May 12th 2014. FAMILY

Well it was just wonderful seeing your beautiful faces yesterday. Sorry  was such a mess. I don't have anything to report except for IT SNOWED LAST NIGHT!!! Yeah, super dumb. We are going to play zone kickball today so we are in a huge rush to email. I better get going. I just wanted to tell you that I love you sooooooooo much and thanks for being the best family on the planet. 

Love sister jones

May 5th 2014. To Everyone

Am i trunky?:

 NO!!!! I still feel really focused and I am working super super hard, but some times it just hits me about how much time i have left and I can't stop crying about it. Especially when missionaries i know and love go home it seriously breaks my heart a little more every time that happens. I love my mission more than words can describe. It has changed me completely. I know and love my savior better than i have in my entire life. I feel his presence with me always. I feel him speaking to me every time i read my scriptures. I feel the love he has for the people we teach. I feel his appreciation for me and the work i am doing every night when I report to him what i have done in my nightly prayers. I want to serve him every single day of my life. I know my next mission is to have a family. that scares the dickens out of me but I know so much more how to do that from my mission than anything else in this life. Words can't describe the Love I have for my savior. It is a very sacred relationship i have now with him. I think what scares me about going home is not knowing how to have the same relationship with him when I'm not doing his missionary work 24/7. That scares me more than anything. I just know i'm going to be a wreck and I'm going to have to rely on you guys a lot to teach me how to live real life again with a close relationship with the lord. 

Love sister Jones

April 21st. Seriously one of the craziest weeks of my mission

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April 14th 2014. "We get to hear from our stake president at stake conference." -me "OBAMA?!?"-8 year old little girl

Yes, a little less active did say that this week. BAHAHA I could have died laughing.

This week has been SOOOOO good!! Sister Bett's health has been good enough that we were able to do an entire week of missionary work! I could have cried I was so happy!! We also got to end our week with a wonderful stake confrence!! Oh it was so good! It's really fun in this stake because once a month we get to meet with the stake president. (president Taylor, who is a convert!! and is the same age as my dad hahaha weird) And we talk about the missionaries and the work they are accomplishing and what they need help with. So it's really fun to know the stake president. He is really inspiring and is on fire with his missionary work. He has so many friends and family that he is working on sharing the gospel with!! Gosh, LOVE HIM!!

One super exciting thing that has been going on that i forgot to mention last week was we got a new approach to practice!! It's called the survey approach! Basically we go up to people, introduce ourselves and ask them if they could help us answer a 10 question survey. All the questions relate to the message we share and after they are done with the survey we ask them if we can share that message with them. IT IS INCREDIBLE!! I was super leery about doing it at first. I'm not sure why i didn't think that it would work. But we tried it and HOLY SMOKES IT IS INSPIRED!! We have done 15 surveys. 4 of those people became investigators right away. 6 set up return appointments and only about 5 were completely not interested. Whew we love using this approach. It's actually super fun too! not as awkward as knocking on strangers doors. 

Sorry this email is kinda short but I've got to run. Know that I love you all!! THanks for all the birthday wishes and all the love, support and prayers that you send my way!

THE CHURCH IS TRUE!!!!

lOVE SISTER JONES!!

Picture: yeah....

April 7th 2014. Cornered by a man in a wheelchair, Kirby Vacuum man, and Fiber bars strikes again

Yeah this week has been a pretty crazy one.

So remember how last monday's email was about how crazy the day was...Well this whole week has been like that haha. 

Monday night we drove to Eagle, Tuesday we drove the rest of the way to Frisco for our 5 hour Missionary leadership meeting. Wednesday we had zone conference which went from 8 to 4. Thursday and Friday sister betts died of sickness. Saturday and sunday was conference. LOVED IT! and today we went to grand junction and back for a doctors appointment. Madness and pure happiness all around. I honestly love the meetings we go to they are seriously the best. And even in the midst of all the craziness we saw plenty of miracles :) 

One of which, comes in the form of Dale. Oh Dale. He is so wonderful. We found him by asking him if we could sing to him haha he loved it and he said he would love to be taught by us. The first day we taught him the restoration and he said he has been searching for clarity and it only makes sense that there would be prophets on the earth today. When we taught him the first vision, we asked him what he felt and he said,"Enlightened." When we asked him if he would be baptized he said,"Of coarse!" Oh my gosh he is seriously the most golden investigator I have ever taught. We were really worried we wouldn't be able to teach him when he moved in to a nursing home. (he is in his 40's, we aren't sure why he needs to live in a nursing home.) But we got permission from our zone leaders to teach him. We went to visit him this week to see if he was coming to confrence and we got to meet his lovely roommate Jim......Well lets just say that Jim is a tiny bit of a mr. grumpy pants. We walked in and he was like, "OH, I guess I should just get out of the way since I am such an annoyance." we assured him that he was fine where he was at and that we could leave to a different room to teach dale. He was like, "NO, I'M GETTING OUT OF HERE."  so i moved out of the way so he could wheel himself out the door, but he looked at me and then started rolling towards me......I knew I was in trouble.....I asked him if I could sneek by him and he was like, "NO YOU ARE STAYING HERE." and I was like well I need to go with my friends to a different room and he yelled again."OH NO YOU ARE STAYING HERE."  I tried to go behind him but he wheeled backwards and literally wouldn't let me pass through. I thought my companion was going to pee her pants. Oh gosh it was the most horrifically awkward experiance of my life!!! Luckily, I just jumped over his legs and ran out the door. Whew! We probably will just meet dale in the front room next time....

Next cool story of the week. As you know Sister betts was pretty sick this week. So I had the Mt. Sneffles (yeah i know it is a weird name) sister missionaries come out with me and one stay with sister betts. We didn't get to teach many people but we did find a new investigator so I felt pretty good about our day. But the lord decided to bless us even more with an unplanned person to teach hahah. The Kirby Vacuum man! He was doing a little door to door sales and we let him in. Little did he know that instead of us buying a Kirby he would be leaving with a book of mormon, a restoration pamplet and our card! It was so awesome!! We felt bad cause we kind of got him in trouble for being at our house too long, so we sent him off also with some banana bread that sister betts mom sent us haha. It was awesome!! When he gets baptized he will have the best conversion story EVER!!

OK one last funny story.....So we had a meeting in frisco. (which is 4 hours away from montrose) It was a leadership meeting. Well we drove up the night before to Eagle. Which is about 3 hours away and we stayed the night with some spanish sister missionaries. The lady they lived with was oh so kind to give us some granola bars for the rest of the drive to frisco in the morning. I ate 2....Later I was sitting in the meeting and my stomach started rumbling like never before. It was so loud that the missionaries all sitting at my table looked at me. I looked at my companion and asked if we could go to the bathroom. Yeah....I kinda blew up the bathroom.....every half an hour..... of our 5 hour meeting!!!!!!!!!THE GRANOLA BARS WERE DANG FIBER BARS!!!!!! It was so horrible. I have never had something so tramatic happen to my poor little belly in my entire life! The four hour drive back was just as terrible. Luckily, I only had to stop about every 2 hours and I slept most of the way. Ugh. that was awful!. I really have a testimony that fiber bars are of the devil.

WEll I love the gospel. I love my mission. and I love all of you! I hope you have fabulous week this week!!

Love sister jones

March 31st. Hello Everyone!!

Ok sorry it took us so long to email today. It has been the craziest day ever!!!! Let me just tell you how insane this day has been. 

So we got up at 630 ran around and got ready for the day, went to Walmart and got our groceries and vacuumed our car. 

Then we went home and did our studies 

Then at 10 we dropped off our car to big o tires to get our oil changed and our tires rotated then we had the spanish sister missionaries drop us off at Walmart again so sister betts could get her hair cut/dyed. 

We found out that Walmart wouldn't' be able to dye her hair until 230. So we walked to great clips and found out they don't do hair dying and then we walked to jc penny's to see if they could do it there and their salon was closed. So then we called the Spanish sisters to see if they could pick us back up so we could get our car so sister betts could go to her doctor's appointment....

They didn't answer their phone......neither did 10 other people we called....(it was 11:00 by the way and her appointment was at 11:30) so we did what seemed logical.....we sprinted for 1 mile trying to get back to big o tires in time.....yeah we know we are dumb hahah

Because the Lord is so merciful one of the members in our ward honked their horn at us and we ran frantically to them and asked if they could take us to big o tires. She said of coarse! (it was 11:23 at this point, we were freaking out that we were going to be late to the doctor)

ANOTHER tender mercy from the Lord was when we got to big o we found out that everything was already paid for! #blessings!!!!

So we zoomed to the doctors, made it exactly at 11:30. Whew!

After the doctor's appointment we ran back to walmart to make a hair appointment for 230, and ran to little ceasars to get pizza for our sister's activity we planed for at 1 today. 

WE zoom back home, get all the tie dye stuff ready and clean our house and do our laundry and pack because we have a meeting in frisco tomorrow. (we have to drive to grand junction tonight because frisco is 4 hours away!!!!)

Then all the sisters showed up and we tie dyed shirts and ate pizza and had a great ol time!

Then we kicked everyone out of the house and we ran to walmart to get sister betts hair dyed, which took 2 hours then we landed here in this lovely library and we have an appointment in approximately 10 minutes........#lifeofamissionary!

But I can't complain because I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!!!! and I love you all. I am having such a fantastic time here in montrose. I just love everyday that I get to serve the Lord!

I hope you all are having a fantastic week! YOu should all bear your testimony to someone this week.....I dare you! it's actually really fun!!

Ok I have got to go! Love you!!!!!!!!!!!

Why are Hispanics so much nicer than white people?? March 23nd 2014

I don't mean to be racist but I went tracking with the Spanish sister missionaries on an exchange and it is a proven fact. Every single Hispanic was SO much nicer than the white people. 

They would invite us in, invite us to take a seat, offer us some juice, listen to our message, turn off the tv, tell their children to be quiet.....The three people we talked to that where white our experience when a little something like;

Standing on their door step we say;

"Hello! We are the missionaries from the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!" 

and they would respond "Oh yeah! Well we are catholic so YOU HAVE A VERY NICE DAY!" 

Then we would get the door shut in our face.....To bad I love these white people so much or else I would try to switch to Spanish. 

Welp, we had a fabulous week this week. We found 5 new investigators!!! One of them his name is Graham. WE LOVE HIM TO PIECES. I can't believe this kids history and what he has gone through. He has 1 and a half arms. We aren't sure what happened to the half that is missing. We didn't' feel it was appropriate to ask him. He dropped out of high school and got his GED. Use to be in a gang....lives with his aunt and uncle. Can't find a job because of his criminal record. Is going to AA and is trying to turn his life around and he is only 18 years old.....Seriously this kid is a sweet heart. He is trying so hard to get things in order. He was so excited to meet with us and learn more about the gospel. He met us at the library cause his uncle doesn't like the mormons for some reason. He seems super solid. I'm excited to teach him more. 

Another exciting person we have to teach is Jordan. She is the daughter of a super super less active. She is 17 and has never been baptized or exposed to the church. She has a couple of friends that are LDS and she seems super excited to learn more. We also put Crystal on DATE FOR BAPTISM!!! She is a super cool christian lady. She said her and her family have been searching for a church for years. She found one that she likes but when she prayed about it, she felt a distinct answer that she needed to keep searching. That's when we came around. She has been reading the book of mormon and she has 10,000 questions. She also said that she will be coming to church this week!!! With her whole family!!!! WE are so excited!!

We also have some super frustrating people that we are teaching hahah. We have these adorable investigators. Their names are Pat and Ruby. Ruby is Pat's mother. They are in their 60s and 40s. They have been taught by missionaries for about a year. When we last saw them this week we asked them if they knew the book of mormon was true. They said yes...We then asked them if they thought that this was Jesus Christ's church, they said yes....Then we asked them if they would like to be apart of Jesus Christ's Church, they said yes.....THEN we asked them if they would like to be baptized and then they said.....no......GAH! It is so frustrating. They know that this is the truth they know they need to be baptized to join jesus christ's church, But for some reason they are opposed to baptism. They keep telling us they don't want to rush and they need to learn more. But we have taught them every single lesson. We really don't know what else to do. We can't continue to teach them if they don't progress. We NEED A MIRACLE!! So if you want to include them in your prayers it would be much appreciated!! 

Well I better get going! I hope all of you are having a fabulous week!! THE CHURCH IS TRUE!!!

Love Sister Jones

 p.s. here is  picture of our lovely little Kruz.