Elder ZJones: Family

What a week and what a change! I'm in my new area with my new companion, Elder Burk, and we are lost! The area is huge and we are both new. We are helping our zone to accomplish their goals and to work hard in their areas. Much of the time during this past week, we have been contacting to find new people to teach because when we came there wasn't much to work with.

So we started contacting houses one by one. When we got to the third house we met a man outside. He was watering his plants and explained that his son doesn't believe in God. He invited us in and we taught his family. There are 8 in the family, but there are only 4 who have the interest in listening. The parents, Juan and Lorena, want to see a change in the family. We are teaching and trying to help them understand the importance of faith, that through faith they can see a change in the family. Two of their children, Gabriel and Ayalen, are interested in our message, as well. Gabriel does't  know if he believes in God, but wants to know. Pray for them, the Familia Vergara, that they will continue to grow in the gospel. They came to church with us yesterday and loved it!

We have the goal to find families this week. The gospel is centered in the family. Pray that as we work, we will find families that have a desire to change and accept the Savior in there lives!

Love you all! Have a great Week!

Elder Jones

Elder CJones: 17 Months

Well, this week was a pretty good week. The members began to help us with the missionary work and we began working with lots of references. The weather has gotten hot, like really hot, and it's a blessing when the members help us when it gets hot outside.

The heat really kills us and we have been looking for better ways to work so we aren't out in the sun so much. We thought that the help that we are getting with a few members will help grow the confidence between the rest of the members and is and then we will be able to have greater success.

This last week was Spring Break and the youth in the ward have been helping us reach their friends.

Junior, a young man that was baptized almost two years ago, is planning to serve a mission and he went out with us a couple times this week. He is honestly a really good teacher and understand the doctrine of the gospel so well that I know he will be a great missionary. On Tuesday, he took us  to visit his friend Jaqualine. She accepted a baptismal date and is really excited to come to church and learn more. If you can pray for her that her parents will have a more open heart to the gospel and let her come to church.

We also have been working with the Palomarez family. They are a member family that brought a friend to church and we are now teaching the friend and her two kids. They are really awesome. The mom will be getting baptized this week with her kids, we hope. Her kids are Ezmeralda and Junior, but not the same Junior who is planning to serve a mission haha.

Those are our people that Elder Ancco and I are teaching and focusing on at the moment, we are also trying to find more people to teach and it's getting a lot more difficult with the heat and humidity. Pray that we will be able to find some more people and families that are more willing to listen to the message of God.

So, something really interesting happened yesterday. We had stake conference and it was alright, not too well prepared, but it was good. Afterward, we got a ride to where we were going to eat and we got there before the family did so we waited outside in the shade on a small bench. As the family showed up, we saw a man coming toward us and he wanted to talk to us and we didn't feel the Spirit as he walked up and said that he wanted to talk to us.

At this point in the mission, a drunk is a normal thing to see and I know they always want to talk with us. I would have been fine with a drunk, but this was next level stuff. He started asking us who we were and what we were doing in business suits. We told him we had just returned from stake conference. He started telling us the he was the greatest guy ever and that all he had was thanks to Satan. This guy was a legit Satan worshipper! He rolled us his sleeve and he had a tattooed Satan on his arm and told us a bunch of trash about what he believed. He honestly just wanted to fight with us. We were kind to him even though he went off on a bunch of things. It was a very interesting experience.

Well, I have some really cool news!! Back in August and September, when I was serving in Valle Hermoso with Elder Hernandez, we baptized a mom and her daughter, Flora and Julieta. This week, Julieta will be finishing up her mission papers because when she completes a year in the church she wants to go on a mission!! It is one of the coolest things that you could ever hear, that your convert is not only active and serving in a calling in the church, but that they will be going on a mission!!! I am so excited for her!!

I absolutely love the mission and I know it blesses the life of the missionary and the people! Whoever has the chance to serve, do it!! It will only be the best thing you could ever do!!

Elder CJones: Rain and Blessings

God brings blessings when we do what we can for ourselves and then He makes up the rest.

"For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do" (2 Nephi 25:23). 

I am a witness of the truthfulness of this. Here on the mission, when we work hard, we are ensuring for ourselves the blessings straight from our Heavenly Father. It's only when we work hard that it's all possible!

This week with me and my companion was a lot better than the last. We started working harder together and started being more successful. This week was a lot of contacting and working hard to find as many people as we could to teach. There isn't much to share about contacting. We find people that are in the street and knock doors to find people that we can teach and that will listen to our message.

Saturday we got a huge rainstorm.

You see, in the United States, we have a government that loves us, contrary to what you way think. Here in Mexico, the government just does what they have to do, like fight the drug cartels in the streets that gets kind of scary. Another thing we don't have here in Meixco are storm drains in the street. The water just pools together and you just have to walk through it to make it across the street. Well Saturday, my backpack got soaking wet, my scriptures and other things were alright but the bag was soaking. We spent that day helping people push their cars out of the road and inviting people to come to church. It was actually a really good experience!!

I love this work, even though it is really really hard all the time. But, I love it! Oh and by the way, the music here in Mexico is so much better than the music in the US!

-- Elder Corom Jones

 "The best way to obtain truth and wisdom is not to ask from books, but to go to God in prayer, and obtain divine teaching." -Joseph Smith