Elder EJones: These Things I Know

Hello!!

This week we were able to help lots of people to come to church, and to be able to participate. Being able to go to church is an amazing blessing that we have. To be able to partake of the sacrament every week is a need for all of us. And we all need to be able to invite all to come unto Christ, and to come to church so that they can fell of the joy of the Gospel too.

We were able to help Aaron to be baptized and confirmed. I know that the Lord works miracles is our lives and answers our prayers!!

I read this from a talk given by Elder Boyd K. Packer,

I know what He felt in Gethsemane

Is too much to comprehend.

I know He did it all for us;

We have no greater Friend.

I know that He will come anew

With power and in glory.

I know I will see Him once again

At the end of my life’s story.

I’ll kneel before His wounded feet;

I’ll feel His Spirit glow.

My whispering, quivering voice will say,

“My Lord, my God, I know.”

I know that the Lord has perfect love for us, and has a perfect individual plan of salvation for all of us. He loves us and knows our needs!!

Elder EJones: Miracles This Week

 

This week lots has happened. We were trying all week to find the Velasquez Family so that they could get baptized. But every time that we passed by their house they weren't there. We were able to find them Monday, but the day that they were supposed to have an appointment they were not there. The problem is that they phone that they have doesn't have service. It's like an iPod, so it doesn't work to send texts or to call. We found out finally where their family lives in Bermejo and we were able to look and find them on Saturday morning. We talked to them about the baptism that they were supposed to have. But when we were talking to them, the oldest daughter started talking about her questions and that she didn't want to get baptized. We talked to her for about 5 minutes, and then she told us that she would get baptized. So she did get baptized with her mom, and her two others sons didn't. They are 10 and 8, but their mom talked to us about some problems with her family so they weren't gonna get baptized that day.

That afternoon we were able to teach them a little and get them interviewed for that night. But here comes the story of the day.

In the afternoon we had filled up buckets of hot water from our house to take to the church because they told us they wanted the water to be warm. So we filled up paint 5 gallon buckets with hot water to take to the church. We took them to the church and began to fill up the font. We turned the font on to be able to fill it up as we left for their interviews and to pick them up to get baptized. When we came back the font was a little flooded and a few members were cleaning the font. The thing is that we had to run to the members house to do the interview and when we got back it was a little flooded, but for us the most important thing was that they were there. They had made the decision to get baptized.

Anyways, so we start getting everyone to change and stuff to be able to take pictures and start, and one of the members who was cleaning up the water called over the branch president and to us to talk with us in the president's office. He basically tried to yell at us about the water and that apparently there were bugs in the water. (Like there have been in every one of my areas). He basically told us everything that we did wrong and all that we needed to do to be better because of the little mistake we made. He told us that the font overflowed a little because we were in their interview. He was like "These are souls, you need to be doing a whole lot better." It got us kinda frustrated that he started going off at us when we were doing the best that we could. He then looked at the branch president and told him to deal with it and to do what he needs to do and then he left. Then the branch president was just like, "Yeah elders, don't worry. Just go get changed. It's all good."

It was the worst in the moment because we were in a hurry trying to get it all done and it started late, but our branch president was really chill and was like don't worry and then let us change so that we could start.

But this week was good. We were able to find the Velasquez Family, teach them, and they were able to make covenants with our Heavenly Father and receive the Holy Ghost.

Alex, who is 19, also got to get baptized. For me it was really cool. Something I have always wanted to do as a missionary is be able to help a young adult of that age to come unto Christ. And he did!! He's the best. He has progressed from the start. He has tattoos on his arms and when he read the word of wisdom pamphlet he said to us, "What am i supposed to do? I didn't know." But I'm really happy this week!! We were able to see lots of miracles. I know that the Lord loves us and has a plan for us.

I have a testimony of the plan of salvation and of the importance and the necessity of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost!!

Elder ZJones: The Plan of Salvation

Elder Jones and Elder Oakes

God has a plan. This plan is so that we can be happy. He has given us this plan because He loves us and wants us to be happy. With this plan we can experience joy and peace.

We lived with Heavenly Father before we came to earth. There, we learned about His Plan for us and how we can come to earth and receive a body. We would also be giving agency, our right to choose.

We wanted all of these things and decided to come to earth.

We are now here on earth experiencing everything we could think of. We came to earth because we wanted to be like our Heavenly Father. Here, we experience sorrow, joy, happiness, and anger. All of these things help us grow and learn, and in turn, learn more of how to become like our Father in Heaven. But none of us is perfect, except for our brother, Jesus Christ. Because of His atonement for us, we can repent and feel more joy and happiness. That is our goal. We want to one day return to our Heavenly Parents and live and become like them.

But we all experience death.

Because of the fall of Adam and Eve, our bodies are imperfect. We will one day leave this earth. Our physical body and spirit will be separated. From there, we live in the Spirit World. In the Spirit World we continue to learn and grow. We are able to learn more about God's Plan for us and how we can become closer to Him.

Elder Jones and Elder Oakes

During the resurrection, we will receive a perfect body. Everyone will receive this gift. Those who have died will be reunited again with their perfect, physical body. We will them be judged and placed into a Kingdom that fits with how we lived our lives. The greatest and highest Kingdom is the Celestial Kingdom. There, we can live with Our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ forever. We can live with our families forever and one day become like our Father.

I  know this is true.

My testimony on this has grown today. I know that God does have a plan. This Plan isn't made to make us feel anything but joy and happiness. We are given this plan because of the great Love that Our Father has for us and all of us made a decision to follow His plan. As we work everyday to: increase our Faith in Jesus Christ, repent, keep our covenants with God, have the companionship of the Holy Ghost, and endure faithfully, we can receive all that our Father has and have eternal life.

Please pray for me this week so that I can truly apply this on my mission.

Elder Jones

**This morning Zeram got a call from Presidente Resek informing him that his first mission companion, Elder Mason Oakes, who completed his mission 12 days ago, was killed in a car accident last night. Please pray for the Oakes Family, for all those those who served and were touched by the life of Elder Oakes in the Buenos Aires West Mission, and all those who have been affected by this tragic event.

Elder Jones and Elder Sena

Elder CJones: Without Sacrifice, There is No Victory

What a week!!

It's been absolutely crazy, from the weather to the work, but it is all under the direction of the Lord.

I know that the Lord is with us through all our challenges and through all our victories. This week has been one of challenges and overcoming the "natural man". I have studied a lot about Gospel topics this week, a lot about the natural man and the power the Atonement has to change that aspect in our lives. As I have gone through the week, I have studied the Atonement and the power of testimony in the process of change in my life.

This week I started by thinking about change. Just that word means a lot, even more so in times in our world when people change for the worse, not the better. We need to change our lives for the better, and turn our hearts and lives over to the Lord so we can change, just like is taught in Alma 5.

How do we experience this change as we go through our lives? I took time this week to study about the moment in time when choice was everything, in the Garden of Gethsemane. The whole Plan of Salvation hung in the balance of the choice of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

To have this mighty change of heart, we need to look to the Lord and through the Lord, our weaknesses can become strengths, just like is taught in Ether 12. As we stay close to our Father and our Savior. Jesus Christ we will understand the importance of prayer and the communication we can have with our Father, the direct relation we can have with him. We begin to understand the power of prayer. We will understand that the companionship of the Holy Ghost is one of power and amazement, and we will begin to be so grateful, for that is the way that the Father speaks to us.

One thing that I found really amazing was this, we were all intelligences before we were Spirits. We all had the ability top become anything and we became Spirit sons and daughters of a Loving Heavenly Father. The only way for the Atonement to work is that the suffering that Christ went through would have to spiritually and emotionally touch every one of those intelligences, it was an infinite and universal Atonement, and the only reason He performed and went through the Atonement is so that we can have the opportunity at mercy and repent of our sins.

The Father and the Son love us so much that they sacrificed so much, more than we can comprehend so we can be together, in the Celestial Kingdom, forever with our families and loved ones.

I know the Atonement is real, it has the power to cleanse all from sins if we only submit to the will of the Father and use the Atonement, that gift that we have been given to change our hearts, and become like Him.

This week, I finished reading a book written by M. Russell Ballard, Our Search for Happiness. In this book, Elder Ballard shares his testimony of the reality of the Gospel and the power it has to change our lives and as we grow, continually, to understand more about the Gospel, the Savior, and the teachings of the prophets, we can truly come to know the reality of it all if we only pray with a real intent to know the truth it contains, God promises that he will respond.

One last thing that I thought was really cool this week, the power of prayer is real. The first thing that began this last dispensation was a short scripture in the New Testament, the book of James,

"If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not;and it shall be given him."

That scripture is all about prayer and that power it has when you simply pray with faith. But the cool part is, at the end of the Book of Mormon, the last main principle is one of prayer, something that Joseph Smith did right at the beginning of his life as a prophet,

"Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts. And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things."

That is what we teach our investigators the first lesson, the power of prayer and the amazing chance we have to communicate with our Father in Heaven, directly with God Himself. I challenge everyone to talk with our Father in Heaven about everything that goes on in your life because I know he is interested in everything you are doing. Please pray to know of the truthfulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to grow your testimony of this wonderful work.

I know this Gospel is true and I know it can change the lives of anyone who is willing to open their heart to hear directly from our Father in Heaven.

-- Until next week,
Elder Corom Jones

"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." -John 8:32