Cami's Arrival

Hey everyone,

 

OK! Here is the latest. Cami will bus to Santiogo Chili today Thursday June 16th, fly to Dallas, then to Salt Lake arriving on American Airline flight 689 about noon on Friday and layover until 4:50pm. Anyone in Salt Lake area might want to try to visit with her at the airport in Salt Lake. She will arrive at the St. George airport on Delta airline flight 7779 at about 5:48 pm. Happy days!!!

 

Love you all,

 

Von

May 30, 2011

Well Mama...

I love the idea of being surrounded by my family the day i get home! There is no imaginable way that it could be a bad idea:) but i may want to take a shower first thing when i get home... do you think you could all wait for me? haha if not, that's fine. ill just  shower after. what time will i be getting home? they haven't sent me my flight plans yet but i think they'll actually be getting here this week so... yeah. I feel really weird when i think about going home. I mean, obviously I'm excited to see you all but it just doesn't seem real to me yet. It feels like the end of another transfer is all, so if i have a hard time adjusting... well, just have patience with me please:)

So, i was totally expecting an email saying that Shay had a new little boy but it looks like he wants to wait for his aunt Cami to get home before he comes out! haha I'm so excited to see all my little monsters!!! oh, i sent you guys a letter today. a letter for shay, one for the family, my last picture cd, and a tape that i was supposed to send to JD about 6 months ago... oops:) so, yeah that should be getting there before me i hope. if not.... oh well, i guess we can all read the letter together! haha

also...Kennedy wanted to be at the airport when i get home so if you could let her know what time and all that.  oh wait... i think i already told Telli to do that, so never mind:)

Things here are going great! This week was a good one. We were able to see progress in our investigators and have help from the members too! Norma went to church on Sunday, and Miriam and Arturo are getting to be regulars now:) they know that they are going to get married and baptized but it frustrates me because they want to wait a whole year!!! I really love them thought! They{re fantastic people!!! last night we had a family home evening with them. we played pig and a poke. It was really fun! haha i love the crazy games that our family plays. they've helped me out a few times in the mission. unfortunately, there are a few (like the sock game) that are a little too violent, and others( like spin the body) that are too "hands-on" for missionaries to be playing. I{m excited to play those kinds of things again when i get home:)

Were still looking for a new place to live, and everyone's trying to help us out. We saw our little friend the other day -the mouse- bluhh! he ran out of our bedroom and into the kitchen :S were going to put down traps for him. Muahahahah

anyway... I don{t know what else to tell you today. I love you... that's all:)

Abrazos y besos

Hermana Jones

PS I tried to attach a picture from our last Zone Conference... im not sure if it worked, but i hope so! 

Happy Birthday Cami!!

We Love You!!

May 23, 2011

Dear Fambly,

Wanna know something crazy? On my birthday, I only ate one little piece of cake, which came from a stranger that let us into her home, i didn't receive a single wrapped present, we had a normal proselyting day, knocking doors and doing contacts.... by all measurable means, it was the poorest birthday ever,

but on Sunday morning, i received a few of the best presents ever. 1, Braian was confirmed a member of the church. He was baptized the day before:) 2, Roque, my convert from Neuquen, randomly showed up at the church after the first class. He came all the way from Neuquen just to wish me happy birthday. I love that old man! 3, we had 5 investigators in church, 4 of them have baptismal dates:) and they really liked the meetings because the members made them feel comfortable! yay!!! and 5, I got lots of hugs from the Hermanas in the ward!!! They're adorable. -i think ill bring some home with me;)

So basically, i had a lovely birthday, it wasn't the normal self-centered, "its my day, everybody focus on me" type of birthday, but it was SO much better!!! Id like to have birthdays like this one for the rest of my life! haha every year, somebody i know and helped to come unto Christ will be baptized... actually, that's not a bad goal! I like it!!!!

Anyway, aside from that, i don{t have lots to tell. Thanks for all the birthday wishes that you all sent me! I feel really loved:) and i love you all back! tehe

Oh, also i think were going to be moving from the house were living in now but i don't know exactly when... all i know is the mice are insoportable!!! They keep us up all night with their little scratchy noises and the other day my comp wanted to eat some chocolate that she had saved in her desk, and when she pulled it out, it was half eaten! they gnawed through the wrapper and had a little midnight snack:( haha she was so grossed out!

anyway, i ended that on a happy note;) oh well, gotta go! Love you all TONS!!!!!!!

Love,

Hermana Jones

May 9, 2011

So, what can i tell you... oh, we had transfers the last week and hna Bundy left for Bariloche, and my new comp is named Hna Sancé. She´s from Guatemala:) and she´s really great! Her trainer was Hna Georgeson, my MTC comp, so i was pretty excited about that! and i´m excited that i have another latin comp so i can improve my Spanish a little before i go home. cuz with hna Bundy i´m not gonna lie, i was starting to get a little rusty :S haha anyway, i´m learning lots and we´re trying to help all of our investigators make it to their baptisms!

We´ve been finding lots of inactive members lately that have children who aren´t baptized and we´re trying to work with them so they can come back to church and become eternal families. The other day we found a family, Familia Menna, because i don´t know my area that well so we were kinda lost. We were knocking doors, but we ended up in an area super far away where there were only factories and big empty lots, and i was like... ¨uh, oops. sorry i just randomly led us into the middly of the desert to knock doors...¨ but then i saw that there were a couple of little houses a little further down the street next to this factory, so we knocked the first one and a lady answered and before we could even say anything, she just said, ¨come in, before the flies do!¨ haha so we went in and she invited us to sit down. her husband was there and he told us that they were members. they were baptized 5 or 6 years ago but had stopped going like 4 years ago. She has a friend who is Jehovah´s witness and she was going to have her friend start teaching her youngest kids about the bible because they wanted to learn and go to church. but when we showed up, she told us that she took it as a sign. and she wants us to give them the lessons so they can go to the true church of Jesus Christ. I really think God sent us there to help that family, and it´s going to take a little work i think but i just want more than anything for her kids to be able to grow up in the church, for her to be able to feel once again the happiness she felt when she first discovered the restored Gospel. She has a testimony but life is hard, and she fell away. Now, her Father in Heaven ent us to help her make it back.

Man, i love being a missionary!!!

Anyway, that was a little miracle form this week:)

Hey, could you forward this email, well not the first part but everything else to mom to forward to everybody, cuz i kinda just went off on a tangent here and i haven´t emailed anyone else... tehe oops:)

Thanks Telli!

Love you tons!!!

Love,

Hna Jones

April 18, 2011

Hey Mama!

I made a picture cd today so ill probably send it to you next week... which means you{ll get it in like 3 or 4 weeks probably:) but i think they put all of the pics i had on my mem card on their so there are a bunch of repeats... oh well, you can just skip to the end to see the new ones!

I loved the flower story! that's so awesome that they were seriously selling flowers for 2 cents!!! i'm going to be able to enjoy those when i get home:)

 

I have some fairly entertaining stories from this week...

 

El Santo Simon

The other day we met an interesting character when we went to visit Graciela and her grandsons. He calls himself Santo Simon, and is apparently, a drunk hermet neighbor who goes to her house every once in a while because nobody else will let him in and he lives alone with his dogs and needs people to talk to every once in a while...

so, we got to her house and he was sitting at the table and started yelling at us how he doesnt believe in religion because they all lie to you, and then he started talking about his mom and, all of a sudden he burst out into song! NO JOKE!!! I was a little startled, but quickly recovered myself and tried not to laugh as he continued belting out his ballad..." es mas bella que la luna..." (stopping mid-note) he turns to us and says, you{ve seen the moon right, when the night is dark and the sky is clear... (singing again)" mi mama es como la luna..." and then he started crying.... and singing... and yelling.... it was a rollercoaster. and we were trying to listen politely and not startle him just in case:) but he really reminded me of a character that would be on 'the last unicorn'... i don{t know if i thought that because there actually is a character that breaks out into song on that movie, or for some other reason.... but there you have it! Santo Simon

 

another thing, that is really just an exciting fact. They fixed the window in our house so now we can close it and our cat, crackers, cant come in creepily in the middle of the night to eat our food anymore! also, we dont have as much dirt on the floor now that the window closes. and the guy came last week to fix the heater so we{ve been sleepin cozy these days. its a good thing he came when he did too cuz it has been real cold these last couple days! i think winter is here already :S

Everything is going great though!!! The other day, Hna Bundy randomly had a dream that somebody was pointing to our map of centenario, to a specific spot that we always put in our plans to knock that area but we never get over there because its bascially on the other side of the world, so we took it as a sign and just happened to have time the next day to go over and knock to our hearts content! so we knocked... knocked... and knocked some more, and then, as we came to a corner, their was a house all by itself, without neighbors, and we knocked... and mario came out. turns out his wife is a member of the church and his mom was member too but died about a month ago.... hmmm.... i{m pretty sure she sent us there:)

anyway, hope you understood that cuz i was trying to write it relly fast!

Gotta go!!!

Love Hna Jones

April 11, 2011

Hey Mamita,

Jennie did email me about the license thing. Yes i have it, and i'm to scan and email it to her today. The only thing is that this Cyber place doesnt have a scanner machine so were going to have to find another one, because she said she needs it before the 20th and if i send it, it won{t get there in time. anyway, point being that im gonig to try my very hardest to get it scanned today so that she can figure all that out. but if we cant find somewhere today where they can do it, shell have to wait til next week...

anyway, i wanted to ask you a favor if you wouldn't mind... We have some investigators that need a little extra help. I was wondering if you could put their names on the temple prayer thing. Im just going to assume the answer is yes and go ahead and give you their names:)

Graciela

Bryan

Lautaro

Rosa and Jose

Tito

Veronica

Tanya

Belen and Cristian

You might recognize some of those names because i've talked about them before:)

Oh, guess what! This last tuesday, Pres and Hna Peterson were driving with the assistants to Bariloche and the wind blew their car over!!! They rolled twice but luckily come out of it ok. They said theyre bruised and sore and had to get some stitches but aside from that, all is well:) So, God was protecting them!

umm... this week was a good one except that Graciela didn{t make it to church:( I dont know what happened, by its ok cuz God will help us know what to do to help her get there.

 We taught an inactive member this week, Jose, and his wife, Rosa, but we were mostly teaching Jose because he started drinking again after he stopped going to church and now its really hard for him. and his wife wont get baptized until he stops drinking, nor his daughter or son. Basically hes got like 8 people waiting for him to quit drinking, and then theyll get baptized... honestly, i dont know if theyll actually do it but their excuse is Jose's drinking problem:)

Anyway, So we made goals for him of how he can quit because his plan was just to 'decide i want to stop, and not drink anymore', which, obviously, is the idea, but that has been his plan for the last 2 weeks and it hasnt been working out really well so far. So his plans were really easy, 2 things... avoid your friends when theyre drinking, and not ask anyone to loan you money (we had already worked out that he was going to give all the money to Rosa and she was going to handle it because if he has money, he spends it on wine)

so, we asked him, ' what are the 2 things you have to do to quit drinking?' and he said, 'decide i want to stop, and not drink anymore!' .... nope, wrong answer. but it was hilarious becasue the same thing hapened literally about 20 times. we asked him the same question over and over again, and he spouted off the same exact answer! but you just have to know Jose, because he{s kinda a hilarious character in general. So every time he answered the question like that, we would say, "NO!!" and he would just have this confused look on his face, and then start laughing. and then every once in a while, he ll crack jokes, which makes our part really hard because were trying to be stern with him, and his little jokes really are whitty, and are made even funnier by his goofiness. because he{s probably like 65 years old and hes missing all of his front teeth on the top, so his smile is kind of adorable... you wouldn't think it would work like that but it does! haha seriously, hes contagious:) a very lovable character, and he could be a great influence for good if he would just stop drinking!!! so, pray for him please! He needs help!

But, thats all for now!

I hope all is well! Tell Savanna Thanks! i got her email, and AJ's too.

Tell everyone one i love them to pieces!!!

Love Hna Jones

April 4, 2011

Hey MAma,

When does AJ leave? I can ask the elders hear what they would suggest cuz it´s different for them. I mean, there are things that i wish i would´ve brought but they were all mostly sister missionary things. maybe random little things to be able to give to investigators and converts, like...nicer ctr rings because you can´t order them here, only the cheapy green ones, and they´re nice to give to really special people:) oh, and tell him to order lots of extra name tags in the mtc! or at least 4 extras because when you order them here they take FOREVER to arrive! and tell him to bring good writing pens! even just the regular old Bic ones are fine, cuz they´re better than the pens here:) ( that´s a suggestion from my comp) and he ABSOLUTELY needs a coat! I know it says optional on the papers but it is NOT OPTIONAL! without a coat, he will die!

that´s all i can think of for now, but if i think of other things, i´ll let you know:)

oh, hey, i also sent a letter for Chris to the house cuz i didn´t know his address, so if you could get that to him somehow when it gets there, i´d love you forever

 

so, first of all, I LOVED CONFERENCE!!! It was so good! and on Sunday, in between the sessions, we were able to teach the daughters of a recent convert who aren´t members yet. we started talking to them and then Araceli, another recent convert who is just AMAZING, came over and it was a fantastic lesson, because one of the daughters is 16 and she was asking Araceli -who´s 21- questions that she probably never would´ve felt comfortable asking us because we´re missionaries and they always just think we´re weird... and it´s kinda true:)... but, yeah, it was a great lesson, and that´s why it´s important for the members to work with the missionaries!!! They´ve got more power in helping people than they realize!

 

also, I was able to see the power of the Book of Mormon this week when we went to visit our investigator, Graciela. It was amazing the difference that we could feel in her home the last time we went to visit her. We could feel it even before she told us that she´d been reading:) She told us how much she LOVES reading it. and the more she reads, the more she just wants to keep reading! She liked the picture of Jesus in the Americas that´s in the front, the one where he´s on the steps of the temple, and said she wanted to blow it up big and put it on the wall. She has a giant poster of Gauchito Gil, he´s a very common saint here, above the fireplace, and we had planned to teach her later the ten commandments and how she shouldn´t have saints on her walls, but when we went, she told us she wanted to take it down and put the picture of Christ there, because she told us, ¨it says in this book that we shouldn´t have other things besides God¨
and that´s one of the smallest changes! They were all running around crazy in the house the other times we went, and yelling at each other, and she would yell back at them, but they were so much calmer, and she was patiently helping them with their homework. I´ve just never seen such a drastic change so fast. She´s read almost the whole Book of Mormon, and she´s just thirsting for more!!!
I´m so glad that i was able to see the power of the Book of Mormon working in their lives. I truly love that book! and God is continually confirming to me that it is true as i read it and see it´s effect in the hearts of His children!

Anyway, That´s all for this week! I love you BUNCHES! and hope all continues well! I pray for you all every day!

Be Good!

Love Hna Jones

March 28, 2011

Hey Mama,

I'm glad you wrote me early because if not i wouldn't have gotten it:) So, i'm gonna have a room when i get home?! yay! haha my comp is great! remember how you asked me before who she is related to. well, she told me her whole genealogy so here's how it is... her dad is John Bundy, and her Grandpa is Clarence Bundy... I don't know if dad knows them or not but he probably does since he knows pretty much everybody:) you should ask him... We've been telling all the members that we're cousins. they get a kick out of that, and my comp even went to one of our Jones family reunions once with Kelsey because she and Kels were best friends in seventh grade, but i really don{t remember her.... anyway, you should tell Kelsey and see if she remembers her, Kelsha Bundy.

Turns out, my new area is GINORMOUS!!! Seriously, We have the entire city to ourselves, which has its down sides because if we walk directly from one side to the other, it takes like an hour and a half, but if we plan well, that doesn't happen.

but mostly I'm just super excited because there are tons of people to talk to here. ill never get bored because i'm pretty sure ill never be able to knock all of it:) plus, the people her are really friendly and willing to listen, the members are fantastic, and all the missionaries that were here before were super heroes, no joke, and they have been preparing this area with all their hard work! Now, we just have to reap, and keep planting for the next missionaries to come. But honestly, i just feel more than ever like the field is white!!! its harvest time!!! I sound kinda like a nerdy sister missionary... oops:)

anyway, We're working hard and putting goals, and Hna Bundy has SO much faith! it's great.

Its time for the spiritual experience of the week... one of the many.

The other day we went to eat lunch with a part member family, and my comp told me before hand that the husband wasn't a member, so i said, well ill just invite him to be baptized then! haha but i really did want to bring the subject up and take advantage of the fact that i was new. so we were chatting with him and he told me he wasn't a member so i asked him why, and he said he didn't want to be a hypocrite or something like that... but the point is, we were able to open up the conversation, and we challenged him to just read the book of Mormon and pray to know for himself! my comp tried to hand him the book and he didn't want to touch it. it was like he was afraid of it. but he took it and we were like, all you have to do is read, and pray! this book comes from God! and my comp, in a stroke of pure brilliance... or the spirit:)... said, open it. and he didn't want to, so she said, why are you scared of it? just open the book and read the first scripture you see.

So he did it, and the Spirit was so strong when he was about to open it up, and he read a scripture, i don{t even know where he was reading, but it was in Alma somewhere, but it told him how he could find happiness, and he totally felt the spirit! i know he did!!! he said he would read and pray, and we have an apt with them on Thursday so I'm way excited!!!

Hey mom, could you just send this letter to the whole family:) haha I actually didn't mean to write it all here but, it happened that way, so... yeah

Love you lots!!!

I hope you all have a fantastic week!

Love,

Hna Jones

March 21, 2011

Hey Fam!!!!

So, once again it´s transfer time.... Wanna know what happened?! well, here´s how it went down... They transferred me to Centenario, which is in the same zone, and basically right around the corner from where i am right now! haha it was quite the surprise because this NEVER happens. people don´t change districts and stay in the same zone. Sometimes they leave and then come back but I´ve never heard of anyone who stays in the same zone... well, there´s always a first for everything! also, my new companion is Hna Bundy!!! sound familiar? yep, she´s the Hermana from St. George that i did divisions with before!!! We were so surprised! seriously, when my district leader called and told us i was like, ¨seriously elder?...¨ and i kept asking if he was lying to me until he got mad, and i decided it must be true:)

but i´m super excited cuz Hna Bundy is really great! She has tons of energy and spunk! So, we´re going to baptize everyone in Centenario!

This week was a good one. We have a mom and her daughter, Eli and Natalia, that are going to get baptized the week of conference. The other good thing about this transfer is that i´m so close that i´ll be able to go to the baptisms!!! YAY!!!

Anyway, that´s pretty much it for this week! I´ll let you all know more about my new area when i get there, because i have to stay here until Wednesday. Hna cruz´s new comp is coming from way down south so she´s arriving Wednesday in the morning and we´re staying with Hna Cruz til she gets here! fun fun!

I´m going to miss the members here but i´m going to see them in General Conference so it´s all good! can you believe how fast the time passed?! it seems like it was just barely Gen Conference time!!!! CRAZY!

well, gotta go! Love you all un MONTON!!!! Portense bien y cuidense:)

LOVE,

Hna Jones

January 17, 2011

Hey Fambly,

Just wanted to send a quick email and let you all know that I´m alive and well:) In fact, I´m doing great!!! We started teaching a while back, an inactive member, Analia. I can´t remember if i told you about her but She´s really great! I love her to death! She had been inactive for 10 years, and she´s coming to church now!!!! yesterday was the second week:) She has an adorable little family, but she´s not married and her husband isn´t a member. We want to teach him so he can get baptized and one day they´ll be able to go to the temple and be sealed! but he was in the oil fields so he´s never home:( Dang it! but we taught her about Eternal Families and they´re putting goals for when they can get married! Yay!!! Also, another less active family has the goal to go to the temple, and we´ve been trying to help them get there. they´ve gone to church 2 weeks in a row too!

We also have great investigators but it´s hard for them to go to church for some crazy reason (pretty sure it´s the devil´s fault) ya know, I really just don´t like that guy! but we´re working with them:) Carmen is the woman i told you about... or i think i told you, whose husband passed away. She didn´t go to church on Sunday, but i have faith that once we´re able to teach her the importance of it, she´ll definitely go!

anyway, I love you all! Thanks for your support, love, and prayers, and all that jazz!!!

Love your guts!!!!

Hna Jones

January 31, 2011

Hey Mama,

umm... first, I didn´t even know AJ had gotten his call! where´s he going? Shay did tell me about the baby though. I´m super excited! How are you, mama? And dad? working hard like always?

Our investigators are doing good:) we have 2 with a baptismal date, and they´re fantastic!!!! One is a girl named Griselda. she´s 17 yrs old and golden! She has so many questions, and is really trying to find the truth. I love it! God is really leading his work forward!

and Roque is the one i mentioned last week. he makes us lunch every Thursday when we go to visit him, and he´s just the sweetest old grandpa.

This week was a good one, but it´s been kinda hot... oh, yesterday, we did divisions with the hnas from Centenario and i was with Hna Bundy (she´s from St. George... pretty sure dad probably grew up with her dad, but i don´t remember his name to be able to tell you) and we found this adorable girl. She´s 22 yrs old, Milagros is her name, and she´s like Giselle on Enchanted, not even kidding. She´s probably the sweetest most adorable girl, and she looks like her too, big blue eyes and everything! we´re way excited to go back and teach her more:)

anyway, I love you so so so so much! haha but it really is true!

pass my love on to everyone else!

Love,

Hna Jones

Pictures

Hey, Here are the pictures of all the newbies with their trainers. it´s a really bad picture but you can at least see Hna Cruz:)

Love you all. hope the pictures get there ok!!!!

LOVE YOU ALL FOREVER!!!

oh, and tell JD i got his package, and thank you bunches!!!

Love,

Hna Jones

 

 Sorry the pictures are small but it was the best I could do.

Christmas Call Preparation

HI! So I really did finally send the Christmas package today, but don´t get too excited, it´s not all that great... There is really only one present but i hope you like it. Also, I discovered today that if i send the package certified it only costs me 40 pesos!!! Sweet eh? that´s only like $12. so yeah, That was exciting. Oh, and yes, I got my package today:) I´m going to try to not open anything til Christmas.

To answer your question, Franco´s mom is Evangelica, but i don´t know why she hates us. She doesn´t even go to the same church as franco anyway! but they are both Evangelica churches so i think that as long as he weren´t leaving the evangelicos, she would be fine with him changing churches.... I don´t know really....

but this week has been a pretty great one! Wewent to teach our investigator, Gabriela, who has a baptismal date, but we haven´t been able to see her for a while cuz she´s just never there, and we found her at home. so we asked her if she had read the book of mormon and she said, ¨no, i started to read it but i got bored. it just doesnt really call my attention¨ and then she was saying how she wasn´t really interested and stuf like that, and i don´t know how it happened, i don´t even remember what we said, but she all of a sudden was like, ¨ I started listening because i could see that you have something different. that´s why i let the other missionaries in to. because of the light i could see in them. You´re just always happy and smiling, and that´s just something you don´t see very much in people, that they´re just truly happy.¨ So we asked her if she wanted to have that, and of course she said yes!

We explained to her that she had to do 3 things, read pray and go to church, and she said, ¨I can read and pray but i´m not going to church. I don´t like churches.¨

so we started talking a little about that, and all of a sudden (miracle part 2), Her super catholic mom, who was only half-listening while she was cooking, piped up, ¨well, i´d like to go! i´ve never been to a Mormon church before! I´d like to see how it is¨

HOLY COW!!!! and she walks with a limp, so she said, we´ll have to leave early because it´s gonna take me a while to walk there. It took us about 40 minutes to walk to the church, but she did it!!!! and they really liked it too=)

I love miracles!!!

also, This Christmas day, we´re going to call between 6 and 7 Argentine time, so that´s... 3 or 4 your time i think...? anyway, we have calling cards so i´m going to just call you guys.

oh, and could you invite JD and Kennedy, i don't know if she´ll be able to but if she can...

and... yep, that´s all!!!

I love you bunches!

Love,

Hna Jones