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

Jones Fambly

Thanks for your prayers. I´m going to work as hard as i can so God can make it happen. I get frustrated sometimes because Satan is working really hard to stop our investigators from progressing. It´s ridiculous:( Franco is one of our investigators that had a baptismal date. He prayed and knew it was true, but his mom hates us and doesn´t want him to receive us anymore so he told his cousin to tell us not to come by:( but this week, Ayelen, we have been teaching her english, went to a baptism with us, and she´s going through a lot of problems right now. they found out that her dad has cancer, so we gave her the book of mormon and told her how it would help her, so she´s going to read it:) she´s really great! I love her to death.

Yanina went to church again on Sunday. I gave her a skirt cuz she wasn´t go to go cuz she felt dumb going in pants. luckily it fit her. that was a miracle cuz she´s this tiny little thing, and I didn´t think it would.

Also, we were able to really teach Daiana´s mom this last week. I think she got a little mad at me because i showed her in the scriptures that her church isn´t really true ( which, just so you know, was super hard for me to so) not because i can´t find scriptures to prove her wrong but because it´s hard for me to be frank with people and just tell them straight out that their church is wrong, or their baptism isn´t valid, cuz it just seems so harsh. but i realized that sometimes you have to tell them plainly because this is their salvation! It´s kinda important...

We weren´t bible bashing or anything. i just read her the scripture and testified to her that there is only ONE true church.

I know it´s true, and i´m do grateful to be a missionary!!!!

Love you all and i´ll be talking to you soon:)

Love Hermana Jones

Fambly Mail

Hey Beloved Fambly!!! I didn´t wish you all happy thanksgiving last week so... HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!! Our thanksgiving turned out to be... well, not thanksgiving. It´s kinda a long story but in the end we ate rice with cheese in our apartment, but we did we make a banana cream pie the night before, so we officially had pie night! Yay! keeping the tradition alive, even in Argentina!!! oh, and also, the pie i made was a love pie! I took a picture of it! so that´s for you, cousin Dani:) Well, this week has been kinda a roller-coaster. Daiana was supposed to get baptized this next saturday but now she can´t because she didn´t go to church and she´s really not ready anyway, but it may be an answer to my prayers because we want the whole family to get baptized together and I wasn´t feeling really good about her getting baptized alone... so we´ll see. It still got me kinda down though. But, it´s crazy how when we get down, God sends us something to lift us up. That something for me came on Sunday. Yanina, an investigator went to church with us., and we´ve only taught her once but when we were walking home she said to us out of the blue, ¨when i know more about the church, i want to get baptized.¨ I almost peed my pants I was so startled! haha so i said, alright... we can teach you if you want;) Man, I LOVE being a missionary!!!! I´ve basically decided to keep being a missionary my whole life! I´ll just keep doing it after i get home, but as a kind of side job:) Anyway, That´s all i got this week! but I love you all! thanks for your love and prayers. please keep praying for me, and mostly for my investigators.

Love,

 Hermana Jones

Ode to Thanksgiving!

Well, first and foremost, i had to pass through an ordeal this week that really just made me appreciate even more one of the only traditions that we have in America. We may not have a traditional food, or drink ¨mate¨ but we celebrate Thanksgiving!!! We ate with the bishop´s family on Saturday, and his wife asked us why we celebrate thanksgiving. So we told her, we give thanks for everything we have. it´s like a holiday to remember the things we´re grateful for. and she said somthing like, ¨that doesn´t make sense¨ .... Huh? how does that not make sense? so we explained to her how it came about with the pilgrims and indians, and she kept trying to find an argentine holiday that would be similar, but she couldn´t because it doesn´t exist.

Anyway, even though Argentines don´t understand why we have a day to stuff ourselves until we´re about to throw up, I love it! and it´s something that i really am proud of! you can be ungrateful all you want, Argentina. But i am going to keep my day to give thanks! haha

Anyway, that´s really all for this week. I have more things to share, things that actually have to do with mission work, but i´ll tell you all later:)

Love,

Hermana Jones

 

PS Congrats on the wedding Ken!