Goal met by the Missionary.Baptisms completed ahead of time.

1.When you say you are not eating very healthy what does that mean. Are you not eating or does that mean that your are living on roman noddles. You know if you do not eat enough Protein then you can lose lots of muscle especially if you are having to walk around alot.
1. Mom you actually hit it right on the nose! Roman noodles all the way, except they aren't called roman noodles. I just don't really know how to shop, and I don't feel like there is ever time to cook. and I can't afford lots of meat.

2. So how is your goal setting going are you learning things about setting goals that will help you when your return?
2. Well I sure hope so.

3. What are your planning skills like now that you have been a missionary for a year?
3. Well I'd think they are a little better, but I haven't tried them on everyday life kinda stuff.

4. Discerning what does that mean to you? You said that you were trying to discern if one of the investigators was ready can you help us to understand what you learned about discerning in this area.
4. Discern to me means to be able to find what needs to be done, by the spirit.

5. Have you been to the little museum that holds drums from the Queen Modjadji it is there somewhere in Tazneen.
5.I'm not sure where that is. This whole area is Called Tzaneen... Motupa, Modjadji, Lenyenye. You'll have to find out which part of Tzaneen. (our area is called Tzaneen because we are in the center of Tzaneen Town.)

Wow sounds like an eventful week. A lot of things just clicked over again in my mind again and that is the fact that C and J and everyone is just growing up fast. It's way weird to hear that C is sucking weight and that J is driving around kingdom come. Just wondering, does the whole family usually read my e-mails or not? Well this week has been quite eventful for us. It started out normal, and then by Thursday we got a phone call from one of our members in Motupa, and he was sounding pretty distressed. He was saying that his house had been hit by a major hailstorm and that all his windows were broken and that his house was full of water. We told him that we couldn't really come over so soon because we usually do our weekly planning on Thursday and we don't get out of the flat until around 1:30-2:00. He begged us to do everything we could to come as soon as possible and I told him we would have to get permission to move our planning. Eventually I go a hold of Pres Poulsen and explained the situation. He said it was a good idea to move our planning and go help Bro Kuda. He told us to tell the Branch president and other leaders and then go. After we got everything we, picked up Kuda, who was in town explaining his situation to his boss, and the we left to Motupa. What once was a very green place full of mango trees and gum trees was now full of trees without leaves and houses without windows and roofs. When we got to Kuda's village, his was hit the worst, and he wasn't lying when he said his house was messed up. It took us 3-4 hours (not quite sure) to get everything cleaned up and livable again. We had to Clean out water and mud and hang up all his clothes, some of which we took home to wash for him. We had to clean up all of the leaves and branches from around his house, but eventually we got everything done. Things are relaxed now, but I tell you I had never seen so much damage done by a hail storm. The pieces of hail were about the size of golf balls.
After alot of thought and prayer we finally decide that Bro and Sister Mpofu were ready for baptism and they have showed it through the sacrifices they have made, and this Sunday Sister Tinashe and Bro Mpofu and his wife were all baptized for the remission of sins. It was pretty rewarding to see and I think it excited the brach a little bit. We had some investigators there to watch the baptism and I think it has done some good. On the other had, when we got to the service in Motupa we were disappointed to find that two of our awesome investigators were not at church. Bro Modika and Bro Samuel are some investigators we found last week, and they came to church without even a hesitation last week as well. This week unfortunately they were not there so we went to their home after Church to find quite a few people there sitting around Brother Modika, who was just starring off into space. After sitting down some asked if we had heard what happened and I replied that we did not know. They then continued to say that Bro Modika's son had been murdered on Saturday night. That was quite a shock and we decided that that was a pretty good reason to have missed church. We didn't know quite what to do so we just shared a few thoughts and then left them with a prayer. I hope things will be ok with their family. They could use our prayers.
On a lighter note, with the three baptisms we met our trimester goal of 9, with one month to spare.

Well I love you all.

Elder Jones

Our Newsletter full this week.
Jef Lun is getting married next week. Just is trying to finish the last few classes that are required for par-legal degree. Rh is still in Hawaii but will be back for Christmas. Devins brothers said he sucks at writing and if he does its like a paragraph and he seems to always be baptizing which was better then how their missions were. Yesterday they were all cleaning out their Moms attic of old stuff and so we got to see all of them. Sam I haven't heard anything newer then what I said last week and Cody loves college, Samantha loves college, Dallas loves college. Sarah R,Jamie R,Meg H & Brenton H, are all listed as getting or gotten married. Will is home some time in January. There are several of your high school friends who are returned missionaries that are requesting to be friends on facebook.
Winter is here with a vengeance and its dang stinking cold, there is still no coal available and we are getting a bit worried because we are going to maybe have to get a different inside heater. The basement is cleaned out pretty much and now Dad is trying to figure out what he is going to do to finish the floor. Dad got technical enough to figure out how to hook up netflix so we can watch movies over the Internet since he keeps forgetting to return ones that we rent and we have a bill that made me really upset and I told everyone no more rentals ever because he can't remember to return them but now we have got to figure out a new TV because the lap top is just to dang small to see and even really hear the show when its a family trying to watch. We have about talked everyone into just getting one big Christmas gift and that be a TV this year.
This week was tough starting on Tue C came being all frustrated because he was at 107 and couldn't drop even with all the hard wrestling that they were doing. The coaches really want him at 103 because there is a senior who is well known all over and they know that because C knows what he is doing he could be the only kid to beat this kid from Emery county. The only other kids that is on their team at that weight has never wrestled. Well we put him on a really strict smaller portion high protein diet and started him drinking water, finally by Sat morning he was at 103.4 at 5 am but the hydration test and weigh in was at 1:30pm so by that time because you weigh more in the afternoon he was back up to 104.3. They decided that he would wait one more week and keep hard working out and stay on a small high protein diet until next Saturday since they really only started working out last Thur. I am not sure that this will happen the kid has really no fat anywhere on him and he still has to grow some over the next few months. He has a much harder time going without food then you did. You should have seen him on Friday night he cooked food for everyone and washed dishes. He did not eat that night and finally I told him he should go to bed instead of torturing himself. We took Mc and the K and Z to the first wrestle tournament in Saline, Mc is so very very good at wrestling also. He almost took second but the kid he won beat him out of the spot in a round robin. K did take second but only because he had a bye. Z took forth because someone did not show up to wrestle so it gave him the medal that they had. They were all thrilled and so you know what its going to be like a bit more crazy with two boys wrestling practice at different times.
Oh today is Sunday and I am not sure why it has to be such a struggle to get to church all the time as of late. The boys stoked the stove but it didn't burn so in the morning there was not enough hot water for everyone to get clean. Then we have boys who drag the feet about getting ready and so we were almost late. Then the two oldest boys decided to sit out in the foyer. Dad and J were the ones that stayed home from lack of a shower. I got to teach a group of really wild primary 3 year olds as a sub this time because the new teachers had to be out of town. One of the little boys is from we think a part member family but we are not sure. I say we because Darren had made a comment in his testimony how it felt good to him to have Alonzo there to help him when they need to give blessings to those who are in need of comfort durning procedures. Then today as I went to walk into the primary the Mother of these little children that we were trying to figure out if they were members was introduced to me with her Hubby standing there. The person who was introducing said and oh this is Alonzo's wife the one who you met at the Hospital. Dad knew who I was talking about when I told him about it later after church and he said he wasn't sure but he thought that she was a member and he was not. Crazy thing is that the little kids know me from riding on the bus with them. Hopefully the missionaries will soon maybe have some people to teach the truth to here in our ward if they are only a part member family.
We received a very nice letter from your Mission Pres today. Telling us that you were prayerfully chosen to be a trainer and because of your obedience, hard work and faithfulness while serving there. I thought everyone had a chance to be a trainer but I guess that may not be so true based on the things that were said in the letter from your Mission Pres.
I guess the more things happen with you serving the more I realize that I do not know the process of what takes place in the process of a missionary. Please tell us all about your new companion and we are hoping that you were able to reach the goal of all the baptisms.
Love you have a great week and I hope that you are starting on some new people that need the gospel because those that you have been teaching were able to be baptized.
Love all of us