Week 91: Hallelujah!

3/28/16

Hey everyone and happy Easter!

I just want to start off by saying how grateful I am for the life, the Atonement, and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. I feel confident in saying that I know He lives, and that He is totally aware of you and me. There are so many times where I feel so inadequate, that I can't overcome the struggles of this life. The hope that comes from the testimony of Christ should be enough to motivate anyone to rise above themselves. In a way, the Savior should be the reason why we even get out of bed every morning! Prayers are definitely with the missionaries
who were injured in the Brussels attack.

Our week has been awesome! Here's only a couple of the miracles that we saw:

First, one of our investigators texted us and said he wants to get baptized on April 9th! He has been taking the lessons for almost a year. His only hold up was making sure he didn't want to do it for his wife who is already a member of the church. He texted us that on Thursday, and up until that point in the week things had been a little
slow. You can imagine how stoked we were!

The second big miracle of the week was a lesson we had with a former investigator. She had the missionaries over about a year ago, but didn't feel it was right for her at the time. Now, she feels like her church isn't helping her very much. She said that since we have now showed up at her door the second time that she feels like Heavenly
Father is pointing her in this direction. We taught her the Restoration on Friday, invited her to church on Sunday, and then she actually came on Sunday. The best part was how well the ward fellowshipped her! She showed up late, but once the sacrament was passed, she came in with one of our ward missionaries! We are excited
and praying really hard that nothing goes wrong in the teaching
process!

I hope each of you has a wonderful week! I'd love to hear from you!

Elder Jones

Week 90 Happy Days are Here Again

3/21/16

Hey dad!

I'm glad that it was a nice weekend, that the house is getting finished. I'm so jealous that y'all got to see Elder Stevenson! I love his talks! I appreciated hearing about that experience you had with the Spirit! It's so crazy that Landon just got home! Time is going by way too fast!

Our week involved a lot of stuff. I got sick on Friday or so and have been sick ever since. There's no time to sit around--we just have too much stuff going on. We have been very focused on trying to find through our members and we think that the member missionary programs that we are putting in place will be very effective! If you remember the guest-services Sunday that the Red Bridge ward did, we are using that and a culmination of other ideas to provide members with the perfect opportunities to invite their friends. All leading up to this 'Restoration' Sunday as we are calling it, our members are going to be praying for missionary opportunities. In addition, we are trying to do a 40-day fast. We are essentially asking a different member family to fast each day in those 40 days. We're really excited to see what happens.

I went on 2 exchanges out of my area this past week! That was exhausting... on Saturday, we helped a member to move 7 tons of decorative rock from his front yard to his back yard. I was so sore by the end of it because of how much shoveling and wheel barrowing we did!

Our investigators are doing well! Our stake president essentially gave us marching orders to condense the missionary lessons so that there isn't anything stopping one of our investigators (who is an 11 year-old kid) from getting baptized as soon as possible. This boy is from a part-member family and seems like a really good kid, although I don't know him too well! We are also teaching a handful of other people. We have a couple more kids who are likely to get baptized next month. They are just waiting for their parents to get their adoption papers finalized.

That's pretty much It! Class registration for school starts June 6th. If you could take care of that for me, I would appreciate that. love you dad!

Elder Jones

Week 89: Missionary Work Rocks!

3/14/16

Hey everyone!

Hope y'all are doing well!

Our week involved a lot of stuff. I got sick on Friday or so and have been sick ever since. There's no time to sit around--we just have too
much stuff going on. We have been very focused on trying to find through our members and we think that the member missionary programs
that we are putting in place will be very effective! If you remember the guest-services Sunday that the Red Bridge ward did, we are using
that and a culmination of other ideas to provide members with the perfect opportunities to invite their friends. All leading up to this
'Restoration' Sunday as we are calling it, our members are going to be praying for missionary opportunities. In addition, we are trying to do
a 40-day fast. We are essentially asking a different member family to fast each day in those 40 days. We're really excited to see what
happens.

I went on 2 exchanges out of my area this past week! That was exhausting... on Saturday, we helped a member to move 7 tons of
decorative rock from his front yard to his back yard. I was so sore by the end of it because of how much shoveling and wheel barrowing we
did!

Our investigators are doing well! Our stake president essentially gave us marching orders to condense the missionary lessons so that there
isn't anything stopping one of our investigators (who is an 11 year-old kid) from getting baptized as soon as possible. This boy is
from a part-member family and seems like a really good kid, although I don't know him too well! We are also teaching a handful of other
people. We have a couple more kids who are likely to get baptized next month. They are just waiting for their parents to get their adoption
papers finalized.

So things are going well! I would love to hear from y'all! Have an amazing week!

Elder Jones

Week 88: Just Like Old Times!

3/7/16

Hey everyone!

This past week was awesome! We have been diligently working on rebuilding our teaching pool after the great month we had. It has taken a lot of finding, but we are finally getting some where! The craziest days were probably Friday and Saturday. 

On Friday, I was on exchanges with Elder Duce (the one who messed up his shoulder on Thanksgiving). That was a lot of fun because we spent most of the day walking around and talking to people. We set up several lessons for this week with members, and found a new investigator. Elder Duce is having some of the same struggles I had last year, and to hear some of those struggles made me feel useful because I was able to help him through some of those things. It was mostly in regards to inadequacies and how to overcome them.

Saturday, Elder Palmer tagged along with me and Elder Anderson. We had a lesson at 9am, went home to plan a training Elder Anderson and I have to give on Tuesday, ate lunch at Red Robin, helped out at a move, went home again to change back into our proselyting clothes, walked around a neighborhood visiting members and contacting people, met several new potential investigators, received several referrals, found a 9 year-old girl who wants to get baptized, and pretty much crashed when we got home! It was awesome! It was nice to have Elder Palmer around, as well! He said it was refreshing to be able to do some missionary work for a change! Fun fact: Elder Palmer has been companions with both me and Elder Anderson before!

A funny thing that happened yesterday happened during Elders' quorum in the Singles' Ward we cover. The stake president came in and rebuked quorum for not treating the first Sunday of the month like a business meeting. He pretty much sarcastically asked them if they had been reading the handbook and if they knew what they were doing. That taught me this lesson about church meetings and responsibilities: study the handbook. If you don't know what to do, read the handbook; if you still haven't clearly figured out what your responsibilities are, ask your priesthood leader. I'm glad I learned that now!

Hope you have a good week!

Elder Jones