Elder CJones: Elder Carrizales, Hair-cuts, Freezing Weather, and Workin'

Elder Carrizales and Elder Jones

Missionary work is the greatest thing I have ever done. That is a fact! It is also the hardest, most spiritual, most nerve racking, and most emotional thing that I have ever experienced in my entire life.

Right after my e-mail last week, I went to get a haircut. Now the only place that was open is a brand new place, that is a little weird, and the guys that cut our hair are, what we would call in the United States, gangsters. Sooo, my hair looks a little crazy, but the people love it and so do the APs and it really helps with the heat. Thus, my hair.

On Tuesday, I was taken to my new area, given a new companion and told to work really hard and gain experience with this companion who was going to train me. Well, train me better than my first companion. The area I am now serving in is called Bugambilias. Bugambilias is in the western side of Reynosa and the area is covers is very, very large. My companion is from Wyoming. He has been out 6 weeks longer than I have and we are already really, really good friends.

We work really well together and I am really thankful for a companion like him! Our days are long and hard. We work to cover as much area as possible and follow the directions using the Spirit to know which houses to contact and which streets to walk down. Our first day, we found a family of 4. I feel that they have been prepared for a long time for us to teach them. They have listened to the first three lessons, have set a date for themselves to get married, and now it is just times they come to church before we can baptize them. The hardest part about the work here is that it is very hard for us to get people to go to church. A lot of people don't like to sit and listen for three hours, but we work hard with them and contact them the morning before church so they will be ready to go so they can feel the Spirit and be converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

This week was filled with lessons and many people to teach as we walked a lot and worked hard to find people. At the moment, we are teaching over 10 people about the wonderful teachings and blessings that come from being members of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It's exciting to say, but this week we might have a couple of baptisms!! They are two little kids that love the missionaries, love church, and want to be baptized. One of the girls asked us for her own Book of Mormon and I bore my testimony to her of the wonderful teachings that are taught in that book.

Now, every week that I am out here I find something else to be thankful for. This week got really cold, down to 30 degrees F, and then with humidity added to that, it wasn't fun. No buildings have furnaces, not even the church, so we have to wear jackets and warm clothing to stay warm during the day. Our house has no insulation and the doors and walls do a very poor job at keeping the house warm. Our house is about the same temperature as it is outside. So, in our home it gets down to 30 degrees at night, but we are very lucky to have a heater in our room and it slowly blows in air at 90 degrees. Our room is amazing when it gets up to 65 degrees! We sleep with the heater on all night long.

This week I learned that I am really really grateful for the furnaces that we have back in the United States. This last week, while on the bus, I saw a movie list of movies that were playing in the theaters. I saw Rogue One and got really excited to see it after my mission. Since we are out on a mission, I began to think of how Star Wars relates to the Gospel in some way or another. Here is what I thought:

Jedis always travel in groups of 2. There is one master and one trainee. They wear certain clothes, Jedis Robes. They always carry their best tools with them, Lightsabers. They work really hard and have a great power, The Force. They work to bring good to the world.

Missionaries always travel in groups of 2. There is one senior comp and one junior comp. They wear certain clothes, white shirts and ties with a badge. They always carry their best tools with them, the Book of Mormon. They work really hard and have a great power, the Priesthood of God. They work to bring good to the world.

I love the way that we can teach, learn and relate popular culture to the Gospel, at times, and by going so, we can more easily teach the people around us and have them understand better the work of the Gospel.

I testify of the truthfulness of this work and the importance of turning our lives to the Savior in every aspect of our lives. I am a witness that as we participate and become pure disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have the power to change lives, our lives, and when we change our lives and turn to Christ, we will find the most, pure form of love and joy that is out there.

I testify that this Gospel is the only way to find everlasting happiness and as we come closer to our Father in Heaven, we will be eternally blessed.

-- Elder Corom Jones

“God does not begin by asking us about our ability, but only about our availability, and if we then prove our dependability, he will increase our capability.” -Neal A Maxwell

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Elder CJones: Transfers, New Year's, and the Atonement of Jesus Christ

This week has been very interesting, but before, I would like to apologize for my grammar. The Spanish language has really been messing with my speech and my writing so I will do my best to express myself.

First off, I'm getting transferred!! Transferred to a new area in the northern part of the city, which means more malos (People for the Cartel) and more poverty. I am so excited to start in this area and teach the people. The people here are so humble and such great members.

This week started with a goal, the goal was to teach at least 2 people the first lesson. Well, we taught one person and she will hopefully join the church in the future. The work this past week was super hard. The holidays are huge here in Mexico and we have to be very careful about what we do on the holidays. The people here throw on crazy parties and get so drunk that they have no idea where they are, they love to sing when they are drunk, so after all the parties, we can walk down the streets and hear drunk people singing to the radio.

New Years' Eve, what a day to remember, we had to be very careful in the streets, even more so in the evening. A family hosted us that night, we had some amazing food and had an awesome karaoke party.

Story time---

Before my mission, I took Spanish in Junior High and 3 years in High School, in the 5 years I had 3 teachers. My last teacher, Mr. Draper, I had for a year and a half, and was probably my favorite teacher ever. He loved music and loved soccer. He served his mission in Uruguay, and during the mission he was given the privilege to listen to the radio to learn Spanish. He listened and found some amazing groups to listen to. During class he would play these groups on the big speakers he had in his room. I liked this music and listened to some before my mission. There was one group, Reik, that I really loved and I listened to them all the time as I would practice my Spanish and I just loved the style. Eventually I memorized the lyrics to some of the songs and I would sing with it. Anyway, at the party, they started playing some of the songs that I know the lyrics to, so I started to sing with them and they were so shocked that I knew the words to the songs that they were playing. We continue to sing until we had to go home. The family was so great to host us for the night, there are 3 daughters in the family and they are all learning English, so we help each other with the languages.

Since I am being transferred, I was able to visit some of the members of the ward. I went to visit our ward mission leader as well as the bishop of the ward. The bishop reminds me of my dad years ago when he was the bishop. Our bishop has 3 little kids and they are off-the-walls crazy, so that would have been my brothers and me, and my mom had to take care of all of us. I love the people of this ward and I am going to be sad to leave, but I know that it's what the Lord needs of me, so I can grow and so I can bless the people in the other area.

I want to share with you a tender mercy of the Lord that was expressed these last 2 weeks. When I arrived to the field, I got to our house and it was a mess, there was so much junk everywhere, so the next few weeks when I would get the time to clean I would, I would find dead cockroaches, like 4 inches long, and I bunch of stuff, but one the the greatest things I found was a box of books. They are books about different subjects on the gospel and I was really interested in them. I asked the other missionaries and they said that they weren't their books so I took most of them and began looking through them. They are books by apostles, like James E Talmage. I stopped at one book, "The Peacegiver" by James L Ferrell. It's a book about the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I decided to read and as I read I learned so much about the book, I finished it in one night after we returned, this was the week before Christmas.After I finished, I went back through the book and studied the scripture references and the stories that we written in the book, everything that was shared was something that I needed to hear about me, and about my role and what I need to do to have the full power of the Atonement's expressed to me. It tells of two stories in the Bible, the stories of Abigail and David and also the story of Jonah and the example they both are for the Atonement. I know that Christ has cleansed all of us through the Atonement, that we can all overcome anything if we just show an open and willing heart to the Savior.

I love this work. I wish I could share it with everyone in the world. I have been out 76 days, 2 months and 15 days, and I have already seen my testimony grow and my understanding of the doctrines of the gospel have been a blessing to me as I have studied and applied the teachings to my life. I testify that through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we can overcome and accomplish anything. The Atonement is there for us to use so we can live with our Father in Heaven again.

I made some goals for this next year, I am going to give you a challenge. Find a way, in your talents or abilities, to share the gospel in your daily life. I know that if you do, you will see a flood of blessings in your life and the Spirit will be more prominent in your lives. I love this gospel and I am to thankful that I am about to share this joy with the world.
--
Elder Corom Jones

"Being mistreated is the most important condition of mortality, for eternity itself depends on how we view those who mistreat us."  --James L Ferrell