Hola

hola!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For some reason I was super excited to email this week, even though I don't have much to say

SO CHURCH YESTERDAY WAS THE BEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! J came!!!!! He is this super cool kid. I've been teaching him my whole time here, off and on. He lives really far away and so It's hard to teach him and his fam consistently. All his uncles, aunts, and grandmas are less active members of the church, and he is 17 from el Salvador and wants to learn more. we've been trying for, well, about 5 months to get him to church and he came yesterday! He loved priests quorum. G wasn't able to come, but he called us Saturday night really late and told us that he can come next sunday! WOOOOOO! To celebrate he is going to make us some Mexican food this week, I can't complain about that! Maybe he will make Guatemalan food too

Speaking of food, it's one of the things I love most about the mission. Yesterday we ate dinner with C and Z, and they made us enchiladas and gorditas and jugo de Jamaica and jugo de pina and it was all so yummy! They showed us how to make it and everything. They just keep putting more and more and more on our plates and I felt like I was going to explode. Then afterwards we had to go home for a few minutes to take some pepto because our stomachs hurt so bad haha, but vale la pena.

We have been finding a lot more Mexicans around town lately, it's awesome. We taught a lot of Spanish restorations this week. As much as white people scare me, I like teaching in English as well.

Our car was grounded again this week, so we walked outside all day in a snow storm, and it was really fun! We were soaking wet all day, but it didn't stop us. It snowed like 16 inches that day! Then that night, the wind picked up. Hno C called us and was like freaking out that we were outside, and then he told everyone in the ward that we were outside that night and they got all mad at us and we were like "why are you getting mad at us for doing our job?" we were still working really hard. Apparently Hno C thought that we were walking on the freeway and was afraid we would get hit by a car, haha but we would never do that.

The Mankato ward is super awesome. A family was talking to us about how they have kind of gotten out of the missionary grove this last month and want to get back into it, and they said they made a list of people to share the gospel with. Then he asked us if we were teaching  a single mom with 3 kids because the spirit told them that there was someone in st peter who they needed to help that fit that description. oddly enough, we are teaching a single mom with 3 kids! it will be awesome to get them involved more! The ward is seriously so awesome.

One of the elders had a baptism this Saturday, a mom and her 2 daughters. It got me really excited for our next baptism, G!

I love my comp. She reminds me SO much of Hanny V haha. long hair, skinny little thing, cheerleader, and yeah they are basically the same person!

Pres and Sister C are in Utah right now for business purposes, and so the 1st counselor in the mission presidency, President E, is filling in for him for a few weeks. We miss him a lot!

hasta luego!

hna jones

6 meses........

I think I am finally used to the cold. It is to the point now where I want it to snow everyday because at least the temperature will be in the teens! Today we got stuck on a hill in the snow, and it took us awhile to get down the hill haha but good times. I seriously think the Lord is blessing me to be fearless at snow driving, because it utah i was terrified but here it is so fun for some reason!!!

G wasn't able to come to church this sunday:(:(:(:( i was soooooooooooooo sad! We fasted with him saturday, and he talked to his boss but he still said no. They just don't have enough workers. Blah!!!!!! It was so cute though, we told him that we wanted to fast with him and hna P asked him if he knew what fasting was and he was all "yeah I am fasting right now, i fast all the time" haha so it was no biggie for him. We are really praying hard that he will be able to come. He is one of the most sincere, faith filled people I have ever met. Just talking to him brings the spirit. He has such good values and morals and he will be a great addition to the church, he just needs to come first! 

Happy/sad story. So we taught this guy named G and he told us to go talk to his friends in casa 25 so we went there and there were SO many mexican men who lived there, so we taught a few of them the restoration, and it was late and they didn't seem too interested, but we went back another day and taught one of the guys again, A, and he was actually super interested! He said that he was happy in his life, but that something was missing, So we invited him to come to church to see what was missing, and he wouldn't come, even though we pushed it more than we normally do. Then, 20 mins later, he calls us up and tells us that he changed his mind and wanted to come to church!!!!!!! it made me so happy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So he came yesterday, and really loved it. But it is sad because he says that he doesn't want to join the church for the wrong reasons, and that my companera calls his attention, so he asked us to not come back. I wish we could teach more women because this is  a problem we run into all the time!!!!!!!!!!! President likes the elders to teach young single men and vice versa for the sisters, but with the language barrier, it's hard to do that. Blah. I guess I wish we were more ugly?

Wednesday we had a zone conference, and it was super awesome and much needed! We learned a lot about repentance and working with members. i love president and sister C so much! i am convinced they are the best mission president couple in the world!!!!!!!! I am going to miss them dearly. the new mission president ( I heard his name is president F?) will come in july, so it will be an interesting switch. After the zone conference, we went on a blitz in Lakeville with the Lakeville sisters! It was basically an exchange where we worked in the same area during the day as the other sisters. I went with the one and only sister T. She is a convert to the church and super funny. I had a blast, and i learned a lot from it!

Then we came home Thursday and got lost. Oh my goodness our gps is the worst gps in the world, never ever get a Magellan, always get a garmin. So the Magellan took us this super weird way and we were out in the middle of nowhere, and we finally find a gas station and found out that we were way off track. So we take this freeway going the complete opposite direction of our house and somehow ended up back in St. Peter that night on time! It was super stressful because we have to go to the cities a lot this month, and we are already super low on miles, and that didn't help us to be lost in the middle of nowhere!!!!!!!

We had a really bad lesson with D this week. We had a joint teacher, hno O with us and D was not respecting us at all. He interrupted like every 5 seconds and was talking about super unimportant things and hno O basically just told him to pay attention really boldly, and it worked! We have decided to take it a lot slower with D, because he can't read and no one has been able to read the book of Mormon with him, he hasn't been progressing and we know he won't with the book of Mormon. We are trying to get it on cds so that he can listen to it, and then gain a testimony. We are just praying that he will be able to understand it!!!!

But yeah, a year from tomorrow is my release date and I'm 6 months in this Friday......craziness!!!!! 

Training is really fun. Really hard, but really fun. It's crazy how much my spanish has improved over the last 2 weeks. Like from not fluent, to fluent. It's crazy how the Lord gives you the extra measure of what you need to do his work!!! I don't know if i would love my mission as much if I didn't speak spanish or work with the latin people, because it has made me so happy! i am really grateful that I was able to pick up the language so fast and that I get to do this everyday!!!

That's all, now ya'll keep it real in the real world for me! (we teach a lot of black people from chicago, so picture me saying this like they would haha)

Hermana Jones

Manty'osh

?que tal?! manty'osh means "thank you" in quiche, the Guatemalans are teaching us but that basically the only thing I ever remember haha

so this week has been super fun.

Tuesday: Went to Eden Prairie for the day. I got to work with a sister that came out the same transfer I did! her name is Sister S. Her companion also went home so we just stayed in that area and had fun. The area is closing so we had to clean the apartment really good

Wednesday: went to a bunch of meeting with pres and then spent the day with Sister R, who was also training. We just tried visiting some less actives in Bloomington, but got to teach a restoration and meet a bunch of cool people from Liberia! It was awesome! She is a Karen speaking missionary, which is the language the Karen people in Myanmar speak, its super cool! When she prayed in that language it gave me chills. She is training a new missionary that is Karen, which will help the work so much! Especially since they don't have a book of Mormon or any church materials in Karen. Then we got to meet our new missionaries!

My new comp's name is Hermana P. She's from Pleasant Grove and just turned 19 not too long ago. She was in the CCM en Mexico!!!!!!!! She's this super cute awesome little missionary and we have a lot of fun together. I'm super excited to be training her, even though it feels like I just barely finished my own training. Anyways, after we met, we had to go to the car dealership to get our car looked at because it was leaking oil, but they fixed it and we were on our way

G!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Is one of our invesitgators who is SSSSSSSSSSSOOOO awesome, loves reading en el libro de Mormon y lo hace todos los dias and prays and knows everything is true and just is such a great kid!!!!!!!!!!! But he just can't get work off on sundays...........he asks his boss all the time but they are short staffed and so no one else can......it's hard because he is so prepared and just has to come to church to get baptized. Pray that he can get work off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just some "D" lingo for ya ( he doesn't speak Spanish as a first language and says things super funny)

1. !Hace Friiii!

2. siempre means always pero el dice "siempo"

He always just makes me laugh so hard, and I really hope he gets baptized while I am still here in St. Peter.

Well that's my life right now, just chilling in the cold and teaching the gospel to the Guatemalans! I would have never in a million years pictured myself doing what I'm doing here, but IT"S LO MEJOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love you all!

Hermana Jones

Transfers!!!

well hello familia y amigos!

 

Today I am emailing from Mankato because we went out to eat at this restaruant in mapleton with our whole district, and it was SO GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is called Token BBQ and it is owned by a member. He gave us each a rack of ribs (and I ate 3/4 of it, which I am proud of, it was HUGE!!!!!!!!!!!) and fries and these things called turds. they sound gross but they are delicious. they are a hollow jalepeno with creme cheese in it and a little baby hot dog wrapped in bacon. SO YUMMY! And then we tried this SUPER tart cherry stuff, like it hurt my throat terribly and i had to drink boiling hot water to make the pain go away haha. I guess it's just cherry concentrate for the sauces they make. Basically got peer pressured into it. If we ever come visit minnesota one day, we will go eat there Dad would love it!

 

So transfer news.............I'm training! it's a long story....

 

So I had an interview with president in the beginning of Jan, and I was telling him that having companions that are going home soon is hard sometimes, and he told me not to worry because I would be training the next transfer. Anyways, then we started talking more and he asked me about my goal setting and I was dead honest with him.....that I don't like goals haha.  He was astonished (that was the word he used) because he said I seemed like a really goal oriented person. Anyways, he committed me to work on my goal setting and planning. So then he interviewed Sis. M and something funny about president is he tries to convince EVERYONE to go to BYU idaho, no one knows why but yeah, so he tried to convince her to go there and she was not happy about it, but she went back later to talk to him about it again, and then he called me in his office again. He told me that he was nervous for me to train a new missionary if i wasn't a good goal setter. So......not wanting to let down president C.....I started to make goals. Thats right, not just "desires to change" but real GOALS!!!!!! and not just long term goals but even short term ones.  I know, the mission is changing me. So, as hard as it was, I've become a MUCH better missionary and worked really hard this transfer. So president called me up on Friday and asked if I felt ready and I said Yeah and he called me again this morning and told me that I would be training! She is the only spanish sister coming out this transfer, and he says she is a very accomplished person. I am excited to meet her on Wednesday! And yes, I will be staying here in St. Peter woot woot! Probably for another 2 transfers.....so I will probably be here a little over 6 months and 6 transfers....they can't get rid of me!

 

I love the ward here in Mankato, it seriously is the best. The members are always so willing to help, even though most of them live really far away. The mankato ward boundaries are HUGE, and most of the members live in Mankato. It's not super far, but sometimes it's hard to get them involved a ton, especially with the language barrier. Yesterday our ward mission leader bore a great testimony in sacrament meeting about coming to church even though it is hard with the language barrier. There are some ASL people in the ward too, and so he bore his testimony in sign language and english, and i translated for our spanish invesitgators into spanish. it was so cool that everyone who was in that room, no matter what they spoke, could understand his testimony and it just really brought the spirit. He and his wife are HUGE examples to me.

 

 

ok i am already out of time, transfers take a lot of time but anways have a great week!

 

Hermana Jones

Lake House (fishing huts in the distance on the lake)

da passova wit his guys January 2014

Buenas tardes!!!

So the title of this email is from this version of the bible I read this week. It is hawaiin pigeon, and it's called "Da Jesus Book" and it was super awesome, I totally want to get one when I come home. Anyways there were pictures in it and one was of "Jesus eats da passova wit his guys", super funny.

Anyways so things in St. Peter here are still FROZEN like I'm amazed I haven't turned into an ice cube. Church was cancelled again (2nd time this month!) and we weren't allowed to use our cars, BUT we were allowed to go outside. So we just walked to the trailer park and taught people there. But when the blizzard came, man that wind chill...........it was like knives stabbing my face! I've never been so cold in my LIFE!!!!!!!!!!! That night we got a member to come with us to our appointments and she drove us, but anyways where there are open spaces the wind just whips like CRAZY and the snow is just flying all over in the air. So we couldn't seen anything in front of us, and then we saw some lights flashing and someone had gotten stuck in the snow bank, so we tried to push them out, but man the wind and the snow like almost knocked me over like 6 time and I was so disoriented haha I found myself like walking in the middle of the road trying to find my companion and she was just on this snow pile trying to dig the girls out. We were only out there for about a minute, but we got in the car and we were soaking wet, it's like we had just come out of the swimming pool. We weren't able to get the girls out, and when we were driving back from our appt the girls were still there, but the tow truck was on it's way. THE BLIZZARD WAS CRAZINESs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One awkward moment this week....we contacted this girl getting her mail at her apt complex once, and went to stop by her. Well we knocked, waited and then she came to the door in a towel like she has JUST gotten out of the shower, let us in, got BACK in the shower and finished showering for like 10 minutes, came out, got dressed, and then we sat down and taught her the restauration haha those 10 minutes were just..............awkward haha.

WE GOT THE QUICHE BOOKS OF MORMON!!!!!!!! We only ordered 2 to start, and we gave them away and they can read them and understand them! They are an abridged version and only have certain chapters, but they have the pictures and everything, it's so awesome. And it's NOTHING like Spanish

We taught someone from Kenya this week who WASN'T muslim! We aren't allowed to teach muslims because it is very dangerous for them to join the church, but there are a lot of Africans here from muslim countries. But we found someone who is a Christian from Kenya! Her name is Lorna and she has 2 little kids that are SO CUTE! She wants to come to church, and hopefully will next week with her husband and little babies. Being a Spanish missionary means that you don't get to teach a lot of Africans unless you are in English work, but luckily St. peter is the only Spanish sister area with both woot woot for st. peter! I will probably be here at least another transfer.

We set a baptism date with D! I will take a pic with him this week so you can see what he looks like, just so short. He always runs around the trailer park with his hood on and hands in his pockets because its so frii (he never pronounced the "o's" and the end of his word, so siempre hace friii to him haha) we have seen a huge change in him as he has stopped drinking and been coming to church. Being a missionary is the best!

M is a converso reciente and like hardly ever keeps appts. So this week out of the blue he called us and set up an appointment, which was awesome, and he was actually there! It was such a miracle! He is so funny, and told us right when we walked in the door "vamos a la iglesia el domingo" too bad church was cancelled.

We went to le center this week just on a whim and were able to teach a lot of people! It was awesome, and we finally got a hold of A, that little Guatemalan model dude. He's from el departamento quiche, but speaks a different dialect, so we are hoping they have a book of Mormon in that dialect too.

today we are going out to dinner with an investigator named E. Guatemalan and like 23, he tries to hug us everytime we talk to him and it's super awkward 1. because we are missionaries and 2. because we are like giant gringas compared to him hahahaha and we tell him every single time that we can't but whatever, it's just funny

OH we went out to Cleveland, which is this tiny town like 6 miles aweay from st. peter to eat dinner with a member family, and they live like out in the middle of nowhere but have a lake house! It's so awesome, they have a dock and a few little motor boats and everything. I swore that I would never ever live in Minnesota after my mission, but maybe I can buy a summer home on the lake when I am rich. There were tons of little huts on the lake ice fishing, it was super cute! I will send a pic

My emails keep getting longer and longer......sorry haha but anyways things here are going really good. Freezing, but great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Transfers are next week, so this is me and hna M's last week together :'( She's headed back to socal to soak up the sun. She's so funny, I'll miss her craziness when she leaves

In the word of Domingo, "odele pues"

Hermana Jones

5 Meses January 2014

It's so weird that I have already been out for 5 months! well 13 more to go, it's gonna fly by!

So basically we had some interesting experiences this week....I will list some

1. Two Guatemalans came to church yesterday! One named D who we have been teaching for a little while, and another who we just met this week named V.  He has a CAR!!!!!! So this week, he gave a ride to D to church. They didn't know each other before we sent them off to church together, but now they are literally like BFFs. V is 22 and D is 40. They were giggling together all throughout church, it was SOOO CUTE. Except they talked in Quiche to each other most of the time, and VERY loudly, especially in sacrament. Everyone in the room was like staring at them because they were SO LOUD. The worst part......they were talking really loud and giggling during the closing prayer!!! Oy yoy yoy the verguenza! We are going to talk about reverence with them jaja

2. First bible bash happened. So we were knocking doors in this one apartment and this lady told us we could come back another day and teach her, and so we went on our way and then she came and found us and told us to come back, and so we went! Then we taught her the restoration and set up another appt and everything. So we came back, and she had talked to her friend who majored in the bible basically, and invited her friend from Belle Plaine to come, and just had a list of questions and basically things to try and prove the book of Mormon isn't true. And her friend was taking notes while we were talking and basically would point out every part of our argument where there wasn't solid evidence to support it. It was weird. I got a really bad feeling during the lesson, but hey, she is going to still meet with us so we will see where this goes!

3. Met this guy from kenya this week, and he is muslim so we can't teach him, but he is SO funny. he always says "wonderful" and "love it" in a thick accent. We see him around all the time

4. We had a GIGANTIC Milagro!!!!! a potential that we stopped by my very first day in st. peter. So he is basically always working and really unreliable, and so after months and months and MONTHS of stopping by, we decide to go there at 8:50 at night (which is like the worst time of night to not be doing anything but you can still see lots of miracles) and he was HOME and we TAUGHT him and his BROTHER the restoration!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wooo! We saw him again today, haha and he is the buffest little guatemalan ever. I guess he works out everyday

5. We taught E (you saw her daughter when I was skyping you) this week, and she was SUPER tired, and fell asleep during our lesson to her AND started snoring hahahaha me and my comp just looked at each other and laughed. 

6. G, another Guatemalan we are teaching, accepted the baptismal invitation!!!!!!!!!! All he needs to do is to stop working on Sundays. It's sad, because the bosses of businesses here take advantage of the immigrants, and don't give them much freedom. It's sad. So we fasted that he can get sundays off to come to church. He is SUCH a good kid. Really smart, wants to learn english (not just WANTS to learn, but is WILLING to learn, which there is a HUGE difference!) and Is just freaking awesome!!!!!! It was so cute, he called us on his birthday to tell us that he is so grateful to God that he got to live another year. SO CUTE! So i made him snickerdoodles haha

7. Last night we were tracting and knocked on a potentials door, and oh my gosh SCARIEST lady ever answered the door.She just had this weird aura and weird feeling about her. anyways we were there to talk to her boyfriend, and she sneered "I know why you are here" and she definitely had the wrong idea and we were just defending ourselves and told her we were missionaries and she said "oh, how quaint" in the sassiest voice and so we  starting asking her about her beliefs and she sneered "I believe......in the DEVIL." and oh my gosh she was so creepy haha I am never going to stop by there ever again!!!!!!!!!! I wish I could re enact it for you!

8. We helped V move things around in his room and a drunk J (that guy we have been teaching forever that just won't quit drinking) came and told us he was going to call the cops because we were robbing V.....we were like no we are helping him move his stuff.....anyways then he and V got in a fight and so we went and taught V in the nearest kfc because it was the closest place. Then we ended up teaching him how to read! He didn't go to school in Guatemala and so he wants to learn to read. 

9. A!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Is the coolest kid ever. He is christian, goes to Gustavus and basically wants to know why everyone thinks mormons are so crazy. We have been meeting with him for a while, and he came to church yesterday!!! He is super sociable, and made friends with like everyone. i know he will get baptized!!!!!! I hope it is while I am here.

10. The first pic here is of C and E. They are these abuelitos we have been teaching forever. C is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO hard to teach, and his wife can't hear super well and no matter how many times we explain to him that we don't know exactly where our spirit is in our body, he just doesn't understand. Anyways, we had to drop them, and it was sad. I will miss them and their yummy food they feed us, but it's better to spend our time other places. 

Well we taught 30 lessons this week............it was a crazy busy, awesome, hard work week!!!!!!!!! It's great to find the people who are prepared for the gospel and to help them make changes in their lives!! Thanks for all your support familia y amigos

Hermana Jones