A Mighty Change of Heart

We have a goal as a mission to have 30 baptisms a month for 3 consecutive months. It's been going on for awhile and we finally reached the first part of it! (36 baptisms as a mission in the month of October!) So we decided to have a gratitude fast and to fast to see how we can contribute to the next two months of the goal! Meanwhile, we have a less active that showed up on our records recently that really stuck out to us for some reason, so we have been stopping by at least twice a week for the past month or so trying to catch her, and we haven't been able to! And then on Sunday as we were fasting, we went to go look her up again- and she was there! She let us right in as if she was expecting us! She recently moved from another area where her grandma is a returning less active and has been encouraging her to go back to church as well. So her heart has been being prepared for awhile now, so when we started talking to her she had no problem agreeing to bring her daughter to young women's today, having us come visit on Friday, and she was the one who said she would be coming to church on Sunday. She says it is time! Her husband is not a member but has never been unsupportive, he goes to church when she goes, AND they have an 8 1/2 year old son who has not been baptized. We left her home with our jaws on the ground. This was our answer, they WILL come back to church!:) I really feel that Heavenly Father has a lot in store for this little family. 

We also saw another miracle this week:) We looked up another less active family and they ended up inviting us over for dinner, the deal was we needed to, "leave the preaching at the door." We knew we couldn't do that but we decided to go to the dinner appointment and we prepared to teach the Restoration. We were praying that their hearts may be softened enough to allow us to share our message with them. Dinner was SO fun, they are so wonderful and I really loved visiting with them. When it came time to share our message the mom got a little grin and said, "I thought we said to leave the preaching at the door?" But we continued teaching and the Spirit was so strong- and they didn't protest through the rest of the message. Their hearts were softened, and it wasn't drastic, but it was real and immediate! And they ended up sending us home with a pie and a whole chicken:) I know that when we put our trust in our Father in Heaven enough to do as He asks, no matter the circumstances, that He will make a way for us! 1 Nephi 3:7! 

Love you all! Make it a good week:)

Love, Sister Jones

Kingston!

(The first capital of New York!)

Beautiful Hudson River!

Hmm...  :)

🎃Happy Halloween!🎃

Exciting things this week!

First of all- it snowed!! Winter is coming! ☃️ It turned into rain later in the day haha, and the snow is gone now- but it was a fun surprise:)

Our Ward Halloween party was on Friday and it was a huge success! Our Ward is so wonderful at inviting their friends to activities, even if they are uninterested in the gospel at this time they still take the time to invite them to fun things so that they can continue to be surrounded by the good in the church until they find themselves prepared to hear the message. We had 55 members attend the party, and 53 nonmembers! We were able to talk to a lot of them, and we actually set up appointments and got contact information for a few of the nonmembers there:) I love Ward activities, such amazing missionary opportunities! 

We also had Stake Conference in Newburgh on Sunday! We had the opportunity to hear from President and Sister Smith there, I always love hearing them speak- I wish my mind was a sponge so I could soak it all up! I loved the theme of Stake Conference as well, such a big emphasis was put on family! And I loved how the focus was on how we can live the gospel in our families no matter our circumstances- single parent, part-member, mixed family, or just single- the gospel was given to us to bless our families, and no matter what our family looks like the gospel works the same. I thought that was beautiful:) My favorite, favorite part about Stake Conference though, were the miracles that took place! We have been working hard to invite, and coordinate rides for people to be able to attend Stake Conference... and things weren't looking good, people had cancelled and plans had changed so we didn't think anyone was going to be there. But when we showed up we saw our little recent convert! His name is Joshua and he is 11, we didn't know he was going to come, but a family in the Ward had ended up being able to give him a ride last minute! I was so happy:) And while we were still getting excited over that, another less active member came up behind us and surprised us, she had been able to get a ride as well. While not everyone was able to make it to Stake Conference, I was so grateful that those 2 were able to make it. It really was a miracle:)

That's all for this week folks:) I hope you have a stupendous week! LOVE YOU!

Love, Sister Jones

SNOOOOOOOW!!

Halloween Party!:) 

(I dressed up as a Sister Missionary;))

That's the Rondout lighthouse behind us :) 

For P-Day we went to a Maritime Museum! 

Super cool :) 

Hey look! I'm driving a tugboat :)

Tender Mercy!

Hello!:)

So, I just have to share this experience- such a tender mercy!:)

This week was kind of a hard week, it seemed that Satan was working really hard on everybody we are working with, including us because it was really hard to see everyone struggling so much! We were just working really hard not to let Satan get to us! 

So it was 8:15 on Sunday night and the clock was ticking. We decided to go do a lookup that we had stopped by a few times and nothing had come of it yet, but we went one more time. And the mom let us in! Walking into that house, the Spirit hit us like a wall. The doom and gloom feeling of the day and the week was immediately lifted and we felt how important this family was to our Father in Heaven! We taught them the restoration and as we were testifying of the power the Book of Mormon has to bring the comfort of our Savior to us the mom started to tear up and the Spirit in the room grew even more. They said they would read the Book of Mormon and pray about it! As we left the house to go home we both knew why we had such a hard week. We would not have been spiritually, mentally, or physically prepared to teach that family if we hadn't had the week we did. They could see that this really did mean the world to us, because we have had to apply it personally into our lives- and it works. I know that it does, the power of the Atonement and the Book of Mormon are REAL- I've experienced it and I know it for myself! We stopped by the other night again and they let us in a second time! They have a lot of struggles and they are so willing to do what it takes to have those lifted from them. They are planning on coming to our Ward Halloween party on Friday! Yay:)

I'm so grateful that we got to meet this wonderful family! And I'm just so grateful for this mission that I am able to serve, the good weeks, the bad weeks, and everything in between!:) 

Love you all lots! Have a good week:)

Love, Sister Jones

Hartford Connecticut temple!

Yay! :)

We got to go apple picking! 

Road Trippin'!

We got to go to the Hartford, Connecticut Temple open house this week! We went with an investigator and a member of our Ward drove us. It takes about 2 hours or so to get there, so that was fun:) It was so beautiful and it filled me with happiness to see another house of the Lord about to be dedicated:)

My favorite experience from yesterday was when we got to talk to an older couple after coming out of the temple, they are not members of the church and they have seen the temple being built for the past few years and they wanted to know what it was. It almost brought tears to my eyes to see tears coming to their eyes as they told us about the peace they felt in the temple. I am so grateful for the Spirit that is ever-present in the temple, anyone is able to feel it!

Miracle of the week：

We had planned to meet with an investigator at gas station and we were running late. When we got there, our investigator wasn't there:( So we started to leave and I was already in the car when Sister Lin started talking to a man I didn't recognize. I put the car in park and rolled down the window and found out he was a less active. We ended up talking with him for a while and even helped us get ready for the car inspection. Right as we were leaving, we invited him to come to church. And he said he can make it if he can get a ride. So we called up a member and got him a ride and he actually came! With his less active fiancée! It was good to see the Lord's hand at work again. I know that we may not always know why we are supposed to be somewhere, or why we are supposed to be there. But I know that He does! All of us are under His watchful care, He will never lose track of any of us. And I am grateful to be a part in bringing His children back on the path towards it. 

I love you all and hope you have been able to recognize all the miracles in your lives! Thanks for your support, and I hope you have another miraculous week! 

Love, 

Sister Jones

New Hartford temple!!

Meet my new friend.. Pan! :)

Mama Irene & Lisa

(So sweet when others feed our 

sweet missionaries!)

Pupusas y Manzanas

You thought the Spanish was done because I left the Bronx? Wrong:) We have a lot of members who are Spanish here in Kingston! And we are the only set of missionaries in our area, Spanish or English, so we get ALL of the investigators! This week we got to eat pupusas twice (the MOST delicious El Salvadorian food:)) in 2 days! And we got to go apple picking for P-Day today! Yay! What a wonderful week in Kingston! I came up state just in time to see all the beautiful colors:) And all the beautiful conversions! Fall is definitely a time of change! 

I wanted to share a quick miracle with you:) (because what else do I do?) We had a lesson set with a male and we were trying so hard to get a 3rd female, the one we had originally set had to cancel last minute and no one else could. So we went anyway and had a crazy idea to tract for a 3rd female! We prayed for a miracle right before we got out of the car and got to work. The less active we decided to try first wasn't home, and no one seemed to be interested until a lady named Anita answered. We taught her a little and she wanted to learn more, she couldn't come to the lesson right then but we were able to set up a return appointment. So with that, we went to our appointment with the male because we were out of time. And he didn't answer the door, which was a miracle in disguise since he has gotten upset before that we are unable to go in his home. So then we had some extra time and decided to knock a few more doors. And from those few doors that we knocked we found 3 more people who were interested in learning more and we set up return appointments with them all! 1 missed appointment and 4 new investigators! We had asked for a miracle and hadn't gotten the miracle we were expecting- but we got a miracle that the Lord wanted to give to us! We are led to places for a reason, and it is up to us to find that reason. I have a testimony of that:) 

Sorry I ran myself out of time for emailing today! I love you all! Stay tuned for some more amazing miracles in the Lord's work!

Love, Sister Jones

We are cute! :)

Jumping picture :)

Shot to the Top

Well, transfers came calling! And after 9 wonderful months- it is time for me to leave the Bronx:( There were definitely a few hard goodbyes. But I know that they are in good hands- the Sisters in Olmstead get to enjoy the fruits of missionary work as 3 of my FAVORITE people in the world enter the waters of baptism this weekend:) Words can't describe how much I will miss them, but also how excited I am for them to make such an important covenant with their Father in Heaven (whether or not I am there doesn't make it any less exciting!) This work is true, and the Bronx is most definitely a white field. How lucky and grateful I am to have had the opportunity to be part of the harvest!

New area: KINGSTON! Back upstate! In fact, it is the top of the mission- our area borders another mission to the north. My companion is Sister Lin, she is from China and we are already having lots of fun:) And I am driving again! I don't need to tell you how interesting of an experience it was to be behind the wheel again after 9 months! I almost forgot how to drive! 

It has been such a wonderful, stressful, amazing week! And what about General Conference!? Wasn't it amazing? One of my favorite talks (because they are all my favorite) was President Nelson's talk about JOY. I loved this quote from it: "Joy is a gift for the faithful. It is the gift that comes from intentionally trying to live a righteous life, as taught by Jesus Christ." Sometimes breaking the commandments does make us feel good, we can have good feelings when we listen to Satan- but those feelings are fleeting and will eventually lead only to sadness and misery, in the state that Satan wants us to be in. But the joy that comes from keeping the commandments is ETERNAL. They are real and they are not fleeting. I'm so grateful to Heavenly Father for loving us enough to give us His commandments, for giving us a way to find JOY. And I know that is the ONLY way to finding true joy, living as our Savior lives and loving as our Savior loves.

I'm grateful to be a missionary and I am grateful to be serving in Kingston at this time! Wonderful things are in store for this work, as they always are! I love you all and I have a bit of good news! Only 179 days until General Conference!;) But until then, I'm grateful we have 6 months to study these wonderful talks given to us by inspiration from our Father in Heaven. May we study them again and again, to get all that Heavenly Father intended us to get out of them!

Have a superfundiferous week (stole that word from Cat in the Hat.)

Love, Sister Jones

Joy & her kids heart attacked me when

they found out I was leaving! 

The countdown to the right is to

Joy & Lenia's baptisms!

Love them with my whole heart! 

Roomate selfie..

I will miss these Sisters a lot!

Sister Lin!

(and me behind the wheel of a car..yikes!)

Dum dum, give me gum gum! :D

(museum of natural history)

Aprendì Español Esta Semana!

¡Hola!

We had splits this week and I went into the Spanish area so I have been in a very Spanish mood lately! (If there was an emoji of a man with a mustache and a sombrero, it would go here.) 'Twas a fun split, Sister Coen taught me Spanish! Well, basically the only thing I can say is, "Here, this pamphlet is for you. Come to church. Can I have your phone number?" Haha, slightly more expressive- but that is the gist:) Splits shenanigans include: a fancy bakery with DELICIOUS cake, inviting the Hermana's investigator to be baptized (she said yes!), being allowed in to literally every house we went to (seriously, even the people who weren't interested! Such the hospitality!). I'd call it a success:)

A couple miracles from this week! 

We have an investigator who the Spanish Elders referred to us a few months ago. We had lost contact for awhile because we thought she wasn't interested. But a few weeks ago she reached out to us because her daughter was in the hospital, and the Elders were able to go and give her a blessing. And ever since then we have been in contact again, able to serve her in a lot of ways (even helped her paint her kitchen:)). And just this last week we were able to find out that our Relief Society President's daughter, and our investigator's daughter actually go to the same school- and that our RS President and our investigator are friends through their daughters! SO, our RS President invited her to come to church and she came! She even asked us about baptism on Sunday! Seriously, service combined with friendship, the best way to love anyone into the Gospel:)

And Shawna. Shawna is a lady we met on the bus the other day. We sat down next to her and all I could think was how familiar she looked! I started talking to her and mentioned how I thought we had spoken to her before, and she remembered that we had! (She remembered 2 girls wearing skirts talking about Jesus Christ... shocker;)) Anyway, we were able to teach her about living prophets and invited her to come to General Conference (loved the sneak peek we got at Women's Conference:)) and she said she would love to! I know Heavenly Father put her in our path twice for a reason, because that doesn't happen here without divine intervention!:) His hand is in the work!

I love you all and I hope you have an AMAZING Conference weekend! Don't forget to bring your questions to Conference, I promise that they will always be answered!

Love, Sister Jones

Yay, I found it! ;)

I have been looking for a long time!

Splits! :)

and fancy baked goods! ;)