Week 23 Hermana Jones

I hope everyone is doing super great this week! I loved getting all the pictures.  It is funny to see people from home and sounds like you had a great time at the bee party and during Tyler's eagle project.

So this week was a little hard, but it was good. At the beginning of this week I made the goal that I was going to be the best missionary that I possibly could. I am just going to tell you that's a bad goal as a missionary because it almost guarantees that the week is going to have lots of challenges. This week we pretty much walked to Africa ha ha ha, just kidding! but it was super far, looking for investigators.  I got so sunburnt, but luckily not on my face.

Also, I stepped on a rusty nail so...I had to get a shot.  After I stepped on the nail, it started healing and then I got the same foot run over by a taxi! What are the chances of it happening to the same foot? We also had a lot of investigators drop us this week, which was a little hard, but I am sure we will find more this week! Anyway, I know that Heavenly Father was helping me be the best missionary I could be this week because we showed what kind of person we are going to be in our trials not in the easy times.

I also got the package this week, though, so that was super awesome :) I am sending you guys a package and it actually is all of your Christmas presents because I have no idea how long it will take since your letters still haven't gotten to you. If you get it early though, you can't open it until Christmas!! just kidding, I wouldn't do that to you, you can open it when you get it.

I have been watching the Doctrine and Covenants movies because I haven't been able to sleep very well this week, and they are so good. One of my favorites is about forgiveness and it is the story of W.W Phelps.  It tells how he was the cause of a lot of Joseph Smith's hardest trials in his life but when he asked for forgiveness, Jopseph freely forgave him and asked the church to let him back into the fold.  Then my favorite part of the story is that W.W Phelps wrote the Hymn"Praise to the Man." There are so many stories in the Doctrine and Covenants movies and history of the church that I didn't even know and they are so good.

One of the ones that I have watched at least ten times now is the one about Emma Smith and it shows all her trials and her hardships and I think I cry every time especially when she is standing with Joseph and he tells her that it is his time. I just love watching it, though, because I just think if she can make it through all of that I can easily make it through anything that I am experiencing in my life. I also love the story about how when the Saints' water was poisoned a lot of people started to complain but Joseph just went and started digging for water. I love that example for us because when hard things are happening we shouldn't complain, we should trust in the Lord and go out and do something.  I just have a lot of random thoughts from my studies but a quote I loved was " We aren't obedient because we are blind, we are obedient because we can see."

This week I also had a great experience. The Reyes family has not been to church in three weeks, so we went to look for them, but we went last week in the rain and mudslides and after we were thoroughly wet and dirty we gave up.  We looked again this week and still couldn't find them when we ran into a investigator who knew where they lived, and when we got there the bishop was there. Then five minutes later someone yelled "Good Afternoon!" and another family came to visit and then another and then another. We ended up with 20 people in their little tiny house on top of a mountain that cars couldn't go up.  Some of the members had walked ten miles from their house to get there. It was one of the best experiences I have ever seen because this family did not have money to come to church that week but the Mom was just crying she was so happy that her "Family" had cared enough to come visit her. I know that it was the Holy Ghost that gave us all the idea to come visit her and there were so many things that had to come together to be able to find her house. I think that was one of my favorite experiences here in the mission because the world would call it coincidence that we found an investigator who knew the way, or that we had all had the idea to visit this family at the same time but I know that Heavenly Father loved this family and he needed them to know he loved them so sent us all to show his love for them. I hope you have a great week and love you all!

The pictures are fiesta bread and another creature visiting our home.

Love Hermana Jones