Elder Jared Michael Tritsch, originally called to the Florida, Fort Lauderdale ASL mission, but has been transferred to the California Los Angeles Mission to serve the deaf.
Mission Home Address:
California Los Angeles Mission
1591 E. Temple Way
Los Angeles, CA 90024
Email Address: Tora1188@gmail.com
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Hello Everyone,
Things are progressing smoothly here, and we have picked up a few more investigators too! We are teaching Rosa, who is the aunt of one of our recent converts. She is really interested because she has seen the massive positive change in her nephew's family. We may pass her to the spanish elders since she is having a hard time understanding everything in english. We also are working with Linda. She is from Haiti, but grew up in New York. She ordered a bible form the TV ads and is really interested in learning more about our church. She is REALLY Catholic though so we will have to see what happens with that.also we are still working with Lorena. She is the mother of another recent convert and has come to church a lot. We are meeting with her on Friday and going to try and extend a baptismal commitment. yay! Other than that things are rather smooth here in Miami Shores and not much else to report. But... heres some more pics though!
I was transferred yet again, but this time I was tranferred back into the Miami Shores Ward! YAY! I'm in the other area though, so i get the best of both worlds: New area to explore AND old friends to catch up with! I'm really excited about this transfer as we already have a lot of work that is being done!
NEW COMPANION
My new companion is Elder Gundry. He is from a little town of 900 people names Grace, Idaho. He acts just like hes from a backwoods town too. His favorite pastimes are "muddin' out in the brush wit' my bronco" and "shootin' small critters." Yes those were actual quotes :P
We are getting along really well, and I once again am Senior companion. He has been out for 5 months as of yesterday.
THE NEW AREA
We have a couple people that we are working with currently. One is Patrick, who we met through a media referral. We just contacted yesterday. He is from Haiti and really has a lot of faith in God. We gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon and are meeting with him again later this week. We also are working with Norma, another media referral. She already knows the Book of Mormon is true and wants to be baptized, but she works 16 hour shifts on Sundays and can't come to church. bummer!
JIM EMMERMAN
We had a really great experience on Saturday with Jim Emmerman. Jim is a member in the ward who is really having a hard time of it. He works as a security guard for a company who will not under any circumatences give him time off on Sundays to go to chuch. he has been trying really hard to find a new job but so far has had no sucess. Because he is really poor, he lives in rather... unlivable.. cicumstances. Besides all that, he is really a spiritual guy and tries his best to keep faith in Christ. He is a Jewish convert and this is his story:
For almost 30 years, he has had on and off contact with the church. Unfortunately the first time he was taught, one of the missionaries that was teaching him did not really have interest in him and it showed. Needless to say he lost interest. He had a hard life, getting himself into alcoholism and drugs and really dropped far. Until one day he was walking through Walmart and he sees 2 Elders. He walks up to them and asks to once again meet with the missionaries. They tell him that they don't cover his area but that they would pass his name and number to those who did. They give his number to my trainer, Elder Seegmiller (who was at that time in his first area if I've counted it out right) and his companion. When they arrive at his house, the place was so disheveled, there was a 6 inch layer of rotting newspapers covered in cocroaches and other nasty things, all th furniture was either broken or disease ridden. (his description.. no lie) Nonetheless, the missionaries began to teach him. Jim tells them that he has no reason why he would keep on living and that he was planning to commit suicide. He then PULLS OUT A GUN and shows them the gun he planned to shoot himself with! holy crap!
But undeterred, the missionaries still showed him love and compassion and helped him through those tough times. In fact, on one visit, Jim had the flu and the elders gave him a blessing that he would recover and be able to go back to work. While Jim went back to sleep, the missionaries took on the task of cleaning up his house. When Jim woke up the next day, he found his whole apartment cleaned up, redecorated, and looking like an actual home instead of a disease-ridden hovel. He was baptized soon after and now has a great testimony of the power of home teaching and love. His home teachers take great care of him even though he feels like he can't give as much back to the church because of his work situation.
That brings us to Saturday. Elder Gundry and I were making some stop by visits when my companion gets the impression to go and visit Jim. So, we head over to his place and we knock on the door. Jim answers with a look on his face like he just woke up. We come to see that his bike (his only mode of transportation) had broken. Jim was offered a bike from a friend, but he had no way to pick it up and because of this, he had gone back into a depression low (he has clinical depression). Suddenly, I had a prompting from the Spirit. It said clear as day, "you have a bike rack in your car, dont you?" So I offered to go pick up the bike for him. He was SO GRATEFUL! Elder Gundry and I went and picked up the bike, and while we were strapping the bike on the car, I got another impression to ask if there was anything else he needed while we were out. He said he needed to go to Walmart to pick up the HD converter box to get his TV wokring again (Miami has recently switched form UHF to HD signals so those with old tvs need to get a converter box to handle the signals). So, off to Walmart we went. When we came back from the store, we were headed up to his apartment and another man was on the elevator with us. Then and there, Jim starts testifying to the man about how much the church has helped him in his life and how his knowledge of the truth has brought him, "from the pits of despair to the heights of excstasy" Needless to say, I was on quite spiritual high after that visit.
IN CONCLUSION
This week was awesome. Jim is probbaly one of the most grateful, humble, thankful people I have ever met and he really boosted my testimony in the healing power of the gospel. Suicidal maniac to stuggling, yet faithful disciple of Christ is quite the change! Well thats all for this week. love y'all!
Jared had his HUMP day on February 20th. Hump day is the one year mark on his mission. Here are some pictures he sent. I guess they have a tradition of taking an old white shirt, marking the accomplishments of the first year and then, well.... take a look.
The shirt says, "1 year OR 12 months OR 52 weeks OR 366 days OR 8765 hours OR 525948 minutes OR 31,556,926 seconds. 12 companions, 8 areas, 8 transfers, 3 baptisms, and who knows how many lessons taught, doors knocked, and drops sweated, AND EVERY ONE OF THEM WORTH IT!
Summary of Jared's doings and whereabouts for the past few months:
For the past month, I have been working with the deaf members of South Florida. My companion, Elder Brogdon, who is really cool! One of my favorites already. He is really energized about the work and we have been taking the branch head on. We have 3 active investigators with the possibility of a baptism this transfer, which would be the first baptism the branch has had in 8 months! yay!
I saw Karen Cotton again and she is doing AMAZING! She is really involved with the ward to which is awesome! The Hollywood Ward has really brought her into the fold and she is happier than I've ever seen her. When she was getting ready to be baptized, I don’t think I’ve prayed harder for anyone before. It was a really intense week with her and I am glad I was given to opportunity to be there. It is kind of funny she has taken on the title of my, "good southern mama" for me and Elder Crowther. Which is kind of funny, :)In other news the knee is improving. im meeting with the doctor today to see the progress so keep your fingers crossed.
Also... we dropped one of our better investigators, Rogelio. He decided that he was going to refuse to pray.The ASL sister missionaries with whom we work just broke the mission record for lessons in one week. Before the record was 63, and the sisters beat it with 80! go ASL program! w00t!We going to try setting Judy Jones with a baptismal date tomorrow. Pray for us there. She is progressing really well, but she needs to get Sundays off so she can come to church.Sthis is a big problem since she only works weekends as it is....things are progressing quite well here in the ASL program. we are teaching a lot of people, especially we are working with Nelson and Paula to increase their missionary efforts as well as prepare to enter the temple and be sealed. thus this letter is quite short... sorry but things do progress slowly here so not much has changed since last week.oh! i got the boxes! THANK YOU!!!! the needles are so cool and ive already casted on a pair of socks with them. :) and the food was much appreciated. :)
Things are continuing to improve here in the ASL south area. We recently picked up a new investigator, Yveltalene (sp?). She is totally awesome and has already read the Book of Mormon stories through and watched the Restoration dvd. She has prayed as well which is awesome. We will be encouraging her this week to watch the actual Book of Mormon in ASL as well as possiby commit her to be baptized! Yay!
She attended Presinnia's baptism which went really well. Im so excited for presennia as she is the first baptism the branch has had in months! Double yay!
One of our other investigators, Jessenia, is also coming along nicely as she is steadily reading the Book of Mormon. She has committed to come to church for the first time on Sunday so we will be excited to see her there.
Yes you read that right, after almost a year of being a vagabond missionary, never staying anywhere for more than 6 weeks, I finally don’t have to pack! YAY!
I still don't know who my new companion is. I don’t find out until tomorrow, but ill figure some way to get his name to you for the Christmas gifts you are sending him. That’s so nice of you :)
I got all the pictures you sent. Way cool! Did Sarah show off her scarf? She has been raving about it ever since I made it for her. I think I need to be knitting up a storm if imp going to finish everyone's Christmas presents in time. I have 5 done, but I need 13 before the 20-21 so I can get it out there.
Speaking of which, where should I send them? Is everyone going to open presents at Uncle Dennis's house? Should I send everything there? I hope you don’t mind me putting everything in one box for everyone with tags as to whose is whose since both shipping and wrapping paper are rather expensive..... So I think I’ll just pile them all up in a giant box for everyone to open all at once: P
Nothing much new for this area. We dropped almost all of our investigators for one reason or another and Maria isn’t doing so great anymore... we are still working with her and are meeting with her tonight but she has slowed herself down a lot. Which is a big bummer?
We moved apartments this week. We went from living in squalor in a place that'll give you tetanus just by looking at it, into a brand new apartment. And I mean BRAND NEW... like they had to finish construction before we could move in: P
It’s a really nice place with hardwood floors and all new appliances. It’s a little smaller total SQFT than the last one, but it’s much better laid out. Smallish kitchen (but really how much kitchen does a missionary need?) and a medium size living room (about the size of the office at home) but really nice sized bedrooms (mom and dad's room minus the hallway and bathroom) so we are really comfortable there. We are right across the street from the chapel so we can walk to church. This is a really cool thing since we still, as yet, don’t have a car.
Thanksgiving was really cool. We were invited to spend dinner with the Vasquez Family, who just had 2 of their sons come back from their missions, Danny from Argentina, and Alejandro from the Philippines. It was really nice afternoon with them. I taught their mom how to knit while I tried not to watch the Titans/Lions football game. (Titans win 47-10 with multiple interceptions thrown by the Lions QB...: P)
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What? It's Thanksgiving, it was on, and I was in the room..... STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT!!!!!
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So a anyway that’s all to write this week so TTFN
Ta ta for now!
Love,
Jared
Sent Monday, November 24
Wassup everybody!
Happy thanksgiving!
Things are moving busily along here in the Miami YSA although the current lack of a car kind of shoots our ability to teach our investigators in the foot. Our area covers half the mission and we live in the upper corner of the area. It’s really hard to see our investigators in Key Bicayne (22 Miles), Opa-Locka (18 Miles) and downtown Miami (15 miles) when we don’t have a car and the buses are prohibitively expensive... it’s kinda rough but we manage. We get rides from members to appointments and we street contact a lot. I even used my knitting to contact on the bus once. I was working on a pair of socks for myself for Christmas when I had the idea to pull it out on the bus. I immediately had multiple people talking to me about my knitting, me, what I do as a missionary, and I even thought them a short first lesson right there over my knitting! it was kind of fun really :) who knew that something I do to keep my hands busy while waiting or listening could be used to teach? ROCK!
So anyway back to business. Transfers are on December 3rd so I should know whether or not imp going to stay with Elder Villlaseñor when I email on the 2nd. Unfortunately that means you won’t know WHO my companion is until the following Monday... sorry. But then again, as we always tell our investigators, "Just put 'Elder'... all of us respond to that one..."
:)
thanks for all the gifts they were really cool. We only have played dreidels in our apartment so far. I LOST to my companion.... shin really hurts when you spin it 7 times in a row.... rag...
so anyway things are going quite well for me. Alas I can’t say as much for a member of my MTC district. Elder McMullin, an ASL missionary I was in the MTC with was sent home this week. I don’t know why and I don’t want to know why. But it still is really sad for me. Please keep him in your prayers as he works through whatever he needs to get back out here.
And on that note I’m going to end this letter. I love y'all and have a happy thanksgiving! Enjoy the massive party and eat some turkey for me!
Love,
Elder Jared Tritsch
Sent Monday, Nov 17
Hey everyone!
Thanks for all the great gifts! I got the dreidels :-] they are a hit in our apartment, although to be honest the candy corn didn’t make it all the way to the game... i ate it to fast :P
We used m&ms instead. there was a sale at publix for 1 lb. for $2 so we got several :P
We played a little too far into the night, but hey, its dreydel :P
So we got in another car accident this week.... the second in 3 days. but of course you already knew about that :) we have been utilizing the bus and good ol' shoe power to get around lately. the branch has really stepped up to help us get around to appointments and we get pretty much as many rides as we need. President Southerland, the branch president even brought it up in PEC about having members help us out with "necessary transportation" to things like grocery stores and such. We don’t have a need there since we do all that with the zone leaders anyway but it was a nice gesture.
Maria is progressing well. Her grandfather has just passed away and we have been using this tender time to try and get in with her parents. They are more interesting in hearing what we have to say, even if it’s just to satisfy them enough to let Maria get baptized.
In zone conference we talked about mighty prayer to help the work, and president established a mission-wide prayer every morning at 9:00 AM EST. we have begun a "drop everything and pray" program in our apartment. as soon as 9 hits, no matter what we are doing, we stop and have a prayer as an apartmentship. It’s nice.
It’s interesting how not even one day after we have committed ourselves to it, we have seen fruits. We were waiting at the chapel the other night, waiting for our exchange to pick us up when these 2 people started knocking on the chapel door. Turns out is this woman neither of us knew bringing a non-member here to show him the chapel. He’s just YSA age, in just the right place, at just the right time to meet the YSA missionaries, and is interested in learning more about our church. we are meeting with him later this week.
I have been thinking about this event. I have been praying to find more people to teach. All of our contacting efforts to find people have so far been fruitless. we barely teach a lesson in a day of trying to talk to people, let alone finding somebody interested. We implemented the mighty prayer aspect in praying with the mission, and all of a sudden a freak, off-the-wall, strange coincidence (not really I know the lord did it), put one right in our lap! I mean, who thinks, "I’ll take him to the church, maybe the missionaries are there after dark?" it boggles the mind, but the one time we were there, they showed up.
i still have no idea who the woman was. i assume she is a member because she talked to him and taught him about the church before we even got there. President Hale was talking in zone conference that, "angels seen and unseen are waiting to assist you..." I don’t know if she was an angel, but it was a real testimony building experience. that’s for sure.
TTFN: ta ta for now!
love,
Elder Jared Tritsch
Sent Monday, Nov 10 at 6:00pm
I have bad news. You know how I said my companion got in a car accident? Well... I just got in one too.
I was driving on the freeway and the car in front of me slammed in it's brakes in response to the car in front of her. I slammed on my brakes to avoid an accident but I couldn't slow down fast enough and rear ended them in the trailer hitch.
The damage to the truck was nonexistent but the damage to our car was moderate. We have a leaking radiator and a trashed bumper.
No one was hurt though which is an amazing blessing since it was a freeway accident. We are fine if a little shaken up about it.
The police officer came ad reviewed the accident and I was placed at fault. He cited me for following too closely and I got a $154.00 fine... Argh...
Well, it looks like we will be taking the bus for a while.
Sent Monday, Nov 10 at 10:02 am
Wow this week eventful....
Well Elder Villasenor got in a wreck this week. Nothing serious and no one was hurt, thank goodness... but we were placed at fault, so Elder Villasenor was dropped from driver status and I'm FINALLY driving! I wish it was under better circumstances, but hey, I can’t complain.
I'm really out of practice driving, I have come to realize. Its okay though. I only nearly got us killed twice yesterday, that in improvement on the days previous.... :P
aaanyway things are still chugging along. All those people that we were going to set with baptism dates didn’t work out but we are still working on setting them up with dates and bringing them into the fold.
What else.... oh yeah, you'll notice a withdrawal of 30 bucks in the account. i broke the toaster and had to replace it... oops.
NOTE: when you want a toasted bagel and the slots aren't quite wide enough, DON'T try and squeeze it in. the bread expands onto the coils and starts a small fire.... :P
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
