It Was Miraculous!

This was a week of miracles! Or rather a week that we were able to SEE the miracles and success that come from our work. :)

We had been praying for a less active named Angie, and I hadn't been able to meet her yet. But we had been praying that when we got to meet with her that she would be prepared to receive our message. We thought we meant that she would be in the right mind set, that she would be happy and willing to meet with us, but the Lord took it many steps further! We finally got to meet with her on Thursday night and we were about to start a lesson when she told us of a plan that she had. She had a plan to set aside 15 minutes every morning to read her scriptures and pray to Heavenly Father, and she asked us to remind her every morning and to keep her accountable... What!? God not only put her in the right mind set but he taught her the lesson before we were able to get to it! That morning during my personal studies  I was reading 2 Nephi 2 and I came across the verse that says, "And my father dwelt in a tent" and I have always just connected that verse in my head with another very short verse of scripture in John. So I decided I would turn to John 11 and read the story of Lazarus. And I remembered once that I was talking to someone about this chapter and the significance of verse 35. Why was Jesus weeping? He knew that He was going to raise Lazarus, He knew he wasn't really gone. But He saw Mary and Martha crying and HE was upset because THEY were upset. And I thought of Angie, I hadn't even met her yet but I thought that she needed to hear this. And so we came up with a lesson plan to teach her about Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ's love for her and invite her to read her scriptures and pray so that she could show them her love in return. Looks like God had the same lesson plan in mind! I love that God has a plan for His children and I am just so grateful that I get to go along for the ride!

In our area we are extremely lucky if we get 1 lesson in a day. But on Saturday we got 6! I still don't have an explanation for it besides the Spirit! I tried my hardest to have the courage just to open my mouth, and people listened! 

We were sitting in Relief Society on Sunday and one of the sign language interpreters had left, and the other was in charge of conducting. She was about to try speaking and signing at the same time... And suddenly I was sitting in a chair that I don't remember walking to, and I was interpreting the announcements in Relief Society. I suppose it was the Spirit that got me to stand up and do this, because I know that it was not a decision my brain made! And I was thinking about it afterwards and I'm happy I was able to do that, for so many reasons, and I'm happy that I didn't have time to think about it beforehand because I know myself too well and I know I wouldn't have done it!

We are a Facebook mission (I'm not yet but Sister Kovac is) and so we post every few days and we really struggle with our posts because we try to make them too perfect! But he other day it just worked. It clicked what we needed to say and we said it! And this is what it turned out to be:)...

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We were supposed to have a dinner appointment on Friday, so we went over to their house and they weren't home... So we decided that we were already in the area and we could go look up some people around there. And we found Faith! (And her husband David) Faith had met with missionaries before but they hadn't been by in a long time, when we arrived at the door they welcomed us in almost like they had been expecting us. We started talking and everything Sister Kovac and I had learned or thought throughout that day applied! And... They fed us (not nearly as cool as knowing that the Lord had been preparing us all day to teach this woman, but still cool to know that God is looking out for us. Dinner appointment cancelled? No problem;))

These are cool stories and all but they are kind of "you had to be there" moments. To act on a thought and later to recognize that it was guidance from the Spirit is one of the best feelings ever! There is a quote by Elder Andersen from General Conference a couple years ago that says! "We are witnessing the miracles of the Lord as His gospel is spreading across the world." And that was made very clear to me this past week.

I love you all!

Sister Jones

Connecticut!

Hola! (And there is the extent of my Spanish skills;))

This week was a good week! But I am convinced that weeks are not really weeks on a mission! It is just Sundays and Wednesdays and we pretend the rest of the day's somehow fit in there somewhere!

Anyway, we had splits this week and so I got to serve a day in Danbury, Connecticut with Sister Tanner! It was so different than our area! We taught a lot of lessons and I got to see something I was starting to think I wouldn't see on a mission! I got to see someone commit to baptism! It was a man named Jay who moved here from the Philippines and the Spirit was just so strong! It is one of the coolest things to witness someone making that commitment to follow Christ like that! I just love splits, you get to learn so much about how other people work and then you get to use it in your own area! It's miraculous haha:) And now if I never get to serve in Connecticut again, at least I can say that I did for one day:)

This week was also filled with more tracting! Yay:) I wish there were more stories to go along with that! We do meet a lot of nice people, and that is what makes it easier to keep going! Especially because it is HOT over here and it can be uncomfortable being out in the sun that long! But I love it!

On Sunday I tried to interpret Relief Society... 'Twas somewhat of a train wreck! I thought I knew sign language pretty well, and I still feel like I do, but interpreting is a different ball park! But at least now I know what I need to improve upon haha!:)

I want you all to do something for me if possible! I want you to invite the missionaries over for dinner, I didn't know how much it meant to the missionaries until I was one! I know that it makes me feel at home when someone invites me into theirs!

I love you all and I hope you have a good week!:)

God loves you:)

Love, Sister Jones

The Worst Secret Keeper

Hello!

Another week has flashed by in the blink of an eye and I have amassed a huge collection of thoughts that I want to share with all of you! And again, they have all disappeared as I sit down to write them!:) 

Cool Happenings

* I saw fireflies for the first time! They are seriously magical!:)

* I got to go to Sleepy Hollow today, and walk around the cemetery and took a tour of the Philipsberg Manor there! It was really fun:)

* Sister Kovac and I created an... Interesting video diary about our adventures around Sleepy Hollow, 'twas very fun!

* We got to church on Sunday and found out we were supposed to be teaching Gospel Principles, so we had to do a little impromptu lesson!

* We helped a lady in our ward prepare her talk for Sacrament meeting and I really loved that because she gets really nervous (just like me!:)) and I loved feeling like I might have helped her feel less nervous!

* I'm driving! The keys have been handed to me and I'm learning to be a real New York driver;)

* I ate bird eggs, not like chicken eggs but like little birdy eggs!

* I also ate a tentacle... I'm not sure what animal it came from but now I get to say that I did it!

Spiritual Highs

* Sister Goss, I think I wrote about her last week but she continues to be a wonderful example to me! Next week is her last week before moving to live with her daughter. She struggles knowing that she can't be independent anymore, but she is putting all her trust in God and I love it!

* A young woman in our wars named Liz came out to a lesson with us the other day and we taught the Restoration. Liz blew me out of the water with how amazing her testimony of the Restoration is! 

* We met with a less active family a few nights ago and we were teaching a lesson about who our Heavenly Father is and what he wants for us (look up the Heavenly Father, Earthly Father Mormon message, it is amazing) and their little son Joaquin went a little off topic but he said something that hit me really hard. He said that we all need to be the worst secret keepers when it comes to the gospel! We are MEANT to share this message with others! 

Me emails home seem to be getting shorter and shorter as I start loving it more! I love all of you and I wanted to say thanks for the emails and letters I got, they are the highlight of my week!:) 

Keep building your beautiful testimonies and sharing them with others! BE THE WORST SECRET KEEPERS OF THE GOSPEL!

Love,

Sister Jones

Sleepy Hollow

Sister Goss

The little birdy eggs we ate...

Happy 4th of July

Hiya friends and family!:) It's been quite a crazy week! So this is going to be another random email:)

Thursday: Tracting! A full day of it! For some reason tracting is Sister Kovac's favorite thing to do so we do that... a lot! But I am grateful for it, I am pushed out of my comfort zone at every door (the ones people answer at least) and I can feel myself growing because of it! I heard once that there is no growth in a comfort zone and no comfort in a growth zone, and let me tell you how true that is!

Friday: Holy cow Friday... our whole mission got to go to the Yankees game and watch the Mormon Tabernacle Choir perform and it was spectacular!! It kind of ate up the whole day though, we had to take a train from up here in Yorktown to Harlem, and then to the Bronx so we had to leave almost right after our morning studies. I still haven't fully processed the fact that I was in HARLEM and the BRONX! I might be the only person that would think that is cool... but it really was! My favorite part of the whole day though was the choir, not the performance but some of the missionaries had family in the choir and they got to see them and I was only a little bit jealous! One Elder even got to see his mom because she was in the choir (I was slightly more jealous of him;)) We had to leave after the 4th inning so that we could get home on time, but that didn't actually work out... The train schedule did not want to cooperate so we were stuck in Harlem at 10 at night, oh boy is it a different place after the sun goes down! A lady came up to Sister Kovac and I when we were waiting for our train and you could tell that she had had a bad day and that she was ready to go home. And she decided to take her frustration out on us a little bit, she started telling us what we do and don't believe and we were just taking it. She had been yelling at us for a little bit when I saw that some money had fallen out of her pocket so I picked it up and handed it to her. She stopped yelling, thanked me, and then went back to yelling. A few minutes later it happened again, some money fell out of her pocket, I picked it up and handed it to her, she thanked me, and then went back to yelling. Finally, her train came and she left and I was just thinking about how much that woman needed the gospel... Clearly she was not prepared for it right then! But I couldn't help thinking that that was not really her. I think the real her was the woman who thanked me for picking up her money for her, not the yelling woman. I was so grateful that God was able to help me see that, without Him I would've gotten angry at this woman! But He helped me to understand that this is still His daughter, she needs love just as much as the rest of us. So I hope that one day she might remember the nice Sister missionaries who didn't yell back at her, but instead helped her!:) 

Saturday: 4th of July! That was a fun day! We did a lot of tracting because we thought people would be at home with their families and they would be happy because it was a holiday, right? Not really:) We still had a lot of fun though! And we celebrated too! We couldn't do fireworks so we blew bubbles and ate spaghetti, it was great fun:)

Sunday: I loved Sunday! Last week was just a blur of faces and names that I knew I wasn't going to remember! But this week I actually knew what was going on, I had read all these names and it was so nice to be able to put faces to names! Something interesting happened on Sunday though, I said last week that half our ward is Spanish so we have Spanish Elders in our ward... but somehow the Spanish members got the dinner calendars confused and so all of our dinner appointments for this week are with people who don't know English! We tried to tell them that they don't have to let us come over, but they are just all too nice and invite us over anyway! I know like 2 words in Spanish so it has been really interesting! I love it though:)

Monday: More tracting! Our area doesn't have a lot of investigators so most of our time is spent tracting and trying to find some! It makes for some pretty long days but I am learning to love it, now I just laugh at the doors that get slammed in our faces!

Tuesday: We met with a lady named Sister Goss, she is so sweet! Love her to bits:) She is a member but she can't make it to church because of her health, so we go over once in awhile to read from the Book of Mormon with her. I look at all the struggles she has to go through and it amazes me the faith she has despite all of that! I know that we all go through trials and I don't want to say any is harder than another, but I know that we would all be much happier if we faced those trials as Sister Goss does. Always laughing:)

Oh how I love New York, my emails just can't do it justice! People always told me that a mission was hard, and I guess it is, but you end up just loving it too much to care! So if any of you are wondering whether you should serve a mission, DO IT! I can promise you that there is no way in a million years that you will regret it! 

God loves you:)

Love, Sister Jones

P.S. I heard about President Packer's passing and it broke my heart! What an amazing man he was, I am going to miss him! Could all of you go read the last 3 paragraphs of his talk in this last conference, "The Plan of Happiness"? President Smith told us a story about this talk, he was sitting next to the Church Correlation department and they had advanced copies of all the talks. So he was able to see them as the General Authorities were speaking, with these last 3 paragraphs President Packer went off script. They are words straight from his heart and it is what he felt was most important to tell us as he spoke to us for the last time.

Yankees game!

Mormon Tabernacle Choir

The Shire :)

How Is This Happening To Me!? 😄

That has been my question for the past week! I go about my day and then randomly I stop and think, am I really in New York? Am I really serving a mission? And it is so overwhelming but so amazing at the same time!:)

I've been thinking about what bits of wisdom I would like to impart on all of you... And I'm drawing a blank... So this is sure to be a random update just about some weird and exciting stuff that happens in Yorktown:)

* Half the ward is Spanish so... I might need to learn some of that which I was not counting on!!

* There are 2 deaf women in the ward and Bishop found out that I know some sign language and he got excited... Too excited! I think they want me to interpret church sometime... Uhh, I don't know how well that is going to go!

* Being on a mission is tiring! I fall asleep at inappropriate times, like in Sacrament Meeting. But I can't help it! I jerk awake and don't even remember closing my eyes! Sister Kovac gets a kick out of it though:)

* People: oh boy, the people! I love them all!! I didn't think it was possible to love someone so quickly, and not just someone but every person I meet I just love them already and I want to do anything I can to help them!

* President Smith: our new Mission President and his family came to the mission yesterday and we got to meet them:) They are so amazing! Sister Smith had flash cards of all of us and she memorized all our faces, names, and where we are from! It was seriously the sweetest! I loved hearing them speak yesterday because the Spirit was so strong and it was testifying the whole time that these people were called by God to be in this mission and I know that they are going to be very important people in my life!

* My little sister Maggie had a birthday a couple days ago and I just wanted to say how proud I am of her! I have never met a wiser 10-year-old than my baby sister!:) love ya Magatha,:)

* I have an iPad... And I just found out that that means I can read emails whenever I get them! (I just can't reply until Wednesday) So write me lots because every email and letter I get makes me too happy to describe!:)

* I heard a story today that helped me remember why I decided to come on a mission: There were once 2 best friends who loved each other very much, and they lived in heaven. One day God called for them and told them that it was their turn to go down to earth. God looked at the 1st boy and said that he would be born into a loving and caring family that had the Gospel in their lives. He would have struggles but he would know where to turn to when those came. God then looked at the 2nd boy and told him that he would not have this experience. He would be born to a broken family that did not have the Gospel, he would feel lost and would not know where to turn to for help, but God told him that he knew he could do it. God then left the room and the 2 friends sat in silence. Finally, the 2nd boy looked at the 1st with tears in his eyes and said, "Brother. Find me."

This isn't even half of what I wanted to tell you all but I just need to accept that you can't fit a full week in one email:) I love you all so much!!

This church is true! I know it more than I know than the sky is blue! I'm out here for the people who asked me to find them, and I'm trying my best!:) 

Love, Sista Jones