Life in the Field: Blessings

Another great week for Dallin! He is enjoying his new companion and they are focusing on helping the current investigators with detailed and well planned lessons to assist in the teaching. The weather has been fabulous and Dallin is still enjoying being in the heart of the city! Here is an excerpt from his letter this week:

One day this week we gave 3 Priesthood Blessings! One of them was in a local hospital in our area.  Another blessing we gave was super good and spiritual.  We were looking for a house and we started to knock on some doors to find it, and finally found the home and we were invited.  They asked us to provide a blessing to their Mom who is very ill. She probably was 90 years old and was unable to speak.  When she saw us enter the room she began to tear up.  We provided a blessing of health and then gave the family a pamphlet to read before we visit again. The son who let us in was so grateful and told his mom how we were sent to provide comfort.  He has so much faith and I hope we can help him.

We received a member referral to teach yesterday during stake conference from a lady in our ward. It’s her husband who had a bunch of questions, so we passed by her house yesterday and asked him what questions he had. Basically, what he asked was a perfect set up for us to teach him The Plan of Salvation and it was a great lesson.  He really wants to continue learning and investigating the church.  He is really interested in the teachings regarding Eternal Families, and I hope he continues to progress.

Life in the Field: A New Companion

Elder Garcia and Elder Jones. (Dallin's 2nd companion)

This week, Dallin received a new companion! His name is Elder Garcia, and he is native of Mexico. He entered the mission field in October, when Dallin was arriving in Mexico, making Dallin the senior companion! He is very excited to, "adventure, serving, and teaching the wonderful people of Guadalajara." A great part of the week is always visiting the Robles family in the ward for dinners and lessons. They have an adorable kitten and she LOVES Dallin! It always makes him happy when that cute kitty curls up on his lap. Here is a quick run down of the week from Elder Jones:

This week not much happened with my other companion getting ready to go back home.  This past Saturday, I said good bye to my first mission field companion.  I then was joined with Elder Sealor, from Tennessee, while we waited for our new companion assessments.  I was a lot of fun working with Elder Sealor because he “Ya'll” a lot and it just cracked me up.  Elder Sealor and I worked both areas visiting and teaching.  I attended church in the area with elder Sealor and the members thought I was the newly assigned missionary and they invited me to speak during church services.  It was fun to speak and then sadly tell them that I was just there for 3 days.

One of our current investigators is really awesome and has been clean from a drug dependency issue for 7 years now.  He is very happy and I hope that he will allow us to share more of our message with him.   Another investigator Danny is very nice and progressing.  He lived with his family in Los Angeles California for the majority of his life and they recently relocated to Guadalajara.  Danny couldn’t make it church yesterday because he wanted to watch the football games (haha!) so maybe next week.

As always, keep writing and showing your love and support!

Cute little kitty cat!

Missionaries at a zone meeting.

Who doesn't love pizza?!

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The Robles Family

Last photo before Dallin's first companion was released from the mission field.

Life in the Field: Holiday of Kings

Dallin's slice of King Cake

This week, Elder Jones and his fellow missionaries were able to celebrate the Holiday of Kings. In Guadalajara, many families celebrate this holiday by exchanging gifts. The holiday is celebrating the 3 Wise Men (kings from the East) who visited the baby Jesus after his birth. The celebration involves a traditional King Cake (similar to a Mardi Gras cake), where each participant takes turns cutting their own slice. If a tiny, plastic baby is found in your slice of cake, you owe everyone in the group tamales! Sounds like a fun and delicious tradition! As always, Dallin enjoys hearing from all of you! Make it a goal to write him an e-mail every two weeks! Here is an excerpt from his letter this week:

Looks like tamales are on the menu.. and these are the chefs!

 On Friday, Elder Escobar (missionary on splits with) and I moved stuff for an Old Egyptologist from France.  He was about 70 and he had a bunch of cool stuff from Greece, Egypt, and other places. He spoke really good English so we talked a bunch.  While moving his bed we had to take it apart half way up the stairs, so we awkwardly hit it with a hammer, took it apart and brought it up the stairs and put it back together. While going up the stairs, we broke a light and it started to spark everywhere and I almost got zapped. That night we bought a huge pizza which was half Hawaiian and half Mexican and so dang good with a Dr Pepper!  It was  a great way to end the evening after working.

Saturday we had a missionary night activity for the ward, and I shared a message about testimonies because it appears that many don’t know or understand what a testimony is. At the conclusion we watched "The Restoration".

Next week, my companion goes home, so I will be getting a new one! I am so excited to get a new companion and show him our area in the city! We need to get people to church... wish us luck!  

Elder Escobar & Elder Jones enjoying a well deserved pizza!

#missionpillowselfie

Life in the Field: Exchanges

This week, Dallin had the opportunity to go on exchanges with other Elders in his mission. He went out with Elder Saucer, a fellow American from Idaho and they were able to teach a couple people. Since there were two holidays this week (New Years Eve and New Years Day) the missionaries were required to be home by 7:00 each night. Here is an excerpt form Dallin's letter on how life in the mission field is going:

My area is going well and we have an investigators set for baptism on January 17.  She has been attending church regularly and her sister of very active member in the ward.   We have also set a baptismal date of January 24 for Felipe.  I am very excited that both these people are attending church and have the desire to become members.

Today we had a zone activity and I played basketball.  They always call me MVP or The Beast.  I wore my new Chivas jersey and I was awesome and it was a blast!  I have nothing much left to say except that I love you all!

With Elder Saucer & Ruben