More Veracruz happenings

Hi Everybody,

To the sister that's coming to this mission...WELCOME!!! My Mom told me that you found my blog here. Send me an email and let me know when you're coming. I´m honestly so excited to meet you!

This week was a little crazy...but Hna Jarquin and I are both happy with the results from it. We´ve got some new people in teaching!

L. and her son J. C. L. is 62 and J. C. is 38. I found them with Hna Barrios last week because I got a tiny bit lost and we asked them for directions. And they said they´d like to be taught. They were just two little streets away from where we meant to go.  I was thinking...I needed to get a little lost. Otherwise we wouldn´t have talked to them. L. said that a while ago there were missionaries that passed by her house and all the sudden they stopped coming. I´m guessing' whitewash' and they must not have made a registro. The family is very important for L. so we try to apply this when we teach her the lessons.

We also found a 99 year old man named G. We were walking down the street and he was sitting in his front yard and I decided to start talking to him. He´s a sweet little man and was talking to us and told us that his wife passed away a few month ago and he was sad about that. He was crying and we said to him ´´Brother, you´ll see your wife again.´´ and he shook his head, but we said ´´yes...it´s in Heavenly Father´s plan.´´  We invited him to church the next day (it was Saturday when we found him), and asked him if he´d like to be baptized. He said yes to both church and baptism.     Sunday....he loved church! I asked him how he found it and he said the messages were very beautiful.

Y. She's a former investigator of the Elders and already has a bunch of assistences at church. We found her when we were visiting our neighbor and she accepted a visit from us for another day. She´s a young single mother. Her husband died a while ago. Her challenge is to know why baptism is so important.

They all came to church on Sunday!!! It was a whole bunch of running around to go and find them and bring them to church and it took more than one trip (J. C. is a little blind so we had Julio come with us to give him a ride),and we had to bring G. in his wheelchair and afterwords find Y.  But...we were very happy that with even though the day of rest wasn´t so much a day of rest for us.

 The other day we were walking towards an appointment and I felt a strong impression to contact a man and his little son that were walking towards our direction. His name is A. and we learned that he's a member but hasn´t been active for many years. We took his directions and made an appointment to see him Saturday.  Saturday was a day of A TON of walking. Our area is tiny but we were walking from one extreme to another. This is what we were doing, walking from one end of the area to the last street on the other end to find his house. We found him, got to learn a little about his life and had a little lesson. In that lesson we felt a sweet and strong spirit.

Everybody...I don´t know if it´s already come out in English already... but on Thursday all the missionaries here in the port got the opportunity to watch the film/documentry of' Meet The Mormons.'  It´s coming to the theatres at the end of the month here and since we can´t go to the movies as missionaries, we watched it with President in the stake centre.   It´s a beautiful work and EVERYBODY should go and watch it. I don´t care who you are... EVERYBODY!  Thankyou. It touches on the everyday lives of members around the world. One of the stories includes a boxing couple in Costa Rica and that made Hermana Duran, our Costa Rican in our district, a little proud, My favourite part was the story of this one mom.

I want to share one of the studies that I had this week. This one morning I was doing some studies for a sister who's having some troubles. I was looking through some scriptures in the letter that Hna Orduña left me and I found some gems. 2 Timothy 2:3 "Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jusus Christ " and 4:7.  "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith".  So here in this life...we´re all in a battle. Always. Whether it be within ourselves, a commandment that´s hard to keep, something that's happened to a loved one...no matter what, we're constantly in a battle. The first scripture here tells us that when we´re in battle, Jesus is our chief, our aid, our commander. Whenever we fall, He's going to be there to help pick us back up again.
The second scripture...well here the battle is done. It´s done and we have won. It links to a footnote in D&C that says we've earned a place to live with our Heavenly Father. The second part... in the spanish scriptures ... has a footnote that says perseverance. Last of all....to feel absolutely satisfied, we need to keep our faith. Faith is the first principle in the gospel of Jesus Christ and we need to work on it to keep it strong and never doubt.

So...as I remember how Elder Bateman ended his letters   (welcome home Jordan!!!)

Doubt Not, Fear Not,

My companion's Birthday      

I bought a coconut         

Heading off to church       

Hermana Jones

Blessed are the children

Hi Everyone,

This week.
Monday...was very busy with many things so we had no time to eat nor buy food.  By the time  evening came we were starving.  We went to visit one of our " mothers", M. because she was sick and she asked us ''Are you hungry? There´s some chicken, eggs, bread, orange juice. You both go right ahead and make yourselves something!" She is super sweet! She always says to us 'My daughters, my daughters.... I love you both so much a lot''  After that we went to an FHE with another one of our mothers, M...a.  There we ate pizza. So in the end, we got food on Monday.

We ate mariscos with the bishop. He and his wife took us out to a restaurant and...they were interesting. Not my favourite.  The next day the sister served us these tacos and after this soup.  I was trying to eat it and...it was too much.  I told her and she said ''that´s okay. give it to me and I'll finish it´´

Something that happened this week.  One day we went to go visit a part member family, but when we got to their house they were outside almost ready to leave. We met the brother of the mom in this family and when we were talking to him and he was saying he wasn´t interested at all in going to church with us.  Then we asked him about his daughter, if he would allow her to take the discussions. He said he was fine with that. His daughter is such a gem, 9 or 10 years old. After our first lesson with her she did her homework to pray and ask if what we shared was true, and her answer was yes. After church on Sunday she told us that she wants to get baptized.

A few weeks ago, Hna Jarquin and I were talking with a couple in our ward. Here, in 1 de Mayo, it´s the younger people here who are the driving force. We've got a 13 year old convert here, the only one in her family, and she is a faithful church goer and such a gem! Something in my patriarchal blessings says that I´ll have the wonderful oppurtunity to teach children, blessing their lives´´. And... I shared this with my companion when I was talking about something completely different. She said to me 'So that's why we're finding a bunch of kids'  D. and F., M..o, his friend that loves going to church with us, and this new little girl C. I never thought of it that way before. So that was a little cool.

There's a carnival going on here right now, and President has taken all missionaries in the area of the carnival out of that area. Meaning there´s a few temporary trios. One of those is us. Since Thursday, we've been having Hna Barrios as our third companion.

 I bet people are asking... how was Valentines Day for the girl who hates Valentines Day? Lately for morning exercise we've been running over to where the beach is. We don´t run on the beach, but by the beach.  Saturday we took a little time to write some messages in the sand. We have no food in the house. So...in the evening I ordered a pizza for us. Since we're a trio right now we took advantage of it and did divisions the whole day. I worked with Hna Barrios and Hna Jarquin with Anita.  The Elders that day were supposed to eat with our neighbor, but she was running around downtown getting stuff ready for her daughter's birthday party and she forgot about feeding them. They called us when we were eating and we were trying to figure it out.  The sister said ´'Just tell them to come over here and eat.' She should be blessed. She fed 6 mouths that day.

Here, sometimes we have some contacts that we´re never going to forget - like one grandpa that said that Jarquin was 14 years old and that I had a husband. My compa got mad and firmly said that none of us as young missionaries are married.

Another one, we wanted to give her a passalong card and she said that she doesn´t worship images (well...of course we don´t either because its a commandment) but she wouldn´t accept it for anything.

Yesterday I started this contact, and this man was telling us that he believed in God but he doesn´t practice a religion.  We´re said ´´Well Jesus didn´t preach religion, he preached the gospel´´ and he said to us ´´no...the emergion of religions all started with Jesus´´...-  It was interesting. Sometimes you've just got to laugh.

Hna Jarquin completes her year in the mission, and her birthday is this Wednesday!!!


I love reading the Book of Mormon!
And I love being a missionary.

Hermana Jones

pictures
...our current trio

Someone left there dog overnight in the front patio of our house

Valentines...Love my companion!!    

Love to the family!

Beautiful         

Happy Birthday Dad!       

Making tamales with 'Uncle Bob"

Another moving day!

Hola!

Well, this week has been.... a little bit of a rollercoaster.

We had a 70 come and visit us.

We moved houses....after 7 weeks of looking for one.

F. and D. got baptized! And.....

My companion and the Family Ceron can't believe my contrary thoughts towards valentines day.

These are the biggest things that have happened this week.

The 70 that came was Elder De Hoyos and he and his wife had a conference with us this week. One thing they spoke of that I really liked was on how to increase our faith. There are many ways. And... when we increase our faith we have an increase in desire to do the things that our Heavenly Father asks us.

Moving houses was super stressful. We had told the elders 3 weeks before that we would need help when we were to move, to find someone with a truck to move all our stuff. We couldn't   find anyone.  The morning of Thursday we were moving out all our stuff and cleaning the house top  to bottom.  The landlords made note we were moving and made little bit of a comment to hoping we'd be fine.  Elder Acevdo phoned us, "well...we cant find a truck. What if you move all your stuff back in?" and we said ...".No. We have stressed enough and we want to move in to our new house." This new one...we are neighbors with this super sweet member.

My compa texted Hna Margarita and she sent Julio and his girlfriend over to the rescue.  With the brains of Acevdo....he made everything fit into Julio's little car with only 3 trips to our new house. Pictures of it soon, the house.  When we got there we couldn't open the lock to the gate, so we phoned the landlord and he told us to break it open and he'd replace a new one soon. That was an adventure on its own.

F. and D.. Well....they got baptized on Friday and we were inviting as many people as we could . it was an awkward hour at 4 because some people are still at work and school and we were trying to invite lot sof the members so F. and D. could feel nice and welcome.  Not everyone was able to come. The welcome to the ward was by Nefi , and  to young mens and womens were two youth from those classes. But....the zone leaders came. It was a little service...but it was still really great!

 Sunday when we went to their house to go to church a JW tried to contact them at their door. When she saw us in their house she said 'Oh, i see you're leaving soon. Bye!´ They´re officially members now! F.has a personal progress book and we´re going to help D. get ready to receive the priesthood.

 Feb 14 is coming and I hate that day because...it's not  day of love and friendship. It's a day of commercialism. EVERY DAY you should show your love towards your loved ones. And if you want to dedicate a special day.... a random Tuesday, Thursday, whatever day you want. Not because society tells you you have to, but because you want to for yourself. Those are a summary of my thoughts. Nefi, Giselle and Aunt Shelina said ´'how can you not like Valentines day?'' I think they´re going to try to change my mind, because Nefi says he's still giving us Valentines day gifts. My ward mission leader and his family are awesome.

Les Quiero
Hermana Jones

"Movers extrodinaire"          

Baptism day   

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

Luau activity    

Tikis       

This companionship gets another six weeks!

Baptism this week              

Fletchabus thinks I make a great pillow    

This visit made my day!!          

Mocambo happenings

Hi Everyone,

So...Elder Acevedo is our new district leader, and he's not so bad. You all could probably tell that I had a little fear about who would come. But so far, so good. He came from Cordoba. We also have a new zone leader, Elder Sayer. I find it a little hilariuous that Elder Sayer is here now, because we always end up in the same zone. When I started the mission, he was in Cordoba, when I was in Mocambo the first time for three days, he was in that zone.  We both had special transfers to Orizaba.   Now he got a special transfer into Mocambo. And the zone leaders are in our district. What's up with that? Haha.

Oh, Mom. The other day I was looking through my dearelders from the MTC and in one of them you found an Elder named Elder Larsen. Well I've met him. He's in the mission office and I told him that you found his blog. He found it quite funny.He also ends his mission the same time as me. Today when we were in the offices, there were some Elder's there that had a morning run to the offices and Elder Benett ( the one that was in my zone when I started) said ´hey...you were born in Cordoba!' and I said 'yeah!' and his companion...a newbie of 5 months asks me ´'you're from utah. right?´´ me ´´nope´´ Elder Benett ´´Canada!´´ ´´yeah!´´ It still makes me proud I'm the only Canadian missionary here.

We've been continuing in prepping for the Luau. It's a lot of work! There's not an activities comittee so the work falls on us, the Elders, Nefi, Giselle, and Fer. Hna Jarquin and I have been running around  collecting pinapples from the hermanas,  searching for cardboard boxes to the point of bringing them folded up on the bus with us. When we told Nefi of this he asked us if it embarrassed us. If we were at home, yes it would ... but here as missionaries, not a bit. It was going to be for this Saturday but we changed it for next Friday because the weather was awful Saturday and we were super stressed out. My companion and I couldn't sleep for awhile Friday night.

C, F and D.... We love them...we had a baptism interview for them this past week as they were supposed to get baptised this Sunday. Well....F. and D. But D. has to wait for Feb 8. F. wants to get baptized right now, and we asked C. if he could talk with his kids to see what they wanted and if F. can get baptized this next Sunday. We have transfers (normal transfers) the Tuesday after and even though Hna Jarquin and I don't want it, we feel like she'll be leaving the area. Prayers for this family please!

We're going be moving soon! We've been looking for a different house to live in since I got here, and we finally have one! It's a house that a member used to live in it, and we hope to move into it this week.

This next week is going to be super crazy. We've still got stuff to do with the Luau,and also the moving we'll be doing. With the craziness, we have plans on working with the members so that we can do divisions. The days we're preparing the Luau...one us is working with a member while the other is out working,  Please...leave me out of planning parties for a long time. It is exhausting,

I feel like this letter is a little short, but I'm sure it'll be longer with my photo and subtitles.

Next week you'll hear the news of what's going to happen with the transfers.

Cuídense,

Making a salad with  my companion   

My skirt makes a dress for my companion  

Tessa couldn't really explain what this was....

Hermana Jones

Special Cambio in our district

Hey All,

Well, to be honest, I'm a little sad today. Our little mission family here in 1 de Mayo will be a little broken.

Yesterday after church it was our turn to eat at Nefi's house. Elder Dial called us and asked us when we were going to meet again to discuss the Luau.  We told them to come to Nefi's house when they were done eating. When they arrived, Elder Dial was not looking as animated as he usually is and he said he had some news. That there's special cambios and he was getting sent away to a different area and assigned as a zone leader. I said 2 or 3 times .... ´´you´re lying, right?´´´
He doesn´t want to leave, and none of us want him to leave either. He thought he would end his mission here, have one more transfer with Elder Gonzales and the last two transfers he would train again.

So...after everyone in the house heard the news, he went to pass all the info of the week to the zone leaders. In the meantime, the rest of us were in the living room, all in shock, some crying, and Aunt Shelina (Nefi and Giselle's aunt) talking to Elder Gonzales trying to comfort him, because Elder Dial has been a great companion to him.

We all know it's a good thing, but it's hard to accept it. In my last area, sometimes I would get so frusterated because I felt like my leaders didn't always take me seriously . But here, my companion and I have felt and knew that our district leader trusted our work. If we thought something wasn't just or when we felt pressure from others, he told us he would talk with our other leaders.

So with that...we all will say a 'see you later´' to our district leader and friend tonight at an FHE that we're going to have. We will meet our new district leader Tuesday.

Come what may, and love it, right?


Bueno.

Well... we had some sweet things happen to us this week. I really loved our district class on Tuesday. Elder Dial was pretty happy in what we accomplished as a district the past week and each class we all discuss on how we can do better. This week we decided that we would do better in street contacting and Elder Dial assigned for all of us to do better in a Christ like attribute,. And for practices... going out and contacting. We have classes in the stake center, so it's not our area, but for addresses we would get we would give them to the hermanas in this area. We went out and picked this one random street to do some contacting. The first contact we made.... they happened to live in our area.

So the other day we went to visit these people. The wife was only there that time and she told us that usualy she doesn't pay attention to people on the street wanting to spread their knowledge about something. She said that something about us called her attention.

We´re now teaching a family that has been taught by the missionaries before and they know everything really well. The reason they haven´t been baptized is the mom is separated from her first husband and they´re not divorced so she can´t marry the husband she´s living with right now. but she found him after the missionaries taught this family .,.. and it´s really expensive. This exhusband says they can get divorced but she has to pay it all. and it´s 8000 pesos. They want to get baptized so badly and be an eternal family...especially because one of their son´s has died.

We are also teaching a guy that has been inactive for 10 or so years. We found him because we contacted his mom (and she wants my companion to marry him...jaja) and she´s said... my son is a member and he hasn´t been to church in a long time. But her....well she says she won´t go to church with us because she doesn´t like set times to do things and with that...she likes to make her own schedule.

We´ve been learning how to make a little more Mexican food!

Giselle and her best friend Anita (who is reactivating) have been  helping us a lot with coming out to teach with us (despite the fact that they don´t plan on serving missions).

Javier is a missionary now! He got set apart last night.

I love the gospel and helping bringing people to this joy.

Hermana Jones


PS

Savannah I recieved your letter last week!

No explanation for this one.... Any ideas Dial's?     

Tikis with Fer, one of the Bishop's daughters    

Tessa: "I love these people"              

Learning to make empanada

Y Nora...receibí su carta y gracias por la escritura!  La extraño!

Cold in Veracruz

Hello!

So...because I came to the port...you would think I would have escaped the cold. But no! We have some cold days here too when I need to wear a sweater. Luckily today was a nice day. But apparently there's snow in Orizaba right now, and a member toild us that it's going to go down to 0 here. Crazy things! Sometimes I am freezing in the night! We don't have blankets in my house, so  I washed my Christmas jammies because they keep me warm and toasty.

This morning we helped Giselle with her homework. She had us running and jumping, lunging, situps.... she gave us a workout! And had Nefi film it for some video she needs.

Right now, we're planning a ward mission activity. A Luau....and we´ve got lots to do. But we are seeing  all who can help us. We´ve got the YW assigned to do a dance. We´re making leis, grass skirts...trying to have it be super cool. It's going to be on the 24th of January.

Ooh...it´s come to my attention that Brother and Sister Dial are reading my blog. Hello! It was fun talking to you for 30 seconds on Christmas.

Here in Mexico, they celebrate something called Día de los Magos on January 6th. They are the Santa Clause here. Also...they eat this bread this day called Rosca de Reyes. It´s super sweet and tasty. The bishop´s daughter invited us over to try it, and who also came were YSA.  We didn't stay very long so they could enjoy their evening.

There´s this inactive youth in the ward. He got baptized 14 months ago, and after his baptism and confirmation, he never came back to church. The other night, we ran into him and his sister in the street. We invited him to come to church with us, and said we would pass by half an hour early. That was Wednesday night. So Sunday morning we come by and his sisters say he doesn´t want to come. But he was dressed up in his white shirt and his black pants. And...he came to church with us. He also recieved the priesthood. It made me really happy to have him come and now there is a priesthood holder in his house. He's the one youth who's in the photo with me and his mom.The other photo is with his sisters.

Someone else recieved the priesthood yesterday. Julio... Margarita´s son. Margarita came to hear the ordination and the bishop let us come listen to it as well. Margarita was super touched to hear the blessing, and it said wonderful things. Part of it talked how one day he would be out on the mission field. So Margarita also has a priesthood holder in her house now!

I'm not sure if I've said it in my general letters or not, but being on the mission I´m come to respect the priesthood on a whole new level. Hna Jarquin and I live just ourselves in our house. We don´t live with a dad or uncle or brother who has the priesthood. There´s been times in the mission where I felt super discouraged, or was sick and needed to ask the Elders or a Brother in the church to give me a blessing,and they've really helped me.


Well, other than another scraped knee. Or two scraped knees- I´m a klutz and trip every transfer).... here's a little bit of the things that have been happening this week.

Love,

Workout by Giselle-photo above and below      

Elders with attitude

Hermana Jones