Spinning Our Wheels!

 

 

 

Hey everyone another week has come and gone. This week we have been really busy. I went on exchanges, had my first baptism, and confirmation. We have not been teaching a lot lately. I guess you would say we have been "spinning our wheels." We have so many investigators and potential investigators we have to meet with, but they are all so hard to get in touch with and set up a time to teach them. We are stuck because our investigators can't learn more and progress, if we are not meeting with them. Hopefully everything will turn around for this next week.

 

I went on Exchanges with Elder Perez our district leader. Unfortunately he is a Spanish speaking missionary. So I spent most of the night just nodding my head, and smiling while trying to understand. I felt useless. I could not understand anything they said and they could not really understand anything that I said. I felt bad for Elder Perez because he had to teach everything. The only thing I did was say the prayers at the end of each lesson. I could not imagine having to teach in a different language. It is hard enough for me to teach in English, let alone in Spanish. You would first have to learn the lessons in English then re learn them all again in a different language. It was a good experience though. When you are on exchanges you are with your new companion for 24 hours so that means you have to sleep over at their apartments. At Elder Perez's apartment they have what they call the "Hammock Challenge." The hammock challenge is you sleep in a narrow, uncomfortable hammock for the entire night. It does not sound bad, but let me tell you there is a reason that I am only the third person ever to do it. It is horrible. I will never do it again.

The Baptism was scheduled for Saturday, but our ward mission leader did not reserve the building so we had to move it to Friday, July 26. It went alright I guess. There was not a member of the Bishopric there, when it was time for the baptism so we had to wait for one to show up. When they showed up I baptised Moises. We went into the water and it was really hot, and was not deep enough. After I had said the baptism ordinance, and it was time for Moises to go under the water. Since the water was low I had to get Moises fully submerged, I had to almost push him under. This caused his feet to slip out from underneath him. Luckily I caught him and was able to help him back up. It was really awesome to get my first baptism under my belt. 

 

When it was time for the confirmation on Sunday during sacrament Meeting. Moises and Rohit were not on time. They didn't show up until the sacrament. So we had to do the confirmation after the sacrament. It was crazy Elder Moon and I were out looking for them every where and making calls to try to get them there. Fortunately it all worked out.

 

I love you all. I am in the long process of writing Thank Yous to everyone. I only have time for 2 or 3 each P-day so please have patience with me. If I don't respond right away I am doing my best in the limited amount of time that I have to Respond to everyone. Thanks again for all that you do for me.

 

Love

 

Elder Jaden Paget

Crazy Cardiff!

 

 

This week was super busy. There is so much going on. Elder Moon and I have been going crazy, we have so many investigators we don't really know what to do. We have about 10 investigators, and about 10 Less active members or recent converts that we teach every week. The Cardiff ward is on Fire! Last year they had no baptisms and already up to 7 this year. Our Mission President, has seen this and has decided to send another set of Elders to help cover our ward. They will be transferred on August 13. It is really cool because Elder Moon and I were able to decide the boundary with the bishop and ward mission leader. We split the area in half creating a West and East area in our mission.So of course we took the west because of the beach, and we live in the area already. So I am Excited to stay so close to the coast. The weather is perfect here it is always 75 degrees and sunny, with a cool ocean breeze. I am so blessed to be in paradise.

 

On Saturday we will be able to baptise two boys named Moises and Rohit. We had their first lesson with them on the first day I arrived. I also committed them to be baptized. I will be baptizing Moises, and elder Moon will be baptizing Rohit. I am so excited, but nervous at the same time. Moises and Rohit have made so much progress in the three weeks I have been here. It is so cool to see them have a change of heart and follow our Savior Jesus Christ.

 

Last Wednesday, we had a BBQ with the graduating seniors in our ward. This was so we could help one of our investigators, Savannah, get her parents to get to know members of our ward. Savannah also wants to get baptized but since she is 17 years old, she needs her parents permission. So to help get her parents permission, we though it would be a good idea to invite her parents to be more comfortable with members. It was a lot of fun. Brother Stevens, a ward missionary, baked a tiki cake that looked so cool. He is amazing, he bakes cakes for every occasion. He is also baking a cake for the baptism on Saturday. So far Savannah's parents had a good time and they are more comfortable with letting Savannah be baptized. However they still have concerns. We are going to hopefully have a lesson with them to answer any questions, or concerns they have.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love it here in Cardiff-By-The-Sea, California. My testimony has grown so much, it has also been tested a lot too. However I find that the more people question my testimony and tell me that I am a Liar, the stronger my testimony gets. "You receive no witness until after the trial of your faith" Ether 12 : 6. My testimony will only get stronger the more it is tested, and it is tested everyday. I know that the Book of Mormon is true and that the only way to find out for your self is to read it and ask God. I have asked God, and received that witness for my self. I testify that it is True.

 

Elder Jaden Paget

A letter from my little sister...

DEAR JADEN. I HOPE YOU ARE HAVEING A GOOD TIME THERE. I MISS YOU. AND I LOVE YOU. AND I MISS YOU TAKEING US TO SUBWAY TO. I KNO THAT BECUESE WHEN I GOT YOUR NOTE THAT YOU SENT ME. IT SAID IT IN MY NOTE. YOU GAVE ME. AND THANCKS FOR TELING ME THAT YOU LOVE ME. BECUESE YOU HAVE NEVER SAID THAT TO ME BEFOR IN MY LIFE SO THANCKS.FOR SAYING THAT TO ME. AND I MISS YOU PLAYING WITH ME. SO PLEASE COME BACK BUT IF YOU COME BACK YOU WONT GET YOUR ROOM BACK BECAUSE  WE PAINTED YOUR ROOM YELLOW FOR CAMI SO YOU WILL HAVE TO SLEEP ON THE COUCH. SO THAT IS IT SO LOVE YOUR FAFRET SISTER SOPHIE

   

Encinitas home!

Elder Paget's room!  Love all the white shirts, ties, & suits!

Cardiff By The Sea

Hi, I have your son in my kitchen. Here is a cute photo of him. He gave my sick son a blessing.

I received this sweet facebook message last night!

Here is Jaden's letter he sent today!

 

First of all I would like to start by thanking everyone for all their love and support. It has really been a huge blessing in my life. Missionary work is hard and I love all the letter of encouragement I have received over the past few weeks. It has helped me give all that I have got to the people here in Cardiff-By-The-Sea, California. Over the last week we have had my different opportunities to serve them.

 

Monday ( July 9) was awesome it was the first time I was able to drive. I am the designated driver in my companionship. Usually they don't let new missionaries drive for at least 6 months. However my companion got in a car crash and has his driving privilege temporarily take away. I feel bad for Elder Moon, but then again I am driving a brand new 2013 Toyota Camry. Lets get back on topic you don't want to hear about me driving you want to know the experiences I have had. After going to a zone meeting, we had a cool teaching experience. We taught a 21 year old named Eric. Eric at the beginning of the lesson kept saying "you are wasting your time, I am not going to change my religion." We started to teach him about the restoration. How God is our loving Heavenly Father, and he wants what best for us. He has restored his church again on the earth. You could see that Eric was having a change of heart as we taught him. When I recited the first vision to him, the spirit was so strong. It was an undeniable feeling of truth. By the end of the lesson he accepted a copy of the book of Mormon and told us he would start reading it. It is amazing to see such a change is such a short period of time.

 

We had some great contacts over the last week, we ran into a guy named Fred, and his dog Churro. Fred is a 59 year old man, who is going through some rough times.We started to talk to him. He told us that he is going to turn 60 on July 24, he thought it would be time for celebration. Instead he will be spending his birthday in the court room. His wife decide that she wanted to get a divorce. He says he doesn't know why. If he used drugs, drank alcohol, or committed crime, he would know of a reason. He feels sad because he feels like he has not done any thing wrong. He works two jobs to support his family. He does everything he can yet his wife wants a divorce. He kept saying he feels empty inside. We explained that the gospel of Jesus Christ would be able to help him through his trials and give him the happiness to fill him. Elder Moon and I asked him if we could share a short message about Jesus Christ. We stood there is silence for about a minute, and he said. "No, I want to be miserable, me and churro, need to mourn." It was so sad. How could someone so depressed turn down the promise of happiness we extended to him? It was a great learning experience. Obviously the time was not right with him. We were able to give him our phone number so he could call us when he was ready. All we can do is pray that he will realise the great opportunity that he turned down, and remember to call us.

 

Sorry this weeks letter is so short. Next week will be better I promise you. This is just a taste of what happened this week. My mom will be posting my journal entries on my blog. So check there for more info. Once again thank you all so much. I love all of you.

 

Elder Jaden Paget

Letter from new Mission President

Finally an email from California!

HI These are questions that I asked Jaden and his responses....

 

aRRIVED IN cALI!

 

 

mY dISTRICT IN CALI!

 

 

eLDER pAGET & eLDER Fitzpatrick IN cALI!

 

 

How is California?  It is awesome, perfect weather.

 

1-Where are you - located?   Encinitas California, but technically we are in the Cardiff Ward in the Del Mar Stake.  It is the highest tithing paying Stake in the world. They funded the San Diego Temple. We are a half mile from the coast and we run over to it every morning.

 2- Do you have an address that I can send stuff too? Or a members home that is close by?  No you can only send stuff to the misson office.

3- I know that there is the mission home but when do you get the stuff if I mail it there?  Once a week I don't know I have only gotten mail when we arrived there.

 

4-Does it sit there for a while or is there a set day you pick stuff up from there?

         I don't know Mondays at District Meeting so if you send something it would have to  arrive by Friday so I can get it by monday. So you probably need to send stuff on at least Tuesdays Wendnesdays.

 

5-What have you been doing this past week?  Awesome the first night we committed to young boys to be baptised and we have 5 new investigators. Which is unheard of in our ward.

 

6- Who is your new companion? His name is elder moon.

 

7-Where is he from?  Plano Texas he was in the same ward with President Kendrick

 

8- Do you know what the new mission boundaries are?  How do I see them? No I don't know them but you can find them on lds.org

 

9- Have you thought of anything else you want me to send you? not right now

 

10-Are you teaching people? Yes alot of people. Most of them are just crazy. There is a huge Self Relization church on the 101 (Pacific Coast Highway) right by us and so most people around here just think they need to meditate to have a relationship with god and religion is point less. So it is hard to show them how it is.

 

11- What did you do on the fourth of July? We went to a party had pizza waffles pancakes you name it. They had a FHE activity. Out here FHE is a big deal. They have a pizza and swim party every monday night.

 

12-At church today they asked me what your favorite scripture is to put on your plaque for the hallway- let me know what it is. Alma 37: 44-45

 

13-Are you in an apartment or a home? We are in a members home the Andersons. They are super nice.

 

14-What eating places are around there? They have a little bit of everything. Mostly Mexican. We went to Chick-Fil-A yesterday and it was amazing.

 

15-Cami wants to know if you are close to the beach? We are super close. We are in between I-5 and the 101. The beach is only a half mile away.

 

16-What types of stuff do you want in your package? What do you not like in your package? Everything is great, I love all the snacks. There wasn't a way to put up the banner. The Glow sticks were cool but there isn't too much we can do with stuff like that because we are inside by 9 pm.

 

17- When I do a Dear Elder now- when do you get it? the same as a package?

 Dear Elder would be fine as long as you do it on a friday or saturday so that I can get it by monday.

18-What did you want me to do with the hair clippers?

 Take them back. I can't really do anything with them right now.

 

I will send you my Journal Pages I feel this is the easiest way so I don't really have to write it down twice. I don't really have time because I spent a lot of it answering questions. Do you like me to send my journal pages or would you rather me send you a long email describing my week?

 

That is Crazy that they hit a moose. I bet Grandpa is mad about it hitting his truck. Did they go up to the cabin for fishing?

 

I hope this gives you some info I will send a letter or email with more. I will send some pitures too.

 

Love,

 

Elder Paget

2nd letter!

My District

My Room

Leaving the MTC for Cali!

Mom,
Hey sorry I haven't been able to write to you. You can only write letters and email on p-days. Anyway there is not a lot of time to answer all of your questions so I have included my schedule and Journal entries for the first week. I hope this answers all of them. We fly out on Tuesday 7/2/13 at 8:30am on Delta flight 2295 to San Diego.

Question Answers:
I have seen Ciah about 5 times probably.
I have seen Brantly Thomas and a few others from Viewmont. There are 4 guys in our room. The food is good, I haven't really had a problem eating everything. Of course I have tried  the OJ, who do you think I am?

I apologize for not having any time with the Broadcast and Mission President Conference it has been crazy here.
Things I need:
Line of Authority
8x11 picture of George Washington praying
Send these to Carlsbad- please!

Anyway, again we can only write and email on p-day. I understand why you are mad that you have only received one letter. It is overwhelming to try and answer all of your questions. I appreciate that you are trying to stay in touch. However, I am doing the best that I can and I can only write once a week. We only have half an hour to email here in the MTC. I think I will have 2 hours in the field. I will try to send more info but at the MTC we do not have a lot of time. I hope we have more time in Carlsbad.
Love,
Jaden
 Elder Guerro says Hi
I am trying to get you pictures too. It probably won't be until next p-day.

Here are Elder Paget's Journal Entries from the first week:

 First day 6/19/13
Today was my first day at the MTC. I have learned a lot and have felt the spirit so strongly. I know this is the right thing for me to be doing right now. My companion is awesome! His name is Elder Kaden Fitzpatrick, he is from Payson, Utah.
The atmosphere here is like no else. It will be interesting  to see what happens tomorrow. I am pretty excited for Sunday. The First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will be here for a world wide broadcast that we will be able to attend at the Marriot Center. There are rumors that they are going to announce something. It is exciting. I am with 5 other elders and 3 sisters headed for Carlsbad. Time to go to bed, it is now 10:30pm.

Second Day 6/20/13
It was really hard to get up at 6:30am, we actually woke up at 6:15 to beat the shower rush. I was surprised there was a lot of Elders up. So we are getting up at 6:00am and trying again. I accidently left my temple recommend at home. So I have been given an opportunity to email my family on a day other than p-day. Today is Thursday and I need it by Wednesday so I can go to the temple with my district. The funny thing is my companion also left his temple recommend home too.  Anyway, today was another awesome day. We met our Branch President and his counselors, President Hatch. I hope tomorrow will be as good as today.

Third Day 6/21/13
The MTC is really tough. It challenges and humbles you so much. Today we role played a lot. In the role plays we teach Elders or Sisters as if they were a real investigator. We taught lots of lessons, and let me just say that I'm glad we still have a lot of time before we head off to Carlsbad, California. Today we learned what we need to do to teach better and so we can do better tomorrow. Today we got up at 6:00am to beat the shower rush and it worked so we plan on doing the same tomorrow.
Cool scripture of the day:
Luke 15:4-7, 10
Parable of the lost sheep, really good shows Christ's love for us.

Fourth Day 6/22/13
I am so excited for tomorrow, the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles are here at the MTC for sacrament meeting and the world wide broadcast. They say that they are going to change something pertaining to missionary work. They say it is the biggest announcement in 100 years. Lots of rumors...Book of Lehi, new scriptures, swimming, Segways, Ipads, 3 Nephi, you name it, it will change missionary work forever.the spirit is just so strong. Sorry don't have time to write too much, we were talking too much about tomorrow.


Fifth Day 6/23/13
Today we had a pretty exciting day. We had out first Sunday here at the MTC. We had sacrament, Priesthood and district meetings. We also were privileged to be able to attend the world wide leadership conference. The  First Presidency and most of the  Twelve Apostles were in attendance. Some changes made to missionary work: Missionaries are now allowed to use the internet, specifically Facebook, email, blogs, etc.. They also said that meeting houses will be open 7 days a week and missionaries will be there to give guided tours of them. The Spirit there was by far the strongest I have ever felt in my life. It was amazing to me that I went to the MTC just before all of this happened. What are the chances. All the missionaries from the MTC were there along with the 173 new Mission Presidents. I got all emotional when the choir sang "Hark All Ye Nations" and "Called to Serve". I really felt the love that God has for all of us doing His work. After all that we were discussing the broadcast and Elder Fitzpatrick got us off track when he told us that his dog's name was "Squirtle Lemon Orange Jello". we were all laughing so hard. We have the best District. In our District we have Elder Fitzpatrick, Elder Ball, Elder Day, Elder Solomon, Elder Guerro, Sister Farr, Sister Cavaretta, and Sister Broadbent, they are all Amazing!

Sixth Day 6/24/13
Today was a crazy, insane day. The day started off normal with personal study then a service project. After that we had a hard workout,  then we went to class. Just as class was starting an announcement come over the intercom for me and my companion to call  the front desk and they said we needed to go have our temple recommend interview with the MTC Presidency member. Earlier that morning we had found some books that are given to Spanish speaking missionaries to help them learn the language. We decided to pull a prank on our district and tell them while we were meeting with President Hacking, we were changed to Spanish speaking and that we would be heading to the Mexico MTC. Anyway, so we grabbed all of our stuff out of the classroom. Elder Solomon asked us what we were doing, we told him we had an important meeting with President Hacking and that they has told us to grab all of  our stuff. As we were heading to our meeting, Elder Fitzpatrick noticed he did not have his temple recommend. We decided to go anyway, after saying a quick prayer, we went inside and talked to President Hacking, he said we needed to find Elder Fitzpatrick's  recommend and to come back after we had lunch with the General Authorities and new Mission Presidents. So we went and had lunch with our district. After we found my companions recommend in the back pocket of his pants. Anyway so our district is asking us what is going on. We told them that we couldn't talk about it, but it sounds like we are being transferred. So we ate a quick lunch and headed back for our meeting. Everything went fine with our interviews, but they didn't have anyone to activate it. So we had to leave them in the main office, they told us to come back later and pick them up at the front desk. So we headed back to our classroom with our Spanish learning guides in our hand. We walked in and our district asked us what happened? We showed them our Spanish books and told them we were being transferred. They got all sad and said they were going to pray for us. After about 10 minutes we told them that we were just pranking them. They got so mad because they had started to get all emotional right before we told them. I felt bad but it was still funny!