The terrific trio!

Hey Y'all!

The trio is doing great! We can contact a lot more people at one time and multitask! The only awkward part is tracting, we don't want to scare people when they open the door because there are so many of us =P luckily we are not three 6ft tall elders! 

The other day we were contacting outside of Walgreens and we talked to a lady who was obviously freezing! I gave her my gloves and we prayed with her. She let us come visit her at her apartment the next day and we found that she was really interested in the Book of Mormon because she didn't like that the Bible had been translated and changed from hand to hand. By serving and loving first, then are people open to hear God's message!

We taught the family from The Congo again this week. We taught the kids an English lesson about colors using M&Ms to help them learn. It was really fun! Then we were able to teach them about the restoration. Once again, service and love first, then people are willing to hear God's message! 

We experienced a cool miracle this week with contacting (talking to everyone we see). We talked to a man who turned out to be a less active member of the church who had moved and the ward didn't have his new address so no one could find him. We found him just while contacting in a parking lot and he is ready to come back to church and wants us to teach his fiance!

Texas weather is crazy! Last week it snowed and we were freezing, this week it has been in the 60s a few days and then rain storms a few days and I am sure it will turn cold again soon. 

Love,

Sister Melina Lillie Jones

New transfer!

Hey y'all!

I am now in a trio!! I am still in the Dallas 6th ward, but now in addition to sister Kerr we also have sister Greenall! She is a very sweet girl =) Apparently Katie was her freshman mentor at BYU!

We have had to drop a bunch of our baptismal dates, but sci-fi Hal is still feeling strong about December 6th and we got another date with a woman named Tiffany for January who wants to raise her children in a good church =)

We got to teach a part member family this week who has a son with cerebral palsy. We taught them the plan of salvation and shared the scripture about bodies being resurrected perfectly. The mother of the boy with cerebral palsy was so touched with joy and the spirit to bring her to tears =) The boy is so cute! I love teaching this family!

We also visited a less active woman who is raising her grandson who is not a member. She allowed us to teach him the plan of salvation, but she would not let us bring up Joseph Smith or the Book of Mormon. We talked with her alone after teaching her grandson and had a good conversation. I was prompted to ask her if she had read the Book of Mormon and she said she hadn't. We invited her to read it starting with 3rd Nephi. I think when people fall away from the church a lot of the time it may be partially because their testimony of the Book of Mormon wasn't solid. When that testimony isn't solid anything can tip them over because the Book of Mormon is the foundation of all of our beliefs. I want to be sure that my testimony in the Book of Mormon is solid so I will never leave the church.

It snowed yesterday!

Love,

Sister Melina Lillie Jones

Last week of my first transfer!

Hey y'all!

Hal has a baptismal date!!!! Hal is our sci-fi investigator who has been taught by missionaries for a long long time. His biggest concern now is whether or not we will be able to find a big enough baptismal suit =) We assured him we would take care of it. Hal has been through so many Elders so hopefully there will be a lot of missionaries coming back for his baptism on December 6th.

Last Sunday an elderly man in our ward came up to us and offered to make us really cool and valuable inscribed wooden pens. He then showed us thank you notes personally signed from Thomas S. Monson and Boyd K. Packer for making them pens. He gave them pens to us the next week =) 

We had a really cool contact this week. Saturday night we were headed into a lesson and we stopped to talk to a guy and he said we both have this warm glow about us that shows light in our faces which we thought was super cool because it was dark outside already. =) So you could say the spirit has glow-in-the-dark qualities. =) I also had a nice conversation about the church with a banker on the phone when I was calling my debit card to get them to switch it to Texas.

We had a sisters conference on Friday and we read Ether 12:27. I thought about this scripture in a new way. It says: "if men will come unto me, I will show unto them their weakness." A mission really magnifies a missionaries weaknesses and strengths. Because my weaknesses have been magnified in my eyes it means I am coming closer to Christ! In order to recognize weakness you need to come unto Christ. This makes it easier to refine the weaknesses that I wouldn't have otherwise recognized. 

President Taylor is changing when we get transfer calls to Monday night before transfers on Tuesday so I won't know whether or not I'm being transferred until tonight, but I am probably not being transferred.

Hope y'all are having a great week!

Love,

Sister Melina Lillie Jones

YW in Excellence

This was texted to us from a ward member

Dallas 6th

Last week of my first transfer!

Hey Y'all!
Sister Kerr and I had a pretty good week. A lot of appointments fell through again and we didn't have as many set up in the first place so we did a lot of finding and service. So this Sunday we decided to fast and pray for more appointments and teaching opportunities and the Lord has already answered our fast! Yesterday we made a lot of calls and our schedules were filled for the whole next week. In addition, a few members called with friends that agreed to meet with us so we got appointments from that as well! We ate dinner with a sister from the Congo and we invited her to ask a friend to meet with us by Christmas, but she pulled out her phone on the spot and called up a friend and got us an appointment within two minutes of our invitation! We have been so blessed with such a great ward! The sister from the Congo fed us whole fishes, skin, eyes and all! That is definitely the weirdest thing I have eaten so far!
We had another super cool experience when we contacted a man from India. We handed him a Book of Mormon and he immediately got goosebumps and his hand started shaking. He told us he had never felt like this before and that he will definitely check it out.

We got to carve pumpkins in District meeting! and we were not allowed to go out on Halloween night so we had a really fun Zone party. I was asked to sing for district meeting and then called and asked to sing for Zone meeting and both went well =)

Love,

Sister Melina Lillie Jones