Hey guys! so I don´t really have much time to write today because we´re
going to Skype on Friday! woo. So I´m assuming that your Skype account
is still teresa4rpb, and that I am going to be using hal.jones52. I was
thinking about skyping at 10am on Friday if that´s okay with you guys!
My new companion is Elder Bates from Pocatello, Idaho. He´s awesome. His
dad served in this same ward and everyone recognizes him because he
looks just like him, so this week we´re going to try to visit some of
his dad´s less active converts to surprise them! I hope you guys have a
great week!
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Elder Jones week 79
Hey guys! good luck to Allison! Also congrats to mom and dad! We had a
great week! Alejandro and José are progressing really well for the 26th.
We had several investigators attend church yesterday and we´re starting
to see a growth in the ward. The secretaries also have several people
that are progressing. The young men are helping us with the teaching of
Alejandro and José. The bishop is more involved with their progress now.
There is a good atmosphere in the ward.
On Saturday we went to the temple with the ward and Alejandro came. He stayed outside with the bishop. José is a lot less agnostic than he was when we met him. He´s exercising his faith. We still haven´t been able to teach Milagros but she came to church for the second time yesterday. Hopefully this week we´ll be able to find her. This was Elder Montoya´s last week in the mission, and on Thursday he had a self sufficiency training, so I was with Elder Ramirez from Trujillo for the day. He just barely started his mission. He´s awesome. We found 3 new investigators who are all family. Brian, 20 years old, Bryan, 18, and nayeli, 14. They are all really prepared. Things are starting to pick up in the sector and it should be exciting to see who is going to be my new companion tomorrow. Elder Price and Elder Figueroa are finishing their missions this week too, but Elder Figueroa´s flight leaves on Friday, so from Tuesday until Friday he´s going to be in a trio with my new companion and I. I´m excited to teach with Elder Figeroa again. He was my companion exactly a year ago. I´m happy. I still haven´t heard anything about my release date. It´ll probably be either the 7th or the 14th.
I had a really interesting experience this week. The secretaries are teaching someone with brain cancer that wants to get baptized. Her name is Mayte, and she is going through chemotherapy every day, which I assume is really difficult. The secretaries want to help her get baptized because she is reading the Book of Mormon and watching Mormon messages and she seems like she is progressing. They asked special permission from the president this week to baptize her because she can´t attend church in the mornings because the chemotherapy is really hard on her body. So president Larson wanted Elder Hulet and I to visit her with the other secretaries, interview her, and make a decision based on what the spirit tells us. When they told me about her situation it seemed pretty reasonable that we let her get baptized without having to attend church, but when we visited her on Saturday I felt strongly the impression that she needed to attend church to prepare herself for baptism, regardless of the toll the treatment takes on her. I invited her to attend church on Sunday morning. I promised her that it would be difficult, but that she would find the answers to the questions she has and that she will better prepare herself to get baptized. I felt that this was the trial of faith that Moroni talks about in Ether 12, that she needed to gain a testimony of this church, and that instead of trying to take away the trial which was given by the Lord, I should encourage her to overcome it. She came to church yesterday. And she stayed for the 3 hours. And now I know that when she gets baptized, she will have exercised the faith necessary to arrive at baptism.
On Saturday we went to the temple with the ward and Alejandro came. He stayed outside with the bishop. José is a lot less agnostic than he was when we met him. He´s exercising his faith. We still haven´t been able to teach Milagros but she came to church for the second time yesterday. Hopefully this week we´ll be able to find her. This was Elder Montoya´s last week in the mission, and on Thursday he had a self sufficiency training, so I was with Elder Ramirez from Trujillo for the day. He just barely started his mission. He´s awesome. We found 3 new investigators who are all family. Brian, 20 years old, Bryan, 18, and nayeli, 14. They are all really prepared. Things are starting to pick up in the sector and it should be exciting to see who is going to be my new companion tomorrow. Elder Price and Elder Figueroa are finishing their missions this week too, but Elder Figueroa´s flight leaves on Friday, so from Tuesday until Friday he´s going to be in a trio with my new companion and I. I´m excited to teach with Elder Figeroa again. He was my companion exactly a year ago. I´m happy. I still haven´t heard anything about my release date. It´ll probably be either the 7th or the 14th.
I had a really interesting experience this week. The secretaries are teaching someone with brain cancer that wants to get baptized. Her name is Mayte, and she is going through chemotherapy every day, which I assume is really difficult. The secretaries want to help her get baptized because she is reading the Book of Mormon and watching Mormon messages and she seems like she is progressing. They asked special permission from the president this week to baptize her because she can´t attend church in the mornings because the chemotherapy is really hard on her body. So president Larson wanted Elder Hulet and I to visit her with the other secretaries, interview her, and make a decision based on what the spirit tells us. When they told me about her situation it seemed pretty reasonable that we let her get baptized without having to attend church, but when we visited her on Saturday I felt strongly the impression that she needed to attend church to prepare herself for baptism, regardless of the toll the treatment takes on her. I invited her to attend church on Sunday morning. I promised her that it would be difficult, but that she would find the answers to the questions she has and that she will better prepare herself to get baptized. I felt that this was the trial of faith that Moroni talks about in Ether 12, that she needed to gain a testimony of this church, and that instead of trying to take away the trial which was given by the Lord, I should encourage her to overcome it. She came to church yesterday. And she stayed for the 3 hours. And now I know that when she gets baptized, she will have exercised the faith necessary to arrive at baptism.
I hope you guys have a great week!
Elder Jones
Monday, December 7, 2015
Elder Jones week 78
Hey guys! Sounds like everyone had a great week! Before I forget yes
please sign me up for summer semester at BYU. I hope Allison does great
on her Karate test! She deserves it! Also congrats to dad for getting
hired full time. That would be awesome if you guys lived in the house
across the street from grandma and grandpa! I´m not able to see the
christmas video.
We
had an amazing week! I honestly feel so blessed to be serving in an
area with so many strong church leaders. On Monday we had the family
home evening with Alejandro, Elder Godoy, and his family. Alejandro is
progressing so well. We had another lesson with him, his mom, and the
bishop this week, and the mom is more excited about her son joining the
church because the bishop is so willing to look after him and his
progress in the church. Also we are teaching José Chaman who came to
church for the first time yesterday. He is friends with the daughter of
Elder Moscosso. And today the Moscosso family is going to bring José to
the Area offices for some christmas activity with the area presidency.
José is really intelligent. And he didn´t progress very much before
because we wasn´t willing to accept many things that didn´t agree with
his scientific understanding. But teaching him made me remember a talk
from Elder Uchtdorf in the first general conference in my mission, where
he talked about how we could go back in time and tell people that there
are giant metal machines that can carry dozens of people thousands of
feet in the air at hundreds of miles per hour, and they would tell us
that we were crazy because based on the current human understanding at
that time, heavy things fall. But now, based on our current human
understanding we know that it is possible. So I used that example and
Elder Montoya used a scripture that talks about using the methods of men
to understand the things of men and methods of the spirit to understand
spiritual things. He really liked that, and now he´s willing to get
baptized on the 26th!
Last night President Larson invited Elder Montoya
and I to watch the christmas devotional in his house with his family. We
brought the Ortiz family and they really enjoyed it. Arantza left
yesterday morning to New York for 4 months through a work and travel
program, so they were feeling a little bit sad that their 2 eldest
daughters weren´t going to be home for christmas. I´m beginning to
realize how privileged our investigators are here. On Friday we had
lunch with the Ortiz family because Arantza was about to leave and
Arantza invited one of her friends that came to her baptism, named
Andrea. The word Lamanites was brought up and she asked what that meant,
so we explained the story of the Book of Mormon to her with the
pictures at the beginning of the book. She was really amazed and
interested in the book because she never knew what it was about. Their
daughter Arianna was watching the Lion King in the other room and while
we were teaching about the Book of Mormon the idea came into my head to
explain that the difference between the Bible and the Book of Mormon is
the difference between the Lion King and the Lion King 1 1/2 (the one
that explains the story of Timon and Pumba). It is the same story, just
from different perspectives and places. Simba, the son of the king,
appears in both. They really liked that example. Andrea is really
interested but she lives 2 blocks outside of the ward boundaries in
Lince. So we´re going to have to pass the reference. This week we were
looking for the address of someone we had contacted before and we
knocked on the door and a woman with her 3 year old daughter came out,
she was in a hurry, and she didn´t have time to talk, she wasn´t the
person we were looking for, but she asked us were our church was so she
could attend on Sunday. We explained where it was and we offered to pick
them up on Sunday morning and she said yes. When we came by on Sunday
morning she was all ready with her daughter waiting for us. She isn´t a
member of any church and she has never talked to missionaries before,
but she stayed for all 3 hours, and we have an appointment on Wednesday.
I´ve never seen that happen before on my mission, we still haven´t
taught her anything.
I hope you guys have a great week!
Thursday, December 3, 2015
Elder Jones week 77
Hey guys! Glad you all had a great thanksgiving! Wow I think I really
miss pad thai, I don´t even remember what it tastes like but I remember
that I really liked it haha. Everyone looks so different in the
pictures. I had a great thanksgiving. We went to Bolivar to interview
someone for baptism, but the sister missionaries could never find the
person when they went to pick her up, so the interview didn´t happen,
but we met a man from Cajamarca with his grandmother and they told us
that they had been robbed in Callao and they needed money to return to
Cajamarca. We couldn´t give them money but we offered to buy them food
because they supposedly hadn´t eaten anything since the morning. So we
bought them food and we got back to the apartment at 9:30 and we weren´t
able to eat anything for dinner on thanksgiving. But it didn´t really
bother me because I wouldn´t have known it was thanksgiving if I hadn´t
asked last week hahah.
On Tuesday we went to ChacraRios to study with Elder Martinez and Elder Yates, and afterwards we went to the institute building where the family history center is. They work there a few hours a week. We called Mario and asked him if he wanted to come over and do some family history. So he came, and now he has almost his entire 4th generation full and he found two of his great great grandparents! He was so happy because his family is big on family history but no one could find the names of those two great great grandparents. Now he has a lot of names to bring to the temple. On Wednesday we had our meeting with the stake president and President Larson, and while we were waiting outside the church for the meeting to start, Elder Montoya contacted a young man in the street. His name is Alejandro. He said that he lived two buildings away from the church and that he always wanted to belong to this church. So the next day, Thursday, we taught him in the church and he said he wanted to get baptized but he had to ask his mom. On Friday he came to mutual, and had a great time. On Saturday morning he came to a baptism with us with his mom, and he really enjoyed it. His mom gave us permission to teach and baptize him, but she doesn´t want to listen to us because she goes to another church. On Sunday he came to church for all three hours. Today we are going to have a family home evening with Elder Godoy and his family and Alejandro is going to accompany us. The have a son, Taylor, who is 16. On Tuesday he is going to play football with the ward. I am so amazed at how prepared Alejandro is and how willing he is to sacrifice so much of his time to pursue something that he beleives to be right. We hope that his family supports him.
On friday we weren´t able to do very much proselyting because we were busy doing administrative things and other bits of service. We were happy to serve but at the same time I felt a little bit overwhelmed because we are expected to find and teach people in our own sector as well as help out the other missionaries in the zone, and I felt like I wasn´t dedicating enough time to service in our sector. At the end of the day we were walking back to our apartment, and a man who looks like Wayne Rooney stopped us asking us if we had a book. He said that he had a friend from Utah that had told him that Mormon missionaries would visit him within the week. We gave him a book of Mormon and he said that this was the book that his friend had been telling him about earlier that day. He told us that it couldn´t have been a coincidence because he never gets home from work at this time. We told him that we don´t normally work around here and that we could send him the missionaries that do. He was so amazed, and he felt like it had to be from god. It was a good testimony to me that if I complete with my assignments to serve I will be doing what the Lord expects of me.
On Tuesday we went to ChacraRios to study with Elder Martinez and Elder Yates, and afterwards we went to the institute building where the family history center is. They work there a few hours a week. We called Mario and asked him if he wanted to come over and do some family history. So he came, and now he has almost his entire 4th generation full and he found two of his great great grandparents! He was so happy because his family is big on family history but no one could find the names of those two great great grandparents. Now he has a lot of names to bring to the temple. On Wednesday we had our meeting with the stake president and President Larson, and while we were waiting outside the church for the meeting to start, Elder Montoya contacted a young man in the street. His name is Alejandro. He said that he lived two buildings away from the church and that he always wanted to belong to this church. So the next day, Thursday, we taught him in the church and he said he wanted to get baptized but he had to ask his mom. On Friday he came to mutual, and had a great time. On Saturday morning he came to a baptism with us with his mom, and he really enjoyed it. His mom gave us permission to teach and baptize him, but she doesn´t want to listen to us because she goes to another church. On Sunday he came to church for all three hours. Today we are going to have a family home evening with Elder Godoy and his family and Alejandro is going to accompany us. The have a son, Taylor, who is 16. On Tuesday he is going to play football with the ward. I am so amazed at how prepared Alejandro is and how willing he is to sacrifice so much of his time to pursue something that he beleives to be right. We hope that his family supports him.
On friday we weren´t able to do very much proselyting because we were busy doing administrative things and other bits of service. We were happy to serve but at the same time I felt a little bit overwhelmed because we are expected to find and teach people in our own sector as well as help out the other missionaries in the zone, and I felt like I wasn´t dedicating enough time to service in our sector. At the end of the day we were walking back to our apartment, and a man who looks like Wayne Rooney stopped us asking us if we had a book. He said that he had a friend from Utah that had told him that Mormon missionaries would visit him within the week. We gave him a book of Mormon and he said that this was the book that his friend had been telling him about earlier that day. He told us that it couldn´t have been a coincidence because he never gets home from work at this time. We told him that we don´t normally work around here and that we could send him the missionaries that do. He was so amazed, and he felt like it had to be from god. It was a good testimony to me that if I complete with my assignments to serve I will be doing what the Lord expects of me.
I hope you guys have a great week!
Elder Jones week 76
Hey guys! I had such a great week! On Saturday there was a multi ward
talent show. It was a huge success. We were afraid that no one was going
to come, but about 150 people came! many of them were investigators.
The missionaries did a sketch on how it is better to find people to
teach through members than by our own efforts. It turned out really
well. I realized that on the mission, one can really develop acting
skills, because every morning we do practices where we pretend to be one
of our investigators and try to understand how he or she would act in
certain situations.
On Sunday morning right after ward council and right before church started we were a little bit discouraged because we were calling our investigators that told us that they were going to come to church and none of them were answering. So we decided to start asking people that always come to church if they are actually members of the church, with the hopes of finding someone that hasn´t been baptized yet. We found 2 people that I definitely always thought were members. One of them, Paulino, is the happiest old man I have ever met, and he told us that we could visit him this week. Also 3 different members out of the blue brought friends to church, and we have appointments with them this week.
On Friday we had multizone conference from 9am to 6pm, but it honestly didn´t feel that long. I learn a lot from President Larson each time I´m in a meeting with him. The zone seems more excited to go out and work hard after the multi zone conference. Afterwards I went on a companionship exchange with Elder Hulet, the personal secretary of the president. We found someone that has listened to the missionaries many times in her life, and has gone to church several times when she was living in another part of Lima, but she was never willing to accept "the book of John Esmith" (the Book of Mormon). But she wanted us to visit her because she has a family now and she is going through some problems and she believes that our message can help her and her family. Her husband is in the Peruvian air force, and he comes back December 6th. They´ve been married for 5 years, so that´s one hurdle less. We feel like they can progress.
This week we had to accompany the mission technician to an apartment in the zone that didn´t have light or hot water, and while we were waiting in a corner to meet him I saw one of my old investigators from Rímac!! It was Ricardo. He attended church as a little kid and his parents are members, but they went inactive before he got baptized. Now he´s 18 and living in our sector in Magdalena and he wants us to visit him again. We have an appointment on Saturday. I take this as my second chance to teach and baptize Ricardo because it has to be for some purpose that he moved to Magdalena. Out of all the people in Lima, it can´t be a coincidence. I hope you guys have a great week! thank you for your emails and I promise I´ll let you know when I´m coming home. Love you guys!
On Sunday morning right after ward council and right before church started we were a little bit discouraged because we were calling our investigators that told us that they were going to come to church and none of them were answering. So we decided to start asking people that always come to church if they are actually members of the church, with the hopes of finding someone that hasn´t been baptized yet. We found 2 people that I definitely always thought were members. One of them, Paulino, is the happiest old man I have ever met, and he told us that we could visit him this week. Also 3 different members out of the blue brought friends to church, and we have appointments with them this week.
On Friday we had multizone conference from 9am to 6pm, but it honestly didn´t feel that long. I learn a lot from President Larson each time I´m in a meeting with him. The zone seems more excited to go out and work hard after the multi zone conference. Afterwards I went on a companionship exchange with Elder Hulet, the personal secretary of the president. We found someone that has listened to the missionaries many times in her life, and has gone to church several times when she was living in another part of Lima, but she was never willing to accept "the book of John Esmith" (the Book of Mormon). But she wanted us to visit her because she has a family now and she is going through some problems and she believes that our message can help her and her family. Her husband is in the Peruvian air force, and he comes back December 6th. They´ve been married for 5 years, so that´s one hurdle less. We feel like they can progress.
This week we had to accompany the mission technician to an apartment in the zone that didn´t have light or hot water, and while we were waiting in a corner to meet him I saw one of my old investigators from Rímac!! It was Ricardo. He attended church as a little kid and his parents are members, but they went inactive before he got baptized. Now he´s 18 and living in our sector in Magdalena and he wants us to visit him again. We have an appointment on Saturday. I take this as my second chance to teach and baptize Ricardo because it has to be for some purpose that he moved to Magdalena. Out of all the people in Lima, it can´t be a coincidence. I hope you guys have a great week! thank you for your emails and I promise I´ll let you know when I´m coming home. Love you guys!
Sunday, November 22, 2015
Saturday, November 21, 2015
Elder Jones Week 75
Hey guys! so exactly the week that you asked me when I´m coming home, my
release date changed. President Larson is going to push back my release
date 1 or 2 weeks, so I will probably be getting home either the 7th or
the 14th of June, haha sorry. Hopefully I´ll be home for Courtney´s
wedding, but president Larson is going to confirm my release date a
month from now. But yea that´s great news!
My week was great! On Tuesday we helped the 4 sisters in Pueblo Libre move to 2 different houses. It took 7 hours. But it was a great opportunity to serve. On Wednesday we had the zone training in the morning and I think it turned out pretty well. I could feel the spirit. And then I went on a companionship interchange with Elder Berrios from Tacna, Perú. We were in ChacraRios and we had a lot of success. I had kind of forgot what it was like to be around people that aren´t super rich.
In the mission, we have a goal to contact 15 people every day, and on Wednesday with Elder Berrios we had contacted 15 people and it was 9:20pm and I was ready to go back to the apartment and Elder Berrios contacted someone else and he knew that we didn´t have a lot of time so the first thing he did was talk about baptism and he invited the person to get baptized, and she said yes! She has never been baptized, and she has 4 children that are above the age of 8, and she said that she felt like she needed to get baptized. So yeah, I learned quite a bit from that experience.
My week was great! On Tuesday we helped the 4 sisters in Pueblo Libre move to 2 different houses. It took 7 hours. But it was a great opportunity to serve. On Wednesday we had the zone training in the morning and I think it turned out pretty well. I could feel the spirit. And then I went on a companionship interchange with Elder Berrios from Tacna, Perú. We were in ChacraRios and we had a lot of success. I had kind of forgot what it was like to be around people that aren´t super rich.
In the mission, we have a goal to contact 15 people every day, and on Wednesday with Elder Berrios we had contacted 15 people and it was 9:20pm and I was ready to go back to the apartment and Elder Berrios contacted someone else and he knew that we didn´t have a lot of time so the first thing he did was talk about baptism and he invited the person to get baptized, and she said yes! She has never been baptized, and she has 4 children that are above the age of 8, and she said that she felt like she needed to get baptized. So yeah, I learned quite a bit from that experience.
We
had a training this week from president Larson about the Sabbath day,
that it is something that the first presidency is concerned about in the
church in all the world. We talked about how we can help our
investigators better understand Sabbath day observance before baptism,
and as we put that in practice this week we were able to bring many more
investigators to church. The entire zone improved in church attendance
of investigators. The Astete family came to church and another family
immediately invited them to a family home evening this week.
I hope you guys have a great week!
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Elder Jones Week 74
HEY GUYS! I´m so happy for Courtney and Stephen!!!! That´s such great
news. Did he talk to dad first? haha. My release date is June 1st. When
does Tyler graduate? That reminds me, I need to know if I should keep my
return plane ticket to O´Hare or if I should change it for a ticket to
the Indianapolis airport or any other airport near there. Yea I´m done
thinking about that now, I´ve still got a lot of time left in the
mission.
Transfers were last week and it looks like I´m going to be in Magdalena for 3 more months because Elder Montoya goes home in 5 weeks.
We had a great week! We went to the temple with Mario and his brother Mickey. Mario was baptized for his grandfather, and he had a great experience! Lucio and Zulema also came to the temple with their 4 year old daughter, Ariana, and they had a great time. They also had some great news! Ariana is going to go to a school where they require the parents to be married, so they are going to get married! woo. But they still haven´t done anything yet to get married to I´m trying not to let myself get too excited because this is like the 6th time they´ve told us that they´re going to get married.
We spent all of Friday and Saturday cleaning, painting, and fixing the house where the sisters in Pueblo Libre are going to live. It was a lot of work, but we´re glad that everything is finally ready for them to move in. I should have taken a before and after picture of the house like how they do in Hoarders.
Because we live so close to the offices and to a lot of hospitals, normally when someone in a hospital needs a blessing they ask us to do it. This week we had the opportunity to give a blessing in a hospital to a man named Gregorio. The Assistants told us that he has been anti-mormon for many many years, and never wanted to receive the missionaries in his house. His brother is a returned missionary and his sister and father are recent converts. When we entered his hospital room he was reading a Liahona and he was glad to see us. He was hospitalized because his blood pressure had been rising uncontrollably and he wanted a blessing. We gave him a blessing and we talked to him for a while and we could tell that he had been humbled by this experience. I could feel the spirit very strongly in the room with him and we taught him about Jesus Christ and baptism, and he accepted to be baptized on the 28th. When we left we both felt really good. He doesn´t live in our mission boundaries but he´s going to attend church where he lives.
Thanks a lot to Grandpa for the line of authority last week. I sent it to Ernesto this week and he really enjoyed it. His wife is a returned missionary and she remembered Howard W. Hunter from when she was baptized some years ago. I´m really happy here, and I´m really enjoying the ward. Have a great week!
Transfers were last week and it looks like I´m going to be in Magdalena for 3 more months because Elder Montoya goes home in 5 weeks.
We had a great week! We went to the temple with Mario and his brother Mickey. Mario was baptized for his grandfather, and he had a great experience! Lucio and Zulema also came to the temple with their 4 year old daughter, Ariana, and they had a great time. They also had some great news! Ariana is going to go to a school where they require the parents to be married, so they are going to get married! woo. But they still haven´t done anything yet to get married to I´m trying not to let myself get too excited because this is like the 6th time they´ve told us that they´re going to get married.
We spent all of Friday and Saturday cleaning, painting, and fixing the house where the sisters in Pueblo Libre are going to live. It was a lot of work, but we´re glad that everything is finally ready for them to move in. I should have taken a before and after picture of the house like how they do in Hoarders.
Because we live so close to the offices and to a lot of hospitals, normally when someone in a hospital needs a blessing they ask us to do it. This week we had the opportunity to give a blessing in a hospital to a man named Gregorio. The Assistants told us that he has been anti-mormon for many many years, and never wanted to receive the missionaries in his house. His brother is a returned missionary and his sister and father are recent converts. When we entered his hospital room he was reading a Liahona and he was glad to see us. He was hospitalized because his blood pressure had been rising uncontrollably and he wanted a blessing. We gave him a blessing and we talked to him for a while and we could tell that he had been humbled by this experience. I could feel the spirit very strongly in the room with him and we taught him about Jesus Christ and baptism, and he accepted to be baptized on the 28th. When we left we both felt really good. He doesn´t live in our mission boundaries but he´s going to attend church where he lives.
Thanks a lot to Grandpa for the line of authority last week. I sent it to Ernesto this week and he really enjoyed it. His wife is a returned missionary and she remembered Howard W. Hunter from when she was baptized some years ago. I´m really happy here, and I´m really enjoying the ward. Have a great week!
Saturday, November 7, 2015
Elder Jones week 73
Hey guys! I hope you all had a great week. This week was great. It was the last week of the transfer and we took a picture of all the missionaries in the zone. There is a tradition in Peru to hit people with eggs on their birthday, so after taking the picture we all nailed Elder Yates, a new missionary in the zone, with a kilo of eggs for his birthday. He had no idea what was going on, but he was a good sport about it, and his companion brought an extra shirt for him. This week we were 30 missionaries in the zone! because 2 of the new secretaries are being trained. Elder Dyches and Elder Montenegro. They`re awesome. Elder Dyches likes to run so we`ve been running together almost every morning this week. I am so out of shape. We went to the temple this week! I hadn`t gone in a really long time. We`re also going to the temple on thursday with the recent converts in the ward, so that`ll be exciting. This entire week we`ve been really worried about finding a place for the sister missionaries in Pueblo Libre to live because the owner of the house where they are living is going to sell the house on november 10th. An elderly woman that attends Pueblo Libre offered her house because after the death of her husband she moved to live with someone else in the ward and she wanted to offer her old house to the sister missionaries. On saturday we went to go check out the house and we learned that she is a hoarder. She doesn`t throw out anything. Her house is a very narrow 4 story building and she wanted to offer the first 2 floors to the sister missionaries. But both floors were full of things that probably have sentimental value to her and also a lot of things that I`m sure didn`t have sentimental value. But she wasn`t willing to throw away, or give away, any of it. So we spent about 4 hours on saturday carrying things from the first and second floor to the 3rd floor. We`re not so sure how hygenic it is to live in a house where the other floors are full of trash, but at least the first 2 floors are looking pretty clean.
We found several awesome people to teach this week. We found the Chaman family. The father is less active and the mom and 15 years old son, José, are not. The father, Enrique, is really good friends with our ward mission leader. Yesterday we went with him to visit Enrique for the first time and he was alone, but his wife and son were going to arrive soon. It really helped us gain their confidence that our ward mission leader was there. They listened to the missionaries about 2 years ago and José almost got baptized but they found out that their uncle was dying of skin cancer and the grandma was in deep stages of Alzheimer´s and they just stopped listening to the missionaries. Right now Enrique wants to come back to church. He`s been reading the Book of mormon since June when his mother died. They had a piano in the room and Enrique wanted me to play something on the piano when José came in to gain his confidence, because he likes piano, and I didn`t know what to play because they didn`t have any hymn books so I just started playing Clocks by Coldplay when he walked in and it turns out that he really likes Coldplay so we sucessfully gained his trust. He`s also really good friends with one of the daughters of Elder Moscosso. So we`re very confident that they are going to progress. José is going to play basketball with us and the Secretaries on saturday.
Sunday, November 1, 2015
Elder Jones week 72
Hey guys! We had a great week! We taught very few lessons in people´s
homes because almost all of our appointments fell through this week. But
we talked with a ton of people in the street. I started to get a little
bit discouraged because we weren´t finding anyone to teach and we
hadn´t brought anyone new to the church in a few weeks. But we had a lot
of opportunities to learn how to be persistent with the people we
contact and do all that we can to share our message with them even when
they are a little hesitant to listen to us. On Saturday we met a family
and we invited them to church. They said they wanted to go so we said
that we were going to come by half an hour early to pick them up. We did
and an excuse came up and they said they were going to go by themselves
but a little bit late, but we just waited for them to be able to bring
them to church. We ended up arriving at church 30 minutes late, but at
least they came! and we have an appointment with them on wednesday.
Yesterday there was a multi stake conference broadcast for all the
stakes in Peru and Bolivia. They really liked it!
Also
on Friday we visited Lucio and Sulema to invite them to a stake
activity for married couples. They really didn´t want to go because they
were going to have to wake up early the next day. We asked them when
was the last time the two of them went out to do something fun without
their children. They said 15 years. And when they said that they
realized that they needed to go. and the other ward members that were
there said that they looked like they were having a good time. Also they
went to a stake devotional yesterday for married couples. Elder Godoy
(an Area Seventy from our ward) and president Larson both spoke with
their wives. We hope that it helped them. They are so ready. Their
daughter in Utah was baptized on saturday.
I hope you guys have a great week.
Elder Jones
Elder Jones week 71
Hey guys! We had another great week. On wednesday the zone leaders and
sister trainers were supposed to have a meeting with Elder Waddell from
the Area but he was called to the presiding bishopric so he wasn´t able
to come. So we just had a normal mission conference. Last month our
mission was the lowest mission in the area for new investigators, but
this last week our mission came out as the highest in the area in
several key indicators. The zone is doing a lot better. We were supposed
to have 4 baptisms as a zone on saturday but all 4 of them fell
through. The district leaders are making sure that they´ll get baptized
this week. This next sunday there is going to be a conference for all
the stakes in Peru and Bolivia, so no one is going to get confirmed this
week and the next sunday will already be november, so October is pretty
much over already. We´re meeting a lot of new people every day and a
lot of them tell us that they want to get baptized but they just don´t
show that with their actions, like coming to church. Lucio and Sulema
were thiiiiiis close to making the decision to get married this week but
something happened and they changed their mind. This week for the first
time in the time we´ve been teaching them they read the book of mormon
together as a couple, and that is what made them want to get married. On
thursday we were on a companionship interchange and I was with Elder
Torgersen and he asked Lucio how much time he has attending church and
he said 5 sundays, but when he gets to 10... baptism. hahaha. I was soo
happy. They started planning their wedding and their baptism and
everything, but when we came back 2 days later something had happened
and they felt like they needed to wait more time before they make the
decision. The bishop talked to Arantza on sunday about it and he told us
that Lucio has the desires to do what is right but he made a bad decision a couple of days ago and that discouraged him a little and it
made him feel like he can´t change and that he´ll never be ready to be
baptized. So this week the bishop is going to visit him to try and help
him out a little. Their daughter that is in snow college in utah is
getting baptized on saturday! so that´s exciting. We´re planning a trip
to the temple with all the recent converts and we want to bring the
Ortiz family. We think it will really help them. Also speaking of the
temple. Jesus Pachas completed a year of membership this week and I
called the elders in Caja de Agua to ask about him and they said he´s
almost ready to get his endowment. He just needs to finish up some of
his temple preparation classes. I hope you guys have a great week!
Elder Jones
Sunday, October 18, 2015
elder jones week 70
Hey guys! I had a great week! This week we`ve been trying to talk with
everyone possible and invite them to baptism with a date. I can feel the
change happening in me. I feel like any sort of remaining fear I had to
stop people in the street to talk about the gosple has been uprooted.
The entire zone is getting better at it too. This week as a zone we had
more than six times more invitations to baptism with a date than a
couple of weeks ago. I feel happier and more satisfied with my work at
the end of the day now that we are really pushing ourselves to find new
people to teach. We had a few crazy experiences this week with finding
new investigators. So it turns out that Cruz and Ubaldina actually live
half a block outside of our ward boundaries, so we passed the referral
to Pueblo Libre, and they are going to get baptized in Pueblo Libre. But
in the same corner where we met Cruz we have found various new
investigators. Without fail everytime we pass by this corner of Arnaldo
Marquez and Rio de Janiero someone stops us to tell us that they want to
listen to the missionaries or some family member wants to get baptized.
It`s insane. But we`ve had several experiences on the same side of the
same corner. On that corner we met a guy from Switzerland that attended
church for 3 months in Switzerland and never got baptized because he
never prayed honestly to know if the church is true, and now he`s
willing to try again but with real intent this time. Also this week
while we were on the bus to go to Breña to interview someone for
baptism, an old investigator, named Luis, that I had never met called me
and told me that he wanted us to visit him as soon as possible and that
he wanted to get baptized. We visited him the next day and he told us
about a series of events that have caused some big changes in his life
and his priorities and that he had made his decision to get baptized! So
that`s good. Also this week we were on our way to an appointment that
we weren`t very sure about because it seemed like the person wasn`t that
interested when they agreed to let us come by, and a man asked us if we
had anything to read. We started talking to him and we were there in
the street talking to him for about an hour. He said that he wanted to
get baptized. we made another appointment to visit him and his family(
his wife and 2 kids) and gave him our number. yesterday his wife called
us telling us that she is a less active member and that after her
husband talked to us the other day he felt a lot better and that he is
really interested in joining the church and now she wants to start going
to church. The only thing is that this week they are moving to another
part of Lima outside of our mission. We`ve noticed this week that as we
talk to more people we find more people that are willing to accept the
gospel. It sounds pretty simple but it is the truth. I hope you guys
have a great week!
Elder Jones ps. Oh and also my mission president and his wife know the Lex family from
chicago. Sister Lex is sister Larson`s cousin. Haha small world
elder jones week 69
Hey guys! glad you all had a great week and enjoyed conference! We had a
great week! We worked harder than I think I`ve ever worked on my
misison this week, but still it`s not even close to the vision that
President Larson has for the mission. On thursday we had mission council
with President Larson and the other zone leaders and I`m really excited
about the new changes that are going to occur in the mission. They`re
going to help me stay more focused on my purpose as a missionary.
So
we`re teaching Cruz who is the woman who found us in the street saying
that she wants to get baptized. She attended the Saturday afternoon
session of conference and she really liked it. She told us that she was
going to be able to go to the session in the morning but didn`t show up
and she showed up a little late to afternoon session so we didn`t see
her come in. At the end of the session we were disappointed that she
didn`t come and when they turned on the lights and we stood up we saw
her! She`s still going strong for her baptism on the 24th. Also we met
her ex-mother-in-law who lives with her this week. Her name is Ubaldina
and she`s about 80 years old. When we came into the house to teach Cruz
and her grandson, Ubaldina walked in and told us that she couldn`t
listen to us because she`s catholic, but we invited her to come listen
to our message about Jesus Christ, and she did. At the end we invited
Cruz to get baptized on the 24th and she said yes, and before we could
even ask Ubaldina she said that she wanted to get baptized too! She came
to conference and she was sleeping through a lot of it but she said she
felt the spirit. I think just the fact that she came to the conference
is enough to show her faith in wanting to find out if the church is true
despite her physical limitations. She has a really bad gambling
addiction. She will leave her house and be in a casino for 3 days at a
time, and sometimes lose up to 20,000 peruvian soles or 7,000 dollars.
The baptismal interview doesn`t mention anything about gambling but we
definitely want to help her out with that problem. We have also been
teaching Cristian, who is japanese, and is a referral from the sisters
in Pueblo Libre. We gave him a tour of the church this week and taught
the gospel of jesus christ because he doesn`t know very much about Jesus
Christ. When we showed him the baptismal font and explained baptism and
extended the baptismal invitation, you could feel the spirit very
strongly and he accepted. He wasn`t able to come to conference.
I
got a lot out of conference this time. While I was watching, I tried to
write down introspective questions that came to my mind that I can
meditate on later throughout the week and in my studies, instead of
feverishly writing down every interesting sentence that I hear in the
conference. I hope you guys have a great week!
Elder Jones
Sunday, October 4, 2015
Elder Jones Week 68
Hey guys! I had a great week! I have a new companion! his name is Elder
Montoya. You killed his father, prepare to die. (Ha, ha, ha - joke) He´s from Juliacán,
Sinaloa, Mexico. He´s awesome. He´s also about to finish his mission. He has 21 months in the mission. I´m learning a lot from him.
So yea, to catch you guys up on what happened last week, I was putting in the zone achievements in the morning and we received news that one of the young men in the ward had tried committing suicide and he was in the hospital. So we went to the hospital to give him a blessing and then the entire day I was with Elder Anderson while he said goodbye to people.
On Saturday Arantza and Mario were baptized. And afterward Mario invited us and the mission secretaries to go eat chifa. He´s so happy. Arantza told Elder Dayton in her baptismal interview that the week before she met us she had been praying that someone would come to help her repent and feel closer to God. So that´s awesome. We´re still working on getting Lucio and Sulema married, they´re going through some problems right now that we don´t understand and we can´t figure out what is going on, but they don´t want to get married for now. But some good news is that Eugenio and Doris from Rimac finally got baptized on Saturday! I met them in March and I baptized their daughter Sofia and I got to go back to Rimac to baptize them. They were so happy. I´m glad things finally worked out for them.
We´ve met a ton of new people this week. The referrals have just been coming like crazy. So we should be having quite a few people progressing this upcoming week. On Saturday we were walking towards a referral´s house and since I´m the one showing Elder Montoya where everything is, I accidentally took a wrong turn and we could do one of two things; keep walking and take the longer route and at the same time keep my pride from getting hurt, or we could turn around and take the shorter route. We took the shorter route, and while we were on the shorter route a woman came up to us asking us what she needed to do to get baptized in the Mormon church. She had listened to missionaries in the past when she lived in Ica, but she never wanted to get baptized. When she saw us and she felt like she needed to get baptized and she wanted us to prepare her to get baptized as soon as possible. So that was the highlight of my week.
Also the Luis that we were teaching when I first got here, the one who almost got bapitzed and changed his mind after a few days. He lives with his aunt and uncle and cousin. His uncle, Leonardo, is inactive, his aunt, Rosalía, attends church every week with her nephew Lyon who is 11 who was baptized in August. Rosalía wants to get baptized but she can´t because Leonardo doesn´t want to get married. They´re really hard to teach because Leonardo and Luis don´t want us to enter the house. But this week we offered to do service and they let us in. We helped them put a ton of books into bookshelves in their library. (they´re super rich and love to read). And after that we taught them something short, and they came to church yesterday! So hopefully that´s not a one time thing and they´re actually interested in progressing. I´m learning a lot and I´m really excited for this next week. We´re going to have a lot of people to teach. I hope you guys have a great week! and congrats to Dan on his cross country meet!
So yea, to catch you guys up on what happened last week, I was putting in the zone achievements in the morning and we received news that one of the young men in the ward had tried committing suicide and he was in the hospital. So we went to the hospital to give him a blessing and then the entire day I was with Elder Anderson while he said goodbye to people.
On Saturday Arantza and Mario were baptized. And afterward Mario invited us and the mission secretaries to go eat chifa. He´s so happy. Arantza told Elder Dayton in her baptismal interview that the week before she met us she had been praying that someone would come to help her repent and feel closer to God. So that´s awesome. We´re still working on getting Lucio and Sulema married, they´re going through some problems right now that we don´t understand and we can´t figure out what is going on, but they don´t want to get married for now. But some good news is that Eugenio and Doris from Rimac finally got baptized on Saturday! I met them in March and I baptized their daughter Sofia and I got to go back to Rimac to baptize them. They were so happy. I´m glad things finally worked out for them.
We´ve met a ton of new people this week. The referrals have just been coming like crazy. So we should be having quite a few people progressing this upcoming week. On Saturday we were walking towards a referral´s house and since I´m the one showing Elder Montoya where everything is, I accidentally took a wrong turn and we could do one of two things; keep walking and take the longer route and at the same time keep my pride from getting hurt, or we could turn around and take the shorter route. We took the shorter route, and while we were on the shorter route a woman came up to us asking us what she needed to do to get baptized in the Mormon church. She had listened to missionaries in the past when she lived in Ica, but she never wanted to get baptized. When she saw us and she felt like she needed to get baptized and she wanted us to prepare her to get baptized as soon as possible. So that was the highlight of my week.
Also the Luis that we were teaching when I first got here, the one who almost got bapitzed and changed his mind after a few days. He lives with his aunt and uncle and cousin. His uncle, Leonardo, is inactive, his aunt, Rosalía, attends church every week with her nephew Lyon who is 11 who was baptized in August. Rosalía wants to get baptized but she can´t because Leonardo doesn´t want to get married. They´re really hard to teach because Leonardo and Luis don´t want us to enter the house. But this week we offered to do service and they let us in. We helped them put a ton of books into bookshelves in their library. (they´re super rich and love to read). And after that we taught them something short, and they came to church yesterday! So hopefully that´s not a one time thing and they´re actually interested in progressing. I´m learning a lot and I´m really excited for this next week. We´re going to have a lot of people to teach. I hope you guys have a great week! and congrats to Dan on his cross country meet!
Saturday, September 26, 2015
Elder Jones week 67
HEY guys so sorry about writing so late, and I`m really going to have to
write more next week because I don`t have a lot of time. In the morning
we came to write but there was an emergency with one of the young men in
our ward and we had to go to the hospital, then Elder Anderson had some
appointments with people from his old wards to visit them because he's
gone tomorrow.
But the highlights of this week which I will expound on next week are that Arantza and Mario got baptized!!! wooo! They are soo happy. Also, I got to visit Callao yesterday and all of Elder Anderson`s old sectors. Tomorrow I`ll have a new companion. I love it here. I`m growing a lot. I`m also figuring out how to learn from the spirit. I hope you guys have a great week and sorry for not being able to write very much today. I promise that next week I`ll be able to write more. Love you guys!
But the highlights of this week which I will expound on next week are that Arantza and Mario got baptized!!! wooo! They are soo happy. Also, I got to visit Callao yesterday and all of Elder Anderson`s old sectors. Tomorrow I`ll have a new companion. I love it here. I`m growing a lot. I`m also figuring out how to learn from the spirit. I hope you guys have a great week and sorry for not being able to write very much today. I promise that next week I`ll be able to write more. Love you guys!
Elder Jones
Ps.
Elder Anderson lives in American Fork. 20 minutes from BYU and he and
his mom have offered to let me rent out a room with one of Elder
Anderson`s other companions Elder Soria from Argentina. It would be a
lot cheaper. Just wondering what you guys think about it. Love you.
Sunday, September 20, 2015
Elder Jones week 66
Hey guys!! Glad to hear that everything is going great! Oh my gosh, Dan
is so grown up now. I can´t believe how much he´s grown while I´ve been
on my mission. He did a great job too in the cross country meet! Congrats.
We
had a great week. Still working with the Ortiz family. Last Monday we
had a family home evening with them and the Godoy family. Tonight we
have another one with them and the Moscoso family. The ward is still
working with us really well with the Ortiz family. Arantza is getting
baptized this Saturday!! Her parents will soon follow, once they get
their marriage figured out. This week we were teaching the Ortiz family
about the Word of Wisdom and it was really hard for them at first
because the mom really likes coffee, tea, and wine but two things really
helped them out. 1: that we had Manuel Ramos there teaching with us.
He´s 18 and he´s preparing to serve a mission. He was able to bear his
testimony and he helped them out a lot. And 2: We reminded them of their
testimonies of the Book of Mormon. Joseph Smith was a prophet because
the Book of Mormon is true. And thus the Word of Wisdom is a commandment
inspired of God. So they´re willing to keep the Word of Wisdom now. And
to bury their weapons of war they got rid of their cabinet that was
full of fancy alcohol bottles and glasses.
Mario
Gonzales will also get baptized this week! It´s kind of amazing how
quickly this change has been brought to pass in him. We met him a little
over 2 weeks ago and he´s a completely different person. He loves the Book of Mormon and church. We´re really happy for him and excited about
the change that is going on in his life.
This
week I was on a companionship interchange with Elder Martinez and
something he and his companion Elder Adams are doing is every time they
see a father with his children they talk with him. So we saw one who was
about 23 years old and he went over to talk to him. He wasn´t actually a
father, he was just playing with his older sister´s child. Then then
his younger sister who is 22 came running over saying that she´s Mormon
too and that she moved here from another ward and stopped going to
church when she moved. So we were able to teach her, her brother, her
older sister with the 2 year old son, and their mother. They almost got
baptized a while ago but just didn´t do it, but they´re really receptive
and they want to get baptized now that a lot of things have changed in
their lives. So we have another family that we are teaching! The Astete
Family.
So
yea I´m still happy. I´m learning a lot. I participated in the mission
council for the first time in my mission this week. That was fun. Well I
hope you guys have another great week love you all!
Sunday, September 13, 2015
Elder Jones Week 65
Hey guys! So I had a great week!! We saw so many miracles.
So news about the Ortiz family that I told you guys about last week. They still want to get baptized as soon as possible AND also their daughter that lives in Utah. Last Monday we visted them and they told us that they had just gotten off the phone with their daughter in Utah and it turns out that the exact same day that we started teaching the Ortiz family, their daughter started listening to the missionaries in Utah, and she attended church for the first time last week as well! This entire week they´ve been Skyping their daughter in Utah to tell her what they´re learning from the lessons and she tells them what she´s learning. They´ve also been on mormon.org a lot this week, trying to learn everything they can about the church they´re about to join. They´ve been going to all the church activities. They´re proactive with getting their marriage ready so we don´t even need to help them with that. In short, they are becoming their own agents and they are learning by faith. I can already see the change in them. We visited them with Ernesto, a recent convert who is about 30 years old, married with a wife and a 2 year old son name EJ. He´s really interested in their progress as well as every other member we see. They always ask us how the Ortiz family is doing, and everyone wants to invite them over for family home evening. Today they have a family home evening with the Godoy family. We´re really excited for them. Mario also went to church yesterday and he´s getting ready for his baptism the 26th.
I´m really greatful for the opportunity that I have to be here in Magdalena, even though it´s different from every other area I´ve served in before on my mission. I´m learning how to work more effectively and discovering new tools that weren´t available in other areas (for example easy access to mormon.org and strong member families). I have to rely a lot more on the Lord than on my own ability. OH also Elder Tejada that was in Callao with me is going to be one of the mission secretaries so he`ll be in my ward now!
I hope you guys have a great week!
Monday, August 31, 2015
Elder Jones week 64
Hey guys! I had a great week. We´ve been doing some interchanges and on Tuesday I did a companionship interchange with Elder Dayton, the mission
financial secretary. We had to stay in the office until 6 o clock. I
spent most of the time putting rubber bands on packs of contact cards.
It was a unique experience. But once we got out to teach we did a lot of
great work.
On Wednesday
Elder David A. Bednar came to our mission. I learned a lot. He knows how
to teach, and he´s hilarious. He talked a lot about learning by faith.
He didn´t give a talk, it was more interactive. What I got out of the
meeting was that I teach too much application of correct principles and I
don´t do enough to allow my investigators to be their own agents and
learn by faith by learning how to apply what the spirit teaches them. He
talked about how there are two types of god´s creations, like it talks
about in 2 Nephi 2, things that are acted upon and things that act upon
other things. I have to turn my investigators into agents instead of
objects. I learned how to get better at using questions and getting out
of the way of the spirit´s teachings.
I´m
really glad that I learned those things on Wednesday because on Thursday we found a family. It´s a father (Lucio), mother (Sulema), and 3
daughters: ages 19 (Aranza), 18 (I don´t know), and 4 (Ariana). Their
18 year old daughter is in Utah studying in Snow College, but none of
them are members. They visited Utah last year to see Utah and they had a
really great experience and they say that everyone in Utah was so nice
to them. Also the sister of the mother was recently baptized in
California. The father´s cousin is a member in another ward in
Magdalena. We met them on Thursday and they´re all prepared to receive
the gospel in our lives. We applied what we had learned in the meeting
with Elder Bednar and we had a very spiritual lesson. As well on
Saturday. We were able to gain their trust very quickly and they express
what they feel in the lessons so it´s a lot easier to teach according
to their needs. They all came to church yesterday and the ward just
attacked them with kindness. I´m serious this is the best ward ever. Several members invited them over to family home evening or dinner
during this week, without us even having to ask them to do it. They have
a goal to get baptized on September 19th. Three days before Elder
Anderson goes home.
We
also met an investigator that listened to the missionaries 16 years
ago. His name is Mario. He´s about 50 years old. We couldn´t teach him
for very much time because we had an appointment, but he accepted the
invitation to get baptized on the 26th of September. He came to church
yesterday and he really liked it. The ward also helped us out a lot with
him.
So
we didn´t make our goal as a zone for baptisms in August. We had a goal
of 22 baptisms and we made 12. We´ve been talking about what we need to
do to get better this coming month and I´m really excited for what lies
ahead in these next few weeks. I hope you guys have a great week!
Thursday, August 27, 2015
Elder Jones week 63
Hey guys! That´s awesome that Courtney is home!! That must be so exciting.
I had somewhat of a difficult week because we had to drop ALL of our investigators that had a baptismal date last week. Some of them just did a 180 and told us that they don´t want us to come by anymore, and some of them just don´t want it anymore. So we´ve started from the ground up this week, and we´ve been trying everything we know how to do to find people to teach. It is really hard. But I´ve been trying to not get discouraged and just trust in the Lord. And prepared people came. So we feel really good about this week.
We had 6 baptisms as a zone this week. So we currently have 12 and this Saturday we have 7 people planned to get baptized. The zone is really working well. I´m learning to be patient in a way I´ve never had to before. Also on Wednesday we have a meeting with Elder Bednar! I´m really excited. I feel like it´s going to lift the mission up, because that´s what tends to happen every time a general authority comes to the mission.
We reactivated someone this week! His name is Gino and he´s been attending church for a couple of months now, and when Elder Anderson told me he was less active because he doesn´t have the lessons or an interview with the bishop, we brought him to the bishop during the 3rd hour, we had him have an interview, and we sat him down and taught all the lessons, and he actually has a ton of referrals for us and he wants to help us out with missionary work. He´s really nice and I´m glad that he was able to have his interview with the bishop.
I learned a lot this week through my mistakes about how to become a good leader. This week was definitely a refiner´s fire for me. But being uncomfortable is necessary for growth. I hope you guys have a great week!
I had somewhat of a difficult week because we had to drop ALL of our investigators that had a baptismal date last week. Some of them just did a 180 and told us that they don´t want us to come by anymore, and some of them just don´t want it anymore. So we´ve started from the ground up this week, and we´ve been trying everything we know how to do to find people to teach. It is really hard. But I´ve been trying to not get discouraged and just trust in the Lord. And prepared people came. So we feel really good about this week.
We had 6 baptisms as a zone this week. So we currently have 12 and this Saturday we have 7 people planned to get baptized. The zone is really working well. I´m learning to be patient in a way I´ve never had to before. Also on Wednesday we have a meeting with Elder Bednar! I´m really excited. I feel like it´s going to lift the mission up, because that´s what tends to happen every time a general authority comes to the mission.
We reactivated someone this week! His name is Gino and he´s been attending church for a couple of months now, and when Elder Anderson told me he was less active because he doesn´t have the lessons or an interview with the bishop, we brought him to the bishop during the 3rd hour, we had him have an interview, and we sat him down and taught all the lessons, and he actually has a ton of referrals for us and he wants to help us out with missionary work. He´s really nice and I´m glad that he was able to have his interview with the bishop.
I learned a lot this week through my mistakes about how to become a good leader. This week was definitely a refiner´s fire for me. But being uncomfortable is necessary for growth. I hope you guys have a great week!
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Elder Jones week 62
Hey guys! so yea I´m not in Callao any more. I was so sad when I had to
leave, I was not expecting that. Now I´m a zone leader in the Magdalena
stake. It´s not like any place I´ve ever served in. There are more than a
million people that live in our zone. We have 26 missionaries in the
zone. 14 are sister missionaries and 12 are Elders. The wards in our
stake are; Magdalena, Breña, Las Brisas, Chacra Rios, Venezuela,
Bolivar, and Pueblo Libre. We have a crazy strong ward, Magdalena, and
it has 6 missionaries, Elder Anderson and I, and the 4 secretaries of
the mission; Elder Dayton, Ramos, Hulet, and Matareco. The mission
offices are in our proselyting area.
To give you guys an idea of how different Magdalena is from Callao, there's a restaurant right next to my house called Don Belisario. My address is Gonzalez Prada 530, just so you can look it up on Google maps. I feel like I´m serving in the United States. I feel like I´m on vacation, I´ve never lived this comfortable before in my mission. But we still work really hard and we find a lot of prepared people. We have some great missionaries in the zone. The district leaders are Elder Dayton (he went to the CCM with me, and he´s the mission financial secretary), Elder Adams, and Elder Price. Elder Price is in my zone again and it´s awesome. Sometimes I feel a little overwhelmed by my new assignment as zone leader, and it really helps to have Elder Price to help me out. Also my companion Elder Anderson is the best. He helps me out a ton. He´s going home to Utah in 5 weeks.
This week was honestly great. It´s been fun adapting to the way missionaries have to work in rich areas. We are teaching the richest people in Perú. BUT even though the people are happier with their money and tend to be less receptive to our teaching, the people that do let us in and listen to us understand sooo much better. And they fulfill with their commitments. We met a 17 year old young man named Luis this week, We taught him about the Book of Mormon because he didn´t have that much time. He read what we left him and prayed and the next time we saw him, I kid you not, this is how the conversation went. "Hey, Luis how´s it going?" "Good, I read the Book of Mormon and prayed. This is the true church, Joseph Smith was a prophet, and I´m going to get baptized." So yea, that makes things easier when people understand and they do what they say they will do.
Being a zone leader isn´t that much different, but I just have more opportunities to serve other missionaries. Sister missionaries rock. They do good work. I´m really excited to serve and learn here. I´m excited to work in a strong ward. All their recent converts from the last 2 years are active. That´s something you don´t see very often in Peru. We have 2 seventies in our ward as well and they´re awesome. We live with the stake president, so whenever we need to talk to him about something he´s right there. I´m really happy here and I´ll send some pictures next week! I hope you guys have a great week!
To give you guys an idea of how different Magdalena is from Callao, there's a restaurant right next to my house called Don Belisario. My address is Gonzalez Prada 530, just so you can look it up on Google maps. I feel like I´m serving in the United States. I feel like I´m on vacation, I´ve never lived this comfortable before in my mission. But we still work really hard and we find a lot of prepared people. We have some great missionaries in the zone. The district leaders are Elder Dayton (he went to the CCM with me, and he´s the mission financial secretary), Elder Adams, and Elder Price. Elder Price is in my zone again and it´s awesome. Sometimes I feel a little overwhelmed by my new assignment as zone leader, and it really helps to have Elder Price to help me out. Also my companion Elder Anderson is the best. He helps me out a ton. He´s going home to Utah in 5 weeks.
This week was honestly great. It´s been fun adapting to the way missionaries have to work in rich areas. We are teaching the richest people in Perú. BUT even though the people are happier with their money and tend to be less receptive to our teaching, the people that do let us in and listen to us understand sooo much better. And they fulfill with their commitments. We met a 17 year old young man named Luis this week, We taught him about the Book of Mormon because he didn´t have that much time. He read what we left him and prayed and the next time we saw him, I kid you not, this is how the conversation went. "Hey, Luis how´s it going?" "Good, I read the Book of Mormon and prayed. This is the true church, Joseph Smith was a prophet, and I´m going to get baptized." So yea, that makes things easier when people understand and they do what they say they will do.
Being a zone leader isn´t that much different, but I just have more opportunities to serve other missionaries. Sister missionaries rock. They do good work. I´m really excited to serve and learn here. I´m excited to work in a strong ward. All their recent converts from the last 2 years are active. That´s something you don´t see very often in Peru. We have 2 seventies in our ward as well and they´re awesome. We live with the stake president, so whenever we need to talk to him about something he´s right there. I´m really happy here and I´ll send some pictures next week! I hope you guys have a great week!
Monday, August 10, 2015
Elder Jones week 61
Hey guys! I had a great week! Glad to hear that everyone is doing fine as well.
The biggest news is that Jerico and Colin both got baptized on Saturday and confirmed on Sunday! I baptized both of them. There was so much opposition that came up this week that tried to stop them from getting baptized, but they got baptized!
On Tuesday Jerico´s mom changed her mind and said that she wasn´t going to let him listen to us any more or go to church and much less get baptized. We passed by every day to try and talk to her and convince her to change her mind, but she kept hiding from us and sending other people to tell us that she wasn´t there or that she was busy. But on Friday Jerico sat down with both his parents and bore his testimony and told them that he wanted to get baptized. The next day we saw him in the street and he told us that his parents were going to let him get baptized that same day, and they came to his baptism! All of their extended family came to the baptism, as well, and they had a great experience. We let Colin and Jerico borrow the Joseph Smith movie to watch yesterday, hopefully they watched it.
We´re still working on getting Brillit, Jeremi, and Melanie baptized. Their only challenge is waking up on Sunday morning to go to church. This morning I was reading the July Liahona and there is an article that talks about why we should go to bed and wake up early. I really liked it, and it is really important. Just thinking about my life before the mission, you miss out on a lot of life when you wake up late. There´s a promise from Gordon B. Hinckley that if you go to bed at 10pm and wake up at 6am , things will work out for you. I encourage all of you to follow that council. Especially now that the school year is starting.
We have seen a lot of miracles this week. Last week a 45 year-old man named Rafael came to church and had to leave after sacrament meeting. We made an appointment to visit him on Wednesday and he is so prepared. He was taking notes during the lesson about the organization of the church of Jesus Christ, the apostasy, he wrote down what he needed to ask God about in his prayers. But he didn´t want to accept a baptismal date for the 22nd of August. He thought it was too soon. We visited him on Friday and he loved the lesson and he had felt that god had answered his prayers about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith, but he didn´t want to commit to getting baptized the 22nd. We invited him to come to Jerico and Colin´s baptism and he was the first one to show up (because he showed up at the hour it was supposed to start). He came to church yesterday and he stayed for the 3 hours. Later on Sunday we saw him in the street and askeed him if he had meditated more about his baptism and he said "I´m going to get baptized on the 22nd" We´re really happy for him.
Also I don´t know if I told you guys about Erick and Mariela last week, but we eat dinner at Mariela´s parents´ house on Thursdays and Sundays. Mariela is going to be reactivated on Sunday and Erick will be baptized in September. The parents of Mariela are Eduardo and Mariela. Mariela (mother) is active in the church and Eduardo has been inactive for 25 years. They have 2 sons that are returned missionaries. Yesterday, out of nowhere, Eduardo showed up to church with his family. Later in the day we stopped by to teach him and he said that he feels like it is time to return to the church. He said that on Saturday we went out to eat with his son Victor, and Victor bore his testimony to him and he felt the need to return to the church. He´s going to have his interview this week with the bishop and soon will be an active member of the church. He wants to get married to his wife in the temple and get sealed to his children. It´s a miracle. In such a short time his entire attitude toward the church has changed drastically. Yesterday in the Elders Quorum class they talked about being good parents and the importance of having one on one time with each child. I think this story is a testimony of that. I´m so happy for this family.
So I recieved an email from the Fonseca family from Caja de Agua, and I don´t know if you guys remember me talking about helping a recent convert Stefany start her mission papers way back in November, but she got her mission call! You´ll never guess where she´s going! Mexico City!!! but the east mission. I´m really happy for her and her family. They´re going to be blessed by her service.
I hope you guys have a great week!
Elder Jones
Hermana Jones week 71
So I can't believe that this is the last email I will be sending home in the mission. Crazy how fast time flies in the mission.
So last preparation day we walked up tons and tons of stairs to get to the giant Christ statue. The statue is really interesting becuase it is big but not thaaat big but you can see it from really far away because it is up on a hill. I have seen it my whole time here in Lerma even though it was about a half hour bus ride to get there. Then we had to climb tons of stairs. I felt like I was going to pass out at the end because the altitude is pretty high here. When we finally got there, I was so confused because it is so much smaller than it seemed to be. Especially at night when they have it lit up and it is the only thing you can see on the hill it looks huge. Then I remembered 2 scriptures while I was there the first was by small and simple things are great things brought to pass and the other one is in Matthew 5 when it is talking about how we cannot hide our light under a bushel but put it on a hill so all can see.
This week has also been exciting becuase the open house of the Mexcio City temple is Aug. 14 so everyone is getting excited. Also our ward mission leader took all the recent converts in vans to go see the visitor center next to the temple. That made me really happy they could go. The ward is working a lot with us to help the recent converts because the ward is baptizing a ton.
In the last 6 months as a ward there have been 50 convert baptisms. It is really exciting how fast the work is moving here. In these upcoming months they are planning on dividing the ward and in these last 10 years they have divided the stake 4 times and are planning on dividing it again! Sometimes I cant even believe how many people are accepting the gospel here in Mexico. It makes me so happy to see, though.
Anyway, this week I was studying faith and something I learned from the scriptures was the steps we take to have faith. 1.we have to have a desire 2. then we have to believe we will obtain a testimony 3. then we have to experiment on the words of Christ 4. then there is the trial 5. and then we obtian a testimony. I found the part about the trial interesting-- without the trial we never can obtain a deep and abiding testimony.
So last preparation day we walked up tons and tons of stairs to get to the giant Christ statue. The statue is really interesting becuase it is big but not thaaat big but you can see it from really far away because it is up on a hill. I have seen it my whole time here in Lerma even though it was about a half hour bus ride to get there. Then we had to climb tons of stairs. I felt like I was going to pass out at the end because the altitude is pretty high here. When we finally got there, I was so confused because it is so much smaller than it seemed to be. Especially at night when they have it lit up and it is the only thing you can see on the hill it looks huge. Then I remembered 2 scriptures while I was there the first was by small and simple things are great things brought to pass and the other one is in Matthew 5 when it is talking about how we cannot hide our light under a bushel but put it on a hill so all can see.
This week has also been exciting becuase the open house of the Mexcio City temple is Aug. 14 so everyone is getting excited. Also our ward mission leader took all the recent converts in vans to go see the visitor center next to the temple. That made me really happy they could go. The ward is working a lot with us to help the recent converts because the ward is baptizing a ton.
In the last 6 months as a ward there have been 50 convert baptisms. It is really exciting how fast the work is moving here. In these upcoming months they are planning on dividing the ward and in these last 10 years they have divided the stake 4 times and are planning on dividing it again! Sometimes I cant even believe how many people are accepting the gospel here in Mexico. It makes me so happy to see, though.
Anyway, this week I was studying faith and something I learned from the scriptures was the steps we take to have faith. 1.we have to have a desire 2. then we have to believe we will obtain a testimony 3. then we have to experiment on the words of Christ 4. then there is the trial 5. and then we obtian a testimony. I found the part about the trial interesting-- without the trial we never can obtain a deep and abiding testimony.
Anyways I hope you guys have a great week and make lots of new friends in school!
Love,
Hermana Jones
Sunday, August 9, 2015
Elder Jones week 60
Hey guys, that`s crazy to hear that Courtney is going to be home in such
short time! I can´t believe it. Also that Tyler will be on his mission
in less than a year. Maybe if I extend we could end up in the same
mission and I could train him.
I had a great week! We reactivated 2 people. José and Guillermo. José got reactivated before the end of the month, so he´s going to count for July and he was part of our goal for August so this entire week we`ve been looking for another person to reactivate in August. And we found him! his name is Alex, he´s 12 years old, and he´s best friends with Josael, Colin, and Jerico. They all live in the same block. Alex got baptized a year ago and his aunt and uncle always brought him to church, but then they went inactive because apparently there was a bishop in our ward that got excommunicated a year ago. And they stopped bringing Alex. But we met him this week and he went to Colin and Jerico´s baptismal interview with them and he came to church with them yesterday, he met the young men´s president and he wants to get the priesthood and pass the sacrament with Josael and Jerico. So we have high hopes that he will be reactivated this month. So, like I said, Jerico and Colin had their interview and the´re ready to get baptized on Saturday. Both of them want me to baptize them. Jerico wants to get baptized in the ocean and Colin wants to get baptized in the baptismal font, so they did rock paper scissors and Colin won. Lame. But it´s going to be a really great baptismal service, they´ve come so far. This week the only doubt that they had was that they felt that their answer from God still wasn´t coming so we watched a Mormon message called models of light (I don´t know if it translates exactly in English) by David A. Bednar, about recognizing answers and revelation from God, and that helped them out a lot. Also we had Josael talk to them about how he received his answer about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. Their other cousin Jeremi came to church yesterday for the first time and he really liked it. His sister gave birth at 3 in the morning on Sunday at he hadn´t slept at all when we came by to pick him up but he was determined to go to the church to be able to find out if the Book of Mormon is true, and to be able to get baptized on the 22nd. He´s 15.
I had a great week! We reactivated 2 people. José and Guillermo. José got reactivated before the end of the month, so he´s going to count for July and he was part of our goal for August so this entire week we`ve been looking for another person to reactivate in August. And we found him! his name is Alex, he´s 12 years old, and he´s best friends with Josael, Colin, and Jerico. They all live in the same block. Alex got baptized a year ago and his aunt and uncle always brought him to church, but then they went inactive because apparently there was a bishop in our ward that got excommunicated a year ago. And they stopped bringing Alex. But we met him this week and he went to Colin and Jerico´s baptismal interview with them and he came to church with them yesterday, he met the young men´s president and he wants to get the priesthood and pass the sacrament with Josael and Jerico. So we have high hopes that he will be reactivated this month. So, like I said, Jerico and Colin had their interview and the´re ready to get baptized on Saturday. Both of them want me to baptize them. Jerico wants to get baptized in the ocean and Colin wants to get baptized in the baptismal font, so they did rock paper scissors and Colin won. Lame. But it´s going to be a really great baptismal service, they´ve come so far. This week the only doubt that they had was that they felt that their answer from God still wasn´t coming so we watched a Mormon message called models of light (I don´t know if it translates exactly in English) by David A. Bednar, about recognizing answers and revelation from God, and that helped them out a lot. Also we had Josael talk to them about how he received his answer about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. Their other cousin Jeremi came to church yesterday for the first time and he really liked it. His sister gave birth at 3 in the morning on Sunday at he hadn´t slept at all when we came by to pick him up but he was determined to go to the church to be able to find out if the Book of Mormon is true, and to be able to get baptized on the 22nd. He´s 15.
So
about Guillermo, I think sharing a little bit about his story would
help everyone understand a little bit more about the dangers of
procrastinating. He is a pioneer in Perú. He and his family were some of
the first members of the church in this country. He used to be a
counselor of a branch in Callao. He loved reading the Book of Mormon. He
read it everyday. But one day someone stole his glasses, so he stopped
reading. He stopped nurturing his testimony, and he went inactive for 30
years. He hasn´t been able to read anything for 30 years because he
"hasn´t gotten around to buying new glasses yet". He still hasn´t gotten
glasses yet but his daughter reads the Book of Mormon to him now and
he´s attending church again. It just makes me think of how important the ability to read is and how much of life you can miss out on just from
procrastinating.
Andres,
the father of Dayanna, wants to get baptized really badly. And he´s
getting married on August 22nd. His future wife is also an active
member. So we´re visiting them frequently with members of the ward
because they´re a family that can get sealed in the temple a year from
now. Also another family that we´re working with is the family of Erick
and Mariela. We eat dinner at their house every Thursday and Sunday. The
mother of Mariela, also named Mariela, is the primary president. Erick
and Mariela are both less-active members that are recently coming back
to church. They have 2 little boys ages 7 and 2 years old. Mariela now
has 2 church attendances and will be reactivated next week. The area
lost Erick´s membership record and he needs to be baptized again. It´s a
little difficult for him to attend church because of his work schedule.
One week he can attend, and the next week he has to work. But they have
the desire to return to the church and later get sealed as a family.
They´re always there when we eat dinner, they just needed someone to
invite them to come back. They´re both seminary graduates and it´s been a
great experience this week watching them remember the things they´ve
known for a long time.
I´m
having a lot of great experiences here and I´m learning a lot.
Missionary work is the best. I would encourage Tyler to talk to the ward
mission leader and try to accompany the missionaries in some of their
lessons. It always makes the missionaries happy when someone wants to
accompany them. I hope you guys have a great week!
Elder Jones
Thursday, August 6, 2015
Hermana Jones week 70
Sothisweek wasreally great. Thespacebar on this computeris reallynotworking well soI might justmake thiswhole emailin hashtags.#mexcianlife#thecomputersneverworkhere#themissionisawesome haahah justkidding I will just have towrite really slow so the space barwill work.so we had the baptism of Sergio this week, wewentto D.F on Monday.I got to go in the metro for the last time. Also yesterday was my lastzonemeeting. They had all the people leaving the mission bear their testimonies...I cried a lot. It is reallysad tothink about leaving the mission but Ihave learned so much I justneedtogo home and applyit all. I amsuper sad though because elder Christofferson is coming to our mission the week after I leave! Maybe I will just extend mymission hahah just kidding, I can't they already bought myplane ticket. I hopeyouguys have a great time at school and make lots of new friends. so this took me a good 20minutes towrite soIwill writemorenext week whenIhavemore time and a computer that works better.
Love,
Hermana Jones
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