5K "One Mighty Run"

Mission 5K "One Mighty Run"

New Address for 2 Weeks

Sister Melina Jones
5644 Perrin

The Colony TX 75056

Happy memorial day!

Hey y'all!

We got to go to the temple on tuesday for Zone Conference! I was able to do a family name that katie did the baptism for, my mom did the initiatory and I did the endowment! The work of salvation is definitely a team effort all around, that is why we have companions, why we have families, why we have wards, and why we need to rely on the Lord as our team captain. =)

After the Temple we had a meeting. I was asked to sing at the meeting with Sister Warren! It reminded me of high school choir when we would sing together! =)

We had 36 lessons this week!!!!! It's a Colony record! We were able to teach 19 RCLAs (recent convert or less active lessons) and a ton of lessons to investigators with a member present! Of course it isn't about the numbers, its about the people, but the numbers show how many people we have the great priviledge of working with and loving. =) The Lord definitely has lead us to where we need to be, because we actually had a lot of lessons fall through, but the Lord showed us someone else who needed us more.

On Friday we were able to take our friend Katie on a mini mission! She came out with us all afternoon and evening! She is so cute! She is going to make a wonderful missionary! I remember the times that I went out with the Sister missionaries in Cougar Mountain ward!

We are moving to live with Sister Jones today! She gave us a tour of her house the other day. She is so welcoming to us! She even got me a pink key chain to hold the key to her house =) She has put a lot of work into preparing our room and bathroom for us, she also bought me a pack of allergy medicine because she has cats. 

Jaderious is not sure of his date anymore, we are praying hard that he will be able to overcome the influence of the adversary that is telling him not to be baptized. 

Joshua recovered fully from his surgery super fast! He is doing great! hopefull he will recieve the priesthood soon and a calling. 

We are still working with Helen (the referral from dallas 6) and she now has a baptism date for June 27th! 

This ward is so amazing! The bishop invited us over for a BBQ today with his family and another family in the ward for memorial day! We were also invited over to another member's BBQ that we will go to an hour after the bishop's! I never want to leave this ward! 

The rain has not stopped! aparently by this time, it is usually in the 90s, but the rain is keeping in us the 70s and 80s! =) Heavenly Father is very merciful to me! I have no problem with all of this rain at all it helps me feel at home. I am sure the people who live on the usuallly pretty dry lake are not loving it as their yards are all flooded! looking down towards the lake we can see the tops of the pavillons that cover picnic tables, all we can see are the roofs poking out! It is so strange, one hour will be sunny and clear and the next will be storming with thunder and lightning!

Flooded Parking Lot

Katie's Mini Mission

Dallas Temple Trip with Zone

Texas is raining cats, dogs, and miracles!

Hey y'all!

We had another amazing week! =) We taught 32 lessons this week and we had 7 new investigators and 8 investigators at church! 

Jaderious is still progressing really well towards his baptismal date! He had been at church the last two weeks and he is reading and praying. 

We taught a woman named Regina in chick-fil-a and a random guy came up in the middle of our lesson and started talking to us because he saw that our name tags say Jesus Christ on them. He gave us his life story and bore his testimony. He lives in Fort Worth so we can't meet with him, but we gave him a pamphlet and a card to call the missionaries there. This experience helped me to realized how much other people notice us and we stand out, so we need to always be living and acting and speaking as Christ would as we represent Him to the world. I am so grateful that we were acting with elevated behavior so we could leave a good impression on him and touch his heart. 

We met with our less active, Sister Germaneri again this week. She is so cute, she asked me to say the closing prayer in "my language" =P We all had a good laugh about that because she is part blind so she must have thought I was Sister Iona! (Sister Iona speaks Samoan) So I said the closing prayer in "my language" as I always do ;)

We found a family to teach in Saturday night! They are such a cute family! They have a little boy and a little girl! They just moved in and haven't found a church yet. They just need love and friends =)

Joshua had his apendix out on saturday! He is doing better now luckily!

The Warner's son comes home in one week so we will have to move. =( Sister Rebecca Jones heard we needed a place to live and she wants to adopt us! She is such a sweetheart! The only problem is that I am allergic to cats and she has cats with long fur that likes to fall out! but we are so excited to stay with them temporarily because she wants kids so bad, we can be her kids for a few weeks =) She plans to adopt her own in a few months. 

Hope y'all are having a great week!

Love,

Sister Jones

Another Iona Selfie =P

Dogs are Everywhere!

Jason and Megan!

Sister Germaneri and Anguiano!

Sis. Poss Coloring Pages!

Texas Wildflowers

The Colony Nature

I love my mom!

Hey y'all!

This week was miraculous!!!!!!! We went from zero baptismal dates to five dates and we had 30 total lessons! We also found five new investigators!

Jaderious Moffett finally has a baptismal date! He has been meeting with the missionaries for approximately four years now! We have been teaching him and his father the entire time I have been here in The Colony and he finally committed to a date (June 6th)! The spirit was so strong in the lesson and ever since that lesson he has been so happy and almost giddy! 

We were headed to a lesson with a potential investigator who ended up not being home, but his roommate, Sabrina was home and interested in talking to us! She works at the local grocery store and she braids hair (the tiny little braids that African American people tend to have). She is so humble and sincere. She has a baptismal date for the middle of June. 

We also were able to meet with Mary Lynn and her two grandsons, Brenden and Sheldon again and commit them to a new date. We hope that they will become more solid this time around and actively prepare for their date.

Marilouis, Josh's grandmother, fed us dinner the other night! She is super sweet, but she has a lot of questions. We hope to be able to help her focus more on the spirit and faith. 

Bennie is still struggling with smoking, but we are going to try to start the program again this week, it keeps getting put off because his parents have scheduling issues. 

We got a referral from the Dallas 6th ward! =) A member I used to know in Dallas 6th brought her less active son and his non-member fiance to our ward yesterday and told us to baptize her! =) We haven't actually met with her yet so we aren't sure how she feels about that, but it was such a miracle to receive this referral! 

We had a tornado warning on Sunday morning! When the sirens went off we weren't sure at first what it was, but Sister Warner brought us downstairs to prepare to hid out in their closet. Luckily the tornado didn't really hit The Colony, just a lot of wind and sideways rain. We had flash floods and lightning storms after that. The weather here is so dramatic! Today the skies are clear, bright blue, and sunny! But we here there will be more storms this week. 

I have been working on my faith by making my prayers more meaningful and bold and by doing so my contacts and lessons and interactions in general are becoming more meaningful and bold in reflection of my prayers. We have prayed specifically to find those we can invite to be baptized and that we are able to be harvesters, not just seed planters, and it is working! The Lord really wants his children to be baptized so they can return to Him, so praying for baptisms is a way we can serve the Lords purpose. I have heard it said once that "it is not about the baptisms, but it really is about the baptisms" baptism allows Heavenly Father's children to receive access to the atonement that they otherwise would not have. 

Love,

Sister Jones

Aloha!

Hey y'all!

I am now companions with Sister Iona! She is Samoan and from Hawaii! She is super cool! She was actually companions with Sister Vail in the MTC! She is definitely not afraid to be herself! 

Best of all I am still in The Colony for my fourth transfer here!!!! This is truly the best area to be in so I am so blessed to stay!

It feels so good to be back into the work at full force! We have made so great goals together, we want to invite someone to be baptized every single day! Last week we had 3 of the 6 days taken the opportunity to invite someone to be baptized. No one said yes, but no one said no either! We want to testify and commit with power this transfer. We had a lot of baptisms last transfer so we are building a little this transfer, but this week we already have four new investigators with great potential, and we should get our 5th today because we have an appointment with a really good potential. 

We saw sSSSOooo many miracles! We had an investigator drop us for family reasons last transfer. He had invited a friend to one of the lessons and when he dropped us we lost track of his friend. We were five minutes early to an appointment so we knocked on one door and that one door was opened by Adam!!! The friend that we had lost track of! We believe it is because of the prayers of the ward members that we found him. Our ward mission leader has the ward pray for five things in their prayers and one of those five is that "those who are prepared for the gospel will be lead to us or we will be lead to them."

Our convert Joshua, who was just baptized two weeks ago, introduced his grandmother to the church and he is now helping us teach her the lessons! She even ordered the Book of Mormon on CD so she can listen to it while she drives. 

We are also helping a super sweethearted less active quite smoking. He has Williams Syndrome (similar to down syndrome). He is scared to quit, but we are involving some of the ward members closest to him to provide as much support as possible as we are going to try the "stop smoking program." We love Bennie so much! 

We are still working with Jason. He actually bore his testimony in church yesterday about how he knows it is true and the Book of Mormon is true. He also said he was grateful that the missionaries taught him how to pray! 

Sis. Iona Selfies

Morning Run

Josh "Donut Guy"

Josh's Baptism

Easter with Sis. Vail