Emails from Feb. 6th

(We're trying to comprehend the distance to certain places.) Ceres to San Diego is about 7 hours.

That's what I couldn't comprehend when I got here. How small the state is. Before the dedication of the Atlanta temple members were going to Alabama and South Carolina and I thought they were all crazy to drive that long but it's only like 3 hours one way.  It's takes us 30 minutes to get to Ellenwood, it's on the other side of the ward.

I really didn't care who won the Super Bowl, just watched mainly for the commercials. I didn't think any of those who super great either.   It was a good game though, scores kept going back and forth, but the Giants finally took over at the end and they won 21 to 17.

The last time they played each other at the super bowl was 2008 and Giants won 17 to 14.

How was your week?

No one down here likes the Patriots; everybody was going for the Giants. Also, did you know that "Gone with the Wind" was about Jonesboro, GA? They have a museum about it and everything down here.

The week went good this time. On Saturday we had two good appointments. In the morning we went to see that couple who needed help. Bishop was also there. We taught the Restoration and it was pretty awesome. We invited them to church and they actually came. I asked them how they liked it and they said they wanted to come back next week as well. We also saw the investigator who we had trouble getting to church. Now it's not really a problem because he's getting up and he came 3 times now. He has a super strong testimony and he wants to start having a Family Home Evening with his kids. He's really working on changing his life around, it's pretty cool.

Awesome! Sounds like you might have some more baptisms before you leave.                                 That's funny that they're for New York, but I guess they're happy now.                                                  
I didn't know that. I knew it was near Atlanta or in Atlanta. Did you ever watch "Gone With the Wind"? I don't remember you watching it at home. I have the two VHS set, I don't know if I even opened it yet.

Yeah, hopefully. The one investigator wants to get baptized on Feb. 18th but he's on probation and I know most probation you can't get baptized until after it's over but he didn't do anything serious. I need to talk to P-Dub about it.

Yeah, especially since both are northern states. Patriots are more north I guess.

No, I never watched it but it's big down here.  After I got here and heard about it I want to watch it now.

It's funny how they say that the Post office is practically going out of business and they're going to cut people and all this stuff. The Post office isn't hurting down here. All the ones I've been to in my area is always packed.

I went to the Riverdale PO and I think I sent a package Friday or Saturday and they said it would get there Monday and I thought that was pretty fast maybe that's normal. Just to let you know the Riverdale PO is out of the mission...oops, oh well.

Haha, it's the closest one to us and it's right on the other side of the boundary line.

Emails Jan. 30th

How are you doing? How did your week go? What's the news about transfers?

I'm doing alright. This week I hit 20 months. I guess I'm partly sad due to the fact that I'm almost done with my mission.

Last Sunday we went to Zed's house. I got in trouble but not really. Our zone leaders called me because the Stockbridge elders told on me. When we were at Zed's, Zed said that he wanted to do a FHE with us and I guess he told the Stockbridge elders that too so they must have told our Zone Leaders that I was just over there. Anyways the ZL's called me because I didn't ask for permission to go over there and that I need to, that's why they called me. I don't think I'll ask for permission anyways because I'm always denied so there's no point in asking.

Also, our investigator came to church with us again, he also brought his son with him. Yesterday was stake conference, it was broadcasted from Salt Lake. It was pretty good, at least the parts I paid attention too.

So transfers came. Looks like I'm staying. I guess I won't kill off my companion. He's getting transferred to Athens. My new companion is Elder Christiansen. I'll kill him off because it's his last transfer too. I guess that's another part why I'm a bit sad. I thought I would kill off Elder Rima. I don't really like when I get a new companion but oh well, I'll get over it. Elder Rima was a good companion we did get along, it was fun.

Yeah, we don't get fed as much down here. Last week we had a dinner ever night but other than that it's probably like once or twice a week.

I know. It's amazing at how time flys!! Haha

I want to be there for your testimony meeting, but I guess if you want to go back in July I'll save my money for that. Are you sure you want to go in July? Are you choosing the most humid month or is every month just like that?

Do you know your new comp? Will he be ok since it's it's his last transfer? Wow, we have 3 or 4 families of Christiansen's in our ward....but no sons in GA. My visiting teacher is one.

You want to come down to Georgia for my last Sunday? I thought it would have been easier to come back here so I wouldn't be a missionary anymore and to follow the rules. I can probably get buddy passes. A recent convert of mine works for Delta. I don't know if July is the most humid month, I thought it might be August. But when it gets hot it stays hot no matter when it starts. The weather is pretty weird down here. It'll be hot in June too. Last year I think summer hit in April.

Stockbridge is in our zone. It's just the next district over. I've been through Atlanta a couple times but not on purpose.

I don't really know him. Elder Rima does because they came out together. He says he's pretty cool so I'm not too worried. Elder Christiansen is from Utah(shocking) but I think he's from somewhere north of Salt Lake.

No, I meant your farewell missionary testimony meeting you have the night before you leave, so it would be on Wednesday night. I'll have to ask all the Christiansen's if they have a relative missionary coming home from GA in 6 weeks. ha ha


Oh, yeah we have that down here at the Mission Office. I don't know if President and Sister Wolfert do anything special. Did I tell you that we're able to go to the temple again? Well the departing missionaries at least. Transfer day they take the departing missionaries to the temple. It's funny that they'll take us to the temple. I live right down the road from the airport, I can practically take myself to the airport but we have to go back to Lilburn.

Oh yeah...is Daniel getting transfered?

No. His comp is going north, maybe to Santa Fe, he didn't really say where. But he said some Spanish Elder is going there to train. He has several families he's teaching and one appointment tomorrow morning he doesn't want to cancel. I guess the missionaries left today a day early, so he's without a comp and supposed to join up with some elders from another district and he doesn't want to because he's doesn't want to cancel that appointment. I'll send all that to you so you see what all he said.

Did you get my last letter? You should have gotten it Friday or Saturday maybe.

oh ok

Yes, I did get your last letter. I can't mail people yet cause I have to use my last stamp. I have to send the milage report for the car to the mission office.

It sounds like C1 is still shrinking. I think people are moving in, but the families aren't are big as the ones that moved out. Hopefully the Senior couple that are working with the inactives will have better success. I hear they are doing wonderful things and are getting some less-actives back to church.

The ward sounds pretty small. Smaller than the Flint River ward. It's kind of sad.

Yeah, I think it's even smaller since you left.

Sister Lambert and Sister Hassard sent me letters and I can't remember who said it but one of them said that I was still the "star" of the ward. So I guess when I left people were like "oh, Elder Garcia's gone, there's no point in staying here." hahaha jk.

I heard they won't combine wards that are practically branches because there's a lot of less actives. That's why the Flint River Ward is still a Ward because there's a ton of less actives.

I don't really want to give my homecoming talk in Utah but I also don't want to go back to California.

Which reminds me. I do need more stamps, I'm good on envelopes. That's good that the work is progressing in Ceres.

I still have to write back some 1st ward people.

-Elder Tyler Garcia

Emails Jan. 23rd

(On news about Russ Smith)

That's good he's doing well.

Not much has happened this week. We contacted a referral yesterday. I don't get people sometimes. There's a member in Fayetteville (I think) gave us a referral for these people who want help. So this member is telling their friends that the church helps people, gives them money and food. The member told us not to teach them but to only help them. We told our bishop what happened and I think he said he'll talk to that bishop [about] what happened, I'm not sure. So we go over to this referral's house and we explained to them how we can't help them and how we're only here to teach. We told them that our bishop can help with the food part but they have to come to church. Everybody needs help down here, it's frustrating because all everybody wants is money and food, especially money and we can't give them money. Then they get all upset and leave, they probably get turned off by the church because we can't help them. They say that no other church can help them either.

Did you get the Jerry "Garcia" ties from the Mottisons? She said that Kent wanted her to get the "Garcia" ties for you guys, and not any other kind. It was a special gift for you and Daniel....those "Garcia" ties.

Yeah I got it. There's a member in Snellville who loves Garcia ties, that's all he wears. I never even heard of Garcia ties until the first time I went over to their house for dinner.

It's a nicer tie than some of the ones I've seen from the member. haha

I'm pretty sure I sent them [Mottison's] a letter back.

I'm not saying that the ties the member showed me were ugly, they were just crazy looking, wild.

Today (Sunday) was the football playoffs. Ravens lost to the Patriots 20-23, so the Patriots will be going on to the Super Bowl. NY Giants at SF against the 49ers....I'm feeling sick! 9ers lost 20 to 17 in overtime. So close....so much tention, blah. So it'll be the Patriots against the Giants on Feb. 5th.

That's good that the Ravens got that close. Maybe next year the 49ers will get there hopefully. I'm glad they got this close. Next year they need to get to the super bowl. SF Giants won the world series last year, it would be cool for the 9ers to get to the super bowl so San Francisco can be on top of things.

I think maybe the Patriots want a rematch for what happened a few years ago when they both played each other in the Super Bowl haha.

How do we find you on Mormon.org?

In the search bar you can put in "Ceres" and I'll be the only one up :'(

I have a pretty popular name so it'll be harder that way [to search by name]. Mormon.org tells us not to put up our last name on our profile, security reasons.

-Elder Garcia

Emails Jan. 9-Jan. 16

We've only seen one referral from Gladys Knight but we don't think they are interested. Our one investigator finally came to church, though he was pretty bored. He knows it's true but finds it boring. He wakes up early these days. So now we can get him to church.
We're probably going to be playing basketball in a short while. I heard there was rain but not the lightning. I haven't seen a good lightning storm is a good while. The wheather has been pretty different lately.

The Spanish Elders have arrived. So I'll probably be getting off.


Emails from Jan. 16th

I hope Brother Smith is doing well.

We went and saw a recent convert a couple times during the week to see how she's doing and we read the Book of Mormon with her. We also saw the investigator, who wants to come to church, he came two Sundays ago, I don't remember if I told you that or not but he came. We saw him this week and when he came to church, it was Fast Sunday, he said it was boring so when we saw him we talked about church and reverence and why it's important. We also gave him a blessing. He found out he's diabetic. After we gave him a blessing we went home and a couple minutes later he called us saying he got a job. He's been going through a lot and I don't really want to explain. He's still going though a little tough time though. Those were the highlights of our week.

I don't think I'm getting transfered. My companion is going home after this next transfer. I think I'm going to die in Flint River. I only had one area for 6 weeks the others I was there for months.

-Elder Garcia

Jan. 2, 2012

How are you and how are things going?

Things are pretty good. New Years Eve was crazy though.

We were with the senior couples in our apartment complex and we played games and talked. One of them said that Atlanta was going to do fireworks. So when midnight came I walked outside. Our apartment is at the bottom of the complex. It's kind of like a bowl. So I walk outside and all of a sudden I feel like I'm in a war zone. Literally! All around us fireworks are going off. Not in our apartment complex but around it. So I'm standing there looking towards Atlanta to see if I can see fireworks but I can't. So while I'm in this firework war zone there's a new kind of firework. Guns were going off. Everywhere. Guns and fireworks all around us. It was pretty cool. I like Atlanta.

Sounds cool, but dangerous! Hope they didn't use real bullets!

Murray had fireworks, too. I could hear them from my room and Temy's. I didn't go outside to look for them though.

It was boring here. No one came over. So I just worked on genealogy and watched a little of the parties on tv.

I'm sure they were real. We didn't see any fireworks either. What's Temy's plan? You said he might not stay home very long...or something like that.

How many missionaries are serving from that ward? I got the cards from the ward, well technically from the young women, on Friday. It was nice but it was a little weird since I don't know any of them.

I had another thought but I can't remember now. I probably should get off for now. There's only two computers to use, one is super slow and the other one there's something wrong with it. I'm on the only good computer. There's 5 other elders that need to email. I'll probably get back on later.

Ummm, I don't know what his plan is, except to take some home study courses.

I think there's only 2, and one just got his call to ARKANSAS LITTLE ROCK. He goes in the end of March. That'll make 3.

I thought the YW were going to write letters. Daniel got his on Wednesday. He wants to know if there are any short Laurels that will write to him. LOL He was disappointed there were no letters.

Yeah, they don't know you either, so they may feel a little awkward writing.

Daniel and I? haha jk, that's cool.

I thought about asking about them writing me too, but I decided it was probably best to let it go.

I counted 13 total YW. Uh, they can write if they want, but it might be a little weird. I would even think for Daniel since he's like 6 years older then them. It would be nice to get more letters though.

[More about the fireworks]

When I walked outside I went down a little bit and there was a pretty big bang, and after that I got a little nervous so I quickly went back inside.

-Elder Tyler Garcia

Monday, December 12, 2011

It's hard to do things. We're burning up our miles fast and our referrals are never home but we just had a baptism, that's good. That's practically it for our week, unless I'll remember something later.

We're going to plan on burning up more miles to go up to Conyers. Kind of a zone p-day, they want to do this big tie trade-off/basketball, but I'm probably just going to get back on the computers. I wrote about Zed's brother in a letter.

No snow yet. We haven't had any snow flurry’s or ice storms yet either, I'm just guessing that it's because we're south of Atlanta and it's warmer here then it was when I was in Alpharetta.

At least there's no humidity. The humidity is what makes the winters here hurt. You can layer all you want but it'll bite right through.

There's a member, I think in the Spanish branch even though he doesn't speak Spanish but his wife is Spanish, he's diabetic so is his parents and he just gave me two bottles of Novolog.  They use the pump and they were kind of chastising me about not using it...but they weren't all that serious.

I forgot to mention that we had dinner with them.  They wanted to feed all the missionaries in the Jonesboro and Flint River ward and they want to do it again, I think this week.

All on the same night? Or just through the week?

All on the same night. There's actually eight:  three of us, two English in Jonesboro, three Spanish in Jonesboro.

Sounds like you have a big feast then?!

We did, she made Tortes, it's a sandwich that's pretty good.  It doesn't help though when you've eaten a lot that day to begin with, ha ha. 

What do you do for lunch today since you're going out of town?

We're going to go to Zaxby's with the Jonesboro elders on our way to Conyers

Zaxby’s must be a southern thing. I'll have to google it and check it out. It must be good if you all want to go there.

Yeah it was pretty good.  I had like two or three of them, it was way too much.

Zaxby's is a southern thing, I like Chick-fil-A better though.  Everyone in the district is a Zaxby's person.

I just read a little about it.  So each restaurant has a theme. What did you eat that you had two or three of?

I had two or three Tortes.  At Zaxby's I got a kickin' chicken sandwich.

Monday, December 19, 2011

Do you know about what time you’ll be calling on Christmas Day yet?

I guess it'd be after 4 my time.

So Wednesday is transfers.  What have you heard?  Is your three-some changing?

We're going back to two.  It's just going to be Elder Rima and me.  Our next zone conference is in February.

We haven't been able to do much.  We're trying to save miles.  We have a baptismal commitment on Jan 7, but I don't think it's going to happen.

It should be nice, everyone is just having Sacrament meeting.  What time do you have Sacrament?  I forgot, are you covering just one ward, or do you have more?

We have Sacrament at 10:50.  We only cover one ward.

Are you going to someone's house right after Sacrament?

Yeah, we're going to a family’s house at 2:30 and then we have dinner at 6.

I'm calling around 4 my time.  A couple of us are probably heading to the mall right now.  I think we're coming back.

-Elder Garcia

Emails Dec. 5th

Monday, December 5, 2011

Yep, Johnny got his call Friday.
He's going to........Argentina Buenos Aires West!
(Tyler's cousin)

Why does Johnny have to ruin the traditions of our family? Why can't he have an English speaking mission like the rest of us? Hahaha, it's cool, I'm excited for him, but not really, I hoped he'd come to Georgia, but it's still cool.

How was your week?

I was just comparing temperatures and you are still the warmest in the 50's.

Daniel is almost up there, and we're freezing in UT!
I'm glad we didn't find a place in Centerville after all. They had winds last
Thursday up to 102 mph. A lot of trees, fences and you name it was blown
down or blown away. They were without power over 72 hours.
The big pine tree in Kaleen's back yard that was near their neighbor’s house
fell. Thank goodness it didn't fall on either house. Farmington had winds
almost as bad as Centerville. They cancelled church today (Sunday) so
everyone could prepare for the big winds they are supposed to get Sunday
night and Monday.

It's been in the 60's a lot, too. It's taking a little longer to get cooler here but I'm not complaining the weather is so nice, I'm still in short sleeves.

Wow, did everybody stock up on milk and eggs?

If he [Daniel] calls [around] 6 or 7 your time then I definitely couldn't call. We're going over to the member’s home at 2:30, I don't know when we'll eat. I'll say 7 or 8 my time for now, I'll get back to you later on that.

The week was pretty good. The Christmas Devotional was pretty cool, especially the video they showed during President Eyring's talk. We also went to Zed's [a resent convert of Tyler’s] and we taught his brother and sister-in-law. Zed wanted specifically me to teach his brother and he thought it would be cool if I baptized him as well. They're an awesome family. It was a bittersweet moment when I saw Gabriel (the baby) and how much he's grown when I last saw him. Everything just seems so different. Super nice house, the two kids gotten bigger. Same family though, they haven't changed. That was pretty much the highlight of my day.

We had a baptismal interview with one of our investigators with one of the Mission Presidents Counselors. He got here when I was in the middle of writing back. He told us he just got called to be a Mission President! He's going to serve a Spanish Mission so the first thing that came to my mind was Argentina? But he doesn't know yet.

-Elder Garcia