Hey!

So I don't leave until thee 31st of March so I still have a week and a half left.  The only thing I would want before I leave for Mexico is pictures,   If you guys would be able to do that, I kind of want some family pictures, some Chicago pictures, BYU pictures like the fall ones that we took, or just any other pictures that you want to send :)   Just so I can fill up my little book with pictures and have them before I leave for Mexico.  Thank you so much and I hope that you guys have a great time on spring break!  I am glad to hear that Mormon prom went so well and that Audrey had fun. I am glad that she was able to find a dress. From Rachel's letters it sounds like Hayden's girlfriend was having a hard time finding a dress.   Hayden texted Rachel asking for dress advice and I guess a little later sister Moffat asked Rachel too.  That is good that everyone had fun and that Logan went! Take lots of pictures while you are in Switzerland and Italy so I can see what it was like:)

       So there isn't that much that has changed here at the MTC .  Except my companions and I are now the new sister training leaders for the Zone.   So we get to greet all the new people and show them around.  So that is cool :)  Also at main campus they have a huge map of all the missions in the world.  Hal has the smallest mission I have ever seen!!  We could hardly even find it because it is such a little dot!  It was so funny.  Also I met someone who served in the same mission as me and he told us all about Mexico.  It made me so excited to finally get there!   He told us that we should never take any medicine that members offer you when you get sick.   He made that mistake and it made it way worse. They gave him a pill that turned out to be pure coal.  It was supposed to get all the toxins out of your system but it made his whole mouth black.  He talked about how amazing the people are and how great the food is though.  So it is worth it to be sick a few times for it :)  

 

So other news we went to the temple today and did some sealings.  That was pretty cool. Missionaries are only allowed to act as the siblings and during sessions they are not allowed to be in the prayer circle.  It was cool to get to do those again before we leave.  We only have one more P-Day here in the MTC.  We will probably spend most of the day doing laundry and packing.

 

The funny story for the week is we practiced street contacting....but we are surrounded by a fence and the only people inside are members so we had to practice on our teacher and random missionaries that walked by...and on a random duck in the pond.  It was pretty great though!  I can't wait to start doing it for real.  Another thing is we have a teacher who is literally obsessed with Dan Jones.  He has us practice Dan Jonesing.   So we will go to a random place, stand on something and start teaching the gospel in Spanish. It sounds really weird.  It felt really weird the first time but now it is one of my favorite things to do.  It is just so fun. He went to Guatemala on his mission and he would do the Dan Jones approach all the time.  He would go to the front of the bus and start preaching the gospel.  I guess he did it enough that people started to recognize who he was.  He was so happy when I told him that I had a brother named Dan Jones but said Dan Dan has big shoes to fill :) 

 

Other news I guess this week someone broke into one of the girls apartments here at Y-view and assaulted someone.  So now there are roving security guards all night long. It is a little freaky because none of the missionaries have a phone to call if something bad happens.  I am thankful now that I have two companions living in our apartment now instead of just one! Everything is going great here at the MTC though. 

 

I am still learning a lot.  Since we are going to Mexico the investigators that we have are really good.  They try to make it like people that we will meet in Mexico.  Some are really Catholic, one can't read so it makes it harder for him to have a testimony of the Book of Mormon.  I got the picture book version of the Book of Mormon and read it with him at the beginning of each lesson.  We have some people who commit to baptism and never show up to church.  It is frustrating,  However,  I am glad they are giving us experience with all these different kind of situations before we get out on the field. I love the MTC but I am just getting excited to finally get out on the field.  Especially because the guy I was talking to today said in Mexico City they speak so much slang.   You will never learn how to speak how they speak here at the MTC.  Also I found out that there are only a few other white sisters in Mexico City West mission.  So all sisters go out for 1 transfer with their trainer.  Then they all become trainers because there are so few.  There are so many sisters coming into Mexico City this summer that sisters have to become trainers early.  So I hope I learn fast.  I kind of hope I end up with a native speaker at the beginning so I am forced to learn the language faster.  

 

That's pretty much all the new news I have for you guys and I hope that you are having a great time! 

 Love,  
Hermana Jones 

Dear Dad,

Thanks so much for the letter!  The photos and Facebook posts were so funny and exactly the kind of things I wanted to see.  I hope you guys are doing great!  I am loving it here at the MTC and it just feels like I am learning so much!

We have 3 investigators now.  Every other night they have church members come and talk to us in Spanish so that our everyday conversation in Spanish gets better.  They want us to get better at not just speaking Church Spanish but also just being able to have normal conversations.  Although my Spanish still needs a lot of work, I feel like I know it well enough that I can at least feel the spirit now when I am teaching.  I don't have to focus so hard on just what I want to say.  I have learned so much.  I can't wait for Hal to go on a mission so that he can see how great it is!  If I would have know what it was like, I wouldn't have questioned for a second if I wanted to go.  I got my visa a couple of days ago.  So it is official....I'm going to Mexico:)

Gym time is super fun here.  All the missionaries pretty much play vollyball and it is actually really fun.  Except one of the elders in our zone broke his ancle playing.  Also some of the elders in our zone were bending all the spoons in the cafeteria and they got in aa lot of trouble.  The police got involved and a few of them had to get reassigned to stateside missions because they can't get visas now that they have a police record.  So that is bad.

Other than that I love the people and I feel like I have never learned more in my life!

Love Hermana Jones 

Courtney in the MTC classroom

At train stop going to get her vista

Courtney's MTC Zone all called to Mexico

Courtney's MTC apartment

 

 

She scored the top bunk

Courtney and her District

Hermana Jones letter

On Wednesday, February 26, 2014 4:37 PM,

        Hey! So Wednesdays are my P-Day so we get to send emails. We also went to the temple for the first time today and it was crazy how big the session was they had room in one session for like 3 times more people than in the Chicago temple. I am so excited that both me and Hal are going to speak Spanish on our missions! What day did his call come? Wasn't peru where you kept saying what if you go there? If it was that is pretty crazy that you guessed it! I am so excited for him and that is pretty funny that he got called so early in the summer. So I already sent some letters home so I will try not to say the same things as I did in the letters, in case you haven't gotten them yet. But the MTC has been great. For devotional on tuesday they had a member of the 70 come in and talk to us and that was really cool. You won't believe it but David rule from BG2 was in my branch so I saw him on sunday. And then Janell Jones (scripture mastery girl) is here on the west campus with me. I love west campus though it is super great. Our lesson yesterday with Ricardo went so great we were able to talk to him and feel the spirit and didn't even need to bring in any spanish notes to know what we were trying to say.So I guess here on west campus all the investigators that they get are native speakers and the church will go to mexico and other Latin American countries and offer them a two year contract to come to the united states and work at the MTC. So that's why we have a mixture of members and non members here at the MTC but Carlos, one of our investigators now, is from Peru so he was so excited when I told him my brother was going there on his mission. He talks to me all about how great Peru is. So from what I have heard I am sure that Hal is going to love it!

        Also do you mind sending me grandma and grandpas address because they were really nice and sent me cookies while I have been here and I wanted to send them a letter. Also anyone else's email or address who wants me to write to them. Thanks for all your little letters by the way that definitely made the first week go faster! The first week here was so hard just to adjust to a very different life but looking back it has been great I feel like if you can just make it to your first Sunday everything gets better. I have gotten really good at volleyball here at the MTC because during exercise time that is like the thing to do. Also I am going to be here at the MTC for 6 weeks(don't worry I am still intermediate) but it turns out that you either leave after 2 weeks or after 6. I guess all the Asian languages leave after 9 now though. I have gotten to see a lot of people from my freshman ward up on main campus when we go there for devotionals.

Sorry that is so much and take your time it's nothing that is an emergency. But I just wanted to say hi and I hope you guys are doing great I am so excited for Hal and tell him I have another 3 letter acronym for him W.O.W word of wisdom. One of my companions loves dogs and she prayed last night that she would see a dog and I thought it was kind of weird until we found a stray dog at the temple! she picked it up and played with it then we brought it to the MTC office so they would find its owner. There have just been so many things that happened here that many people might say was just a coincidence but I know that it was a little tender mercy from God. I know that there is no way that I could go into those lessons and teach the gospel in Spanish without the help of the Lord. I know that he has given me my companions for a reason. I have already learned so much from them. Hermana HIcken has taught me how to learn spanish quickly and how to rely on the fact that if you know what you want to say in english and studied the vocab for the lesson you don't need to memorize the lesson word for word in spanish. If you believe that Heavenly Father will help you his words will fill your mouth and you never need to worry about what you need to say. Hermana Powell has taught me to talk to everyone even if we don't know if they are an investigator or not and even if they seem busy. It is because of her that we have gotten so many appointments with investigators and even though we don't know which ones are real and which are fake it is still great practice to be able to teach native speakers. I love my district so much! There are 5 girls and one of them is going with me to mexico city west. I just can't even explain what I am feeling here and the MTC but I am sure both you and Dad felt it while you were here as well. This week has been so hard because it seemed like every weakness and flaw I had was just highlighted but I know the Lord shows unto us our weaknesses so that they can become strong.  I am so grateful that I am, able to be a missionary of this church and I just want you to know I love you ( and the whole family) and even though I miss you guys so much I know that it will be worth it if not only we can spend eternity together but if I can teach other people that as well. 

                                                                                                                          Love, 

                                                                                                                                  Hermana Jones

Hermana Jones letter

On Wednesday, March 5, 2014 5:35 PM,

Hey mom! 

Ok so we only have an hour to write emails so I will try to remember everything that I wanted to say!  Ok first of all the Two people I never got the thank you notes to was sister brady and sister Erigo but I don´t know where they are. So if you could thank them in person that would be super great. Also could you thank Sister West for the letter that she sent and tell sister cook that I am so grateful for the cookies! They really made my day here at the MTC! Sorry I am asking you to do so much I just don´t know pretty much anyone´s email or addresses. Ok so first of all I actually have some questions for you because I was thinking about it and you probably could offer some insight here. So we have an investigator who likes the church but is already happy in their life and doesn´t really feel like they need to be baptized. So what were your feelings about the church because you were already a part of another church and probably were pretty happy with how your life was. What made you decide that you needed to do something else especially when it comes to following all the commandments? I know that's proabably a hard question but I have been trying to think all week why I keep the commandments and it is so hard to put words on it  or even know why other than that I know I will recieve belssigns from doing it. Anyway as you can see we have been having some struggles with some of our investigators they just ask so many questions that I have never even thought about once in my life and I have been a member my whole life!! The MTC probably does that on purpose but it is just so crazy that there is so much that I don't know in spanish and in the gospel. 

      Ok for my favorite scripture it is James 2:17-18. This week has gone by so fast-- we are teaching three investigators a day and some days go really well and some days we pretty much crash and burn but at least that is happening in the MTC and not out in the field. I think the biggest difference is if we feel really prepared in english we are blessed with being able to say it in spanish but if we focus more on the Spanish than the actual thing that we are trying to teach that is when bad things start happening in the lessons like one person never saying anything or start talking about something totally off topic. For the most part it is going pretty well here though and I think I have learned more in two weeks about the gospel than i have learned in my whole life. Also we are teaching three investigators a day now and than at nights we either read the book of Mormon in spanish out loud or we go down to the labs and listen to someone say something then repeat it and the computer records it so you can compare how you sound to how the native speaker sounds....as of right now there is a big difference haha. 

       Yesterday me and 20 other missionaries got to go out into the real world and get our visas. It was one of the best experiences I have ever had in my life. It is one thing to be in the MTC and be a missionary because it doesn't seem strange at all because everyone here are missionaries. Once you are out in the real world though it is crazy how much you stand out. We were on the train for most of the day and got to talk to so many people. It was crazy because even though we weren't in our actual missions we are still set apart as missionaries and it just seemed like everyone who was put into my path was there for a reason. The first man I talked to was a man who moved away from California to get away from drugs just to realize that there are drugs in Utah as well it was just so interesting to talk to him and hear his perspective. We pretty much looked like crazy people when we got to the visa office with so many missionaries. Then on the way home we talked to a blind man who was inactive but went to BYU for one year. I was so excited when he asked if we were missionaries after talking to him for awhile and asked how he could tell....but then I guess I had said companion at some point and it gave it away so it wasn't the glow of a missionary darn haha. Then the last person me and Hermana Wood ( she is the other girl in our district going to Mexico City and in the picture we sent you she is the shortest girl) started talking to this teenage girl who was thinking about going on a mission and felt like she should but kept second guessing herself. We told her all about our hesitations but how we were so glad we decided to come so I hope that we helped. Maybe even if we didn't make an impact in those peoples lives they definitely made an impact in mine. I just strengthened my testimony that Heavenly Father Knows everyone so perfectly and knows exactly whet they need in their lives. 

        Ok also another thing is I forget if I asked this last email but could you please send pictures of our family, of BYU( like the fall pictures that we took outside) and just any other pictures you feel like sending like of chicago or something because I would love to have them! 

        Ok so a little more about my companions. Hermana Hicken- she has the dark brown hair in the picture) is from Utah and lives about half an hour from provo and went to BYU for a year and a half and then Hermana Powell( long blond hair) is from Arizona but her Dad is in the army so they move a lot. Oh I forgot to tell you something really funny one of my teachers here at the MTC was in one of my classes at BYU last semester!!! It was super funny when he came in and acted like an investigator because I recognized him from my class. Also another funny one - Hermana Powell fell asleep during our session at the temple this morning because on P-Days we have to wake up half an hour earlier to do service in the morning. Anyway it was funny because hermana Powell started snoring and all the old ladies turned around and were giving us the death stare haha. Also last night for devotional one of the Seventy came in and it was literally one of the best talks I have ever heard. I never realized that in all the missionary scriptures where it talks about the field being ready to harvest that the sickle represents the book of Mormon. Another thing that I really liked what he said was that there is a reason that you are here at this moment that you got your mission call at this time. All you have to do now is figure out why. Another really funny thing that a ton of missionaries going to European countries say is every door knocked on in Europe is another baptism in Mexico so work hard knocking on those doors :) I always see all the little missionaries from Japan here too with their little head sets on and it makes me laugh because I know you would love it they are all just so cute:) Anyway the MTC is great the church is true and I hope that everything is going great at home and hope to hear from you guys soon. 

Love, 

Hermana Jones