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! 

chanchos

Hola mi familia!

Good week this week, not much to write!

We went to Lima and had our monthly leadership training which was awesome.  They put in a couple of new rules for baptizing in this area. The investigators have to attend church three times, and they have to go to church all three hours three times before getting baptized.  Also, they have to pay some sort of offering or donation before they can get baptized.  It will make things a bit trickier but I can definitely see the wisdom in these rules, making sure that the converts remain active and faithful members of the church.  We'll see what type of good results it brings!

We found lots of awesome families this week that are MARRIED so that was awesome.  We'll see what happens with them! stay tuned.

The Pimentel family invited us to help them out a bit in a field by their house where their uncle raises pigs.  So we went and it was definitely the grossest experience I've ever had haha.  Let me just say, we saw the BIGGEST pigs I have ever seen in my life! I haven't really seen too many pigs but I HAVE seen Charlotte's Web and these pigs were like 50 times bigger than Wilbur. I'll try and send a picture but I don't think you'll be able to tell how big it is. There was one that was like over three feet tall when on all fours. crazy! It convinced me to never raise pigs, even though I don't think that ever would have been a possibility.  

Jose Pablo passed the sacrament yesterday in his cute little white shirt and tie. That is so satisfying to see!  All the converts here are progressing really well and we are working to find more prepared families.

Thanks for all the love and prayers! Love you! The church is true! 

Hermana Jones

crazy week

Hola familia!

On Tuesday night Sister Archibald called me and told me the news that Grandpa had passed away.  Thanks for letting me know beforehand that he wasn't doing well, so it wasn't super shocking. I hope everyone is doing okay, especially Grandma. It sounds like everyone had a pleasant time together for the weekend and How great is it to be members of the true church! 

This week was pretty crazy and I was only in my area for a day and a half! Here's a rundown:
On Monday hermana Leyva had to pack everything because she went to Lima for a couple of days before her flight left.  Tuesday morning she went to the transfer meeting but I stayed in my area with another hermana and we got the news of who our new companions are going to be.  Mine is now Hermana FUENTES.  She is from Colombia and has 7th months in the mission.  She is awesome and we are excited to work together! We are now sister training leaders together. So she got here on Tuesday night, and we worked all day Wednesday which was great because we found some awesome families!

On thursday we had a big leadership training meeting with all the Zone leaders, district leaders, and sister training leaders.  It was basically a priesthood meeting but we were invited as well so I enjoyed it haha.  President talked a lot about just being an example to others because there is no point in being a leader in the mission if we aren't having success because then people won't be looking up to us.  It was a great meeting and then we rode back to Lima with Pres. and the Assistants because on Friday we were going to the temple!
So Hermana Leyva and I went went to President's house on Thursday night which was AMAZING! Funny thing: About a year ago I stayed a night at the mission home when I arrived to Peru and my thoughts were; "This is a nice house. It seems pretty clean and updated." but now, after a year being in Peru, my thoughts were this, "THIS IS THE NICEST HOUSE EVER! There is carpet! And hot water!" I was tempted to sleep on the ground because there was carpet.  But I opted for the extremely comfortable bed instead.  I was literally in Heaven. And Hna. Archibald made us grilled cheese and ice cream and we just sat on the couch chatting with them until midnight. It was the best.  

We got up early on Friday and went to the temple and then went to Chilis to eat lunch. I was in heaven there as well while eating chips and salsa. I had missed chips and salsa so much! 

The Temple was beautiful.  I'm so excited to be able to go to the temple as frequently as I want when I get home.

On saturday we stayed in Lima because Bishop Davies came and did a conference with our mission, with Elder Uceda as well.  Hermana leyva and I sang in the choir which was great.  After that we went right to the airport to drop off hermana Leyva which was really sad, but now she's at home safe and happy. :)

We returned to Barranca late on saturday night and had a great day yesterday as well! We are trying super hard to reach the goal of baptizing families weekly. We have foudn some great families this week and are excited to see what happens. 

One of my favorite experiences this week was when Neil, our recent convert, was able to give the priesthood to his son, Jose Pablo who got baptized last week.  I honestly didn't know before that Priests could give the priesthood! So he read the prayer to ordain him, and then he gave him a blessing that was so beautiful, the just came from the Spirit! It was very spiritual and it sounded like he ahd been giving blessings for years. That family is so great!

Well Sorry for the long rant of information, but it was a pretty crazy week.  Life is awesome and I'm so happy being here in the service of the Lord. 

Whenever I think of Grandpa I think of an extremely hard worker, so I decided to just work harder than ever before to finish things up here. 

Love you all and thanks for all the love and prayers! 

Hermana Jones 

Hermana Leyva dies

Hola!

Well Hermana Leyva got extended a few days so she will be here until this saturday, but we have transfers tomorrow so I think I'll be getting my new companion tomorrow, not really sure. This week was super sad because it was her last week! Hermana Leyva is the best.  Not sure what I'm going to do without her, I guess I'll just keep working.  But it's okay because I'll be seeing her at BYU. :)

So we had a crazy week because we had to travel down to Lima for the going away party thing they do for the missionaries that leave.  They go to the temple, eat at a fancy restaurant, have a little training and I don't really know what else but it sounded pretty fun! Well unfortunately I didn't get to participate, instead I went to the area of the companion of another sister that was going home and worked in her area haha.  It was still good though.  They finished at like midnight so we went and stayed with hermanas and then traveled up to Barranca with President adn Sister Archibald because they were going up.  

In these last few months President has been saying that if a Zone reaches their monthly baptism goal, he will buy them pizza and teach them deep doctrine.  Well the month of July our zone met our goal! the first zone to meet their goal in almost a year.  So as promised, he came up and we all ate pizza and he taught us deep doctrine for like 5 hours. It was awesome. Plus we got to be in the car with him for three hours going up so I got all my questions out.

On Friday we visited Jose Pablo, Neil's son, because we had wanted him to get baptized on saturday but we were gone for a couple of days and couldn't visit him.  We asked if he had been reading and said a little bit, but said he had prayed and said, "I felt like something in my chest that I can't really describe, it was just like a happiness." and before we could say anything he said, "so I would like to get baptized tomorrow if that's okay. " Uh, yeah, that's okay! He had already had all the lessons and it was a tender mercy for Hermana Leyva to have her last baptism.  That whole family is a miracle and now they are complete. We found out that Cecilia got baptized 33 years ago, and the Lord led us to her house now less active married to a non member and with a son.  We were able to search and find her church records and now her son and baptized.  What a miracle! They are awesome.  Somethign I didn't know, Priests can give the priesthood to deacons.  So we are going to have Neil give the priesthood to his son.  

Life is good.  I'll update you next week on my companion and everything. Have a great week, love you! 

Hermana Jones

Busy Week

Hola hola! 

This week was pretty busy and crazy and basically had no sleep!

We started off the week by traveling up to Caraz, a small area super far to visit the hermanas there. So that took up Monday and Tuesday and we got home at about 3am on wednesday, got to sleep a couple of hours, and then had a great training with Pres. Archibald.  It was a multi.zone and the reason is because last month Elder Oaks came to train mission presidents and he asked all the presidents to train their missioanries better on the Trinity.  So that's what he did, and it was amazing.  If you ever want to really learn about a Gospel topic, get Pres. Archibald to teach you after his 30 years of CES service.  He had a whole training planned out but somehow it just turned into a deep doctrine question and answer session which was fun haha.  That went until like 6pm so we only had a couple of hours of proseliting but it was great.  

Then on Thursday was Hermana Leyva's birthday! and she was sick, poor thing.  Fever, nausea, and everything.  But I think she still enjoyed her birthday! 

We finally got to work well on friday and saturday and yesterday which was good, but it was pretty disappointing because the Huaman family had a bunch of issues and now the dad doesn't want to get bapitzed.  Well, we aren't going to baptize his family without him so we are going to see what else we can do to help them this week and make sure they get baptized. Pray for them! 

Also Jose Pablo, Neil's son should be getting baptized this week as well so pray for him too! 

This week we are going to be going to the going away party in Lima for the missionaries that are leaving. I think I'm going to be able to go to the temple and eat with them!   Interesting fact: These next three transfers in total there are about 80 missionaries elaving and 100 coming, that's a huge change!  

Funny story: yesterday we got home and tried going to the bathroom, but we couldn't open the door! The doorknob turned, but it wouldn't open.  So we tried taking it off and fixing it and such and we could not fix it.  We even tried running into the door really hard, and kicking it like a police man but with no luck.  It was stressful because we really had to go to the bathroom haha.  Well nothign happened and our landlord isn't here this week.  Then, we went back and tried it and it opened, like nothing had ever been wrong.  It was pretty ridiculous but i'm glad we could open it! 

This week I have been studying a lot about VIRTUE.  You know those people that you meet that are just genuinely good people? Well I guess I just never realized before that that is what virtue is.  Just being completely pure in thoughts and actions that not even a bad or mean or angry thought ever crosses your mind.  Even when no one is watching you or is around.  I don't know how that didn't click to me before but it is something that I am definitely going to be working one more.  Elaine S Dalton would be so proud of me! 

Thanks for all the love and prayers, life is good and the church is TRUE!

Hermana Jones

Otra semama ya?

Hola!

Okay so I don't have much to say today because I can't believe it's already been another week!

The work is going well here, the Huaman Family all came to church yesterday and loved it, turns out that the dad, Andres, is friends with Martin, who got baptized like 3 weeks ago.  So that's perfect! They are on date to get baptized the 23rd of this month. 

This week Martin also received the priesthood and that entire Pimentel family is progressing a lot. We are working really hard to make sure they stay in the church and can go to the temple in a year. They are going to be such awesome leaders in the church.  The branch is really excited because it's been a while since there has been baptisms here so they are helping a lot.  

Today we are going to travel up to Huaraz to do a work visit so that will be fun and long! the part we are going to is very pretty so I'll be sure to take lots of pictures.

This week they had a talent show at church and so Hna Leyva and I sang together and I played the piano.  It was pretty funny because I don't consider myself a very good singer but here I look really good so that was fun haha. 

We are trying to work hard and make these last couple of weeks count for my companion! 

Like I said, not much to report but life is good. I hope all is well with the new house/city/ward! Happy birthday to Jake and Jessica this week! Love you! The church is true!

Hermana Jones 

crazy week

Hola!

The reason I'm writing late is because we got up early and had Zone Pday going to a place called Caral in our zone, which are ancient ruins.  They are the most ancient ruins discovered in the Americas, and the second most ancient in the world.  We're talking 5000 years ago.  It was so cool! I took lots of pictures.  We couldn't touch anything but it was fun to see and take pictures and speculate about Jaredites, haha. 

So this week was pretty crazy and we only got like 3 1/2 days of proselyting, but it was still a good week!

So this week we had to move apartments because there was a single man living in our old building so we had to find a new apartment and found one that is perfect! It's beautiful, but the only problem is that it's like 60 degrees because the main window faces the ocean (beautiful) but has a cold breeze.  And the window doesn't really shut well haha.  But it's awesome.  So, Mom, it looks like we both spent some time packing this week! Along with Dad and Matt and Jessica and everybody.  

So we got all moved in and then the next day we traveled to Lima for the mission leadership council which was awesome! President read to us and discussed with us a talk called "The unwritten order of things" given by Pres. Packer at a BYU devotional I think. It was aweome and he talked a lot about becoming better leaders and being "quick to observe." Then the asistants did a training on the commandments and they asked Hna Leyva and I to do a demonstration on teaching Tithing which was nerve wracking front of Pres. and all the leaders, but it turned out well. 

Right now we are teaching the Huaman family which is an awesome family that is VERY humble.  They all came to church again which was great and they have their bap. date for the 23rd so we are working with them for that.  

Other than that I can't think of much that happened but life is good and I'm happy.  My companion goes home in three weeks, crazy! Luckily she's awesome and keeps working and we are excited to see what else there is to come here!

Thanks for everything! Love you!

Hermana Jones

Feliz dias patrias!

Hola hola!

Happy Peru independence day! Today and tomorrow are holiday's of Peru's independence AKA there are lot of parties and no one is going to let us in their house and lots of virgin parades in the streets. Fun times! But I learned the Peru National Hymn and today have my little Peruvian pin so I feel like a real Peruvian. Today our district is going to celebrate by making mexican food, (don't ask me why) but yeah so stay tuned for how these couple of days go!

This week was great and life is good and I'm just super happy!

Neil got baptized this week! Woo! We were a little worried because he had some doubts and didn't want to stop drinking coffee but we had a good powerful lesson with him and he decided to get baptized and got baptized and confirmed! His son however, still doesn't want to but we are working with him and praying for him. It was pretty cool how we found them last month.  We just knocked their door and turns out that Cecilia, the wife of Neil, got baptized when she was about 15 but had moved and such and the church couldn't ever find her but now we did and are working with their family so they can ALL get baptized and sealed! 

This week we had to travel to Lima again which is always interesting in the 4 hours on a bus with some type of action or horror movie playing haha but we went because I had to do some final paperwork and... drum roll please.... after a year and a half from when I submitted my papers and a year in Peru, I'm legal! Woo! My visa went through and I even have a little card with my picture on it. I'm excited.  

We got word that Elder Anderson of the 12 is coming to Peru and giving a conference to just our mission in the end of August, so that's exciting! Bad news, we're so far from Lima that we probably won't be able to go down.  We are praying and thinking of different options so that we can, I'm not going to lose the Faith! :)

Sad to hear that the Jones family is leaving Joplin after a solid decade, but it'll be good to move on to new things.  Good luck with the move! 

Life is good and the church is true. Have a great week!

Love, Hermana Jones 

Hola

Hola familia,

So this week was super duper awesome because..... The rest of the Pimentel family got baptized! So that family is basically like a family of 8 but it's really two families of 4, so 1 family of four got baptized last week and this week the other family of 4!

This week we did a visit down in Huaral, a couple of hours away so we were gone on monday and tuesday and were nervous because we wanted to get them baptized but we weren't in our area so we tried teaching them wednesday and couldn't find them and then thursday we couldn't find them either and we finally did on Friday.  We had a big ol lesson planned and went and taught it and the Spirit opened their hearts and they decided to get baptized and DID! It was amazing.  We had been praying so much trying to figure out what to do and it was so cool to see how much the Lord trusts in us to give us revelation and we were able to figure out their needs and they got baptized.  Life is good with them! We were visiting with all 8 of them last night and it was so satisfying to know that they were all baptized and they brought out a cake to celebrate and right before we started to cut it, Martin said, we should probably say a prayer to bless it first! It was something small but just so pleasing to see the change that has ocurred in their entire family.

So our district has been getting really excited and we really want to start baptizing lots of families because that is really the best way to go so now we are having a contest to see who can find the biggest family haha.  Of course it is not the type of competition where we want others to fail but we are supporting each other and it motivates us.  We were always calling in the district to say, We found a family of 10! or oh, now we have to find a family of 12! but its awesome because it is working and this week we found 2 families of 10! The Lord is blessing this area so much!

Well other than I that I can't think of what else happened this week but life is good! The church is true!

Love you bunches! oh and I'm glad you had a super duper awesome vacation this week!

Hermana Jones 

Good Week

Hola hola!

Okay this week was great because four of the Pimentel Family got baptized! Carlos, Baudilia, and the twins, Patrick and Rusell.  It was an awesome baptism because the Elders in our branch also baptized a family of 4 so that was great and President Archibald made the long trip up to see it! He is very picky about how baptisms should be so we had a planning meeting which took like 3 hours and made it all perfect and it worked and President said it was "awesome!" And it was.  We were all so happy for them!!

About 5 minutes before it ended, Cinithia walked in with her kids, (The part of the family that was supposed to get baptized but didnt.)  It was a sad week for that because I had to learn how to respect people's agency.  Despite how happy we were for the four that DID get baptized, we still were sad for the four that DIDN'T.  However, we are still working with them and they came to church yesterday so we aren't losing the Faith and know they will get there! And now Carlos, their dad, can baptize them because he has the Aaronic Priesthood. :)

Life is good here in Barranca, I love it here.  It is so tranquilo and great.  It got super cold this week and there is a cold wind from the ocean so I pulled out my coat and tights.  But I think I'm just whimpy because it's like in the 60s I think or maybe the 50s but I'm freezing. 

In Barranca I've eaten so many fun things! In my other areas I didn't eat anything weirder than chicken feet or heart, but now I've added to the list: duck, duck neck, duck heart, cow heart, octopus, snail, stingray, fish eye, and Guinea pig! It's been a fun time.  I need to take more pictures of the things I eat but I don't want to offend the people by taking a picture of their food and make them think I'm making fun of it haha.  

This morning I was reading in Alma when he talks about experiencing a might change in heart and he asks, "have ye been spiritually born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances?" and I was thinking about how our Spirits look the same as our bodies.  President was talking once about how when we grow spiritually, we physically can see the difference and people actually look better, if that makes sense.  So I related that to this scripture and it clicked to me that when we are trying to change and become better, we are literally "Receiving his image in our countenances" and our countenances change.  I noticed that a ton with the Pimentel family this week.  Yesterday, Carlos went to the choir practice! Just imagine, a big rough lookign guy that rides a motorcycle and has tattoos, singing in church choir! I was noticing how much his coutnenance has changed in these couple weeks, and that can only be explained by the Atonement of Jesus Christ. 

The church is true! 

Love you bunches,

Hermana Jones

Just call me Spider-hermana

Buenos Dias!

Happy fourth of July this week! It sounds like you had a fun little fiesta at home! We had a fun little fiesta here too. Luckily I have an awesome companion that likes the US and knows I love it so she learned the National Anthem and we woke up on Friday and I put my flag on the curtain string and raised it up while singing the national anthem. It was beautiful! The flag kept falling so we had to do it like 6 times haha but it was great. Then later that day we made real American mashed potatoes and root beer and brought them to lunch and it was delicious. Our pensionista's husband put up red and blue balloons haha.

So that was a great part of the week.  The rest of the week, well let's just say that Satan has been attacking our area and our investigators, so it was rough.  Please keep praying for the Pimentel family! Four of them are set for their baptism but the other four are having a TON of doubts out of nowhere and now don'twant to get baptized.  We are doing everything we can and praying lots for them, so hopefully all turns out well! Also the other families, Cuenca family and Haro Family are having lots of doubts that only are coming from Satan so yeah, we've been battling pretty hard! Good thing we have the Lord on our side and even though Satan thinks he's succeeding, The Lord will always win!

This week we also went to Lima for the mission leadership council which was awesome.  A few months ago one of the 70 was here talking and he was saying that we are called to our missions not necessarily because this is the exact area we need to be in, but for our mission presidents and the companions we need.  Well that is so true because just hearing President Archibald is very inspiring and I can tell that it was inspired that he is my mission president. I learn so much from him and Sister Archibald so I love every opportunity we have to be trained by them or just to chat with them about life and the Gospel.  I learned a ton a he gave a training on God. Literally, the first article of Faith, he just talked about God the Father and it was so awesome to hear all of his insight on knowledge that I took for granted.  My perspective on our Heavenly Father has changed and I think about Him differently now.  That has changed my thought process this week and has made me want to serve Him even better and more faithfully. 

Also this week we were informed that the end of August Elder Anderson will be coming and talking to us! Yay! Our mission is in charge of putting a choir together so I signed up and they choose from the list but my area is far from Lima so I probably won't but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. :)

But really, thanks for everything and all the love and prayers.  I'm so grateful to be here in the service of the Lord and I know the church is true!

Hermana Jones

Back in the promised land

Hola hola!

Okay so I'm here back in the promised land of Barranca. Huaraz was nice and pretty but FREEZING and the climate here is literally perfect. I'm never hot and I'm never cold.  Also it's the promised land because the people here are amazing. Also its the promised land because there are tons of fresh fruits that people give us all the time.   Is it bad if you eat too many oranges? 

Big news. The Pimentel Family all officially agreed to get baptized on July 12th! It is Carlos and his wife Baudilia, and their daughter Cinthia with her husband Martin, and then four kids, Patrick and Russell who are twins, age 11, Mishelle, age 10, and Martincito, age 9. They are excited and we called Pres. Archibald and he is going to make the four hour drive and come up to be here.  We are so happy for them and are just so amazed by all the miracles we are seeing and especially have seen with this family. Let me just say that praying and fasting totally work! 

Also the Cuenca Family came to church and they are preparing for baptism on the 19th and also the Haro Family came but they still have to get married to be able to get baptized. Keep praying for them please! :)

I'm not sure what else to include here because this week was just awesome and wizzed by!

I bought a Peruvian hammock in Huaraz and we hung it on our bunk bed. It's pretty awesome. I'll send a picture.

Life is awesome here and I am growing in my testimony every single day. The church is so true and God lives and hears and answers our prayers! 

Love you bunches, have a great week! 

Hermana Jones

Hello Hello

Hello hello!

Well I'm writing this from the provincia of Huaraz, 10,000 feet above sea level! 

Huaraz is the zone farthest north from the mission home and Hermana Leyva and I are in charge of visiting here so we came up here to visit the other hermanas and wow it is so different than Lima!

We got up early and took a 4 hour taxi ride up here through the twisty turny scary roads of the Andes Mountains and made it without throwing up! The only side effect is that I feel like I can't breathe and it just feels like a ton of pressure on my head. We have been walking around today and are already tired! It's so different but SO GORGEOUS.  the skies are so incredibly blue and there are snowy mountains in the distance and I'm excited to see stars tonight.  Also it's super cold.  I think i'm goign to freeze when the sun goes down.!

Well this week was super awesome in our area.  I seriously never know what to write or tell because the weeks just fly by.  Good news! The Pimentel family ALL came to church yesterday and they are getting more and more excited for their baptism! So they are all set on the date for July 12th, all 8 of them! We are going to be praying and fasting a lot for them, so make sure to keep them in your prayers!

Another miracle, last week we met a little family of three that is awesome.  They all came to church yesterday as well and we visited them again and the mom told us that she remembered that she got baptized about 30 years ago but hasn't been to church since and is so excited to return and now her husband and son are going on July 19th! 

ANOTHER miracle: also this last week we contacted a man in the street that said he was married. (If they aren't officially married we usually don't visit them.) So we went back and found out that he has his wife and they have 5 kids, all above the age of 8.  Well at the end of the lesson we found out that they aren't actually married so we were super sad! It's so hard to marry people here and usually they just aren't excited to do it.  Well we talked to them and found out that they actually DO want to get married, but he doesn't have his birth certificate. It is in the town where he was born, and here you can't just get on a computer and find it or anything, you ahve to actually go there and get a copy.  Well just guess where he was born.... Huaraz!!! And where are we right now doing a work visit? Huaraz!!!!! It was so perfect! When he said that we were like, hey! We're going there next week! So he gave us his information and this morning we picked it up and we are praying that they can get married quickly and get baptized this month as well.  

Life is awesome and I love being in the service of the Lord and seeing miracles every day.  Thanks for all the love and prayers!

The church is true! 

Hermana Jones 

Doin the work

Hola Hola!

Happy Father's day!!!!! And Happy Birthday Matt!!! 

Father's day isn't nearly as big of a holiday here as Mother's day, but I still remembered.  Mostly because it is an excuse to drink and not work, so it was a fun weekend! 

Last Pday was sweet because we went to the beach! The beach here is awesome and not too crowded so we played soccer to celebrate the World cup starting. (People here are pretty bitter that Peru is NEVER in the world cup haha.) I'll attach some action shots of our zone soccer!

This week I had to go to an Immigrations office in Lima, so I had to leave early on Tuesday and got back on Wednesday.  Luckily we were able to do divisions and Hna Leyva stayed here and worked so we weren't just leaving our area. It's so weird being away from Lima and annoying to travel but I hope I'm done with the legal stuff until I leave the country.  After I got back we kept working and had a great week! 

The Pimentel Family is awesome and almost all are progressing.  5 of them came to church yesterday but not all so we are going to make sure they can all get baptized together here in July.  Also, Omar came to church again and he is awesome because he is somebody that actually does what he says he is going to do. We'll set a lesson for the park at 6 and he is there early! I've never met somebody like that here! It is great.  He has his date for this 28th of June.  Pray for him and for the Pimentel family! 

Yesterday was a funny day, because there were a lot of drunk people "celebrating Father's day" so we just had funny experiences.  Anyway so it was the end of the day and we had to stop by the branch president's house to ask him something so we stopped by and the Elders were there eating and we saw them through the window and they were saying to us, "no!" like "don't come in!" so we knocked and that was a mistake because they invited us in and were eating dinner (They eat dinner at 9 at night here) which means they are socially obligated to have us eat with them.  We were already full and know that He is a fisherman so it was surely going to be seafood, and we knew we made a mistake going there haha.  They gave us rice and fish. And snail and octopus. So that was a good experience... And then while we were eating a lamb walked in and was walking around and it was just the weirdest and funniest experience to top off the weirdest and funniest day.  This is the best mission ever!!

President Archibald had a training this week with Elder Oaks so we are excited to hear what he had to say and how we can help the work move forward! 

Thanks for all the love and prayers and have a great week! 

Love,

Hermana Jones