Happy Thanksgiving!!

Hey everybody! I get to go play in the city today:)

In honor of Thanksgiving being tomorrow... I want to tell you all
about some things I've been grateful for lately!

The articles of faith- Like really, these were just something I had to
memorize to get a chocolate bar in primary... And they have always
been that until yesterday. We had a lesson with an investigator who
has been really studying the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith History,
and the other day he opened to the Articles of Faith. And he said he
just closed the book and put it away because that was all he needed to
know:) The way he talked about them, it was so reverent and it
clicked! The Articles of Faith are amazing! They proclaim to the world
so clearly what it is that we believe! I think it will be worth it to
take another look at those, see if I can memorize them again;) And the
reward will be a lot better than a chocolate bar!

My body- I was laying in bed one night and it hit me really strongly
for some reason how AWESOME it is that I have a body! I know, it's
random, I thought so too. But think about it, no matter what we look
like, no matter how capable or incapable we are, not matter if we are
fat and short, tall and skinny, black, white, purple or green- we have
a body, and that is something that Satan will never have! And he does
not want us to realize how amazing it truly is, he is trying SO HARD
to get us to take our body for granted, because he wants one!

This wonderful Ward- GIVING! This Ward has got the giving in
thanksgiving down! But it's not just is Ward, I feel like it is the
church in general! I am so lucky and grateful to be part of this
church! But this Ward is definitely going to make it hard to leave
someday! I've been here going on 6 months now and I'm hoping I can
stay under the radar and be here for the next 12;)

The Temple- I was going to go to the temple today, but we realized
that it was closed because of Thanksgiving! And it's kind of a bummer,
BUT, again it helped me know how grateful I am for temples. Being from
Utah and having so many temples readily available, and serving in a
mission where there is a temple available to me- like how amazing is
that! I haven't been to this one yet, so I can imagine how hard it is
for people who aren't able to get to the temple for years at a time.
It is SUCH a blessing that I need to take more advantage of!!

My family- Holy cow am I grateful for you guys! I'm so excited for
Thanksgiving tomorrow, but knowing I won't be spending it with all of
you has made me see how lucky I am to have such an amazing family!
Thank you all so much for just being you, I often wonder how I ended
up with the best family the world has to offer;) But hey, if I can't
spend it in my favorite place, what better place is there to spend it
than New York!? 

And most importantly, Jesus Christ- It's been made clear to me that
without Him, I wouldn't have any of the other things on this list. I'm
so grateful for my Savior and this amazing time of year that we get to
celebrate His birth! 2 Nephi 33:6 "I glory in plainness; I glory in
truth; I glory in MY Jesus, for he hath redeemed my soul from hell."
I'm finding my Jesus out here, He is more real to me now than He has
been my whole life! And I'd like to let you all know that tomorrow
night, it is officially permitted to listen  to Christmas music and do
all things Christmas ;) (Sister Thompson and I will be setting up our
6 foot Christmas tree!)

I LOVE YOU GUYS! I hope you have the BEST Thanksgiving:)

Love, Sister Jones 🤓

"Julliard & the best $10 street hat purchase!" :)

"...how great the plan of our God"

We had a zone conference this week on Friday, and it was all about the
importance of planning and setting goals, and it was really awesome!
And then, with the rest of the week, God proved to us the importance
of planning and setting goals! I don think one of our plans worked out
the way we had planned or expected. So our backup plans became really
important, if we had backup plans... Haha!

Friday night we had all our plans for the next day, they were things
that wouldn't possibly fall through! But just as we were about to go
to bed we got a text saying our plans for the next morning were
cancelled. No big deal, move some stuff around and we've got a full
day again! Until the next day when another plan got cancelled, and
another... And we realize we don't have backup plans! But we had one
plan that we KNEW had to happen, our headlight was out and we had to
drive to Newburgh to get it fixed- so we head out thinking that there
is no way this plan is going to fall through... It did. They said it
was a more complicated fix than they originally thought and we would
need to come back another day when they had more time. SO- here we
were with 5 more hours in our day and having run through every last
one of our plans. We got home that night and you better believe we
made backup plans for our backup backup plans! And we needed them too!

The rest of the week has been much the same, plans falling through
left and right, but the important difference is that we have been so
much better at making backup plans! What I got from all of this is
that our Mission President is working really closely with God! He
teaches us something, and then God proves it!;) But really, I have
noticed how important it is to make plans, and to have backup plans
because no matter how hard we try, sometimes things aren't going to go
the way we want them to. But guess what!? They work out the way God
wants them to:) Our plans usually change more when we planned really
well for the day, I believe it is God saying, "thank you for doing
what I asked, now I am going to put you where I need you!" These are
His CHILDREN! He isn't going to trust me with them if I don't give Him
something to trust in!

I just feel so lucky to be out here learning from the one who planned
it all! 2 Nephi 9:13, "O how great the plan of our God!" 

I love you guys!

Love, Sister Jones 🤓

(Hanna wrote that they went on a picture scavenger hunt & two of these pictures are from that. :)

"picture in a tree"

"picture carrying an American flag" :)

crosswalk in Peekskill :)

Life as an *honorary* red head

So... Last Wednesday morning Sister Thompson said I would look good 

with red hair, and that is the story of how I became a red head.

Anyway, this week was good! I love Sister Thompson to death and we
have a lot of fun together, but don't let it fool you;) We work hard
and go to bed real tired every night!

This week was a random week... so a "random thoughts" email is fitting!

Random thought #1 Garlic- Ok this one is really random but I swear
I've been eating unusual amounts of garlic this week and I found
myself wondering if it was national garlic week or something? I've had
more garlic this week than I have my whole life- on the bright side
the garlic breath is sure to ward off any unwanted conversations (not
to mention vampires). On the down side... I'm out of mints.

Random Thought #2 Every single stinkin person we teach- They are boss!
I think I have said it in every single email, but I love seeing how
the Lord prepares His children to hear the Gospel! It amazes me as I
see people being changed so much just by a knowledge of the Gospel- it
is so powerful!

Random Thought #3 Teaching- Teaching has always been a struggle for me
on a mission. I'm always terrified going into lessons and I just want
it to be over as soon as possible, ripping off a bandaid style. But I
noticed something this past week! As I have been worrying less and
less about how I am going to teach them and trusting more in the fact
that God wants them to hear this message I have realized that He
called me, knowing I was going to fumble my words like a dork
sometimes, but He still wanted ME to do it. He isn't going to leave us
alone if we are doing our best- I took the hard way in applying D&C
84:85! But it's coming, slowly but surely!

Random Thought #4 Joaquin- This little guy is so cool! It was his
baptism on Saturday and we were lucky enough to be able to go! (I was
even asked to lead the music, I don't have musical ability, maybe God
thinks differently and that is why I've been asked to pretend I have
musical ability so much this week!) It was fun though:) I love the
Spirit at baptisms, no matter who you are or what your religious
background is you cannot deny the calm and peaceful Spirit you feel
watching someone enter the waters of baptism. And one of the roles of
the Spirit is to testify of truth, we all have heard that, but it
clicked for me recently and I realized that every time I feel the
Spirit it is God telling me, "this is true"- it's how my testimony has
grown so much out here! And now there is one more person in the world
who has the gift to be able to feel that all the time!

Random Thought #5 Musical ability (or the lack thereof)- Ok, I haven't
been asked to pretend I have musical ability a lot actually... Just
twice. We have a zone conference this Friday and I was assigned to
sing a musical number with 8 other missionaries! Hmm... This should be
interesting! But our Ward Mission Leader took the time when I told him
that to point out that I could pray for help to do well. I mean... Ya
I can! But it was another one of those moments where I felt the Spirit
and realized that what he was saying was true. Even something as silly
as a musical number that you are nervous about, God cares. He will
help you if you ask for it! It's just really cool how much God loves
us:)

Random Thought #6 Tracting Miracles- It was the end of the night and
Sister Thompson and I decided to do one more lookup. So we get to the
door and we both get a very bad feeling and we look at each other and
just kind of start walking away as fast as possible. And we get into
the car, and the key is locked so the car won't start. So we realized
that there must be some reason why we were in that area! We prayed and
decided that we were going to knock on a few doors. First door,
nothing. Second, nothing. On the third door a man answers and we start
talking to him and we testify about how the Gospel has blessed our
lives, and then we leave. We go back to the car and try to start it,
but the key still locked... But we prayed and then we got the key to
work and went home. That man didn't all of a sudden say he wanted to
be baptized, he didn't show up to church on Sunday, nothing came of
it. But I know that the Spirit was there as we were testifying to him-
I don't know if anything is ever going to come of that but it was a
good feeling knowing I had done what God asked me to do in that
moment.

Random Thought #7 True Conversion- We joined Young Women's for class
this Sunday and they used this quote, "Conversion is a lifelong
process of becoming more Christlike through the Atonement of Jesus
Christ. It includes a change not only in our behavior but in our
desires, our attitudes, and our very natures. It is such a significant
change that the Lord refers to it as a rebirth and a mighty change of
heart. We can know that we are becoming converted to the Lord when we
lose our desire for sin, we are filled with love, and we seek to share
the gospel with others." I have felt each one of those things at
different times in my life- and you don't need to feel all 3 at all
times to be on the path to conversion! It really is a lifelong
process, we are going to fall sometimes, but if we keep trying we are
on the right path and we are doing pretty ok:)

And Random Thought #8 5 Months!- Yesterday was my 5 month mark and it
has been the longest and shortest 5 months in my life! I'm just really
grateful that I have 13 left to change more than I have already:)

Red hair?!

(posted this again, since it went with her title)

Happy Halloween package! :)

Honorary Mustache Daschers! :)

Happy November!

Ok, so since I have been horrible at updates the past couple of weeks, I think y'all deserve a good one haha!:)

People:

Fantejah & Shahdeja- Holy goodness these two make missionary work worth it! They are teenage sisters and they were found tracting (so yes, tracting is worth it;))! And they are so prepared, they have been coming to church, they went to General Conference, they have gone to mutual, AND they just accepted to be baptized on December 13! And the best part is that none of it is us, it is all them! They have been so prepared by God for this:) And the Ward is just awesome at fellowshipping them!

Christina- This was FUNNY! So with daylight savings it gets super dark super early. So we were still out and about when it was dark out, and we were doing one last lookup before we had to go home. So we get to the house of this referral, and we park and pray and we are about to get out of the car when we hear someone outside. So we get out to go talk to her and it is the referral, and she was so relieved! She told us that she was on the phone with her brother and she saw us and got a little scared so her brother told her to call 911 to report a suspicious vehicle! But she saw that we were church people and she was so relieved that she gave us her phone number and told us that we could call her and come back anytime! And she hugged us and told us she loved us and it was so funny! So, that is the story about how we almost got the cops called on us!

Ofori Family- They are a less active family, the two little boys just moved here from Ghana and they have been too shy to come to church. So we had their primary class write them welcome notes and we filmed the primary singing the hello song and we went over and showed them all this... And now they are planning on coming to church on Sunday! I'm so excited!!:)

Lane Family- This one is the big miracle for the week! They are investigators, and we went over for dinner and Brother Lane had been reading Ether but he didn't make it to chapter 12, so we decided to read it with him. And he felt the Spirit SO STRONG as we read it with him. Like holy cow, miracles are real:) They asked where the church was so that they can come to church on Sunday (a miracle in and of itself:)), and Sister Lane said that she is already all in, she is just waiting for Brother Lane to accept it! I've realized that this 18 months is NOT a sacrifice, it's a gift- I'm a big advocate for people wanting to serve a mission, I've said it before but we aren't kidding when we say it's the best time of your life:)

Sister Thompson!- She is awesome:) She is from Sandy! She drove past my house everyday to get to school and stuff, SMALL WORLD! But she is about to move to the land of eternal P-Days so I'll be saying bye to her in January:(

Sister Kovac- I miss her! South Manhattan is lucky to have her! I'm so grateful for how she taught me to be a missionary, she set the bar high for me and now I just need to keep trying to be better!:)

Places:

Danbury- We had a zone meeting on Monday in Danbury so we decided to go out to eat afterwards for our lunch break. And we went to 5 guys! And it was the first time I ever went to one... But it was fun because we ran into a couple of other Sisters in our zone so we got to eat with them:) And they were about to leave so we got up to hug them, and Hermana Fink is super tall... So I legit stood up on a chair to hug her haha:)

Walmart- This was the coolest experience! So we needed to stop at a store for something and we knew there was a less active who worked at a Walmart in Yorktown Heights, so we decided to go to that store to see if we could find him, but the GPS didn't show that there was a Walmart in Yorktown Heights... So we just decided to go to another Walmart. (And that is the weird part since there wasn't a reason for us to go to a Walmart anymore, and we could've chosen any of the other hundred stores between us and Walmart!) And so we went and got what we
needed and we checked out and right as we were walking out the door I saw a guy wearing a name tag with the same name as the less active we were trying to find. So for some reason I thought it might be him (we didn't know because we had never seen him before), and it was! So we found out that he still wants to be a part of the church, the only reason he isn't active is because he works on Sunday! And it's one of those miracles that doesn't sound as good in writing, but what are the chances that we end up going to Walmart unnecessarily when we didn't even know it was the one he worked in, and then to run into him right as we are walking out the door? I call it a miracle:)

Newtown- We got to go to Newtown, Connecticut for Stake Conference last Saturday! And it was so amazing, I needed to learn to appreciate Stake Conference more! And this one was a good opportunity to learn it, the Stake President (President Checketts) asked all of the speakers not to prepare a talk but to go up and speak by the Spirit- so I was expecting some interesting talks... But they were amazing! The Spirit can prepare talks so much better than we can- and I loved that experience because you know that there were so many people in that room who needed to hear those things, because it was straight from the Spirit!:)

Ossining- Well, everywhere really. It's just so PRETTY! I've been obsessively taking pictures and videos of how gorgeous it is out here in New England (It just sounds so much more posh than New York;)).

Things:

Dropped:(- One of our awesome investigators dropped us to become Jewish... So that stinks, but things like this just make the good things so much better!:)

Halloween- Candy, candy everywhere. People like to give left overs to missionaries. And that includes candy. But Halloween was an interesting experience, when we went to people's houses they assumed we were trick-or-treaters... It was awkward:) But we had to be in by 6:30 anyway, so it wasn't too bad! And we had breakfast for dinner, so holidays on a mission can still be a party;)

Brownie Points- So after Elder Arnold came out District set goals for how we can apply what we learned.  And we called them brownie points, because if we reached them we were going to get brownies at correlation (I was wondering when I was going to be able to cash in all those that I've gotten over the years!) And one of those goals was to testify to 7 people everyday. And one night Sister Kovac and I didn't know if we were going to make it. It was 8 at night and we still had to testify to 5 people... So we park, go do a lookup and get one! And then we kind of run around like mad people going to another lookup nearby and testifying to someone through a closed door, going to a restaurant and striking up a conversation with a couple people in there that we could testify to, and then going to a gas station to fill up and then going inside to get hot chocolate and testifying to an employee in there. It was the craziest, most fun hour in my mission! And we did it! We testified to 5 people in the last hour of our day! Go us:) Actually, go the Spirit!

Anyway... Sorry this was such a long email, I just got too lazy and I needed to catch up a little bit! Thanks again everyone for being so awesome and supportive! I'm so blessed to have so many people who make it easy to miss home;) Have a good week!

Love, Sister Jones

Sister Iglesia made these,

I wish I could've kept it! haha :)

This is on the border of 

Connecticut and New York :)

I've been trying to get a good 

picture of it for months! :)

"Don't worry Mom :) 

it's a wash out kind ;) "

(It looks like she colored her hair)