Stay JOYFUL!

(sister Hannah reminder:)

*For those who are not familiar with the missionary organization:

1. companionship (two missionaries)

2. District (3-5 companionships)

3. Zone (equivalent to the stakes here! one stake = one zone of missionaries!)

Dear family and friends,
Ha ha, Oh My Goodness!  Your voices have been playing in my head for two weeks now and I was so happy to hear you all! Especially yours and dad's and hearing Syd's laugh and Jaden changing voice made my day! 

 At Christiansen's eating and waiting to call home for Mother's Day!

Brother and Sister Christiansen asked after we came downstairs, what was so funny about everything. I told them that I wasn't sure because it seemed like ya'll laughed at everything I said, "I don't think they ever thought I was that funny when I was home" and then I laughed and they sort of laughed too and then it got all awkward :) But we ate a ton of food after Skyping and got to have MASHED POTATOES! :D I have had real potatoes in soooo long! I miss it so much!

This last week we got to have zone conference with our mission president. They had some trainings but first they did tune-ups. 

They reminded us the rules and also to keep our house clean. Then cute little Sister Brough came up with a huge container of cleaning supplies and said, "Alright, everyone stand up!" We did and she asked us to sit down if we didn't follow through on cleaning those specific things in our apartments. As she continues to list off more things Sister Hannah and I realize that we are the only companionship that has completely followed through on every detail for keeping our house spotless (Almost)! My mom would be proud!! ;) So Sister Brough awarded us with a basket of cleaning supplies! WHOO HOO! My poor companion loves to clean and I don't really like it, but little does she know, she is converting me ;)

(part of Sister Hannah's email:)  We had Zone Conference! It was up in Lexington so we got to visit the BIG CITY!! WOOWOO!! hahahaa, I love traveling up there and being in the presence of a bunch of missionaries! Our Zone is so rad! We have incredible missionaries serving in the Lexington Zone!!  Something cool I learned was that as a companionship, if we are not unified, we can't do anything! the spirit is only here when we are unified! Sister Jones and I were teased the entire day because we are best friends and the other missionaries, I think, were jealous of our unity! LOL, but the assistants to the president picked on us to do companionship unity role-plays! 

-We had a wonderful couple lessons with Blake in members homes.  MEMBER PRESENT LESSONS ARE SO CRUCIAL!! Help out the missionaries where you live! invite them and their investigators in! Investigators need to feel that wonderful spirit! :O) 

    Also a fun thing happened this week, we were biking up this really tall hill in the blazing heat (Mind you: I just recently got a new chain on my bike) and I was standing up while biking so I could get up the hill faster without burning my muscles.

 Then all of a sudden "SNAP!". THere went my chain, I busted it -__- I told Sister Hannah that I needed to shed a little more weight with this being the second time I have busted a chain haha.. no I wont lose weight haha but I have to be more mindful.

     This Thursday we had a really unsuccessful day, we knocked on doors, talked to as many people as we could and constantly got rejected. Than we went to bike early to an appointment through a certain road and saw a moving van! I slowed down and shouted across the street to ask the mover if he wanted help. He was a little hesitant as he said "No, I wouldn't want to make a lady move". 

HOT, HOT, HOT  "This is what close to death looks like" (Sis. Hannah)

Sister Hannah and I kinda looked at each other a little degraded and said that we were missionaries and do this all day every day. So he sat there and thought about it and then desperately said "If you want to" and we hopped off our bikes and parked them on the lawn and proceeded to move stuff out of the house. This Old woman just sat on her chair swing as we walked in and out with her boxes. She happened to have three young men with this moving company and since Sister Hannah and I are bigger girls (Height wise), we were carrying heavy three foot-tall boxes, in skirts, and pros. shoes. :) We were whipping in and out of that house and we were just excited that 1) someone would let us serve them 2) that we could walk in and out of an air conditioned house. 

After about 40 minutes we were still going and we were carrying all sorts of furniture. The movers were so tired that they ended up sitting on the porch drinking some water with sweat cascading down their faces. One of their comments were "Ya'll are makin' us look bad!" . We didn't care but we got most of the van packed and then left them with our card! We were so excited as we biked to another potential's house and he turned out to be an awesome investigator; however we had to give him to the Elder's because he is out of our area :( 

   This whole week has been blazing hot! We haven't even hit the maximum humidity level yet and we have been guzzling water all day long. When we knocked each door, every single person offered us cold bottles of water. I ended up carrying 3 or 4 at a time! 

We got a refferal from a christian couple and they reffered us to quite a few people. We came back the next day to contact one that wasn't originally home. We knocked on the door, told the woman who we were and she invited us right in the AC-infested home :) We then proceeded to tell her that we shared more about temples and that her and her sons could be together forever. We whipped out a card of the Hawaii temple and her eyes lit up as she looked at the temple and said we could come back next week! :D She was so willing and ready that we were sure that she would want to get baptized! Who knows?! 

(part of Sister Hannah's email:)  This week it was HOT in Richmond. So hot and humid to the point that when you walk outside, you just start sweating, for no reason at all.  People keep telling me it only gets worse too.... here we go.  Summer in Kentucky! Here it comes, ready or not! Thankfully, out maintenance man put an AC unit in upstairs as were were walking to the library today.  Praise the good Lord, our room was SO hot the last week.  The only problem I have with the heat here is that it DOESN'T cool down at night! It would be fine in our room if it cooled down at night because we could leave the window open, but it is still 85 degrees when we go to bed!  But the heat rises and our room is just miserable with our one fan. OK, end of the heat rant. I am sure it will be way worse in the summer and I will have to complain some more then.  Not in California anymore, or Idaho for that matter! Dry heat is non-existent here! 

This sign is a good reminder for us to be this, even though its HOT and HUMID

Also Sister Wright took us out the other day to go see less-actives , that we can't bike to. We ended up finding random members that weren't even on our roster! We set times to come back and they were so nice and kind____WE Hope to bring them back to the fold.

I learned a few lessons this week. Mostly about charity. Chairty is the Pure Love of Christ. Which pure can be defined as clean, or unspotted or rather a thorough clean, and Love means devotion or deep affection. So I had to learn this week what it means to have a thorough, unspotted devotion for people. Honestly it has been hard. When people are rude, slam the doors, reject any word that comes from our mouth, I am reminded of what Jeffery R. Holland has said "[We] are standing shoulder to shoulder with the best life this world has ever known", Jesus Christ. I have felt Jesus Christ constantly with me this week as I have done all that I could to love people in their worst states and appearances. I know that because I have been through this trial of my faith that His comfort has been my reward. Charity hasn't stopped though, I have had to learn every day whom to serve and love and that I should do it with the full purpose of my heart.

Us in the library emailing right now

 

Any way this week was good, we are working hard to make this next week Great! Blake's Baptism is on Saturday! :D 

I hope everyone is able to send a tie! Please and Thank You so VERY MUCH!

(Mom:  We collected 6 ties and sent them off Monday for Blake!)

~Stay JOYFUL,

Sister Jones

P.S.  For those wanting more pics on the AWESOME blog Sister Brough, Mission President's wife, keeps up of all the GKLM missionaries, check out this link!  http://gklmbrough.blogspot.com/