Week 43

June 12, 2012

Hello to my dearest family members!

This has been a great week!

Here's the updates with transfers: I'm still in Plattsmouth and I'm training Sister Kirby!!! She is awesome! Sister Kirby is from South Carolina, went to BYU-I for a year, is laid back, funny, and nice! She's a hard worker and just ready to dive into missionary life! She is so good at stepping out of her comfort zone and just fearlessly talking to people and teaching. I love it! She is making my job easy. :) I included some pictures of me and Sister Hawkes before she went home and also me and Sister Kirby. I still can't believe Sister Hawkes has left... so weird! But she's great and we'll keep in touch. She was an incredible trainer and missionary, so now I just have to try and live up to the bar she set.

Wednesday morning I got a phone call from President Kunz saying, "Sister Jones! The Lord has called you to be a trainer! You will be training Sister Kirby from South Carolina. She's great and excited to be here!" Later that day we took the new missionaries out for a 2 hour teaching experience. At that point they didn't know who their companions were so it was fun to get to meet Sister Kirby and take her out visiting people for a little bit. Then later that night she found out I would be her companion. She said she was happy and excited to hear that. haha! Then Thursday we had actual transfers and we were officially companions! Sister Robertson went to a different area but I still get to see her at the Trail Center a lot, so that's good!

We have had some really good lessons this week. Kaitlyn is set to be baptized June 30th and we went to the Trail Center with her mom Brandi and some ward members to watch The Testaments, an awesome church movie! At one part it shows Christ coming and visiting the people in the Americas after Christ was resurrected. I tear up every time I watch that part. It's powerful! Kaitlyn really enjoyed it as well and said she got the chills and felt really warm... then we could explain that was the Holy Ghost! :)

We have been able to spend a good amount of time at the Trail Center this past week. Lots of good tours! It's getting really busy to the point where we hardly get to sit down. It's good though because it makes the day go by faster. Yesterday I took 2 different tours of non-members and then 2 big groups of member families. Quite the diversity of people! This week we are working every weekday except today (our preparation day). That's a lot more than usual but I guess that's how it will be a lot of the summer time.

We found a few new investigators while street contacting this week. That's always a fun experience! I love people who are open and willing to talk! We met a woman, who some members suggested we visit, and she was so nice. She immediately let us in and offered us drinks. We were able to have a great lesson with her! We focussed a lot of our discussion on Christ and his atonement. She grew up Muslim but is now Christian. I'm excited to continue teaching her and see where that goes. She said she will read from the Book of Mormon and pray about it. She's a sweetie and so kind!

It has been really nice weather here recently! It's getting more humid though. Not too bad yet though. I'm couting my blessings! :)

Hope you all are doing great! I love you!

Sister Jones

 

Week 42

June 5, 2012

Hello family!

I know this is a really odd time to be emailing but I promise this isn't me being rebellious or disobedient. We were asked to take out the new missionaries tomorrow during our preparation day so they said we need to take 2 hours out of today to email and go shopping. With the new missionaries tomorrow we will be taking them out to our area for about 2 hours and giving them a teaching/ proselyting experience before they get assigned to their areas and companions. We find out about transfers tomorrow! There is a really good chance either me or Sister Robertson will be training a new missionary.... kinda exciting and also scary! Sister Robertson thinks I'll be the one training... but who knows! I'll find out tomorrow morning and you will find out on either Monday or Tuesday! (We haven't got our trail center schedule for this month so we don't know when our preparation day is.)

Question: Does anybody have any good ideas about kids activities for lessons and teaching gospel principles? Do you know any fun kid or group games? Feel free to send any ideas my way! Thanks!

This has been an INCREDIBLE week!!!!!! Oh my goodness!!

Like normal, I will type as fast as I can and give you as many details as I can fit in!

Allen Jones and his family from Cedar City, UT came to the Trail Center this past week and I happened to be the one who took them on tour!! They are in Jeff and Polly's ward! It was really cool because Brother Jones knew all about my immediate family and we even found our common ancestors! Their family is great and I loved being able to show them around the trail center. They were raving about how much they love our family, especially grandma and grandpa Jones. (Craig and Bonnie). I took a picture with them so if I have time I will attach it for you!

Do you remember Anna, the woman who had cancer who we were able to meet and pray with her and her family? We went to visit her this Sunday and her daughter let us in to visit and told us that her mom had passed away a few days ago. That was the saddest news! We were able to have a powerful visit with Trudy (the daughter who is in her 30's) about trusting in the Lord and what happens after this life. She has a strong faith and knows her mom is in a better place. Some of our most powerful lessons in Plattsmouth have been in their apartment. She desires to be baptized and wants us to keep coming and teach her. Such a blessing!! She is going through a hard time but is so faithful and optimistic.

Guess what?!! A woman named Christina that I taught consistently in Grand Island got baptized this past Saturday!!!!!! That made me so happy to hear about! She even was baptized on the date that I set as a goal for her and that she was working towards when I was there teaching her. I was sad that I couldn't be there to see her baptized but still glad I could play a role in her conversion. :)

Oh my goodness... I was able to meet so many amazing people at the trail center this week. I don't have time to get into the details but i have had some awesome experiences! Just today I took some wonderful member couples and a group of people who weren't members from England! Their accents were wonderful! haha! (Mom: a woman I took on tour today had such a great experience and loved it so much she asked if she could call you to tell you about it and she also said, "I want to tell your mom about what a great job she has done in raising you and what an amazing missionary you are!" So I gave her your phone number and said that would be ok. Expect a call from Sister Barlow sometime. It was kind of random but she is super sweet and I just loved getting to know them. Her and her husband are from Provo, UT.)

Sad news: Sister Hawkes, my trainer, is going home in just a few days!! I don't want her to leave! She is such a wonderful missionary and has been a great example to me and all those around her. I think she's going back to BYU in the Fall.

Me and Sister Robertson got to clean the Winter Quarters temple yesterday! That is such a neat experience and we loved it.

Transfers are tomorrow and more than likely me and Sister Robertson are getting separated. :( She has been such a great companion and we get along really well. We are really comfortable teaching together and have been able to witness so many miracles together! That is why I am scared for this coming transfer... I'm guessing it's going to be something to take me out of my comfort zone. haha! (Possibly training a new missionary!)

We have recently started teaching a woman named Brandi and her daughter Kaitlyn. Brandi has been inactive for many years and has just recently decided she wants to come back to church, change her life around, and strengthen her relationship with Heavenly Father. Yay! Kaityln isn't a member and LOVES learning about God and Jesus Christ. She is eating up everything we teach her. She's 12 and loved young womens at church last week. She so nice and cute and always gives us big hugs and even gave me a kiss on the cheek after the first day of meeting her. (funny moment, totally not expecting that. haha!) She is set to be baptized on June 30th!

Basically this week has been amazing and those are just the main bullet points. I could go on with other really good lessons and awesome tours that took place, but I'm running out of time. There are so many good things happening right now... both in our area and at the trail center. It's exciting!!

Here's a scripture that I read recently that I LOVE!

Alma 29:9 9 "I know that which the Lord hath commanded me, and I glory in it. I do not glory of myself, but I glory in that which the Lord hath commanded me; yea, and this is my glory, that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance; and this is my joy."

Missionary work and helping people to know Heavenly Father and the Savior better really does bring JOY! That's why I'm happy 99.9% of the time!

Well I will talk to you all soon and give you the update with what happens with transfers! Sorry you have to wait to find out. (just imagine how I feel though.)

Have a wonderful day!!!

Love,

Sister Jones

Week 41

May 29, 2012

Hi family!!

How was your Memorial Day?! I hope it was great! Did you do anything fun? 

I did! We worked at the Trail Center ALL day long. We gave tours from 9am-3pm... non-stop. It was wonderful but tiring. I don't think I sat down during that whole time period because right when you got off tour another group would walk in. Now that summer break has rolled in the trail center is getting pretty busy! Now we have to give shorter tours and are constantly on the go. I love though because we get to meet so many people just in 1 day. From 3-9pm yesterday we were making phone calls for our referrals. (the people that the visitors ask us to call and share a message with.)

I actually had a really neat "on call" experience earlier in the week. I went a couple hours of not being able to get a hold of anybody during our shift and I felt like I wasn't making a huge difference or being effective. (Which isn't totally abnormal because call center mostly depends on if people answer the phones and overall isn't the easiest thing in the world.) So I was just a little down asking myself what I can do better or what I need to change to be able to reach out to more people during that time of calling people. I said a little prayer asking Heavenly Father to help me be able to make a difference to someone and help me feel good about the efforts that I'm making. Right after that prayer I called a man who is less-active. I took his brother on tour earlier this week and he asked me to give him a call because he is struggling. Well to sum it up... he didn't answer his phone. BUT then about 5 minutes later he called me back and we had a really good talk!! He opened up a lot and shared how he wants to come back to church and be involved again but just isn't sure about what steps he needs to take. So I was able to talk to him about what he can do and how his life will be blessed as he makes the changes that he desires... like going back to church, reading the scriptures, and praying. His wife also wants to learn about the church and she's not a member. Overall that experience was a blessing on both of our parts. I was so grateful I was able to talk with him and he was grateful to receive extra help and an added nudge to help him to get on the right path. I'll continue to follow-up with him and see how he's doing with making these changes in his life. (Hopefully this experience even makes sense to you. I tried making it clear and explaining things.) 

We had some great training this week at the Trail Center. A woman came from the main missionary department over the church to visit with us and basically to tell us to keep doing what we're doing! It was really great and we received a lot of good insights on how we can be better missionaries and how we can improve to reach out to more people.

I saw fireflies for the first time IN MY LIFE this week! They are so cool!! My goal is to catch one before the summer is over. :)

Here is one of my favorite conference talks! You should definitely read or watch the talk by Elder Holland from General Conference!

http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/04/the-laborers-in-the-vineyard?lang=eng

Love you all!! Sorry this is so short! It was a great week and we were able to spend a lot of time at the Trail Center giving tours and taught some good lessons in our area as well. :)

Sister Jones

Week 40

May 21, 2012

Hello to the greatest family in the world!

How are you all doing today? Hope everybody is doing well!

I attached a few pictures for you all!

Some are from dressing up as pioneers and others are from when we went to see Boys Town last week for preparation day. Boys Town is an incredible place where youth go who come from broken homes and families. They have their own little community in Omaha with a school, churches, foster homes, and some other things that I can't remember right now. It's incredible! A lot of us trail center sisters were able to take a tour there. You should definitely look it up online and learn more about it. I would love to work at a place like that! I have a picture of the cathedral and also a collection of about 4 million stamps in a ball (or some large number like that). Pretty exciting!

This week we worked A LOT at the trail center! I had some cool experiences there! One was with a woman named Anna who is not a member of the church and from out of state. She was incredibly nice and she is at a hard point in her life where she has a lot of major decisions ahead of her. We had some great conversations relating to the gospel and the pioneers. She felt so connected with them and could relate to their hard experiences. During the tour I read her a scripture, 2 Nephi 31:20, and she absolutely loved it! At the end of the tour she asked if she could have a Book of Mormon to read. I am very excited to be able to follow up and see how she enjoys her reading and also see how her prayers are going to know if it's true.

I also took a really sharp family who were also not members of the church. They had 4 kids and they were all sooo smart! The 7th grader knew all about the pioneers because she loves to read. When I told them they could dress up like pioneers for the tour they went crazy and got incredibly happy! (Kind of like me when I found out I could dress up like a pioneer for the parade. haha! Just kidding) On tour I was able to share with the family and Joseph Smith's experience when he prayed and was visited by Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. It was a neat and powerful experience. The Spirit was definitely there. They too left with a Book of Mormon but weren't interested in having the missionaries come visit them at this point. There was a big seed planted from that experience. The girls were so sweet too, in the middle of the tour the 6 year old randomly runs up and hugs me as I'm speaking. Then before they were leaving the 10 year old hugs me and says, "I love you!" There was a group of young single adults that had just walked in when that happened and they all went, "Awww, how cute!" Yeah, my heart melted a little bit. I just love kind and respectful children. :)

We had zone conference this week as well! The main focus was repentance. They discussed how we can help our investigators (and ourselves) better understand and apply the repentance process into our lives. Repentance is so key in our lives because it's the only way we can progress in this life and prepare to live with our Father in Heaven. That's ultimately what this life is about so repenting is incredibly important! We also got to do some really good role plays where we could teach half our lessons. It was great and reminded me of the MTC! :)

 A scripture that I really like that has stood out to me recently is: In John 16:33 the Savior says, "These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." We read this scripture to Nancy the other day and she broke out into tears. It's powerful to know that the Savior really can relate to and understand any pain that we experience in this life. (Nancy is the woman who lost her 22 year daughter last month.) I just love this scripture! I wish I had more time so I could elaborate on it a little more.

I just wanted to invite you all to read from your scriptures... today! :) I have grown a deep love for the scriptures and I know that we can receive greater direction and peace in our lives as we study them diligently and apply them to our lives. Let me know what you studied or what you are currently studying! Thanks!!

Jones family- I'm excited to read your mormon.org profiles! (this is just a reminder to do them.) Love you all!

Thanks for being so great and supportive! You are all amazing!

Love always,

Sister Jones

Recent Pictures from Sister Jones! :)

 

Companions! 

Ayn's baptism!