Soccer Champ right here

Buenas tardes!

 

This week was a great week full of miracles! I'll tell three here today. 

1.First off, we had a baptism!

On Tuesday we had a training meeting for the new missionaries and their trainers and afterwards we were all eating and President Archibald asked me in front of everybody, So Hermana Jones, who are you going to baptize this week? And there was a long silence because we didn't have a baptism planned.... haha so I laughed and I said, I'll guess we'll just find that out today.  Well later that afternoon we felt like we should go visit a member and we were surprised to find her there with her un-baptized 9 yr old daughter with her dad.  We sat down and taught them all and found out that she hadn't been baptized yet because her dad was against it.  Well we talked for a while and by a miracle he agreed to let her get baptized. We set the date for this saturday, since she already had been to church and met all the requirements, and Karla got baptized on saturday! President Archibald and his wife came to the baptism. :)

 

2. We found a family of like 15 that is awesome.  I don't have much else to say because we have only taught them once but they are great, so stay tuned.

3. Last monday we had Pday with the zone and played soccer like we always do and it's funny because it's pretty much all of the Natives playing because it's in their blood. But I'm happy to announce that for the first time in my life I scored a soccer goal! That means my soccer skills have infinitely increased since I've been here.  I'd like to thank my mom for putting me in one season of little league soccer and Matt and Jacob for going to a soccer camp or something and bringing home an OSU soccer ball.  

 

I finished off the week by turning 20! Talk about old? I'm not a teenager anymore. But it's all good because I finished out the teen years by being immature and locking our keys in the apartment (by accident) and so we had to wait at a members house until midnight for our landlord to come back.  Only teenagers do stuff like that so I finished out my teen years well.  :)

Our pensionista gave me a cake and they sang and cracked eggs on my head . Good ol' Peruvian birthdays! I'll see if I have pictures.

 

Hermana Alonso and I are super happy to be here and we are working hard and doing well.

Thanks for everything and love you tons!

 

Hermana Jones 

Happy Week

Hola,

 

Great week this week!

I don't have too much to say because it was a pretty normal week and we were just in the swing of things of missionary work!

 

This week we finally found one of the investigators from the previous missionaries that were here.  They didn't leave his information, just that he was ready to get baptized.  So we prayed a lot and asked a ton of people and by a miracle found his phone number! We met with him and he's ready to get baptized, just wants to wait until his dad gets into town to see it,so he'll get baptized this month.  That was pretty exciting!

 

We worked a lot this week and it was great.  We don't know whatwe're doing but theLord is blessing us so much! We just keep working and keep seeing miracles, it's awesome. For example, we always write ournames on cards and pamphlets and give them out, but this week people actually called us! That never happens....but we got 2 phone calls this week from people who wanted to listen. So cool!  

 

An especially cool miracle we had this week was on Saturday night.  We had a lot of appointments set, but nobody seemed to be home. None of the back up plans either... so it was getting close to time to go home when we remembered a family that we had contacted earlier that week.  We decided to stop by and were justgoing to set an appointment with them for another day, but as the mom opened the door she immediately invited us in.  We found them all doing a puzzle together. (Immediate bond since we always do puzzles with Dad) They were excited to hear our message so we shared something short with them and they told us that they have a lot of Faith but recognize that they don't show it enought.  They are So golden! Unfortunately the dad works out of town a lot so it's harder to find him but we are so excited for them and their baptism! 

They also told us they know where the church is because once their son wentto play soccer there and in the chapels here have huge fences around the outside with little soccer fields.  So somehow he ended up getting locked inside the fence of the church and everybody left so he tried hopping the fence but there are huge spikes for safety so they called the fire department but nobody could find a ladder so he just stayed there overnight until somebody found the Bishop with the keys. Hahaha.  I was dying laughing as they were telling the story.  Anyway, they hadn't returned since to the church since... haha but are excited to come now. 

 

This new area is awesome and I love it.  There is so much dust here... Maybe I'll send a picture of my shoes.. This area is a lot humbler than my other area.  The biggest challenge we havebeen having is that people don't have enough money to getmarried, so we have found a lot of great families that can't get baptized until they get married.  We are doing a lot of praying and working with them and hopefully we'll get to see lots of marriages and lots of sealings in a year!

 

Missionary work is the best work in the world and I'm so happy to be here and be part of it!

Thanks for everything! Love you!

 

Hermana Jones 

 

Greetings from Puente Piedra

Hello mi familia!

 

Well, I'll just start off by saying that I got transferred this week! I couldn't believe it... I had spent my whole mission until now in El Olivar so I was pretty sad to leave all the people there that I love but I was excited for some change. 

We went to the transfer meeting and the whole time I was convinced in my mind that I was going to Huaraz, the zone in our mission that is like 10 hours outside of Lima and is gorgeous.  Well, I didn't get called there but instead I am serving in...... Puente Piedra!!! woo hoo! It's a little more north of where I was before and it is GOLDEN here.  The ward is awesome.  They are about to divide the ward because it is so big and solid and progressing a lot. 

So I am here in Puente Piedra and I am training again! I have another daughter, and her name is Hermana Alonso.  She is from Honduras, and she is fantastic.  She is pretty much pre-trained and is teaching me! haha :) 

Since I am in a new area and am training, that means that we are white washing.  There were hermanas here before us but they both got transferred out and we got put in.  Unfortunately they didn't keep track of much of the phone numbers and addresses of investigators and such so it's kind of like we are starting over, so we did a lot of contacting this week, since we really know nothing about this area.  So it was a fun week and we have already been seeing some successes and have some baptismal dates for later this month. 

 

Puente Piedra is pretty similar to my other area but a lot poorer.  There are less streets and more dust.   There are some cool hills with all the houses on them that we get to climb.  Also in my area is downtown Puente Piedra so there are some cool markets in our area.  It's pretty great and we are both excited to be here! This area holds the record from last year for the most baptisms in a month.  There were some Elders here in September that baptized a ton of people so it definitely has a lot of potential!

 

This week we visited a recent convert who is 16 and she is the only member in her family.  They live up on a mountain/hill kind of and are adding a kitched so were chipping away part of the mountain to build it.  (There aren't really construction companies here or anything) so we offered to come back the next day with the Elders and we helped carve the mountain to put their kitchen in and break up stones and rocks and carried them all down the mountain.  It was hard work but super fun and something that I'll probably never be able to do again! I'll send pictures.

 

This week I was reading in Mosiah about Abinadi.  I was reminded how much I love him and admire is testimony.  Mostly I love his boldness with King Noah.  He was in court and about to be put to death but instead of denying the things he knew, he continued to testify and call Noah and his courts to repentance until he was put to death by fire. Wow! What an example for all of us.  Since I started my mission I've wanted to have that type of boldness, where nothing will stop me from declaring what I know and calling others to repent and be baptized.  The church is so true and anyone that denies it is bringing upon themselves their own destruction!

 

Thanks for all the love and support!
Love you bunches!

Hermana Jones