A winning week!

 We won our 3rd tray of beef steak sandwiches from a place called Kinder's.  We let them know they might want to pass up our name next time but the manager said they are trying to give away sandwiches each week and most people don't answer their call, so they are glad that we do.  We are happy to share 12 big sandwiches (worth $200.00) with the service missionaries serving at the Bishop Storehouse.  

     We are now up to 115 job seekers.  We continue to have more and more people come in. We help them write up a new resume, coach them how to network, and encourage them to join the classes the church offers on-line such as "Active Job Seekers", "Interviewing Skills" and "Finding Job Leads."  We can hardly keep up, so we are super grateful we found a young man who was just set apart as a service missionary to help us.  He works full time but loves this kind of thing so he spends time in the evening calling and talking to people to help them further in their job search. 

      In our week we enjoy serving in an English Connect class and at the Food Bank.  We also enjoy time at the Family Search Center and the Oakland Temple.   Saturday we took a ferry to San Francisco and walked to the start of the Chinese New Year's Parade.  Perfect place for pictures with dragons.  #year of the dragon! It is the oldest and largest Chinese New Year parade in the United States.  We were so happy to have the opportunity to go.  

     Today we took a friend to church, then went to another ward where the members afterwards enjoyed visiting outside the building in the warm sunshine.  We spent some time relaxing in a nature park before going to a baptism of a friend we met at the Employment Center who has been around the church for 8 years. It was so nice to be invited to this happy event and hear his testimony interpreted by the sister missionaries from Chinese into English.  

     So the sandwiches were nice, but the joy of seeing someone choose to Follow Jesus Christ is what it is all about!

     Our Love to You,

Love Elder and Sister Jerman

     

     

Extended P Day

 We had the opportunity to take a little timeout to get some real home cookin’ at actually our folks home in Tremonton, Utah!

We were able to fly home and see Kaleen’s parents, tend our grandkids, Kora, Dottie, and Remi, see some of our own kids, and get most of our family together for some fun and games. 

We went to church with Kayleigh’s family and blessed Dottie, built a snowman together and as a bonus, Brett scored two tickets to the Jazz game, so I enjoyed cheering for the Jazz with him as we played the Golden State Warriors from of course- the Bay Area. 

Families and friends are the best! Thanks to you all for your support and love - we are so blessed by your prayers and thoughts on our behalf. We especially are indebted to our Savior, Jesus Christ and acknowledge His hand in our lives. We love President Nelson and his amazing insights. He recently said that, 

“In a coming day, you will present yourself before the Savior. You will be overwhelmed to the point of tears to be in His holy presence. You will struggle to find words to thank Him for paying for your sins, for forgiving you of any unkindness toward others, for healing you from the injuries and injustices of this life.

You will thank Him for strengthening you to do the impossible, for turning your weaknesses into strengths, and for making it possible for you to live with Him and your family forever. His identity, His Atonement, and His attributes will become personal and real to you.

But you don’t have to wait until then. Choose to be one of His true disciples now. Be one who truly loves Him, who truly wants to serve and lead as He did.

We love you so very much,

Elder and Sister Jerman 

Walk, talk and pick up trash along the country road in Tremonton

What a treat!

Roger took Kora up Payson Canyon to find Olaf. 

Jazz vs. Golden State Warriors 

Blessing Day for baby Dottie 

Numbers

 Hello!

I'll share a few numbers as I share our week.

     We took a friend to church yesterday. He hasn't been in a church since he was 13.  We were able to visit 4 different wards.  We don't get to all the meetings but we go to some here and some there, talking to Elder Quorum presidents and Relief Society presidents wherever we go.  We love meeting so many people! 

     We got home at 3:00 and could hear our neighbors had this football game on.  We don't have a TV but we determined we ought to tune in to see what all the fuss was about.  Elder Jerman kept changing who he cheered for as he really likes the Chiefs but then we are living in the Bay area. . . Hmmm, no fireworks around here.  Kansas City “Chiefs” won 25-22 over the San Francisco “9”ers.

     This week we finished inspecting 9 missionary apartments, sat in on 2 meetings, spent 4 days at the Employment Center, and helped with English Connect class one evening.  Elder Jerman wrote up multiple resumes while Sister Jerman worked at the front desk entering information for our job seekers.  We started with 40 job seekers the end of October and have stirred up a lot of interest due to visiting so many wards.  Luckily some have landed a job but we are now up to 110 job seekers! Help! We need help!

     We enjoyed doing sealings at the Oakland Temple and then serving at the Visitor Center.  The Visitor Center is open every day of the year, - yes, every day - every Sunday, and even Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas from 9:00am-9:00pm.  This year over 1100 people came through the Visitor Center on Christmas Day. It is much quieter now.  

     When someone walks into the Visitor Center we greet them and get to know a little about them, then we offer to have them sit by the statue of the Christus and listen to a 90 second sound track of the Savior's words found in the scriptures (available in 32 languages) After, they can watch one of the 130 videos we offer about any topic they might be interested in such as temples, the Book of Mormon, Jesus Christ, living apostles, etc.                                     There are also several interactive activities they can do like listen to Moroni 10:4-5 in 20 different languages when you open each corresponding book.  You can see models of ancient temples and then look out the big window to see the Oakland Temple and read about its history.  There are also huge windows that look out over the entire Bay area, including the Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge.  We have Book of Mormons in 115 languages to give away.  English, Spanish and Mam (a language in Guatemala) go out the fastest.  Sometimes a family comes in to open a mission call in the missionary room, or a couple gets engaged outside on the temple grounds.  It is all so fabulous! 

     The California Oakland/San Francisco Mission has missionaries speaking 9 languages -  English, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cambodian, Tagalog, Tongan, Fijian, and Samoan.

     We served one morning at the Food Bank distribution.  Several church and community groups gather to load the food that is divided among them. Then we go to one of the local Methodist churches to help bag up 90-100 sacks of food to give out to those who line up outside.  Later we enjoyed time at the Family Search Center doing family history and then a dinner out with a new couple who just arrived.  

      Saturday we got to go to Folsom and visit Jason, Taya and 2 little granddaughters.  It was fun to frost sugar cookies, play "Go Fish" in the sunshine out on the grassy hill, go on a nature walk, and then I got to go to a baby shower with Taya.  With 2 girls so far,  it was fun to see a lot of blue!

     We can hardly believe our eyes as we see the fields turning a bright spring green, tulips and daffodils blooming,  and blossoms coming out on the trees.  We are loving our winter in California!  We are loving our mission!

     Love Elder and Sister Jerman

Our funny neighbors

Can you tell I love this beautiful place!?!

Same overlook of the Bay Area

Blossoms and green grass!

Fun with family and granddaughters

Missionary Diversity

 (Elder Jerman wrote up this nice email) 

Well, things are finally slowing down! This past week we are getting back to normal after a busy month of working double shifts at the Visitor's Center and our normal shifts at the Employment Center. 

It was especially fun this week to have such diverse experiences with the different missionaries we work with. We were able to attend a dinner Monday night with the Cambodian Elders. They shared their testimonies with us after dinner and we were amazed at the perseverance these young men have and the dedication to the gospel that grows in their hearts. One young Elder talked about how he ran into missionaries in Cambodia and the Elders there invited him to church. He felt a great joy to hear about our Savior and after reading the Book of Mormon and knew that it was a true record of God's people. His family disowned him when he joined the church, he has no contact with them, so he plans to stay here in the US and hopefully attend BYU after his mission.

Friday we were lucky to feed a trio of Elders dinner here in our home. They all came from different backgrounds, one Elder from South Korea, who is an only child, one Elder from St. Louis, who has 7 kids in his family, and the last Elder who is Samoan, from Provo who has 13 brothers and sisters and more extended family that make a total of about 20 people living in a 4 bedroom house! The girls share 2 bedrooms while the boys sleep wherever they found a space in the family room.  In the morning he would find whatever clothes were clean and would fit to wear.  He said life was definitely a party growing up!

Sunday, we had an Emergency Weather Event hit the Bay Area with 60 - 80 mph winds in some places. The Atmospheric River has been pounding us recently and we've had high winds and rains with tree branches blocking roads and a few missionaries without power. The mission office contacted everyone to make sure all missionaries were safe and accounted for, luckily no one was seriously affected by the storm. 

In our neighborhood

We can count our blessings this week - for our physical safety and spiritual growth and evidence of God's love in our lives. How lucky we are to have the gospel's rich blessings and to enjoy your thoughts of concern and understanding of all of you amazing family and friends. Thanks for your prayers and support- We love you!

Elder and Sister Jerman

Picture of San Francisco from the news