Springtime on Jones street
Dear Family & Friends,
Yes we've had a few strange days! Mostly because of the people we met this week and the very awkward situations and lessons learned afterwards!
Well it started off as a fun week! we have had many opportunities to contact people this week but we had the opportunity to have dinner with brother and sister Brown and they made(Just like mom :) ) SPAGHETTI! :) It was taking me back to the wonderful pile mom usually makes at home! We talked to them and shared with them a wonderful thought about Jesus Christ! It was super cute and then later Sister Hannah and I got on tangents with Brother Brown about deep doctrines and share our insights to what certain things mean!
Last week we had the opportunity to meat a woman named Avery Lewis. She is a single mom with two little boys trying to make it on her own and we had already shared the first lesson with her and we went by this week to see if she read. She didn't, however, we felt impressed to read the first chapter of the Book of Mormon with her and we noticed that she needed more of a 'break-down' with the language of the scriptures. So we talked with her and explained to her what the story was talking about and how it is important for her. Than we ask her questions and ask her what she should understand from the message from the scripture. She answered the exact thing that we were both about to express and stated that she knows that God sent us there for a reason. We were so excited and we told her that we agreed and than Sister Hannah, being a very kind, blunt person, wanted to quickly bring up smoking (because we were discussing baptism) and she said "But we have a sort of a health code in our church that we expect new converts to live by, so you would have to give up smoking" (I'm paraphrasing,of course.) and Avery looks at us and says "That's good because I need to quite and I always hated my mom for smoking and its not good at all for my kids". I start to explain the Word Of Wisdom and as I am speaking she is following but then, all of a sudden, she grabs the pack of cigarettes and squishes them together and chucks them in the trashcan! She is like okay that is fine I am done smoking and explains way and we sit there dumbfounded :) and sometimes for those reasons, I like feeling dumbfounded. She sets up to come to church and and unfortunately didn't show up, however she sent us a text later saying she was sorry for not showing up but says that she was afraid because she knows she is a single mom and does not want to be judged for it. My heart goes out to her. We told her to trust God and come next week :) So we shall see!
Haha Saturday was a hoot! We got up and the sun was shining and literally everyone was outside! We decide to bike and as we are going down main street we stop to see that a cowboy was singing and playing the guitar! He asked what we were up to and who we were and we said we are missionaries and preaching the gospel. He said that is amazing, here I think you will love this and you can sing along! he starts singing some sort of southern Gospel song that I have NEVER heard before and we stand there tapping our not know the words but humming anyway. At the end we share our card and tell him to have a blessed day and bike on. We felt so blessed to have that tender mercy from Heavenly Father to have someone respect our beliefs enough to share his talent according to what we believed! WE loved it!
------As we are biking a couple minutes later we get skunked by two black women at their yard sale and tell them to have a good day and move on. Than we bike up another hill and close to the top we see five 6'5 black guys with biker clothing on standing in a circle.
I was hesitant at first but then we both were like "Eh, its the Kingdom of God. They need it". So we contact them!
Haha and as we pull up we ask to share our card and they ask what for and notice we are only biking and ask why we don't have motors on our bikes? We tell them its because we want the exercise. So we get off our bikes in this sketching part of town and Sister Hannah and I are the only white girls in sight around these huge buff black guys and start to tell them about the Gospel. They apparently are a Bikers gang with a "Creed" / Testimony that they go by- Which is that the red on their clothing stand for the blood of Christ; they are from South Carolina. In my brain I was like oh good! Religious bikers! they sure didn't look like it because they had huge metal chains around their necks (which meant that they are only as strong as their weakest link)! So they introduce themselves as: Bolt, Cali-boy, Show-off and Wolf. They were like puppy dogs compared to how they looked. I walk over to my basket on my bike and grab a book of Mormon and start to share Alma 7:11-13. Than another bike member comes out of this hotel/house (not sure which) and starts to act all "Cool" and literally starts to hit on us and I have my pepper spray ready - but then I see one of the other bikers filming this from their phone and I said "Is that a camera?----This is the Book Of Mormon! " and than I turn to the bikers and say "I thought the other guy was named show-off?!" and than he stops acting cool and gives us a confused look and we tell him he is showing off! and the whole bikers gang says "OH!!!!!!!" and Bolt high-fives us and we share our scripture, our cards and our testimonies and they shake our hands and kindly say thank you for the message shared :) It was the funniest and coolest experience of my life! You never know when the scary biker gang turns out to be religious puppy dogs named show-off! haha!
typical Kentucky setting! IT is GORGEOUS!!
Other than that wonderful experience that entire day we talked to 50 people all day and it was amazing to literally be inaction of preaching the Gospel! this week we did well with talking to 83 of God's Children! :)
Also we got to watch the baptism of a (used to be part member) family and the mothers were baptized a few weeks before I got here and their sons got baptized on Saturday as well. it was awesome to watch the Elders perform their priesthood and help the boys return to God. Than Sister Hannah and I took five Book Of Mormons and highlighted five scriptures and had five people read them and give insights to the scriptures. All of these scriptures talked about Christ and what he did and we testified that The Book Of Mormon testifies of Jesus Christ. The coolest thing is one of the Elders' investigators was there and he read a verse and then at the end of the service he asks us if he could keep that Book Of Mormon even though the Elders had given him a copy- he wanted that one with the verse in it! (Helaman 5:12 was the scripture!) and we said of course and I thought it was funny but cute how he wanted the one Book Of Mormon with his new favorite verse ! Which is in every Book of Mormon! We realized later on that when we were picking verses that we were trying to decided whether to include that scripture of not and we decided that that one was important and gave him that Book of Mormon to read from! It was a tender mercy from the Lord! Who knows nor cares whether that verse will get him baptized or not. Baptism is not the end goal. We are out here to help people come closer to Christ not to baptize thousands. Sister Hannah and I hope and pray that that is the result of our efforts but not the singular purpose of our desires. We are just glad we followed the promptings of the spirit that day! :)
Anyway there was a ton more that happened but these were the ones that were most important because they stick out in my brain! haha We are too busy and tired at the end of the night to remember everything :)
I pray for you all and hope that your lives are filled with the Gospel and strengthen through your faith in Jesus Christ! I Love you!
OH! I forgot to tell you our mission president is coming to talk at our sacrament meeting with me and an Elder in our ward next Sunday and we are talking about the Atonement! So I thought about your conversion story and knew that was one of the reasons I wanted it so bad! I hope you don't mind that I am going to use that end of it for your testimony about the Atonement and that you used the Atonement right :) I love you mommy! Keep working hard and I will too and your other daughter Sister Hannah will as well! :)
~Sister Jones
P.S. I got new name tags & am back to being Sis. Jones!
(MOM's Note: I was privileged to hear back from Katelyn's companion and be included in her version of events. For fun and something different I asked her some questions to get to know her a little better - enjoy!)
Dear Sister Hannah,
Thank you SOOOO much for being an awesome companion to my ONE & ONLY oldest daughter. She means the world to me! I can see from the pictures she is just beaming. She seems to definitely be in total missionary mode, loving every second of it, and I can confidently assume that YOU have something to do with that.
****QUESTIONS FOR MY MISSIONARY'S COMPANION*****
How are you liking Richmond?
-I LOVE RICHMOND!! I am falling more and more in love with it each and every day. The warmer the weather, the better the day. The more people that are out and the more opportunities we have to share the gospel! :) It is a wonderful place and I love the ward! (it is pretty much a Utah transplant ward! LOL)
What other areas have you served in, or has Richmond been your only home so far?
-Richmond is the only place I have served. I have only been out for two months (as of this week! YIPEE) and your daughter is my follow-up trainer. That says something about her- SHE IS AWESOME and a stellar missionary. Seriously! She has taught me so much in the last three weeks! :)
How is your family doing - your mom is a convert? Super cool.
-My family is doing great! My momma is a convert! Almost of two years! June 29, 2015 will mark two years! We were able to go to the temple together for the first time and it was aweosme! My brothers continue to get taller and biugger and I can't imagine them any bigger than when I left! They grow like weeds! My dad is so funny, he is only on me about golf. "when are you going to golf on p-day?" HAHA. I wish. no time, sorry pops! I hope you are facebook friends with my mom though! I know she would love to be friends with you and then y'all could really connect!
When is your birthday?
-My birthday is August 19, 1995. Sister Jones and I are only one month apart!
Is Katelyn a super 'cluttery' messy roommate? (umm. my guess is YES - but we love her anyway!)
-haha, we keep the room organized, but I am used to some clutter because my college roommate was the same way. I just have an invisible line that if it gets too messy I just push it back to her side LOL.
What is your favorite scripture today?
-My favorite scripture today is Mosiah 2:41 Consider the blessed and happy state of those who keep the commandments of God! :)
Hope you have time to answer and have an incredibly awesome busy P-day!
Love,
THE Joneses
P.S. Pic hint: Name that prophet.
President Benson!!
(P.S. his grandson is in our ward and is the president of Eastern Kentucky University!)
love you lots!!!Thanks for your support!
stay rad
stay righteous
Hearken to it and DO IT!!
Loving the work!
Sister Madeline Hannah
No comments:
Post a Comment