Elder Jones week 48

Hey guys! 

It was great talking to you all yesterday!! You all seem happier than I`ve ever seen you. Glad to know you're doing great! I had a great week.

So, like I told you yesterday we were going to have a baptism yesterday for Amadea, Laura´s mom, and she didn`t come to church and when we went to her house we couldn´t find her.  So she didn`t get baptized so that is sad BUT we did reactivate a pair of 15-year old twins named Orlando and Javier.  And we`re going to the temple with them on the 20th! We have been visiting them for a couple of weeks after we met them in the street and recently this week we were able to talk to the entire family, and it turns out that the father wants to get baptized!  but he just needs to get divorced to his ex-wife and get married to the mother of the twins.  The mother of the twins is also attending church again.  She said she felt like something was missing in her family when they weren`t attending church.  They`re a really great family.  The twins have always attended seminary every day despite the family being inactive.

So today I`m not going to have a ton of time to write because we just got back from the Municipality with Richard and Wudullnara helping them with their papers to get married this Saturday! It turns out that there was a cheaper massive marriage in another district of Lima on May 16th so they decided to choose that one.  And Richard got a job this week! and what's better is that it doesn`t make him work on Sundays! This family is receiving sooo many blessings.  I can`t wait to see where they are a year from now.  We`re in a good ward with a good ward council so I`m sure that they`ll be sufficiently prepared for the temple a year from now. 

Isabella is progressing really well.  She just got a calling this week as president of the Gospel Principles class.  She did a great job welcoming the class.  She still wants to go on a mission.  Next week she`s going to teach part of the class for Gospel Principles.  She´s going to bring the name of her grandpa to the temple the 20th and one of the other converts in our ward, Cristian, is going to get baptized for him.  We`re also working on getting names printed for Olinda, Sofía, Richard, Wudullnara, Rogger, Samuel, Orlando, Javier, and Kevin so they can all go to the temple for the first time!  We`re going to have a family history activity on Friday just to get everyone ready for the temple trip on the 20th. 

We had a couple of great experiences teaching tithing this week. last week in the fast and testimony meeting almost everyone that went up to bear their testimony spoke about the blessings of paying tithing, and this week we talked to a few less active members that noticed and want to pay their tithing now because they have faith that they will be blessed when they pay it. 

Also I forgot to tell you about the craziest thing that happened this week!!!  We had a surprise baptism on Friday.  No one came to our English class, except for Robert who is 18 and was going to get baptized a while ago but his mom didn`t let him.  But he`s 18 and therefore doesn`t need the permission of his mom, so we were talking to him and we asked him if he wanted to get baptized. He said yes.  We asked him if he wanted to get baptized that same day, and he said yes.  So we filled up the baptismal font and baptized him at 9:30 at night.  It was a crazy experience.  He´s got such a strong testimony and a lot of faith. 

I had a great week, and I hope everything goes well for you guys this week! 

Elder Jones   

Hermana Jones week 57

Sorry I don't have a lot of time to write because we only have half P-day today but I hope you guys are doing great.  This week has been fun.  Monday we went to D.F. for training and yesterday I gave a talk in zone conference on how to strengthen the faith of members and help them participate more in the work of salvation. 

I am pretty tired today because Monday we went to D.F. and Tuesday we had zone conference in the morning and then I went with a hermana to work in her area.  Everything is great here though.  I think we are going to call on Sunday at 5 our time because my companion's parents have church at 2 because they live in Utah haha.  

Yesterday in exchanges I tried dorilocos for the first time and they are delicious.  You open a bag of Doritos and they put peanuts in it and shredded carrots and a vegetable that I am not sure if we have in the U.S called jicama and then they drench it in hot sauce.  I think I am going to be sad coming back to the U.S. because we eat so much hot sauce here I don't know if I have taste buds any more.  Even when they give us rice in the food they pour hot sauce all over it.  

Also, we went to a house of some recent converts yesterday and they have a wall in their living room that is covered with the names of all the missionaries that have ever come to their house and they have them sign their name and write where they are from.  So I got to write my name! hahha they must really love the missionaries to let them write all over their walls!

Anyway I will see you guys Sunday! Have a great week!
Love,
Hermana Jones
hermana Jones

Elder Jones Week 47

Hey guys!  I`m so happy to hear all this great news! I can`t wait to talk to you all Sunday! I`m thinking about skyping at 4pm on Sunday if that`s okay.

We had a great week! Today for Pday basically all we are going to do is help Richard and Wudullnara (the parents of Leonardo and Gabriel) with their marriage WHICH IS SATURDAY. And Richard is getting baptized on Sunday, and his 18 year old son Rogger is getting reactivated and will be ordained as a priest on Sunday, and then baptize his father a few hours later.  So this week is going to be a little crazy trying to get all the forms and certifications ready but I know we can do it!  Keep them in your prayers because this family is seriously the best.

We`ve been working with Laura and Miguel and Laura still really really wants to get baptized, so we`ve been talking about a marriage in July.  We also reactivated Miguel yesterday, and he`s doing so much better and their family has much fewer problems.  Honestly the best way to help a family is through the application of gospel principles.  They are so much happier.

We also have so many less actives that we are working with, too. Yesterday we had 14 less actives attend church.  And all of them are going to get reactivated this month.  We`re going to the temple on May 20th (the day after transfers) and we`re preparing all the people that are going to be reactivated before that day to bring a family name to the temple.  We`re also working with all the recent converts, including the ones that will be baptized before the 20th to bring names to the temple.  There is so much family history work to do with the recent converts and reactivated that we would definitely feel overwhelmed if the ward wasn`t helping us so much.

There was a ward activity on Friday and it was a huge success.  Almost every member came with a friend and we met at family of 10 that are really good friends with president Huapaya (the counselor of my mission president who lives in my area). We have a family home evening with them tonight.

There is seriously so much work to do.  We are finding so many prepared people and the members are helping us out so much.  That`s the only way to go in missionary work, with the members.

I had such a great week and I can`t wait to talk to you guys on Sunday!

Elder Jones

Hermana Jones week 56

Wow, you've done a lot of work on the house.  I couldn't even recognize the house when I saw all the pictures.  I couldn't tell which one was Hal's room and which one was Tyler's.  Except for the bunkbeds gave it away. 

 I was thinking though that it would be really cool if you could invite the people from mom's side of the family to come to my coming home talk.  Also, I can't believe that Lauren Holbrook got back from her mission.  Crazy how fast time flies.  I got my official date of when I am coming home this week and it is Aug 19th.  

Also the guy who is going to Chicago took my box to give to you guys.  I gave him your number so he can call but just in case I will give you his number too.  Well I will give it to you next week because I don't have it with me now. I wasn't able to send all the stuff I wanted because he is going in airplane and I didn't want him to have to bring a ton of stuff but I hope you like when is in there.  Also for when we talk on mothers day can you send me what all my login information is for Skype because I think I lost it.  Also next week I will tell you what time we will be calling once we find a member's house we can go to.  We only have half an hour to talk this time but its not so bad because it wont be long until I see you guys again.  

Anyways I am loving it here in Lerma.  It is super great because the people are so nice and our ward is HUGE. Yea it is a little different here because there are minimum  missionaries in every ward but there are some areas in our zone that have  missionaries in their ward.  I can't even believe how the hermanas in the ward are able to feed all their missionaries.  This week was fun because I got to visit a lot of different areas.   My favorite is working with new missionaries because they are always so excited to work.  It makes me happy to see.  I hope that the rest of my time in the mission I will get companions that don't have a lot of time in the mission because it helps me stay excited to be in the mission. 

So funny story from this week....I don't know if I should tell it but I will.  So it is starting to get really hot here so we are drinking lots of water but the problem with a walking mission is when you have to go to the bathroom you can be in the middle of nowhere and not have a quick way to get to a bathroom.  The good thing is here in Mexico they are very open to strangers entering their house.  It's a  great contacting strategy.  Anyway, the problem was it was an outhouse type of thing and it was super tiny. I didn't realize that my backpack was open and my Book of Mormon fell in the toilet.....It was super bad and of course I had to get it out.....yea it was pretty bad.  I learned though that you can have really bad things happen but it can still be great.  That day was probably one of my most memorable and funniest days of the mission even though I fell and scraped my legs, got terribly sunburnt, had my Book of Mormon fall in the toilet and all our appointments fell through.  We were just having a great time all day. 

Also a good experience this week was when I went to another area to work the goal was to help  parents decide to get married so their family could be baptized because they have been living together for a long time but didn't want to get married.  I learned a lot from the lesson we had with them that we will always always know what to say when we listen to the Holy Ghost.  It was one of the happiest phone calls I have ever gotten when the hermanas from that area called me Sunday night to tell me that the family had been baptized that day.  I hope you guys have a great week.  Work hard, finish school off well, and share the gospel.

Love,

Hermana Jones

Elder Jones week 46

Hey Guys! So we had a great week!  The house looks amazing with all the updates and what you have done with it.

We had 3 baptisms this week and 2 reactivations! This computer doesn`t work very well so I`m going to have to send the pictures next week.  But the baptisms went really well!  I baptized Isabella and Gabriel and Elder Price baptized Leonardo.  Elder Price and I sang "When I am baptized" but in Spanish.  Isabella was really nervous and a little bit sad when she got there because her two less active cousins that she lives with had been trying to convince her not to get baptized and they didn`t come to her baptism because they were sleeping.  So she was sad about that.  But she said that when she got into the water she forgot about everything and remembered why she wanted to get baptized and when she came out of the water she was so happy.  She told us this week that she wants to serve a mission!!  Also we`re going to the temple in May and she`s preparing to be able to bring family names to the temple.  Leonardo and Gabriel had a great experience too.  They understand the gospel really well for their age.  Their dad wasn`t able to make it to their baptism or church yesterday, but their inactive brother Roger who is 18 came to both their baptism and confirmation yesterday.  He really enjoyed church yesterday because our ward is really good at going up and talking to new people, so he felt really welcomed.  We also had a really great lesson with them and another family in our ward yesterday about the Book of Mormon. They`re still preparing all their documents to be able to get married May 10th. 

Laura wasn`t able to get baptized on Saturday because there are some more problems going on with Miguel, but I`m confident that she`s going to be able to get baptized soon.  Her mom is now living with her, and she`s not a member, but she asked us to give her a health blessing this week.  We gave her one and she was healed the next morning.  That`s when she decided to receive the lessons with us.  We started teaching her this week, and we watched the video of John Tanner, and explained that right after his leg was healed by the priesthood he got baptized. And Laura`s mom, Amadea, wants to get baptized May 09th.

We`re finding a lot of really prepared people to teach and I attribute that to the amount of work we are doing with members. It really does make the difference. The members know a lot of prepared people.  Especially the reactivated members, because they`re more likely to have friends that aren`t members. 

I`m really happy.  We`re doing a lot of great work.  The young man in our ward that got his mission call to Japan left for the Provo MTC last night.  He and his family are some of the nicest people I`ve ever met. 

I hope you guys have a great week. Less than 2 weeks till Mothers Day! 

Elder Jones 

Elder Jones week 45

HEY guys! It makes me really happy to hear about how well your week went! Glad to hear that all of you are happy and safe. I honestly had one of the best weeks of my mission. 

Okay, so at the beginning of the week we weren`t feeling very sure if either of the 2 baptisms we had planned for this Saturday would get baptized.  Laura who isn`t married to the father of her children had made plans to get separated from him this week and get baptized, but things weren`t working out and it didn`t seem like she was going to be able to be baptized on Saturday. It wasn`t the ideal because we as missionaries don`t ever want to destroy families but but they have had a lot of problems and she has wanted to get baptized ever since she met the missionaries 4 years ago. So we had Laura and Miguel (who is her less active boyfriend) meet with the bishop this week to talk about their situation. And the bishop fixed everything! He had them talk about everything that frustrates them about the other and just talk about all their problems and now they have plans to get married! Laura is going to get baptized on Saturday and they are going to sleep in different houses for 2 weeks and get married on May 10th! Miguel is willing to stop drinking and come back to church and start being active again. So I`m really happy because that`s obviously better than a separated family. And they`re going to get married in the temple and sealed to their 3 small children in May 2016! 

Isabela also had plans to get baptized this week but she was having a lot of family problems again and also she didn`t feel like she could keep the law of chastity because we explained it incorrectly the first time, but now she understands really what it means and she`s willing to keep it. It`s a good learning experience for me, that I need to explain the commandments as clearly as possible. She had her interview yesterday and she`s all ready for her baptism on Saturday. She`s so excited. She was going to get baptized 4 years ago but she never showed up for her baptism. Hopefully that doesn`t happen again.

Finally we were able to have a lesson with the familia Rosales Flores that I was talking about last week that recently moved here from Habish 3 weeks ago. It was one of the best lessons I`ve ever had in my misison. They have 6 kids. Ages 17, 16, 11, 9, 2, and 1. Their boys that are 11 and 9 years old, Leonardo and Gabriel, aren`t baptized and neither is the father. The father has wanted to get baptized and get married to his wife for years but because of work he hasn`t been able to. But now he has a job that works less hours and doesn`t work on Sunday and he`s ready to get married. He came to the General Conference and church yesterday. We invited him and his wife to get baptized May 10th and they said yes! and we invited the husband, Richard, to get baptized May 10 and he said yes! and we invited Leonardo and Gabriel to get baptized on Saturday and they (and their parents) said yes! We invited the parents to get married in the temple in May 2016 and get sealed to their children and they said yes! They`re so excited and it`s amazing to me how much the Lord has prepared these people. 

Also good news about Eugenio and Doris, they have everything ready for Doris to get divorced to her ex-husband and get married to Eugenio May 10th! it`s going to be close but we`re going to hope that everything comes out well this week. They also have plans to get baptized that same day May 10th and after a year get sealed to Sofìa (who was baptized last month) and Carolina who`s 1. 

So to sum up this week, we committed 3 families to get sealed in the temple in May 2016, or in other words, when I have 23 months in the mission. I keep praying for all of them that everything works out and that they can fulfill their desires to follow Jesus Christ. 

We did a lot of work with less actives this week and we should have a few reactivated members by the end of the week.

There isn`t a greater joy than this. I hope you all have a great week! 

Elder Jones

Hermana Jones week 55

So this week I have been super tired but I really like it here in Lerma.  It is super pretty and there are lots of people really nice here.

This week we had a cool experience that we were contacting people in the street when a guy riding his bike yelled at us to go to his house because he wanted to hear our message.  We didn't know if we should, because the only directions he gave us was the next street at the blue house.  We went to the next street and there were at least 10 blue houses so we looked for one that had a bike. We finally found the house but he wasn't there.  It was super weird, so we left but a little later we felt like we should go back and we found him there and now he and his family are listening and want to go to church this week! Yay!

This next week I am going on exchanges the whole week to get to know some of the areas of the other hermans here and help them find new people to teach.  It is really tiring but also super fun to get to know lots of missionaries.

Oh, also there is a member of the church here who is going to live in Chicago for a few months with his family, so he asked me if there was anything that I wanted to send with him to Chicago.  I am sending a few things that i don't use here but don't really want to throw away.  I hope it is ok.  He can speak decent  English, I think, so you guys can communicate.  They were pretty excited that I was from Chicago.  It is super funny here because almost everyone here has family members who lives in Chicago and they always ask if I know them.  I feel like they don't realize how big Chicago is.

This week was also super fun because it was my first time taking a mototaxi!  They are like those things for little kids that attach to the back of the bike and the little kids sit in the little carriage.  They do that here but it is a lot bigger.  You can fit 4 people in it and the attach it to the back of a motorcycle.  It was super fun and we wondered why they don't do things like that in the United States but we decided there are more laws against stuff like that in the U.S.

Anyway, we are working super hard here, having lots of fun, talking to tons of people, and missionary work is progressing quickly.  We are working a lot with the members here and have a mission plan for every family.  They have goals of how many people a week they are going to talk to about the church, how many books of Mormon they are going to give away in the month, and how many convert baptisms they are going to have in the year.  It has been working really well and we have gotten lots of referrals from members.  Sometimes I am amazed at how fast the work is moving here in Mexico.  They are going to divide our ward in June.  Here on my mission I have seen a branch become a ward, and this will be the second ward that I have been in that will split.  Good times here in the mission!
Love,
Hermana Jones

Hahah the picture is of Jorge's baptism.  He has the Mexican smile, which means they are always happy and laughing and the second you take out a camera they stop smiling and make a serious face!