New companion

Hello again everybody

It feels like I just emailed you guys! This week we had a decent week! Lately we have been focusing a lot on finding since our teaching pool is very small! We talked to lots of people and we talked to some people that seemed like they might be pretty interested. Im really hoping this week we can find some new investigators. Some that are really prepared. The ward here hast had a baptism in 4 months so we are working on that. We are just struggling a little bit even though we are working hard. Thats OK though cause it will all work out. We did, however have a great experience last week while teaching Jancel. We taught here last Tuesday with some of her friends the Decena Family. Brother Julius Decena and his wife sat in with us, The are both Returned Missionaries and just got married 2 weeks ago. Brother Noel was also working with us, he just got back from his mission about 4 weeks ago and sister Tin tin another returned missionary worked with us. It was a great discussion! We taught the restoration through the Prophet Joseph Smith and they all shared their testimony with Jancel, then we invited her to be baptized this may.

Our area here in Pasay 5th ward is pretty small but I really like that. We work in the same small area every day and we are still exploring and finding more areas to work. Its also nice that our area is small cause we can go from one side to the other in a matter of minutes. We see the same people too everyday! We have made a lot of friends in our area they just haven't let us teach them yet. The work is going good though! Im really excited to see what happens in our area in the next few weeks and next few months. 

Just last Wednesday we had transfers. Elder Bernard left and went to back to Palawan. This time though he is assigned in Puerto Princessa. My new companion is Elder Streeter. He is an american. He is my first American companion.  He is still new in the mission but he is doing well. I think him and I will work good together.

Have a great week everyone! Miss and Love you all!

Elder Jones

Magandang tanghali sa inyo lahat 

Yesterday we had a great experience in our area with one of our new investigators. Maribel and Recent Convert here in our area has several kids who are all teenagers. Last week we met one of them and started teaching her. Her name is Jancel and she is 14 years old. We taught her 2 times last week and then invited her to church. Yesterday she showed up at church with her mom which was great! After church and after going back to the apartment and doing our studies we went out to work. We went to go stop by the Decena family to see if Brother Decena could come work with us for just 30 minutes to visit a Part Member family. When we arrived at the Decena's home we found Jancel and her mom there with them. The Decena family is a very active family with several returned missionaries. Jancel was memorizing the articles of faith with some of the other members there. Then Jancel asked us when could she be baptized. It surprised both Elder Barnard and I and then we asked her if she wanted to be baptized and she said yes. It was a cool experience. Lately we have been working very hard to find investigators and teach and help our investigators attend church. 

The work has been going good lately though. Over the past few weeks we have found many investigators who are interested in our message and they are doing alright. We have been struggling with helping our investigators attend church. The church is kinda far from our area and not many people know where it is so sometimes it can be hard to get investigators there. Its great to see the progression of our area. Im really hoping that we can find some more investigators and hopefully help some people to be baptized in the next few months. 

The work has been great lately and things have been going great. We are again excited for another week ahead of us. Thank you! Miss and Love you all!

Elder Jones

Hello again 

We had another great week in the mission field. This week went by really fast. But we had some great experiences. We are still teaching our investigator Jaymix and we are also teaching his two cousins Rico and Sherwin. They are doing good. They have lots of questions especially about what they read in the Book Of Mormon. They have been having a hard time trying to make it to church. For the past 3 weeks they have been planning on coming to church but something always stops them right at the last second. Yesterday they were planning to attend general conference when they texted us and told us an emergency came up and they had to leave and go somewhere else. It stunk not to see them there but the time will come. Im just hoping they get the opportunity really soon to make it to church. 

This week was pretty crazy with General Conference as well. We didn't get to work last Saturday but we were able to watch all the sessions of general conference which was great. I really learned a lot and really enjoyed general conference. It went by really fast. It sure didn't feel like 10 hours of general conference. Im so glad we have living Prophets, and Apostles on the earth today. My testimony of Living Prophets and Apostles has really been strengthened the last few general conferences. The are so important and they are called of God to lead and guide us. Always listen to them and try to apply their messages in your lives.  

The work has been really good lately. Im really looking forward for this week. Im excited to see what happens and what new things we can accomplish this week. We have several return appointments with some of our new investigators and Im excited to visit them. Thank you every one for all your prayers and support. I Love you all! 

Elder Jones

Hello Everyone

 This week we had a great week. We had several new great investigators including one named  Sister Alihandra. We met her last Wednesday and set a return appointment. While on our way to go visit here we stopped by brother alincastre and asked if he could come   with us to go work.  He came with us and we  visited  Sister Alihandra last Saturday.We began teaching her the restoration. She listens very well and is super interested. She really understands what  we teach as well. At the end of the discussion we invited her to come to church and she said she would   but she needed some one to go with her. Brother  Alincastre volunteered. We gave sister Alihandra his number and ours and she said she would text. The next day while we were at church one of the members approached us and told us that the Alincastre family just showed up and Sister Alihandra was with them. It was great to see the members helping and supporting us and our investigators. Investigators progress much faster when they have members helping and supporting them. 

Over the past several weeks we have found many new investigators and many of them are great great people. If you didnt know we have a goal in our mission to OYM at least 190 people a week which my companion and I have been doing. We have seen so many blessings come from it. We have found so many new investigators in such a short period of time. It has been great talking  to so many people because now we have tons of friends in our area.We talk with so many people and its great. 

We havent yet see general conference but we will be watching it this Saturday and Sunday. Im really excited for it. Im hoping we can help a  lot of our investigators be there so they can hear from the living prophets and apostles.

Elder Jones

There was a holiday here in the Philippines this week which is Holy week. And its a big holiday for some of the other religions like catholic. Any way a bunch of our investigators went out on vacation since they didnt have any work. Sister Amy was gone for most of the week so we only taught her once. Jaymix went on a trip and hasn't come home yet. We had a pretty good week though. We still taught several people and we found some new investigators. 

Last Monday we also had a Family Home Evening with the Macanlalay family. He is the 2nd counselor in the Bishopric. We had a lot of fun. There was a bunch of people there that they invited and we played some games after the message and we also ate. Brother Macanlalay ordered a huge pizza for us! It was a surprise. It was a 36 inch pizza! Its was huge. There was a lot of us there though. 

Right now we are still looking for new investigators in our area. We have several new investigators and several others that we have been teaching for a while but we still need more. There arent a lot of less active members in our area which is really good it gives us more time to find and teach investigators. 

Elder Jones

This last week was great and we saw a lot of progress in our area! First of all we had some new investigators and we also had 5 investigators attend church. Our new investigator brother Jaymix came to church with us along with two other new investigators, Sister Amy, and Brother Raymond. Jaymix and Amy both life in the Park Ave mansion and they are friends with Sister Dara and her husband Brother Gilbert, who are both very active and faithful members. Brother Raymond lives with a Recent Convert in our area named Gelsum. Gelsum has been a member for about 6 months but he has fallen away but he is coming back now. My companion and I went to go vist Gelsum and we met Raymond and taught him. We invited him to be baptized but he said he wants to read and pray about it first. On Saturday night we went by them to invite them to church and they said they were going. Gelsum called of work to go and work has been wants holding him back. Sunday morning we woke up got ready and stopped by Gelsum and Raymond, they came to church. Then after that we went to the Park ave Mansion to pick up Amy and Jaymix. They also came and we all went to church together with Sister Dara and Brother Gilbert. It was a great experience and it was a lot of fun to help them get to church.

We are still doing a lot of looking in our area and last week we also had a very humbling experience. We talked to a kid sitting on the side of the road who was smoking. We asked him what he name was and how old he was. He said his name is EJ and he is 18. We then introduced ourselves and asked if we could share a message with him and he said we could. As we talked to him and got to know him better we learned that both of his parents have already passed away. He has a little sister whose name is grace, she is 10 years old. It was great to share just a little with them and we will definitely be going back to visit him again. I really felt like the family at church could really help him. It was great to see how receptive he was too.

The work is going good now and the work is also picking up. Im looking forward to seeing our new investigators progress this week and finding some new investigators. Love and miss you all!

Elder Jones  

Musta po sa inyo lahat

This week Elder Bernard had a very cool OYMing/ finding experience. One day, after being punted time and time again, we went to visit one of our new investigators but unfortunately he wasn't home. He lives in a large apartment complex where it can also be very hard to find investigators. Across the hallway was another apartment and the door was wide open and the guy was inside cleaning. We asked him where our investigator had went and we told him that we was gone but should be back later. After talking to him for just a short period of time we introduced ourselves and the message we carry. We asked him if we could share with him and he said he had to go somewhere soon. We asked him again if we could share for just 10 minutes and he immediately told us to come in. We shared a short 10 minute message with him and set up a return appointment. He is also familiar with the church since he plays basketball with some of the members. It was a very cool experience. His name is Jay mix and he is a 23 year old male. He seemed very interested and before we even invited him to do anything we said he would like to come to church. We are hoping to see him there this next Sunday.  

The work has been going good lately. We did have a rough week though last week. We talked to so many people but weren't able to teach many lessons. It feels good though just to talk to the people we meet on the streets. Of course not every one will accept us but as we talk to people maybe we are planting seeds for future missionaries to harvest. My companion is very good at talking to people. He is not a afraid to talk to anyone even if its a large group of people. Its really helped me a lot lately too. Its hard for me to sometimes start talking to people but once Im talking to them its easy. He isn't afraid at all and he just talks to them which is exactly what I need. Since we have been companions though its become easier to talk to large groups of people. Our area here is actually pretty small too. If you look on the map our area looks big but when you work in our area its pretty small cause there are lots of businesses in our area, and a lot of busy roads and large skyscapers. We work in the same few areas almost everyday so lots of people know us now but we are still exploring and finding new things. The work is great though and it is also progressing. 

Elder Jones