Hey y'all!

This week was great!! =) Sister Terry is now joking around and making fun of me all the time, which lets me know that she is doing well! She is not letting homesickness bother her as much and we are able to enjoy the work we do together all the time. We have been contacting like crazy to get all of the Book of Mormon invites in. Our mission is striving to get 40,000 Book of Mormon contacts before Elder Nelson and Elder Robbins come to our mission this Friday! The other day we flagged down the ice cream man in his musical truck and contacted him =) We had a good laugh about that afterwards. We also stop at gas stations every time we need to use the restroom instead of waiting for member houses or appointments so we can contact people at the gas station. We started eating lunch in public places to sit by strangers and talk to them. We really are trying to get behind this goal and become one with the mission in reaching it. 

We have been working with some of our recent converts, Debbie and Ben and preparing them to do baptisms in the temple and they are making great progress! They are already inviting friends to learn about the church! Debbie said in response to our question about how she enjoyed church: "I can't wait to get through the week just to get to the next one!" She loves and values church! I feel that at times in my life I have taken church for granted and didn't realize what a great blessing it is! I want to go to church with the attitude that Debbie has and learn and grow so much from church each week! 

I absolutely love the work, especially when we get to witness people discover what blessings await them because they have a loving Heavenly Father. We are teaching a woman who has just returned to activity after years of being inactive and she didn't realize that she can go through the temple without having to go through for a sealing. She is so excited to prepare herself! I saw her studying the temple prep pamphlet during sacrament meeting! =) 

We have been able to do a lot of member exchanges this week again so we got in a lot of lessons! 

Daniel is still meeting with us but he could use some prayers!

Love,

Sister Melina Lillie Jones

Two baptisms this week!

Hey y'all!

Debbie and Ben were baptized on Saturday! It was an amazing service! Ben bore his testimony afterwards and it was so powerful he simply said "I can't quote the entire Book of Mormon and I am still working on understanding it, but I do know that the church is true. I am getting baptized because this is the true gospel of Jesus Christ. I am a very shy person and I only know my Aunt (Debbie) and my parents so I often wondered what would happen to me when they were gone, but now I know what would happen. I have a whole nother family now." The spirit was so strong at the baptism! I was privileged to be able to sing "When I am Baptized" as a special musical number right before they were baptized and Debbie started to cry! The entire experience was just so sweet and they are so humble and faithful!

Daniel was thinking about quitting on us again until I showed up on his suggested "people you may know" on facebook. There is no reason I should have come up on his facebook! We have no mutual friends! and he promised he didn't stalk me or anything. It was definitely the Lord telling him he needed to continue on the path of learning about the gospel and accepting it. 

We tracted into a sweet older woman who took the missionary discussions 30 years ago in Tennessee!!! She was so excited to see missionaries again and she wants to keep meeting with us! I wish there was a way to contact the missionaries that taught her 30 years ago to tell them that she is ready now and the seed that they planted may start to grow now!

We have been able to do quite a few member exchanges and teach multiple lessons at the same time this last week! hopefully we can keep that up! 

Love,

Sister Jones 

"Clapped their hands for joy"

Hey y'all!

One of our investigators, Daniel, aparently was thinking about dropping us, but then he had a dream that night. In his dream I showed up and chewed him out! He took that as a sign to keep meeting with us! He also admitted that the day before I was transferred into the area he saw me in a dream, but he didn't know me and then I showed up the next day and he kept telling me that I looked really familiar. He has a baptismal date for Februrary 21st so hopefully all goes well so he can be baptized then!

Debbie and Ben are SSSOOOOOO excited for their baptism this saturday!!!! =) They passed their interviews easy peasy! I am so happy for them because I know how much joy it will bring into their lives. They remind me of the people that Alma the elder was teaching in Mosiah18:11 "And now when the people had heard these words, they clapped their hands for joy, and exclaimed; this is the desire of our hearts." Even though I was baptized way back when I was 8 I can have the same joy and gratitdue for my baptism and the blessings it brings into my life by living up to my baptismal covenants.

I love all of the people we are working with so much! I also love the opportunity I have to train and learn from the 12 week training program again! There is always so much to improve on and I love to study and improve.

I had three different colds in my first two transfers and now I have a cough! =P I know each of these colds/cough are separate because there will be like 2ish weeks of perfect health between each one. I think I may just be struggling to acclimate to the Texas climate and the weird weather changes.

Love,

Sister Melina Lillie Jones

Picture sent from a member in The Colony 1/11/15

Happy New Year!!!

Hey Y'all! 

The work is going great in The Colony! Debbie and Ben are so excited for their baptisms on the 17th! Debbie announced it in relief society again this week at church! Ben is almost completely off his e-cigarette! We are going to take him to lunch when he can make it through a whole day without using it! We also got two more baptismal dates this week, they aren't quite as solid, but we are hoping the people can progress =) 

On Wednesday we had a funny flip flop of lessons. We had planned to teach Daniel about fasting and Debbie and Ben about the law of chastity, but we ended up teaching Daniel the law of chastity and Debbie and Ben fasting! Their questions and concerns just led us to switch their lessons. We end up switching lessons quite often but this time on the same day the lessons reversed and we were still able to use our lesson plans, just not for the people we had intended. I am sure the Lord knew we needed to prepare those two lessons, and he knew we would figure out eventually which investigators really needed them. 

We got to tract in the rain a bit this week. Everyone in Texas has either a screen door or a glass door as a double layer in addition to their wooden front door. A two year old opened the wooden door to a house and talked to us through the screen for a few minutes while we tried to get him to go get his parents but he was just chattering away and then he slammed the door on us, haha we were rejected by a baby =) 

We got to have a "girls night" and watch the Testaments with Jamie (teenage girl) and her less active mom, Sister McCoy. Sister McCoy started a popcorn fight in the middle of the movie! It was really fun! We went over the next morning to curl their hair for church since we now have 1:00 church, but then Jamie didn't come to church even though she loved her hair! Sister McCoy came though luckily.

It is crazy that it is now 2015! I will spend the entire year on my mission! 2014 was the best year of my life so I am very excited to make 2015 even better! At the beginning of 2014 I got to go to Germany and Austria with my dad to ski, I got to lead SIFF club (sharing interests and forming friendships with students with special needs) and take them bowling, I got to volunteer with the Special Olympics, I started runnning 3-5 miles a day, I recieved my mission call, was a top ten finisher in the all-school 5K, got to be Belle in the beauty and the beast choir medley, Graduated from high school and seminary, went through the Temple, had an internship at the UW Autism Center, Jazzercise with mom, running with Dad, got in some summer skiing at mount hood, left for my mission in September and baptized Hal! I also was able to be trained by the best missionary in the Texas Dallas mission and send her home to Utah! 

Love,

Sister Melina Lillie Jones