Introducing Hermana Jones!

Hola Mi Familia y Amigos!

Crazy to think I´ve been here a little over a week. First question everyone has been asking: my companion! I actually have two here. Hermana DeFriez y Hermana Fletcher. Hrma. Fletcher´s didn´t show up so we are a trio! I love them! They´re both from Utah. Brigham City, and Orem respectively. Hrma Fletcher finds my Canadianisms funny. Especially when I say bag.

First day... very foggy.  It was great to see Uncle Chris and visit with him as he drove me to the MTC. It was so cool to get my badge. Hermana Jones. So after I got everything to my residence ... oh yes, I am on the West Campus. All the Spanish speaking missionaries are there.  I got to my classroom, which is in an apartment. And I met my district. We are all Hermanas and all going to Veracruz. The other companionship in my district is Hermana Orr y Hermana Furner. They´re pretty fantastic as well! 

My teacher is Hermana Ashby. She is the sweetest little thing. She served her mission in California. I forget where.

At dinner, I saw Elder Cruz (instagram), and Hermana Blankmeyer (facebook), so that was really cool too. 

We met our branch presidency and their wives on Thursday. I really like them. One of the counsellors, Brother Liston, served his mission in Edmonton. He remembers the street he lived on. He loves Edmonton! Sister Liston was saying if it wasn´t so cold they would think of living there.

Speaking of weather. It´s quite decent over here. Most days I don´t have to worry too much about a coat. But it´s been a little chillier these past couple of days.

We taught our first investigator on Friday. All in Spanish! We had our last lesson yesterday, which was sad. We really grew to love her. And we sure learned a lot in that experience. The first two lessons I feel we focused more on being worried about Spanish than really teaching her and showing we loved her. But the last two lessons were excellent! We started with her not really knowing a whole lot about God. She grew up in the Catholic church but stopped going as she grew older. Her sister has been a member of our church for 10 years now. We committed her to baptism, so that was really exciting.

Spanish... it´s going well. Taking French has definitely helped. I can see the similarities. I like Spanish because you actually pronounce everything.

I´m gonna skip to Sunday, because it was a bit of a funny day. So we didn´t know the night before that it was daylight savings. So... we missed breakfast. First thing is Relief Society. We go to the chapel on campus and we get a broadcast from main campus. And for sacrament meeting we go on a bus to another chapel and have it separately in our branches. The branch is our zone. We need to prepare a talk for each Sunday. There are two talks by missionaries but we don´t know who until the meeting. Hrma. DeFriez was chosen, she didn´t prep anything, but the talk she gave was wonderful. Also...it has to be in Spanish. One of the wives said it was the first time she´s seen in 1.5 years that a new missionary gave a talk.

Sunday night we have a devotional at main campus. It was someone from the board of something. I forget.

We have gym periods every day except pday and Sunday. I´ve been playing volleyball with my zone and another one. I am bad at it but I have become better. I even spiked the ball over the net once! And we don´t keep score and don´t go by all the rules. 

We also have devotional Tuesday night, Don R. Clarke from the 70. Tuesday I had a different companion for the day since my district but we went to SLC for their visas. She was leaving the next day and her comp left the day before.

Yesterday... that was our last lesson with our investigator. She sent a video to us telling us how she felt when she taught us. It was so weird to hear her in English!

I´m learning lots here. And you can definitely feel a strong spirit here!

Love,

Hermana Jones