WANT TO HAVE A HUGE GIFT FOR CHRIST THIS DECEMBER!

hey mom

questions. yes the packages came. tell grammy thanks for me! not a whole lot to tell this week. pretty much all the new investigators we got are not progressing. we got one new investigator last week whos name is adrian. he was a reference and he has a fecha for the 17 of december. he already has a testimony of the book of mormon and is going to share what he knows with his family. he is an golden investigator. we havent found victoria since our first visit with her. we also had zone conference on friday. it was awesome. we set a goal for our area to have 4 baptisms in the month of december. want to have a huge gift for Christ this december! i also realized the Lord wants me to work on charity. i have had a lot of hints to it and it finally hit me in zone conference. so i am trying to be more charitable. well mom, i dont have much else to tell you. i love you and hope all is well! chau!

elder jones

A GOOD AREA IS MADE BY THE MISSIONARIES, NO?

hey mom!

how are you doing? the apartment is good. we still stay in in the mornings. its for the first two transfers with new missionaries. so yeah, being in an area for 6 to 9 months doesnt bother me i guess. i shouldnt worry about not having a good area. a good area is made by the missionaries, no? so i have to keep working and making this ward a better ward. last night we had a meeting with all the leaders and it didnt go very well. noone does their visiting teaching and the family orientation needs a lot of work here as well. so i have a lot cut out for me. but i know the Lord will guide me every step of the way.  well, not much is new, we only found six new investigators last week! i felt great! we went on divisions, me with elder camejo and elder liljenquist went with his comp in santa rosa. elder camejo is my district leader. so we found five investigators together and then the next day elder liljenquist and i found another. so i think its safe to say we had a good week. and we also have one person with a fecha! her name is victoria. she is an older woman with a couple grandkids now. she has a speech impediment i think and it looks like she doesnt understand us but she does. she also has bad nerves and cant sit still. but she said she will get baptized if she knows its true! so i dont have any complaints there. then yesterday i gave a talk on the ensign of august 2010. i changed my fear for love. it was great. afterwards an hermana came up and gave us a reference. so tonight we have an appointment with a member family and their friend. so we are going to sack out a baptismal fecha as well! so its going pretty well i would think. the Lord has blessed us very well this past week. i am not going to say we need to stop looking for people either. we still have to get working on finding more people. this week we are going to have zone conference with president detlefsen. its going to be awesome. i love zone conference and hearing president detlefsen. he is amazing. so i am hoping to have more fechas at the end of this week. it will be a lot easier that way to baptism when we have fechas planned out. well mom, i dont have a lot more time, but if you could send me the direction of your house, that would be great! i love you and take care!

elder jones

ps, happy thanksgiving! 

MY MISSION IS TURNING INTO STRAIGHT UP HIDE AND SEEK

I always try to send positive emails to Taylor to let him know I am proud of him and what he is doing, but not having served a mission I don't feel like I know what to say to him when things are so hard. If any of you that have served missions can give him some advice to pump him up I would sure appreciate it! It would be so awesome if he could get a ton of dearelder.com letters for Christmas!!!!


hola mi vieja

well another week down. not much to report here. president detlefsen  sent out a letter saying that we are now going to be in each area for quite a while. apparently for at least six months, up to 9 months. thats what he said anyway. enrique, still havent found him, joaquin and olessia we have basically dropped. we need new investigators. i have never been good with finding new investigators. i dont know what it is with me. i just need to keep changing myself to try and find out where Gods children are hiding that want to hear the gospel! my mission is turning into straight up hide and seek. hopefully this week turns something up. we got a reference from the zone leaders and they seem pretty solid. pablo and deborah se llaman. i am hoping we can get them taught this week. i called them on saturday and they said they were out of town but would call us when they got back. he is the nicest person ever from what he sounded like on the phone! i have a really good feeling about them. but well wait and see. we are still working with the guaymas family. not much happening there. o yesterday, we ate with the bishop. the day before was his sons birthday and they had a whole lamb cooked! so we ate the leftovers. it was so delicious! then they broght out this wierd looking piece of meat with ribs and i tried it and turns out it was peludo, o sea armadillo! i ate armadillo. and ya know what, i really liked it. so i came to the conclusion that i want to get into hunting when i come home. a lot of people hunt here in la pampa and i want to try it out. be a good way to get food. i almost forgot. i am going to send my sd card your way in the mail. it apparently fried. i dont want to try and fix it here in argentina. then again, i dont know if its fixable. but its my sd card with ALL my pics of the mission. i dont know how its fried but i have hope that it can be fixed! so please be a miracle worker! i am gonna lose pics from the first half of the mission if its done, :,( but yes. that all i have for you mom. yeah... i love you mom!

elder jones 

WHEN THEY READ AND PRAY THEY GET CLOSER TO BAPTISM

hey mom

everything is fine. not much to report. another week here in toay. we werent able to find "e", which was a bummer. "j" and "o" is a toughie. last night we taught them the importance of prayer and at the end had joaquin pray. we also got them to understand why they need to read and pray. gave them the vision concerning what happens when the read and pray, that being, they get closer to baptism. still dont have a fecha though. we really are just in the search for new people. its been like that every where i go and i am starting to realize that every where i go as well. i still got to keep honing my skills on the search process. mom, i dont have much time but know i love you! 

elder joens

YOU CAN'T BUILD A TOWER WITHOUT THE SCREWS.

hey mom.

yeah, since i hit the year mark, i feel old and my whole body hurts. its not fun! i want to go back to having a good ole 11 months and 29 days in the mission! i felt great then! the new apartment is fine. we have to buy a lot of stuff for it though. so yeah, for now we dont have a shower cutain, curtains for the windows, forks, plates, cups, shelves. so its an interesting exp thus far jaja for my comp. elder l. is doing great. he speaks good and is getting better every day. for the training with new missionaries now, we dont leave in the mornings. its kinda lame but we study all morning. o well. we didnt find our investigator last week. he was gone. so i dont know if he will get baptized now. so yeah, i am not sure what we will do with him. we found a couple who is married this last week though. she is from russia. shes been here 14 years. but we taught them the book of mormon and its importance and we need to go back and verify to see if they prayed or not. i think there is some potential there. but yeah, i have been learning a lot each week. its amazing how much one grows spiritually in the mission. i absolutely love it! i cant believe its almost over. time to put it in overdrive though and start working even harder! i want to get out and find newbies! the hardest part for me though is open my mouth and talk with EVERYONE. there are a lot of people here who just work outside and me personally i dont like interrupting them while they work. that is something i am working on though. so yeah, i really just and trying to work on the little things. i came up with the analogy thingy last week. you cant build a tower without the screws. so i am trying to look for the screws to build my tower o sea, i am trying to do the little things so i can see the miracle. god is a god of miracles, not magic. we have to work for our miracles. well mom, i love you! chau!

elder jones

THEY SAY THE FIRST YEAR GOES BY SLOW. I DOUBT THAT.

TODAY WAS A GREAT DAY! I woke up to a letter from Taylor's mission president!! It was only a copy of a letter he had given to Taylor last week as a new trainer, but nonetheless it made my day!! I love my boy!!


hey mom!

i really cant believe i am at the year mark! its crazy. they say the first year goes by slow. i doubt that. it went by super fast. i dont know what they all talk about. but yeah, so my kid is here! his name is elder liljenquist. you dont say the j in his name. he is from florida. he talks rather well for a newbie and still doesnt understand about anyone but he is way cool. i forgot to bring my camera to send you a picture but yeah. i may do it next week. so i had to go to bahia on tuesday and we were there all day then came back late wednesday night. so we lost a whole day of work. but not much happened. we found a less active family and the parents arent members. so we are trying to get them to come to church and also get the parents married and then baptize them. the mom is waiting on some divorce papers but o well. not much to do but teach them and animate them to go to church. and yesterday a random dude showed up to church with some family members and turns out he is not a member. his name is richard. he is about 25 and doenst know how to read. but we taught him the restoration in church and are going to go back on wednesday to see how his prayers went. i think we could baptize him next week! i really want to see him get baptized. he is pretty cool and yeah. so we really just need to keep looking for new investigators and all. and i am trying to not talk in english to my comp. he wants to learn as fast as he can. so we are giving up on english for a little bit! well mom i love you and thanks for everything! until next monday when i have a year in the mission! jaja chau!

love elder jones

I AM STILL HAPPY AS CAN BE! IT'S THE LORD'S WORK AFTER ALL!

hi mom.

you have more stuff to send me? wow, that is a lot! i dont know if i will have stuff in my suitcases. well, i did get the package from the young women. send them my love! i loved everything in there. even down to the hawaiin punch. those are amazing! so last week not much happened. new problems surfaced with the contract. it was made in my name and here to set up the gas and electricity, you have to take the company the contract. so i was backed up on the contract for the rent and all, so if someone didnt pay the rent i wouldnt be put on trial, but if the missionaries didnt pay the gas or light, i would have been the one to roast for it. so i have to take the contract to bahía blanca wednesday. o i didnt tell you. elder gonzalez left this weekend for mar del plata. it was transfers. i dont know who my comp is yet. i am with an elder soto right now from chile. he is here with me until we go down to bahía blanca to pick up our NEW MISSIONARIES! i am going to train! woohooo! i am so excited! i cant wait to have a new missionary under my wings! its gonna be awesome. i dont know how i will do but i want to try my best. i know i will get someone who is perfect for me to teach and at the same time i can learn a lot from him. i am going to miss elder gonzalez though. it was an awesome transfer with him even though we didnt baptize. i learned a lot about myself and about the mission. i really just need to be more straight forward as a missionary. i was/still am a timid missionary and dont like dropping the cane on the people here. but i am a missionary and need to call the people to repentence. its my calling. also, i have been thinking lately a lot about what i am going to do after the mission. i have no idea what job i want, what i want to do with school and all that. but i know i should not worry until the time comes. i also am learning that i need to just stop ignoring my problems but just take them head on when the arise. its a lot easier in the long run that way. familia guaymás is still not progressing. we are trying hard with them and all but its just not going well, i promised elder gonzalez i wouldnt give up on them. well mom, i love you! take care! 

elder joens

ps, i am still happy as can be! its the Lords work after all!