DADDY'S BLESSED COWGIRL

Hey y'all!

Anderson family: Aujayla and Jaymari were baptized!!!! the program
went really smoothly. They were a little nervous, but very happy!
Jessica promised she will get baptized soon as well! And she wants us
to work on her 14 year old son Jaderious.

Michelle and Jay: they are the most Texan couple I have ever met!
Michelle is hilarious! Her signature line on her text messages is
"DADDY'S BLESSED COWGIRL" she said she would kill for us if anyone
tried to hurt us she is so giving, we always leave with gifts when
we see her. Yesterday she gave me her pajamas because they are pink!
She refers to me as "the small one who likes pink" she absolutely
fell in love with my purse, so I gave it to her, she gave me a cowgirl
purse to trade! Cow fur on it and everything! She is such a humble
woman, she lives in a camp trailer, yet is so giving and has the best
attitude about life! She had a pair of miss me jeans that were size 2
just laying around in her trailer and she gave them to me! They are an
expensive designer pair of jeans! Don't ask me why or how she got them
in my size! I walk into a camp trailer out in the boonies not even in
Nac and I walk out with a pair of miss me jeans that fit perfectly! I
just better not gain weight in my last 6 months so they fit me at home
when I can actually wear them!
Favorite quotes from Michelle:
"God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!"
"Everyone needs to get Jesus high and they would stop doing all those
drugs and messing up their lives"

Hope y'all have a great week!

Love,
Sister Jones

Jaymarian wrote this for us!

Hubcaps, backpacks, and guns...oh my!

Hey y'all!

We got to go on exchanges this week! I was able to stay in their
Nacogdoches and be companions with sister bushman for a day. It was
super fun! She is still in her first transfer, it reminded me of the
beginning of my mission! She is so cute!

We have noticed that a lot of people just feel comfortable and
unloading their lives on us as missionaries. We have just barely left
home! We are 20-year-old girls who know almost nothing about life!
Some people feel the need to just talk to us and tell us all of their
trials, all of their past and everything that is weighing them down.
It just goes to show that we truly are representatives of Jesus
Christ. It is so amazing that people see us as his representatives
instead of as the 19 or 20-year-old girls that we truly are.

The Anderson family is doing so great! They truly are a miracle and a
blessing every single day that we see them!  Aujayla and Jaymari their
baptismal interview this week! They will be baptized Saturday! Aujayla
turned 12 on Tuesday! We went over to their house and brought her gift
=) she is so adorable! Their family has a great spirit about them!
In relief society we were talking about parenting and Jessica spoke up
and said she looks through her 14 year old son's phone and saw one
time a girl who said that she loves him so Jessica texted back saying:
"you don't love him as much as his mamma does!" :) Jessica is
hilarious!

We also saw the Phillips Family this week! They are still going
through challenging times but they are turning to the Lord for comfort
and strength.

We contacted Michelle at Goodwill the other day and went to teach her
and her husband the next day. They now have a baptismal date! There
were some points of the lesson that seem to just make sense to them =)

Fun fact of east Texan culture: there is a brother in the ward who has
always carried a backpack to church, I never knew why. We found out
yesterday that it is full of loaded weapons!

Also our hubcaps were stolen off our car! Just two of them on one
side. Probably we came out of a lesson and the person wasn't done with
all four yet so they ran away. We aren't sure where they were stolen,
we didn't notice right away. The car just looked funny.

Thank you everyone who sent me cards! :)

Love,
Sister Jones <3 <3 <3

Cool Indian wall!!!!!!

ONE MIGHTY MARCH!

Dear Families of our MIGHTY Missionaries!

As a Stripling Mission we are beginning 'ONE' MIGHTY MARCH through the Book of Mormon!  We will begin tomorrow and finish on Saturday, October 3rd before the morning session of General Conference.  

Our purpose of this 40-day MIGHTY MARCH is to increase our faith, even the 'faith to believe'...the kind of faith that produces miracles!

Following this email we will send you the reading schedule, as well as the letters we sent to our mission.  What a sacred opportunity and privilege to read the Book of Mormon in 40 days with your missionary!  We pray that you will take advantage of this sacred privilege to draw nearer to them as you both draw nearer to God.  Many Mighty Miracles will follow!

We love you!  We thank you for your continued faith and prayers in behalf of your missionary and our entire mission.  "Come join the ranks" (Hymn 250)  in our TDM's 'ONE MIGHTY MARCH!'

Love and Faith!

President and Sister Taylor

The MIGHTY Texas Dallas Mission

Day	Chapters	Day	Chapters	Day	Chapters	Day	Chapters
1	1 Nephi 1-7	11	Jaron 1 - Mosiah 2	21	Alma 24-29	31	Helaman 11-16
2	1 Nephi 8-13	12	Mosiah 3-8	22	Alma 30-33	32	3 Nephi 1-6
3	1 Nephi 14-18	13	Mosiah 9-15	23	Alma 34-38	33	3 Nephi 7-12
4	1 Nephi 19 - 2 Nephi 1	14	Mosiah 16-22	24	Alma 39-43	34	3 Nephi 13-19
5	2 Nephi 2-8	15	Mosiah 23-28	25	Alma 44-48	35	3 Nephi 20-27
6	2 Nephi 9-15	16	Mosiah 29 - Alma 4	26	Alma 49-53	36	3 Nephi 28 - Mormon 3
7	2 Nephi 16-25	17	Alma 5-9	27	Alma 54-58	37	Mormon 4 - Ether 1
8	2 Nephi 26-31	18	Alma 10-13	28	Alma 59-63	38	Ether 2-9
9	2 Nephi 33 - Jacob 4	19	Alma 14-18	29	Helaman 1-5	39	Ether 10-15
10	Jacob 5 - Enos 1	20	Alma 19-23	30	Helaman 6-10	40	Moroni 1-10

The grass is greener than the pavement!

Hey y'all!
This week was full of miracles, as always, and painful, yet funny
stories again! As if my finger in the window wasn't enough! :D we had
41 lessons! Nac numbers are getting closer and closer to The Colony
numbers! Each of those numbers represent children of God coming closer
to him and strengthening their faith! The Lord numbers each of his
children =) we have 10 baptismal dates right now!

Jessica, Aujayla, and Jamari Anderson: This is one of the sweetest
families in the entire world!!!!!!! Aujayla and Jamari are getting
baptized on August 29th! They came to church again this Sunday and
loved it! Aujayla's birthday is tomorrow we are so excited to go over
there and celebrate with her! And Jayla and Jamari are adorable! They
both really look up to us and are excited for their baptism. <3 <3 Jessica
felt the spirit so strong in church that she almost stood up in the
middle of sacrament meeting to announce how grateful she was for the
missionaries! We are going to have to explain to her what fast and
testimony meeting Sunday is and what all of the other Sundays are not.
:D

Shyanne: is a Mormon.org referral. She lives in Shelbyville. An entire
hour away from Nacogdoches! We are going to try and teach her over
Skype. Apparently she's actually in the Hemphill branch boundaries,
but there aren't missionaries and Hemphill. Which means that our area
is the largest in the mission, most likely, it is also the furthest
south and the furthest east in the entire mission!

Debra: Debra is very observant and inquisitive. She really wants to
find out the truth. She asked me why I smile so much, she also asked
why I am so confident. Those questions really made me ponder for a
couple of days. I smile so much because nothing makes me happier than
sharing the greatest source of joy, and our one pathway to salvation!
Also I thought about the confidence question. I don't believe my
confidence stems from pride, but from the hope or assurance that by
living the gospel of Jesus Christ we will return home to our Heavenly
Father. I have confidence in the message we share and in Jesus Christ,
not in my own abilities. When we have the Holy Ghost with us we can
have that confidence as witnesses of Christ and as his
representatives.

Story time!
So, we were on our morning run when we were going down a hill. We had
just come off the trail so we are running on pavement. As I was
running down the hill I tripped over who knows what and could feel
myself going down. I knew I was going down all the way for sure. So as
I stumbled running down the hill I pushed and pushed trying to make it
to the grass! I knew if I could just make it to the grass I would be
OK! Unfortunately as I reached my arms out as a last attempt to fly
onto the grass I landed just a few feet short scraping myself up on
the pavement. I swear I am usually a graceful person! :D on the plus
side, I haven't thought about my bruised finger from the car window
last week at all this week!
The Lord does take care of us though! On Sunday a member took a
picture of the scraps on my arm and sent it to his dermatologist
friend who wrote a prescription for the infection. I didn't even know
what to do besides Neosporin and gauze, but the Lord knew I needed
help. =)
I don't tell this story for anyone to feel bad for me, I actually
laugh every time I tell it! I tell this story so y'all can hear my
testimony of how Heavenly Father sends help, and because I think it is
funny. :D

Love,
Sister Jones


Charity's Disney collection!!!!!! =D

Open the windows of heaven! ...or at least the car window...

Hey y'all!
We have had another great week!

Jessica: Jessica is amazing! She spent a long time driving around just
to look for the church a few days before so that she could find it on
Sunday. And she found it! She was there at church on Sunday along with
two of her kids. She was so excited to be baptized on August 22, but
we are going to put it off for a little bit so that she can have a
wedding! But we will try to teach her kids and maybe they can be
baptized soon. Her oldest son, Jaderious, is 14 years old. Next is
Aujayla she is 11 and then Jamari is 9.
We nervously called Jessica to ask if she's married to Thomas.  We
weren't sure how she would react so we were very nervous! We found out
she is not married and we told her she had to be married to be
baptized and then the line went silent… Jessica is probably one of the
biggest talkers I have met, so we had a mini panic attack in our
hearts, but then we looked down and saw that the call had ended so we
had another mini heart attack at first thinking that she hung up on
us! We called her back and it turns out that the call had just lost
connection before we even told her she needed to be married! I was
just all in a rush to get it out that I kept talking for a while
before we realize the call dropped. We went on to tell her in a second
call and she understood and is talking to Thomas about it.

Bre and Luv:  are still doing great. We moved the date back to
September 19 so that they can be more ready and receive more answers.
But we will start meeting with then two times a week :)

Phillips family: Terry was feeling really sick earlier this week and
had to go to the hospital. So we brought them over some dinner. We
didn't really know what to make them so we looked in our pantry and
put together some random things that hopefully turned out! Missionary
cooking gets pretty creative :)

We also met with some homeless people and taught them a lesson. It was
a very different experience! Everyone needs the gospel!

Hope this story brightens someone's day so it can be worth the pain.
We were driving back with a member from trying to see some less
actives in Center and the car windows were open just a crack. I was
just fiddling around and stuck my finger out the crack and then sister
Nielsen shut the windows and smashed my finger! I gasped in shock and
quickly pushed the button to roll the window back down. My eyes were
stinging with water! I grabbed some Kleenex to stop the bleeding as I
breathed real hard in shock from the pain. I raised my arm up to
elevate my finger and breathed deep to keep from screaming or crying!
I look over and there she is still chatting away totally oblivious to
what just happened! To this day sister Nielsen still has no idea that
she closed the window on my finger....

Heavenly Father really loves everyone, it doesn't matter their
background or what choices they have made, he longs for everyone to
come unto him. We teach so many unique individuals here in Nac, and I
love all of them!

Love,
Sister Jones

Jessica!

Nac attack! Teaching up a storm!

Hey y'all!
I know I'm getting to sound very repetitive, but this week was full of
so many miracles! I guess that's just what missionary work is. :) We
taught 40 lessons this week! We found 8 new investigators, and have 9
baptismal dates! These are record breaking numbers in Nac history! It
was previously a slower area! Not only that, but we are having so much
fun!

Annette: has been reading the Book of Mormon! We watched the
Testaments with her on Saturday and she felt the spirit! She loves
watching church movies!

Debra and Elroy: we tracted into Deborah and Elroy. They are so sweet
and have such strong faith in Jesus Christ! Not sure about the LDS
part of it yet, but they have a baptismal date for August 29th!

Bre and Luv: Bre and Luv are still doing really well. They have a lot
of questions! And they are really searching.

The Phillips family: Kirsten, Terry, and Justin Phillips are referrals
from a less active member we have been working with. They are such a
sweet family! Justin is eight years old and is very smart, he is also
autistic. They have been looking for a stronger purpose in their lives
and feel that they are finding it with the Gospel. They came to church
on Sunday! Their baptismal date is August 29th. They even got the less
active friend, Ruth, to come to church!!!! Ruth cried during sacrament
meeting! The spirit was so strong!

Jessica: Jessica is such a miracle find! She accepted a baptismal date
right away for August 22! She is so excited to change her life and so
ready for it! She has really opened up to us and looks forward to her
new path.

Lilly: Lilly is doing so well, she recognizes the spirit. She came to
church on Sunday! She doesn't have a date yet but we are working
towards it. Change can be scary sometimes.

The Lord is not quite as supportive as it was in the colony with
missionary work, but they are the friendliest most loving word I have
ever met!! We are going to turn them into a missionary minded Ward!
The people here are so humble and lovable! Sister Ricks and I are
loving working together! She is amazing and we get along so well! I
love her so much! We had to go aaaaaallllllllllll the way to Dallas
for mission leadership counsel! The drive was almost four hours each
way and the meeting was five hours. We did all this in one day. =P but
the meeting was really good! It was weird to be back in the city for a
day!
Hope y'all had a great week!
Love,
Sister Jones

Pottery with Ruth!