April 22, 2013

Second Week in O'Fallon

Man this last week seemed to fly by! i cant believe it! Over the week i always think "i got to tell my family about this!" but then when i get here at the computer i can never remember what it is. But ill do my best.

We had our baptisms this week! FOUR! so SICK! Jenn, Kaylee, AJ and Landon. Jenn has progressed so much!!! and its cool to see it because most of it has happened in the last week! But she really is amazing! Even though she doesnt know to much about the gospel, she is always asking questions and bearing her testimony at church! its awesome! 

Kaylee and AJ are siblings and they are Champions!! they're parents were less actives and so they didnt get baptized (you know because they didnt come to church) but since we have been visiting them we they have developed the BIGGEST desire to go to church and be baptized. Last week during fast and testimony we sat towards the back bench and AJ was all "I wanted Front row seats!" hahaha hes amazing!! Landon was the sisters baptism so i dont know to much about him, but we went and helped his family move this last week and his little siblings have TONS of energy! so one thing lead to another and me and Elder Gallegos were having lightsabers fights with these kids hahahaha So much fun!

Mom dont worry about me eating well. if anything you should worry about me eating to well! Im serious! with Elder Lewis leaving this Wednesday Every Family just wants to cook the biggest and best meals for us! There is a family in the ward (The Johnson Family) who cooks the best food EVER! Get this... HE SMOKES HIS OWN MEAT!!!!! oh my goodness!!!!! we had soooo much pulled pork and ribs! and they were the Best pulled pork and ribs i have ever had! Elder Gallegos destroyed himself and had six plates! but it was so good. and they are moving to Utah in june, just up at traverse mountain! so when i get back... they're going to teach me their ways ;). Also we went to another area to eat at the Contes, St Charles i think, where elder lewis served in a spanish branch. and they were going to feed us sooo much food! and apparently its offensive to them if you dont eat it. so us Elders always see how much we can get the other Elders to eat. "Jones you want more?" and then the family would get all excited and be like "more?" but everyone was speaking spanish so i didnt know what was going on and i didnt want to be offensive so i had like three plates of food for the first course. and it was only lunch! luckily we had to another appointment to get to so we didnt stay to eat all the other food. But it was crazy because everyone was speaking spanish and since three of the 5 Elders there spoke spanish they just assumed i did too. So it was way cool! but i was completely lost and would just say "Si" all the time.

Anyways the members here feed us good and most nights i go home feeling like crap because i've eaten to much.

Well we have a baptismal date set up for May 18 and right now we are looking at a possible 8 baptisms!!!! WHAT?!?! pray that our investigators feel the spirit and the desire to be baptized.

One of our investigators was supposed to be baptized this last week but we didnt think she was ready and neither did her grandpa and so we moved it back. Her biggest set back would have to be here grandpa. He used to be an "Area 70" (i think thats right) but something happened and he left the church and now he is just this bitter old man. Hes very intellectual in the gospel, but his heart is hardened and he loves to argue and stuff. And he just keeps coming up with excuses why stephanie ( our investigator) still needs time before shes baptized. and its frustrating. He thinks by September but she could definitely be baptized next week if he would stop... "getting in the way." We think that if we can get her baptized then he will stop being stubborn and maybe we can get him to come back as well. Does that makes sense? Anyways pray for her.

Anyways things are going great! it would be better if i had my ukulele (hint hint) but you know... Today is P-Day but not just any P-Day, Today is Zone P-Day!!!!! im so pumped! I found out that Elder Branham from my district at the MTC is in my zone so im way excited to see him! We are going to have a barbeque and play ultimate frisbee and volleyball and all sorts of stuff its going to be soo0ooo fun!! 

Well i love you guys and hope everything is going well at home. keep sending me stuff... its the best :) love you!

Love, Elder Chris Jones

Kaylee and AJ

Jennifer

April 15, 2013

I'm In the Field

In front of St Louis temple

Aloha Ohana!!!

MOM SEND MY UKULELE!!! I CAN HAVE ONE HERE!!!! (also some church ukulele songs so i can play those? that'd be great!)

Man its been awhile huh? Lets see... General conference was SICK!!! it was the first time i have sat through all 5 sessions! and it was amazing! i loved Hollands talk! "what you do know will always trump what you dont know!" conference was amazing! and it would take way to long to go through it all. But we watched conference in the gym at the mtc so there was TONS of people! and when they said "at which point we will here from president Holland." everyone got so excited and it basically got loud in the gym. Anyways it was SICK!

Well im in the field now! Its crazy! so my first day here we had a transfer meeting where we all got assigned our companions, and after that was done all the Elders and Sisters who are leaving home got up and gave their testimony and right after that my companion was like... "K lets go we have an appointment." What?! already? i didnt get to say goodbye to my old district. So we go to this girls house (her name is jennifer) shes going to be baptized on thursday but she was having this problem with smoking, so guess what i did on my first day? Yep! Gave my first blessing! it was insane! and then later that night there was a tornado!! (dont worry mom it wasnt in my area) it actually happened like 20mins away in... some other area haha im in O'Fallon. i was actually pretty bummed i didnt get to see it.

So my new companions are Elder Gallegos, and Elder Lewis. Im in a trio. but its cool. Elder Lewis is leaving in like a week and a half and then it will just be me and Elder Gallegos. They're Awesome! Elder lewis taught me how to do a rubix cube so, theres a new skill! he's from farmington utah and we get along really good! Elder Gallegos is from Kansas city and hes this short stocky mexican guy, but hes pretty cool! He found some duck eggs by our appartment and he tried to incubate them with his lava lamp but ended up cooking them and making them rotten! hahaha so me and Elder Lewis told him we would give him $100 dollars to eat one! SO GROSS! he peeled off the shell and it was brown and some parts almost black and it smelt soooooooo bad! but he tried it anyway! hahahahaha He was determined to get it down but his body wouldn't let him so he just sat there with the reddest face ever! making the worst noises, Gagging so hard!!! hahahahaha he ended up spitting it out outside. and we didnt have to give him any money! ;D but it was so funny.

Being out here is definitely hard but its so worth it. The other day we went over to Jennifers house and just went over the baptismal interview questions with her, and she basically told us everything! It was so crazy! she has had a lot of stuff happen in her life! And it made me appreciate bishops sooo much!! because it was hard listening to that! but i know that she can be forgiven of all those things through the atonement and she is on her way to doing that. anyways next time you see bishop stewart or court, just tell them thank you. They deserve it. so Jennifer came to church on sunday and shes not the kind of person who cries but after hearing all the testimonies and everything she cried! it was awesome! she just felt the spirit so strongly! and apparently later in relief society she gave her testimony!!! So Tight! Seeing her progress so much on sunday just made it soo good!!

Anyways thanks for all the letters! They mean the world! and i love them so much! keep 'em comin. I love you guys! talk to you next week!

Love, Elder Chris Jones

April 9, 2013

Elder Jones arrived in O'Fallon, MO.  Below is an email and picture we received from the bishop of the ward.

Brothers and sisters,

I want to take another opportunity to thank you for sending us your wonderful sons and daughters.

Elder Jones and Sister McCoy are new to our ward and new to the mission field, I understand. I'm sure their parents may be anxious to know how they are doing.

Here in the O'Fallon Ward we are blessed to have 6 missionaries spreading the gospel. It is paying off. They have 4-5 baptisms scheduled in the coming weeks.

Thank you, I hope you enjoy the photo. We had then over for dinner tonight

Bishop mayer

April 6, 2013

2nd Week MTC

Hola mi Familia!!!

Thanks for the easter package! It made me so happy!! and i just got the package full of fruit snacks hahahaha. what the? wasn't expecting that. But i still loved it!  OH YEAH! my companions name is Elder Rasmussen. Hes way tight! and we get along really well. its such a blessing because im sure if i was with any of the other Elders in my district I'd kill myself. but not really. it just wouldnt be as good as our companionship. Well it seems like this last week has flew by! i got my travel plans last week... so maybe i should have told you that then, but i leave tuesday morning. my flight leaves at 9:47ish? i bought a call card so be ready for me to give you a *ring!* Anyways its crazy here at the MTC. class all day and when we arent in "class" we are still in "class" doing personal/companion study. The food here is... not that great. so if you want to send me some packages... (hint hint) that would be awesome! my companion literally gets a package a day! no joke! Real quick i want to tell you this expierience me and my companion had with prayer! it was amazing! so we were doing companion study outside and we were trying to figure out how we should plan our next lesson for our progressive investigator. So we decided to say a prayer and we asked for help on how to plan for our investigator and how to help him, and so we end the prayer and i look up and this teacher is walking by and he has this cool bag! so i said "hey nice bag." not thinking anything of it. And then he just comes over and starts talking to us, and before he leaves he says... "is there anything i can help you elders with?" so i asked him if he had any ideas on how to plan for our investigator, and he just went off and told us all these things that helped us a ton!!! and as he walked away, i looked at my companion and said. "DUDE! Did you see how fast our prayer was answered?!" It was CRAZY cool! and then i just yelled "I LOVE THIS GOSPEL" so cool!! So That investigator we were planning for, let me tell you the story. well our first lesson was a mess! It wasnt us, but our investigator just talked and talked and Talked! we would ask him a question like do you believe in god? or something and then he would tell a story and bring to something else. way frustrating! so me and my companion refocused and for our second lesson we figured out how to corral his talking and were able to give him a lesson about the restoration. And when we got to the atonement we talked about baptism and how thats how we access the atonement. and so right then i challenged him to be BAPTIZED!!!!! ....he said he wasnt sure he could do that... so we continued through the lesson and it just felt like we were dragging him along with it. and then we ended with a prayer but asked him to give it. His prayer took like 10min!!! but at the end when he was closing "in the name of jesus christ, amen." he started to choke up and it was hard for him to finish the sentence! The spirit was So Strong!!! and he was crying!!!! so after the prayer we asked him how he felt? and he said he felt really Good! so Me and my companion looked at eachother... smiled :)... and then we challenged him again and HE SAID YES!! it was so awesome!!!! we got out of the room and celebrated!!!! It was the coolest feeling in the world!! and the rest of the day seemed to go great!!! But soon after i learned that not all investigators are like that. We have an investigator with our teacher and we taught him the next day, and this time we were talking about the gospel of jesus christ and we got to baptism and talked about it a bit, and then challenged him to be baptized. He said no. he didnt really seem ready for it or something... and it made me so frustrated!!! because i KNEW this is what he needed! i knew that this gospel was going to bless his life!!! But it definitely helped my testimony grow. because i know this is gospel is true and i want everyone to know about it!! and when he said no. i just KNEW that it was true! weird right? 

Well my times up. and i have to go. Love you guys!! write me!! letters! seriously! their the best!
Love Elder Chris Jones

March 30, 2013

First Few Days

Hows it going?!
Life here is crazy! classes everyday all day! But its good im learning a lot and im loving it! It takes some time to settle in here but once you get the hang of things it kinda feels like home. (emphasis on kinda) My bed is fine. The mattress isnt like home but its pretty good. But the SHEETS?! What a joke! i tried to put them on the first day, and its like they gave us sheets for a crib to put on these twin size beds! it was making me so mad! and i cut my knuckles on the brick wawll trying to put it on! so needless to say i never make my bed fully. i have a liable excuse. I have seen a couple people here. i saw elder merrill the first day and but i cant find Elder wager or criman. Like i said we have lessons and classes all day. so on thursday we had this people and purpose lesson. We watched these videos where people would say a little bit about them and then we would have to see how we would teach them based on their needs and goal. it was Crazy! i feel the spirit all the time! before i got here i thought this place would be like a spiritual bomb and just feel it so powerfully until you eventually hot used to it, but its not like that at all. it just a kind of encompassing spirit and you have to let it in to feel it. If that makes sense. But even though the spirit is here, satan is definitely real! i have had so many doubts and attacks. But you cant focus on those you just have to be obiedient and focus on the work.

Mom Thanks for the letter! it made my day! and hannah Thank you so much for your gift! i read a letter before i go to bed and and it means the world! letters are like GOLD here so as many as you guys want to/should send. would be great! we didnt get mail till friday because we needed a district leader to go get it and... we didnt have one yet. Our DL is Elder Christiansen, we room together and hes pretty cool. he got assigned on thursday night after the mail room was closed so we had to wait till friday morning.

Let me tell you about my companion. Hes from calgary canada. hahaha its sooo funny because we just talk about how weird canadians are! most of my district is pretty weird, they're all into art and theater and "writing poems and short stories" haha weird. but my companion is cool! even though hes canadian. hes 20 years old but age doesnt really matter here at all. He has an accent but its pretty subtle. so i notice he puts emphasis on the letter "O" so when he says process it comes out pro-cess. Hes always telling us how east canada is the one with the crazy accents and how they say a-boat (about) but if you listen closely, and i do, he says a-boat! hahahahaha we were to a role play yesterday and we were talking about prayer or the doctrine of christ or something, and he said a-boat and i just laughed out loud!! but it made me lose focus so i had to calm down and look over it. Also he doesn't know about any of the cereals we have here and its just so weird! Anyways even though hes from canada he probably the most popular guy (from home that is.) If letters are gold then my companion is a KING the first day we got our mail he had three letters and three packages! (with a "second notice" on one of them) and all of us were so jealous!

well that about all for now. i have more i could say but i need to get off and let others talk to their families. write me back. love you guys so much

Love Elder Jones

P.S. we're not really aloud to use sarcasm here, and its sooo hard! (i still use it all the time haha).

March 27, 2013

Departure to the MTC

Elder Jones left for the MTC on Wednesday, March 27th under beautiful sunny skies.  We took a few pictures at our home in Pleasant Grove then were favored to have the Rollin's family come and sing a beautiful song "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" to us before hopping in the car and meeting the rest of the family up at the Provo temple.  From the temple we drove over to the MTC, it was a long drive and Chris was quite nervous.  As we pulled in and were ushered down the hill to the assigned parking spot, Chris caught a glimpse of his friend who had entered the MTC 20 day or so earlier.  Chris's countenance changed, he lite up with joy as he yelled for Alex. From that moment on I knew in my heart that he was going to be just fine. I was so full of love for Alex to be there for my son. It was so comforting!  Below is an excerpt from Elder Alex Stewart letter, March 29th.

"Chris (my buddy from SUU) wrote me on Monday and told me he'd pull in at 1 so I set it up so I could host. I was looking all over the curb at around one and suddenly I heard my name being yelled from a Toyota Sienna, "ALEX! ALEX!" I ran to where he was pulled in and insisted I host him. It was just him and his mom and they were crying. I almost started crying because it was just a really sad goodbye for them, I could tell. His mom came around and I held out my hand to shake her hand and she just brought me in for a really big hug. She was the closest thing I have had to a mom in the last 3 weeks so it was really nice:) Then I went over and gave Chris the biggest hug and tried to comfort him and say that it'll all work out. It was a bittersweet moment to have one of my best friends arrive here. I took him around and we got his stuff (just me and him) it was sooooooooooo nice catching up".

St. Louis Missouri mission

Called to serve

On to St. Louis he went. 

Speaking English language.