Be worthy to be visited by angels my sons. PRAY!

One thing that I always do is try and have a conversation with the Lord daily even min by min if the day is tough. And you know I am always talking to the angels that the Lord sends all over this universe to do the extra work that he needs assistance with. Think about that, his church it is a very organized church with a system of people doing a chain of commands in proper lines of authority. Some wards work better then others at doing the delegating to the one that is below them. The same kind of organization has got to be happening in the Heavens and those who have passed on. So the other day at the bottom of a note about priesthood it says
"Live Worthy Enough To Be Visited By Angels".

I guess that means we need to be talking to them and listening to the Holy Ghost and all the messengers that he has in his chain of command. Prayer is the only way to get those messages over there for him to hear or any angles that he has assigned to collect the prayer and work on our needs and desires. Can you see in your minds eye what your assigned angel would be doing if you do not take the time to talk to Heavenly Father daily even min by min. He or she is just stetting there waisting away his eternities waiting to do the job that he was assigned in trying to assist you to accomplish, grow, strain, understand, receive, and become a God or Goddess by learning all that our bodies were sent here on this earth to learn.

So that said take the time to keep an angle working and PRAY!!!

Baptisms and bucketing water to wash in Lenyene South Africa.

Well there isn't any questions today huh? Well this week has been great. It's been the strongest week for our district since I came here. We are working our tails off to achieve our goals and I'm so proud of my district because this month We had A goal of 6 people to receive eternal life and we Achieved 8. next month for October We have a goal of 8 so we'll see what we will achieve. It's pretty much set that Lenyenye will get 4 in the coming week unless they don't come to their baptism but that's not likely to happen.
So that brings me to the week. This week has been a very good week. We have been teaching alot of father led families and we have been Extending the Baptism invitation to almost everyone we are teaching, so we can find the very elect. We had some ups and downs just like most weeks but our work is defiantly improving. Monday was a normal P-day and we all got some rest so that was nice. Tuesday was eventful because we've been trying to track down one of our investigators who is dodging us for whatever reasons and we finally tracked her down. Later we went and did some service at the place for those kids (they have now parents alive)(which I sent a picture) and then we met with Max. A man who is prepared for the gospel. He just left his church because of some issues with a pastor and he is struggling with his family life. He has three kids and he loves and cares for them much more then any other dad that I've seen around here. Unfortunately he said that his marriage is struggling and he is scared that it will drive him to drinking which isn't something he wants, because he knows it only causes more problems (due to experience). He has come to church with us once and later in the week when we saw him he said he has already seen changes in his life and wants to be baptized. So we set a date for the 31 of October. Wed. we had a challenging day because we were working in town but we managed to find some new investigators and it was a rewarding day. Thursday we did our weekly planning and our work (average day) Fri. we had a great district meeting in which we talked about the new training that the Missions have been learning. We also had a great group meeting with some members and investigators. The meeting is called u-night, it's a way to get members and investigators together and get to know one another. It was pretty successful. Saturday I was on exchange for Interviews in Lenyenye and it was a great day. We did some more service by bucketing water from a stream for washing clothes and cleaning. (I sent pics) All of the interviews were successful and the day was great. I love getting to see the other areas of the district and to see their progress. Sunday was the best of the whole week. We had Five Successful baptisms of Brother Sekobela and his wife and two kids. As well as a baptism for Noriah that we have been teaching since I got here and we finally decided that she didn't have to wait for her husband. So now her husband has been coming to church and I think it will motivate him to start doing what it takes since he does want to be baptized but he lacked the motivation. Afterwards we had another appointment with Max which I already talked about but it was a very rewarding week.

1. So who was the relative in the hospital
2. Have you seen the missionaries in the stake yet?
3. Is there anyone from there going on mission this side?
4. I can't think of any more questions, do you have any?

Successful baptisms that he has been working on for a while.


















When he was a little guy his Dad would tell him to lift the bucket and get his milk toasts working in other words his muscles growing and straining from working hard. It would make him really mad for some reason but he did work hard to help with the chores and the watering of the horses or feedign the bales of hay. It is now quite fun to see him again really using his MILK TOAST by really using the MUSCLE on his MISSION hauling those buckets of water to help make little childrens lives a bit cleaner and easier for just a day.

Photos of teaching English in Africa and a district outing.

1. Do you have a new person yet who has been searching for the truth and you are being able to teach?1.Yup, We just put 3 guys on date for November to be baptized. Godfree, Tinashe, and Rollingson. they are all from Zimbabwe.

2. Did you get to do the service of painting the school ever?

2.Yup they did that on Saturday, but I was on splits so I wasn't there.

3. So do are you having a companion change yet?

3.Nope not for another 5 weeks or so and even then I'm not sure.

4.How is your clerk calling and your district leader job going?

4.It's actually going very well, I'm starting to get the hang of both. Especially after we just had leadership training on Friday. I'm catching up on a lot of un updated records in the branch and making sure everyone is being accounted for. I still may leave a few people out but I get a little more done each Sunday.

Well this week has been hectic. We've had Leadership training, Exchanges, Splits and Interviews all in one week.

We finally got five people interviewed for baptism this coming Sunday. Brother and Sister Sekobela and two of their kids, And a lady named Noriah. It's been quite the adventure preparing both of them. Bro and Sis Sekobela don't speak english, so we have taught them everything through a translator and Noriah has moved her date 3 times since I got here. She has been waiting for her Husband who keeps missing church for one reason or another and so now he is coming to church since we told him she can be baptized but he can't. It was a risky move on our part, but it seems to have helped him a little bit. His name is Elwin.

We are trying to achieve a goal of 70 baptisms for the zone in the next three months which for this zone has never been accomplished. Our leadership training really focused on motivating our missionaries to achieve the goals that have been set. I think we can do it. and I'm really pumped to do my best at bringing 70 people to Eternal life.

I was thinking about something interesting this Sunday as we were working to get some of our investigators to church and it reminded me of Mom always trying to get the kids ready for church. It's similar to getting investigators to church. We showed up to some investigators house before church and found them kind of sitting around so we said 'were coming to get you for church." they seemed a bit startled and then started scrambling to get ready. They realized they had just put all of their clothes in the wash so we told them to tuck in their shirts and get their books. After a minute we started walking the 45 minute walk to church and made it successfully. It was just funny to think that doing missionary work is just like mom getting the kids to church sometimes. Except the Investigators live in different parts of town.

Over all it's been a great week. Its amazing how fast time fly's aye!

Love Elder Jones

Boy Farmers and Soccer players with one Football guy in there somewhere.
You should have seen the field out font yesterday. The swather was on one side being driven by C and on the other side Mc was baling the stuff Dad had cut a couple days earlier. They left at 9:30 am and didn't come in till 6:00pm They were so very dirty but looked all satisfied with their work. Papa finally has the front door all done and it is wonderful it keeps the wind out really nicely now. The dogs have a new bed Dad couldn't take the couch anymore and hauled it out to the deck the stuffing is falling out faster then I can keep it cleaned up and he had had it. So now we are on the search for a new couch to replace it. I have rode the bus everyday this week and its been interesting. You sure see lots of family dynamics when seeing kids interact without the parents around. I sure hope my children are upstanding and nice as compared to some other kids that I have been watching these last few days. I finally have the cabins bedding in such a way that I can whip through a cabin in an hour but I still have to wait till the end of the dryer load before I can get out of there for the day. The nice thing is its not every single day and usually I can get all done before time to go to the bus. I have an interview on Tue so we shall see if it becomes a permanent thing for riding the bus. The cabin jobs are slowing down to because of the winter season coming on. The fire made it all the way to the freeway on the top between the two bridges. They have kept it from coming over to the other side so far. There are three big hot shot crews that are camped at the Elsinore city park and its like a mini town there and will be that way for awhile. We tried to get pic of it burning but when we got up there the next evening they had knocked it back and it was down where you can't go into. So alas all our winter firewood getting spots are gone and we will have to go over to Monroe mountain now. Next week in Church is the kids program. Jer has a part but we will see if he will really say it. Mc is supposed to talk about how the Holy ghost helped him and he is having a hard time with it because his time is about when he knew that someone would be coming to get him to take him home because Grandma had passed away, even though no one had talked to him about it yet. He is afraid he will cry but everyone told him that didn't matter it would just make the spirit be felt even stronger in our primary program. He also took second in a race to beat Mr. Jolly so he gets a coupon to get out of class early on a day that he chooses. C so far has been doing pretty well keeping all his grades up he went on his first bus ride to a football game and was not impressed especially after not even getting to play because the sophomores did. J is realizing that even though she isn't into talking to people she can make more money in 4 hours a night at Hoover with tips and all then 4 hours stacking ice pallets. K loved Gooseberry and Dad got to go with him and I did not get to get up there for having to haul all the kids to soccer. But I got a blessing so wonderful that it didn't matter. Walmart was having a half off the half off stuff sale so 200$ later we all got new sheets and lots of good shorts for the boys to wrestle in and tons of ties for 3.00 dollars. It was the best sale ever that I have been too. Of course J didn't score much because there wasn't really anything on sale in that store section. The ties alone were great. Seriously though the scouts want to do a white shirts and ties Eagle project and so get me some possible info as to what could be needed. Also some of the brethren gave ties of like bother Jim Owens who has passed away but they haven't done anything with his stuff yet so its not been a hardship on anyone if that is what you were worrying about ok. So now I am trying to get this all packed into a container to go out and hoping that the strikes are over with over there? A bit of facebook news for you. Amy Grant is getting married, Snow college broke the ticket sales record again that's two years in a row now. Also Derek is getting married on the 1 of Oct in the Manti Temple. Robbie Hicks has about until February and his parents asked if they should come to pick him up and he said no it was to hard of a place where he was at. That if he went back it would be later when he was free to go where he wanted to go. He has only been allowed a shower out of a bucket once a week and its cold at that. Also they never send packages because they never make it to him. They very rarely even get email he is so far out in the jungle land. But he says he still likes his mission.

Love you lots have a great week and Dad is back to saying Hi through me because he has to go change water at Whites again.

Love Mom P.S. J says she loves you did you get her note she wonders

Weekly news, Counting down to being a year in 5 days.

Family News

News today Morgan White passed away on Sunday I forgot to tell you. Also I saw the neatest testimony about a man with no limbs and how he just keeps on going and giving all his trust to God. Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could teach him the truth but his example is teaching truth also.

Nick Vujicic (click on this link and watch something amazing) is amazing you will have to see his video when you come back. He says that in the end when you are standing in front of God he will ask you, Do You Know Me and who have you brought with you that is all that matters in the end.

We are so blessed by you serving a mission thank you again son for the choice you made to go.

Caleb is so happy Uncle Golden is taking him down with Riley to unload hay and so now he says he will get to have a bit of money. I guess he will learn how quickly it can run through your hands. He almost has it already spent.

Dallas is at Snow having a blast and took some drama classes. He will have to say hey to Wills little sister because I guess she is there now.

I hope you were not hoping for a package because I am lame about getting them sent with timing, plus all the Missionary Moms are saying that all the packages they have sent since that strike you talked about happened has slowed the receiving down. All their sons are saying they haven't gotten their mail or packages for a bit.

I am saving all the emails, lots I put on our family blog so all the family can read them as its hard to put pic with a letter and resend on an email.

From Tyrell

That is very sad to hear about Brother Morgan. I saw him on a video just the other day and it was kind of exciting to see. Give their family my best. I always liked that man alot. Well once again it has been a very fast paced week and the weeks only go by faster and faster. I tell you there is just to little time to waste time. And yes i do realize that in 5 days it will be that time. It is already hard enough to forget when i am living with an Elder that came out with me. I don't have my planner with me so i might not be able to remember the whole week, but as you asked the question, how is Cifford doing,.....He's not. We found him in some not so good conditions the other day and i wasn't so happy. We decided to drop by their house Saturday night and see what we could do to help them get to church. Well we knocked on the door and Elijah answered the door and the first thing i noticed was the earrings he had in and then the burning cigarette butt in his hand. He very embarrassingly threw it away and then invited us in. I was upset, but i didn't really show it, because i realize it is very addicting. But it just got worse. as we walked in the house we sat down to find Clifford trying to hide a bottle of liquor and his friends all sitting around a pack of cards. I didn't say anything about it and i pretended not to see at first. Then we sat down and it was kind of awkward. Elder Makosa said how is everyone and i didn't really have anything to say. Elijah repeated my thoughts by saying " I don't know what to say" after what seemed like hours of sitting there trying to think of what to say i just said how i felt and the words were " To tell you the truth, I'm very disappointed." there was a pause and then i said " You know, Elder Makosa and i love you very much, but we can only help you if you are willing to help yourself." I kind of lost track of things after that because I didn't see how they could still be doing what they were doing, and we eventually just left, after Bongoni told us some jokes he had heard. I'm very frustrated with the situation, but I'm sure we will continue to see them because Bongoni is the Nephi of the family and he is still on track. Keep praying for them and I will too, but I'm not sure if we will be focusing to much of our time on them anymore. Man it's hard to have to do those kinds of things, because you know how much better their life could be.

Maybe to answer the question about the ties, you don't need to donate any and please don't ask the members to do that. it's not necessary. But i myself would like some ties. I haven't given one to everyone I've baptized just those who can't afford their own.

1.So are you trying to make the good impression with the Branch pres. because of the late incident?

1.I can't remember the incident at this moment, but mostly I'm just trying to make my branch president look good. there is a lot of catching up to do record wise.

2.That sounds so sad that there are so many children without parents.

2.there are but it's not as bad as you would think. They have people who take them in.

3. Do they just sleep in the streets or are they living with some kind of family?

3. Answered

4. Has there been any better progress with Clifford and his struggle?

4. answered.

sorry the e-mail shop is closing, got to go

Love Elder Jones

Praying for those that our missionary is trying to teach.

---

1. Are you doing ok money wise still?

1. Yeah i'm always ok money wise.

2. The dang kids ate my box of Captain crunch that I got for you, does it have to be the name brand or is the Malto meal in a bag kind just as good?

2.Malt o Meal is what i grew up eating so that's fine by me

3.How are the 4 people that we have been praying for doing?

3.Well those 4 people are ok but we made an interesting discovery this week which i will tell in the main letter

4. Tell me some tie colors that you would like or do you even care?

4. Green Blue, Red! Yellow....Whatever just send some awesome ties.

5. Dad says who did you give all your ties to usually that happens towards the end of your mission not before the one year point hits so he is wondering.

5.I've been giving them to recent converts that we baptize

6. Did you get Dads last advice note or only mine?

6. I did, i thought i replied but i don't think it sent for some reason

Those photos are all just random shots. I have no idea how to make them smaller to send to you so please tell me if you were able to see at least 4 pic to every send and there were 5 sends that I did. J sitting on the car with the smoke in the background is Sat as the fire began to flame up again. It has been burning for a little over a month now. Then there are pics at the county fair and just everyday catches of all the kids.

Well can't wait to hear your adventures for the week. Also tell us one faith promoting thing that happened to you.

7. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE PICTURES THEY ARE GREAT!!!

Love Mom

Dear Family

Well i hope that i can type fast today because i have some interesting stories, but I'm only left with 30min and that time goes by fast especially when you are trying to think of how to write things down. Well i will start with Monday. Last Monday as i mentioned i had the opportunity to do a baptism interview. The interview was with an 18 year old kid named Layne. Now in the interviews we were taught not to make it seem like an interrogation or make it awkward and that is the first thing that i did. But i didn't realize i was doing it until after i had done so. We were sitting on the same couch and when everyone left the room it was bothering me because i had to turn my head all funny to talk with him so i grabbed a near by chair so i could face him. That made him a little bit nervous i think. So the whole time we were in the interview he didn't look at me and i was finding it very hard to find some common ground so i thought let's just get this over with and i started asking the questions. Finally at the end i asked if he thought he was ready to be baptized and after he said yes i replied "I think you are too"... it seemed like a huge weight was lifted off his shoulders and he took such a big breath i thought i wasn't going to be any air left for me to breath. there was a big smile on his face and he opened right up. We called the others in the room and they were all very excited for him as we filled out the baptism record. He was successfully brought into the straight gate this Sunday.

Tuesday we went to see our dear brother Clifford and his brothers so we could help check on how they were doing and we came a cross a very interesting plant in the yard that we had not noticed before. To describe it it grows almost like a tomato plant, but it has 5 little leaves that all grow in a beautifully fan shaped pattern. And if you can't guess what it is I'll give you a hint. ( Marijuana) also known as (Dakga). This was very disappointing. The very thing we are trying to battle for our dear brother was growing in a nice little prepared space in the yard. As we stood there Elijah and Bongoni noticed us looking at the plant and realized that we knew what it was. Niether Elijah or Bongoni struggle with it but they didn't want to say anything to kind of protect their brother and themselves. Elijah acted like he didn't know what it was and Bongone Openly admitted to having purposefully stepped on it earlier. anyway we told them that we would leave it up to Clifford to remove it and then we tried to start our lesson. Unfortunately it was very hard to concentrate and after a minute Elijah stood up and pulled the plant violently from the ground, and then threw it in the outhouse toilet. We were very shocked at this and didn't want to take the blame, but Elijah explained that he would tell Clifford he did it and there wouldn't be a problem because Elijah is the older brother. with this we started the lesson and things went well. We later came to find out that Clifford was very understanding and he didn't even get angry. So we hope things will only get better. Unfortunately he didn't attend church with us yet.

Wed we went for more training, but this week it was at our chapel so we didn't have to travel so far. I think we are finally finished with all of it so now we can really get down to business and work.

Thursday we had very full day and we were able to set up a schedule with some of our Branch missionaries to make daily visits to Clifford so he can have a good influence around him at all times.

Friday we had an awesome opportunity to do some community service in Motupa, for a little place that cooks meals for children in the village. many of the kids don't have parents so it's quite a nice service opportunity. I sure hope it gives us a good impression for the people living around there

Saturday we also did some service at our branch presidents house, because we are really trying to gain a good relationship with him. We are trying to get some branch activities going so we are being as good as possible.

Sunday we had about 11 Investigators who attended church so that was a plus. Unfortunately many of those who have baptism dates did not come. We have a goal to Get 3 baptisms this month and we are coming close to making it but it will be up to the agency of those we are teaching.

Well I'm out of time sorry, i hope this is a informative e-mail, I'm doing better at writing in my journal.

Love Elder Jones

P.S. Dad i love you, sorry for not e-mailing again, i would still like to hear from you

P.P.S mom could you save my e-mails, many of them will make good journal entries. Especially many of the ones from my first months on mission.