Elder HJones: 2019!!!

So we are starting to see more progress in our area. We have found more people that have the desire to learn more and follow Christ! But the sad thing is, I am leaving. We had transfers. But the transfer is really small. I will be in the same branch, and will just be changing areas. My new companion is Elder Ambao from the Phillipians (thinking maybe I can learn a third language...??).

This past transfer was a little difficult. We worked a ton but didn't see the progress that we wanted to see. We found some awesome people and families, but they didn't progress and didn't want to act. Sometimes its frustrating when you do everything you can and they still don't want anything. But I'm sure that's how God feels. He does everything in His power to help us. He answers prayers, sends revelation, send other people to help us. But in the end we have agency. God can do everything in His power to help us, but we have to accept it and do it.

But now I am excited to be in a new area and find new people to teach!

Elder HJones: The Reason We Attend Church

So this week was really good. We found some really cool people to teach.

One of the greatest things on the mission is when people listen to your message and make the steps to come unto Christ. The past couple weeks had been kinda slow. We didn't have many investigators progressing. But this week, some investigators have been progressing. They are listening to us more and keeping their commitments. It brings me so much joy when people come closer to Christ.

One of the hardest things on the mission is parents. When we teach younger people we need permission from parents. It is hard when the boy or girl is progressing and ready for baptism and then their parents prevent it. It's like the parents take away the agency from their kids. So that's kinda hard to consume, that parents prevent their children from becoming a member. But it's okay. Maybe my job is just to introduce the church or plant a small seed in a person or family.

I learned something really important this week.

Our stake here in Chile has a new "rule" for sacrament meeting. If you are not on time to receive the sacrament, you wont be able to take it. So, if you want to take the sacrament, you need to be on time!!

This is hard for people in Chile, because nobody is ever on time. Chile is famous for running late. But I guess it might be hard for anybody. But I thought about this and learned something important.
The reason we go to church is to partake of the sacrament. We sacrifice three hours of our day to attend church and take the sacrament. If renewing our covenants with God and becoming clean again is so important to us, we would do everything possible to be on time.

Weeks are crazy for me. Sometimes it's hard to just relax and think. But it is during the sacrament I can. I feel so much peace and love of my Savior during the sacrament. I feel like its personal time for me to think of Christ and the wonderful things He did for me. Its important to me to partake of the sacrament EVERY WEEK, and I hope it is for you, too.

Love you all, Elder Jones

Elder CJones: Agency and Action

"Infuse your life with action. Don't wait for it to happen. Make it happen. Make your own future. Make your own hope. Make your own love. And whatever your beliefs, honor your creator, not by passively waiting for grace to come down from upon high, but by doing what you can to make grace happen... yourself, right now, right down here on Earth." -Bradley Whitford

This week was a lot better than the last because it was full of action and less reaction. I am not perfect and I did react a lot. But I was a lot better this week. One thing I have been learning out here is that I am not even close to being humble. The Lord is constantly humbling me to be a better person.

Last week, I shared a little bit about action and that we need to act in place of reaction. This week, I studied that subject a little more and I have been trying to apply more to my life. I am studying the subject a lot more and I would like to share my testimony about agency.

Adversity seems to be a bad thing. Adversity is a trial or hardship that we encounter during our lives. In the truth, adversity is a blessing. "Opposition will not be allowed to overcome us." The Lord gives us trials to see how we will act and if we will be humble enough to learn from our problems and circumstances. “It is not on the pinnacle of success and ease where men and women grow most. It is often down in the valley of heartache and disappointment and reverses where men and women grow into strong characters.”

The mission brings a lot of trials. It's the hardest thing I have ever done. 24 hours a day we work to bring and find people that want to have these grand blessings. Sometimes I question why I decided to do this, I could be back home: driving (I miss that a lot), shopping, chilling, watching basketball, with family, hiking, there are countless things. But I know this mission was my choice and I am glad I made it. This is my choice and no one else's. Through the trials I have had here, I know I have grown. I know I have progressed in these past 195 days. My testimony has been strengthened through the trials and hard times. I am excited to see what life has it store for me.

"An old cowboy said he had learned life’s most important lessons from Hereford cows. All his life he had worked cattle ranches where winter storms took a heavy toll among the herds. Freezing rains whipped across the prairies. Howling, bitter winds piled snow into enormous drifts. Temperatures might drop quickly to below zero degrees. Flying ice cut into the flesh. In this maelstrom of nature’s violence most cattle would turn their backs to the ice blasts and slowly drift downwind, mile upon mile. Finally, intercepted by a boundary fence, they would pile up against the barrier and die by the scores.

“But the Herefords acted differently. Cattle of this breed would instinctively head into the windward end of the range. There they would stand shoulder-to-shoulder facing the storm’s blast, heads down against its onslaught.

“‘You always found the Herefords alive and well,’ said the cowboy. ‘I guess it’s the greatest lesson I ever learned on the prairies—just face life’s storms’”

For the moment, we may have a difficult situation like the winter blizzards, but we have two choices at that point: to act like the Herefords, or be acted upon like the other cattle. We can choose to tough it out and show God that we can do it as well, learn something about ourselves along the way. Or, we can turn away and let somebody or something else decide how we will act and follow the fiery darts of the adversary. “When we are pushed, stung, defeated, embarrassed, hurt, rejected, tormented, forgotten—when we are in agony of spirit crying out ‘why me?’ we are in a position to learn something”

--
Elder Corom Jones

(See "Adversity" speech from Dallin H. Oaks for these quoted references)

"Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong." -2 Corinthians 12:10

Elder CJones: Hard Times and Blessings

“My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with failure.”
-Abraham Lincoln

Exchanges with Elder Mendoza

Missions are not easy at all. I would say that it is probably the hardest thing I will ever do. They are good times and bad times. There is success and there is failure. There is an opposition in all things.

I read a letter from my mother many times this week. Along with that letter she had attached a talk given by Dallin H. Oaks many years ago. He related a story of something he had read:

“I walked with my friend, a Quaker, to the newsstand the other night, and he bought a paper, thanking the newsie politely. The newsie didn’t even acknowledge it.

“‘A sullen fellow, isn’t he?’ I commented.

“‘Oh, he’s that way every night,’ shrugged my friend.

“‘Then why do you continue to be so polite to him?’ I asked.

“‘Why not?’ inquired my friend. ‘Why should I let him decide how I’m going to act?’

“As I thought about this incident later, it occurred to me that the important word was ‘act.’ My friend acts toward people; most of us react toward them. He has a sense of inner balance which is lacking in most of us; he knows who he is, what he stands for, how he should behave. He refuses to return incivility for incivility, because then he would no longer be in command of his conduct”

There is one thing that I've always had to work on in my life--how I act. This story has taught me something about my actions. I shouldn't let other people's actions depend on how I act. I need to act, not react. I need to be the one of action.

Relaxing before lunch arrives

Before this world here on the earth, we were Intelligences, as is says in the scriptures. There, we as Intelligences, could act for ourselves and not be acted upon. We are the ones that perform the action. This is what gives us our agency.

Through Agency, we lost 1/3 of our spiritual brothers and sisters because of this law that needed and still needs to be kept. Satan, from the beginning, has wanted to take away our agency and that is exactly what he does when we react to people. When we react, we are letting something else choose how we will express ourselves. The Lord wants us to use choice, our agency, so when we act towards something, as stated above, we are using our agency for good.

This week and for the rest of my life I will be bettering my usage of agency. I am going to choose to act instead of react.

The mission is hard, as I stated before. It's not easy to walk in the sun and humidity everyday.  It's not easy to express and teach the most important message of all time in a different language that I have only been speaking for six months. But I know that the Lord is testing me for two years to see how I will act and not react.

--
With Love from Rio Bravo, Mexico,
Elder Corom Jones

"Our responses will inevitably shape our souls and ultimately determine our status in eternity. Because opposition is divinely decreed for the purpose of helping us to grow, we have the assurance of God that in the long view of eternity it will not be allowed to overcome us if we persevere in faith. We will prevail. Like the mortal life of which they are a part, adversities are temporary. What is permanent is what we become by the way we react to them."  -Elder Dallin H. Oaks

With a 1960 Ford Mustang GT