23 May, 2016 - A rather short week

Dear Family and Friends,

This week has been really short, probably because our last P-Day was Thursday. There were some good things that happened though. This E-mail will be a little shorter but anyway...

Friday- was our weekly planning after we did some little things for the office. We got to walk away with one of the new 2016 Nissan Rouges! So nice. Not for long though, only until the end of the month. We left the office with a total odometer of 23!!! After planning, we got to see Raymond with Bro. Dillman. He is soooo golden and ready to get baptized. No one signed up for dinner but they provided money so we went to a local place called Zorba's. It was super good. It is fun to try the local places instead of Wendy's or McDonalds.

Saturday- Was a very special day. We had a meeting all morning with Elder Christiansen from the Presidency of the Seventy as well as Elder Christoffersen from the Quorum of the 12!!! It was really cool. The entire mission gathered in Riverside. Yep all 160 missionaries plus the senior couples and office staff!!! That rarely happens! After that spiritual overdose, we had a lesson with Bernardino with Bro. Mock. Bernardino seems interested but hasn't committed to a specific date for baptism. He was the only one home but we plan of picking up his wife and 4 kids: 13,11,9, and 7. Looking forward to that. Then we had a full on bash by some non-denomination Christians. (I didn't. I hate bashing because it goes nowhere and no one leaves happy). But we were able to end the day with a ward BBQ. Raymond was there and he had fun so that's good. 

Sunday- we had a special Stake Conference. It was amazing! President Mullen basically trained all the members in the stake to help us with missionary work. Lots of hand raising, participation. He started with a conversion of a recent convert in our ward who was first introduced to the gospel by her 6 yr old kindergarten student. President committed the 6 year olds to do missionary work...followed by their parents, the Stake Presidents and the Bishops. The whole conference was basically on missionary work. After, we needed to bring a big flower pot back to the mission office. It was full to the brim with water so we spilt water all over the chapel. Awkward. Then we finished our weekly planning and called it a day after dinner.

Today- we started early with helping some elders in La Sierra move from their homeshare to their new apartment. Then, we played Trashketball, (which is basically ultimate Frisbee with upside down trash cans and the point was to hit the trash cans with the ball.) The YSA Zone leaders always brings their investigator, Andrew. He is super cool. Then, we ate lunch with the ZL's and came to E-mail.

Well, I guess the E-mail wasn't that short after all. Oh well, that makes all ya'll happy. Until next time...

Elder Jewkes


 Wow, is it almost summer already?! Time sure flies. So Elder Smith is from Orem, Utah, he goes home in September, which is the cause of confusion with him being an Office Elder. Office Elders are serving for 4 transfers...Elder Smith has this one and 2 more... interesting. Who know's what'll happen. His nickname is "Babyface" Smith since there are 4 Smiths in the mission. Babyface meaning that all the people we talk to thinks he is like 12 or 14...he's 20. The Rouges are really nice! We are "test-driving" one of them and they work wonderfully. There are only 5 seats so it won't replace the "Burb". Really nice cars. We have it until the end of the month.