WEEK 25

hola!

yep that's right, week 25 here in good old San Pedro! Transfers were today, and it looks like this area just can't get rid of me, I'll be here for at least another 6 weeks. I'M SO HAPPY ABOUT IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Me and Hna P are gonna tear it up this transfer.

Sad news...............................J: we got a text from him on sunday night that said he can't be baptized because his dad doesn't think he is ready :( but it's ok, we are going over there tonight to reassure him that this is the right thing and that his padre celestial will tell him if he is ready or not.

Really embarrassing moment this week. We were eating at a member's house with some investigators, and I ran upstairs to go to the bathroom. Their house is like 150 years old and the steps are really slippery, and many people (my comp, ward mission leader, and several others) have been known to fall on the stairs. Anyways they were going to start eating so I ran down the stairs (which are right next to the dining room table, and totally fell down the WHOLE FLIGHT!!!!!!!!!!! It was like I was a kid in a sleeping bag sliding down the stairs all over again, just missionary style. So embarrassing. There are still times when I will be praying and my comp will just start busting up and then after the prayer I ask her why she is laughing and then she just says that she was just picturing me fall down the stairs again....oy yoy yoy. so embarrassing!

We had a really fun family home evening at the R's this week with G and E! It was really fun, we watched The restoration video and then played a little game and ate some gluten free banana bread. I will attach a few pics

We were able to see a less active this week, Hermana T, and usually she is very quiet and doesn't talk much at all (which is weird for the Mexican culture, usually they can talk for DAYS). Anyways we taught her the restoration and afterwards she opened up a lot and told us that she really is trying to com eback to church and that she wants to, and so she has been taking small steps to get back, it was super awesome that she finally opened up to us!

So there is this lady named T. She is from Chicago and has the cutest little family ever. She calls us "her girls" and loves us so much. her fiancé just got out of jail and they are planning on getting married and then they want to get baptized, so we are excited to see where that goes. She is the funniest person I have ever met, and her prayers are to die for. She loves praying and, she has been known to pray more than twice in one lesson. funny lady.

B is doing so good, best little missionary ever! He just wants to share it with everyone and invites everyone to church, even if he doesn't know them! And he stands up to his friends when they make fun of his religion and just tells them that "They haven't read the Mormon Book" (I have never once heard him call it the book of Mormon haha) It's super gratifying to see one of your converts continue to be so active in the church and fulfilling their calling and doing missionary work! I love little B!

So today we went to New Ulm, and of course I took a picture by the sign so I will send that in the email! It is different than the one on the movie, but it's still cool. The town is basically all germans, and so all the stores and signs and everything is in German. It's kinda cool. so the sign said "welcome to New ulm" just in german.

We ate dinner at the church here in town called "Jesus Assembly of God" and so that's what the other picture is, those signs were ALL OVER the bathroom, like 3 in every stall haha. Our investigator A invited us there. He likes meeting with us because he wants to know why people think Mormons are so crazy. But now he knows that we are not and told me that when I told him that I know God is our heavenly father that he felt a barrier break down and that he knew what I was saying is true and that he just didn't understand other people and why they didn't like us. It was a cool moment. Then One of the pastors there, pastor B, asked Adam why he was hanging out with us, and he told him that we were very nice and told him good things about God and pastor B was all "It's all a trick. They send the pretty ones out to trick you, stay away from them" right in front of our face! I just felt sad for people who won't even give the truth a chance. Oh well, we will just find the ones who are LISTO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well that's all for this week, va pues!

Hermana Jones

"Do you carry tasers or a hand gun?"

Yep we got asked that question this week! When we knock on white people's doors, they almost always look at us like we are aliens and they look so afraid of us...which I don't understand why because we don't look threatening at all...but anyways, we knocked on this guys door this week, and the first thing he asks is "Do you carry a taser or a hand gun?" with this frightened look on his face hahaha some people. But we taught the guy a restoration and we are going back to see him tonight!

BEST THING EVER HAPPENED!!!!!!!!!!! So there is a less active in the ward named E. She has had a hard life, and she got baptized last may. Anyways she is dating this guy who used to worship the devil (he was still a part of that religion when I first got to the area but now he isn't a part of it), but he still wouldn't let her go to church or let us come over or anything. We even tried to get her to come joint teaching but he wouldn't let her. Anyways his heart has softened A TON and he has come to church the past 3 weeks with her. And then we invited them to a member's home to have a lesson this week, and they came!! So she brought all her kids and they played with the D's kids and we taught A (the esposo of E)  the restauracion, it was awesome! We are planning on going this Saturday to have a fhe activity with the families.

Later that day we had a "cottage meeting" idk if they have those in Utah but the first time I ever heard of it was here....so the members invite their friends or family or whoever and other members and the missionaries invite their investigators and we just have some snacks and socialize and then the missionaries share a gospel message. so we had one this week at the T's, and it was a success I guess you could say. Haha like 10 members on 2 investigators. It was fun though! J and T were the investigators, and they stayed until 10 talking with the T's, so that was pretty cool. Seems like they had a good time. Hermano C is just too generous sometimes......I think I told you about the bike situation, but I can't remember. Long story short, Hermana P didn't have a bike, and Hna W left her's at Hno. C's because she knew he would take it, so I figured maybe hna P could use it. She can buy another bike, but that was an option. So we ask hno C, and he told us no, but then went and BOUGHT hna p a bike and she wouldn't accept it because it was way too nice of him and she felt like she was taking advantage of his niceness....anyways she ended up accepting the bike. So basically hno C is just too nice. So to the cottage meeting he brought 15 frozen pizzas, 4 gallons of ice creams, 2 cases of water, 3 boxes of hi-c, and silverware and plates.....hahaha all for the 12 of us that were there. We got to take a lot of the pizzas home though so that was nice!

We taught this girl who goes to Gustavus named A this week, and she was super tight! I love working with college age kids! She asked us our first names, and after a lot of convincing we finally told her (I know, it's bad but I really felt like she was my friend and like we knew each other before this life) and in the closing prayer, she was like "I'm grateful for my friends Sarah and I..." and then some other stuff but it was kind of nice to be called Sarah again, a little weird, but I liked it.

So we taught R this week, this nice jarocho, and he brought his Guatemalan friend M along! R had to work this Sunday, but M came to church! He told us he will come again next week, he is super awesome and always wears wife beaters, even to church. Last week R came to church, and it's super awesome because he told us he hasn't missed work in 5 years, but he skipped work last Sunday to try church out, and it was the first time in 5 years!

It's kind of bad, I have always been a bad giggler, but I can always keep it under control unless I am with another giggler. And Hermana P is a giggler. Sometimes we just laugh over the stupidest things and can't stop FOREVER and it is so embarrassing, especially in serious times. I always just sit there and pray for help from Heavenly Father so I don't offend anyone. But it is also a blessing because we can always laugh in any situation, which helps me a lot and that I didn't get to do a lot with my other comps.

Well that's all that I can think of to talk about, thanks for all the support guys!!!!

odele pues

Hermana jones

"they gonna be on bikes, they gonna ride their skates to California​!"

hola!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So the title of this comes from this black lady from Chicago we are teaching. We had just finished saying the opening prayer, and her little 9 month old had crawled in the room, and she shouted at him "they gon be on bikes, the gonna ride their skates to California!!!" haha I have no idea why

Well mom sounds like you got the picture of C and E! We were teaching them a while back, but they weren't progressing. however, we went over to see how they were doing and invite them to take English classes from Elder and Sister C, and they were super happy that we came over. So we went to their house with the C's to teach English, and C basically invited himself to church, and I had to do a double take, because we had tried SO MANY TIMES to get them to come to church, and for some reason, he just decided it was the time! so guess what, him and his wife came yesterday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! milagro!!!!!!!

Oh so guess who else came to church??? G!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He got work off!! And came!! His prayers are so cute and special, so I asked him to say the closing prayer in sunday school, and it was amazing, he talked about how grateful he was for us and he told heavenly father that he loved how he was feeling and wanted to keep coming back to church! He has a set work schedule, and they are changing it around so he doesn't know if he will have sunday off every week, but we are praying that he does. He is such a great little person!! If he can come two more times, he will be baptized march 22nd WOOOOOO!!!!!

We have been teaching these kids out in Madelia, J, W and W, for a LONG time, before I even got here. It has been really inconsistent though. And it has been so hard to get them to church. but we have been getting J to weekly activities and church, and we taught him this week, and set a baptisimal date! He will be baptized the 22nd as well!!!!!!!!!!! He is kind of like G, like they just have this humble spirit to them. When you around them, you just feel good. he will get a great addition to the church, and great future missionary! estoy tan animada!!!!!!

So last sunday we were tracting, and knocked on this guy named J's door. We taught him the restoration, and it didn't seem like anything too out of the ordinary, but then we met with him and his friend a little later that week, and J said that he had prayed and received the greatest feeling in the world that this was what he needed to do with his life, and so he is planning to be baptized on the 22nd as well!!! It depends on if he can come to church every sunday until then, but he wants this and loves church! We have been having a good week.

Sometimes being a missionary is super hard. We have been trying to get members more involved here in St. Peter (there are only 2 member families here) and we had so many great things set up for this Tuesday. Someone was going to take G to institute, someone was going to have an investigator over for dinner, and we were going to teach a restoration with a member, so it was going to be an awesome day, and then all the investigators fell through. We got pretty discouraged because no matter how hard we were trying, it just wasn't working. anyways, then we saw SO MANY miracles later on throughout the week, and so I don't know what the Lord is trying to teach us right now, but I guess when things look like they are just completely falling apart, something great can happen! We had 7 people at church (which is really good for the area), and the zone leaders told us that was more than the whole zone combined!

I love Jarochos. We met a lot this week, and they make these really good dulce things. They look like a tortilla but they are sweet and you put azucar and canela on them....mmmmm! oh, and I found someone who can make tortillas better than café rio...yep E!!!!!!! I want her to teach me, because they were so yummy! And ya'll know how much I love café rio tortillas......We taught D this week and ate dinner with him at the R's. It was so funny because D burped really loud while we were eating dinner and I don't think he knows that that is bad manners here in the USA but I was laughing so hard inside, and then I couldn't handle it anymore so I went to the bathroom, and just laughed for like 3 minutes and then got my composure again and went out. hahahaha its a good thing that my comp doesn't mind burping, in fact, she does it too! We have burping contests (in the apt of course)

Today we ate at El agave, and it was so good. I love it, everyone who works there knows us so they always talk to us in Spanish and everything, it is the best

well I think that's it for the week. Things are still cold, we were tracting in -10 plus wind chill the other night.....wooo!

Hermana Jones