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

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 podría 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

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

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!!!!)

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!

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

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