Last Week in the Mission Field

**First part of Katelyn's letter to mom**

Awe mom when I read this email I screamed and cried loud!!!!!! Ha Ha I am very much so excited to see you and Dad and Jaden and the whole family! I just can't believe that it's already here! And my companions now think I'm nuts because I was dancing around and scream when I heard sister Patterson and I will be roommates!! She just emailed and told me about it too! 

I love you so much mom! I'm so excited to hug you and hear your voice, I have frequently heard your and Dad's voice throughout my mission just
guiding me into making better decisions and what not. I love you, don't think I'm disappointed to be coming home at all! Kentucky has been my home away from home and I'm grateful for the opportunity to have served in this mission and the Lord.
I hope your week goes well, and that you and dad and Jaden find joy and peace this week. I love you so much and keep up your head and I will see you soon!
-Love,
 Katelyn❤️

Dear family and friends!
We have had a crazy week! I am putting more pictures on here for the sake of time! Haha well we had sisters conference and man was it just crazy fun! Saw my MTC buddies and we were sad because this was our last picture as a group together! I can't believe I'm shipping out. But I know Heavenly
Father is leading me down a good path! 

Cool thing is I am going to be rooming with one of my mission companions at school! Yay! Sister
Patterson and I will be playing it up like old companions again! I have loved my mission so much. I know that Heavenly Father has given
me the best experience ever. I feel like I am exactly who He expected me to be. One lesson I have learned on my mission is nothing can be
done without the Atonement of Jesus Christ and I must rely on Him in order to find peace and progress. I love my savior and I hope to be standing side by side with the general authorities when I also say
that I know He lives. We got to watch conference with a returning member and it was so powerful to hear their talks that were revolved around the answers that she needs. I know God is mindful and loving of all of us.

I will love and miss you all who are here in Kentucky-Indiana and Illinois. Keep moving forward, trusting in the lord, and being OBEDIENT. 

Sincerely and with great Love from the GKLM,

Sister Katelyn Jones

I hope to hear from you all soon, if you desire, here is my email and address to reach me at: katelynfromKentucky@gmail.com, 
202 N. 3700 E. Rigby, Idaho 83442

"Oh What Fun, Three Will Be"

Dear One and All,

     Oh my lanta where do I even begin?

      Well I'm in a trio and it is the most fun than I have had since forever. This has probably been the best week and most needed one!

      Sister Peterson is a fireball and loves to laugh and Sister Glad is the sweetest and kindest and most intelligent new missionary there ever was :)

     We took selfies galore and had fun getting Sister Glad into the thick of things ;)


      The first day together was a doozy but goody. We biked ALL DAY LONG and I think that both of the sisters were about to hurt me, haha but they are getting used to it now! but how much I truly love bike areas!

      So bike issues are a for real troublesome issue and it was Sister Petersons day! Apparently the rotten kiss in our apartment complex had kicked the little gear changing do-bobber and bent it and so the chain wouldn't change properLy and so her peddles started going ten times faster than she was used to. So Sister Hale picked our stranded butts up and we crammed three bikes into her mini van and went over to the bike store (mind you I haven't had to go at all in the last five months!) Then it was mine and Sister Glad's turn to be embarrassed haha.  Sister Glad had issues with her boots that we're giving her horrible blisters (sound familiar?) so we went home changed and grabbed our bikes and went onward. Then we stopped to look for a potential and Sister Glad moans "I just ripped my nylons" Bahahahaha! It was great!

      Then I pulled my iPad and a beautiful feminine item came flying right out to the ground with it. We were parked on the corner of a really busy corner- peachy. However we busted out laughing even harder that before.

      Every single appointment fell through this week except a couple so we were pretty much contacting and Tracking it on true shows Sister Peterson and I getting uncomfortable and actually yelling at a woman who I had no clue who she was, first asking for the weather report she had heard about and then contacting her. She wasn't interested but we made really good friends with her.  I think Sister Glad thinks we are freaks because Sister Peterson and I
have been slightly crazy this week but we have enjoyed every minute of this companionship! 

Role playing to sister star keys lovely picture! YES. :) so cute! ;)

      I'm so grateful that I could spend my last two weeks with these beautiful sisters- kinda jealous of Sister Glad's new adventure but hey we all have to start somewhere right?!

      Anyway we watched the woman's broadcast on Saturday night and it was great! I loved the fact that we are asked to do even more service and holy crow I'm not giving that up ever! I believe wholeheartedly in serving God's children, so I was grateful to hear about the refugees.


      Well I love you all, there was so much this week I didn't even cover but they are better tales to tell later :) Keep on loving the Lord and doing His will!

Love, 

Sister Katelyn Jones

Training a trainer who is training a trainee

Dear One and All,

     So the verdict is I stay for my last three weeks here in bluegrass west! :D and we are going to be in a trio! :D A Sister Peterson is coming and she will training. Haha hint the title of my email:)

      Well not much to report other than it was non- trunky week for Sister Ferrell haha she goes home tomorrow and yet is probably one of the least trunkiest missionaries in the world haha. We both got new pants from a member who was unable to wear them so we tried them on and took a picture! Weird! No tent-skirt on!

     Went to a Chinese restaurant and had a few fortunes: one about the Atonement and the other about faith>>take your guess which one it is!

     The Spirit was so strong and I saw so many members from the Richmond ward and hugged them and oh man it's been a great week!

     That's all for now! Love you all and I hope your week goes by well in preparation for the Easter weekend!
Love, Sister Jones

The HOT Brown in the Springtime!

Hello family and friends!

      This week doesn't have much to report but we have been working hard and found several new investigators to teach. And we had three
investigators at church!:D yay! Haha I think they were slightly freaked out though. This because they talked about temples and also walked in late (us missionaries not even knowing that they showed up)
and so they must have been confused the entire time. 

     Haha left early but oh well, more of an opportunity to explain later!

Spring is here! Yay! So I took pictures of sister Ferrell :)

      We have a woman we are teaching that I have only mentioned a few times but we taught her the word of wisdom this week and it went well, however the hard thing is EVERYONE drinks around-- that will be our goal is getting her away from the drink! Anyway, she had two strokes a while back that affected her physical ability, so her house has been terrible. We offered to come and clean it. Sister Heilig came :) and oh man....just in three and a half hours, we only got to her living room and dining room. Some of the grossest things I saw on my mission but I held my breath and endured haha :) finally we got done and Ellie was so grateful! Coolest experience ever! 

So here is The Hot Brown: the wares ( a part member less active family) invited us to come for dinner to cook us something "Kentucky" that we haven't eaten yet ;)

     It's: a slice of bread, slices of sandwich turkey and ham, white gravy, bacon, tomato and melted cheese on top from the oven heat ☺️ oh my it was quite delicious it doesn't seem so but it was a delight!


      So sister Ferrell goes home next week -_- I love HER SO MUCH. I'm gonna miss her a lot! I'm not really sure how this is gonna work because I leave two weeks after that and then something has to happen to our area. 

     Either it will be whitewashed(replaced with elders) or I will be in a trio! What!? That'd be kind of fun, and weird :)

      I learned a lot this week about the importance of looking up to God ❤️ and finding peace through Christ. I'm still figuring it out but I definitely believe that even the most simple prayers and cries given to God and the promise to try, brings so much relief. How can we deny there being a Loving Heavenly Father? He wants so much happiness for us and provides the means for it to work out. I hope to continue to live and believe that even after my mission :)

I love you all stay dry from the rain and happy!

Love, Sister Jones

A paranormal, goals and rain :)

Hey ya'll!

I love the south, totally My home!  We had a pretty awesome week!

member present lesson with return missionary, Brenda heilig! Woot woot!

We got 5 member present lessons! What?!? Normally that has been one of the hardest parts of our missions but members were available!

#skillslearnedfromsistareed! Yay gumbo!

     Last week we were told by our leaders to talk with everyone and we had been slacking and only had about 31 talk sighs once we got to Thursday and everyone in our zone were hitting the hundreds....I felt terrible and our district leader was persistent that we reach an even higher goal. So we chose 95 people for the end of the week! That meant we talk to A WHOLE LOT of people in three days -_- oh boy. . . But! We talked to 83 people ending on Sunday evening yay! Now we are goaling for 100.

      It was just crazy to talk to so many people and we had incredible lessons set up! We had time one night after dinner we were wondering where to go to get another lesson and help someone. And on a certain corner after we prayed and walked a house stuck out to me. We knocked and a very chipper woman answer! She was so nice! We offered to say a
prayer with her and she invited us straight. We asked what to pray for and she said that she had ghosts in the house that had been there for fifteen years! WHAT. 😫. I was freaked but felt if I prayed in the
process of helping her it would help me. We prayed and said amen and she said that she felt SO much better. She said she has had priests with holy water from at least every church in her house and paranormal people come but it hasn't change. I gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon and to,d her to read 3 nephi 11 ( TAKE THAT SATAN!) :) and she
invited us to come back and wanted someone to come bless her house!

what our getup looked like, YES.

  Well I'm not sure about that one but we will definitely be teaching her. I'm slightly creeped but oh well. :)

     Then we knocked on the door of a man and talked with him for a while and it was pouring and I asked if he had a grocery bag for our seats and he said "I have something better" and walked to his side porch
and gave us plastic rain coats! Bahahahaha so we biked with plastic coats, regular huge jackets, helmets and skirts! ROCK ON. :)

Well that's it, not much exciting other than spring is coming 😅👗no more winter clothing! Yay!

Well I love you all so very much, and I pray for your well being and daily success! 
 Keeping trucking and loving the Lord!

Love, 
Sister Jones

Baptism on Deck!

Hey friends and family!

     I hope your week is going well and that you are working hard and that hard work is paying off!

     We had a great miracle this week. We found someone who is going to be baptized on the 26 of March. His name is brother Rainwater. We met him about a month and a half ago and had given him a Book of Mormon and commit him to read it. Since that time of reading it, we hadn't been able to get it contact with him because of -- a recent divorce, his son being murdered and surgeries!?! But while he was in the hospital he found the peace and comfort that came from what he read in the Book of Mormon! He finished it! And he started yesterday again to study out of it so he can get more out of it! He didn't come to church yesterday because of timing.... We were saddened but he has three more weeks to go for! Yay!

     We did our best this week and worked hard as well as we could. I am still surprised about each time that we talk to someone and just by sharing what we know they get upset. Yesterday we knocked on a mans door to tell him that his hazard lights were still on in his car. He came out and after looking at it, offering to help we started to share the gospel with him. This old man got right in my face and raised his voice at me and probably was ready to push me..... He said we needed to leave and that was that. I walked away with sister Ferrell ready to yell in the air and probably gnash my teeth and probably throw a fit.

     But I took a deep breath and opened the Book of Mormon which told me to watch my thoughts, words and deeds.... Haha you think I could handle rude comments, rejections and things like that better but I know that Heavenly Father's spirit calmed me down we were able to find someone interested in having us come back. Then this morning I read about Aaron and how the people were hardened and wouldn't listen and I definitely felt comfort in knowing I'm not the one seeing this. The world is getting uglier but that makes the gospel a whole lot brighter!

     I'm doing well, this area is doing well, we are continually
progressing and working hard. We are excited again for zone meeting!

     It will be a great opportunity to set new goals, tune old ones and
strengthen others!

     Not much to report on this week! I hope ya'll find miracles this week and feel Heavenly Father's spirit with you always!

Goal Setting & Miracles

[Note to Reader:  The email servers for the church have been out of whack.  Leaving a majority of us mother's without an email from our DD's.  Hence the no blog update last week.  All we received was this amazing photo of Katelyn showing her finished painting.  I'll take it!]

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Dear Friends and Family,

Well the mission has been crazy with goal setting and I believe it is inspiration from our Heavenly Father!

We have seen so many miracles that I know either effect our area or other missionary's as we have talked to everyone. We had a goal of 95 people for this last week and we talked to 101! :D your right,

president, the effect of talking to everyone and having control over it has given such great motivation to keep working hard and it has

completely impacted our teaching pool. One thing that happened yesterday while we had about six more people to talk to. There was a man he was walking along the side of a church and we were quickly approaching where he was at but I knew that because he was on another church property we couldn't speak with him. As we stopped (we were

about to cross the street) I promised Heavenly Father I would talk to him if he would get away from that other church's property (haha).

Just as I was waiting there (I'm sure Sister Ferrell thought I was nuts for sitting at a cross walk and not crossing) he stopped and literally turned around and walked back the way he was coming from and I wanted to scream with joy! We talked to him and he quickly said I am willing to talk just as long as it's before seven pm. He gave us his address and phone number and we set a return appointment, so COOL!

That woman I told you about that we served, we set a baptismal date with her! Yay! She is super nervous about everything but our biggest goal for her is getting her to church. She wants to read the Book of

Mormon and really find out if it is true!

This week we made the effort to continue to talk to everyone and amongst God's children we found the ones that may seem like outcasts but are amazing in their own special way! One we walked up and this

black man was using his very beautifully decorative truck to move things. We asked if we could help then I begged them to please let take a picture with it! He has probably dug through the truck one day and

decided to super glue EVERYTHING! And I mean everything, the was a one dollar bill that was ripped apart and glued to the dash board! So funny! Then we shared the gospel with them and they were referrals for the elders! Yay! I love that it isn't like we are passing them off to another church! After that we were walking home for dinner and these three guys were helping a mans video game into a trailer and we started talking to them. One of them his stage name is Frack, is a circus performer! Haha he had the hair and split tongue prove it! Freaky! But it made laugh

so hard! Then he said he wanted a picture with US to put on his Facebook page! Heck yeah! 5,000 contacts please! ;)

We got to see finally one of the less active members that we have tried for weeks to get a hold of. She attended church last week and we stopped by Saturday morning to see her and she started crying! Yay! She was humbled enough to realize that she needed to come back to church and especially that God loved her! Amazing! Heavenly Father is

watching over his dear children. 

So we ended up celebrating at five guys with good ole' Saint Anthony potato fries! ;)

Also this last week we met a less active member who is from RIGBY! I know right!?! Of all places! His name is Bruce laval Jensen! If anyone knows him, let me know so I can mention you! It was so cool to find him and talk about familiar things! Yay! Blessings!

We are doing very well, we are trying to work hard each day and accomplish our goals and come home tired each night. It is probably the most fulfilled I have ever felt on my entire mission. I feel like

I am making my Heavenly Father proud and I feel more in tune with the spirit and that I hear Him more clearly each day. I hope to continue to be this way after I am home ( six more weeks) but I know it works the same way as on a mission, by keeping myself and life worthy of the spirit and seeking Gods kingdom in everything.