Each Life that Touches Ours for Good - February 11 Email

Dear Family,

   I hope that you have had a good week. I was so sorry to hear about Nannie Lou's passing. She was such a sweetheart. I read a quote this week that I though might help Mama in the wake of her passing. Elder Lance B. Wickman said, "Grief is the natural by-product of love. One cannot selflessly love another person and not grieve at his suffering or eventual death. The only way to avoid the grief would be to not experience the love; and it is love that gives life its richness and meaning." I thought that quote was so beautiful and can apply to so many situations in life. I think that is why my first couple weeks here were so tough because everything I loved was so far away. Hermana Pierce was the closest thing I loved and even she was 3 hours across the mission but the good news is that it doesn't take long to come to love people no matter where you are. I have found that there are so many lives that touch ours for good. I have fallen in love with the people here. They are so good to us and try so hard to serve us. I am grateful for the opportunity to love even when that love sometimes brings grief. I know that Nannie Lou is grateful for the love that ya'll showed her. She is in a better place. If she doesn't make it to the Celestial Kingdom, I don't have a shot! :)

   This week we decided to try harder to talk to everyone. We had an appointment Thursday afternoon that we were really excited about but when we got there the man in the house said that we had the wrong house so we decided to try to find the right one. We ended up seeing an english speaking lady and talking to her. She was awesome and said she would love for elders to come share what we believe. We knew we were supposed to talk to her. Then we remembered that the guy we had the appointment with had relatives that lived in another apartment in the same complex. We went and knocked on that door to find out where he really lived. His sister-in-law who is from Columbia answered and said he was not home but immediately invited us in. No sooner had we said "We're missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints" did she say, "I would love to learn more." We started teaching her about the Book of Mormon and she said "I know about this book...it's like the Bible but clearer..the Bible can be confusing." We asked her if she had met with missionaries before and she told us that she had watched The Restoration. When we got home we realized she was taught two years ago. Her sister (the wife of the guy we had the appointment with) ended up coming in as we were about to leave and we made an appointment with her! It was so neat to see how everything happens for a reason!

    We had another experience with the same thing this week. We had an appointment that wasn't home and we debated over whether to go visit a guy that hadn't been home for his appointment the day before or to go eat lunch before Church on Sunday. We decided to go visit the guy and his wife immediately invited us in. They have three kids. She expressed to us that her goal in life is for her family to stay together. It was clear that they have had some struggles with their marriage (probably because they work completely different schedules) and rarely see each other but that they are both good people and want their marriage to work. We were able to share the family proclamation with them and it was such a neat experience to see the hope come in their eyes.
    I hope that you all have had a great week! Sorry this email is a little bit shorter than normal but I hope you are all healthy and happy. I love this gospel. I feel blessed to be a member of the only church on the earth today with the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the very same gospel that He established because he loved us so much...even when it was hard and lonely. I am grateful for the hope that gospel brings to people and for the principles and ordinances of the gospel through which families can be together forever and we can return to live with our Heavenly Father. I'm grateful that Joseph Smith had the faith to pray and ask which church was true and then the courage to restore the gospel to the earth...even when it was hard and lonely. Sometimes our lives are hard and lonely but because of the way those two men lived their lives we can overcome hard times and we can touch others lives for good. That is what I am trying to do here! Thank you for the way that each of you have touched my life. I cannot express how grateful I am and how blessed I feel to know and love you! Your love has given my life its richness and meaning. I miss you but am trying my best to make you proud of me and come home a better person.

    I love you!

-Hermana Jones

P.S. We have three solid women on date for baptism between now and March 9th. Please pray for them! They are incredible.

This picture is of me, Hermana Alard and our relief society president, Sister Mercado. She is amazing and we made a thank you candy gram for her this week because she does stuff for us all the time! Her little girl is Idaly is second only to Natalie in my favorite child category! Haha.

Vision to Become - February 4th email

Dear Family,

   I miss you!!! I hope you have had a great week! Things are going really well here! All four of the Valencia Boys were baptized on Saturday. For a second on Friday night it looked like it might not happen but it did and it was wonderful! They are such good boys and I am so excited to see the difference that the gospel can make in their lives. I sang "To Become Like Him" at the baptism and I really feel like they have the potential to become so amazing with the gospel.

   This week we had a really neat activity in our branch. In the MTC one day I was reading the section on working with members and wrote down some ideas that I had for possible activities to get members excited about missionary work. One thing I wrote down was a night where members could share their conversion story. I felt this could build unity within a branch and bring back their own memories of their conversion. When I got to the field this idea materialized and developed with the help of Sister Alard and finally happened on Thursday night. We were really pleased with the outcome. The theme ended up being "Out of Small and Simple Things, Great Things are Brought to Pass." We had several members share how small interactions led to their conversion to the gospel. Brother Cosme shared how a man at his work just casually mentioned the church one day during lunch and then Brother Cosme went and sought it out himself. Sister Magana talked about her neighbor when she was 11 taking an interest in her. She said "She taught me to cook, she taught me to play the piano and she taught me the most important thing I have ever known, the gospel of Jesus Christ." Karla Hernandez shared how she went to school in Idaho and how she always wondered what made a lot of the kids she knew different but none of them ever shared the message with her. She made the point that she knew she received the gospel when the time was right for her (her husband baptized her on his mission and is now our branch president) but that she wishes now she had had the gospel earlier and that someone had said something. But at the same time she said that she is grateful for their examples so that when the time was right she had a good impression of the church. She shared a quote by President Uchtdorf about how testimonies are for sharing.

    Then in the end we had a lady in our ward (who had recently shared experiences with us after a visit) share how she and her family have stepped out of their comfort zone to share the gospel in little ways. She specifically talked about how her little girls have set an example for her. One of them chose to take her Book of Mormon to show and tell. The other quickly made her own decision not to go to a birthday party because it was on Sunday before every asking her mom. They are 6 and 4. Throughout we showed different things from Mormon.org and at the end Sister Alard and I showed three of the new I Am A Mormon ads in spanish. The branch ate them up! The reaction we loved most was, "They were normal!" We wanted them to see that the gospel can become such a part of our lives that sharing it become easy because people see how we live and want to know more. We encouraged them to use Mormon.org to share the gospel with their friends. After the activity we were able to see our branch unified for the first time. They were all talking to each other and seemed really excited! It was really neat to see how something that I felt inspired about in the MTC actually happened and for the first time I felt like things that I have learned in school came in handy. Stuff from my PR classes was actually put into practice and translated okay into spanish. Haha!

    This week I was reading a talk from the April 2012 General Conference by Elder O. Vincent Haleck. His talk is centered around the scripture found in Proverbs 29:18 that says, "Where there is no vision, the people perish." He says, "If we are to prosper rather than perish, we must gain a vision of ourselves as the Savior sees us." He goes on to talk about how the Savior saw more in the fisherman who would later become His apostles than they initially saw in themselves. It made me think a lot about the word, "Vision" and how it applies to missionary work. I realized that for me this mission applies to vision in two ways. First, it is a chance for me to gain a vision of my future (which heaven knows I need) but also it is an opportunity to have vision as a missionary. To see people as they can become with the gospel or even to see an activity as it can become. Elder Haleck later says "Brothers and Sisters, we are a people with a history of vision and the faith and courage to do. Look at where we have come and the blessings we have received! Believe that He can bless you with vision in your life and the courage to act." For me this time of my life is all about vision and I'm grateful for the opportunity to learn about seeing things as Heavenly Father sees them. Sometimes having this vision can hurt because you want so badly for others to be able to see that vision and to recognize their potential. It can hurt so bad that your heart aches watching it but occasionally you are able to see others catch that vision of what they can become and they work with everything that they have to reach toward it. That is what we are seeing with Jaqueline. She continues to amaze us each and every visit. She is amazing and full of surprises. She wants this gospel and all of its blessings and she will get it if she continues to act in faith. Vision has been the source of the greatest joy and the greatest sadness on my mission but it is so important.

    I hope that all of you are able to see how much potential you have. I think of all of you often and how incredibly blessed I am to be surrounded and supported by such amazing people. I love you all! Thank you so all you do for me and for your prayers.

 

Love,

Hermana Jones