Transferred AGAIN!

Yup! You read that right! TRANSFERRED! That makes 6 transfers out of 6 transfers! Well that's and interesting capstone to a very interesting week. This week started okay, I guess. We met with Alyssa and her birthday was on Sunday so she was leaving town to visit Las Vegas for her birthday. We had a good lesson and she really enjoyed General Conference. but... since she was out of town on the 19th, I wont be able to see her baptized. darn...then the week took a turn for the bizarre. Remember Charles? He disappeared completely. We stopped by his house several times and even his parents haven't seen him. I'm getting kind of worried about him because I know he spends most of his time hanging around the gangs in Liberty City. Then 3 other of our investigators got anti-Mormon literature from their pastors, and proceeded to drop themselves. One of whom did so by a letter... strange...and then I get transferred!
Well, I'm senior companion now serving in the Miami Young Single Adults Ward (A ward that has young people between the ages of 18 and 30, mostly students). I'm companions with Elder Villasenor, a Spanish language missionary who came out with me. We are having a blast. When we were in the MTC together, we said that we wanted to be companions but since I was ASL and he was Spanish, we thought it would never happen. Well here we are! lol. Yes. my move was a grand total of 2 miles from apartment to apartment. :)

We do get to go to Institute and family home evening, which is awesome. (Institutes of Religion are special programs available to college students around the world and are set up specifically to support college students who are LDS). The teacher is really cool, and he is also the 1st counselor in the branch presidency. We dont usually prostelyte on college campuses because most of them dont allow it. We are asked to make sure to go through the proper channels and a lot of campuses say no. Its really a bummer because thats a really goood way to find people. :(

If we teach a single woman, we will go on an exchange (have a member of the ward go with us) just like in family wards. Its kind of nice because all of the members hang out anyway so its really easy to get people to come along... also.... the men/women distribution is about 10:1, so all the men in the ward are interested if there is a new girl we are teaching.

Speaking of which, we have a baptism coming up in a few weeks. A woman by the name of Maria. She has already had a baptismal interview and just has to overcome a few things and she will be baptized. She's really excited and we are too!

Referalls are pretty high, but since normal finding efforts like tracting and contacting is even LESS than the norm, it balances out. We still tract and contact but almost everyone we find is passed to my old area... Miami Shores.

Oh! We are getting a new place! Our current apartment is falling apart so we were tasked to find a new place. We found one we like and we are having it inspected by Elder Kynaston (Senior missionary over apartments) today. Its really nice and I hope we get it.

I mentioned before that I have taken up knitting. I knit on P-days (since its ether that or basketball and you know how much I dont like basketball) and also I knit during personal study. I have been working my way through the scriptures and have been listening to the audio versions of the scriptures. I knit to keep my hands busy and I get cool christmas presents out of it! So far, my companions think its more cool than stupid that I knit. I have even taught a few how to do it.

Weather is really nice lately. We are right on the ocean, so we we get that cooling effect. Right now, its only like 75 and sunny. If I didn't already know how miserable the summers are I might be fooled into living down here.

tip: South Florida is REALLY miserable during the summer. heat+humidity+rain+hurricane threats+nutjob drivers = BAD

Love you all very much,

Elder Jared Tritsch

Now in Miami

Hello everyone!

I'm now in Miami proper serving in the Miami Shores South area. No deaf people yet but now I cover more well known areas such as Miami Beach, South Beach, Liberty City, Opa-Locka, and Overtown! Yes, I just said 2 of the richest places in the country and 3 of the biggest ghettos.... all within one proselyting area. FUN!

No really... it actually is a lot of fun. We met a TON of very humble people who are really open to the gospel. So new companions! Well... sort of... I'm in a threesome again and this time I'm back with Elder Christiansen (the good one, not the bad one) and Elder Heimbigner. Elder Christiansen you already know, but this time I'm going to be sending him home. It's his last transfer in the mission. Elder Heimbigner has been out for a little over a year and is from S. Jordan, Utah. They're both really great to work with and we are getting a lot of work done.

This area is kind of unique because of the sheer number of Media referrals. We get somewhere between 5 and 10 orders a day of people calling in to request bibles, copies of the Book of Mormon, Lamb of God DVD's, Finding Faith in Christ, and even a Together Forever DVD! Its a lot of fun talking to these people and learning about their lives and if they are interested in hearing of the restored gospel. I get a LOT of practice with my 1st lesson.

We have a couple of potential baptisms too! we have one woman, her name is Alyssa. She is really trying hard to see if this church is true or not. She has come to church 5 or 6 times already and came to general conference. She takes more notes than we do on her reading of the Book of Mormon and she is already well into the book of Mosiah in her reading. She should have a date soon but she wants to take things at her own pace, which is perfectly fine.

We also have a young man named Charles. We met him on the street when we were contacting and he is really interested. He wants to be a preacher when he grows up but he couldn't figure out how to get the Gift of the Holy Ghost since all the churches he found either think its unimportant or dont have it. CAN YOU ASK FOR A MORE GOLDEN INVESTIGATOR??? He has a date scheduled for the 19th of October.

General Conference was totally awesome! I love Quentin L. Cook's talk about hard times and President Monson was spirit shocking as usual. I'm definitely going to be grabbing those talks as soon as they are printed.well thats me up to this point. gotta end this letter so i can write to president. Hope everyone is doing great and have a great week. THANK YOU FOR ALL THE SUPPORT!

Love,

Elder Jared Tritsch

New Letter From South Florida

Hello Everyone.

Sorry this letter has been so late coming. I have been stuck in the storms and haven't had a chance to write since the last one I sent. Things are continuing to progress here. The storm, Faye, hit us, but we didn't get anything more that a bit of rain. Boring! We got more rain in Chicago during a thunderstorm. We did lose power for about 4 hours or so , but it came back without incident.

So, I have helped two people to enter the waters of baptism! So far! Before my transfer, Karen Cotton was scheduled for baptism, but I was transferred 3 days before. So I could not go back and see Karen's baptism, but we did get pictures with her before we left.



I am now in the Kendall Lakes area, west of Miami and when we got here, the old missionaries has been teaching Melissa. She is 13 years old and she is a great kid and was baptized last week. The photos are enclosed. You can see my old companions with Karen and I, and my new companion, Elder Ruppe with Melissa at the church.

So, both my companion and I are pretty sick right now. We bouth cought and upper respiratory infection and we are on some pretty strong antibiotics. I as stuck in bed for all last week, unconcious or hacking up a ling. I am on antibiotics, mucinex, tylenol, and sleeping pills to help me get some rest. Yikes! I am starting to feel a little bit better. The infection should be gone (I hope) but I still have the fever and the cough.

My companion got sick first, so I did have a chance to focus on my studies. I have been listening to the Bible on CD and I have finished the New Testament and now I am on Exodus in the Old Testament. At this rate, I should have completed all the Standard Works by the end of the year. Cool.

Thanks for sending me everyone's addresses. I am going to try to write them more often with all of this sick time I am having. (Now that I am not bedridden)

I love you all. I am still alive and I am sorry I am the worst person on the planet for writing correspondence. Thank you all for your support.

Love,

Elder Tritsch.

Being Transferred -- Again

Hello everyone.

I'm getting transferred again, but get this. I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE!!! The new missioni president redesigned transfers to be a little different. Where before, when we got tranfer information, we knew where we were going, who our new campanion was going to be, and even when and how to get there. Now, everyone in the entire mission goes to one chapel near the mission office and swaps around all at once... Which sucks if you are WAAAY down south and find out you only are moving one area over. I will send you my new address as soon as I have it.

Karen's baptism was posponed to guess what.... THIS COMING SUNDAY! arg... I'm going to miss it.... and she even asked me to perform the baptism too! arg... I'm getting pictures with her today though so you can see who she is.

I'm still counting her as a baptism because we found her, we taught her, we committed her, and she is going to be baptized. Therefore, I think I can call that one mine. :) Not that im keeping score or anything.... :)

Other than that, really everything is going fine. I got a couple new shirts. Thanks.

Thanks everyone and I love you so much!

Love,

Jared

New Letters

Letter from 7/15/08

Everything is going totally awesome here. Karen is planning to be baptized this next Sunday and everything is great! I sent off birthday stuff to everyone and they should be coming in soon. :)

Pretty much nothing new is going on other than more missionary work and more progress of the people we are working with toward baptism. It is really awesome to see people's lives change permanently for the better. It’s a really great feeling and it makes me feel like my time out here is really worth it. its a great boost to get back out there and tract some more!!!!!!

....okay not really. Tracting still sucks.... but i feel better about it anyway. :-)

So I’m building a list for next week. You’re going to get a big list of almost everything that’s happened in the first 5 months (I turn 5 on the 20th! wow!) I’m going to try and sum up every event in 5 words or less.... there’s a long list (45 items and counting fast!)

So I love you all and I hope everyone is doing awesome!

love,
Elder Tritsch

Letter from 7/7/08

Hi Everyone,

Here’s what’s going on and an answer to some of your questions.

My knee is doing okay, I guess, nothing much has changed and apparently nothing showed up on the MRI... so I guess that means I just have to live with it. The doc didn’t even give me any pain medication or anything... but whatever.

The deaf branch is really cool but really small. there is only about 10 active members, and they are threatening to close it down and absorb it into the Hollywood ward... I hope not though because it would cause all the deaf people to scatter, possibly for good! The ASL is doing fine. I help interpret sometimes and everyone seems to like my interpreting style. (Thanks dad for showing me how to be expressive)

we don’t have any deaf investigators since I’m still technically assigned to an English ward, but we do have a baptism coming up on the 20th! YAY! Her name is Karen Cotton; she’s in her 50's and is really golden. She is working through quitting smoking completely this week and we came up with a new plan for helping her get god to help her:

1. pray and fast on Saturday night-sunday and come to fast and testimony meeting.
2. recieve a priesthood blessing after church
3. upon returning home, throw out the cigarettes
4. go 24 hours without smoking
5. meet with the missionaries
6. repeat steps 4 and 5 every day for a week.
7. rejoice, you have quit smoking with the lords help!

So far its working, she hasn’t smoked a since one in 2 days now. We are meeting with her tonight.

The weather is weird here. It rains at the exact same times every day and only for about 20 minutes at a time, at which it’s a torrential downpour with lightning that sometimes makes me feel like I may need a change of underwear..... OY... thanks a bunch for the camelback. It’s a lifesaver and even takes some weight off my back. Thanks!

The new area is GREAT! We have dozens of investigators and we are teaching all kinds of people. It’s a bit weird seeing more people of a different race than my own but it’s kind of cool. I pride myself in being unprejudiced so it doesn’t bother me any. The hard part is not looking at pretty women, but all I have to do is think about Kim and I have no problems :)

Things are definitely better with my new companions. We are getting along great and getting a lot of work accomplished. I think transferring me out of Boca Raton was probably one of the best things that could have happened to me.

As to the care package, I’m doing okay on most things, I had to go to office depot and buy a few things like pens, but I think I’m doing okay. One request though would be a big bag of hard candies like Werthers or peppermints or something. I go a long time between meals and something like that to suck on helps keep my blood sugar up. Also, (this isn’t urgent) but my white shirts really aren’t holding up to the moisture and humidity. I think I’ll need more soon. I’ve been told by other missionaries that there is a kind sold at JC Penney called "Stafford SuperShirt" that holds up really well. I don’t know how expensive they are though. I still wear a 15 1/2 for the moment...

thanks for everything but I have to get to writing other people,

love you all!
Elder Jared Tritsch

Letter from 6/23/08

Hey Everyone!

Well I’m now in Hollywood Florida. Yay! I’m near the Deaf Branch!

My new address is:

Elder Jared Tritsch

555 Luna Ct #308

Hollywood, FL 33021

Everything is going AWESOME here with my new companions. Yes, I said Companions.. plural.... I’m in a threesome again!

My companion Elder Christiansen (different from my last one) is great. He’s from Orem, UT and has been out for 19 months. He’s a really great teacher and I’m learning a lot from him. He likes to talk, like I do, but he is really good at making people open up about what they are feeling. Plus he has a great personality and I can respect him. He’s a lot better than the other elder Christensen.

My other companion is Elder Crowther, from SLC Utah. He was also trained by Elder Seegmiller just like I was. He’s cool but a bit quiet. He’s nice enough and we don’t have any conflicts.

We get along great and even have a brand new apartment to move into. We’re short on things like pots and pans though, since they didn’t come with the apt. the senior missionaries are bringing us some this week.

I get to be involved with the deaf branch now, if only a little bit. They need me to interpret sometimes so I get to be part of the deaf branch. I’m not needed all that often but I’ve already met some of the members of the branch. Eduardo, one member, has a lower level of education and is just barely learning sign language, and he’s almost 50... He’s funny as heck though and was making everyone laugh with his visual jokes. He mainly uses body language and hand shapes to express what he doesn’t know the words for yet.

Guess what!? My area is a Jamaican and Haitian Ghetto! Yes! Don’t worry though, we don’t do anything stupid to put us in any danger. We’re teaching a ton of people and got 10 new investigators in just the first few days. I’m going to get a baptism this transfer I know it!

So that pretties much everything that happened so far. Oh yeah! We get a new mission president on the 1st of July, and then we have zone conference the following day where we all get to meet him. I’ll write about him once I get the chance to meet and talk to him.

Hope everyone is doing great, wherever you all are!

Love,

Elder Jared Tritsch

Letter from 6/17/08

Guess what? I just got transferred again! I’m going back down South to Hollywood, FL. I'm going to be in a threesome again with an Elder Christiansen (different person) and an Elder Crowther. I don't think he has any relation to the Brother Crowther in our ward, though.

Thanks for the advice about communication with everyone. I'm currently writing letters to everyone. I'm going to give it a better shot this next transfer and try to communicate with everyone.

Speaking of communication the met with Otto went great! I can't believe I forgot to tell you about it! OOPS AGAIN!

We were out visiting people about a week and a half ago when all of the people we had written down to stop by were not there. It was only 100 at that point and we were trying to think of things to do. I had forgotten about Otto in your letter, but then I remembered it. We ran to the library as fast as we could so I could print off and we gave him a call.

He was a little weird out at first when we called him. He has an UNlisted phone number. but alas, we had it. I told him I was "Rozzie's grandson" like you said and he immediately lighted up like a Christmas tree. I could tell over the phone. We looked up his location and viola! We were less than a mile from his apartment! The Lord works in mysterious ways eh?

He immediately invited us over for lunch and even ran out to meet us at the gate so the guard will let us through. We had a wonderful lunch with him and his wife, and they seemed very interested in talking about the family. He seemed very proud of nana and papa, bragging several times about how Papa works in aircraft design and such. He says he had been out of contact with his family almost completely for over 20 years! I did not have Nana's phone number on me, but I gave them the house number and told them about you and Dad and about how you found him.

He doesn’t seem really all that interested in hearing about the gospel but he didn’t think it horrible at all.

All in all he really wants to get back in contact with the family so you should give him a call! He’s back up in Chicago now and will be there for the next several weeks but I think that number you found was his cell #.

So that the meeting with Otto!

So thanks for everything.

Love,

Jared

NEW AREA!

I am now in Boca Raton, Florida. its further north than where i just left. a lot further. it is almost to the northern edge of the mission boundaries. we have a car again, so that a nice thing for my knees. and i have a new companion in Elder Christensen. I'm posting up a photo of him along with this week's post. the new area is nice. there are a LOT of old people, a LOT of rich people, and even more of both.

KNEE PROBLEM UPDATE
I am setting up a doctor's appointment later this week to see what could be wrong. the stretches only work for a few minutes before the pain returns, and the medicine only takes the edge off... i either need stronger pills or something....... don't get worried though. worst case scenario i might need physical therapy or some kind of drugs. i highly doubt ill need surgery or anything like that.

COOKING

I've gotten some opportunities to cook some. I'm starting to see where dad found his love for cooking. we had one of our investigators give us almost 3 pounds of Mahi-Mahi fish. i cooked it in a Lime-Tequila marinade (store bought pre-made. no i didn't buy alcohol) and it turned out really good. but as it happens everyone in the apartment hates fish so i get to eat it all myself.

I'm trying more and more adventurous things, but I'm now limited by my money situation. we only get $137 for food expenses and that is a LOT less than you think it is because everything is twice as expensive here. MILK is almost 5 dollars a gallon! YIKES!

the indigenous wildlife is apparently edible. I'm trying to find a good recipe for Iguana. apparently there's a lot of Haitians here and iguana is a delicacy there. I'm thinking of cooking one whole so i can pose it like a thanksgiving turkey,...... maybe even put an apple in its mouth.

well that's all i have time for today (less than a minute left... i need to learn to type faster.......)

cards an letters should be showing up by now.... and I'm buying a nice set of forever stamps so that doesn't happen again.

Love y'all!
Elder Tritsch

Transfer to Boca Raton

TRANSFER DAY!

Tomorrow is transfers day and guess what?! I'm moving! I'm going to be moving to Boca Raton, FL and I don't have my new address yet. Just send anything to the mission home address and they can get it to me quite quickly. I'm leaving my dying companion (mission slang for nearly finished), Elder Seegmiller here in Davie and getting a new companion, Elder Christensen, when i get there. The new area is still an English area since I haven't quite finished my training yet and the ASL program has Sisters in it at the moment. YAY I GET TO PACK AGAIN!!!! lol

MEDICAL WOES

knees still hurt. the stretches and things that the doctor prescribed aren't really working. they only help for a few minutes then the pain comes shooting back. ill have to see if i improve over the next week or two then if i don't ill have to go back into the doctor for x-rays and maybe an MRI.... I'm really glad that the mission gives all the missionaries insurance coverage... all i have to pay is a $10 co-pay. Small miracles eh? Yeah more pills. they make the world go round and the room spin!!!!

PEOPLE I'M TEACHING

well since transfers hit I'm not teaching anyone at the moment, but some of the people I'm leaving behind are progressing well. Ronnie, who i have discussed before has had a few bumps, but hes back on track and should be baptized in a few weeks. too bad ill miss it though.

we started teaching a nice guy, who said he was an atheist but then he kept asking questions he had about god, which we were able to answer from the Book of Mormon. i have high hopes for him since he really seems genuinely interested and i hope the next set of missionaries can lead him down the path to baptism.

OTHER NEWS

Mosquitoes have abated somewhat. I'm now down to just a couple on my hands, sever on the back (i have no idea how they got there...., one between the toes, and on inside my ear ( OW ). Yeah! I'm not being totally eaten alive!

People noticed that i knew how to sew and now I'm the resident tailor...... Last DDM (district Development Meeting) i hemmed probably 4 pairs of pants during the lesson. OY! i think if i ever get more time, I'm going to start to do sewing projects to help me relax somewhat. the stress is really starting to wind me up and i need to find something to release it. my companion, elder Seegmilller says he wants me to make him a BYU yarmulke (he heard about my jewish heritage.)

Well that's whats happened since last week's letter. thank you everyone for the support! and a special thank you to Nana, the card really helped me a lot!


Love you all!
Elder Jared Tritsch