Super grateful!

Hola!

Well it was good week, like always!

Things are going well here.

The Lara Family came to church for the first time and LOVED IT.  So they are progressing well and we are bummed because the 30th of this month we have stake conference and the 7th of December there are elections again which means no church.  So that's another two weeks that we can't schedule baptisms again which will slow down the work a bit. But they have their date to get baptized the 13th of December and we are praying that everything works out with them.  Pray for them! ALso we are still workign with Araceli and hoping that she can get baptized this weekend! She is ready and everything but Satan is working on her so we just need to work harder! 

This week we went to Lima for the monthly leadership council.  My favorite part was the training that Sister Archibald did on Obedience.  It helped me learn and realize that commandments aren't just rules that our Heavenly Father gives us, they are guidelines that if we follow, we will become like our Father in Heaven.  It's like if we really want to become a good swimmer for example, and we had the chance to spend a day with MIchael Phelps, I would ask all the advice he has and try to imitate all he does in swimming and see how I could become as good as him.  Well we say we want to become like Christ, and so we have all these commandments that will help us become like Him, so why don't we follow them sometimes? It's a bummer.  So that whole training made me look at Obedience differently.  I'm so grateful that I was born into a very obedient family and have learned this from birth.  I hope I can continue in this legacy and keeping ALL of the commandments!

This week I think we are going to go to Lima again because I have a little going away party thing.  We are going to go to the temple, all those that are leaving, and going to eat and do fun things. I only have about 3 more days of proselyting then because my area is far from Lima.  So I'm goin gto do my best to take advantage of these days I have! 

Not sure if I'll be writing you next week or not. I'll be in an autosufficiency training or something. 

I'm super humbled and super grateful for this opportunity I've had. I'm not going to try and express my feelings here... so I'll just quote Ammon and say, "I cannot say the smallest part which I feel."

THe church is true!!!!!

Love you so much!
See you next week!

Hermana Jones :)

Happy Halloween

Hola familia!!

Lots of things happened this week, so it went by pretty fast! But things are going well and we're happy here in Barranca!
We did a work visit up in Huaraz, and I'm glad that I never have to make that trip again because it is long and uncomfortable. Basically just scaling mountains for a couple of hours.  But it was beautiful as ever and the hermanas there are doing great.

This week was also Hermana Fuentes' birthday! I need to stop having companions that have their birthdays because they always give us WAY too much food! Haha but it was a good day.  Then it was halloween so we dressed up as each other and switched our nametags. I know, we are just so creative! 

the work is going well and we are getting frustrated with these families we have because they just don't do what they are supposed to! Haha but thus is missionary work.  We just keep working and praying and are doing everythign we can to help them. We did receive an awesome referral this week of a family of 5 that is very humble.  They live in a super huge nice house to care for it when the people are gone, but they don't live IN the house, they live in this little dumpy side house.  And the houseowner hardly pays them and doesn't let them use their pool or go on their lawn or anything unless they are cleaning it. Lame.  But this family is really great and we only got to teach them once this week but they loved it and are excited to learn more and go to church and such. They are the Lara family, so pray for them! They're great. 

This week we were walking on the street and saw a kid with a monkey! He said he brought it from the jungle where his mom lives.  So we played with it and took pictures.  It made a super annoying screeching sound and it was eating french fries.  That was a fun experience! We took pictures.

Life is good here, the work is moving on.  in fact, it is hastening! Be part of it!!

The church is true, love you bunches!!!

Hermana Jones 

Another Monday?

Is it Monday again?? Crazy!!!

Good week!!! I don't have much to write.... hm....

We had to travel a bit this week because we went to a leadership training with President which was awesome, and it was fun to see other friends from the mission.  

It was interesting because President actually talked a lot about money in the training.  He was suggesting that the church isn't building more temples because now there are so many missionaries, that all the funding goes to missionary work. 

Something interesting he pointed out is that each mission spends so much money on all of the costs put together for all the missionaries and services and such, that they figured out that the church pays about 12,000 dollars for every person we baptize. Talk about worth of souls! haha.  Well President wants to lower that cost.  There are two ways we can do it.  We can spend less money or we can baptize more people!! haha So we are going to baptize more people.  Then we have to make sure they stay in the church because if they don't, that's 12,000 dollars wasted! Anyway, it was an interesting point of view to look at things.  

The Alberto Family is going to get married this week so we are excited for that and for them! They still aren't goign to baptize because we want to make sure they are fully repented and ready for baptism.  Marriage doesn't exactly mean full repentance... haha but they are great and we are confident that they will get baptized within these couple of weeks. 

Life is going well here in the mission and I'm loving it!

Thanks for everthing, have a great week!!!! 

Thanks for all the love and support!

Hermana Jones

Churchless week

Woops, sent the letter again without writing anything. 

We had a good week here in Barranca, it was pretty strange because yesterday were the elections and according to the law, you can't have any meetings on election day. So there was no church for us and I felt so weird all Sunday.  It was the first Sunday that I haven't gone to church in years! Also it was a bummer because we couldn't see conference, but will be seeing it this week. So this week now you can tell me your opinions/what you liked and such of conference. I'm excited to see it! Word on the street is that they didn't announce any temples and they are "Alma 54-ing it" O sea, we just need to strengthen what we have already got.  

Nevertheless, it was a pretty good week, just strange.  So many people were travelign because you have to go to your own city to vote if you never changed your address (Which is a TON of people) so like half of the population went to other cities and a ton came here that were originally from here as well.  So we did a lot of contacting and finding new investigators because our current ones weren't home! 

A lot of finding = a lot of rejection! It was a little frustrating just hearing everyone's lame excuses why they can't listen to us but it definitely helped me grow in my testimony of the Savior. I love these people so much and want them to be saved, but they just flat out reject us.  But that's what the Savior went through as well. Just gotta keep workign with Faith! 

Today starts my last transfer! We haven't found out yet about the changes but I'm 99.99% sure that I'll be finishing out here with hermana Fuentes. I'm excited to sprint out to the end! 

The weather is finally warming up and everyone is happy. Life is good. The work is going well.  

I can't upload pics today so next week for sure.

Have a great week!
Love you bunches!  

Week of Adventures!

Hola Familia, 

This week flew by because we went up to Huaraz to do a work visit which was pretty cool! Huaraz is far and there are 3 companionships of sisters there so we stayed from Monday until Wednesday and it was productive and it is summertime there so it was nice to see the sun feel dry air- not so humid. Hna Agle, my trainer/mom goes home next week so it was sad to have to say goodbye to her, but I'll get to see her again in January. :)

We got back and got to work for a couple of days and then had a zone training with Pres. and Sister Archibald and the assitants which was AWESOME.  I'm pretty sure Pres. Archibald would be an awesome coach because he is so motivating.  He was talking about the importance of what we are doign adn how important it is to hasten the work and have an attitude of urgency because there isn't much time! I felt like I could go walk on water after that. It was great. So we got back to work and had a great week!

This week I saved a dog off a roof. When we were running in the morning a kid and his grandpa were trying to climb a ladder and take their dog off the roof, but they couldn't do it so I tried but the dog looked like it was goign to bite me so I got up there with the kid, and a lady gave us a bag and the kid put it in the bag and it started going crazy and I threw the bag down to the grandpa and all was well! It was a fun adventure/service activity. 

The Rodriguez family is progressing and we found out this week that Lucero, the 22 year old daughter has to go away to study for 2 months so she won't be able to get baptized until December, so we talked to Pres. Archibald and he said it would be better to baptize her this weekend than wait.  So we went over there on Friday night and talked to her about it and at first she didn't want to get baptized on saturday because she had lots of doubts and such and didn't feel ready, but we were talking to her and helping her and it finally came down to the fact that she had doubts about Joseph Smith.  So we invited her to kneel and pray right then and there. So we all kneeled and she prayed and asked if Joseph Smith was a prophet.  The Spirit was so strong and we all stayed kneeling after to listen to the spirit and we got up and she explained to us that she had felt the Spirit so we told her that that was her answer and she agreed and agreed to get baptized the next day.  So on saturday she got baptized and her whole family came and it was great and she gave her testimony after about how she knew it was the right decision.  There isn't heated water in the fonts here so it was pretty cold the water but she said as she entered in the water while being baptized, she didn't even feel cold, or afterwards either.  She is super awesome and it was a great example for her family.  They are still going to get baptzied in October, because they have to go to church a couple more times still. Everything is going well with them.  Our challenge now is finding more families because a lot of fallen and have stopped progressing so that is what we are going to focus on this week. 

Oh yeah, I am going to send you the most fulfilling picture! Our itty bitty branch has had 28 baptisms in these last 4 months between two companionships, which is awesome! Not only that but they are all families that are still active and going strong.  Anway, most of them went to the temple and did baptisms on saturday and so they took a picture together and when I saw it it made me tear up a bit.  It's so great to see the progression towards the altar! the work is hastening! 

Thanks for all the love and prayers. Have a great week! The church is true!

Hermana Jones

Hola

So things are going well here in good ol Peru! 

We definitely had a week of ups and downs but things are going well and progressing. Not much has been happening but here are a couple of updates:

The Rodriguez family is progressing well, I don't know if I already mentioned them, but it is Alejandro and Sonia and their two daughters Lucero and Araceli.  The daughters are our ages, and the family actually lives in the area of the Elders, but the daughters are kinda flirty so they gave the family to us and we are teaching them now, and working so they can get baptized in October! 

We had a cool little miracle with them this week.  We visited them on saturday and they told us they weren't going to be able to go to church on sunday because Alejandro had to study for a big test at work.  Well we talked to them about sabbath day and eventually they agreed to go to sacrament meeting.  We left but still weren't pleased because we have this new rule that they have to attend ALL THREE HOURS three times to be able to get baptized so if they didn't go on sunday, we were going to have to move their bapt. date.  So we left worried but had said all we could and were just praying that they would stay three hours and we would be blessed for being obedient to the new rule.  we weren't sure how it was going to work out but we figure the Lord would help us out! 

So on Sunday they all came as promised, and after sacrament meeting we went to talk to them and casually asked, "so are you going to go to the classes?" and then without hesitation the stubborn dad just said, "yeah." and then went to class.  We didn't ask questions or anything we just went along with it and we aren't sure how the Lord did that, but it worked and they are stil on track to get baptized! 

I received some great news this week that my 2nd baptism, Maria Hambudge, who got baptized last August, got endowed! I was so happy to hear that.  It's one thing to baptize a person but it's another to know that they are progressing and enduring to the end! There has been a lot of focus on retention here because it wasn't done very well in the past, so there are a ton of inactives.  So we are very careful in making sure that they are going to stay strong.  I am excited to see the progression of everyone else as well and I think that would just make my joy complete to see them making it to the temple. :)

This saturday our branch is going to the temple, and so all of our converts here, the pimentel family and the Cuenca family are going to go and do baptisms.  The twins in the Pimentel fmaily just turned 12 last week so they got the priesthood on Sunday and are going to be able to go.  They were originally going to go this past weekend to the temple, but we brought up that situation with the twins so the branch changed the temple date for them. So cool! So I am excited for them all to go :) 

Last monday we played volleyball, and it was sad.  All athletic ability that I ever attained is now gone.  I've turned into a tall awkward gringa full and slowed down by all the rice and potatoes. But it's okay because I've never been happier than being in the full time service of the Lord. :)

The church is true!

love you bunches. 

Hermana Jones 

Life is Good1

Hola,

We had a good week and things are picking up a lot here.  We are starting to see a lot of fruits of our efforts and things are going well!

The entire Rodriguez family FINALLY came to church! The two daughters, Lucero and Araceli, who are 20 and 22 have been coming for weeks and are great, but the parents have been more difficult to get to come.  But they came yesterday and it was great.  The Relief Society teacher didn't come so the president asked me to give the lesson about temples and sealing. So I taught on the spot but it turned out really well and was perfect for the family because I focused a lot on how it is Impossible to enter into Exaltacion without sealing in the temple.  They were pretty worried because their Catholic marriage isn't cutting it.  So they enjoyed the lesson and we went by afterwards and taught more about it and they are definitely warming up to the idea of getting baptized so they can get sealed as a family.  

These next few weeks will be interesting because we found out that on October 5th they have elections here.  Well apparently they always have elections on saturdays, and when there are elections, it's illegal to have any sort of public reunion or gathering because it is law that all go vote. So we aren't allowed to have church that day.  Which means we can't watch general conference that weekend! Sad. :( So we have to wait until the next weekend.  Don't tell me about anything cool they talk about until I see it! haha. That also means that we can't have baptisms those two weeks because they have to get confirmed in sacrament meeting.  So we have to plan a lot better now.  

I have been reading Jesus the Christ a lot because I really want to finish it before I finish my mission.  I love it! I was reading about lots of the parables and I love the explanations and insights that Talmage gives. Not going to lie, I didn't really understand a lot of those parables before haha.  But I especially loved when he was describing the parable (I don't remember the name) but when the man goes and knocks on his neighbor's door in the middle of the night asking for bread for a traveler, and the neighbor doesn't want to get up and give it to him , but in the end he does it.  I love that becuse I was thinking about my life and how much Heavenly Father loves us, that he really wants to give us all these "gifts" so we just need to keep knocking and when we keep knocking and keep asking humbly, he will give them to us when we have proven our Faith.  So keep having faith! 

Good week, thanks for all the love and prayers! Life is good here and I love being in the service of the Lord. 

Helaman 3:35.

Love you bunches!
Hermana Jones 

p.s. I did a work visit with Hermana Stirling and she had ranch dressing and we made wraps and it was heavenly. I forgot that ranch existed!