Week 12 in Mexico Hermana Courtney Jones

Thank everyone for all their letters and tell them sorry if it takes a while to respond it just seems like the hour to write goes so fast now that I write Hal too. Thanks for the pictures, too. I actually laughed out loud when I saw Dans face at the airport. Everyone gave me weird look,s but that's ok. There is something weird on the mission that you don't miss your family because you are so busy and focused on the work but your love for your family grows stronger and stronger every day. I think a lot of it has to do with teaching people that their family can be together forever and realizing every day how much you want what you are teaching for your own family.

We had transfers this week and my companion and I are together for another change! It is crazy because that hardly ever happens with our mission president! Since I am with my companion this change I have one more change after that after she leaves which means I will probably be here in El Oro for the whole summer. At the beginning of my change here I was praying every day that I wouldn't have more than one change here but about half way through the change I started praying that I wouldn't leave. It is funny how things change but I have grown to really love it here. 

The members are amazing, and this Sunday was probably the best Sunday of my life, although really hard. It is a long story, but pretty much this week my companion and I were fighting to get a baptism. We were going through the binder looking for anyone from other missionaries who had baptisms and could get baptized that Sunday. We finally had someone, Genaro, who had 4 assistencias a la iglesia! We went to look for him and he lived in the woods and we searched for his house for 2 hours and couldn't find it. We were super depressed but we decided Heavenly Father would help us find it when it was time. Then 2 days later we contacted a lady in the street and she said we could visit and gave us her directions( its really hard here because no houses have addresses people just say go by the church and across is a big tree, walk straight for a while and you will see a big rock turn there, etc.) Anyway, we found a house that we thought was her house but it wasn't but as we started talking to the person she told us that her brother had listened to the missionaries about a year ago. When we asked her who her brother was it was Genaro! We found out where he lived and went and visited. After two visits he said that he would be baptized that Sunday and passed his interview. Then though on Sunday he didn't come to church. We went to his house every hour  but he wasn't there. We were super sad because it was our one baptism what we had worked the whole 6 weeks for and he didn't come.

I felt really strongly that we needed to visit him one last time and at 6:00 at night we visited, and when he opened the door he started crying. He had had problems with the word of wisdom before, which is why the missionaries before stopped visiting when he didn't stop but when we visited he had gone 2 months without breaking the word of wisdom. When he opened the door he said that he was afraid to be baptized which was why he didn't go to church but afterwards felt so terrible he was about to start drinking again but that was when we knocked on his door. He wasn't baptized this week but we have hopes that he will be baptized the next week so keep him in your prayers. 

This week was amazing, though, because we had our ward conference and our little branch is officially a ward! We didn't have any baptisms this cambio and the elders only had one but at the beginning of the cambio there were 80 active members and this Sunday there were 162 people at church. Looking back on this cambio I think I have learned more in 6 weeks than the rest of my life combined. I learned that heavenly father loves every single one of his children and someone coming back to church is just as rewarding as someone new at church.

This week so many things went wrong. The thing that I think I have learned the most is how to find joy even in times of trial. One day it was freezing cold and raining but we were working with the Elders and our zone leader started jumping in the puddles and spraying us with water. A terrible day turned into one of my favorite memories from the mission. Also me and my companion fell in a mud slide and were covered in mud and our dresses were filthy but so many people laughed and talked to us that day and asked why we were out working on a day like that. We got 6 new investigators that day just because we were covered in mud walking in the rain and people wanted to know why. I know that Heavenly Father has a plan and many times the plan heavenly father has is not the plan we have for ourselves but looking back I wouldn't want to change anything.

Ok more stories from the week...I no longer have eyebrows or eyelashes so I don't know when the next time I will be putting pictures up of myself will be:) I was turning on the furnace but it wouldn't turn on so I went to look and... PHOOM... baptism of fire! I learned a lesson that day. Never put your face close to a furnace. Luckily I didn't get burned just my face no longer has any hair. Also I started doing my personal progress with my companion in Spanish. She is a convert so never did it so she is working on it now. It is actually so fun. Right now on P-days I am teaching her to the play the piano for her knowledge project she is going to learn 4 hymns and then play them one day in church. She told me I should do the experience where you are nice to someone in your family for two weeks and give them nice notes and give them compliments. Since she is the only one living with me she counts as my family. She is so funny sometimes.

The only person leaving is our District leader this cambio, which I am kind of sad about because I have never met someone who is always so happy. This change he had major back problems and has a infection in his intestines and gastritis and yet he is always trying to cheer us up and always laughing and having a good time. One thing he taught us this week that blew my mind was in Luke 10:30-35 he said to change the word Jerusalem to heaven, Jericho to the world, Levite to the law or justice, The Samaritan to Jesus Christ, oil and wine to the atonement, the inn to the gospel, the inn keeper to the missionaries, and when the Samaritan returns to Christs second coming. My mind was blown when I read it with all the new words!

Anyway I love you all and hope you have a great week! Two of my favorite quotes from general authorities this week were "doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith". The other one is along the lines that "if blessings came immediately after we choose the right and consequences immediately after we chose wrong everyone would choose the right and there would be no reason to come to this earth". I know that when we let God lead our lives everything will eventually turn out.

Love Hermana Jones

Oh, and favorite scripture this week Romans 5:1-6

P.S every member a missionary, the way the missionaries have success is when the members are giving them people to teach. People are much more likely to invite someone into their home who their friend has said great things about and that this person has blessed their life as opposed to a person that they just met in the street!

I don't know if you can see it very well in this picture, but the little city in the middle of all the mountains is El Oro where we live and then all the mountains around it are the pueblos where we work every day.  Every mountain is a different pueblo.