September 9, 2013

Hey there Family! How goes it?

This week has been pretty good... not as good as it could have been but it went alright.

So as i told you last week, we had a zone training and i was super pumped to do missionary work! So the next day i just had this drive! i was pumped! but we only had one lesson planned... so we spent the day doing some service and visiting less actives and a bunch of referrals we had. Nothing really came of it, nobody was home. At the beginning of the day though we realized we didn't have any member to come with us to Sam and Mikaelas, so we basically called everyone but they all had meetings they had to go to! So... no member present. It ended up being a great lesson though we talked to them about tithing and then discussed their concerns about baptism. For the longest time Sam hadn't felt like she had been getting any answers to prayer but when we talked to her i asked if she felt like she had been getting answers to her prayers and she said YES! her only concern is her family. She wants her husbands blessing and to understand what it is she is doing. so we are trying to sit down with him but he has a really hectic schedule. But Sam id incredible! The closer she gets to the gospel the more negativity Satan tries to throw at her. But she is so strong and so is Mikaela. They know how to stand their ground! and i love seeing how much this gospel has changed them! Its amazing!

That night the Zone leaders stopped in and we went on exchanges the next day. It went good Elder Francis (hes from aunt Dona's ward) and i, did a lot of tracting and had little results but we found this guy who is from Lithuania and really respects what we did and said if we get him a Lithuanian Book of Mormon he will read it! So if any of you have one... Please send it ASAP! Later we visited some Perspective Elders and potentials and i started to feel pretty tired and my nose started to get stuffy... Yup sure enough the next day i woke up and was sick! I HATE IT! Elder Brown from Danville south was sick as well so in order to make our day as productive as possible, we did our exchanges and the sick people stayed in all day and Elder Brooks and Smith conquered the world. The next day i felt a little better so i decided i was just going to go full force with the day. And then Elder Smith got sick... so we ended up staying in another day... ugh... so unproductive! i wanted to be out doing work! Sunday i felt better. and today im feeling great. Elder Smith is starting to feel better today, so hopefully this week goes a little more smooth.

Well thats about it. sorry this email was so short. i hope this week is a little more productive. I love you all and hope you are doing great!

Love, 

~Elder Chris Jones~

SICK

September 3, 2013

Family!

This last week has been crazy! I dont know it just seems like this week Flew by! And it feels like so much has happened it doesn't seem possible that it went by so fast! But i dont know what to write...

Lets see... the work here is amazing! I honestly love it soooo much! Sam and Mikaela are the greatest! We had a lesson with them on wednesday and It went awesome. We taught them the Ten Commandments and the law of chastity (With Sam being who she is, that was an interesting lesson haha.) They committed to living them both. So now theres not much to teach them. Sam's husband was supposed to sit in on the lesson but he has surgery sometime soon so, as i understand it, he has to work more to make up for the hours... bummer. Oh well. Its been so fun to teach them. We have been able to see the change the gospel has made in their lives and it has been the greatest thing to see! Indescribable! On Friday Mikaela got her wisdom teeth out and Saturday they invited us over for breakfast and she seemed to be doing pretty good. (A lot better then i was doing) And then on Sunday they didnt show up at church so we texted them and it turns out Mikaela was allergic to her pain meds, as well as already feeling like crap so she was just miserable and didnt feel up to coming. So we offered to give her a blessing and at first she didnt want one but later on she texted us and asked if we could come give her a blessing. So we did and she looked Miserable and didnt feel like talking or anything. But after we gave her a blessing she seemed to feel a lot better! I love the church and i love the Priesthood! It truly can bless lives!

On Thursday we had District meeting and I gave a "training" on helping us get our investigators to church. That was pretty good. But then Elder Brown gave a training but before he gave it, he got real serious and told us He had been praying to know if being on a mission was for him, if this really was where he needed to be and that even though he had been praying he didnt feel he was getting an answer... We all helped where we could and Then he goes Just Kidding! It was part of his training! haha... not funny, but kind of funny. His training was on getting us to really feel that love for our investigators. Real Commitments. Real follow ups. And doing the best we can do to help them. Because in that moment when he said he wasnt sure... We all felt love towards him and that desire to help. SO good! I congratulate him on his training it was a really good way to help us gain a better focus.

 On Friday we had the opportunity to help a sister in our ward who's sister needed help roofing her shed, so our whole district came over and helped and we got it done in a couple hours and then had lunch. It was SO hot! But way fun. I have only roofed one other time helping Kevin with his Eagle Project but its pretty fun! There is a lot of service to do in Danville especially in our ward. On Saturday we also were able to help another sister move the rest of her stuff into her new place. Service is great! i love it.

Sorry for not emailing yesterday. Labor day and everything was closed. But we had a KILLER Zone P-day! Our zone drove down to Springfield IL and Had BBQ and games at this Mansion with another Zone! Dual Zone P-day! It was so much fun! We played football till it was time to eat and then we played some ultimate frisbee after. The House had a Pond/lake in the back And after Ultimate Frisbee we divided up in to three teams and played the greatest games of capture the flag! The other two teams played first and then we played the losing team. We dominated! And i scored... so that was way fun! And then we played the other winning team and we were evenly matched! It ended up being a draw, but we were so close! Rats. We had some type of zone training today so we came back to champaign and stayed the night at the  Elders apartment so we didn't waste miles. The training today was great! and i am so pumped to do missionary work again! I LOVE it!

Well i love you guys! i hope you are all doing fantastic!

August 26, 2013

Well this week has been pretty slow! Every night we plan to have a busy day seeing a bunch of people! But it never turns out that way. I just feel like we could be doing more work.

Anyways there is this lady in our apartment building who occasionally makes us cake and stuff, is in love with the Osmonds, and has a son in jail. ha But the other day she asked if we could go visit her son in prison since we are ministers and it wouldn't take away from her visitation. We thought it was a good idea, especially because talking to people in jail sounded like tons of fun! When we got to the jail though they said that we had to go to school and have papers and have a degree to be a minister! We showed her our minister card but they said it wasn't valid... How stupid is that! Um... True church? Priesthood Authority? ...Ministers... oh well. We were aloud to leave literature so we left him a Book of Mormon and a pamphlet, and then we gave the same stuff to his Mom and talked to her about it so that she could talk with her son about it. But she seems pretty interested so we are going to try and teach her as well.

On Wednesday we had the opportunity to help out with a Methodist Food pantry. Real nice people. Apparently every month they have this food drive thing where they gather up food from a bunch of places and then help out the community by giving it away. Someone we ran into told us we could come help, so we did. Apparently Missionaries have done it in the past but nothing big came of it so that was probably our only time.

Sam and Mikaela are doing great! They have been getting hit with anti stuff but they are still holding strong! Their family isnt super accepting of it, so last week we had a lesson about the Family Proclamation and told them how important families are in the church. And it went super good. Sam took the Proclamation and read it with her husband and told him that we wanted to meet with him. He said yes and now we are going to have a lesson with him this wednesday! Sweet!

On Thursday we had Zone Conference! First one on the mission! It was way good! basically it was a lot of trainings but it definitely helped us realize where we are at and what we could be doing better. I know for me it helped to that. I took a lot of great notes and one thing i especially like was when they talked about simply doing the basics. Things in missionary work like planning for the day having meaningful comp study and personal study really set off the mood on how you do missionary work, and how effective it is. I guess its the same with lots of other aspects of our lives just starting from the basics. And knowing where to begin.

Well not much else to tell. Except for the fact that today we confirmed... we have bed bugs.... I'm Ticked!! But don't worry we will be getting rid of them asap! I found one this morning and i wasn't sure what kind of bug it was but our bishop owns Terminix bug extermination so i bagged that bug and brought it into email today. And sure enough he tells us what it is... What can you do. Im getting rid of them... thats what im gonna do.

One more thing before i go. We cant go to the temple once a transfer anymore! im pretty bummed especially since we had planned to go this thursday. New mission policy, we cant go unless we have a new member going through for the first time. On the bright side. We might be able to go a couple times a transfer if we get new members to the temple ;)

Well, I love you family! hope everything is going well at home! stay strong in the gospel! and carry on!

Love,

~Elder Jones~

August 19, 2013

HAY there family!

Time is just flying by! I cant believe it! another week already?!

So Elder Smith was Dear Johned before i came out to Danville and he has had all his letters and everything. Theres also a sister in our district who wrote off her boyfriend at home, AND.... One of our Assistants to the President got Dear Johned so he gave us all of his stuff as well. Anyways... On Monday last week we went over to our bishops house and had a bonfire where we torched all of their stuff! It was so fun. Probably not as much for all of them, but i enjoyed it. All those memories just turned to ash and blew away with the wind...  Relationships on your mission, right? :)

We have been doing this soccer night on mondays where we invite all our investigators and non-members to play soccer and just try to contact them in a non threatening environment and it has been really fun! And so far its worked out pretty great!

On Friday we were able to do some service... baling hay! haha Sam's friend needed help on his farm so we obviously decided to help him out. And it was way cool, because we got to be farmers for a day! It was tough work lifting bales of hay all day but it was really fun especially catching the hay bales as the shot out of the baler! One time Elder Smith Tried to catch and it totally plowed him over! haha so funny! and then right after that another one shot just over my head but i tried to grab it any way and ended up pulling me down as well. 

Our lesson with Sam and Mikaela went great! but we ended up being there for quite awhile. We also started to teach Her son Jon and he seemed to be taking it in and loving it. so we gave him a Book of Mormon and he said he would read it. But then on Sunday we found out from his sister that he probably isnt going to read... We are hoping he comes to our next lesson so we can talk a little bit more about it with him. But on the bright side, we committed them to live the word of wisdom and the next day Sam quit coffee cold turkey! So now when she goes to the donut shop in the morning all she gets is donuts! Haha its awesome! Also Sam and Mikaela came to church again and its been great! The ward loves them and they seem already a part of it! They just need to get baptized, Because that is going Open so many doors for them! You can already see the gospel playing a role in their lives and its amazing! They are the greatest! I want this so bad for them because i know it will bless their lives entirely!

Well thats about all for now. I hope everything is going great at home! Enjoy the new school year! AHH I cant believe school has started! oh well... enjoy ;)

August 12, 2013

Smell that green grass... should be great

Aloha!

This week has been Great! We got transfer calls this week and guess what?! im staying! Im pretty happy because we are teaching some awesome people! But im also bummed because i wont be able to say goodbye to an Elder From my last area. Oh well im sure i will see him back in Utah in a quick 2yrs. As for those awesome people i talked about... We work out at the YMCA in the morning and and there is this lady named Sam who is always talking to the front desk before we go in. Well one day she asked about our name tags and why it says "Elder" we told her and she asked where our church was and we told her and then i was like "hey see you there on sunday?"  And she came!!! So we have been teaching her since!  And we also picked up her daughter Makayla as an investigator too! The first two times we taught her i was on exchanges with the other Elders but This last week i finally got to teach her and her daughter and it went great! We had to redo the restoration with her daughter (because we picked her up the second time we taught her) and it went so fantastic! At the end of the lesson i invited them to be baptized and Sam said she had already been baptized but then Makayla looked at her and said "Yeah, but not with the Priesthood Authority!" hahaha it made my day! Makayla said she wants to get baptized in a creek. So who knows... maybe she will. This next week we will be setting an official date with them and im so excited! I pray everything goes well.

This week we also picked up a new investigator. His name is Jay and we have tried to visit him before but he was never there. Anyways we finally meet him and he is SUPER rich! and SUPER Catholic. He retired at 37 selling used cars. He told us he went from $4 at age 18 to 4 years later having $1 million. But we had a good talk with him and invited him to read the Book of Mormon and pray to know if it is true, and he said he would. Also he told us he would take us golfing!! How sweet is that! So one of these days we are going to take him up on that.

Yesterday before we went to dinner. We were stopping by some people, and we stopped by Latrice house. (She is the potential we picked up as an investigator with like 5 children.) but we talked with her and she said how she was having a bad day and that she needed religion right now. We told her how religion can bless her life and especially how the Book of Mormon can bless her life and then... Committed her to baptism! Set a date with a calendar and everything! The date is set for Sept 14! she has a lot to work on but we know if she is earnest and sincere we can help her make that date.

Well my week has been good and i hope we can make this next transfer a great one. I hope everything is going well at home! I love you and miss you!

Love,

~Elder Chris Jones~

Side Note

Chris:  Whats going on with the bachelorette? I saw a magazine about it the other day. hows my girl des? ;)

Mother:  Sorry, after hometowns, Brooks decided he wasn't falling in love with Des, broke her heart and he left the show. 

Chris:  she just needs the gospel... thats all

August 5, 2013

Well this week was great. I cant believe it went by so fast! Time is just whizzing by!

Well this week has been weird. We have been doing tons of service! On Tuesday we helped a member move in to a new house and we were helping them till like 3 in the afternoon. W didnt have any dinner plans that night so they invited us back to have pizza at their house. So basically our whole day was spent with them.
Wednesday another member was moving so we helped them.Then we went on exchanges and i went down to the south area of our mission. It was great. I asked one of the Elders here, Elder Brooks, his story, and what brought him to the gospel. And as he told me his story tears began to fill my eyes as he told me the trial and testimony builders that brought him here. After hearing his story i look up to him so much!

On Thursday me and Elder Smith met with this lady, Dona, we were teaching and she hasnt progressed at all. We have been trying to set up a church tour for her and she keeps flaking on those. She also isnt keeping any commitments (hence why shes not progressing) so we visit with her and she started to say "i dont think you can really know for sure." and Elder Smith got pretty upset at that and started getting contentious. So I stopped him settled it down, and told dona that she hasnt been keeping commitments so we were going to have to drop her. The rest of the day went pretty good and we visited some Less actives on our list.

Saturday. More service. its been good though. We have been trying to gain the trust and friendship of the members and i think all this service has really helped out on that. Hopefully we can start seeing some results.

Yesterdays Fast and Testimony meeting was Amazing the peoples testimonies were so strong! Elder Brooks got up and bore his testimony, and knowing his story, it made it that much better! Hearing others testimonies is the best! I feel like i learn so much from them.

This week we will be getting transfer calls and all that fun stuff. i dont think i will be leaving. But this transfer is the largest transfer our mission has seen. We have 30 new missionaries coming in! Thats the largest yet. Ours was the largest with 24. The mission is the greatest! i love it!

Thats all for now. I hope everything is going great with you guys. I love you an miss you! 

Love, 

~Elder Jones~