finding and teaching. But things are going well. We may not be getting tons of investigators, but we are still talking to lots of people so we are adding to our people to visit list. Everything is going good though, my comp and I are excited with what is going on and how things are picking up. We have a few activists that are coming weekend, there is a baptism for an investigator of the sisters as well as a 8 year old in our area. Those will happen on Saturday. Friday we are going to have a church tour where members will talk about what each organization of the church is, pretty much the role of young men, young women's, primary, relief society etc. We are excited and we hope lots of people come. This week I had the opportunity to go on exchanges with elder Sorto, he's a new missionary and we had a good time together. He was in my area so bike was a bit tough for him, but we taught a lot and it was good. Also this week we had a zone conference about chapter 2 of PMG. We spoke mostly about study journals & specific lesson plans, making sure we are preparing for our investigators. Also while we there they shared with us the new Easter Initiative. It's focus is on how Christ is the prince of peace and will share 8 methods on how to obtain more peace in our lives. So there's a super cool main theme video and then each other principle has a video as well. But we are super excited for that as well. Lots of good things will be happening soon. But that's it for this email. Love you, have a good one!
Elder Baer
Jacob - March 13, 2017
Hey Family, I'm not sure how long this email will be, but we'll see. Anyways this week was good. We did a lot of finding, but the work is going well. We keep finding cool people, it's just difficult to find them again usually, but little by little. This week I went on an exchange with a zone leader, elder Seibold. That was a lot of fun and I had a good time with him. I learned a little bit more about how to magnify my assignment as well, how to best help the district. I also went on an exchange with elder Schoen. That was good as well. We just worked a bunch and went to the temple since there was temple tours this week. There was a RCLA that went so we got to go as well and check out the temple, it was fun and good to feel the spirit there. Also this week I tried some strange foods, first off I got some sushi (it's super good), there's one roll called the dragons crown which was good and another that was tempura shrimp and on the outside it had salmon, also really good. Later in the week we saw a less active guy, we still need to see if he has records still. But when we were there he gave us a caldo de mariscos (seafood soup thing), but inside of it was octopus so that was interesting. Yesterday on Sunday we ate at the Luna's afterwards we went to his parents house across the street and I tried menudo for the first time. Man that stuff is weird, for those that don't know it's the stomach lining of a cow. The taste is ok, but the texture got to me. It's one of those dishes that not many missionaries enjoy. Other than that this week was normal. I honestly can't remember much of what happened, but that's how it goes. (Thank goodness for journals). But I love you all and hope you all have a great week!!
Elder Baer
Jacob - March 7, 2017
This week for me was good, I already gave you a little info about the
beginning of it and I think the second half was good as well. We are
still doing lot's of finding, but we were able to find a cool apt
complex that is mostly hispanic, we are going back there later tonight
and then at 8:30 we are going to be doing an exchange with the zone
leaders. So i'm excited. We have a lot of good goals for the week and
we are going to try and visit all the active and less active members
in our area. We are going to try and help them do missionary work so
we figured being around them and leaving our influence might help them
get involved. Also speaking of members, tomorrow is a member
missionary where the members come knock doors with the missionaries
and I think it'll bring a lot of success to the area they are
knocking.
Me being a district leader is good. The only big responsibilities I
worry about are following up with everyone, district meetings & calls,
but that's about it. Also I give the district permission to do stuff
if they need it.
The weather here has been warming up a lot. It hasn't rained very
much, but some nights I can survive just wearing a short sleeve white
shirt. It's pretty nice, but today is chilly. i'll probably wear a
sweater when working.
I hope work is going well for you. Sounds like a busy week, but that's
nothing new for you. I hope you'll have a good one with all that you
do. How is it being alone at home? Does tayler and lexie see you a
lot?
Also I was hoping if you could some how get me some more pictures of
my afro hair. I know my senior photo it looked really nice. But that
would be super awesome, I got some friends that what to see it and I
forgot to save them to my ipad when you sent them the first time
around. But I love you mom, have an amazing week and I'll talk to you
soon!
Jacob - March 2, 2017
This past week and a half has been
good. Being a district leader is pretty fun, it's just a lot of
communication with the district and following up with their goals and
trying to help them become good missionaries. My first meeting was
about how we can focus on the younger generation, it went well. Also
one of my responsibilities is to go on exchanges with each of the
elders in my district, I've yet to do that, but this coming week, i'll
get jumping on that. The work has been going well. We are still
talking with lot's of people and we have a lot of people that we pass
by to try and teach, but for the most part we find people that are
super hesitant to accept us or it's difficult to find them home again.
Seems like everyone here in California work two jobs. Which is
understandable since the real estate cost is so dang high + the cost
to live. Makes me grateful that the church helps us out with all the
costs. This week so far has been really good as well. We had a really
good zone meeting where we spoke about our purpose of missionaries
(pretty much PMG chapter 1). I enjoyed that and it helped me renew my
vision on why I do missionary work.
These past few days I've been doing a study about following christ,
I've gone from Matt. 16:24 which took me to Alma 39:9, verse 13 of
alma 39 caught my attention and I decided to look up the phrase "Turn
to the Lord," there were some really cool scriptures in the Old
Testament about that subject and that's where my focus has been
recently. It's actually pretty cool the things we can learn from the
Old Testament, I didn't pay that much attention in Seminary, but
fortunately I have the time now. One of my favorite verses is in
Jeremiah 32:39, "And I will give them one heart, and one way, that
they may fear me for ever, for the good of them, and of their children
after them:" (Verses 37-41 are all good). I like this scripture
because everyone i meet says the same thing.. It's the same God, so it
doesn't matter which church I join. But we know it's not that way.
There's only "one way" that leads back to our heavenly father, the
gospel of jesus christ and through the ordinances of the priesthood.
Make me really grateful for my testimony and the things that I've
learned. I'd encourage all of you to keep up on your scripture studies
and to never forget to pray! (2nd nephi 32:8-9). Always strive to
increase your faith. I love you all and hope you have a wonderful
weekend! :)
Monday, February 20, 2017
Jacob - February 20, 2017
Hey family, this week was good. We were able to find a few more people
to teach this week which was good, so little by little we are building
up a teaching pool again. We were able to try out a few new finding
ideas that seemed to work that involved us going to areas that had
zero records and trying to find the hispanic people in them. That was
probably where most of our efforts went this week, trying to find. I
can't recall of anything else. Just the normal stuff like District
Meeting and an exchange. But as you noticed in the title, today's
transfer day. I'm staying in garden Grove for transfer number 5 and my
comp is staying too. That also means that sometime during this
transfer I'll hit 1 year on bike, sort of crazy, but it's helped me
get fit and stay slim from all the tortillas I eat. Also this transfer
I am going to be a District Leader. I'm excited about it because all
the missionaries in the district are really great so I don't need to
worry about them too much. My only concern is trying to make sure that
I'm fulfilling my purpose as a connection between the Ward and the
District, fortunately our ward mission leader does a good job so as
long as we are working with him I think these will work out. Other
than that I'm not sure what more to say, to be honest this week was
just full of finding and not a ton of lessons... But we are meeting
tons of people daily, we might not be teaching official lessons, but
we are being sure to keep all of our contacts focused on the gospel,
so we are teaching when finding, and finding by teaching. Anyways
that's it for this week. I love you all, hope you have a great one!
Elder Baer
to teach this week which was good, so little by little we are building
up a teaching pool again. We were able to try out a few new finding
ideas that seemed to work that involved us going to areas that had
zero records and trying to find the hispanic people in them. That was
probably where most of our efforts went this week, trying to find. I
can't recall of anything else. Just the normal stuff like District
Meeting and an exchange. But as you noticed in the title, today's
transfer day. I'm staying in garden Grove for transfer number 5 and my
comp is staying too. That also means that sometime during this
transfer I'll hit 1 year on bike, sort of crazy, but it's helped me
get fit and stay slim from all the tortillas I eat. Also this transfer
I am going to be a District Leader. I'm excited about it because all
the missionaries in the district are really great so I don't need to
worry about them too much. My only concern is trying to make sure that
I'm fulfilling my purpose as a connection between the Ward and the
District, fortunately our ward mission leader does a good job so as
long as we are working with him I think these will work out. Other
than that I'm not sure what more to say, to be honest this week was
just full of finding and not a ton of lessons... But we are meeting
tons of people daily, we might not be teaching official lessons, but
we are being sure to keep all of our contacts focused on the gospel,
so we are teaching when finding, and finding by teaching. Anyways
that's it for this week. I love you all, hope you have a great one!
Elder Baer
Jacob - February 13, 2017
Hey Family, sorry I'm not writing personal letters this week. We are doing a zone activity at a park and I don't know the next time we will have wifi, but also I write the same stuff to everyone anyways so it makes it easier and faster for me. But this week was pretty good. We may of not had the greatest week as far as numbers go, to be honest the last few weeks have been tough. We're just in a slump and trying to get out of it. We have a few investigators that we are trying to work with, but it's tough because they are really busy and hard to find. We don't have anyone solid at the moment that meets with us consistently. We've been doing a lot of finding and we are doing a good job at talking with everyone, hopefully with time we'll be able to find some cool people. But one thing that was cool this week is that we went out knocking with members. Not a ton showed up for the activity, but it was enough for what we needed. About 10 or so members showed up and went out with us to a pretty hispanic street that we have in our area. We got a bunch of potential investigators from it, but so far we haven't been able to teach many of those people. On the bright side it helped the members overcome their fears about sharing the gospel. I think that's what we were hoping for since knocking doors isn't the most effective way to do missionary work. Some of the sisters missionaries were mentioning that some of the member sisters started to share the gospel through social media after that activity so I think it brought a little more enthusiasm to the ward. Later this week we had a really good zone conference about the training that mission presidents received in preparation for the Missionary Broadcast this past month. We spoke on the topics of: The new schedule (ideas on how to best use it, since we have a little extra free time at night and morning), comp. studies, trying to teach the rising generation (studies show they are more receptive to the gospel), and lastly we watched elder bednar's segment of the training which talked a lot about repentance and how we can better teach it. That was really good. Later on in the week I went on an exchange with a zone leader over in his area, we spoke a little about consecration and we had a pretty good day of teaching. That night we had a session of Stake Conference which was mostly about the importance of teaching the coming generation the gospel. Elder Acosta (the area seventy) shared a scripture in Mosiah 26:1-4 about what the parents/kids could of done differently and it was an open discussion on that topic. It was interesting, but powerful. On Sunday we had another session of stake Conference and the topics of that one were sabbath day and setting our sights on the temple. It was good to, sort of felt like it was going on and on, but that's alright. Those were pretty much the highlights of the week. Love you all and hope you have a good one.
Elder Baer
Monday, February 6, 2017
Jacob - February 6, 2016
Jacob turned 20 yesterday!!!!
Hey mom, my birthday was good. I didn't tell many people about it, so
no one sang to me at church (thank goodness). I haven't baked my cake
quite yet, maybe tonight. But last night I had a good dinner with Hna.
Palacios. She made us tacos de pollo, chorizo, al pastor & carne
asada. Pretty simple, but really good. At the dinner they sang to me
and by chance the Hna cooked a cook the day before so I did end up
getting cake on my b-day. The ties were mas o menos, the solid color
one is good, the other one I'll probably only wear with a suit or
sweater, but thanks for sending them. Also we saw a member today at
downtown Disney, she took a picture of my comp and I and sent it to
you.
It's good to hear that you saw JaNeal, how is she doing? Sounds like
she has a pretty crazy job, I'm not sure what it would be like to be a
truck driver. Also I'm glad to hear you had a good time with john's
grandma. I tried to call grandma Ehlert this morning, but I think the
line got cut or something, I'll probably just try writing her a hand
written letter and call that good. Also sorry you missed church
yesterday, that's not fun.
This week was an ok week. We teach people, but it's been people that
haven't been progressing so that makes it tough. We weren't able to
find anyone new this week despite that we are talking with everyone.
So we are staying patient. Fortunately we are contacting people and
adding people to the potential investigator list so hopefully some of
them will become new investigators this week. Other than that though
there isn't much to report on our area. Tomorrow there will be a ward
activity where they will come to our area and knock doors. We are
excited because we believe it'll bring a lot of joy to the members and
help out our current situation. Also this week we had a zone meeting
about the spirit and our missionary purpose. That was a good meeting,
really edifying.
This week and the past few days I've been reading in the Book of
Mormon and also I've checked out some talks on the subject of
consecration, sacrifice and the sacrament. The other day I read a talk
by pres. Uchtdorf called "living the gospel joyful." I think it was a
talk to the sisters of the church, but I really liked his comments
about how the commandments are council from our Heavenly Father, they
shouldn't ever be looked as a to do list for if they are then they
lose their purpose. I read a different talk by him as well called "you
can do it now!" It was about rising up from weakness and despair. But
it spoke about making the goals of others, our goals as well. For
example let's say the stake president has the goal for us to be better
at home teaching. That goal would serve us so much more if we made it
our personal desire to do it rather than just pleasing the stake
president. Maybe we should look at the commandments with that same
mindset. That was just a little connection I made, didn't connect
those points during personal Study, but thanks for prompting mom think
about my studies a little more in depth. But I think this is it for
this week. Thanks mom, love you!
Elder Baer
Hey mom, my birthday was good. I didn't tell many people about it, so
no one sang to me at church (thank goodness). I haven't baked my cake
quite yet, maybe tonight. But last night I had a good dinner with Hna.
Palacios. She made us tacos de pollo, chorizo, al pastor & carne
asada. Pretty simple, but really good. At the dinner they sang to me
and by chance the Hna cooked a cook the day before so I did end up
getting cake on my b-day. The ties were mas o menos, the solid color
one is good, the other one I'll probably only wear with a suit or
sweater, but thanks for sending them. Also we saw a member today at
downtown Disney, she took a picture of my comp and I and sent it to
you.
It's good to hear that you saw JaNeal, how is she doing? Sounds like
she has a pretty crazy job, I'm not sure what it would be like to be a
truck driver. Also I'm glad to hear you had a good time with john's
grandma. I tried to call grandma Ehlert this morning, but I think the
line got cut or something, I'll probably just try writing her a hand
written letter and call that good. Also sorry you missed church
yesterday, that's not fun.
This week was an ok week. We teach people, but it's been people that
haven't been progressing so that makes it tough. We weren't able to
find anyone new this week despite that we are talking with everyone.
So we are staying patient. Fortunately we are contacting people and
adding people to the potential investigator list so hopefully some of
them will become new investigators this week. Other than that though
there isn't much to report on our area. Tomorrow there will be a ward
activity where they will come to our area and knock doors. We are
excited because we believe it'll bring a lot of joy to the members and
help out our current situation. Also this week we had a zone meeting
about the spirit and our missionary purpose. That was a good meeting,
really edifying.
This week and the past few days I've been reading in the Book of
Mormon and also I've checked out some talks on the subject of
consecration, sacrifice and the sacrament. The other day I read a talk
by pres. Uchtdorf called "living the gospel joyful." I think it was a
talk to the sisters of the church, but I really liked his comments
about how the commandments are council from our Heavenly Father, they
shouldn't ever be looked as a to do list for if they are then they
lose their purpose. I read a different talk by him as well called "you
can do it now!" It was about rising up from weakness and despair. But
it spoke about making the goals of others, our goals as well. For
example let's say the stake president has the goal for us to be better
at home teaching. That goal would serve us so much more if we made it
our personal desire to do it rather than just pleasing the stake
president. Maybe we should look at the commandments with that same
mindset. That was just a little connection I made, didn't connect
those points during personal Study, but thanks for prompting mom think
about my studies a little more in depth. But I think this is it for
this week. Thanks mom, love you!
Elder Baer
Elder Bean and Elder Baer
Jacob - January 30, 2017
This week was super interesting. So last year, in January we got that worldwide broadcast about teaching Repentance and baptizing converts and this year we had another one that went more in depth into the topics that were shared last year. It was like watching a district meeting except it consisted of Apostles and General Authorities. Lot's of insights were shared which were super good, I really liked elder Bednar's comments and how we should always look at the gospel as one in Christ, rather than a step by step process. Lot's of good stuff. But they also shared some changes that apply to all missions. There is now a new daily schedule where daily planning is in the morning instead of night, so before personal study we plan. (That's the biggest change). Comp study can now be 30 minutes if we don't have a lot of lessons to plan for, same with language study. Trainers now only have 30 min to do 12 weeks. And at nights from 9:00-9:30 we write in journals and prepare for bed and from 9:30-10:30 we have the option of when we want to sleep. (My comp and I have been doing workouts at night, we are in a competition to see who will have the best abs after 30 days). Also the key indicators have been changed, there are now only four indicators that we report on which are "Confirmations," "New Investigators," "Investigators at Church," and lastly "Investigators with a Baptismal Date." It's pretty big changes since it's affected the way we do Daily Goals because we don't have to set goals for other lessons, member lessons, or RCLA lessons, but we still try and think about what we want to accomplish, we just set other types of goals instead. As far as my week went this week.. Well it was pretty similar to last week. We tried to find a bunch, but not a lot of people are open to us at the moment. But we are talking with everyone and doing our best to get the message out there. I'm confident that we'll find someone more interested soon. But i'm doing good, i just try to stay positive and patient in the work and just do my best when we are out and working.
Tuesday, January 24, 2017
Jacob - January 23, 2017
Hey everyone, this week went by alright. To be honest, my comp and I
dropped a bunch of people and we've been having a tough time finding
people home or finding people that are willing to listen to our
message. So in that aspect this week was tough. But we just keep
trying to find more prepared people. Fortunately our member work has
been picking up a lot, this week we have a pretty high goal of getting
member lessons so hopefully the members will be available to help us
out. Something pretty crazy is that these past few weeks it has rained
a lot, probably more times than it did all of last year. Anyways
yesterday it was really bad. California has terrible storm draining so
there were several streets that were just like small rivers, the
entire street was covered in water about 4-6 inches deep. All of the
bike lanes were flooded and it would raise up high enough to cover the
sidewalks as well. So we had to stay in yesterday and do missionary
work over the phone.. But it was quite the experience. Other than that
this week wasn't too crazy. We just did a lot of finding which was
good. We met some cool people, just not cool enough to let us share
something. But we keep going at it. Anyways I love you family and hope
you have a great week!
Elder Baer
dropped a bunch of people and we've been having a tough time finding
people home or finding people that are willing to listen to our
message. So in that aspect this week was tough. But we just keep
trying to find more prepared people. Fortunately our member work has
been picking up a lot, this week we have a pretty high goal of getting
member lessons so hopefully the members will be available to help us
out. Something pretty crazy is that these past few weeks it has rained
a lot, probably more times than it did all of last year. Anyways
yesterday it was really bad. California has terrible storm draining so
there were several streets that were just like small rivers, the
entire street was covered in water about 4-6 inches deep. All of the
bike lanes were flooded and it would raise up high enough to cover the
sidewalks as well. So we had to stay in yesterday and do missionary
work over the phone.. But it was quite the experience. Other than that
this week wasn't too crazy. We just did a lot of finding which was
good. We met some cool people, just not cool enough to let us share
something. But we keep going at it. Anyways I love you family and hope
you have a great week!
Elder Baer
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