Hey Everyone

This week we had another great week! First of all we had Zone Conference and it was great and unfortunately it was my last Zone Conference. Its so great to see where the mission and work is going here and I wish I could stay longer to be a part of it! A lot of the Zone Conference was about increasing the way we work with members and also just the way we work so we can be more  effective. 

We had some great experiences this last week with some of our investigators including Kenneth and Joanna, a young couple who was a referral from the Tolentino family, and another one of our investigators named Ralph. We met Joanna and Kenneth about 2 weeks ago when they and us joined a Family home evening at the Tolentino's home. Last week we taught them the restoration of the gospel and yesterday they came to church. Joanna's desire to learn about the gospel has grown very fast and Kenneth's desire is growing slowly but it is growing. We will be teaching them tomorrow and we are going to finally set a baptismal goal with them. Our other investigator is Ralph. We have been teaching him for about 4 weeks now and at first he wasn't really progressing but he had a lot of questions. 2 weeks ago after finding out again that he still hadn't read anything in the Book Of Mormon we spent an entire lesson just talking about reading and the importance of it. We also read the introduction to the first book Of Nephi and that got him interested. Well he started reading after that. He has been praying and reading now and we also taught him the Law Of Chastity and the Word Of Wisdom. Well he struggles with both of those commandments but he has been progressing well over the past few weeks and he is working hard to live the Law Of Chastity and Word Of wisdom. Ralph also came to church with us yesterday for the first time. Im really hoping he will keep progressing the way he is and hopefully be able to be baptized this August. 

Love you all! Have a great week!! 

Elder Jones

Hey everyone

Yesterday my companion and I had a great experience at church. First of all we went and picked up one of our investigators,Rodrick, on our way to church. Rodrick came to church with us which was great, then while sitting in sacrament meeting another one of our investigators randomly showed up. We talked to Roland several days ago on the street and asked him if we could teach him. He said yes and let us in his house to share a short message with him. After sharing our short message with him we invited him to church. The church is kinda far from his house and he has never been there before so we weren't to sure if he would make it, but yesterday while sitting in sacrament meeting he showed up. He was all alone and he had to find the church by his self but he did it. He was a little late but he was there. We have only taught him once so far and we have a return appointment this Tuesday.

We dont yet have any upcoming baptisms this month but hopefully next month and the month after that we will have a couple. We are still currently teaching Abygail. She is progressing well and she attended church again yesterday. Her baptismal date is July 9 and she is progressing well towards that day. We still have a lot that we need to teach her in a short period of time but we should be able to pull it off. We are also still teaching Jancel's Brother Axl. He is doing OK too but yesterday he wasnt at church cause he was sleeping so that kinda stunk. Hopefully he will be at church next week especially since he has a baptismal goal as well for this upcoming July 30. We have several other investigators that we are teaching who have baptismal dates for this upcoming August and some of them are doing well and are progressing. Some of them are progressing slowly but hopefully over the next few month period they will be ready for baptism. Right now things are going good. We have a lot of work to do but its coming along well. 

Love and Miss you all

Elder Jones

Hey everyone

Well this week we had a decent week. It was kinda difficult just cause there was a lot going on. We weren't able to teach as much as we wanted but we found some great new investigators last week. One of our new investigators is a man named Rodrick. He is probably about 38 years old. We have only taught him once so far but we have a return appointment with him tomorrow. We seems really interested. He listens super well and he really likes us and wants to listen to our message. He said he will go to church next week so Im really hoping we will see him there. We met him last Thursday when we OYMed him. He then set a return appointment with us for last Saturday. We went and visited him last Saturday and the lesson went really well. Right after we taught him he said he also has a friend who he wants us to meet, so he took us over to meet his friend but unfortunately he wasn't there so we will hopefully meet him tomorrow. This week we also taught Abygail a lot and invited her to be baptized. I dont know if I have mentioned Abygail but she is related to the Decena family who are all strong faithful members here. Abygail's friend and fellow shipper is also Jancel. Yesterday her and Jancel came to church together which was great. Abygail has a baptismal date for this upcoming June 9 and I think she will be ready by that day. 

Last Saturday I also Interviewed several people for baptism. The other Elders in our district have an upcoming baptism this Saturday so I interviewed their investigator Iszchie. Her named is pronounced heshe. Her dad was a less active member who has just recently returned to activity and his daughter will now be baptized this June 18. Its great to see brother Nathan, her dad, return to church and at the same time his daughter, Iszchie, get baptized. I also got a call from our Assistants and they asked me if I would interview one of their investigators. The Elder that was suppose to interview their investigator couldn't so they asked me to do it. After interviewing Iszchie we traveled over to the Russell church building which isn't to far from our area. Over there I interviewed their investigator. He is a really cool guy and it was great to see how much the gospel has helped him change and how he is a completely different person that he was before. He has went through many hard things and has come from a very dark past but he has changed so much and it was great to be able to interview him. Its really cool being a district leader and being able to interview investigators for baptism. 

Well g\have a great week everyone! I love and Miss you all!! 

- Elder Jones

Hello everyone!

Rainy season is now here! It has been raining a lot lately and last night while we were out working it started to rain really hard and the storm was right over us. The thunder was very loud and the lightning was very close to us it was crazy. Our area also kinda flooded last night. One of the roads in our area was completely under water and we had to walk around trying to find a way home. Im assuming it will be raining really hard for the next couple months here. The lighting storms are also very active here. The storms are really cool we just get really wet when we work in the rain! 

We had a couple of baptisms lined up for this month but just last week they all fell through. A bunch of our investigators weren't at church last Sunday and so now they cant be baptized this month. It really stinks cause the closest baptism we have is in July still kinda far away. Last Sunday we had a great experience though. One of our investigators, Brother Ralph, was suppose to come to church with us and we went to go pick him up but unfortunately he wasn't able to come. After that we decided to drop by another one of our investigators whose name is christian. when we got to his house he was there and when he saw us he knew why we were there so he ran inside a quickly got dressed. moments later he came out with his sister who was also dressed for church. He asked if his sister could and we told him that of course she could. He all hopped on a jeepney and went to church together. It was the first time that christian came to church and he invited his sister to come with us and she did. It was a really good experience. 

Today was our temple day again. Since we had our temple day today our P-day was also changed to today so we are Emailing now. anyway we are about to go out to work. Love you all and Have a great week!!

Elder Jones

Baptism

Hello po sa inyo lahat

Well this week is transfer week but we haven't heard if anything will be happening yet. We usually dont find out until Tuesday. I cant say that anything will happen but I cant say that something wont happen. Its possible I might leave but Im not sure. We will find out tomorrow and Ill let you know next week. 

Anyway this past week Jancel was baptized. It was great. Her brother and sister were there and we are teaching both of them. The only problem is that her sister goes back to the province this week but her brother will be staying here. He also now has a baptismal date for this upcoming June 25. He is also progressing towards his goal. Its was great that Sister Maribel ,their mother, and Jancel's brother and sister were able to attend her baptism. Last Saturday Brother Rowel Decena was suppose to baptize her but he called us and told us he had an emergency and couldn't so I ended up baptizing her. Its so cool when you get to baptize some one. Its a great experience. 

Last week we also did a lot of OYMing like we do every week. We OYMed 194 people just last  week. We almost talked to 200 people and invited them to listen to our message. OYMing has become just a regular thing that we do. We just OYM all day and talk and invite people all day even if we are not teaching. Its really fun though and we get to meet a lot of people through OYMing. I also gave a talk yesterday in Sacrament about the importance of missionary work. It went really well. The work is still going good. we are just trying to find more and more people to teach. Hopefully we can find a lot this week and in the weeks to come. 

Mahal ko po kayo lahat. Mag-ingat kayo lagi! 

Elder Jones

Hey there guys

Well this week was a great week. Our investigator Jancel was interviewed last Saturday and she passed and she will be baptized this Saturday. This week we also started teaching her older brother Axl. He also came to church yesterday with his mother and his sister Jancel. We also invited him to be baptized last week when we taught him. He accepted and right now he has a baptismal date for this upcoming June 25. We are also teaching another girl named Abygail who is the Decena's cousin. Abygail is doing great. she also came to church yesterday. She told us last week that this June 6 she has to go back to the province to study. She told us that she didnt want to go but that she wants to stay here to study, be baptized and cause she likes it more here. She has been praying that she would be able to here and not go back to the province. Yesterday when we saw here she told us that she would be staying here to study and she was super excited about that. Her mom gave her permission to study here. She also has a baptismal date for this upcoming June 25. 

There are a bunch of great things going on in our area right now and we are finding a lot of people that are really interested in our message. 

This last week I also went on exchanges with the Zone leaders. I worked with Elder Castaneda which if you remember he was my companion back on Coron. It was super fun working with him again. He is a great missionary and it was really fun to work with him again. Anyway him and his companion fresh started this transfer. That means that they both were brand new to the area. Anyway, since they fresh started they dont have a ton of investigators right now. We went to go visit a bunch of people but nothing worked out so we just talked to people all day. So we just OYMed all day and we talked to 48 people in one day which is a lot especially since our goal is 30 a day. It was a great day. 

Love and miss you all! Have a great week!

Elder Jones

Hey there everyone

We had a great week this week. We talked to a lot of people and we found several new investigators this week. Some of our new investigators seem very potential and very interested. Finding has been something we have been focusing on in our area because we dont have many investigators. Last week we actually find 9 new investigators including a couple of friends named June and Albert. We talked to June about a week ago and he set a return appointment with him. When we went back to visit him we met his friend albert. We began to introduce ourselves and who we are and what our message is about. They immediately started asking questions. i was very glad that they did because it shows their desire to learn and to hear our message. We invited them go to to church. They really wanted to go to church but unfortunately they both had work last Sunday.They told us that they would try to get work off next week so they could go. Even though we only have taught them once I can see that they have a lot of potential Im just really hoping that they will progress! 

We also began teaching Christian. He is 19 years old and he knows the Decena family. The Decena family is a very active family in our ward.  Christian was going to go to church yesterday but he didnt show up so we arent sure what happened. He seems very interested as well. Im really hoping that he will begin to progress as well. Hopefully since he know the Decena family they can really help him and fellowship him. Anyway we had a great week this week and we are going to have a great week again this week. Im really looking forward to it. 

Love and Miss you all

Elder Jones