July 15

Hey Family!

Time flies! Am i right! i cant believe its already been a week! i cant believe theres not much left of summer for you guys! what have you guys done so far?

First off i got something this week! Guess what it is...?! Poison Ivy! It was bound to happen and it probably wont be the last time. My left wrist looks disgusting though! Luckily i ran out of short sleeve shirts so i have been wearing all of my long sleeve shirts to cover it up. It seems to be going down and it doesn't itch too bad, but thats that.

Last week was Zone P-Day and it was so much fun to go down to Champaign and hang out with all the other Elders and Sisters! we played football, Volleyball, Frisbee... It was the greatest!

I got to go to the Temple this week! It was so good! Chicago and Nauvoo are both closer to me then St. Louis but since they're not in our mission we arent aloud to go to those. But we got up at 5:30 and it was a ward temple trip so we left with a member at 6:30. Took about a four hour drive down to St. Louis, and went to the Temple! It was awesome! I had been looking forward to it the whole week! and when i got into the Celestial room i just felt the most amazing calming, warm feeling ever! I sat there till i was one of the last people in the room and i didnt want to leave! it just felt so good! I cant wait to go back.

This week we had this awesome lesson set up at the church where we were going to "reenact" Lehi's Dream. So we invited all of our investigators and told the other Elders to do the same. So we went to the church to set up and had dinner with some members there. One of our investigators cancelled but we didnt worry about it to much. Then 7:00 came around (when we were supposed to have it) and nobody showed up. We decided to wait a little longer for someone to come. Finally we hear the door to the church open and in comes a family the other Elders are teaching. We sit down and read through Lehi's dream with them and discuss it a little bit. Then we send them through "Lehi's Dream" and at the end have a lesson with them about what happened and how it applies to us today. And it was the best lesson that has happened on my mission so far! The spirit was so strong and the kids were so smart and i learned stuff i didnt know before it was the best! Then the other Elders asked the family if when they came to know these things were true if they would be baptized? And they said YES! it was so cool! And im glad i got to be apart of it!

Me and Elder Smith are doing great! We have a baptismal date set with an investigator, Teresa, She was a potential we decided to pick up and we had a stellar first lesson and invited her to be baptized August 3rd. We have a lot of work to do though. She has some problems we need to work through but it will go good. We have a lesson and breakfast with her tomorrow at a members home so that will be good for her.

Well i love you guys dont forget it! Hope everything is going well at home and that you guys are constantly striving to be better!

Love, ~Elder Jones~

P.S. on our way to the temple we drove by the arch. it was cool!