Stuck in the Mud!

so... first of all, did you get the pictures i sent in my email? cuz I really want to know if they actually get there or not, cuz if not i wont waste my time in sending them.

Second... Happy 24th of July:) and I dont really remember what I wanted to tell you all...

I guess Ill just catch ya up on the semi-interesting things that happened this week.

the other night we were leaving an appt and had to go to our mision leader who lives on the other side of this big empty field, so rather than go all the way around, we figured that we would just cut through and save time. So, its kinda dark (cuz thats what happens at night) and we are just frolicking merrily through this field when, all of a sudden, we sink! uh oh! so were like, Dang it!!! the dirt wasn{t as dry as it looked... so our feet are all sunk in and we figure we better turn around and head back in the other direction, and we{re trying to yank our boots out of this horrible mud that i{m almost certain is a creation of the devil! seriously, in my whole life i have never seen mud so sticky! anyway, I get out one foot and am able to turn around to help my comp who is having more difficulties. so she{s holding onto my arm and trying to get her shoe unstuck but the problem is that her boots are a little bit too big for her, so her foot comes out but the boot stays and she got all off-balance and toppled over. I tried to catch her but to no avail! Luckily, I didnt fall with her:) so we finally get her boot out and make our way out of the demon field, to the house of our mission leader, with our boots, and my comp{s skirt, completely covered in mud. Turns out, he and his wife had family over and literally every person in that house was looking at us like we were slimey creatures that just crawled out of a sewer drain. haha it was horrible, but hilarious at the same time. I think i probably laughed off 5 lbs... (I wish it worked that way) haha

and that{s all i got to say this week because... I just got bored of typing:)

but i love you oodles and gobs!!!

LOVE,

Hermana Jones

A New Transfer!

HEY!!!!!!!
well, it´s a new transfer! and my comp and i are both staying here:) yes, it´s a good thing! we´ve got some great investigators and set goals that we are going to reach!
sunday was a fantastic day! well... It was pretty much horrible outside, rainy and windy( it´s the wind that gets me) but it didn´t even matter how ridiculously cold it was, the day was still wonderful. wanna know why? cuz Paola got baptized, and Lorenzo received the Arronic Priesthood!
First of all, Paola... she called us Saturday evening and was like, Hey, I can´t get baptized tomorrow cuz my husband says that he´ll kick me out of the house if i do! so we went to talk to her, and her husband, out of the blue, came home the night before and said that to her,and that Mormons worship Satan and we steal babies. he told her we were only there to take their little girl! ( that´s one that i´ve seriously never heard before) and she started to doubt. she knows we aren´t satanic, and she already got her answer that the church is true, but Satan always seems to creep in when their about to be baptized. anyways, we talked to her and told her she just had to pray. We reminded her that she already felt the spirit confirm that it´s true and God will bless her for doing what she knows is right no matter how scary it seems. so she said, ¨well, come by in the morning and I´ll let you know if i´m getting baptized for sure.¨
Oh, you don´t even know how nerve-wracking that night was! but when we went by in the morning to pick her up for church, there she was, and she said she was waiting for her sister to get ready and she would see us there! and then she came! and the baptism was fabulous! and guess what! her husband came!!!! he was there for her baptism, and a talk after, and ate cake with us. It was a miracle! and then afterward, they gave the elders a ride to their house and her husband invited them to come visit them!
I was flabbergasted! but yeah, it was a wonderful day. oh, i didn´t tell you about Lorenzo! He is seriously Golden! you don´t even know how great this kid is! he walked to church in the freezing cold, and we were leaving to go pick up an investigator when he got there, so he said, oh i´ll come with you! ( the investigator lives close to him so he knows her) and we walked all the way back to his house. we went to get her and he had to grab something, so we were going to pick him up in the taxi but there wasn´t room, so he told us to just go, and he walked all the way back to the church in the rain again to be there for sacrament meeting! and he sat by our investigator and helped them with their hymn books and everything!
to be continued.. i gotta go!
love you all!
Happy B-day to JD, and Brooklynne, and Brogan!!!!

It's me again!

Thanks Papa, for your testimony:) and for everything! How was the 4th of July? what did you all do? I realized saturday night that you were probably all celebrating and watching fireworks, and I told Hna Varela, hey guess what! Tomorrow is independence day! Happy 4th of July, Hermana! haha she was like... umm, thanks. its weird that a holiday that has been so huge my whole life doesnt even exist here. it{s probably going to be even weirder on thanksgiving! but anyway...

Lorenzo got baptized Saturday! it was fantastic! you dont even know how excited i am for him! also, Argentina lost in soccer, which is really a blessing in disguise because now we don{t have to worry about not being able to work during argentinas matches, because there wont be anymore:) It was still pretty sad though when they lost. we went to the house of a less active member cuz she said while they were watching the game, we could cook, and then just have lunch there with them. so we tried to do that but my comp couldn{t really focus on the food, she was so anxious to see what happened in the game! i think she almost grated her finger off like 5 times:) haha

hmm... what to tell this week... I dont know, but last night, when we got to the pension we were so tired! so i{m sure we must have done somthing this week, but i guess it just wasnt terribly entertaining. Im pretty sure we were so tired because we literally knocked houses all day yesterday! and apt buildings, which are worse cuz you have to cilmb up all those stairs! haha, but it really wasn{t all that bad. in fact, it{s probably good for me! I should do it every day!

guess what. my boots are almost entirely dead, and when i got to trelew one of the members gave me new ones ( cuz i forgot mine in regina) so i wore tose out completely, and then my other ones got here and now ive almost killed these ones! shoes just dont last!!!! I dont know why they dont make them... better. thicker or something! but i guess its because most people don{t walk around all day long, every day, for months, in the same pair of shoes:)

This is super boring email... sorry, but my brain doesn{t seem to be functioning all that well today:)

Hope you know that I love you!

Besitos

Love, Hna Jones

June 28, 2010

well well well.... One more week in Argentina! I dont know exactly what to tell ya... but basically life here is great! I think i say that in every email:) but its true! This week the weather did this super weird personality change. It went from freezing cold to super warm. Im kinda confused about our relationship now cuz i had pretty much decided to hate the weather and then it goes and does this... and totally redeems itself!

anyway, aside from my love-hate relationship with the climate, did i tell you that it{s the mundial of soccer! yeah, i just gotta tell you that everyone here LOVES soccer! its actually really great. The whole of Argentina unites in soccer:) Argentina beat Mexico on Sunday. we had to go back to our apt to study during the game, and afterward it was a little difficult to find anyone who would let us into their house to teach them... mostly because practically everyone, when argentina wins, drives crazy to the middle of the city, with kids hanging out the windows of the cars and sitting on top, waving flags and hocking the entire way there! haha I love it! seriously, you can feel the energy in the air. EVERYONE is happy and shouting and singing, throwing firecrackers from the tops of buildings:) so basically, there werent a whole lot of people available to teach...

but, we knocked this house right after we had left the apt, and an old lady answered and told us we could come in but she was choking on something so she just kept coughing and coughing, went to get a drink, coughed some more. so we were just waiting in her kitchen to say a prayer with her, leave a pamphlet, and go. but she finally comes back in to the room, and shes like, ok well, bye. and i said, you dont want us to pray? and she said, no im catholic... me: thats lovely, so are we gonna pray or what? jk, that{s not what i said. it was more like, ok we can just say a prayer and go. and she said, what a pretty little girl, and patted my cheek real creepy-like, and I said, so should i say the prayer? and then she told us to get out of her house, patted my cheek again, except harder like she really just wanted to slap me, and said, vayan chicas! vayan! and shooed us out the door like dirty little kittens! .......She was kinda crazy i think... she invited us into her house, made us wait while she almost choked to death and then commanded us to leave... I don{t get it, but we got into the street and comp and just looked at each other and bust up laughing! i think it would probably be funnier if you were there:)

so thats all this week! ps Lorenzo is getting baptized saturday!!!!

Love,

Hna Jones

June 21, 2010

I really don´t have a lot to say right now, just that´s it been a great week! I keep seeing miracles but I don´t know if they would sound like miracles if i explained them to you... This is His work, and if we´re doing all we can, He´ll help us to reach all of our goals! It just amazes me. You know what else amazes me, my comp! she´s like a tiny little miracle! seriously, you give her something to do and she gets it done! I´m learning SO much from her!!!
anyway, something entertaining that happened this week... we had an hermana from the ward who agreed to accompany us one day to a couple appts, so we met her and went to the houses, and they weren´t there, and plan b, and plan c, and d... nobody! so, we just start frantically knocking doors because we´re supposed to have 10 lessons with a member, we´re behind on our goal, and we were hoping to get 2 with this hermana. plus, it´s just horrible to take someone with you and not even be able to teach:( anyway, everyone rejects us, so we start walking back to her house to drop her off and pass the house of one of our new investigators, so we knock, and her son let´s us in. he says, ¨my mom´s in the bathroom right now. just wait a minute¨ so we sit down and she comes out in a towel and is like, hey, i can´t talk to you right now cuz i´m about to get in the bath! and my comp says, ¨well, can we say a prayer really quick?¨ hahaha so she´s like, ok that´s fine. and we pray, with this women in a towel... haha
fun stuff.
anyway, gotta go!
love you all!
Hna Jones

Hey Fam!

Dear Fam,

I don´t have much time. we went to puerto madryn today to see the whales! that was pretty fun but we weren´t able to email before and we got back later than we wanted so i gotta make this quick:)

I´m sending you pics, there are 2 of my bday party with Lorena and Mariela, and then... with Hna Porter. we painted for a service project. umm... then the others you can see my new comp, Hna Varela! those are from today... hopefully they make it to you!

what do i have to tell you... our investigator, Lorenzo, took his friend to institute with him the other day! we were so shocked!!! we just mentioned it to Lorenzo when we were teaching, like hey there´s an institute class tonight at the church. you can go if you want. and the next time we went to teach him, his friend, Orlando, was like, ¨hey lorenzo, we forgot to do the homework! we were supposed to read about enos.¨ and my comp and i were so confused... and they´re like ¨yeah, we went to institute last night.¨ we practically jumped out of our seats we were so excited!!! haha then we taught them both together and put a baptismal date with Orlando! he´s going to be baptized the day before his bday, July 2! and Lorenzo, June 26!!!! They´re really great! and they both had a lot of problems before with drugs and all that, but they´ve been changing their lives up to this point. now they just have to leave behind a few little things:) I really think God was preparing them to accept His gospel!

Anyway, we´re pretty excited about that!!!

love you all for ever and ever!!!!

Love, Hna Jones

oh, and Mom, I gave your email address to a member here that we met today. her name is Adriana Castro and she´s going to email you. she´s moving to Utah, park city and is looking for somewhere to live and work. but she doesn´t know anyone there. she asked if i knew anyone and I told her I didn´t but that maybe you might know of someone, or be able to check into it a little... i don´t know. maybe Uncle Donny knows someone.... anyway, just a heads up. don´t worry, she´s not trying to mooch or anything. she just doesn´t know where to start looking.

also, if you can send me some pics of the house (our house) from the outside, that´d be super. my comp wants to see it:)

And Dad, what is your calling right now? she asks me the weirdest questions;)

also Mama, sorry, I´ll answer all your questions next week! Luv ya!

My 1st Week in Trelew!!!

Hey Fambly!

well, this has been probably the longest week in the history of the world! but the first week of transfers is always like that. But I´m sure you want to know about my new area, my comp, and all that.... or maybe you don´t but I´m going to tell you anyway:) you know how I am, even when my stories are lame, I have to tell them!

so, my comp is awesome! Her name is Hna Varela and she´s from Cordoba. She´s really great! she´s a hard worker and super nice. and to think, i was worried. I´ve also come to realize that, whoa, I can communicate! haha I can even joke in Spanish! how great is that?! and I have to speak Spanish ALL THE TIME now. strangely, it´s really ok. I haven´t really missed speaking English too much. This area is definitely different that Villa Regina, but it´s good and I know we´re seriously going to see miracles here! there´s one investigato rwe have that I´m super excited about ( well, they´re all really awesome, but... ya know what I mean)His name is Lorenzo and he´s going to be baptized! we put a Baptismal date with him and he accepted just like that. He came to church on Sunday too! but i have to tell about when we challenged him to baptism cuz it was really great. it went like this...

us: so lorenzo, are you willing to follow Jesus Christ and be baptized?

him: yeah, but do i have to be baptized with lots of people around?

us: no, you can invite as many people as you want.

him: ok, good. cuz I would just feel kind of awkward being naked in front of all those people.

us: hahahahhahaha no, darling, you will be wearing clothes ( well, we didn´t say darling. i don´t even know how in Castellano:) but we explained everything to him and it was ok)

but he´s really great. he´s 21... ? and just super awesome! I´m so excited for him!!!

but that´s all fo now!

Love, Hna Jones

PS it´s cold here:)