Life in the Field: Meet the Mormons

Elder Jones & Elder Canto 

Elder Jones had another great (and fast!) week in Guadalajara! He was able to attend a meeting with all the other missionaries in the area and view the movie, "Meet the Mormons" in Spanish. Dallin really enjoyed it! [Visit this website for local viewings in your area!] Dallin & his companion have some investigators who are moving along very well in the lessons and learning about the gospel. We love hearing that the work is going well in Mexico! Here is an excerpt from Dallin's letter this week:

Thursday was super great.... WE HAD AN 7 HOUR MEETING!!!!!!!! It was about working with members and things like that. It started at 8:00 and ended at 3:45! It was really good with a bunch of great information, but gosh.... i was so tired after that. I'm more tired after meetings than walking around! 

We have some investigators who are progressing really well! That's exciting! But I have the feeling that I'm going to change next transfer, so I wont get to see my Golden investigator get baptized..... Oh well. Hahaha! 

Today, I thought we were going to get destroyed by President. He asked for all the zones in Guadalajara to come to the Chaple in Cruz del Sur with your white handbook (missionary handbook), notes, and scriptures... scary! But nope! Instead, we watched "Meet the Mormons!!!!!!!!!!!! It was in Spanish, but it was super good! It made my day :) 

I have a picture with Elder Canto, who goes home next week.Elder Pavon goes home next week too, and he wrote me a little handbook of how to planchar (defend) the Mormon church. Hahaha! It's super good. I really don't like grilling others, but if i ever need to, I'm ready :)

Even missionaries need hot cocoa on cold and rainy mornings! 

Elder Jones sent us this photo of a poor dead doggie in the street. Don't worry, I spared you all on the close up. Gross!

A new watch is every missionaries best friend!

Life in the Field: Scriptures for Bible Bashers

Pedro is a member in the ward and loves the missionaries! 

Another great week for Elder Jones in Guadalajara! They were able to teach and visit many members and investigators of the church this week in homes and on the street. One of his investigators even game him and his companion some candy for Valentines Day. Isn't that thoughtful? Elder Jones was especially excited to hear that some of his friends from school and church received mission calls this week! He is very excited to speak Spanish with them when they all arrive home! Here is an excerpt from Dallin's letter this week:

So one day, we were walking and this cute lady was walking towards us, and she stopped, and pulled out a pamphlet for JW. Then, she pulls out her version of the bible and tries to fight us. It was clear she just studies the bible to try and destroy others, while we study for personal use and to help others. So we start to talk to her and the whole time she tells us that we aren't reading it right. We find that this is just a waste of time, so we keep it short and leave. When we say we need to go, but she still tries to tell us we are wrong and tells us to read Galatians 1 about false prophets and teachers. We used the Book of Mormon with her and she told us its not true and then we show her Ezekiel 37 and Isaiah 29 and she cant believe it. It was a little waste of time, but gosh she was persistent. I don't read my bible often, but I know what scriptures are necessary to defend my faith.

The guy in front of the van is Pedro. He is a member and he is a boss. He lives in front of his daughters house in that van with some sketchy power lines going into it so he has power! HA HA! He's great. He loves the missionaries. Sometimes he wears a little "member missionary" plaque to church. 

We had a really good lesson with Tania (the girl who gave us the candy). She is 18 almost 19, so we brought two young adults with us to a lesson. Deigo, who is 19, and Hermana Nevai who is 21. Sister Nevai just came back from a mission, and she is super good at teaching. We had a really good lesson and Diego and Sister Nevai are helping Tania, our investigator with questions and everything. I hope she wants to get baptized.

Animals LOVE Elder Jones!

Elder Jones, Tania (an investigator) and Elder Garcia.

Life in the Field: A Deep Clean

Alto (Tall). Couldn't be more true for our favorite Elder!

This week, Dallin and his companion were tasked with deep cleaning the apartment. Since it is all tile floors, they borrowed a power washer from a member and went to town! They also had some great lessons with investigators this week and ate way to much pizza (as usual!) As always, please write via e-mail or Dear Elder and keep Dallin and his companion in your prayers as they teach the gospel to those in Guadalajara!  Here is an excerpt from Dallin's letter this week:

I went on transfers again this week with Elder Tonala with Elder Sasser. Two big white gringos teaching the gospel. It was a blast. Nothing too interesting happened. We just had a bunch of fun because we could speak English!

This week we spent 5 hours painting a members house & then they fed us an amazing lunch!

We have one investigator who is really great and he lived in Los Angeles for a long time so his English is perfect. He has a desire to stop drinking which is good, and he just needs to go to church.  We almost got him to attend last Sunday, so I am hoping next week will be his first visit to a Church meeting.

One of our investigators has decided to not answer his door for the past 2 weeks which makes me sad. He was progressing well and had been to church 3 times. I hope he will let us in the door this week because he was really good person.

A large mini city display in the city

The leaning tower of pizza boxes (ha. get it?)

Fresh haircut for Elder Jones. How handsome is he?!

This is from the balloon activity the missionaries did a few weeks ago.

Kitty snuggles and selfies. What Elder Jones does best.

Apparently, you can worship Dragon Ball Z? This poster reads, "In this home we witness Goku and do not accept propoganda, Gods weighing less than 2000 ki,, or supernatural beings , as well as imaginary friends. Goku lives. Milk lives. Gohan lives. Live the dragon balls."

February Meal Calendar.... Looks like a good line up! 

The power washer... I think they had a little too much fun with this?

Life in the Field: Goal Setting

No photos from Mexico this week... computer problems! Instead I have decided to attach the letter from Dallin! Sounds like it was a great week! 

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Dear Family,

To be honest, i really don't remember too much during the week.... Besides the fact we keep setting up times with people to come with us to teach and they don't come.... That's really annoying. We will wait for like 15-30 min and they wont answer their phone, and then we get a text saying that they are busy... really annoying at times but its alright.... in time :) :)

We had a zone meeting which was like 4 hours plus.... Sooo long. It was really fun though. We played a game about setting goals. We had a bunch of balloons and had 1 min to blow them up and we had to set a goal of how many we were to blow up. We did this twice. We saw that the 1st time we totally passed our goal, so we all upped our goal and changed our strategies a bit. The second time we passed our goal again by 10 balloons. It shows that when we set real goals and we complete them, we have more vigor to beat it the second time. That was really cool to see how that changes your mentality. Then we got to pop all the balloons which was super fun!

Later that day, we had a meeting with the mission leader of our ward. that was alright. we are planning an activity for the ward so I hope that goes well. 

The investigators we have now are really good! One of them is a husband to a member. All of her kids are members too. He is so golden. He has a bunch of soul searching questions which are good. He loved church and he feels more peace in his life. It's so great to see people change. He said that he doesn't know how, but we always answer his questions and he can't really believe it. We always know what to say and how to help him. His wife told him that its the Spirit and she is right. If we don't have the spirit, we have nothing. It's always important to have the spirit.

One family we are teaching, two of the kids are members but they are less active. Their mom died recently... she had cancer and I knew her a little, and they are so thankful that we keep passing by with them. I hope we can help them come unto Christ so they can one day enter into the temple and receive an eternal family. They are a lot better now, but still upset. I hope they start coming to church and feel Gods love for them.

Those are some of our really good investigators. We have one other that's really good but ill talk about him next week!

Thanks for all the Christmas cards! Thanks for all the love and support!

Love,

Elder Dallin McKay Jones