September 30, 2013

Hey Family!

   Wow, another week has come and gone and now I am sitting here once again to say hello. I hope you have all had a wonderful week and that all is going well for you. You are all in my prayers and I appreciate your prayers for me. 

   This week was good. We had a Baptism and Confirmation for a wonderful guy named Lamin Williams. When I came to the Lewabu area they were already teaching Lamin. They had only taught  just a few things with him so I was chanced to be there through most of his process. During his process I had some few doubts but that as the time came for his baptism and confirmation he has really just blown all of my doubts away. He didn't seem too deep and interested but as he has now shown me he is ready and willing to do the work. Just before his baptism he showed us to a friend to teach and the guy was good. On Sunday, he went and picked up the friend and then was still early to church before we even got there to make sure that he was ready for his confirmation. After church we were talking to him and saying that this other man (Dennis) would be baptizing this weekend. He said so casually that he would like to come and attend the baptism as if he has been a hundred times. It was really good and I felt so happy to see his conversion that he has inside him. It was good to know that even though I had a hard time seeing it at first that the Lord and the Spirit truly prepared him for the gospel. It was sweet. 

  Another sweet!! experience came from Dennis Amara. Through the week we were teaching him and he is just progressing as ever could be. I had a scripture marker pencil that I gave to him on Thursday and on Friday he had marked a bunch of the verses, and not just randomly marking, these were, real, markings. He is quoting from the Book of Mormon and using examples from it in many things. He is really searching it and asking questions. He found where it talks about the Nephites having darkness for three days "upon the whole face of the earth" and he compared it to those in Jerusalem who had it for three hours. He was confused from the two and wanted to know the truth. As we were trying to explain why these happen he just flat out said, "well, I believe the Book of Mormon has the more correct account of it so I'll believe that one." He truly has a strong testimony of the keystone of our religion which is amazing. But we were able to help him understand that both were correct. It was a great experience. Continuing with Dennis... Yesterday, his wife Kadiatu came to church with him. We were soooo happy! She had a good experience and got a great warm welcome. After church we went to visit them. Kadie sells food out at the junction infront of their house and we had invited her not to sell on the sabbath(which is very hard for people to do here!!) Well... She kept the commitment and didn't sell. People kept coming to her telling her they wanted food and they would help her bring out the market but she told them NO. As we were talking about it you could tell that she was really struggling because much of her market was now bad and they had to suffer the losses. She almost came to tears a few times but fought it back as she stated that she was testing the Lord and showing her faith. (Like we told them in the Law of Tithing, "prove me herewith saith the Lord")  It was amazing. I am so happy with their family and the things that are coming from them. Wow!

  Well, my companion and I will be headed back to Freetown in the morning for another meeting with the zone leaders and president. Things are really happening here and I just can't believe it. I wish that I could be able to extend for another six months to a year just to see some of the things that will be changing in that short space of time. But, I'll let you know how that goes next Monday.

I love you all Boku! 

Love Elder Jones :)

September 23, 2013

Hey Everybody,

  How was your week? I hope all things went well for you this week.
Things here have been good. Nothing too much has happened this week. We did have a baptism for a young woman. She now joined her mother, sister, and brother into the church. All that is left in the family is the father and the sister who is in Freetown. This sister's name is Suma Keneh. She is really good. We have enjoyed teaching her and her sister has been a big help in teaching her and giving support. It has been good to go there as well because they always put a plate of rice for us every time. It's good when we haven't eaten much in the day but anytime we are full and know that we still have to go there we dread it small. haha We've had some good meals and some not so tasteful meals but all in all. it is food and we are still healthy. :)
  My companion and I had a neat experience this morning. Early this morning about by 5:00 or so our phone rang. We both left it for the morning. During our studies the same number called. we picked up and it was this man that we had just met a few days ago. We were walking around trying to find this referral that had been given to us and we just asked at his house if they lived there. He said no but was willing to bring chairs to sit down if we wanted to. At first we kind of hesitated but then decided we should sit down. We had just a small lesson with him that didn't get too far. From that point we really haven't done much with him. He called this morning to let us know he was out of town and would be back soon that way if we wanted to come see him we wouldn't go and him not be there. The call really showed the interest he had and the readiness that he has as well. it was sweet to see it and to see the Lord blessing us with people ready to receive us.

  Well, as you know, today marks my one year six months mark. The time has gone just too fast. Elder Henrie, from Ogden who is new on mission a few weeks ago, was asking if the time really goes like a blink of an eye like he has heard. My response. YES. Too fast! I was just sharing some experiences with him about the timing and the different places. It was neat to see his face and eyes wide open and just excited for the work. He is a great elder who will be a powerful leader some day. I'm glad to see him in his beginning stages. It was really funny listening to him yesterday try to talk to somebody on the phone in Krio! I think the phone calls are a lot harder than in person and it was just fun to listen. Over this last year and six months I have learned sooo much and I am so grateful for it. I can tell that I've had much growth while I've been here and yet still have far to go. They say that the last six months is an elders time to just shine! ( I'm glad I'm not shining like one of the other elders with his receding hair line and "shinning" head) I am glad that I've been given a calling and position for others to see me so that it will make me have to be a better example in all things. I am grateful for it and I know that it will be the best thing for me. I've got a great companion who is just a little bit ahead of me on mission and so now we will be helping each other to try and reach our full potentials while here on mission. I finished the Book of Mormon again this morning. It is such a wonderful, powerful, and spiritually uplifting book. I invite and encourage you all to read or continue to read from it every day! I've seen it bless my life and the lives of many many people here. The gospel is true and I'm so happy that I'm blessed to be out here sharing it with so many wonderful people. Thanks for all of your support. 

  Well, my time is up. Sorry there aren't too many crazy stories from this week. But there are bound to be more.

 Until next week.

Love Elder Jones

September 17, 2013

Hey everybody! 

  Sorry for not emailing yesterday. They moved our P-day to today for this week due to us having the privilege of Elder Curtis and his wife come visit us for the day. We had a wonderful conference with them. It was very neat because just before the conference started Elder Curtis called in the Zone Leaders to just ask us some questions and see how the areas were doing. It was cool to just have a small little meeting with him and even have the conference. I was here in January when he came here but this time it just felt so much more in person through out the whole thing. It was really good.

  As for the trip to Freetown.. That was interesting. Let me start from the beginning. It all started Monday night. We had gone to our lesson with this family that we were just meeting. During the lesson my head was just turning and I wasn't feeling too good. Because we had gone and played soccer that day it was really sunny and I hadn't drunk like any water on the day and so i was super dehydrated. We finished our little lesson and as we were leaving we had just left the family behind and as we were saying our goodbyes I knew I was about to loose everything in my stomach and i was just praying that i could hold it in for about one more min... Luckily I did. As we were walking away everything just came up. (it's a good thing my whole mission is just bush because then i don't have to worry about making it all the way home) We got home a few min later and started to get everything ready to go. We were to go spend the night at the couple missionaries home so they could take us early morning to the bus stop. Some how i managed to focus enough to get all my stuff together, walk to the junction and get bike there. When we got there we realized that we forgot all of our paperwork that we needed to take with us... We had another missionary come bring it to us. By this point we were both hungry and we had packed some eggs to make. So we very timidly asked if we could use the couple's kitchen to cook... The ENTIRE time we were cooking we were just whispering and scared to use anything and make it dirty. I was about five times more scared of making anything dirty than i would be at grandma's house. haha :) Well, because we didn't want to dirty any extra dishes my companion said he would just flip the egg without the spatula. . . . . SPLAT!!! right on the ground! Yes we almost DIED laughing. In the morning we were up at three so we could be to the bus by four to bored it by five. On the bus a pastor got up and started preaching for a few min. As the bus stopped to let him off at the edge of town before we left people were handing up money so we handed up a Restoration Pamphlet. :) About two hours into the drive our bus broke down in the middle of nowhere at some random little village. Great.. Now what were we supposed to do. After waiting for a while they said that the bus from Kenema would be coming and we could squeeze onto that one. We knew that we wouldn't fit with all the people and got lucky that a taxi was passing that was open. We got the taxi and he said he would take us to Freetown. He changed his mind when we got to Waterloo and dropped us off. Now we had to wait in line to get into a Poda. While in line some guy came up to me and said to follow him. He took us to the front of the line and just put us in the van. I felt bad, but I know that he was helping us to get to where we needed to be. This ride Took about an hour and a half. About 35-40 min longer than it should have. From there we had to take another Poda to get to the office. It took us from five o'clock until twelve fifteen just to get to the office. We were sooo tired. We had an awesome meeting. Holy cow! the mission is growing sooooo fast! There are so many missionaries on their way and things are just going to get crazy. But it will be sweet. On Wednesday the bus ride home took us straight and there were no problems and we really enjoyed the ride back :) It was nice to go see Freetown again even just for that small time. But Bo is nice, nice and quiet. 

  My companion and I have been wanting to go out and do more service projects. They don't get done too much here because they are usually tried to be made some big thing. We decided that we would just start finding things on our own instead of waiting for our entire district to find something and agree. On Saturday we were sitting at this house waiting for our investigator, Josephine, to come. While we were there the Auntie was cooking and was chopping some wood for the fire to cook on. We asked if we could help, she said no. We looked over and saw about three BIG logs. We asked her if we could help. She said the only one that could do that was her man... CHALLENGE ACCEPTED! We started in on these Mango tree trunks with what i will describe to be as a 9 Iron golf club.... No... That is not a joke. The axe's they have here aren't like back home. The heads are small and not very sharp.... Well, I can guarantee that you've never seen two missionaries in ties and tags sweating so much. We cut two trunks for about an hour and a half. Wow, our backs are so sore and our hands are soo blistered! But it was a good and fun experience that really opened up the aunt and uncle to us which will hopefully be able to get into discussions here soon. 

  Mom, I received a few letters from you just yesterday. One was the letter from Elder M. Mathias. Wow! that kid has really got things moving in the right direction for him mentally and spiritually. Even physically as he says he is playing ball like a boss! sounds like fun. I was really so proud of him reading that whole letter and I feel like I'm the one who needs to grow up now as he has surpassed me by far in growth. Did you give sky a good beat down for the temple graffiti? 1-7? why 1-7? was he planning on writing down answers? haha. Sky,... good luck with the lunch money making millions... I'll have to think about things and let you know next week for the package. 

  I believe I told you about our investigator Dennis and how he ended up coming to church last week and his progression. Well, this week was the same thing. We saw him in the week and then he said that he wouldn't be coming to church. We didn't see him the rest of the week and then on sunday i was sitting there and saw him walking in ( o yeah, when this guy walks he looks and walks just like the guy on dispicable me) He said that he had been reading the book of mormon and the Lesson 2 pamphlet that we gave him and he just knew that he needed to come. He said that no longer will even be thinking about going to his old church. It was sweet. We are still on a big roller coaster ride with this guy and will be having a lesson tonight. But he is headed in the right direction and will hopefully be able to get his family on the same page as he is soon. 

  Well, my time is up. Things are going good. I am enjoying much and loving the work. I hope you all have a great week. 

Love you tons.

Love Elder Jones

September 9, 2013

Hey Family!
  How is everything going? I hope all is well.
Mom, I got two of your letters recently, as always thank you so much. Sorry, I forgot them at the apartment so any of the questions in there will have to wait till next week to be answered. I don't think there was really many questions if any. One of them was talking about Uncle Kevin and the Kunz family. They are in my prayers. 

  Well, things are going good out here in Lewabu. There area is good and the companionship is great. I'm very excited for this area and all things that will be happening. They just split our area and so now we have to kind of re work to build up our teaching pool. As for now, it is small but it is still good. We Just started teaching this man named Dennis Amara. He has a family but we've put our focus on him this last week which has been good. He is very smart and was accepting the message. On saturday we went to teach him. As he sat down he started in by saying that he couldn't be with us anymore that he needs to go to his church and what he had read in the Book of Mormon wasn't for him... At first my companion and I didn't know what to do, but we just spent the time that we had with him to really explain the Book of Mormon, what it is, where it comes from, why we have it. As we were explaining to him you could just see his eyes open up and he was just blown away. At the end of the lesson he said that still wouldn't be coming to church on Sunday... We told him to pray about it and we would follow up with him later. Well, as we were walking about the area just about two hours later he gave us a call and said that he would be at church with us in the morning. As he came to church he enjoyed it all. He knew some people that helped him feel welcomed which he liked. We went and saw him after church and he said that he was now ready to join the church and baptize and all things. It was a sweet transformation that happened so rapidly going down hill fast back to climbing at a running pace. 

  We've had some good experiences this week. A fun story, the other day we were leaving our apartment to go show the other elders there part of the area since one is a new missionary and the other just arrived from his other area so they had no clue. As we were leaving the neighbors dog, Den go ti ya, came along with us. He followed us through out the ENTIRE area and boy o boy did we walk far. it was sooo funny but when we ended on the very far side of the area we got bike to take back to the apartment... As we got on bike it was the saddest thing watching him chase after us and almost get hit by other vehicles.. We got to our area junction and were buying things to eat that night when on our way to the apartment he just shows up out of nowhere! we were so happy. As we got to the apartment he went to his house and just laid down dead tired. The neighbors were asking questions and so we told him that he was a missionary for the day and that the work wasn't easy. It was funny to see not only the neighbor kids follow us but even the dog. haha

  Tomorrow early in the morning my companion and I will be taking the bus to Freetown for a leadership meeting. I'm so excited because I will be leaving Bo for the the first time in a year this month. I came here in Sept. and will finally get to see Freetown for a day one year later. It will be good and a nice adventure. 

   On tuesday all the new new missionaries came. They told us that they were to arrive in Bo around one or two in the afternoon.  About nine in the morning we got a call saying that they were at the bus stop waiting to be picked up. What! we all rushed out the door to go find them. It was good to see them all fresh and scared to see where they were haha. They all got to their places nice and safe and got right into the work. There are SOOO many new missionaries headed their way to Sierra Leone it is crazy. O yeah, I asked about elder Andersen. They all said that he was in Ghana... So... I'm not for sure i'll have to continue to look for him since he is from the area. There is one that is from Ogden and went to Freemont High School... We'll see who else will be coming here from the area with all the new missionaries. 

  Well, My time is winding down. Things are going good and I'm excited for what is still to come.
I love you all! I hope and pray that all continues to go well for you. I saw some pictures Brooke sent me from the blessing. Looking Good. 

Love you! 
Love Elder Jones

September 2, 2013

Hey Family!

   How is everything going? I hope you all had a great week. I am glad to hear that you all enjoyed the weekend together in Logan for the baby blessing. I'm glad to hear of the wonderful things happening to the family. Dad said that Grandma got on a bullet bike to snap some photos? I want to see. haha As I hear about the baby blessing it reminds me of my time way back in Grafton when I was privileged to do the blessing for Adama's small girl Rebecca. The gospel is amazing and how it truly blesses families. To know that even from birth that I have been linked together with all of you is so wonderful and now there is a new life attached through the gospel to begin the family of Brooke and Logan. How wonderful things are.

   Well, This week was good. My companion and I had a lot of fun together this week. It was pretty crazy. Through the whole training process things were up and down. but as the training finished and we had just one week left it was as if something snapped in my companion and he was just as happy as could be. He asked me one night after we had come home if he had been "enclosed" to himself the whole time and he just felt that he was a new person. It ended up being a funny experience and we really bonded together this week. I was super glad to have this week with him as we received transfer news this week. It was supposed to come on Sunday but President Ostler gave it to us on Friday which was nice. Turns out that I will not longer have the privilege of walking each wonderful day in the Njaie Town Area. I have been transferred to a new area called Lewabu. Yes, I am STILL in Bo. I guess they changed my mission to the Bo Sierra Leone Freetown Mission. haha. I am super excited though because my companion is an Awesome guy! His name is Elder Clawson, he is from Utah as well. We've been around each other here and there and we will have a bast together. With the transfer, I have been given a new assignment. I am now a zone leader. It was unexpected but will be a good change. It will definitely give me something to help myself really work and improve myself as I try and help out my zone to find things to progress and help the work to move along and go well in all the areas. 

  On Sunday at church the last song that they were singing was God Be With You Tell We Meet Again. Before they started i looked at one of the other elders and just chuckled inside because i know how terrible they are at singing, especially that song. I knew I wouldn't cry. They started singing and about three words into the song i just had this wave go through me and the tears just swelled up in my eyes. It wasn't because of the singing but because i actually thought of what it meant. I was leaving these people and will most likely never see them again.... It was hard to fight the tears from just strolling down like Big Kahuna knocking us all out of the boat. But like a champ going down the river I kept them in, (minus two or three) It was a good thing the prayer was next because that was my time to wipe my eyes and make all things okay before everybody came to say their goodbyes. It is sad leaving an area but it is good to see the things that have happened while i've been here. I am so happy to be here to meet these people and have them in my life and I in theirs. 

  Today as a district we went out to my area to one school that it there called CKC. There they have a big ol Gator! I've always heard about it but never been out there. So today we decided to go have a look. Wow! it was a lot bigger than we thought it would have been. And we were very close to it with just a small fence between us... I don't know how nothing crazy has happened to it or anyone else. It was awesome though.Great time. 

  Well, my time is up for now. Here ends my time in Njaie Town and now begins in Lewabu. 

Until next week. I love you all!

Love Elder Jones

August 26, 2013

Hey everybody. How is everything? I hope all is going well. Sounds like things are good with the new kid and couple, 7th grader (put on your big boy pants) and activities. I'm always happy to hear of what is going on and how much is happening. 

   HOLY COW! Dad said that former Elder Fry is home.... What. I can't believe it. that is soooo crazy. I'm glad that you got to go hear him and talk with him. Were you able to record him? Time just fly's out here in the field. Brad is the first batch that went out. Joe white should be home now too and others on the way. wow. it truly just blows my mind. On Friday my companion and I were just walking to our area and I was thinking in my mind that I haven't been here for a year and five months. It just doesn't feel like it. wow. 

This week was good. Still trying in the area to get as many people to teach as possible. My companion and I had some good success the other day in finding. We had gotten some bounces and we didn't have anybody else to go to. So, I told him that I was going to let him be in charge of the finding for today since he needs the practice because the training is now over(ended yesterday) He really didn't want to and just sat there for a while hoping i would take over. so he started to walk to the main road and once we got there he just stood there saying he had chose this path and now for me to chose next. I said no, he needed the practice and learn. We stood there for a while with many people walking past all around us. I was dying inside because there were some people that i wanted to talk to but I knew he needed to get the experience before the training is completely done. It was hard and I was getting very frustrated that he wasn't doing anything. Well, just as I was about to give in he finally took the step and started to walk. We went and met a man and set a date to come see him. I was re-leaved. From this point on we were both able to meet and talk to many people passing by on the street. It was very successful. It was hard but I know that the both of us learned a lesson, one on courage and the other on patience. 

   I also had a very neat experience yesterday. We had planned a day full of families to teach but somehow they weren't available. So, we were headed to our last possible place and while walking I saw this guy greet us and kind of give me that hand gesture of i want to see you. You know the whole two fingers from his eyes to me... I saw it right as we were going past the house and so now i couldn't see him. I stopped, thought about what he just did and then we went back. While we were talking to him he said he wanted to sit down and discuss the bible. he pulled out the bench and in my mind was great.. another pastor that just wants to try and find faults... but as we sat down the man had real genuine questions. His first question was about John 3:5 and being born again. at first i thought it was a joke just by the way he was going about it. We answered and explained. He asked another question about a passage he didn't understand in Galations 5:19 about the bad things that drive away the spirit. As we were teaching and talking to this man I had that whole mind blown moment of...... Holy Cow, I'm a 20 year old kid walking around a foreign country and full grown men with families are calling me over to teach them about the bible. It really again brought forth my purpose of being here which was way cool and also i can't believe that the church puts such trust in 18+ year old boys and girls to share these teachings. I don't know how to explain everything that I was thinking and feeling but all I know is that it felt amazing and the Spirit was very strong in once again testifying to me that this work is true and i'm so grateful to be here with the opportunity to do it and be the young 20 year old kid teaching full grown men with families and real jobs. 

   Today we had a super p day and we were allowed to watch Kung Fu Panda 2. It was good. As always we have to take a principle from everything. So we took where we come from and where we are ( plan of salvation) also about believing in ourselves and always giving our best. It was good. we had fun. 

  Well,that is about it for this week. I hope all goes well for you in this upcoming week. 

I love you all! Thanks for the support.

Love Elder Jones

August 19, 2013

Hey Family,

How is everything going for you all? I hope you had a great week.

Sorry last week was such a short letter, but also nobody wrote me and so I didn’t have anything to reply to.. But this week there is more.

Bad news… which also applied to why the letter was short last week, as I sent that picture of me and the little boys shaving. As I took out my card from the computer all my pictures were gone. Something crazy happened and it is telling me that I have to format the card. So… Basically a year and five months of pictures gone…. But I still have some small hope that there can be a recovery process done to it when I get home from a professional. Until then, I won’t be using it at all. It’s good that I have another card so that I can still take photos. But… yeah… It was a pretty rough day for the last few days thinking about all of those photos and people and memories. Hopefully we can recover them when i get back. But, until then.... No pictures will be sent home. sorry yeah.  

Anyway.... This week was good. On Saturday we did our All African Service project or Mormon Helping Hands. It was good. many of our branch members showed up and helped out with positive attitudes. We cleaned up some of the round-a-bouts in town and planted some little flowers in them to help them look a little better. I don't understand. People here complain that there are no jobs and I look around and see plenty of things that can happen such as trash clean up in town, small small landscaping like what we just did and other things that will help clean up the country and give at least some few people jobs.. But I was glad to help. We had fun doing it and it was something that was needed. It was good.

After the service project we went to the church to fill up our font for an evening baptism. We filled it completely full. Man that thing is big! I feel like doing laps in it every time we get lots of water in it. We had to fill it up all the way because they don't make things air tight so the water leaks out fast. By the time we had the baptism the water had gone down a lot but there was still plenty to do the baptism with out a problem. We had two for our half of the area and two from the other elders in the branch. One was Fallo Nuglumai and the other was Hamidu Sheriff. I want to share some small about Hamidu. 

Hamidu is a 23 year old young man. The first time I met him was when we were teaching another person and I saw him come out from behind a building a ways off, stand in the middle of the small field there and start peeing. He saw us and came over to us, sat down, and said we wanted to be a part of us. I could tell that he was drunk and probably high. . . those that we were teaching just started laughing because they knew that he was a joke. I kind of thought the same thing but told him that he was more than welcome if he wanted to. We didn't see him around for a while and then he just kid of showed up again some time later. He was joining lessons here and there and you could tell that he was cleaning up just a little bit from the first time we met him and told him he couldn't drink or smoke. So, we started to teach him. after a little bit he went out and got him some nice pants and a shirt and started to come to church. Every time that we went to him you could see some small improvements. He started hanging around many of the other guys who are recent converts who at first rejected him because he was a druggie. But now he was accepted and you could see him getting happy. The other day we were out walking around and we saw them all playing football. He was happy and energetic. We called him over to talk about the baptism. he ran over with a smile and all. He came super early to church in a white shirt and tie all ready to go. WOW. I felt so happy seeing his conversion process through the gospel. It really has made a big impact in his life. 

Things were good this week. We had our interview with president and also his wife. As we talked with her she kept telling us to eat salads and all this other healthy food... We all just kind of looked at her with a look of... Umm, have you walked in my area. there is no food and the only food that is there I don't trust the one who makes it.. It was funny. She kept saying that we need to ease back on the rice but that is all we have... haha Things are good though. We're surviving and living well. They are a great mission president couple. 

Well, that is about all for this week. my time is running low. I'll talk to you next week. 

I love you all! 

Love Elder Jones