Hermana Jones

Argentina Buenos Aires North Mission

lunes, 25 de abril de 2011



HOLA!
This week went great. We are seeing progress at last! We ¨put in the batteries¨ (nos pusimos las pilas) (a saying meaning we got to work) and involved the members way more. Every lesson this past week with a member present, and way more lessons than normal! Our zone leaders didn´t believe us when we reported our numbers last night. We are seeing the results. David is going to get baptized! Also, Maria del Carmen will get baptized soon. Also we had a new investigator at church that has lots of interest. Her name is Sonia. Monday we have transfers. This week is going to be crazy.

Other than that, not too much is going on. Oh crazy story. Sunday in relief society we were with Maria del Carmen and Sonia. The lesson was on tithing. Maria del Carmen always likes to raise her hand and participate, which is good sometimes... All through the lesson she made great comments and tied things the teacher said back to the Book of Mormon citing scriptures and everything. That was super impressive. However, at the end when the teacher said bishops and leaders don´t receive money for their work it all goes to edifying the kingdom of God, oh boy. Maria del Carmen´s hand shot up and she basically said that in the Bible there´s a verse that says they get paid and that it´s not correct to make the leaders of the church work so much and sacrifice so much without being paid. The teacher didn´t know how to react. She is young and a new teacher. She basically shunned the question by saying it was off subject and didn´t have time or know how to answer it. Oh boy. Maria del Carmen did not like that response... Needless to say it took quite a few sisters in the ward who came and talked to her and apologized and made her feel better. Luckily she left church saying she wasn´t going to let something like that keep her from getting baptized. She does understand that we are all human. However, this week we have to teach her tithing again... and help her understand better how to participate without sounding well... crazy. We had already taught tithing and she had already understood what tithing funds are used for. I don´t know why she chose to voice her opinion so much then instead of when we were teaching her. How embarassing for us haha.

Easter here is a little different. They have semana santa which means holy week. They celebrate the whole week. They don´t work or go to school starting thursday (the day of the last supper). The easter bunny doesn´t exist here. Things don´t seem to be quite so commercialized. They do give eachother chocolate eggs as a gift. The eggs represent rebirth for the resurrection. In general holidays here they don´t do soo much and it´s not quite as exciting.

Anyways, other than that I have run out of things to say. I don´t know to be too boring haha. I´ll just send some pictures.

Love,
Hermana Jones

fotos
-Elder Leon with a billboard about ¨semana santa¨
-with flia. Llerena
-Luzde and I (flia Llerena)


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lunes, 18 de abril de 2011





Hola!
Well we had a pretty good week. I loved zone conference. We have a new way to count references and contacts so now we are contacting like crazy all the references we have received. (it works huh!) I got some good mail as well. Thanks Kasey, Mom, and Brittney!!! I Loved the packages and the millions of reeses. I haven´t seen so many reeses in my life. and Cadbury eggs. Everyone was thinking alike on that one! More like you both just know me well haha. Brittney thanks a million for the letter! I already wrote you back this morning, I just need to get the letter in the mail. Also, thanks for the music mom. I have a new appreciation for efy cds. It was fun to hear the one from the first year I went to efy with Shannie. haha. We´re enjoying that.

For last p-day we went and cooked some peruana food that was super good and had a picnic with the district in the park. Then we played soccer at the church. The church parking lots here double as soccer courts and are more used for soccer than for parking cars! Saturday (my birthday) the Elders (Johnson and Leon) called and sang me happy birthday early. That was funny. Then we had a stake service project. I got to wear pants almost all day! That was the most I´ve worn pants in the whole mission since p-day we can´t unless we´re playing sports or doing service. The service project was painting a school. It was fun. Because I am pretty tall here I painted on ladders the upper parts of the walls. Around 4 we left and went to our lunch appointment with the Contreras family (Peru) and that was fun. We had gone to the service project with Gimena (daughter). The mom made my favorite peru food which was the same thing we made monday with Elder Leon. Papa a la Huancaina. Maybe Mary Esther or Dan has tried it? Anyways then we ate cake. She made me a huge cake. It was chocolate with orange jelly and with peaches and grapes on top. They eat lots of fruit with their desserts here. It was good. Then we went home, changed and went to work.

I took lots of pictures this week, so I´ll send a few emails. Thanks to everyone for all the emails and letters, keep them coming I love hearing from everyone! The work here is going well, we just have to keep at it and I know that someone will progress to baptism soon! Today we are going to el centro to go shopping and see more cool stuff with the Elders. I hope everyone has a great week!

Love,
Hermana Jones

fotos
-É Leon adding the ají to the sauce. picante!
-the district eating in the park about to go play soccer

lunes, 11 de abril de 2011

Hola!
Thanks for all the birthday wishes! It will be a pretty normal day, but I´m sure grateful for all the love and support! Today for p-day one of the Elders from Peru (Elder Leon) is going to make my favorite dish from Peru (papa a la huancaina) and we are going to play soccer at the church to celebrate.
This week was a little rough, but I know things will get better and we´ll get people progressing. We had to drop most of our investigators this week. No one was going to church and no one was progressing. Also we found out there´s an area in our area (barrio mitre) that is prohibited to enter, which I didn´t know. Most of our investigators lived there, so we are going to be kind of started over as far as a lot of things go this week. Maria del Carmen couldn´t make it to church yesterday because everyone from Peru had to go vote yesterday in the morning. They had elections and get fined if they don´t vote. Also she has lots of complications with her work right now. She is such a golden investigator but it´s hard because she is so stinking busy working and going to school full time.
Diego the grandkid of a member is going to get baptized soon. We just need to get the permission from his dad. We are working on that. It could be any day now...
Anyways, not too much is new. We have zone conference with Zona Norta (my first zone) on thursday. I am excited. I will get to see Hna. Campos again and receive mail. Not to mention the conference itself will be awesome and I will have lots more to repent of and improve I´m sure.
I can´t believe how fast the time is flying by. In one month I will complete a year in the mission and will only have 6 months left. I feel like I just started.
Well, in this email I don´t have new pictures but will send a song that I love and hope inspires you all!
Love,
Hermana Jones
Hola!
Well, this week was good. We did lots of service for investigators and members. In one investigators house, she used the excuse that she had to go clean her house before her husband got home, and didn´t have time to talk to us. So, we went in and cleaned. I washed dishes for literally an hour. My companion was cleaning the kitchen while I did that. The lady was a lot more receptive after that ;).

¿¡Qué tal conference!? I love conference in the mission. Unfortunately we didn´t have a single investigator there. We should have had lots there since there were 4 time options but we went and passed by every single one that said they were going to go, and they all had excuses not to go or weren´t there. That was a bummer, but a member from Belgrano brough her friends and introduced us to them, they live in our area. So we did get some new investigators there!
I loved all the talks, but I think my favorite was Elder Oaks when he talked about desires. But I liked all of them. I got to watch almost all of conference in english. I wasn´t going to get to, but then there was a girl from the US that was able to go on divisions with me while my companion was with the other hermanas (both latinas) in our zone. So I watched conference with the elders. We watched in through internet with a TV connected to the computer.

Well, I think we need to drop most of our investigators at this point. No one is progressing. Nicolas doesn´t even want to talk to us. Marcelo is still drinking. Maria del Carmen couldn´t go to conference because something came up in work. I still have faith that she will make it to her baptismal date the 23rd. Other than that, not too much is new here.

Oh for April Fools day our district leader got me good. He called in the morning right after comp study and said that he talked to the asistents and there was going to be some riots and civil unrest in our area because we have some goverment buildings. He said for 1-2 weeks our area was being closed and we were going to be split up and transferred to other areas. He said he didn´t know anything more than that and that the asistents would be calling me to let me know more. I hung up and explained this all to my companion in spanish, (because she didn´t understand it in english when he said it, we have a rule we have to speak english when with latinos) and just as I finished explaining he called back and said April fools. haha. I totally believed him.

This week the weather was nice! I finished the Book of Mormon again this morning in english and will finish it in spanish again this week too.

I hope everyone has a great week and enjoyed conference! I don´t have new pictures this week. This picture is from when I arrived in Nuñez, I can´t remember if I already sent it or not...

Love,
Hermana Jones

Kasey - the video is in a weird format and didn´t work, but thanks for trying!