Rain dancing, Russian twins, and a Miracle!

**QUESTIONS FOR OUR KIZZER**

Grandpa wants to know how close your apartment is to the mission office?
And I want to know if you've seen fireflies? (I remember them from when I lived in Missouri as a kid.  And Sister Hannah mentioned them in her letter last week.)
                **BTW:  the package I sent went out on Friday, and should be there TODAY.

It's pretty close to the mission office and yes fire flies are so cool! These are just these little magical balls of light that show up! I love it.

I feel so grateful every day for the hard work you put into our family and into my mission! I love you so much mom. I have been just working hard and doing all that I can to improve myself day by day. We went on exchanges with Sister Bancroft. She was in my district in the MTC and I ended up getting real close to her and I haven't seen her my whole mission except for now eight months later. It's cool! We talked about everything. We talked about what has happened out on our missions so far, and while we were working her area the next day, she told me about how their area is really struggling. They haven't found many investigators and she feels like she is in a rut. I just gave her my best advice and did the best I could to be an example.

I have looked back at my mission so far and have felt so fortunate, I had an amazing trainer, Sister Hannah became my best friend in the best area in my mission, I have baptized twice and I am now an STL. What could I want more of? I had to humble myself and realize this week how truly good I have got it. Many others are having these monster of trials and I only got some here or there. I am not wishing ill will, but I have trying to understand my calling for here in Brookside.

Anyway my companion and I are good. I have been getting angry about the little things she does but then I have to turn around and remind myself that prayer is always the better turn than being upset over the little things.

Anyway I love you so much momma and I can't wait to hear what more there is ya’ll have been up to! :)

Dear Family and friends,

So this week our work paid off! We have been using our new iPads a lot more to schedule and plan out things and it really has helped us out in the work out here! Our numbers were much better than last week and we went to bed last night exhausted but satisfied!

So cool thing is we had like a weird drought the last few weeks where it has just been hot! 

So on Monday it was a huge and heavy rain story! So as we had been hot and sweaty from the day we thought we would take 10 minutes and dance in the golf ball sized rain drops storm! It was so fun! And the first time all summer I felt cold! We were literally jumping in puddles and other cars passed by and we looked silly but had a dang fun time doing it and then walked inside drenched! So fun! Never experienced that heavy of a rain storm before! Cool thing about Kentucky is it will rain and then an hour or so later it all gets soaked up within a few seconds so we hit monsoon season pretty hard! Later in the week we taught Timothy and he is on track still for baptism!

He is so great and here is the coolest story ever! So he usually gets a ride for church from a recent convert but his LDS friend invited him Saturday night to go to her ward in crest wood. Unfortunately they had called him, while he was taking the back roads on a Mo-Ped, for an hour, saying they were not going to be at church. So Timothy turns right back and speeds back to Brookside to come to our church building, he made it five minutes after eleven, right on time for sacrament!  He was telling us he didn’t want to miss a single second of church so he came back as fast as he could for church. I wanted to cry when he told us that! I know that Heavenly Father’s elect children are ready and willing to follow the commandments of God and that we as missionaries are here to help them repent and grow closer to God.  I love it!

On Friday, I went to Jeffersontown in Louisville for an exchange with the J-town bike sisters. I was with Sister Bancroft and we had a blast! We worked hard and found a man who accepted our message. We shared the restoration with him right in the middle of the rain storm and we all got drenched but he said that he really wanted to hear more. So we set a return appointment. Sister Bancroft was so excited.  We then kept walking around for about an hour. We found ourselves in a neighborhood where we started to talk to these twin brothers. They also happened to be Russian. When we started to share our message we noticed something was off. Only one of them could understand and speak English and seemed slow to understand, but hyper. They noticed my Young Woman's Medallion, so I shared about the temple and its importance. They didn't hear it. One of them pulls out his phone and shows a gaudy Russian church and says "this is my church, I love this church and it makes me happy!" And he said this in a thick slurred Russian accent and while he said it he kept moving back and forth toward us. Then the other keeps repeating my name and asking if I like tea and vodka and the other is talking to Sister Bancroft.  Confused, but after a second, I realize they were drunk and pulled Sister Bancroft away.  It took quite a while to walking away because they kept asking us to come have tea and vodka. My instincts kicked in and we walked away quickly.  We started laughing as we realized we were safe, and because it was stupid and twilight zone-like experience.

Here we were, in Kentucky, in the ghetto, talking to these Russian twins, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb, who would talk to us English, and Russian to each other --it was raining ----and one of the twin’s was in a Hawaiian vacation outfit! What!?! I was confused by it all and were laughing about it the entire day.

Oh, and we also got ice cream bars from the ice cream man, highlight! 

For our miracle story of this week we went yesterday to try and contact a potential investigator that we set up a return appointment for. We got there and it was nothing new to us-he wasn't there, in fact he doesn't live there or even in the entire apartment complex!  So, when we knocked on what we thought to be his door, a woman answered. She said he didn't live there so I introduced myself and so did Sister P. And she said "won't you come in?" (Kinda weird) we walked in and she grabbed us chairs and told us about herself and we didn't say much and then she asked us who we were and what we come to share. We shared the entire restoration lessons dishes was engaged the entire time on what we had to say. It was the most amazing spirit-led lessons ever. Then I had a thought to share the 5 minute restoration video with her and she watched it and as I listened to it my heart and inside began to burn so much that tears were swelling in my eyes. I watched her facial expressions as she was so curious and then a smile appeared on her face. The video ended and I asked her what her thoughts were about the video and she bore her testimony, then I bore mine and I said that I knew that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and she said "I know that too!" And my spirit like jumped out of my body it was so strong in there and then we committed her to a baptismal date and she said first she would have to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it and then accepted a date. She is amazing and we came out of there humbled and grateful.

I know that Heavenly Father leads us to exactly where we need to be and helps us to know why we need to be there! I love this work and know it's the truth. I love you all and have a spontaneous, grand week.

~Sister Jones