The Girl with the Veracruz Mission: Transfer news, Pictures, a Baptism, and more

Hi Everyone,

Transfer news..... Elder Gonzales left to...I forget the name already. But a different part in Veracruz. Elder Acevedo is training, and we met his son (green missionariy) today. Transfers are Mondays now. His 'son' is from Argentina. This week....I finally realized why newbies are called greenies. Hermana Jarquin and I...we´re staying together for another 6 weeks! We're very happy about this. The Lord still needs us together.

Well, we didn´t end up moving this week. There was a little thing that the zone leaders didn´t like about the house. But...we´re hoping to move into a different house that the sister missionaries lived in some time before.

The Luau...I glad it´s over. It was super stressful. I´m super grateful for the planning committees at home. It turned to be an event for the youth and E Acevedo has an awesome plan for the next ward mission activity that won´t take quite as much work. I don´t want to go too into detail so I can tell some awesome things that happened this week, I´ll send pictures.

We've been carrying around letters for converts from one the the Elders that was in the area. We had one left and the other day we went searching for this house. Well...this convert doesn´t live here anymore. We met his mom and she was telling us about the Elder who came to teach her son, and he sounded super awesome. He really took care of the people he taught. His mom said that she had a baptism date, but after this Elder left the area, no one really came back. So...we're going to start teaching her.

The same day, Hna Jarquin thought of going to visit an hermano because he hasn´t been consistently going to church lately. I didn´t meet him before. When we went to visit, he was there with his kids. We started talking to his son, M., He's nine years old and we thought to ask him if he'd been baptized yet. He hadn't. So...we asked him if he´d like to be baptized and he said yes. We returned a little later to ask him the interview questions. The next day the Elders came with us to have the interview, and two days later was his baptism.

D. and F. should be having their baptisms this week!

I saw Hermana Orduña today! I knew she was in the mission area due to Nefi´s aunts, but we weren't sure when she was going to come here to visit. This morning we phoned Hna Roderiguez to thank her for what she´s done for us as an STL, because she's going to Los Tuxtlas. She phoned us back half an hour later. asking me if we were busy at one, because Hna Orduña was going to be there at Nefi's house. Oh...it was so lovely to see her!!!! We talked for...an hour or so. Of lots of things. She´s pretty impressed with the amount of Spanish I know. One of the things she told me is that when she´s upset or not the best she says ´think like Jones' and that the next time she comes to visit she's going to go out and teach with me. And that I am the daughter of her mission. After she left, Aunt Alba was saying that she came here to their house specifically to see me.

One thought. Hna Jarquin and I talk a lot. She told me that 1 missionary went back to her house after a week because it wasn´t like her house...she was from another part of Mexico, and it was not what she thought so the mission wasn´t for her. She´s not the only one, this one missionary, but missions....they are NEVER about us. They are about others. They are about finding the Lord´s children who are searching for the truth whether they know it or not. We come here to sacrifice our comforts of our homes, our family and friends, favourite foods, homemade cookies, our own language... not for us, but for God. To show our love for God and his children. We have to sacrifice our own desires. I forget if I´ve written this in our letters or not.... but going on a mission was never in my plans...and for a time I fought against the idea. But after a while I accepted that this is what God needed me to do...and I can´t imagine my life without this experience.

Remember why we're here.

Hermana Jones