Next week is Courtney's halfway mark!

Next Monday Courtney's mission will be half over.  This week we are going pray to have individual missionary moments and then share it with Courtney in a letter or email.  If you would like to join our family in celebrating this event, please share with her your own missionary experience.  We are so grateful for the wonderful experiences Courtney and Hal are having on their missions and the Lord's hand in their lives.
All the best,
The Jones Family

Sister Jones Week 32

So a ton of things happened this week. I hope I have time to write it all! So this week we have seen so many miracles. We have had people come up to us in the streets and ask us if we would come visit them. We are now teaching 10 complete families and 4 more part families. 

This week our ward did an open house and it was one of the best days of my mission so far. We set up little tents in a park on Saturday.  The tent in the middle had all kinds of stuff about the church in it and then every organization had tents around it.  There were activities to do in each tent. The relief society was doing a cooking class of how to cook with wheat, soy and vegetables.  Then the people got samples of their cooking.  The young women were doing a station making bracelets. The primary had a place where the little kids could go to color.  The young men were doing bicycle repairs.  Then the high priests were doing things on how to clean out viruses in your computer. It was super amazing because there were tons and tons of people at the park.  All the young men and young women were running around the park contacting people and telling them to come to the activity. I have never seen the youth so excited about missionary work. It was so funny and really touched my heart. 

The best part was that our investigator was the one teaching about how to clean viruses off computers. The high priest knew that he was really good with computers so they asked him to come. I know he will be baptized soon because so many people think he is already a member. They go to church every week, his kids were in the primary program this week, and he was at the open house.  At the open house he kept saying, "Hermanas how many referrals do you have?!" 

From the open house we had referrals to go visit 32 families.  It was crazy because there was a young man who said he wanted to go to church the next day! So his name is Mario.  He is 15. He said that he had heard of the church before but was never interested.  But at the open house he went to the middle tent and heard about the plan of salvation and wanted to go to church the next day. He is only 15 and has never known his dad and his mom died when he was 7.  So he has had a pretty hard life  but I CANT EVEN EXPLAIN HOW MUCH HE HAS BEEN PREPARED TO HEAR THE MESSAGE BY THE Lord. He came to church with us.  It was the primary program and he cried almost the whole time listening to them sing. I was a little nervous about whether the young men would accept him but they came by and brought him to his next class. Then after church I was afraid he had left in the middle of third hour because I couldn't find him anywhere.  Then I walked outside and I nearly cried. He was surrounded in a group of all the young men. They were all laughing, having fun, asking for his phone number and asking if he was coming to mutual on Wed. It just touched my heart so much.  I'm amazed how much the spirit of missionary work grew in the ward after this activity. It was super funny too because we were thinking that we should probably try to get young men to do visits with us at Mario's house.  Then after church there were 5 young men who brought their Moms over and asked when they could come and visit Mario with us. I can't explain how great this week has been. 

Satan has been fighting against us super hard this week. Hermana Dungan has a sinus infection and asthma. I have had a cold and food poisoning. However, when you are seeing the miracles of the Lord in your life the other things don't even bother you for a second. You just can't stop being grateful for the blessings that you have in your life. I know that this is the church of Jesus Christ and I know that when members and missionaries work together there can be many miracles. I hope you guys have a great week!

Love hermana Jones

Oh and as for Christmas... just whatever... makeup and things like that would be super appreciated but its whatever you want I will be happy with anything :)

my zone

 Tamales that were the most delicious things I have ever ate...and then it gave me food poisoning :(

all the missionaries in our ward at the open house!!!

 

Elder Jones Week 22

Hey guys! So this was great. I got a few letters from members in the stake and our ward, including President and Sister Suaste! which made me really happy because I can`t wait to talk to them when I get back! Also thanks to everyone else who sends me letters, they really are appreciated and they do help a lot. We had another baptism yesterday! I got to baptize Jackie, she`s 24, and it was really great because she`s been through a lot to get to this point. Her testimony is so strong and I`m so happy for her. Yesterday was such a good day. She came up out of the water crying because she was so happy. She brought a couple of her friends to the baptism and we taught a lesson with them and Jackie afterwards, and they weren`t very interested but Jackie told us that this time when she taught the lesson to her friends she knew without any doubt that it was all true. We`re planning a trip to the temple sometime this month to go with Jackie, Jesùs, and all the other new converts in our ward and we`re working with all of them to get names from their own family. Jesùs has the information ready for his father and he`s really excited to be able to go to the temple for his father. More about Jesùs. He`s progressing so well. He has his calling as ward missionary, and on Sundays he shows up half an hour early for church and asks the bishop what he can do to help. And he`s usually at the door as a greeter or helping clean up the chapel. When he first started investigating we had to be with him the entire time because he was really dependent on us, but now he`s such good friends with everyone in our ward and he`s always somewhere talking with someone. 

So yea it was a good week. we`re having a little bit of trouble finding people that are going to progress. We teach a lot of people, but almost none of them keep with their commitments. We`re going to work harder this week to find people that have been prepared to receive this gospel. Because we`ve been doing a lot of harvesting with the baptisms of Jesùs and Jackie, and bringing the new converts to the temple, but not a lot of planting, which is finding new people. And missionary work needs to be perpetual, not just planting and harvesting and planting and harvesting, but continually planting and continually harvesting. I`m still loving it. I`m learning a lot here and I`m loving the people and the scriptures and the work. I hope you guys have a great week! That`s also really awesome about Dan`s violin concert and Tyler getting his license and Allison being cool. Yea actually if there was something I really do want right now from America is Twizzlers. Black licorice is really good but so is cherry so yea if both is possible that would be amazing thank you. I love you guys and I can`t believe that we`re already so close to Christmas. The weather here is perfect, so it doesn`t feel like November. Every time I tell Elder Torres how perfect the weather is he asks me why I say such weird things, because the people here don`t really talk about the weather because it`s always perfect and it never changes. Hope you guys have a great week! Goodbye!

Elder Jones

 

Letter from Tracy in Peru with pictures!

Hey sister Teresa Its Tracy, Elder Jones is serving in my ward and he told us yesterday to send you these pics from yesterday when he baptized my cousin Jacky, and the last one when he ate anticuchos.
T

Sister Jones Week 31

I really love the cake that Allie made it is super cute :) Also I am super jealous of the concert that dad got to go to. When is Holly's baby due? So this week was super hard but it was a good experience. I really learned that your attitude really makes all the difference. The first half of the week I was super stressed and didn't know what to do.  Then I just learned to enjoy it and focus on having the spirit and having fun.  Then the week was so much better. It is a little funny having a new companion because you forget how hard it was at first like speaking the language, cleaning your laundry, and even just walking all day. I feel like this cambio is going to help me a ton with my Spanish.  It is like I am here in Mexico with a baby and I have to do a lot more than before. One thing I love about having a new companion though is they are just so excited to do everything and just so obedient. One day I was having a kind of hard day and I was asking my district leader what to do and he just sent one phrase... "The distance between you and God is the same distance between your knees and the ground." I loved that so much because sometimes I forget that when we are stressed or going through a hard time that the first person we can turn to is our heavenly father. Oh I forgot on Monday at night they called sister Wood and said that an hermana came that they weren't expecting and they needed a trainer so hermana Wood is training too.  It was super stressful because at the presidents house all the trainers were downstairs and we waited for about 2 hours to go upstairs.  Then they call the new hermanas one by one and announce who their trainer was.  I was one of the last ones to get my daughter so I was super nervous. It is so funny though because I have 8 and a half months in the mission so everyone says that my baby is a premature baby. She is my daughter in the mission. Also it is super funny because there are two more hermanas in our ward and one of them was companions with my companion at the MTC. Also the Elder in our ward has a son straight from the MTC.  So our ward has 3 Americans straight from the MTC and then
me and then an Elder from Peru and then just one hermana from Mexico. It is so funny. Anyway I hope you guys have a great week!

Love,

hermana Jones

my new companion!

pan de muertos is lkike the best bread I have ever tasted in my life.

me and then an Elder from Peru and then just one hermana from Mexico. It is so funny. Anyway I hope you guys have a great week!

Love,

hermana Jones

Elder Jones Week 21

Hey guys! so I had a crazy experience last week that I need to tell you guys about. Last Monday right after emailing you guys Elder Torres felt like we should go visit Angelo and his family to verify our appointment with them later in the week. At first I thought it was strange because we don´t do that on Pday but we went. When we arrived at Angelo´s house we were waiting for someone to answer we saw two moto taxis crash, and one of them fell over on it´s side. (So a little bit of background: Here in Perú there are small 3-wheeled cars called moto taxis, and they´re really dangerous because they´re very light. But the area that I´m serving in, Caja de Agua, is very poor and no one has a car, so everyone uses them to get around.)  We ran over to help them and inside the taxi that was on it´s side was a woman from our church and her grandson. She was screaming a lot but when she saw that we were there she began to calm down. We pulled out her grandson and flipped the taxi right side up to get her out. Once we got her out and away from all the broken glass, the drivers, who were both bleeding heavily, drove away. People began to crowd around to see what happened and I realized that I was the only one there that knew what to do so I took control of the situation and I made sure that everyone knew that what I was saying wasn´t just another opinion but what was going to happen. I checked to make sure she wasn´t bleeding anywhere and to see if she was okay. She was complaining about her lung and side and she began to show signs of going into shock. More and more people began to crowd around and they all were giving their opinions of what to do and videotaping with their phones to show their families what happened. She went unconscious, and at that time there was a crowd of about 50 people and they all panicked and began to close in on her. I knew that I had to regain control of the situation, so I stood up and I told everyone to "back up" in the loudest voice I´ve ever used in my life. A lot of them did not like that because the way the culture in Perú is, is that if you´re young you have to respect the opinions of those older than you. Even if they don´t know what shock is, or what spinal injuries are, or why it´s a bad idea to take her in another mototaxi to the hospital or why you need to call an ambulance if they lose consciousness, or what to do when someone loses consciousness. I made sure that an ambulance was called and I monitored her breathing and heartbeat until it arrived. There were a couple of old Peruvians spitting on me and yelling at me the whole time, and I really wanted to lose my patience, but I knew that I needed to keep control of the situation and if I lost it I would instantly lose the respect of everyone there, and I wouldn´t be able to help the woman. The ambulance arrived and they took over and took her to the hospital. She is okay right now, her entire side is bruised, but she didn´t break anything. Her grandson is completely fine because when they crashed she grabbed onto him to protect him. They can use some prayers though. I started to think about what would have happened if I had a different mission call or if I wasn´t serving in Caja de Agua, or if Elder Torres hadn´t felt that we should visit Angelo´s family. I want to testify that the missionaries are instruments the the Lord´s hands. All the revelation received the prophet, my mission president, and my companion was directly from God, it wasn´t chance. And if I as a missionary hadn´t listened to my companion, then all the revelation leading up to that point would have been in vain, and the missionaries wouldn´t have been able to be instruments in the Lord´s hands in that moment. I know that God leads this church and that promptings from the spirit aren´t suggestions. 

More news about this week, Angelo got the Aaronic priesthood, one of the young women in our ward fell off her house from the 3rd floor, Jackie is getting baptized this week and it will be my first time baptizing! wooo. and the book of Mormon is still awesome.  Don´t worry about my weight I´m sorry about scaring you last week, I´m fine. I hope you guys have a great week. and wooo go Allie! 

Elder Jones

Sister Jones Week 30

I loved seeing all your pictures and it looked like Grandpa had a good week too with a baptism. This week was super good but it was sad because it was the last week of the cambio. I felt really good though because our last Sunday we had 3 families/investigators at church with us.  It just makes me so happy when we have families at church with us. 

 

We went to Taluca centro last Pday and it was so fun because we went to a botanical garden and there was tons of people in masks and dulces for dia de los muertos. Instead of having chocolate bunnies for Easter they have chocolate skulls for dia de los muertos. 

 

I can't even think about what else happened this week because I am so nervous!!!! I AM TRAINING this cambio AND SHE IS AMERICAN!!! I know that it will be a great cambio.  However, I feel like I can hardly speak Spanish and how am I going to teach someone else how to speak Spanish. I will definitely need your prayers this week. Anyway I don't receive my hija until tomorrow because the Americans don't fly in until tonight.  So today I am working with two Hermanas who live close to presidents house and guess who it is....Hermana Wood and her companion. I was so excited when I found out I would be working with her :) Hmmm en verdad I can't think of anything else to write because all I am thinking about is receiving my hija. They didn't tell me her name but she is from Oregon. Oh also the photos of Dan Dan are so funny :)

last Pday of the cambio! we visited toluca centro and went to a botanical garden!

dia de los muertos

more dia de loos muertos

mom is pretty much famous here in Mexico :)

so it made me laugh because a member gave us food to take home because she had to work and this is litterally the classic mexican meal

dia de los cambios is always the best because we get to see everyone!