Excuses made & forgivin. A Letter Finnaly!

Good Day Missionary Son.
Maybe if I take all the questions that you haven't answered and made a letter of that it will be enough. Except I have to say that as of Sunday morning I have lost 16pounds on that diet pretty good huh. Also there was a huge earthquake in Chile last Sunday and the Mission Pres. was told in the middle of the night that it would happen he awoke from a dream and a voice telling him to prepare the missionaries and have them prepare 72 hour kits to carry at all times. It came at 3 in the am and was pretty scary and very loud. The Temple Pres. spoke about how he could feel the Teutonic plates in the earth slid and grind and hear the earths groaning sounds as it moved together loudly. This has been a very peaceful week. All the boys slept down in the bottoms in a tent on a very very cold night. The next night it snowed so Dad wouldn't let them he was concerned about K and Z getting to cold. May you grow closer and in more understanding of the Lords desires as you teach. I hope you have thought about how you can serve him in you life after your mission in the career that you choose. So Question time.


1.Did you get to go to the Soccer World cup stadium after all?
2.Do you get Elder's Will and Sam's letters and Devin's finally?
3.Do you need us to send bribe candy for the kids in Soweto?
4. So office work was that rough? You said you never wanted to have to do that when you were on your mission remember..
5. How do you know that I post to the world and not fix your spelling?
7. Do the natives meaning from there not black necessarily call it Joburg or Jhannisburg or Johannesburg proper. A MishMOM was wondering and it made me wonder.
8. Do you live inside or outside of Soweto the township?
9.Do we need to pray for anyone that you are needing help with?
10.Do you still have a washing machine in your apartment?
11. Are you in need of anything as we are getting another package ready to send.
12.You never said if we made the music on the ipod right or is it to many Christmas songs or what do you think about it.
13.Has your testimony of the gospel grown more or are you starting to ask questions about things that you took for granted all your life?

A Note from the Church program that I mentioned last letter and couldn't find that I really liked.
The Prophet Joseph Smith declared-and he never taught more comforting doctrine- that the eternal sealing of faithful parents and the divine promises made to them for valiant service in the Cause of Truth, would save not only themselves, but likewise their posterity. Though some of the sheep may wonder, the eye of the Shepherd is upon them, and sooner or later they will feel the tentacles of Divine Providence reaching out after them and drawing them back to the fold. Either in this life or the life to come, they will return. They will have to pay their debt to justice: they will suffer for their sins: and may tread a thorny path: but if it leads them at last, like the penitent Prodigal, to a loving and forgiving fathers heart and home, the painful experience will not have been in vain. Pray for your careless and disobedient children: hold on to them with your faith. Hope on, trust on, till you see the salvation of God.
Elder Orson F. Whitney Conference Report, April 1929

After Valentines day I was so glad to see this little article as I thought about all those I loved and some of the struggles we were facing on that day past. It made me realize that FAITH is so important to have and share and make grow. Also your foot art in the wall on the stair case is still there waiting for your attention. McKinley and you can learn how to fix it and his when you return.
Have a super week.
Love the family.

Tyrell's reply:)
Sorry I haven't E-mailed much lately. I didn't manage my time very well last week. I'm not going to lie mom loosing 16 pounds is quite a feat for a woman your age (j/k) But really that is impressive, keep it up and you will feel much better about yourself. But make sure you do it healthy, You need to still be alive when I get home. One of the elders in our flat's mom died while he has been on his mission. So just wanted to tell everyone I love them very much first of all and now for the answers to the long awaited questions.

1.Yeah i did get to go and i was planning on sending the pictures 3 times now, but i keep forgetting to bring my card to the e-mail shop.
2. Yeah i have been getting them. It's cool to see how they are doing and to see that they are engaged in the same cause that i am.
3. Actually kids and anyone else goes crazy over sweets if you tell them it's from America, but a lot of kids already try to get candy off of us and it's kind of a nuisance at times so i don't want that kind of thing happening to much.
4.Yeah the office work wasn't that bad and we didn't have to do it to long, but i would much rather be out in the field. I feel bad For the AP's because they have to spend a lot of time in the office.
5. You always say that everyone looks at my letters on the blog... and i peeked at it once :(
7.It's called lots of stuff. Jo'burg, Johannesburg, whatever. But I've never heard Jhannisburg.
8.I live outside of the township. None of the missionaries live in any township anywhere. They are mostly just tin shacks and tiny little houses. We always live in gated Flat complexes.
9.Yes you need to pray for Thando who just got evicted from his shack and he has a girlfriend and a baby to take care of.
10.Yeah we have a washing machine, but it is a constant battle because the seal always comes off the door and leaks water all over the floor.
11.Well I can't think of anything that i am in desperate need of, but I could tell you some things that i want. I'll make a list, unless you send it before next e-mail shop. It's ok if you do. Just getting mail makes it all worth it.
12.Yeah the music on the i-pod is great. It's hard to listen to it sometimes because we don't get much time to anyway.
13.My testimony of the gospel has grown more than i ever thought it could. I've learned so much about the gospel and have put it into effect. And because of that i have seen the blessing that can come. I've seen it working in others lives as well, when they do what is right and sacrifice things to come closer to our Heavenly Father. I've actually had a great personal experience that has strengthen my testimony the most. But I'm going to send that story in a letter.

Well this week has been great as well as the past couple of weeks. We had the chance to hear from Elder M. Jensen of the 70. who came here to reorganize the Soweto stake believe it or not. We had a great morning side fireside where he came and talked a little about "Mission Culture" He defined this as the way things are done within our mission. He complemented us a lot on how well we were doing as a mission, but he also had some things to say about how we could improve. It was powerful and i think it made us all want to do a little bit better then we have been doing. He also talked a lot about faith, and how we can develop faith. He said it starts with a simple equation... Faith= Power and action. we need to do things to develop our faith. Even if we only have a particle of faith or Desire to belive. and as we do this eventually our faith will grow to be and exceeding amount of faith or, Exceeding faith=remission of sins. I wish I could share everything we learned, but i have quite a few notes so that's the jist of it. It was defiantly more powerful then i make it sound though. Things have finnaly settled down a bit, other than that we are still waiting for a new companion to be with Elder Bullard so now he is working with a ward missionary. But I'm just going to have to say none of this has effected the work in Dopsenvill. We have now had 2 baptisms since I've been here and we have another one planned for next week. This one might be a little scary because were not sure if all of the candidates are fully prepared, we've done our best so the rest is up to the spirit in wether or not they pass the interviews i guess. We have been teaching some really good people, unfortunately we haven't been finding to many new investigators lately so we need to start working harder on that.
Well i think that's about it for now. Love every one lots and lots.

Elder T. Jones

P.S. Send me some pics of the family over the net so i can see the new mom.