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! 

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! 

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!       

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. 

Anyways I hope you guys have a great week and make lots of new friends in school!

Love,

Hermana Jones

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. 

 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 

 

 

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