New scriptures mom sent me
**Questions for Our Missionary**
**We are having the sister missionaries over for dinner this week, what foods do you not get enough of or too much of (I've heard to many roasts and tacos, not enough of breakfast for dinner)?
OOOOh! I would say make more caseroles and fruits and salads! we get so much roats , meat and starchs I just have to remind myself I need to have more fruits and veggies or I will get too big!!! haha but something fun and creative is perfect!
**Do you have branch missionary leaders like we have ward missionary leaders here? If you do, how do you use them to help you?
Yes we do! that woman that called you at the beginning of my mission is our branch mission leader's wife! Their names are Marilyn and Chuck Hawes! Brother Hawes is a second grandpa here, I love him a lot! THey help with meals for any investigators or members going through a hard time, or they help with us for anything we need or they host any lessons we may have with investigators or they also contact the Branch President if there is something we need information on-we are not really supposed to contact the Branch President unless there is an emergency
**How was going to the Louisville Temple last week? (I'm hoping you were able to go - I'm guessing the roads were too bad to travel on)
We weren't able to go :( we are gonna try to go this Friday as a better time and see what happens! this weeks weather was unreal but its all over for now and just has snow on the ground.
**Did you get to do that family name I send of your Great Great Grandmother Peggy White?
Yes I did! and I love everything in that package!!! :)
**Are you getting transferred this week? ( I kind of hope not - I think you are doing so awesome and made such great friends it would be hard to move on)?
I DONT KNOW-I honestly don't want to leave because this is home for now and I was "Born" Here (it a missionary term) but I honestly desire a new companion but I have ventured on the thought that I might stay for another one because the Thaxton's go home April 28th and I would like to be here with them as long as possible; Mom, I love the Thaxton's so much and the people of this Branch it would be so difficult to leave!
**What is with that picture of you on a tractor with Sister Hinton?
We were out a 'Cookie' (Gordon, he goes by cookie haha) Nettleton's house, we go every Wednesday morning with the thaxton's to see him! He owns a farm and a ton of geese and ducks! kind of a funny man but he is great!
**Why were you on a gold toilet posing - what is that all about?
HAHAHAHAH oh my goodness we were driving with the thaxtons down to Albion, IL and for some random reason a golden toilet was just sitting there by a company on the side of the highway! We took advantage of the moment and took model poses! I have to send you a picture of Elder Thaxton posing as "The THinker" on the toilet! So funny
Oh mom I am just so glad to hear that life is normal and great back there in Idaho! Elder Polson is my district leader! (I don't know if you remember that) he is only 35 minutes away from our area! I absolutely love him and his companion! His companion is from VEGAS! He lived in Henderson! He used to be this wayward kid with a tattoo and nose and ear piercings and now is on a mission! His name is Elder Hardy and he is like my best friend out here. It's so nice to know someone in my district because Elder Polson and I talk at district meeting about people we both know, and things that have happened and all that jazz and its such a blessing!
-Sister Jones
P.S. Thank You for the package this last week it has made my entire world! keep on truckin'!
Olney - Home of the Ice Storms this week!
Good Morning Everyone!
Well this week has been a slow one! Since we were in the middle of an ice and snow storm all week we have been quite determined to stay out of the lovely snow! But wonderful things have happened!
We had the opportunity to teach Caiden this week and he has finished the Book of Mormon! crazy!! This 10 year old boy has beat many adults in the world (including me) in reading the Book of Mormon! He told us this when he came to a dinner and we wanted to cry we rejoiced so much!
Well we scheduled another lesson with him and came back on Tuesday. We were late and he told us that straight up! We laughed and then realized he had a shirt and tie on, and cleaned the entire house and set up four chairs in the living room just for our lesson! We sat down and the first thing he said was "I have bad news. I am moving away." Sister Hinton and I looked at each other and we wanted to break down. he told us that his mom got a job in Terra Haute and is coming to pick him up on Saturday!
We decided to teach him the plan of salvation and explain that he had a huge purpose in his life and that part of it was meeting us. Sister Hinton couldn't speak during that lesson and then we left and sat in the car and teared up.
But I walked out of there with the distinct impression that I needed to give him my Quad set of scriptures---Also that for a few weeks I have been desperately wanting new scriptures (not knowing why). After talking with Sister Hinton about everything about it I made my decision to give him them-it was SO hard! Those scriptures have so many memories and things about them that I just will never forget. however, when I gave him my scriptures Caiden was so excited that he got to get a quad like ours he started looking through them and picking scriptures and verses to read! it was so cute!! When I told Sister Thaxton that I gve them and she said "Are you sure you wanted to do that? Those scriptures have been your friend for a long time now." I pictured that as something my mom would say but then I told her that God placed a reason for me to need to get knew scriptures and gave me the desire to give them to someone who is willing to take care of them. Yes I felt uneasy about it and will always want them back but Sister Hinton said it best "When you gave those to him I could just picture him in years down the road explaining in his farewell talk for his mission about a set of missionaries and how one of them gave him a set of scriptures!" She was right! and I did not doubt that those were in the right hands-who knows what conversion they will bring to someone else.
Later in the week we got to meet a new member that moved from....LAS VEGAS (Henderson) ! He is 17 and he decided to move here and has been a convert for a few years and he was so excited that the first people he met were missionaries! (He loves missionaries) He came to church on Sunday and the only young man in the ward, Evan, got to pick this new member up for church and after Evan passed the Sacrament he went right over and sat next to this new member! They are now best friends! The Lord works in super mysterious but wonderful ways!
Last night we drove to Noble to visit the Toliver's and eat dinner with them! We had soooo much fun! We went and played on Evan's banjo (super sweet!) and Drum set! It is so hard to play on the drums. Than we ate home-grown corn, fried chicken and Non-Idaho potatoes (I give everyone around here grief for not making Idaho spuds apart of their meals, Ha-ha!)
We shared a story from President Monson's talk called "How do we show our love" and we shared this story:
"Another example is a family in the mission over which I presided, a family by the name of Agnew. They were difficult people to convert. William Agnew, particularly, would not listen to the missionaries, but finally he consented to attend our Sunday School with his wife, three children, and the two missionaries. However, when the missionaries came on Sunday morning to escort the family to the chapel, there had been a little disagreement in their home. Brother Agnew had insisted, “I will not go to the Mormon Sunday School.”
His wife replied, “But you promised, Bill. You promised these young men that you would go.”
“I’m not going, and that’s that!” he said. He became rather angry, but somewhat reluctantly he permitted his wife and children to go to Sunday School. He later told me of the events of that morning. He said,
“When my wife and children shut the door and left me alone in the living room, I had nothing good to say about the Mormon faith. I was about as angry a man as one could imagine. I picked up the morning newspaper to see if I could read about the problems of the world and get my mind off religion, but it was to no avail. I kept thinking, my wife and my children have gone to meet with the Mormons. I then went into my daughter Isabel’s bedroom. I thought that perhaps I could turn on the news and hear something different. As I turned on the little radio on her nightstand, what do you think I heard? The Mormon Tabernacle Choir! What message do you think I heard? Richard L. Evans spoke on the subject ‘Let Not the Sun Go Down on Thy Wrath.’
I felt as though the Lord were talking to me personally. I got down upon my knees and promised my Heavenly Father that I would no longer rail against Him—that I would do what these young missionaries had taught me to do.”
When his wife and children returned from Sunday School, they found a new husband and a new father. They couldn’t understand why he was in such a pleasant mood. Finally they asked him what had happened to change his attitude.
He said: “I’ll tell you. I was so upset when you left that I read the paper in an attempt to get my mind off all of you. No success. Then I went to Isabel’s bedroom and turned on the radio to hear the news, and of all things, I heard the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. This man, Richard L. Evans, spoke to me and said, ‘Don’t let the sun go down on thy wrath.’ I felt closer to God at that moment than I have ever felt in my life. I am ready to go with you to the meetings. I am ready to pursue a diligent study with the missionaries.”
Isabel said, “Dad, that’s a wonderful story—if only it were true.”
Her father said, “Isabel, it’s true.”
She said, “No, Dad. Did you say that you turned on the radio on my nightstand?”
He replied, “That’s the one—the little white one.”
“Dad,” she said, “that radio hasn’t worked for several weeks. I think the tubes are burned out.”
“Isabel,” he said, “that radio works. Come with me.”
He led his family into Isabel’s bedroom, walked over to the nightstand next to her bed, and turned on the radio as he had done just one hour earlier, but no sound came forth. That radio did not work! But when our Heavenly Father needed to communicate a message to an honest seeker after truth, that radio not only worked, but it tuned him into the very program and to the very message he needed to bring him to a recognition of the truth. Little wonder that he later became the bishop of that ward. Little wonder that all three of his children are active in the Church and continue to fill positions of responsibility.
This story greatly shows that if we searching for truth that God will find a way to help us know and an example this week of an honest seeker of truth is Jeff. He has been taught on and off for a year or so and he is already most-way done with reading the Book of Mormon and he is the type of person where he will ask questions and get off topic a lot to where we can't even get through a lesson and so we felt that we needed to just have him ask his questions and answer them through the spirit. We did that and with us four missionaries there we all bounced off one another the answers to his questions when he asked about D&C 89 (W.o.W.) and it was as though Heavenly Father truly spoke through us and helped him to understand why we have the W.o.W. I know that things which our Heavenly Father reveals to us are sacred and that they are precious and if we seek, ponder and pray earnestly to receive more of those sacred things that He will manifest them more fully to us for our own strength and guidance.
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