JONESMAIL!!!! Let's Go To The Beach

Okay, so it´s been a freaking long time. I´m so sorry; my time management skills SUCK. But hey, what are ya gonna do.

¨Kill you.¨

Okay, well, don´t do that. Please.

Transfers have reared their ugly heads, and struck me down with a lethal blow. I was cast out to the wilderness of the south, with the letters ZL scarred into the flesh of my brow. (I was made Zone Leader.)

I´m in a place called Barahona, in the utmost south of the DR. My area is literally right along the ocean. IT´S AWESOME. We have a nice constant breeze that comes in from the ocean, which is a great defense against the overpowering heat.

As for the Zone Leader thing, I´m loving abusing other missionaries with my awesome power.

Kidding.

Nah, being a ZL is a lot of phone calls and crunching numbers. It´s cool, but all it really entails is more responsability. That being said, my understanding of such will probably change with time...as I only have a few days as a ZL. :D

I don´t know all things, but I do know that all things happen for a reason. If we strive to do right and to be true disciples of Jesus Christ, all things will work to our advantage. I´ve come to know for myself by countless special and sacred experiences that God lives, and loves us. I know this without a doubt in my mind.

I really want you all to know that I love you all, individually. I miss you all.

Happy 2016!

Sigamos Pues!

-Élder Jones

1: Hah, nerds.

2: I´m actually controlling that kid´s mind in that pic. He doesn´t remember being there when it was taken.

3: THE WATERS OF MARS. ...With a gringo and a peruano.

4: Make that your new desktop wallpaper. I totally will. ...When I get home. Heh heh.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

FELIZ NAVIDAD!!!!!

-Élder Jones

JonesMail...well, no.

Sorry y´alls...I´m out of time. BUT! I do want to tell you chaps about the experiences we had this last week...so...TUNE IN THIS SAME TIME NEXT WEEK TO FIND OUT! (Ooops.)

Peace, Love, Unity, Serenity!

-Élder Jones

DOMINICAN CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS! HA!

ZONE CONFERENCE!!!

JonesMail!!! Conferences and Contacting

I´ve been pondering a lot lately about creating completely unique Superheros with under-appreciated powers. For example,

THE GREEN THUMB. One bound at the heart with nature, The Green Thumb wields the power to control and manipulate blades of grass. It sounds lame at first...UNTIL HE MAKES A GIANT SUPER SIZED GRASS ARMY. Think about it.

GAS GUZZLER. There are some superheros that can shoot water or fire or webs out of their hands. Gas Guzzler shoots gasoline. BOOM BOOM BAD GUYS! Also, he can drive a car indefinetly, as HE WILL NEVER RUN OUT OF GAS. BRILLIANT.

PLASTOID. You´ve heard of airbenders and waterbenders? Well this guy is a PLASTICBENDER. ENOUGH SAID.

Well, like the subject line clearly states, we´d a conference this week. ZONE CONFERENCE, BABY!!! Élder Zivic was sort of the highlighting speaker in such, which was rather glorious (he has such a cool voice...). The focus was (logically) on being better, more effective missionaries. We´ve a goal/guide type thing called ¨The Pulse¨, which carries the end goal of to souls converted a month: one reactivation, and one baptism.

To achieve such, three items are needed (it´s dangerous to go alone):

1. Faith

2. Work

3. Obedience

The fruits of such are the results of ¨The Pulse¨ itself, as well as the Spirit, and, in all truth, miracles (which are indeed necessary as a missionary).

So, my final dedication: work like crazy, work like crazy, and work like crazy. Likewise, I´m trying to hit exact obedience so as to be able to enjoy all of the blessings that follow with such.

Glory.

We´ve done a bit of contacting this week (also mentioned in the subject line), and so far, we´ve found a few potentials. And a few freccas. But, we´re focusing on those that are interested in the GOSPEL, and not in us. :D

We shall see how these new people progress!

One of the two people that got baptized in September (Morelia, to be precise) received a calling this last Sunday! She´s progressing super well and is in truth very dedicated. WOO!

This next week is to be rather fascinating indeed! We shall drink from the fount of joy and joyness. Huzzah, my dear chaps. Huzzah indeed.

Peace, Love, Unity, Serenity!

-Élder Jones 

JonesMail! The Weird and The Wacky.

For those of you who are super crazy followers of ¨MKzing¨, no, I am not about to write about an under development internet series featuring MK clones and the supernatural. (I still want to work with that though.) Rather, this week has been a bit weird and a touch wacky.

Alright, so it´s only been weird in the sense that we´ve not been able to work a whole lot this week, which has kind of thrown us off a tad. 

Sunday: We worked.

Monday: It was P-Day. Hallelujah.

Tuesday: We left San Juan to head to the Capital for a Trainers Conference Wednesday morning.

Wednesday: We had the aforementioned conference.

Thursday: WORK!!! GLORY.

Friday: We´d a meeting which kind of chopped off half our day.

Saturday: We´d the whole International Mormon Helping Hands thing (did you guys do that too?), in which we raised awareness for a disease called Dengue. The service project was cool, but it sliced our day in half. No worries!

It´s truly heaetbreaking when people reject our message. How can we help them to understand that this is something different, something new? How can we help them to recognize us as servants of the Lord Jesus Christ? How can we help them to feel the divinity of our message?

Regardless, we press on.

Also, we found a freaking Golden Family. GLORY. If all is well, we shall teach them upon the morrow!!!!!!!!!! WEEEEEEEEEEEEEW!

That´s all I´ve enscribed for thee! Peace out.

Peace, Love, Unity, Serenity!

-Élder Jones

I Lost Count. 36! We Will Go With That! (*Mom didn't, it's 37 ;-D)

"And The Lord said, "Let there be a weird quirky post-adolescent nerd with a severe lack of melanin in his skin, and let him preach My gospel upon a small Frecca-infested Caribbean Island for two years". And there was Elder Jones. And The Lord saw that he was awkward, geeky and made random sarcastic comments at whim, and said, "It is good"."

...I was half-expecting a bolt of lightning to strike me as I wrote that. :D

I am going to be completely and whole-heartedly honest: I am freakishly exhausted. A huge part of that is due to the fact that I went hard-core in a game of Soccer for about three hours...without eating any breakfast or drinking any water. I later guzzled down three bottles of water, and nearly screamed with joy. WATER IS BEAUTIFUL. (And the game was fun too! I think I shed all fat from my body!)

I've a new comp, named Elder Peterson (I relaed such in the last General Email). He has two transfers less than I, and utilizes one of the purest forms of sarcasm I've ever seen. Apparently, this is the first time that two gringos have been in this area together for about two years. (Our Branch President keeps making jokes that they "whited-out" the area. Because we're white. [In all fairness, he's been making that joke since I first got here. :D ] Such is GREAT for our English Class!)

I don't really have any glorious stories this week about super awesome investigators; we're kind of struggling at the mo to find good investigators. Such is life, right? WE PRESS ON IN FAITH AND LOVE AND PEACE AND PROSPERITY AND TRANQUILITY AND UNITY AND HOPE AND HAPPINESS AND GLORY!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! *Double Fist Pump/Shuffle in Place*

And now, I must flopp away. OPTIMISM RULES!

-Elder Jonesie, as they call me.

Week 35, I think? Umm...I've no flippin' idea. (*Mom knows- it's week 36 ;-D)

GREETINGS FROM THE LAND OF RICE AND BEANS! The glorious and gorgeous (and humble) Elder Jones is back to tell y'alls what's what! YEEEAH!

And now, I go to my journal so I can remember what the poop happened this last week.

The Transfers are in, and ELDER SERRATY WILL BE LEAVING MY SIDE FOREVERMORE! *Weeps bitterly*

It hurts, I know.

On the bright side, I'M GOING TO BE A STEP-FATHER AGAIN!! WOO!! His name is Elder Peterson...and he's actually the Trainee of one of the Zone Leaders. Yeah. He's going to be in the same Zone for his second comp/area. WACK! But dope, nonetheless.

I GOT SICK THIS WEEK! Tuesday eve, I twas out walking, whenst I felt upon my knecaps a lack of energy. Mine corpse though filled with life twas now reeling under the weight of a great nothingness. We retreated to our yonder abode, where I fell into a light slumber for the space of ten hours. When the following day dawned, I still lacked wholeness, so I thus aboded in my abode for the space of another day. It twas indeed a moment of great suffering and great sorrow. 

The dog downstairs went crazy when we went down to visit Marica (our neighbor), because we were clad in street clothes in the place of our normal missionary garb. She didn't recognize us dresed differently! (It should be noted that the dog is a chiwawa, so the spectacle was more hilarious than anything).

We made PIZZA! IT WAS GLORIOUS! AGAIN! (I'd make it every Sunday here if I could...but our oven doesn't work. No pizza is better than dying in a grand explosion, right? [Did that make grammatical sense?])

And now, a spiritual experience. For the past little while, I'd been trying to understand as to exactly why I didn't feel joy here in the mission, and why the work didn't feel satisfying. I could remember feeling happiness in the mission before, so what had changed? I pondered and prayed over this for a while, and the answer came to me during Church this last Sunday (Church attendance = personal revelation!). I suddenly remembered two quotes from the past, which tied together perfectly. The first was of my mother: "Attitude is Everything."

And the second was from a personal experience that occured in the MTC. When Elder Hugo Martinez of the Second Quorum Seventy visited us, we, at the end, shook his hand. When my turn came, he said to me, "The thing that will make the biggest difference will be your smile."

At that time, I thought he was talking about that it would make the biggest difference to my investigators, but this last Sunday, I realized that it applied mostly to me. Here was the key! The smile! Smile when you're angry, and your anger melts away. Smile when you're tired, and you're filled with energy. Smile when you're sad or lonely, and the feelings break apart. Your mind becomes clear, and you take a fresh, clearer perspective on the situation. Since that moment, I've felt full of joy and optimism for the work, and it has indeed been greatly more satisfying. God answers every prayer! At times, He asks us to have patience and wait for His answer, but He ALWAYS answers EVERY prayer!

Paz, Amor, Unidad, Serenidad!

-Elder Jonesie