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!
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