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

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?!

Floral Therapy: Flower essences are supported by science. Natural method in which the individual conscious rescues fears of fatigue, crisis, and educational needs. Children, adolescents, and adults.

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