Hermana Jones

Argentina Buenos Aires North Mission

lunes, 25 de julio de 2011

Hola!
First things first, happy birthday saturday Mom!!! I love you.

Well, I am being transferred to an area called Zarate. It is the furthest north area in the mission and I think it´s like 2 hours away from Capital. It is very rural I have heard, so it is going to be very different. I am very excited about that part. The not so exciting part is that we are opening a new area to sisters. There were Elders there before, and they´ve never had sisters there. To top it all off, I am training. I receive my new companion tomorrow. I don´t know where she is from yet, but I´ll fill you all in next week. I talked to President this morning and he says it was inspired and I´ll do great, however, needless to say, I am a little bit nervous right now and I think this will be a huge learning experience. I plan on finding a ward list somewhere in the apartment and hopefully finding out where the bishop lives and going straight to his house.

Everything went awesomely this week in Nuñez. We are having more success then ever before. We have 5 people we are teaching (at least) that are getting ready to be baptized and we had 5 investigators in the chapel, which for being in Belgrano in Capital is almost a miracle. They will be having lots of baptisms this coming transfer. Hna Reed will keep working with them. Her new companion is Hna. Cariola from Chile. They´ll be a good companionship. Hna. Cariola is quite different from me so I´m excited for Hna. Reed because she is going to keep learning a lot. She really has grown a ton. She has a lot of drive and really desires to have success.

My mind is pretty much blank as to everything else I was going to say this week. I am sure going to miss Nuñez. I loved the members and everyone I met there. Being there 6 months, I made a lot of friendships and met lots of people that I´m sure I´ll keep in contact with. Well, that´s pretty much all I´ve got for now. I am exhausted. Oh, and this week the lock on our apartment door broke and we didn´t get in to the apartment til 12am that night, not last night but the night before. That was a pain. Also, last night because of transfers I was up packing. I think I´m going to go sleep now. Also, I´ve had a bad cold all week I´ve been fighting.

I love you all!
Hermana Jones

lunes, 18 de julio de 2011


Hola!
Qué tal familia!? Well, all is well here. Ezequiel got confirmed yesterday, and it was awesome. He said he felt an immediate difference. Yesterday we taught a family that he found for us, that was pretty cool and they said they´re going to go to church on sunday! We need to get more investigators in church. I´m tired of having 2 or so, I want to get up past 5 or so.

Last monday I got my hair trimmed. Finally. It was the first time in the mission. I also got a perm straight, to try it. It actually turned out pretty good. Now my hair is straight, and the only maintenance is you have to blow dry it when it gets wet. That will probably last about 5 months or so, so about til I get home. My hair is getting super long, it looks even longer now that it´s straight, even though I cut it. I think it´s lots cheaper here too. The only down side is the lady burned my head, because the chemicals are strong and she has to blow dry it lots, so my scalp didn´t like that, but my hair is healthier than ever, because supposedly the chemicals help the hair.

This week we got fed ridiculous amounts of food, I´m going on a diet now. (That is pretty much impossible). Saturday for example, everyone we visited gave us food. We ate mondongo, chicken, rice, all sorts of stuff. Sometimes if it´s someone that knows us well, we can just say no, and they won´t get offended, but other times they do, so you always have to be really careful. Converts, investigators, everyone wants to feed us here. I need to lose some weight. Now I understand why Sister missionaries always gain weight on the mission. It´s harder than you would think to turn food down. It´s like turning service down and then they feel like they can´t ever help you again. Tough situation, but hey at least I don´t have to buy much food here... :)

So, it´s looking like this may be my last week here in Nuñez. In fact, I´d be really suprised if it wasn´t. I´m going to miss it here so much. I love my companion, I love the ward and the members. Even if capital is a little more difficult and the people aren´t as open and warm and friendly as they are in other areas, I have sure grown to love it. I just love saying hi to the same people in the street and talking to people and meeting new people. Nuñez has sure changed me. Just in this last week I learned so much about having a love for the people. The Lord loves the people, so why shouldn´t I? I feel like I learn life lessons everyday. Ezequiel told me I need to express my personal experiences more to investigators to help them gain a testimony instead of just testifying. I have lots of humbling experiences everyday, and that was definitely one of them... haha. I´m proud of him, he is becoming a great missionary already, and he still has a year before he will leave on his full time mission.

Well, who knows where I´ll be writing from next week, but I love you all and I hope you all have a safe and productive week.
Love,
Hermana Jones

PD: the pictures are:
- Sarita and the flower stand (that creeper in the back is Ezequiel) I have known Sara since february. She is a super nice Peruana that we are friends with.
-My new hair cut

lunes, 11 de julio de 2011



Mom, please start forwarding my email to Daniella Rivera dani.riverag@gmail.com

Hola!
This week I think pictures speak louder than any words I could type. Ezequiel got baptized and all went just great. He´s got a powerful testimony and is already finding us new investigators and setting us appointments with them.
Now we are working with a lady named Dolly. She is great and has a strong testimony. The only thing is she works on sundays. She lives with a super old lady and takes care of her. She needs to talk to her boss and get that figured out, but she is kind of a timid person, so we are trying to help her overcome that. She was an old investigator for a couple of years ago that we found in the area book. I have seen lots of success working with the area book. Anyways, I´ll keep ya´ll updated on her progress.
Other than that things are going great. I´m trying to think of funnny or interesting stories to tell to make my letters more interesting.
This week, because we had a baptism sunday we faced some good opposition. Lots of rejection, or more than usual. Knocking doors, with our investigators, everything. We had 3 investigators drop us. Usually we´re the ones to drop investigators when they don´t progress, but they just flat out told us no. One is kind of a funny story, I guess haha. Two girls names Oriana and Mikaela. We went to stop by and verify their reading we had left in the Book of Mormon. They´re 13 and 14 years old and very outgoing, confident, think they´re all that kind of girls. haha. Well, they tell us, the truth is we aren´t interested in any of this, so don´t waste your time with us. So we talk to them a bit to see if we can change their minds and testify to them, but it´s not going anywhere. So then, we ask to talk to anyone else in the home to see if they´re interested. They say yes, just a minute wait right there, close the door shut, lock it and yell out Chau Hermanas! My companion and I just looked at each other. The two girls felt like they had accomplished an awesome practical joke. We then go up to the next floor to visit another investigator we have in the same building and a couple minutes later we hear them come out and say, hey they left!
Another funny story, that is when this lady offered us tea, and she was definitely not all there in the head... we did explain to her and everything but, long story short we dumped it out the window of the 6 story building. Well, that´s about it for now.
Have a great week! I love you all!
Hermana Jones

Photos
1- everyone in the mormon party bus headed to church, now that we go to a different chapel we all have to take the same bus at the same time since it´s further away
2- bautismo!
3- bautismo!

martes, 5 de julio de 2011





Hola!
Everything is going well!
1. Ezekiel gets baptized this coming sunday (I learned this week it´s actually Ezequiel and not with ¨k¨ but I´m just used to spelling it with K)
2. I don´t have lice
3. We played soccer last p-day
4. I just took a nap

Ezekiel gets baptized on sunday, which we are super excited for. He even got up and gave his testimony yesterday in church all by himself. Afterwards, an hermano that´s a convert (Raquel´s husband) took off his tie and gave it to Ezekiel, since he didn´t have a tie. We had only found and gave him a white shirt. That´s charity. We had to teach him just about everything this past week, but he is definitely putting in his part reading and praying. He even started trying to find us new investigators, and sometimes accompanies us in the lessons and helps teach. He wants to go on a mission asap. He is a golden investigator. We had some incredible experiences with him this past week. He passed his baptismal interview on friday easy. After his interview the elders had a lesson in the chapel with one of their investigators and we stayed with Ezekiel and had a joint lesson. Basically Ezekiel shared his feelings and everything (without us asking a thing) and she at the end accepted a baptismal date for this saturday. The elders were in shock I´m pretty sure haha. There is a funny story though about Ezekiel which is not appropriate to be sent out via email, so I´ll have to save that one for later... let´s just say (for those of you who understand my code...) H^3...

This week we moved chapels. Now instead of going to the chapel in Belgrano we go in Urquiza. There are going to rebuild the one in Belgrano. The one in Urquiza is a little bit further away, but we didn´t have any problems getting there on the bus. Also we switched districts. Not sure why, but now we´re in the district with Belgrano, which is closer, but now the hermanas in Urquiza have to go further away (we switched with the other hermanas in the zone).

Wow this week has sure been cold. It´s been down around freezing many days.
Great news! I had Anita check me for lice, because I was quite worried, just seeing how common it is here. Well, I don´t have lice! It´s a miracle. I am being watched over.

Thanks to Heidi and Kasey for the letters! We had zone conference not this week, but the week before. I´ll write ya both back today.
This week we had leadership training, which I´m excited for.

The pictures are:
1. Part of the zone at the chapel in Belgrano after playing soccer
2. Us last sunday with Ezekiel
3. the happiest hermanas you have ever seen!

This week I learned an important lesson. It is hard to explain what I feel, but I am so grateful to be a missionary! Everytime you have an investigator progressing and that gets baptized it´s an amazing feeling. You feel so much pride for them, for the decision they took. You feel like they´re your brother or sister, or son or daughter. You are just so happy for them. But, at the same time you feel SO humble. For every baptism to take place, it requires a ton of help and blessings for the Lord. There´s no way they go through without it. You realize how incredibly blessed you are to have been a part of changing someone´s life. Heavenly Father is the one that does it all. He uses lots of means, the members, the bishop, the Spirit, the scriptures, the list goes on and on. You realize how much takes place in the lives of the people, and I am just so grateful that the Lord lets me be a part of that change in the lives of so many people. I feel so humbled, because without our bishop, the members, the ward mission leader, the ward missionaries, the scriptures, and most importantly the Spirit, Ezekiel would definitely not be where he´s at now. It´s amazing the changes I have seen in him in only 2 weeks, and how it doesn´t matter the commitment, he´s willing to do it because he felt the spirit so strongly and knows the Book of Mormon is true. Many people say that Belgrano (our zone) is a tough zone. It´s capital, it´s the lowest baptizing zone by far. But, I know that the Lord is preparing tons of people. I would be happy staying here in Nuñez for the rest of my mission (although I probably only have 3 weeks left here :( ).

Well, I hope you all have a great week, and know that I love you all so much!
Hermana Jones