Hermana Jones flight itinerary

From church travel department:

August 19th:

Delta Air Lines DL 130
09:00 AM Mexico City Benito Juarez Intl
Arrive 01:24 PM Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson Atl

Delta Air Lines DL 2281
04:50 PM Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson Atl 
Arrive 06:25 PM Indianapolis Indianapolis Intl

Elder Jones week 59

Hey guys! I had a great week!  On Tuesday I went back to Rímac to baptize Brian.  I felt so happy to be back in Rímac and see Elder Price and the members of that ward.  I felt like I had been gone for a very long time.  While I was there, I got to see Juan Carlos, the 8 year old that we met in the street and invited to church and came by himself.  He and his mom got baptized on Saturday.  I can´t even describe the feeling of joy I had when they told me that they were going to get baptized on Saturday.  They´re such a good family. 

This week we´ve been getting Magdalena ready for her baptism, which was on Saturday and our other investigators ready for August now that July is pretty much over and we´ve met our goals for baptisms and reactivations.  Our goals for July were 3 baptisms and 3 reactivations, and we ended up with 4 baptisms and 4 reactivations. This was actually the first month of my mission that I´ve actually reached my goal for baptisms and reactivations. But we didn´t reach our goal as a district so I´m a little disappointed about that. 

We´ve been working with Elder, the 12 year old with less active parents who wants to get baptized.  No one in his house wants to repent or go to church so we decided to drop him as an investigator even though he wants to get baptized.  It would be almost impossible for him to endure to the end if the other adults in his life teach him something completely different with their actions.  So that´s a little sad.  We´ve actually dropped quite a few investigators that have been investigators since before I came here.  They have a lot of confidence with the missionaries but they aren´t willing to make the changes in their lives necessary to follow Jesus Christ, so we don´t want to waste their time nor our time.  Something I´ve learned this week about dropping investigators is that you always need to tell them that you aren´t going to come back to teach them. We explain to them that they aren´t completing the commitments and that they should do what we have taught them to do, but until they do those things it doesn´t make sense for us to continue teaching them.  It´s a lot more effective than to just stop visiting them without explaining why. 

Colin and Jerico are progressing very well.  They had their 3rd church attendance yesterday and they´re getting ready for their baptism on the 8th.  For the first time yesterday we were actually able to teach a lesson to the parents of Colin and they are soo prepared.  They are really impressed with Colin, and how dedicated he is to progressing in the gospel.  On Sunday morning he is the one that wakes up early at 7am and goes to all his cousins´ houses to wake them up.  Whenever we have a teaching appointment with him and his cousins, he tells his mom that he needs to finish his homework right away to be ready for the lesson with us.  He always comes to the lessons with his Book of Mormon marked up and annotated at the chapter that we left him to read.  His parents have never seen him so interested in anything before, so they were willing to listen to us.  And they accepted the baptismal invitation at the end of the lesson!.. but they´re not married.  So we told them to talk about the possibility of getting married on August 22nd. There is a massive marriage that is completely free that day.  They have a 6 year old daughter as well. 

Marco and Hilda are progressing so well.  It makes me so happy every time we are able to visit them.  Before his baptism, Marco wasn´t able to understand very much in depth of what we were teaching because he forgets things easily.  He would read something and forget it almost instantly.  So that was a source of quite a bit of frustration for him, and he almost didn´t get baptized because he felt like he didn´t understand enough to get baptized. But now that he´s baptized and he has the Holy Ghost he´s learning little by little, line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little.  He´s just really happy in the church with his wife.  It´s a great testimony builder for me watching the Holy Ghost teach him.  Josael is doing well too.  In the lessons that we are giving him after his baptism we are using a lot of Mormon messages to reteach gospel principles.  It´s working really well.  He has a really big TV with Internet and YouTube on it so we have access to all the Mormon messages.  That´s something a little strange about Callao, everyone has a big TV with internet and large speakers.  It´s a human need for them. 

I had a great week and I´m learning a lot. I hope you guys have a great week! 

Allie - wow that´s a crazy story.  Glad to hear you´re okay.  I´m really jealous that you guys were able to go to the open house.  We had interviews this week with the mission President and I was talking with his wife outside his office waiting for my interview and she was talking about the open house of the Indianapolis temple and I was wondering if you guys were going to go to that.  I remember very little of the Nauvoo open house.   Just that you had to put white slippers over your shoes and that I walked up the spiral staircase with grandma Linda.  That´s a really neat opportunity that you guys had. I can´t wait to go there when I get back.  Send me PICTURES of the temple. I love to see the temple. Hope you have a great week! 

Dan - Catch more fish and send me pictures of them.  Today we´re going to catch some crabs on the beach and I´ll send you some pictures next week. 

Hermana Jones week 69

Ok oh sorry last week I didn't have very much time to write.  We were with our ward mission leader and his wife pretty much the whole day and his wife was teaching me how to cook Mexican food so I can make it when I get home...yummy.  I made mole which is a super classic Mexican dish.  

Last week was great, though, and this week is going to be suuuper good to.  We have an investigator named Sergio who has about a year listening to the missionaries.  He isn't married but he is living with a less active member of the church.  We are super happy because they are getting married in the morning on Tuesday and he is getting baptized Tue night.  The brother of the less active member is named Miguel Angel, and we baptized him about three months ago, I think.  It is happy to help less active families come back to church. 

Also yesterday was probably one of the best days of the whole mission because one of the areas that we have hermanas has about a year that their ward hasn't baptized and everyone in the mission always prays that they won't get sent to the Crespa, but yesterday the hermanas baptized 3 people.  It was a great baptism because everyone was so happy.  One thing I have learned a lot in the mission is a lot depends on our attitude here in the mission and in life. 

Anyway, not a lot happened this week because I spent most of the week in other areas...oh ya, I remember a story from this week.  We were working to find new people to teach in an area, and a lady passed that I felt like we should contact but we were late to go to lunch with a member so I didn't contact her.  But then I kept thinking about her and thinking about her until I told my companion we had to go find the lady in blue.  We had no idea where she went, so we spent a good amount of time looking for her until we saw her in a store, so we waited outside.  When we finally talked to her, she was super happy and said that she had gone to our church many times and loved going but she had lost contact with the missionaries and they stopped visiting.  What I learned from that experience is your life will be a lot better off and easier if you listen to the spirit the first time.

Oh yea, I also ate brain this week for the first time in my life.  Brain tacos are actually one of the most expensive tacos they have.... it was actually the yummiest taco I have ever eaten. 
 

Elder Jones Week 58

Hey guys! So that´s awesome about Allison´s fast, and glad that you guys are settled in Indiana.

Woo! I had a great and difficult week.  The only reason it was difficult is because I had a stomach infection almost the entire week.  And I got it because one night we were out of bottled  water, and we couldn´t go out to buy more because it was really late, and I was really thirsty, so I decided that just a little bit of tap water wouldn´t hurt me... But yea I´m starting to feel a little bit better. 

Our ward went to the temple, and Josael and Marco were able to go too!  But we couldn´t go because we didn´t let the assistants know soon enough.  

We had a surprise baptism this week!!  Her name is Dayanna.  She´s 14 and she´s an active member of the church and she goes to seminary every day.  She went in for her interview to go to the temple on Tuesday and the bishop told her that he couldn´t find her membership record.  They just couldn´t find her membership record.  It was lost.  So she had to be baptized again!  We taught her all the lessons at 10am on Sunday, she had her baptismal interview at 10:30 and she was baptized at 11am.  She wanted me to baptize her because her dad isn´t baptized yet.  We´re working with her parents to be able to get married in August so her dad can get baptized.  Same thing with Josael´s parents.  So it was good that Dayanna´s father was able to see a baptism. 

Also we have another baptism coming up on Saturday.  Magdalena attended church for the 3rd time yesterday and she´s so anxious to get baptized.  We´re going to visit her every day this week to help her prepare for her baptism.  

Today for Pday we went to La Punta as a district.  The parts of La Punta that aren´t touching Callao aren´t dangerous at all.  It feels like the United States.  It´s pretty calm and quiet and there aren´t very many people in the streets.  We went to a beach and we found a washed up sea lion.  We took pictures with it but I didn´t have my camera so I´ll have to send pictures next week.  I also recently found out today that in Callao and La Punta we´re allowed to baptize in the ocean!  So that´s my goal before I leave here.  To baptize someone in the ocean. 

This morning I had to go to the mission offices to sign a paper, and I saw Elder Charles who is in Caja De Agua right now and he said that Jesus Pachas was able to sell enough shoes to buy himself some glasses that he needed for his therapy and that he now has a vial for consecrated oil and his favorite thing to do now is visit members and ask them if they need a heath blessing.  I can´t wait to see him again in October when he goes through the temple for the first time.  

Everything is going well for Josael´s cousins.  We found another one of them that wants to get baptized in August.  His name is Jeremi.  He´s 15 and when we met him he asked us if he could get baptized right away, but we put a baptismal date for the 15th.  Of all of Josael´s cousins that we are teaching, Colin is the one that is progressing fastest.  He´s the one that stole the Book of Mormon. He reads, marks, and understands the Book of Mormon thoroughly.  I´m really proud to be the missionary that God has entrusted to teach him because he´s really prepared.  He´s going to be a good missionary some day.  He is a testimony to me that anyone that sincerely reads the Book of Mormon and desires to find answers in it will find them and will feel the desire to follow Jesus Christ and be baptized.  The Book of Mormon has the answers. 

This week as a district we have been working on building our faith, especially in the Book of Mormon.  So I told my district that if one of their investigators has a problem and they don´t know what to say, to just have them open the Book of Mormon with faith and the first verse they see will be the verse that they need.  And we did that this week as a district and all of us have found that it works every time.  The Book of Mormon has what people need, that is why the people that read it find what they need.  I hope you guys have a great week! 

Elder Jones

Hermana Jones week 67

HaHa!  It's  funny to hear stories of Dad talking about Mexicans because it makes me think about Mexican culture. It's so true. When you tell someone to turn down their music a little, you are really telling them to turn it off.  When we are teaching you don't tell investigators to turn off their TV, you ask them if they can turn it down. Then they go and turn it off. HaHa and everything they add at the end -ito y -ita which makes everything little. I was so confused at the beginning of my mission. They would ask if I wanted aguita which is agua but saying little water which doesn't even make sense. Also my name isn't Hermana Jones its Hermanita Jones. HaHa Mexicans are funny.

 This week was really good. We went to D.F on Monday for our meetings. It was a super good meeting. I could feel the spirit a lot in the meeting. These past few weeks our mission president  has had a hard time because the husband of his daughter died at 40 years old of a heart attack. He left behind 5 kids. President talked to us on Monday about how the 70, who came and talked to our mission about 2 months ago, wasn't planning on coming. Elder Packer called him and told him he needed to go visit our mission. He said the message was all about how our mission needs to focus more in the plan of salvation, understand more of the purpose and how to use it in every aspect of the mission. Then our mission president had such a hard thing happen in his family. He talked about how Heavenly Father knows and loves us perfectly and how he knew that one of the 12 apostles was inspired to send one of the 70 to our mission. Our mission president spoke of how that 70 had been inspired to talk about the plan of salvation to strengthen President Whitehead. Because of that talk President Whitehead has studied more intensely for 2 months the plan of salvation before his son in law died.

I started thinking a lot about our investigators and how the plan of salvation has helped them in their life. Hermana Viviana, who was going to get baptized a few weeks ago, has just had a ton of trails. First here baby got sick leaving them with tons of medical bills. They had no money to eat and then this week she had a miscarriage. They have been struggling a lot. It was hard for me to listen because they have been asking us if they are doing the things that Heavenly Father wants them to then why is he punishing them.

I have been studying a lot about why we have trials. I have realized that we have these trials because Heavenly Father loves us so much and knows what we need in this life. We have the choice to rise in the face of trials or to fall. It is hard for me to complain about any trial that I have had in my life when I listen to the things passing in the lives of our investigators. Seeing the difference in their lives after they are baptized is an amazing testimony for me. La familias Moctezuma, who got baptized a few weeks ago, are so different than when we found them. Hermana Petra who is preparing for her baptism told us that her and her husband were living in so much poverty. There were days on end that she didn't have food for her kids. She would cry to God asking what she had done wrong to deserve to see her kids die of starvation in front of her. She told us there were days that she had wanted to take her own life because she couldn't bear the pain of watching her starving children. Now you wouldn't even recognize her. Her husband found a job and now they invite us to their house to eat every week to thank Heavenly Father for the blessings they have in their life. One of the biggest things I have learned here on the mission is always always we have our trials because Heavenly Father is preparing us for something better.

I was sitting on the bus ride home which is about 2 hours from D.F and I was feeling a little sad that I was coming to the end of my mission. I asked Heavenly Father who he wanted me to be because I didn't feel like I was the missionary yet that I wanted to become. We got off the bus at the bus station. One of the families that I baptized in Sauces, when I was training hermana Dungan, came running up to us. They had been on a different bus and saw me from the window. They got off the bus to chase after us. It was amazing to see them. When I was writing about it in my journal, I felt like I had my answer. I felt like Heavenly Father was telling me that I was the missionary he wanted me to be. The missionary who could hardly speak Spanish, who was training and had no idea what they were doing. The missionary who knew they were nothing without the help of Heavenly Father. There were so many days when I was training that I would go to the bathroom of member's or investigator's homes and pray that Heavenly Father would help the people understand us, that we would have the spirit. The more time we have as missionaries or members it is very easy to become comfortable where we are. We can speak Spanish perfectly, we know how to teach, we know all the scriptures but there is something we loose and it is the humility to ask Heavenly Father for his help, to have the Holy Ghost with us always, to realize that all the blessings we have come from our Heavenly Father. Anyway I have been thinking a lot this past week but I guess its normal when you are in your last change. I hope you have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Jones

Elder Jones week 57

Hey Guys! Glad to hear everything is going so well. 

We had a great week! It went by so quickly because I spent two days in La Punta.  One day was with Elder Mann and another day was with Elder Jordan.  We got a lot of work done.  I learned a ton from both of them.  We had the district of excellence this week. 

When I was with Elder Mann on Tuesday, our main focus was to try to baptize Fergie, a nine year old girl that has been ready to be baptized since May, but is afraid of getting into water.  Every time she has a baptismal date, she isn´t able to get baptized. So we filled up the font and invited her to the church and showed her the full font and asked her if she wanted to get baptized.  She said yes, but as soon as she touched the water she decided that she didn´t want to do it.  So we didn't pressure her.  I wanted to try and use what I had learned as a swim teacher to try and get her to feel more comfortable in the water, but I can´t do that as a missionary. 

So they tried every day this week to baptized her, and on Wednesday they were able to preform the baptism, but her hand didn´t go into the water and they had to do it again, and she didn´t want to try again.  So she still hasn´t gotten baptized. But other than that, we had a great day on Tuesday.  

On Wednesday, with Elder Jordan, we visited an 11 year old recent convert named Dominic, and his 12 year old friend Claudio was over at his house, and we taught him a little and invited him to baptism and he said yes, and he came to church yesterday. And he knows a few of the young men in La Punta.
   
We baptized Josael and Marco! I´m sending pictures.  It was really funny in the baptism because Marco is really old, and the water was ice cold, and I was afraid that he wasn´t going to be able to handle the cold.  But I baptized him and when he came out of the water, he dove back in, then dove back in again, and then wiped the water out of his eyes and shouted "the water feels great!". Josael got baptized and it was a great baptismal service. 

Magdalena is also getting baptized on the 25th.  Yesterday when we went to pick her up for church she was really sick and she didn´t feel like she was going to be able to go.  But I told her that if she wants to get baptized she still needs to go.  And she came! She exercised a lot of faith yesterday.  Brillit, Colin, Jerico, and Melani are all progressing really well towards their baptism also.

Only Colin and Jerico were able to attend church this week because Brillit and Melani had to leave with their parents.  But they are all reading the Book of Mormon every day and asking in prayer if it is true, so I´m happy about that.  This week we found a 12 year old boy that has been attending church since March and isn´t baptized and somehow we didn´t notice him.  His parents are inactive members and we still haven´t been able to talk to them about his baptism.  He wants to get baptized.  His name is Elder. 

I´m really enjoying my time here in Callao.  It´s crazy here but the people are so great.  There are a lot of prepared people.  I hope you guys have a great week! 

Elder Jones

Hermana Jones week 66

So this week was super fun and we had transfers this week, so I was super curious to know where I would be in my last transfer. And I am super happy because I am staying in the same area with my same companion. I am pretty happy because there are still three couples that we are working with who need to get married and baptized, so it makes me happy that I will be able to be here for all of their weddings and baptisms. 

This year the 4th of July actually felt like the 4th of July because the Brady family (the family we were with when we talked on mothers day) had us come eat with them that day.  It was fun because the Elders in our ward are both American and so is this family so we ate super American food that they don't have here in Mexico because their dad just got back from a business trip in the USA and brought food for all of us. We had smores, salt water taffy, hamburgers, coleslaw, Twizzlers, Swedish fish, pretzels, and Goldfish.  Sometimes I forget how different the food is here in Mexico because they don't have any of those things here.  It was great. 

Also this week was hard because we were working with our investigators Viviana and Eric.  They are both great and were going to get baptized on Sunday and married Saturday, but I feel like Satan is working super hard against them. They were going to get baptized about two weeks ago, but their baby who is one year old got really sick and was in the hospital all week and they couldn't get married and this week in the same hour they were going to get married, the wife who is pregnant had the beginings of a miscarriage so they had to run to the hospital.  When we went to visit them on Sunday they were really discouraged because they know the church is true and they are trying to do whats right but didn't know why every time they were about to be married, something terrible happened to keep them from doing it.

Also their family has pretty much abandoned them now that they are going to church, which is really hard for them because they have so many medical bills they can't pay. We have been praying a lot for them, but I know they are going to be great members.  If not, Satan wouldn't be fighting so hard against them. 

Also I liked Dad's story about the Mexican who makes fun of the work of other Mexicans.  It reminded me a lot of a lot of people I know here.  They are always making fun of themselves and other people from their country.  Well usually they are just making jokes about everyone, but often about people from Mexico and people from the United States. 

 

Anyway I hope you guys have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Jones

Elder Jones week 56

Hey guys! I had a great week! I met my new mission president, President Larson, and his family this week. They´re really nice, and I can tell that I am going to learn a lot from them. 

This week we found a lot of really prepared people.  We were teaching Josael who is going to get baptized this week, and his 15 year old cousin walked in and we invited her to participate in the lesson.  Her name is Brillit, and she was really interested in the lesson and agreed to let us teach her and her family the next day.  The next day Josael accompanied us to teach Brillit´s family and they all accepted the invitation to be baptized!  We left them a copy of the Book of Mormon and an appointment to come back in two days.  When we came back, they told us that they weren´t able to read because another cousin of Josael, Colin, came to their house and saw the Book of Mormon and wanted to know what it was about, so he took it.

 

This entire family lives in the same alley, so we went where Colin lives and invited him and his family to join us in a lesson, we also found another cousin named Jericho and invited him and his family as well. We ended up teaching 5 families in the same lesson. We taught about faith, repentance, and baptism. We invited all of them to baptism and they all said yes.  But the ones with the most desire to get baptized were their children, Brillit, her sister Melani, Colin, and Jericho.  They´re all under the age of 18 but their parents gave them permission to get baptized. 

 

Yesterday Josael came to church with his four cousins and they really liked it and the ward did a great job of receiving them and making them feel welcome.  They want to get baptized this month. Tomorrow we have a big family home evening in the church with all of their families and the families of the ward leaders. 

Marco is also going to get baptized this week on Sunday, with Josael, so they can both enter in the temple.  The ward is going to the temple on the 15th.  So we have to help them out with their family history this week.  Marco is almost 80 years old and he forgets what we teach him easily, so while we´ve been teaching him I´ve really been focusing on teaching with simplicity and having short but frequent visits with him.  He has a lot of desire and he has a lot of friends in the church.  We reactivated his wife Hilda yesterday.  He has two grandchildren that are missionaries. 

So I think my favorite thing about Callao, that I haven´t seen in Rimac and Caja de Agua, is the fried squid.  It´s so good.  I´m trying not to eat it every day because I feel like it´s not that good for me, but it´s probably my favorite food now.  And it´s also really cheap so that makes it harder for me to avoid eating it. 

We had a good week as a district.  In La Punta, they had a few baptisms fall through this week (but not Flor) and that has been a little disappointing for them but they´re still working hard. 

I hope you guys have a great week! 

Elder Jones