Monday, June 29, 2015

6 weeks left

Hi Everyone,

Well...it´s official. I´ve got little time left as a missionary and I´m not quite sure how I feel. I´m coming home August 6th.
We had interviews with President this Friday and he said to me ´´Hermana Jones, you´ve got 6 weeks left. These last six weeks I want you to work harder than you ever have in your mission. You´ve done a really good job, and before you leave I want you to give it all you´ve got.´´

He also told me that most likely I´d finish my mission in the pórt. And...I´ve got mixed emotions in that párt too. Because there´s a part of me that wants to finish my mission in the port too.

Other news...I have another companion. Hna Palafox had to go to the port because her knee was really bothering her. My new companion is Hna Rodriguez. She just came from Nogales. So...she´s been updating me on how everyone´s doing. So... that´s kind of fun.  She´s 26 years old and she´s from el Distrito Federal. She just turned 8 months in the mission yesterday.

This week has not been normal at all.

Monday is always a little crazy. Seriously... Monday is never a restful day. It´s a lie.

Tuesday we started the day in divisions. But that ended up quickly because Hna Palafox´s knee was really bugging her. So after lunch Hna Kind and I went back to the house and I started making a bunch of calls so Hna Palafox could stay with a sister and for another sister to go out and work with me.

Wednesday, we were in the middle of a lesson and then President calls us to say that Hna Palafox has to go to Veracruz and we needed to go on Thursday.  Then in the evening at our English class, Jessica came and told us that she wanted to get baptized on Friday, so Elder Hoffman had a baptism interview with her. After English class we went to buy the bus tickets.Hna Palafox said she couldn´t leave without buying a memela, so we bought Memelas.

Thursday we left early morning to Veracruz with Hna Rodriguez waiting for us. We had to wait 3 hours for the next bus to San Andres.  Thursday is weekly planning here so we did our weekly planning in the bus place.

 Friday we had interviews with President,  and also Jessica´s baptism.  After Jessica got baptized, President told her to come and meet him. So that was cool.


Oh...and then Saturday  was crazy because this whole week my ear had been bothering me, and the drops weren´t working.  I want to a pharmacy doctor and he told me to go to a specialist but told me it would be super expensive. So...we decided to go to the clinic to just ask a few questions .... and in the end the specialist fixed me up for free.

So.... does that sound crazy or not?  I seriously hope this next week is a lot more sane.

Keep being awesome!


Hermana Jones

Monday, June 22, 2015

Thoughts for the week.......

Hi everyone,

This week we celebrated Rodrigo´s birthday. He turned 52. He said he never before really celebrated his birthday so we decided to celebrate it. We bought him cake with candles and a few decorations and sang to him. He was well pleased. I tried sending some pictures but this computer I´m using today doesn´t want to send pictures.

We also had Alan´s baptism on Saturday!!!! Something that was nice is we invited some less actives to come and assigned them to give a little thought. One of them was a teenager and he stayed a little after because there was this dancing activity that he participated in. And the other one came for the first hour to church on Sunday.

We found some new less actives!  One of them  is a nurse. This nurse was actually calling after us when we were walking down the street so we turned around and she told us she was a member that hadn´t gone to church in two years.  We visited with her and she´s pretty cool. She gave us a referral, so we after we went to visit this referral, and at the end thinking we had a new investigator , she told us she was a member.

 Yesterday in Gospel Principles we learned about the 12 different spiritual gifts. Something the teacher said made me really think. God gives each of us gifts and it´s important that we recognize these gifts.  Once we recognize the gifts, it´s important that we use them and build them. If we ever neglect or reject these gifts that God gave us, he´ll take them away. It´s like the parabol of the talents. There were the two men  that were given talents who worked hard on gaining more. And the one who hid his talent was reprimanded because all he did was hide it. So.... we should find our talents and gifts that God gave us and use  them for good.


Sorry for the short letter. The internet kept crashing today and I couldn´t send photos.

Love you all
Hermana jones

Monday, June 15, 2015

Friendship

Hi Everyone,

First week of the new transfer with the new companion. She loves David Archeleta. And mangos. Funny, the other day we found mangos so we picked them up.  Then this man saw us with mangos and he gave us more mangos. Then a taxi driver gave us plums he bought because they were too sour for him.

We´re working with A., R´s 12 year old son so he can get baptized. He has a perfect knowledge of the Restoration but he doesn´t quite have a testimony of it.

When we went to visit R. and A. on Saturday one of R´s friends from his AA group was there.  We started teaching him, and he says there´s so many things he wants to change. After when we were talking to R. he starting crying telling us of how much he tries to help his friends and how this gospel has changed his life. He is a great soul.

I just want to share something, something I realized in one of my personal studies. Last week  I was studying a few days about the Plan of Salvation. There´s a chapter Our Search for Happiness which I really love which talks about the eternal plan that God has for us. We know that it started before we were born on the earth and God presented his ´plan to us and told us we needed a saviour. Jesus was chosen,  saying that he´d give all the glory to God. Jesus was the first born of the Spirit children of God. He´s our older brother. Now...stop and read that again. He´s our older brother. Older siblings have this ´´older sibling love´´ for their younger siblings and me being the baby of my family...I see this. And so it is with Jesus. He loves us a lot and wanted to protect and help his younger siblings. So much that he suffered for every trial, every temptation, every hard time we ever have to face.  We never ever are alone. It came up to my mind when we were teaching I. (a recent convert) and her friend that she brought over. Her friend is an athiest, but what I was testifying of that knowledge that I learned I felt a great spirit. Who knows what her friend thought at the end of the day. But I felt good.

There´s no movie theatres here in San Andres so those who didn´t go to a city that has movie theatres didn´t have the chance to see' Meet The Mormons' . They showed it in the chapel here on Friday, so people were able to see it. I only saw a very small portion of it (part of the missionary mom story ...my favourite story), because I was in the kitchen making popcorn.  J. came to see it and she really liked it. She mentions a lot her baptism on July 18th, so she´s pretty excited about it. I seriously love her. She´s awesome. I don´t know exactly why, but on Friday I wasn´t 100% me like...with all my happiness and all. And she comes up to me and says ´´Hermana Jones, you always ask if there´s anything you can do for me ... well is there anything I can do for you?´´

We had a few other experiences in where the people have taught and helped us, but I don´t have the time to share them.

In a mission, you don´t just teach people,the people teach you and you gain many lasting friendships.

Love,
Hermana Jones

Monday, June 8, 2015

San Andres transfer day

Hey Everyone,

Has it really only week a week since I last wrote? Because so much has happened in just a week!

Mount Pleasent Relief Society... I got your post its!  I loved them! Thankyou!

Okay, so on Monday night we got a call from the STL´s asking if we could have Hna Guaní work with us on Tuesday because her companion got called to be an STL and they had to go to Veracruz for a meeting.  They would come back with her new companion.  She taught with us  in the morning and after lunch we already had plans to have a sister accompany us...so we took advantage of the extra hands and we did a little divisions. I worked with Hna Guaní. She and I have the same time on the mission. The sisters phoned us in the evening to say that Hna Guaní would have to sleep over with us. She was in Ojo de Agua before coming here to San Andres so she was filling me in of what´s all been happening there.  Wednesday morning we went over to the STL´s house so Hna Guaní and her companion could go to their area.  Her new companion is named Hna Rodriguez from Guatamala. She just finished her training and she´s got a super sweet character.

 Later at about 10:30am, Hna Jarquin called me, crying, telling me that she´s leaving San Andres to go to Veracruz, never to be returning. Hna Jarquin hadn´t been feeling too good for the past few days and she and Hna Fletcher were getting tired of all the doctors here telling her to go to another doctor and so forth. They needed to go to Veracruz to see what was up. So...after a lesson we had with Rodrigo we went to the ADO to say goodbye to her. I´m going to see her again. I have plans to go to Nicaragua.
Hna Jarquin´s doing fine now. She had surgery and so I hear she basically needs to rest a bit. She´s hanging out with our pair of senior missionaries who work in the mission office. But put some prayers in for her. If you want to put her name in the temple, her name is Angie Tatiana de los Angeles Jarquin Valle.

 This week when we went to see a recent convert,  he was feeling  bad because he broke a commandment. When we learned about that we taught him a lesson about repentence, and he was repentant.  Then two days after we went back to see him and we read some scriptures with him.  It was probably one of my favourite lessons here in this area. We could feel the spirit as we were teaching/reading and we could see the words of the scriptures touch his soul.  He has a few issues with keeping the Sabbath Day holy because he doesn´t regularily go to church.  He knows that part of his repentence is going to church and he committed himself to going.  Unfortunatley he couldn´t go this Sunday because there were elections going on and he was assigned to help with the voting. But he plans to go this next Sunday!

This week we went to see R. every day before his baptism. He wasn´t feeling too well this week and even went to get tests done. Satan didn´t want him to get baptized.  None of his friends came to support him in his baptism. We went to get him on Saturday before his baptism and he was saying everything was going wrong that day he was almost ready to not go and be baptized. See the potential in him? Satan certainly does. He wasn´t the only one being attacked. The other elders in our district had a baptism planned to with this young man named S. On Friday they couldn´t get a hold of him and he wasn´t in his house.  They still couldn´t Saturday morning. We put S. in our prayers and he did come to get baptized. Elder Hoffman and Pantuso also had a baptism...so our district had a baptidistrict Saturday!!!  On Sunday when R. got confirmed he was promised he would get an eternal family. It made me so happy! So he´s going to find a wife one day and his sons are going to follow his example and get baptized too. I was sitting next to Jessica and she also smiled when she heard that he´d get an eternal family.

We also had a new person come to church with us. His named is F. and he´s 27. I think that´s what he said. He was a reference from a member and when we went to contact him he let us teach a lesson. We taught him on his patio. He´s pretty Catholic, but even though he didn´t exactly accept the invitation, I know he´s going to get baptized.  He lives with his cousins and one of his aunts saw us with him and turned on the radio really loud ....  So ...  When I phoned him Sunday morning he told us he still had plans to go with us to church. He really liked it.

We had transfers!!!!  Hna Citam got sent to Veracruz and since she was the only sister leaving from the area I had to travel with her. So basically my whole day has been traveling, which can be a little exhausting. My new companion is Hna Palafox. She was in my last district, so I already know her a little bit. My new sister training leader is Hna Kind...who started the mission in the same district when I was training. I got to see Nefi, Giselle, Hna Margarita, Monsé and Julio in the ADO which was sooo nice! Hna Margarita was like a mother to me so I gave her some good hugs.

My USB stick was found by a brother in the branch!

Please pray for Alan (R's son) so he can have desires to get baptized this week.

Welcome home Whitney and Brent!

Love you all,


English Class             

Tessa loves the children!!      



Feeling loved by the Mount Pleasant R.S.

Hermana Jones

Sunday, June 7, 2015

June 2- Charity and Love

Hola Mis Queridos,

We have a baptism on Saturday!!!! R. He had his baptism the other day and he passed it. He's so excited about it.' Principles of the Gospels' is taught in the room with the baptismal font, and  N. decided to come to church on Sunday. Elder Hoffman opened up the door of the font to show his investigator and R. saw it he said the N. ´´That´s the baptism font will I´ll be getting baptized in!´´  He also told us he has plans to invite 4 of his friends from his AA group. Keep him in your prayers!

We had divisions again and I got to work with Hna Jarquin! So that was fun. Something I never noticed is she said ´´Every contact you make you show your love.´´  And...we had some pretty rude contacts. Well..you can´t win them all.

It´s now rain season! So I´ll be carrying my umbrella everywhere. Keep me in your prayers so I don´t get sick in it!


We were in downtown today doing a little shopping , and I was feeling a little sad because my USB where I transferred A WHOLE LOT of photos from my mission went missing. About half the photos of Ojo and the majority of Nogales . I know I sent lots of photos home but...it still is sad.  We entered a store and I saw a shirt that said ´´love, and be loved´´  That shirt made my day. It´s a simple little message. Love the people around you, and they´ll  love you back. So how about we show the world some love!  ´´Gimme love, gimme love,´´-Ed Sheeran.  A hug, a smile, sit by someone lonely or new, sacrificing our own time to help somebody else. Buy someone you love chocolate and peanut butter.  Don´t wait for special day to do it. Do it today! Do it tomorrow! Show an act of love every day. If we all try to do this...the world will be a much better place.  I was actually studying' Charity and Love' the other day in Christlike atributes. Christ loved the sinners, the republicans, the samaritans, the children. Charity is the pure love of Christ. Search up what charity means on lds.org. In the meantime I´m sending one definition that I wrote from my spanish dictionary because I loved it so much.   Oh, and I bought the shirt.

Este... we got to the computers late and my english class is waiting  .
 But... stay awesome!

Love you all,


Rainy Season    
Hermana Jones

May 25 - San Andres

Hi Everyone,

I´m not sure if I mentioned it before but we end P-Day an hour earlier because we have English class as missionaries.  Basically Elder Hoffman (my district leader) and I try to teach English to my companion and another one of the elders in our district. Sunday night I asked Elder Hoffman what we would teach in English class and he suggested a cooking class. It ended up with the Elders making pancakes, and cooking terms, but it was fun.

Speaking of English classes... before I came,  Hna Terry tried to start up some English classes but they didn´t end up being successful and they stopped them.  Wednesday night one of the brothers called us and told us that there were these kids waiting in the chapel for an English class, so we ran over there and gave one.  That was kind of fun.

We´ve been working super hard this week. We contacted a lot of references and have quite a few new people in teaching.  I hope that we can keep up with everything so we can help people progress with a desire to make changes and get baptized! It´s probably been one of our best weeks in the field.
 R. got sick this weekend and he couldn´t make it to church. He felt so bad.  We decided to drop N.  because we didn´t see a huge interest in him. J.  says she doesn´t want to get baptized until July. The family that we found... we haven´t been able to see them.  So... my patience is being tested a little. It never was my strongest suit. But we´re going to push through it. I´m going to  keep working hard.

Something interesting that happened on Saturday.  We had an appointment with a couple investigators.  When we got to their house one of them was about to leave on an errand and another one was busy doing something else.  We made an appointment to return back another day. When we were walking back we started talking to this young mom. She was saying that a few years ago she visited the church about 4 times and then stopped when she got married. She was saying that she wanted to find a religion because she wants her two sons to grow up right.  She doesn´t live here in this area but was visiting her mom. Where she lives, there´s just Elders working there and we told her they could come and teach her, but she said that wouldn´t be the best idea because her husband is super jealous. So...what we´re going do is visit her every Saturday when she´s with her mom and we found the direction of the chapel in where she lives. She´s super ready to hear the gospel, so I hope we can find a solution soon! This experience showed to up that when we go to visit and teach someone we already know, the person next door can be more than ready to hear the gospel.

I hope all is well at home.

Love
Tessa and her companion  

More of the beauty around San Andres    


Hermana Jones