Elder Tyrell J. Jones at the "Top Of Africa" in Jo'burg!

Elder Tyrell Jones On "Top of Africa"

Elder Seastrand on "Top of Africa"

These are pictures of the city of Jo'burg, baptism yesterday, and a small amount of the great amount of food we have recently been given by many members due to the public announcement bishop made saying we were hungry (not provoked by us)

The Jones Family Questions:
Any way here is the section of questions that are not going to be numbered. so just answer as best you can.
As I was out stoking the fire I thought about how in the world you took care of that the year that we had Jer in the hospital. Did you use coal or just wood I don't remember buying coal and how did you squish that all in after wrestle practise and getting to work I wondered?
Coming up with money to get C wrestle trip food I started to wonder how you had food at wrestling while Jer was in the hospital I was never there to buy any so did you just go without?
Also hotel to go to wrestling tournaments, hotel fees did you just pay them what happened with that I wasn't there to get any to you to take with you, did Dad get some for you?
Ok we wonder if you have had any bloody noses while there in Africa or is the humidity such that this is not a problem for you?

The Elders Answers:
In answer to the un-numbered Q's I will say I think I've only had a bloody nose once. I can't really remember how I had food and all that stuff for wrestling but I think you guys helped me out. Hotels and stuff I cant really remember. Sorry if these are lame answers.

Sweet Baptisms

Well fed missionaries teach well because they think not about where the next meal will come from.

Ah a Drink from America, familiarity at hand.

Missionaries letter for the week:
Well this week has been a pretty packed full week of excitement! On Monday we did all of our needful P-day activities including cleaning the flat and the car and holding a district leader council with all the district leaders, then before we knew it, it was time to go proselyte. we had some good appointments with two awesome families, one being Clyde and Nicky. They're a great family. I haven't recently told much about them I think. They are a family that when we started, had almost no love in the home. they were always arguing and they didn't have any similar goals. We really started to spend alot of our time on them and you can see how the gospel has blessed their lives. The have daily family prayer and they study their scriptures together now. Both Nicky and Clyde have said they don't argue as much and they are laughing alot more together, it's really good to see the changes that the gospel can make. It's really hard to see what the gospel can do if your not trying to consecrate your life to following it. If i could give some advice once again to Jo and C, I would say, if you want to have peace and you want to feel happy all of the time, then develop the Christlike attributes of love! and service. Be nice to each other in school and stop picking on each other. It's not a contest of who's better. Your just brother and sister and you should make it look that way.(Mom you don't have to put that on the blog, but make sure they read it) (Side note: As you can see we are a family that works every day to be kind, this is a struggle that our two oldest at home are having at the moment and the big brother still gives out advice even when around the world. They said they didn't care if it was put out there on our blog.)
Tuesday, we had Zone Conference, and I've got to admit, it was a little stressful. We had to teach the zone on two principles,
1. was the Doctrine of Christ! 2. Was receiving Revelation through Church Attendance.
I was mostly stressed because I want the zone to have these things instilled in them, yet I'm not sure if I was able to teach well enough. I hope they all got it.(of course I did have help from my awesome comp Elder Seastrand)
Wednesday we were supposed to have exchanges with Sunnyside Elders, but they fell through. So we just had a normal day of appointments. It was kind of disappointing because we got ditched alot, but we felt successful because we had good backup plans and had meaningful things to do all day.
Thursday was great! I used to hate Thursdays, because we always had such long planning and it felt like it was going nowhere. But recently I've been loving Thursday, It feels like it is making things happen. we usually have a very effective planning and then later in the day we correlate with the Bishop and that's where magic happens! He gives us great ideas for fellowshippers and gives us permission to contact other auxiliary leaders for appointments for other ideas. This week it led us to some sweet plans to have members in lessons, and to get investigators to church. (see Saturday)
Friday we had District meeting with the Centurion district, unfortunately it was only us the district leader and his companion, because the other members of the district (Sunnyside) was scoping out a new flat to move in to. It was a great district meeting though I really enjoyed what we talked about. I actually used some of the ideas today in my personal study. Elder Stodtmeister is the DL there and he's great, he was in the MTC
Saturday was Awesome! Most of our appointments kept and we put alot of people on date for baptism. The first lesson was with an Afrikaans Family and because of the Bishop we had a Member Named Bro Klopper at the lesson. He was translating in Afrikaans for us. At the end of the lesson Bro Klopper offered to pick them up for church and they agreed. Elder Seastrand and I were totally Pumped! The rest of the day went well. We met with a long lost investigator named Victoria who had been on vacation or something and she still wants to be baptized. We finally met with another Afrikaans man named CJ that I haven't ever met and he has finished listening to the Book of Mormon on cd. He really likes it and says there should be a second volume. The only thing is we have to get him to church now and that's been like trying to make ants hold still.
Sunday we were waiting and waiting to see our awesome family come in and then we watched bro Klopper walk in alone with a very sad look on his face. He told us that they had called last minute and said there was a family emergency and they couldn't come. I've got to admit I was very disappointed, but I didn't feel unsuccessful because we really did everything we could and the rest was left to the Lord. I feel that the family will come along, we just have to keep inviting other members to meet them and help them feel comfortable. The wife really felt the spirit and wants the best for her family so I think we will really drive them to do lots of good.
I'm grateful to be serving here, it's such a great experience to serve a mission. I hope the family is really doing lots of missionary work and sharing everything you can with everyone. Remember you don't have to be best friends with someone to share the gospel or invite them to church.
Love you all lots and lots, and I hope to hear from you soon.
Elder Jones

The Family Letter
Poor Caleb got super sick Sunday last week flu and head cold all together and never even came out of his room on Mon. Finally Tue evening we saw him in the evening. It made him rather weak so this Fri he had to start the region wrestle off against his team mate A C that he had taught and got to wrestle this year for the first time. The region he had to go against was tougher and so he only placed 4th in the region after the whole week end was done. By the last match he was really tired from having been sick over the last weekend and a kid he has beat all season took him over by points. He was really frustrated. The whole team placed 3rd and both Argyle boys took first and J Levitt and C Dowel and C Quarels did 1st. D Peterson took 2nd having to go against C Quarels too. So next weekend we will have to go to Provo and sit forever waiting to see what happens to C, maybe he will get feeling better by Fri and have lots of fire in him. There were two other boys that were seniors that are from the Jones cousins side that were in higher weight limits that we took pictures of them from wrestling. Both those boys took 1st for their weights so wrestling is a really strong thing in the Jones blood too. One was Fawns son from Enterprise and another you used to wrestle when you were little at the bantam wrestles from Parawan. C was surprised when he learned that they were his cousins they had been talking together all year at meets and stuff.
Mc got to go sking with the Youth and had a blast of course he was a natural at it. J went with T's family snowmobiling and jackknifed a trailer carrying the snowmobiles up the mtn. She said it was still fun even though it took alot of untangling to get stuff up to where it needed to be and straitened out in the end.
Sat we went to Tracins baptism. He made the choice on his own. Chad said the dinner prayer and it was just sweet and peaceful.  Shane did the baptism and Papa the confirmation. Dad and I spent the rest of the day watching the boys wrestle. Dads feeling like a mac truck hit him and has been sick since Fri morning and by the middle of the night I was sick. So today Sunday we are all sick at this house except for K and Jo but we all just stayed home in bed. Mc was also sick last night, some have the flu and some have terrible head colds with running or stuffy noses and horrible headaches and coughs. Hopefully with all the vitamin C pumping into everyone we will be sorta better by Mon. I just hope that Jer can shake the cough because it is getting bad sounding. At least he still wants to eat chips so that means he isn't to bad yet.
We have been reading some amazing stories out of the Meridian magazine one about the fact that a missionary never thought he had done anything on his mission but yet had because of listening to the prompting of the Holy Ghost went to tract and find the only man he ever baptised and taught all the lessons to while on his mission. 40 years later he found that the man he had converted was the one who translated many Church books that he had given to him from his Dads mission collection to take on his mission with him, because he felt impressed to leave them with him when he was transferred. And the most amazing book to translate into Chinese THE BOOK OF MORMON (click back there to read for yourself the amazing story). The man was the first patriarch in China and was a very humble, not highly educated, man like unto Joseph Smith. So even in our day to day the Lord takes care of his precious gospel truths to not allow them to get altered in any way. The most important lesson in all this is that we never know what seed we plant when we come in contact with others or the influence that we will have on them but if it is positive and uplifting them it will be a good thing as long as we keep every contact with them that was for ever more.
We were able to have a sit down family home evening with almost everyone cooperating to make it work. Of course short and sweet before they all climbed the walls.
Well we can't wait to hear how your week went and the adventures that you filled it with we love you lots and are grateful to your example.
Love the Jones family who hopefully with feel better really soon.

New Zone Leader and New Area for the Missionary.

So our questions are
1. Where are you in South Africa these days?
1.Well I'm am serving now in place called Pretoria East.
2. Will you be traveling all over and what are the names of the areas that you will cover?
2.Yes and the areas are Pretoria east, Mamelodi 1and 2, Centurion, Sunnyside, Soshanguve, Mabopane, Attridgeville and Saulsville
3. Who is your new companion, name and where is he from?
3.His name is Elder Seastrand. He's from Orem Ut. He is soon to finish his mission but he's doing really good at making sure it doesn't show. He is very obedient and I think that is going to help me to be obedient as well. It's really easy when you have a companion that wants to be obedient. It's positive peer pressure.
4. Did you have to write a letter to the parents of your son(companion he trained) also when you left him?
4. No we didn't do that, it would have been a good idea though.
5. Was it a bitter sweet parting?
5. Well yes I really loved Tzaneen, but I'm going love Pretoria as well. Pretoria is a big change from Tzaneen. 90% of the ward is white people and it's the same in our area. I think I'm going to have to start learning Afrikaans.
6. What will you miss the most about the son you have trained?
6.Well that's really a hard question for me to answer. I just enjoyed being companions with him, and it feels like it was really short.
7. What advice do you have for your brothers about learning to clean that will help them while serving there missions?
7.Just learn to clean up the messes you make when you make them.
8.Tell us the story of why the young man was being forced to leave church early before his interview by his Aunt.
8. Well the young man was scheduled to be baptized after having attended church for two weeks, the only problem was that he was going to be moving to Eastern Cape for school, on the same day. I was told that I should interview him but really just discern if he was ready and really converted. So we set up the interview and it went well. He, was personally prepared, but I still felt that the situation wasn't going to be good for him. Despite those feelings, I didn't want him to feel upset or discouraged so I filled out the record and said it would be ok. I really had two things pulling on me, the one was that I was afraid he would get upset and stop progressing if we said he should wait, and the other was guilt in feeling that I wasn't doing what God wanted me to do by saying yes. Well it turned out that his Aunt who was going to be taking him to Eastern Cape was a little impatient and said they would be leaving on Sunday morning before church and being unable to get baptized. So I really believe that was supposed to happen, and it was a humbling experience for me. I should probably do exactly as the spirit prompts me to do next time because the Lord just might not be there to save me the next time.

Well this week has been great, but it feels like it has taken forever. it started with transfers on Tuesday which was really suspenseful. They didn't announce where we would be going until the very very last minute before it was time to leave. Finally when I found out where I was going I was kind of excited because of my companion. I served around him a little bit in Soweto zone and he is a great missionary. I have already been learning alot from him. I'm no longer a senior companion but that 's kind of a good thing because it takes alot of pressure off of me. It's difficult sometimes being a trainer because your comp doesn't always know what to do and you have to try and make up for that yourself. So it's nice. so far we have both been able to talk and give ideas to each other so it's going well. Being a Zone Leader is nice because you have someone else there to get your back. One of the Coolest things that happened during transfers is that Elder Lechner is now my District leader here in Pretoria so I still get to hang around him. It's way cool! The other thing is that there are alot of Missionaries from my MTC group and missionaries that are older than me in the zone so it can be kind of intimidating to have to give them instruction. But the lord qualifies who he calls. A lot has happened this week, first we had Zone Leader council and that was great. It has helped me get in the swing of things. After the Zone Leader council President Poulsen took us to "The Top Of Africa" It is the tallest building Jo'burg. I had never walked around down town Jo'burg before and I got to tell you it's a little scary. Talk about big city! I could see one of my old area's from the top so that was really cool and if you look hard enough you can see the temple. I have some pics but I don't have time to send them today. The week has been alot of running around trying to organize things and doing interviews so I can't wait until we really get to crack down on our own area. Well that's all for now so I'll talk to you later
Elder Jones

Dear Elder Jones
So its been a very busy week again. Life with all these busy children just never seems to be quiet. Right now we are non stop after school. As soon as they hit the house we are hurrying to eat, run to do chores and fire stoke and then race to be on time to wrestle practices. We pick C up at 7:00 who of course wrestled right after school and then head for home. On nights when there is a match we have to hurry even faster to get all that done so that we can drive over the Mt. to where ever the tournament is happening. Thank goodness J is some-days able to stay with Jer and Z so that they are not always having to go off somewhere or with us. Pretty soon though it will be Zs turn to go to practices and Mc will start to slow down. On Fri Dad and I drove to Provo to watch the Hales Theater Play Foreigner that he got for my Christmas present. We missed the first 15 min because of how bad the traffic was but they still let us in. It was really funny to watch the play. We stayed in a hotel without any kids, strange for the first time in 4 years to not have at least one with us. The next morning we drove up to Heber city to watch C wrestle but it was so foggy that we got lost trying to find the arena that they had the tournament at. By the time we found the spot after going around it about twice he was all done and had gotten beat out placing him 7th out of 68 in his bracket. He felt really good about the time spent considering that not many freshman get as far as he did at this particular tournament. It was called the Rocky Mt Rumble and there were like schools from everywhere, 66 to be exact. We watched for awhile and then after falling asleep in hard spectator chairs we headed for home.
Today in Church the Parker family told about preparing to go to the temple and how when they were ready as a family to go Tiffany was not able to go and yet she had been the one that had needled at her Dad for most of her life until she hit her teen years. She told how she had to sit outside while her family went in and were sealed and how alone she felt. She said I know things happen for a reason and I am grateful that Brent came when he did because he helped me to get to a place where I needed to be to go and become a forever family. It was really a neat sacrament meeting today. Preston Parker said it was sad that he had the attitude all his life that things had to be his way or the Highway and then one day he realized that maybe the Highway he was on wasn't really going anywhere all that great. It almost broke his heart when Tiffany was unable to be with them when he had finally gotten ready to go to the temple. Several very close loved ones that passed on helped him to know that there was an urgency and he needed to be sealed to his family Now and to not waste any more time getting it done. I have never heard such urgency in a guy who never ever seemed that serious about anything to me. He made tears come to many an eye.
Well tonight I went to a Prom Dress check to make sure that J lovely lime green prom dress is temple garment worthy and then we went to a fireside. The boys would not come with us so it was just me and her. It was fun to be with her alone for a min.
That is so fun that you would get to eat dinner with the public affairs Rep over video production. I have always hope that would be a direction that the Lord would somehow open for you in your life. I guess time will tell right.
Well everyone wants me to tell you that they love you. Aunt Jamie said she thinks about you each day and she should be better about writing. Uncle Jathan is going back to school in the medical field. He does work at times with Uncle Brocks company but he got shocked and lost the feeling in his finger on a job that they had sent him out on and that is the thing that made him start to consider Physical therapy after having to go get the therapy done again, This is something he considered many years ago already once. He says its about time he does it and stops just thinking about hints and directions that he keeps receiving. Brock is back to work but his leg does get to bothering him at times. He has to wear one of those compression socks. Papa is still driving truck and Nana has her birthday today. Uncle Brock took us Jan. birthday girls out for dinner yesterday and he paid for it all it was kind of fun to do together. I love you your Dad loves you and we hope that this week is super great for you and we are all on pins and needles waiting to hear where and what you are now up to these days.
Love the family