M_L_G_A

Can you guess where I´m going to serve next? Málaga! And not only that, but I´m going to serve there as a sister training leader. That means that I´ll have the opportunity to go on exchanges with other sister missionaries and learn from them and teach them. I´m super excited! But also super nervous. It´s a big deal, and I don´t feel completely ready, but the Lord qualifies whom He calls.
Well, that was the big announcement that came on Saturday. On Monday, our ward mission leader (A member from the ward here who helps us organize our missionary work in the ward) and his wife took us to La Manga, which is really cool. How do I explain it...There´s the coast of spain, and then theres an island that´s suuuuuper thin that´s attached to one end of Spain by a bridge. The mediteranean sea is on one side (the Big Sea), and then between the island (that almost connects on the other side) is called the Smaller Sea. The Smaller sea is a lot warmer, and saltier, and not as deep, so it´s a great place for families and people to swim. But La Manga is the city that is on this island (la manga means ¨sleeve¨) and in some places, it´s only about 500 feel wide, and you can see the two seas super close. All of you should go Google it, because I don´t think I explained it well haha. But it's cool!

Then my companion went to be trained how to be a trainer in Malaga for two days, so I stayed with the other sister missionaries here in Cartagena. And then I went on an exchange with the sister training leaders in alicante (an exchange is when there are two pairs of missionaries, and one person from each pair switches for a day or so in order to teach and learn from each other. The missionaries in Alicante are sister training leaders; In this next transfer, I´ll be doing exchanges like them.) and it was fun. When I finally returned, it was friday, and we were able to visit a few people. We spent Saturday doing our normal missionary work, and Sunday as well.

But I stayed up last night to pack :( I´m leaving Cartagena on wednesday, but my companion leaves on tuesday to pick up the new missionary, so today is really my last day in Cartagena. So sad! But I´ve worked hard and done all that I can here, and I know the Lord is proud of that. I´m leaving Cartagena in good hands; Hermana Adrian is AWESOME and her next companion (a brand new missionary) is super lucky. 

 
Well, I hope you all had a good week! I heard the Seahawks are going to the Super Bowl.....I´ll be cheering for them from here!

Love and miss you all,
Hermana Jones

Mediterranean Sea

Mediterranean Sea

Smaller Sea, all taken from La Manga

"Of course I'm going to be a missionary!"

One of the people who was recently baptized, Brian, said this. His father doesn´t like the church, and his mother likes it but isn´t very supportive, and he still wants to serve the Lord. (He´s 14, so it´ll be a few years still.)

Well :) This week was awesome! It started out a bit rough...from Monday to Friday, we had taught 7 lessons in total, and it made me very nervous. One of our goals this week was to teach 20 lessons during the week, and it didn´t look like we were going to make it. But then,on Saturday and Sunday, things BOOMED and we taught more than the 20 lessons that we had planned. So that was really cool, and a lesson for me that when we make worthy goals, ask for the Lord´s help, and do all we can to acheive those goals, He will help us.

Thursday we went on a search to find a reference from a member. We didn´t know this part of Cartagena well, called Santa Lucia, but we had our map and were doing fine. We walked through a place called Los Mateos, that is really pretty, but a very poor area. As we were walking, we noticed that the streets were SILENT because everyone was staring at us. Eventually two nice young men stopped us and said, in english, ¨You shouldn´t be here.¨ (I guess we looked like we didn´t belong haha) Apparently, Los Mateos is a zone where the missionaries don´t usually go, because it´s dangerous. The men who stopped us had lived in Utah for a while and were very familiar with our church, so it was cool to meet them, and if only for that, I think the trip was worth it. But we won´t be going back haha.

And then on thursday, Isabel finally was baptized! The day was CRAZY for us: We had to pick up another missionary and then drop her off a few hours later, and buy refreshments for the baptism and eat and then run to member´s houses to get some keys for the church building....it was a lío (aka mass confusion) but we were able to do it so that Isabel didn´t feel any stress and was able to just enjoy her baptism. The Spirit was very strong, and I loved it.

And then, yesterday, Hermana Adrian (my companion who just finished 3 months in the mission) received a phone call from our mission president asking if she would trian a new missionary. How cool is that???? We´re both super excited, and she´s totally ready to be a trainer. Our area has had a bunch of new missionaries ( me, hermana Adrian, and now the new hermana who will come in a week or so) but it´s awesome cuz new missionaries bring a type of enthusiasm that older missionaries don´t have. BUT it does mean that I´m officially leaving Cartagena next week....on the 20th or 21st I´ll leave for another part of Spain. I´ll let you know exactly where next week!

I love and miss you all! Have a great week,
Hermana Jones

Brian and I

Me, Isabel, and Hermana Adrian at Isabels´s baptism

Feliz Nuevo Año!

I don´t have a good quote this week...I was sick yesterday and still am a bit sick with a cold, so I didn´t pay attention very well haha. But it´s all good!

We´ve seen a bunch of miracles this week. One huge one was with a woman named Socorro. (it means ¨relief¨ in spanish) She´s from spain, catholic, and elderly, and everyone says that it´s really hard to get through to those people. And it is! haha We´ve been working with her for MONTHS and haven´t had any progress, but everytime we prayed about it, we felt like we should keep teaching her and her husband Mariano. (This is the couple who always invites other people to the lessons; their catholic friends and neighbors, and their reverends too haha.)

Well. This week we went in and talked just with Socorro about how she was feeling about the gospel. She said she´d pray about it that night, and so we told her we´d come back the next day. I wasn´t expecting much (a sure sign that I need to have more faith haha) but she told us that she received the answer that yes, this church was true. Hermana Adrian and I didn´t say anything cuz we were so shocked :) I learned that the Lord loves His children, and He will guide them where they need to go.

Well....New years was very interesting. We went over to the same family that we stayed with for Christmas, and ate a TON of seafood. It was all delicious, but it was stuff I had never tried before. I ate shrimp (like...they cook the shrimp whole and then you have to break off their heads and tails and pick apart their shells to eat it. It was a ton of work) and mussels and these little baby fish that are fried and a big fish called ¨Dorado¨ (like from the movie El Dorado; it means golden). Very interesting. And then, in Spain, they have this tradition where you have 12 grapes. In the 12 seconds before the new year, you have to make a wish and try to eat one grape a second or your wish won´t come true. It was very stressful hahaha but fun.

I miss you all and hope your holidays were great!

Love,
Hermana Jones

Whenever I don't want to do something

...I leave behind my ¨don´t want¨ and I do it.¨ That´s a quote from one of the Sunday meetings this week, and I loved it! When we are in the service of our God, there will be some things that we just don´t want to do. I, for example, would love to get more sleep here haha. But I get a full 8 hours, and I know that each day, the Lord has other things planned for me to do for His work than an extra hour of sleep. 

 
Well! It´s almost Christmas! And I´ll have been in Spain for six months! It´s cazy to think about... It feels like it´s flown by, but it also feels like a REALLY long time. I miss all of you a ton, but only a year left! A year and a half to give everything to the Lord isn´t much that He´s asked of me :)

We were visiting a less active member the other day, and he asked us, ¨how´s the work going?¨ We said wonderful, and we´ve seen so many miracles. He replied, ¨Where? I´ve lived here for 6 years and haven´t seen a single miracle.¨ So we explained about a few miracles that we´ve seen this week.
One of them was that we found an investigator that we hadn´t seen in MONTHS. Her name´s Glenda...I´ve talked about her before, how amazing she is. I hope she can still feel the Spirit and be a little bit more open to following God´s commandments.

And then, there were two baptisms in our ward this week, and when Isabel, our investigator, saw them, she completely changed. She hasn´t smoked, has been reading the Book of Mormon, and praying morning and night. She´s awesome, and might be baptized this Sunday. 

I hope you all have a great Christmas week! The members of the Church here are taking good care of us; we have two or three eating appointments every day haha :)
Thanks for your emails and cards!

Love,
Hermana Jones

We Can't Be Scared

"...When we´re scared, it means that there is something more that we should do, that we aren´t doing." One of the leaders in the church here said this, and sorry for the weird translation haha. It sounds better in spanish :P
Well! It was a great week. We had an open house in the church, which was a success. We had a few investigators there, and they were taught about where they came from, their purpose here, and where they´re going. They´re questions that are so important, but many people don´t know the answers.


We had plenty of miracles this week, but also some really frustrating events. We´re teaching a few people who are smokers, and trying to help them quit is stressing me out. One, Isa, is a woman who has been through so much and is still fighting even when she should have given up a long time ago. She wants to quit smoking, and wants to change her life, but she doesn´t have a big enough reason to do it yet. We´ve been focusing on the Book of Mormon, to help her build faith in Jesus Christ, because He is the only one who can help her have more determination and resolve to change. I have such a testimony now of the Word of Wisdom (the health code that God revealed to Joseph Smith; in it, it says not to drink alcohol or to smoke.). Tobacco ruins lives! Ack. Frustrating.


BUT. I´ve been reading this talk by Elder Jeffery R. Holland that is called, ¨None were with Him.¨ In it, it talks about how completely along Jesus was. On the cross, He says, ¨My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?¨ Elder Holland says that this wasn´t God abandoning Christ; in order to make a complete atonement, Jesus had to not only suffer for our sins, but also feel how we feel when we sin: God´s spirit, the Holy Ghost, leaves us, and we feel completely alone. That must have been incredibly hard for Jesus, who had never sinned, and so had never felt separated from His Father. Elder Holland says this afterward, ¨But Jesus held on. He pressed on. The goodness in Him allowed faith totriumph even in a state of complete anguish. The trust He lived by toldHim in spite of His feelings that divine compassion is never absent, thatGod is always faithful, that He never flees nor fails us.¨


It´s good to remember what Christ did for us, and how He did it.
I hope you all have a great week! Christmas here isn´t the same as in the states, but it´s still fun, with all the lights and presents :)


Love you all!
Hermana Jones

"If Christ were here right now, where would He be?"

(Besides on Sundays, when He´d be in church, of course haha) One of the Sunday teachers asked that question, and it made me think. I think that, if He was walking in Cartagena, He´d stop and talk to all the poor people, the ones who need His help. It´s a good reminder that, even though Christmas time is super happy and fun for most of us, it can be a sad time for others, being away from their family and friends, or unable to buy their kids presents. 

 
Well, this week was great! It was busy and interesting. We talked to a lot of people on the street about Jesus Christ. The Church has this program now, called He is the Gift (I think...it´s ¨El es la Dádiva in Spanish haha). There´s a cool video on Mormon.org about Christ, and how He is the greatest Christmas gift our Father in Heaven could have ever given us. 

 
Well, I thought I´d update you all on some of the people here. There´s Brian, the guy who was baptized about two months ago. He´s still going strong, wants to receive the priesthood, go to the temple and go on a mission. There are days when I think, ¨Man, even if I just came to Cartagena for him, it would be completely worth it.¨ He´s just so great. I´m so blessed to be a part of his search for God. It makes me realize that there ARE people who want to know God, and who need to know that He loves them. I get to be a messenger of that message...it´s the best :)

Let´s see...Our other ¨recent convert¨, Monica, is a little bit worse. She works in something called ¨Interna¨ which means you go and live in an old persons home and take care of them 24 hours a day. The people she watches over, an old man and woman, don´t let her have books of other religions, or pray out loud, or have Sundays off to go to the church. And so she´s forgotten a lot of what it is that we do in Church, and what we believe, and how to talk to God. It´s super sad. BUT we got back in touch with her, so I hope things will start to improve. Poor thing. Her kid is due in January.

Oh! The other big news: Transfer calls came, and I´m staying here in Cartagena! Transfers are every 6 weeks for missionaries, and I have already been in Cartagena for almost 5 months, so I wasn´t sure if I was staying. I´m super happy I am staying though, because we´re still in the middle of the 3 month training for Hermana Adrian, and I just love Cartagena so much :) 

 
Speaking of Hermana Adrian, I´ve been learning some cool words from her in Spanish. Since she´s from the Dominican Republic, and it´s pretty close to the States, they use a lot of English words. But, for example, there are a bunch of words that mean cool: guay (guh-why), chulo (chooo-low), and jevi (pronounced ¨Heavy¨ and it means SUPER cool). Here they also use words like ¨okay¨ and ¨shopping¨ and ¨feeling¨. It´s very interesting to see how they picked up some american culture.

I love you all! I hope you have a wonderful week.

Hermana Jones

12/1/2014

Hi! We had a GREAT week here :) I left my agenda in the appartment, so I don´t remember everything we did...I´ll go in reverse order to see if I can remember more.

Sunday: Church! It was amazing, the Primary Program. This is when the little kids are in charge of the Sacrament Meeting, and they share their testimonies and sing...It´s the best. We had quite a few investigators there, and they all loved it.

We also ate lunch with a member family. The father is a doctor, so it was cool to talk to him about that. And the food was SO good...

Saturday: We had an activity in the church with the three wards in this area. It was a Game Day: there were board games, basketball, ping-pong... a 14 year old member and I won like 5 games of Foosball :) But now I have blisters on my hands haha.
Friday: ...I can´t remember...haha

Well, you´ll just have to believe me when I say that it was an awesome week haha :) Today was fun as well. Some members took my district hiking, and we went to an old Spanish military base. There were these HUGE cannons that we were able to enter and look around. It was amazing, and super nice to just be able to chill and enjoy hanging out. In an hour we hit the streets again to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. But I wouldn't want to do anything else...I feel like I have the best "job" in the world. The people here are super nice and I love Spain, especially with all the holidays. And I get to talk about Jesus Christ every day...it's awesome :)

I hope you all have an amazing week!

       my district :) Elders Robinson, Erickson, Whetten, H. Adrian, me, and Elder Allen

The Mediterranean Sea !!!!!