March 3, 2014
This week has been a good one! We were really happy because we met a lot of our goals. We have been working super hard and teaching lots of people. The weather has been really weird. The sun is super fuerte all day and then it will rain really hard at night. Most of our investigators are in the very top of the hill. So every day we are hiking up these huge stairs to get to our investigators. I will have to take a picture this week.
This week we had 7 investigators that attended church!! We were so excited and the ward was shocked as well. We have felt the blessings of the Lord. One of our old investigators came back from their trip and we just happened to come in contact with them. One of their children has been having medical problems and she asked for a blessing. The bishop came and gave the blessing and they were really happy. It was definitely a miracle that we came in contact with them because they were only planning on being here for a day. They ended up extending their visit until after church the next day. We might not be the missionaries to baptize them, but we were very happy to help them along in their conversion.Our Ward this week made a new misión plan and we will be having an activity every week! I am really excited about it. I hope that everything will work out and that new investigators will start coming to church.This week we were walking down the street and we heard a Little voice say ”Hola”. We looked around and saw no one. So then we kept walking. We heard it again and then realized it was a parrot that was sitting on a window seal. It was awesome. We then walked past him about 3 times that day just to say hello.
I have been teaching my companion how to keep a budget. The other day she told me that she wants to be like me and work when she gets home. I have been really encouraging her to do so =) She is awesome. My companion and I are sad that the cambio is coming to an end. We have one more week and then there are changes. I think that there might be a slight chance that I can stay here.. But who knows what will happen! But I will go wherever the Lord wants me to go.
!Sé que esta es la obra del Señor. Sé que estoy aquí para ayudar muchas personas venir a cristo. Tal vez puede ser los investigadores aquí, mi compañera, o mi. Sé que esta es la iglesia verdadero y que Dios contesta nuestros oraciones.
Te quiero mucho! Hermana Jones
They have this tradition down here that they put a tree in the middle of the road and throw clothes and other stuff on the tree. Then they blast loud Peruvian music and dance around the tree. Most of the time they are drunk and are acting like fools. Anyway it is pretty crazy. This week we saw about 4 of the tree parties. I tried asking my companion what all of it meant but she didn’t really know how to explain it haha.
March 10, 2014
This week has been a great one! We had a baptism!!!!!!!!! Rosario is 10 years old and has been listening to the discussions for about two weeks and was baptized this week! It was a really beautiful day. At her baptism we sang I am a child of God in English and “I like to look for rainbows” in Spanish. It turned out to be beautiful. Ella es muy especial. =)
We have also found 2 new families. They both need to get married but they have 3 kids that want to get baptized! So right now we are working really hard with them. They live at Tierra Colorada (basically the top of the mountain) So it has been really fun running up the mountain every day. They are super sweet. Fransica is doing so good. She has been coming to church for the past two weeks. We are just waiting for her husband to get back from his work trip to talk to him about marriage. I hope everything works out. She has a place in my heart.
We have been working hard with our new mission leader. We have had a lot of visits with him and we are starting to feel like we are building confidence. He is around our age and is preparing to go on a mission… so sometimes we have to remind him that we are missionaries. Haha
Cambios (transfers) are coming up… I will find out tonight if I am going to train. I honestly have no idea what will happen because we both got here at the same time. We will see =) I will be sad to leave if I am going…Aron (my little brother… my pensionistas grandson) and I play card games while we wait to eat. I had made cards for my English class to play go fish. So I have taught him other games. He loves it. I ended up buying him game cards. I seriously feel like he is my little brother.
Te quiero mucho
Hermana Jones
March 17, 2014
Well I have no idea where to start! I have a new companion!!! Okay so Monday night I got a call from President Henderson and he told me that I would be training again=) So the next day I was going to travel to Huancayo to be with my new companion. Luckily I am staying in my area this time! Hermana Chire had a really hard time with that. Monday night was hard. I didn’t really know what to do to make this better. So that night we painted our toenails and talked a lot about our lives and the future. I left Tuesday morning and that night she found out that she was going to another place in Huánuco with..... HERMANA VERGARAY!!! So my two awesome companions are together! I just about cried i was so happy. I know that everything will be great with Hermana Chire.
In Huancayo, there ended up only being 6 Hermana’s that came in from the CCM. I felt special that I was going to train again. I was just hoping that I would get another Latina...And I did =) My companion is Hermana Sidan. She is from Argentina, she comes from a family of 7 kids. She is super humble and excited to be here in the mission. I feel like she has come pre-trained.
We got back to our area Thursday night and started working hard. Right now we are teaching 4 families. (The family in the picture below is one of them.) The lessons have been going really good. The other day one of the parents broke down and cried and said that she wants to have a family that is happy like we are. I of course cried right along with her. Her name is Melita. We are still working with their husband so that they can be married. Honestly I really don’t know what they need to get married. haha but we will find out. But their 3 kids, Kevin (10 years old), Victor (10) and Gladis(13) will be baptized this Saturday! They are so ready. The other day, Gladis told us that after attending church she could see the same light that is in our eyes in her family’s eyes as well. Seriously, they have a great place in my heart.
Yesterday we had a lesson with Freddy Calderon and his family. He is our investigator whose daughter is going to serve a mission. We taught about the plan of salvation and the spirit was so strong.It was one of those lessons where us missionaries felt the spirit testifying to our hearts that it was true. I feel so blessed to be here and to have this opportunity to teach these families. I could not be doing anything better in my life right now.
Love, Hermana Jones
March 24, 2014
This week has been a crazy one. My companion left for Lima at the start of the week so I was
staying with my pensionista Hermana Doris. I call her my abuelita. We have a lot of fun together.
We climbed up the mountains together.. I think I wore her out haha. She is so nice and willing to
help with everything. She fell in love with the investigators that we have.
Gladis, Kevin and Victor where baptized this week!!!!. I was teaching like crazy to get them ready
for their interview. It was hard without my companion sometimes, but things worked out great.
They have very little education and were struggling a little. But they had such strong desires to be
baptized and they LOVE the church. They have a very special place in my heart. The hardest part
was convincing Kevin’s father that he was ready. But miracles happen!! His father signed the paper
for permisión. The day of their interview was also Victor’s birthday. So we also had a surprise party
for him. It was awesome. They passed their interview and were baptized!! We surprised them by
inviting Hermana Chire to the baptism. They all cried. It was super sweet. It was sooooo nice to see
Hermana Vergaray after 3 months. I just love her.
I have been sick for a few days and I lost my voice about 2 days ago. It is kind of frustrating at times.
Especially during Ward council when I have things to say… haha. I got a blessing today so I hope I
can get back to normal so we can get our area up and running again.
My companion is doing well. I still feel like we haven’t taught much together because she was gone
for a week. But things are going good with her. She is from Mendosa Argentina. She is super nice
and comes from a very humble background. I like her.
The baptismal Font is indoors. There are about 5 church buildings in Huanuco. It only takes about 15 mins to get to 2 or 3 of them.
I love Latina companions because they already know the language =) and I just love the culture. I
think it would be fun to have a gringa companion someday.
Hermana Jones
March 31, 2014
This week has been a pretty good one. We have found lots of new investigators and have felt like we are working hard. I have been getting over being sick so my body has been pretty drained this week. But little by little my energy is coming back. Sometimes the only cure for not feeling like doing something is to just get up and do it. haha
Right now we are working with a family from Pucallpa. Their kids were baptized a few weeks ago and they are working towards getting married. We are working hard to get them prepared. Luckily we have had tons of help from the ward. This Sunday they were not able to go to church and when we visited them at night we found out that they already had 2 other visits from members in the ward asking them why they didn’t come to church. It was awesome.
My companion is doing well. She loves being a missionary. Really the only problems we have had are that we get sick and don’t have energy. She is starting to get sick from the food, like I did the first few months. So that has been fun. We just want to work hard but sometimes our bodies won’t let us. We started carrying our training book with us so that when we have a little bit of downtime we can sit in the park and study. It has seemed to work pretty well. She is doing so great, I feel like she came pretrained. I have learned a lot from her. She has been a member all of her life and has a great knowledge of the gospel. She has a very competitive personality. But it helps her to work hard and to be better. I think that she could be a Jones =) I like her and we get along well. She understands almost everything in English so I talk to her in English a lot. Mostly during awkward situations. With new investigators always comes awkward situations... this week we taught a girl how to pray and explained that when we pray in a group one person talks out loud and the others will listen. She agreed to say the prayer and began to say one in her head... we sat there probably for a good 5 minutes in silence. It was pretty funny for us.
Gladis one of our recent converts has started going out on visits with us. She shared her testimony about the church and it was so sweet. She gets so excited about sharing with others. She said that when she started listening to our lessons she didn’t believe it and didn’t want to go to church. But when she started to go and when she started to pray she felt that it was true and now feels happy all the time even when things are hard. I just love her to pieces. I almost cry when I think about leaving my area. It will be a sad day. They always give me cute little gifts like a bracelet or a flower. It is precious.
I love being a missionary and I know that this is the best thing that I could do right now in my life. I have come to love the people here in Peru and I definitely think it will be hard leaving them. But I still have lots of time to have fun here in the mission=)
Love you soo much! Thank you for your example to me!
Te quiero mucho!!
Hermana Jones