semana 4

I think I have been here for 4 weeks. But I'm losing track of time! Things are good here. DON'T worry about anything like people following us, Saint peter is super safe and if we have issues I will get help DON'T WORRY

 

I don't remember a whole lot from this week. We biked a lot because we are running REALLY low on miles because we have had to go to Bloomington and Lakeville a few times, but luckily we get more on Friday so just a few more days of biking! It get easier every day though. The only hard parts are the hills and the cold. But thanks for the tights they help a lot!!

 

I'm really glad I get to be in St. Peter. I went on exchanges to Lakeville, and I just missed St. Peter the whole time! It was a good experience though. You could see the twin cities from where we were and I hope I get to serve there eventually! We also had new missionary training AND zone training this week.....so I saw the C's a lot this week haha.

 

This is the only story I can think of from this week. One day we were biking and we didn't end up having time for dinner, but surprisingly I wasn't even that starving. But after that, 3 people offered to feed us. not that day, but in the next week or later. It was awesome! Our investigator F is making us beans tomorrow night for dinner haha he's the best. I love getting fed.

 

 I literally can't think of anything else....but I promise we worked hard this week and a lot happened! Just nothing that memorable I guess!

 

Oh last night our investigator E gave us each a pizza. yep. me my companion. a LARGE pizza haha we don't know how we are going to eat it all!

 

That's all I guess! Talk to ya'll next Monday

 

Hermana Jones

CRAZY WEEK

hola hola hola hola

 

we had the craziest week. I don't remember much about it because I am bad a writing things down, but I don't think we went tracting ONCE because we were so busy with investigators! It was the GREATEST!!! Especially because it's getting so cold.

 

So mom, Sundays are stressful. We do half hour of personal study, half hour of comp study, and then we go "wake up investigators". We go to their house and make sure they are getting ready to go to church!! Yesterday was crazy because we had to go to both ends of town and back and forth to make sure everyones rides were there to pick them up (we have to translate). THEN we go to church. Either me and my companion or other Spanish speaking members have to translate sacrament meeting for the people who don't speak English. They just wear little headsets. I haven't translated yet....and hope I don't have to for a long time. I don't think I know enough Spanish to speak that fast. Then we have sunday school, in Spanish tambien! Either me and my comp teach or the teachers (they are a couple from mexico). And yesterday we taught. I was SO nervous but it went good. Then we have relief society. And after that the day is just like any other day.

 

We had 4 investigators at church! 3 we knew were coming, and one who we haven't talked to forever. so funny story. B is an elderly man and we taught him like the first week I was here all the time and he is awesome. but he got really sick and we weren't able to see him or get into contact with him for the last 2 weeks. It's not like we have given up, but we have been less persistent. anyways, so we had our 3 investigators sitting by us in church, and then after church everyone kept coming up to us and saying, " I saw B!" so apparently he had been at church but we HADN'T SEEN HIM! It was such a surprise! Our mission has been putting a lot of focus on church attendance, and so president asked us to text him a miracle that we had seen that day so we told him about B haha.

 

We had a rough lesson last night. So one of our progressing investigators name is J, and he has a lot of word of wisdom issues. So we have been working with him on that. He even got a priesthood blessing the other day and he was doing SO WELL he kept telling us all about how his friends would come to him with beer and he would turn them down. He lives in a trailer with two recent converts, and so they have also been a good influence. Anyways. yesterday we went to wake them up for church, and J was still asleep so we literally woke him up haha and he said he would be ready. C (recent convert) ended up coming to church, but J went back to sleep. We don't think C understand sanctifying the Sabbath day, because he left church to go play soccer with his friends haha he's crazy about soccer. But anyways. J was left home alone all day, and so we went to go visit him (because we were going to have a lesson that night in their house with another investigator) and he was definitely drunk. He came up to our window in our car and scared the crap out of me haha my comp was on the phone so I talked to him for a minute but he kept calling me his hija (daughter) like over and over and he smelled like alcohol. But we needed a place to have the lesson because E (the other investigator) came all the way from le seuer . I think it was low thirties and windy and there was nowhere else we could have the lesson, so we went to their house. We were going to teach E the word of wisdom and it would be a good reminder to J, but he was too drunk. He was distracting from the spirit so much and the lesson wasn't going anywhere. Then he left and C came home. Right when C came in the spirit did too. Recent converts are the him, mbest! He just bore his testimony to E about the church and it really helped him.

 

So Wednesday night when we taught E, and we were driving to another trailer park to check up on someone, and we noticed that E was FOLLOWING US. He followed us right to the trailer park!!! It was so scary. I was freaked out haha. So we are pretty sure that he thinks we live there now. But anyways. Then he followed us OUT of the trailer park, but Hermana w went SO fast so he couldn't catch up haha. So don't worry he doesn't know where we live. Then yesterday after we taught e and my companion RAN to the car so he wouldn't be able to follow us again. It was funny because instead of going the easy way we just ran across this field to get there faster haha

 

This week is going to be interesting. Tonight and tomorrow we are doing exchanges with hermanas in Lakeville. Well I am going to Lakeville and my comp is staying here. I will be there til WEdnesday and then I will meet up with my comp in Bloomington for new missionary training. Then on Thursday we have zone conference in Lakeville. So I won't even be in St. Peter hardly at all these next few days.

 

People here love to talk. Like they could talk for HOURS so its so hard for us to only stay for 45 minutes but we are working on it. Oh I need to tell you what a magnet ward is. It's to fellowship others who speak another language. We want to get enough Hispanic members to make a branch, but for now they come to the English ward. At least that's how it is in the Mankato ward!

 

I am so glad that I get to serve in a small town like this! I don't know if I will like the city as much as I like it here but we will see. So my comp goes home after she is done training me, so we both think that I will take over this area when she is gone. So I might be in St. Peter a long time, but we don't know for sure.

 

That's all I can think of for now. Hasta luego!

 

Hermana Jones

'I'm gonna get chu!"

hola hola amigos y familia

 

como han estado?? this week was pretty good, went by super fast though! We got fed a lot of food this week so it made it that much better. In fact, one of our investigators took us to this yummy Mexican restaurant and bought us dinner! I got a chimichanga with rice and beans. Man. the best part about it was that I had been having a hard day, so it .

 got me in a way better mood

so mom you were wondering what my days are like. So I wake up, go running (we run every other day, but the days we don't run I usually lay on the floor pretending to stretch because I am so tired haha) shower, eat breakfast, personal study for and hour (usually I study pmg for 30 mins and scriptures for the other 30 mins) then companionship study for 2 hours (because I am training. we usually do role plays and plan and stuff) and then language study for an hour. so yeah its a lot of study time haha but its nice because then we just eat lunch and go out for the rest of the day. We teach, tract, contact, and other stuff for the rest of the day. Then we come home and plan for the next day and go to bed. That's basically a normal day.

 

Here in St. Peter there is a college called Gustavus Adolphus College and I don't know a lot about it, but we went contacting there this week! I was so fun I loved it! It reminded me of being in college and kind of made me miss it. But yeah, it was easier for me to relate the gospel to their lives because I am in the same stage of life and so it felt a lot easier to me than applying it to the life of an old lady. But yeah, now we are teaching a student there which is awesome! We didn't find him, but he was a referral from some other missionaries in his home town.

 

Most of the people I have met are from Mexico. There are a lot from El Salvador too, but mostly Mexico. I can definitely tell an accent difference though! I want to learn all the different accents before I come home. So we spend a lot of time in the trailer parks, and its SO CRAZY how connected the people are. We go to a different one like everyday, but my companion always has a story about how so and so knows so and so and how they all have this drama and its so funny because I learn something new about everyone every time I go. Like this one town, Madelia, it's like 45 minutes away so we only go there like once a week, and the whole town is like basically one family. They are all from El Salvador and they somehow they all live in this tiny town in south central Minnesota. It's kinda funny. Madelia's claim to fame is the it is the "Pheasant capital of Minnesota". so it's a pretty crazy town as you can imagine. ;)

 

The other night we were tracting and people weren't being super nice and so that always makes me in kind of a crappy mood, but then this super nice lady let us in to her house (because it was cold) and even though she didn't want to hear about the church, she gave us these gourmet cupcakes and just talked to us for a while. and then she told us if we ever wanted dinner just to call her. She was so awesome! And the only reason she was so nice is that she has a lot of friends who are Mormon and so she loves Mormons. The people who slam the doors in our faces are the ones who are scared of us and don't know much about us, but if we show everyone that we aren't THAT bad and what we really stand for, they will be nice in return. So always be a good example!

 

A family in the ward invited us to their daughters first birthday party. It was because they had non member family there. It was the best dinner! Lasagna and other stuff and of course cupcakes! It was fun. We were there for a really long time (which we probably shouldn't have been) but it was all good because right as we left we saw some ladies struggling to get a giant mattress in their house (she was just moving in). We helped them, and it turned out that the movers hadn't showed up to help move, so they were just going to do it themselves, but they had tons of heavy stuff so we got the elders to come with us the next day and helped her unpack. It was awesome to just serve and show what Mormons are all about by not having to teach a lesson about the restoration. because we helped her, she is going to come to church on sunday! It's awesome to see how the Lord times things, because we thought we had stayed at dinner way too long, but it was just in time to help someone else.

 

so funny story. Everyone here thinks that since I am new that I don't understand ANY Spanish so they all talk to me like I am a baby OR try to talk to me in English (if they are Hispanic) and I hate it! But anyways, my companion was talking to this guy named J and then she had to answer the phone, so he started telling me the story, and even though I could understand it perfectly well when he was telling her, he told me in English (even though he doesn't know like any English). And he was talking about how the police revoked his lisence, and he said "And la policia said, 'I'm gonna get chu!" haha I was laughing SO HARD because of all the things he could have said, that's what he chose. Obviouslly he learns his English from the television haha I love that guy.

 

The other day we were tracting at some apartments and saw a bunch of people having a party. We didn't want to intrude the party, so we decided we would come back later and find them. Anyways, we happened to be back at the apartment and they were there again, having another party! But this time there was just a family and they were just having family dinner. So we didn't want to seem to obvious and creepy by walking straight towards them, so we went around the building and took the back way so it would be like we were "just walking by". We thought there would be a sidewalk but it was like this tall grass, so we walked through it and then there was a little fence, so then we climbed that haha all to not seem too creepy. It was funny!

 

We started riding our bikes this week! It's actually more hilly here than I was expecting, but mostly we ride on the main street which is flat. I love riding though. Sometimes I get really tired, but it's so nice to be outside and exercising. I hope I get into good shape soon so I don't get as tired.

 

I can't believe you went to Hawaii WITHOUT ME!!!!!!!!!!!! All the years that you said we could never go, and then I leave and you all take a trip there. I thought Rach and Nate were trying to pull a prank on me. oh well have fun there......lucky ducks.

 

So I wasn't here for this, but my comp told me a funny story that happened. So this investigator, S, came to church and loved it. At the time they only had like 3 Spanish hymn books for the whole congregation, but sine then they have gotten more. So they were a precious commodity. So they went to S's house to teach later that week, and they saw one of the hymn books just sitting next to the TV, he had taken it from the church! So my comp said when he left the room that she grabbed it and put it in her bag and took it to church the next sunday haha I wish I could have been there.

 

I think that's all for this week. Hopefully people keep feeding us and the weather will stay nice! Hasta luego!

 

Hna Jones

minesOta

so hiya there

 

Pues, I am in MN now! It has been an interesting week that's for sure. The first day we got here we just stayed at the mission home all day and ate dinner and met our trainers. Something interesting....I'm not in the city! I assumed I would be in the city my whole mission, but I am actually in a small town called St. Peter (or San Pedro as we call it). It is about an hour and a half out of Minneapolis/St. Paul. There are like 11,000 people in this town, but it is so tiny I love it! There are tons of little towns all separated by farms and corn fields and forests galore. Our area is huge, so we have a car. We don't have to ride bikes, unless our miles in our car run out which is nice. We are the only missionaries here in St. Peter, but we cover tons of cities. It is a new area, my companera and her old comp opened it and so a lot of the people here haven't seen missionaries for a long time, if ever! The church is in Mankato, which is about 20 minutes away from San Pedro. But I am in a Spanish area. We do a lot of teaching in English.....and its been hard to get used to. When I had my interview with President C he asked me to pray in English, and I totally forgot how. It was so weird. I'm kind of getting used to it now, but teaching is still super weird.

 

My companera is Hermana W. She is from Utah too! Apparently I'm killing her. It means she only has 2 transfers left, so she goes home after she trains me. She is awesome, super focused and works hard.  I have a feeling that after she leaves, I will take over this area. I might even be training, who knows! I hope I can eventually be in the city though. The people here have a Minnesota accent!!!!! Only if they are from here, and you can tell. Basically everyone in our ward is from Utah somehow, so they all know where Bountiful is.

 

Conference was awesome! My favorite talk was by D. He talked about not living in the past. I really needed that because I have been living in the past. I keep comparing things here to the CCM, and I miss the CCM SOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH. I was having a hard time a few days ago, because I just wished I could be back in Mexico. His talk made me realize that I can't live in the past. If I want to move forward, I have to let the past go, and by that I mean at least not live in it. In all his devocionals, Pres. Holland always says something like "No one will ever have as good as a mission experience that I did" And I feel like that is the same with me from the CCM, I don't think anyone could have possibily loved it as much as I have, and even though I miss it so much and would do it over again in a heartbeat, I need to remember why I am here. I didn't go on a mission to go to the CCM, I came to do what I am doing NOW. Teaching people and inviting them to be baptized. I just need to keep having faith that I can grow to love San Pedro as much as Benemerito.

 

Some of our investigators came to conference and or priesthood session! It was so exciting. One of our investigators, Hmo. C, lives really far away, in the middle of the forest, alone, and all he does all day is work. So he basically has a boring life. We really want him to meet people in the ward so he can have friends, and because he came he met friends! It was so cute. We watched the last session in Spanish so we could watch with our investigators, and he sat by some recent converts who also speak Spanish, and I  just wanted to take a picture of them sitting all together IT WAS SOOOO CUTE!!!!! Our ward is both English and Spanish, I guess they call it a magnet ward.

 

Basically everyone we are teaching lives in a trailer park. They are like 97% Hispanic and 3% americans. So we just spend A LOT of time in trailer parks haha everyone know us there. I am really glad I am Spanish speaking here. When we knock doors, the people are really polite about not wanting to hear about our religion, but all the Hispanics are willing to listen and they always let us in their houses. They are just so much more hospitable.

 

We have an investigator, B, and he is really old, but super funny. He doesn't seem to get, no matter how many times we have told him, that this church is the ONLY true church. He is going to get baptized, but hes just so funny, I don't think he quite understands. He always tells people " I think I like this church!" Whenever he comes. I love that guy

 

There aren't a lot of members here in St. Peter, so we don't eat with members very often. But when we do it is glorious. Yesterday a sister invited us in between sessions of conference, and so of course we went!!! It was like sunday dinner food, and it made me a little homesick, but it was nicer than having the usual pb and j sandwich! Breakfast has become my new favorite meal on my mission. It is just SO GOOD. I miss is in the CCM, but here I make huevos and put salsa on them everyday and its almost like I am in Mexico. I am serious when I say this, I am GOING to live there after my mission. If I can find ANY excuse to go, I am going. I am going through Mexico withdrawls, and probably will until I go back.

 

I cant really think of anything else to tell you guys, there was a TON that happened, but I forgot to write it all down. I will for sure remember next week. OH I remember one thing. So my area is super close to New UIm, that one city from New in Town! Its a real place! Apparently the people there are from German descent and are super funny. Sadly, its not in my area, but its just like 20 minutes away!

 

I love breakfast. I wish I could have it for every meal!!!

 

That's all I can think of. Have a great week. Bye now!

 

Hermana Jones

pictures

                               we ran in the rain the other night because it was POURING so much fun

                                                    in front of the temple with more latinos!

                eating the BEST popsicles ever in the comedor with the hermanas in mi distrito

                                our teachers hmo salvador and hmo osorio and the whole distrito

ultima semana

Buenas tardes!!

 

I leave tomorrow.....I cant believe it! I am so excited and nervous and sad and happy all at once. Excited to teach real people, nervous to be out in the real world, sad to leave my district, and happy to finally do what I came out here to do. wooo!

 

Saying goodbyes has always been hard for me. Leaving college, saying goodbye to friends on missions, it all just makes my heart hurt. And that is still true today. Saying goodbye to my district (more like great friends) was SO HARD. My heart literally aches from all the goodbyes. I have learned so much from everyone I have met, and even though we had the most strong, random, and different personalities as possible, we made it work and were amazing when we worked hard and put our mind to things. I will miss them so much.

 

I got to go to the temple again today! The only people from my district left here are me and Elder Smith, and we are leaving tomorrow so we just hung out with another district in our zone and went to the temple with them. I lucked out to get to go 4 veces! Today I am just a trio with some other girls in my zone, and tomorrow I will be with the other hermanas going to my misión.

 

So this week we also had to say goodbye to our teachers. I love them! They are hilarious. WE always have so much fun with the language barrrier and learning random words in different languages. So our little inside joke is alarma, which means guess what, alarm. haha anyways, so when we were taking pictures with them our last day, he kept saying alarma in the FUNNIEST voice and I could not hold it together,. I was laughing so hard I was crying and I have never laughed so hard in my life. He did it like 50 times, and for some reason it was funny EVERY SINGLE TIME. Ah. I wish I could have recorded it to send to you.

 

So a latino here wants to marry me apparently. He told the elders that. Haha mexicans and gringos. He made me this cute thing. It was like a seed from a palm tree or something and he colored on it and wrote a little message like exito en su mision or something like that. So cute!

 

WE had in field orientation this week! It was great and terrible all at once. Great because we got to practice contacting and stuff like that, terrible because it was from 8 in the morning til 9 at night.......ahhhhhhhhh. But oh well, it helped get me more excited for the field.

 

So we have this thing called TALL and its where we practice our spanish on the computer. Anyways there is always a teacher who is there, and this time it was a native who speaks english, and he just randomly asked if gordito is fatty in english. which it is. but in his accent.......when he said fatty....it was too funny. We proceeded to talk about how it is a compliment here. I loved that day.

 

I will miss the food! There is always meat and beans and stuff to make you nice and full. and also you can make peanut butter and nutella sandwiches. and the juice is to die for!!!!!!!!! Its all so delicious and I am always full. I have even lost weight here....8 pounds! I should keep this meat diet up. Hopefully I get a lot of meat in the mission because I am so used to it now.

 

So whenever I tell the natives where I am serving my mission, they think I say Venezuela. EVERY TIME. Like not even kidding, at least 5 times a day without fail. They get SO excited then I say NO minnesota and then they get all confused why I am here learning spanish. Then I just give up trying to explain. Oh venezuela.

 

My teacher Hma. young said that her sister lives in MN and that there are TONS of Mexicans, so I am so exicted for that! I love Mexicans!!!!

 

So there is a guy who works here from provo and he speaks spanish and married a spanish girl and they have THE CUTEST KIDS and they are teaching them english and spanish oh my goodness. It is to die for.

 

I think I am starting to get a cold. My voice is weird and I have been coughing a lot. Oh well.

 

This week we had TRC which is when we teach members who volunteer, and there were actually pepople for once! of all the 6 weeks, we ended up teaching each other because no one showed up. We got to teach a c ute little family, a stake president, and a missionary who just arrived here to begin his CCM training! It was awesome because we were actuallyk teaching real people. I loved it and got super excited for the field.

 

My branch presidente is in Salt lake right now, no sé porque, pero I think it has something to do with conference or something. If you hear ANYTHING about a president T as a 70 or something......hes my branch pres! He has the cutest little hands ever, I love shaking it every week.

 

I tried to print my boarding pass, but the passport number was wrong or something so I might just have to get it at the airport. My bus leaves the MTC at 3 tomorrow en la madrugada...yikes....also yikes because I only slept 3 hours last night.....I might just die when I get there. Oh well. I still dont know if I can call, but like I said, dont expect it, but dont NOT expect it either. It will most likely be when I am in dallas so sometime around 8. we will see.

 

Well I will send pictures now. Gracias for all your support!!!!

 

Hermana Yones

semana seis

Buenas tardes!

I cannot believe that I leave next week......where on earth did the time go? no sé. This week was so awesome....kinda like all the others haha.

We got new latinos! The day they left was really depressing for me, and plus we had to say goodbye to a lot of other friends. But its ok because we got more people! Every week it gets harder to say goodbye to everyone. I know it will be so hard to say goodbye to everyone in my distrito.

The new latinos are awesome. There are two districtos of them in our hall, and they are both so awesome. We get to practice with them a lot and it helps with the spanish! Last night we went to one of their classrooms and sang with them (and they were off key as always) and then left and then went to the other district and they commanded us to sit down and bear our testimonies. So we did! It was awesome. The gospel can connect you to anyone, even if there is a language barrier. I love it so much!

WE went to the temple for the last time today. I love that temple! I bought a big picture of it in the tienda to take with me on my misión. WE got to go with both of our favorite latino districts. So the mail lady here is so sassy. And one time we were going to the correo (because we check it every morning during gym and everyday after lunch) and my compañera was like ¨she probably hates us because we go to the correo so much¨and literally right when we walked in there she said in her accent ¨I love to see your faces every morning and afternoon¨ it was so funny! She is really funny because she speaks a lot of english, but not perfect english. She was telling us how she went to the grito and instead of saying ït was so fun¨she said ït was so funny. I love it haha

So there arent just ugly birds......there are cute green parakeets that live up in the trees! I never even noticed it until yesterday! oh well.

I am getting super sad to leave. I will miss this place soooo much! But I am super excited to get out into the field and do what I came out here to do! Minnesota weather will be sub par to this but whatevs. My compañera leaves tuesday night and I dont leave til wednesday night......so I will probably have to be in a trio with the other girls going to my mission. OH ps it just started POURING like sun and one second later sheets of rain. Gotta love it here.

I MIGHT get to call you guys from the dallas airport but Im not sure. So dont be expecting it but dont NOT expect it. I will get to email you guys when I print off my boarding pass this weekend so I will let you know for sure then.

WE have a devocional tonight and pizza woooo! I love martes so much. I know I have sooooo much more to tell you guys but I cant remember much once I actually sit down at the computer.

I love this gospel! I have learned so much about it in these last 6 weeks and also so much spanish. I am really happy the Lord called me to his work to preach in español. It is really hard at times and I want to give up, but this opens so many doors for me, and I love the latin people and communicating with them. I have been reading in 3rd Nefi about when he came to visit the Nefitas and it has strengthened my testimony about the book of mormon so much. THis gospel is so simple and great and I cant wait to share this with the people who are waiting to hear about it! Sé que Jesucristo es nuestro Salvador y por medio de la expiación podemos volver a la presencia de Dios.

I am also going to blow all of my leftover money on food from the tienda to send to you guys once I get to the states. I am going to get Japones. They are addicting....idk how I will survive without them. But you guys can try them and see for yourselves. HAve a great week!

 Hermana Yones