Hello Family!!

So I have some interesting news! I ate Balut the other day! My companion really wanted me to try it before he left so I said I would so we sat down and ate Balut the other day! It is very different but not as gross as I had originally thought. So after Skyping on Christmas we went and visited some members and investigators and every single one of them fed us! So we were hungry at all on Christmas! We had a lot of fun and our relationship with some of the members here has really improved! This week we are suppose to have transfers and I'm pretty sure I will be getting a new companion. And hopefully many of our investigators will return and we can go visit them again. 

On Tuesday we had our christmas party which was really fun. We played some games and watched a video. There was also a lot of food there and some of the Elders and Sisters put together a presentation for us. Our Mission president also dressed up like Santa and had some of the Elders dress up as Elves. It was pretty funny. This week I also went and bought myself a gift. I got a star wars hoodie. Its way cool. Its super comfortable. 

The Tagalog is coming well. It was hard at first and I couldn't really understand it but now I can understand enough to know what people are talking about and I can kind of have conversations with people. Om just trying to increase my vocabulary and learn how to but it all together. Its coming a long good though! 

Not a whole lot happened this week just because it was Christmas but we tried to oym some more. There were several times when I was talking to some one and my companion was talking to someone else. We oymed alot but its also really hard to find new investigators through oyming. It just depends. 

Well we have to go its 6 and we have to go to the Zablan Family for a FHE with them!! 

Love you all and miss you!! I will talk to you next week! Have a great week in Utah and tell everyone hi for me!!

Elder Jones

Hello Jones Family

 

This week has been pretty good but kinda slower because of the Christmas season. Since Christmas is around the corner many people are leaving the city and going to the province so our work has slowed down a little. We are just trying to use our time to find new investigators! We have found several which is really good! Right now we have several progressing investigators and Im really looking forward to seeing them be baptized hopefully this next transfer. One investigator who we have been working with since I got here is Sister Exyl. She has changed so much and she knows it is true. We are wating for her and her boyfriend, who is a member, to get married! Hopefully they will get married in the end of January or middle of February then she will be baptized shortly after that. Her boyfriend Brother Jared has been inactive for some time but is now returning to church with her. Yesterday at church Brother Jared was late but sister Exyl came early and was there 35 minutes before church started! It was sooo cool to see her there that early! Im really looking forward to her baptism. Another investigator we have is Sister Merryann. She is married but her husband is gone a lot cause of work. We have only been able to teach him once but Sister Merryann has been progressing so well! She comes to church prays and reads. She hasnt specifically told us that she ahs received and answer but we both feel that she has and that she knows it. Just this week her young baby boy was very sick and we were in a hurry so we had forgotten our oil. We quickly returned to our apartment and grabbed our oil. In a hurry I set by keys on the table and left them. When we were walking back to Merryanns I told my companion I forgot my keys and he started to worry. I asked him what was wrong and he said he didnt bring his keys since I always have mine. We were locked out. We just shrugged it off at went to work. We got back to Merryanns and gave her baby a blessing. It was so cool cause her husband was there too. The next day when we came back her baby was fine. It was such a cool experience. After our proselyting we had to get into our apartment and we finally find a way.

 

Tomorrow we have our Christmas party at the mission home and next week we have transfers. I will probably be getting a new companion and Im just really hoping a get a super good companion. Its good to hear you guys are all doing good! Get better those of you who are sick and HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Caden Devon and Rylee!!! We celebrated your birthday at our apartment with a box of donuts and some candles!! I have pictures but I will have to send them later. Tell jamin and jared hi! I really miss those guys! Have a great week and Ill talk to you on Christmas day!

 

-Elder Jones

Hello Jones Family! 

This week we had a decent week but the storm and some of the other rain we have got throughout the week really messed with our proselyting time! Just the other day while getting ready to leave it started pouring so we had to stay in the apartment til it passed! We also had our ward Christmas party on Friday! It was a ton of fun! So on Monday we had to stay in our apartment all day so we went to the other missionaries apartment which is right by our where we played chess for a little and ordered pizza. Luckily we got to go out and work on Tuesday. But Friday we had hardly any work because we had weekly planning until 3 then the Christmas party at 6. Then on Saturday we had to stay in our apartment for a little and let a storm pass over but the we were able to go out. We have many investigators right now and several of them are doing really good! They have been reading and praying and we visit them several times a week. One of the hardest things is church attendance though. The church is pretty far. We are really trying to get our investigators to come to church, which many of them do and we have been working a lot with the less active families. Its so cool to see most of the less active families we have been visiting at church! There is one family here that I'm really looking forward to working with, the Ranon family. The father is less active and has been for many years and he wants for his 7 children to hear the message of the gospel. We have only taught them twice but we stop by often to see how they are doing. The kids have already been reading and praying and they want to go to church. Brother Ranon said they would go next week he is just hesitant to go back because its been so long and he doesn't feel worthy. But we shared a message with him and he said he wants to return and do what he needs to do to get back on the right path. We also invited his children to be baptized and they all said they want to be. Brother Ranon then told us don't rush their baptism because he wants them to really have faith and become good active members of the church. I though it was cool when we said that! I'm really looking forward to seeing their progression in the coming months!

I love you all!! Have a great week!!

Elder Jones

Hello Family!

So you have all heard about the storm headed this way. It hasn't hit yet it has actually slowed down and is suppose to hit later today. We can tell the storm is approaching. There is a large mass of clouds approaching our area and it has been getting closer and closer as the day has went on. The winds have been picking up and its starting to rain here right now. Our area floods very easily so after the storm there might still be a lot of water but our apartment is on the top floor. We have to return to our apartment when the rain picks up but our apartment is really close to the internet shop we are in. 

This week here in our area has been pretty good. It was a little bit more challenging cause Investigators have been busy or gone so we didn't have as many lessons as the past weeks but we took the opportunity we had with more time and tried to OYM. We found several new investigators and many potential investigators. Several weeks ago we were trying to find someone who we had OYMed several weeks earlier and we stopped by a shop and asked if they knew the person we were looking for. Here in Manila there are small shops all over the place that people run our of their homes to make some extra money. The people we talked to several weeks earlier were at the little store they owned. We weren't having much success the other night so I suggested to my companion that we go back and visit that same shop from a couple weeks ago. We both had wished we OYMed them several weeks ago but we were in a hurry. We didn't want to go to this store just to OYM the owner so we ended up buying a drink from them and then turned it into a discussion. There was a Mother and 4 of her daughters all outside talking. Her husband was at work but we just talked for a little then gave them a Book of Mormon and a pamphlet. We established a good friendship with them in just a few minutes and they seemed interested. We asked if we could come back and visit and they said we could. We haven't went back yet but we will later this week. We had many other OYMing experiences this week that were really good. In our area there is a member who has been less active for about 14 years and he now has 7 kids. He and his entire family are very nice and he wants to return to church as well as have his kids hear about the gospel. We taught them all about the restoration last night and his younger kids love it when we come by. They call us Kuya which means older brother. It was great to teach them and I feel like they were really interested. 

I love you all and will talk to you all again next week.

-Elder Jones

Hello Jones Family

Tama yan Taylor Lahat ng tao dito sa mundo ay anak ng diyos. Siya'y ating ama at Mahal na mahal niya tayo at gayundin kilalang kilala niya tayo. Sige so translate that for me Taylor! Thats aweome that you learned "Ako ay anak ng diyos" So P-day namin got changed galing kahapon to ngayon. So thats why Im E mailing now. We had a Temple day today so they changed our schedule around so we had the temple this morning tapos P-Day sa Hapon. Pero aming temple time got changed. We got all ready this morning left to the temple, we rode the LRT which I told you guys before how crowded it is. We rode it para mga 35 mga minuto tapos we had to get on another one which was another 30 minutes. So our session started at 12 and we got there at about 11:20 but then the temple workers told us we would have to have our session at 2. So we just went out to eat and it was cool to see the MTC again. So we had our session at 2 then we hurried home with some of the other missionaries in our district we didnt get back to our area until 6 so we are E mailing now and its late! Opo Alam ko hindi mabuti. This week has been so great we have had so much activity in this area and we have several baptismal dates coming up. My Tagalog is improving but the conjugation sa wika na ita ay mejo mahirap pero ok long. Sinabi Ni President Ostler "For those learning Tagalog it takes about 6 months to really become effective." Pero Im really starting to understand what people are saying I just need to widen my vocabulary. So Its already December which is soo crazy! I probably wont be getting transferred from this area until at least the middle of February. So I still have almost 2 full transferres left here, or so I'm guessing. When I first got out into the field the culture was a shock but I'm use to it already. I got use to normal day life and the culture really fast! It is really different here, of course, but its so cool. Ill send some pictures next week I forgot my camera cord in our apartment. Mom turned another year older on Thanksgiving day! HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM I LOVE YOU!!

Sorry this E mail is short but we are really short on time because of the temple and the session change. Oh another thing we also saw a monkey today when we were walking to the LRT. Which was really surprising cause we are in the center of a bunch of homes and businesses where its super crowded. 

I LOVE YOU ALL have a great week and I will talk to you next week!!! 

-Elder Jones