Oh whut uh Lyfe...

the primary kids drew this for the missionaries!

This week was awesome! we went to have dinner with a member and 2 of her friends from the Dominican Republic (my favorite country!) (well maybe not...USA is pretty good) (but still my favorite spanish country! ;)) were there! so we talked to them about the restoration and it was awesome! they have started reading the book of mormon, they came to church yesterday, And we have 2 appointments set up for this next week!  Also we have an amazing Primary president in our ward who stepped up the game and invited isabella (our investigator who is going to be baptized on the 11th of july) over for dinner! so we had an awesome lesson with them about following the prophet and the word of wisdom (p.s. when you get the chance look on ldsyouth.organd search the video "follow the prophet" its pretty funny! #youreallymessedusupColton!) haha Isabella said something really funny about the Fall of Adam and Eve she said, "Eve is the reason we have pain and sickness!" aka "because eve messed up, We have to pay!"  haha looks like we might need to clarify that up with her. ;) lets see....what else happened this week?

i went on exchanges with our Zone Leader, Elder Langston from Layton UT. we learned a lot about Follow up and having shorter more powerful lessons! and then the rest of the week was just good ole teaching and healing! I LOVE MISSIONARY WORK! 

well that is it all that is going on over here in orlando FL! right now it is bright and sunshiny but pouring rain and lightning like crazy! i dont know how that works! but it does! haha

have a great week!

Love Elder Jones

Girls Camp!!!

Isn't this the most beautiful setting?

 Well, we survived girls camp.  It was only Wednesday through Saturday, so it wasn't so bad.  We had a great group of girls and the leaders were awesome.  Sydney showed her maturity level, but so did the other newbies.  She had a hard time paying attention and sitting still for too long.  The second night she was soo tired after the faith walk, that I spoiled the whole "snipe hunt" for her thinking that she would just go to sleep.  Well, I was mistaken.  She laughed at the girls putting toothpaste on their faces, and then when they got back, she left with them to go to the haunted bathrooms!  No wonder she was tired.  She slept in one half of the cabin, while I slept in the noisy side.  I took the day shift, so at night I put in my ear plugs, my eye patch and took my PM pill.  I slept GREAT!  I can't say so much for the other leader in our cabin, oops.....  But, the highlight of the whole trip was after the faith walk.  Each of the girls was given a square polished tile from the scraps left over from the temple.  It has a hole in it so you can wear it on a chain.  How cool is that.  Each of the girls that went on the faith walk got one.  And after some careful calculations, each of the leaders got one tooo!  I love it.

the ultimate photo bomber (SYD)

So now that we have survived camp, we are moving on to TREK.  That happens in only 4 weeks!  Crazy.  But we were all assigned our families yesterday and now we are super stoked about it.  It is only 3 days, so we can handle that.  Will keep y'all posted.  Have an awesome week

Happy Father's Day!

"Duck Cloud" will he never get over the clouds?

He really wants to go to this bible school!

this week was really good! we taught the daughter of a less active who is wanting to get baptized in A CHURCH! but her mom (who she lives with) isnt a member. but we were able to teach her a lot and get her reading the Book of Mormon before she had to go back to texas and we arranged with the  missionaries over there to start teaching her so it was awesome! This week was just awesome! i really learned a lot about faith in missionary work and how faith and Attitude are everything to being a successful missionary and just a successful person! I can testify that through Faith all things are possible! I had a great exchange with Elder Johnson where we talked a lot about Faith, Attitude, and Desire and how those things are the biggest factors in missionary work! I love it when you can find answers in the Book of Mormon that confirm your own thoughts and ideas! I had that experience in Alma 7:3 when Alma came to the people of Gideon with....wait for it.... much HOPE and DESIRE! My mind was Blown! :) The power of faith and Positivity is REAL! I love it!

we had a huge miracle on that exchange when we were visiting a le
ss active member, we realized that an active family lived next door! the father happened to be outside and so we set it up to come by later that night! so we come over and the mom says, "i have somebody for you!" like what??? then she says, "do you want to go meet them right now?" and so we say "yeah! of course!" so she calls her and says, "hey can we come over?....ok....ok....sure....sounds good!" then she said, "SHe is coming over here instead!" it was so awesome and such an example of member missionary work! we were able to testify of the restoration and how the gospel blesses families! we set a return appointment and the english elders are going back next week! YEAH! i know they are going to be baptized! i love Missionary work!

Hope all is well and that you all had a happy fathers day!

Love Elder Jones

Summer Fun

 So we are getting ready for girls camp, and the leaders thought it would be fun to bleach our theme onto the shirts.  They turned out so cute and Morgan was so impressed with them, that we decided to do some of our own.  So after swim team this morning, we hit up the old Wal-Mart (ugh) and got some cheap t-shirts and letter stickers.  You just arrange them the way you want them and then spray them with a 30% solution of bleach and water.  Let it get the lightness you want and then rinse them out in the sink or run them through your washer.  Yah, we go a little over the top sometimes, but the kids loved it and were able to express their creativity!  Have a super awesome day!!!

So

Happy Anniversary to Me !!!!!

Well, it has officially been 22 years since Jeff and I got married.  And I still like the old bloke :o).  To celebrate we went and saw Jurassic World with the fam.  And for those who may not remember, this is nostalgic because we went and saw Jurassic Park right after it came out the night before we got married.  So it is awesome that this movie came out now and we could celebrate it with our posterity!

News From the Front

so this week was a long one! we had dinner with the Bishop, the lofthouses, and the Dominguez family. The dominguez family is awesome! She served her mission in italy...and she made us pasta for dinner. Mom...it was the best pasta i have ever tasted! it was out of this world! there arent words to describe how i feel about that pasta. the sauce was homemade and it was just the perfect combo of creaminess, cheesiness, and meatiness. hmmmm...and apparently her lasagna is even better! BWAHH! 

we also had a party with the spanish group celebrating fathers day 1 week early. they made a HUGE pot of "sancocho de pollo" which is basically dumping 6 whole chickens in a pot and cooking them down with some veggies! oh man was it good! it was so fun too just to be around all of the spanish members! i really felt of their love for the missionaries which is just the best!

we also did a lot of service this week! we helped some members move on friday. then on saturday we went and fixed up the yard of a recent convert who is going through tons of struggles right now and her yard was a disaster and the HOA was getting angry with her because of it. and so we went without her asking and just knocked it all out within a couple hours to get it looking brand new again!

i love service!

The Mission is awesome! our district last transfer struggled a little bit because of our district leader who was going home didnt really care. but now we have a newbie district leader who has got that young blood in him to help us older missionaries get excited again! He gave us the "baptize" vision again as a focus and we have seen tons of miracles from it! we have one investigator named Jose who has a ton of doubts about everything and is just super confused right now. But we had a super good lesson with him where we were really bold and just told him that if he does what we ask him to do and asks god for a confirmation, he will be able to overcome all of his doubts and know that this is true. If he can do that he will be such a strong member! 

then we had another miracle this week! we were tracting and the second door we knock on is a bunch of mexican bros who were playing fifa. the guy who opens the door takes one look at us and says "no....No..." and then just walks into the back room with the door still open. and so we are just standing there and i poke my head in and say hi to the other guy who was sitting on the couch. and so we start talking about soccer and then the gospel and it is a really good conversation, when "de repente" his friend/cousin comes out with his bible and has this curious look on his face. the First buddy says "hey man look! i am talking to these guys! come join me!" so we ask if we can come in and share more with both of them and they say SURE! and it was the coolest because they were totally prepared because we talked more about baptism in that lesson than even the book of mormon! and they were just wanting to just do it! it was sweet! we set a soft date for august 1st and we are going back on saturday! 

then the third big miracle this week is that there is this LARC family who is struggling. but the Great Great grandma is trying to get to the temple! so she is being really active in the church. And so her Great Great Grandkid Isabella, who is 8, is coming to church with her. now we didnt have anybody that could be baptized this transfer, but during church when my companion was in the bathroom, isabella came up to me and i asked her, "When are you going to get baptized?!?" and she surprised me by saying, "I already told you! in 26 days!" haha i was like "WHAAAAAA????" so we are going over there tonight to try and teach her!

i love you guys and i am praying for you! hope you have a great week!

Sancocho!

we got lost on this dirt road.....

-- 

Love Elder Jones

Cultural Celebration!

So, we had our cultural celebration for the Payson Temple this week-end.  And what a party it was.  It was absolutely amazing.  Here are the girls during the practice part.  We ran through the show 2 times for practice before we had a 3 hour respite.  During the 3 hour break, the kids were able to eat and do hair and get our "glam" makeup on in preparation for the show.

Sydney was soooo funny.  This is the first time we have done "glam" makeup for her.  She told me later, I kinda like this mom.  Then Sunday morning, she says, I feel like I need mascara this morning.  Guess who is getting makeup for her birthday!  She had so much fun helping the other girls with their hair and getting everything just right.  And then it was back off to the stadium one more time.

Mason was in the armies of Helaman march.  It was so cool to see the YM of 4 stakes out on the field.  They sang the Youth of Zion, and onward Christian Soldiers.  They finally all sang for the performance and it was really powerful.  

Sydney's group did the ribbon dance to Redeemer of Israel.  All the youth in the stands participated in the signing of the 3rd verse.  Then we were all part of the finale when we created a rainbow.  We are waiting for the whole thing to be available on-line on the churches web-site.  But until then, you can catch some highlights at this link!  Cultural Celebration Highlights    When the video is ready it will be able to be seen here... Payson Temple Cultural Celebration

Because after all of this really nice weather, a storm cloud appeared and didn't disappear for about 2 hours.  It was insane, the amount of rain that fell.  The girls were so worried and wanted to go home, but we just reassured them that the show will go on no matter how long we have to wait.  And it did.

  And this was the aftermath of the show.  Getting home at 11:30, sending Morgan off to work and my little Sydney sleeping in until 8:30 when we had to get them up and get ready for the temple dedication itself.  We truly tired her out!

Another note from Wes

so this week was pretty eventful!

so monday thru wednesday i wasnt feeling to well cuz i was still getting over my virus. (just an upset stomache) then on wednesday, i had to go the the foot doctor to get my ingrown toe looked at. well they decided to just chop it off right there! haha so now i have a knarly toe just like mom! ;) so that whole day i had to go around in my jandals! people kept making comments about it and it was super weird! haha We had ZTM on thursday and afterward we all went to olive garden! and guess who i met there! Elder Alex Olsen! haha he comes up to me and asks, "do you have a sister named morgan?" i was pretty weirded out about that but i said yeah, and he said, "oh well i went to school with her and she told me that her brother was in this mission! haha"

summer has come again with the usual rainstorms! 

it was really cool this weekend the youth of the ward read the book of mormon from beginning to end in 24 hours! CRAZY!!! but super cool! they all gave their testimonies of the book of mormon in fast and testimony meeting the next day! and it was doubly cool because 6 less actives that we have been teaching came to church! and of one of those 6 there was a recent convert who i hadnt seen in over 6 months and she showed up and i just about cried when i saw her! tears of joy! because it had been so long and so many prayers were said. but she is going to continue coming to church! it was amazing!

it reminds me a scripture in the bom in Alma 27:18. i have experienced this joy on the mission and i know that it is only in the gospel that it can be achieved! 

the cultural celebration looked awesome and i hope you guys have a great week!

flipping sweet sunset and a baby sandhill crane!

-- 

Love Elder Jones

And soooo it begins...

the tomato patch, 18 tomato plants!

Well, we finally got all of our stuff in the garden and got it all plumbed.  It has been a challenge with Jeff not here, but we managed.  Here are a few pics of the "beginning".  I will post pics when the jungle has arrived.  We are going to have raspberries coming out our eyeballs come this fall.  If anyone wants to visit, come then :o).  Enjoy!

The squash patch!!!

Apples!

Our lone peach on our Hale Haven tree :o(

It Is Officially Summer!

my first sprinkler repair!

 Well, school is out so I guess it is summer time.  We finally have some sun and the garden is looking happy.  Sydney is not so happy the zucchini have come up, but those are the breaks.  We have harvested our first lettuce and it looks great.  I thought the slugs might be a problem, but fortunately not this year.  And, my asparagus has come up!  I didn't think I would see it until next year, but we have 4 plants that have popped up!  I guess my thumb isn't as black as I thought.  And look fast, since Jeff is in Taiwan AGAIN...  we had to start the sprinklers.  Well, one of our drip lines busted, so I made my first sprinkler repair.  I have helped Jeff with so many, that I figured I could cap this one.  I left it tall so the cute neighbor boy wouldn't mow over it again ;o).

Mason and Sydney have started swim team for Payson.  They get to swim everyday for 2 months.  I figure this way they will be much stronger swimmers and possibly get jobs at the pool.  So only after 2 days of swimming, they both come home and tell me they want to go to the pool that day.  So I figured I could deter them by requiring weeding before they went.  Well, they cleared the weeds around the fruit trees in a hurry so they could play at the pool.  It was the perfect day, we got there early so we could grab a table with shade, so I just sat in the shade, read my book and the kids ran off and played with their friends.  Awesome.

And finally, we had to share our favorite picture to date of Wes and the calendar.  His face fits so perfectly here.  He will never live these down.  Can't wait to see what we come up with for Mason.  Have an awesome week-end.  Will post pics of the cultural celebration, and temple dedication coming up this week-end, next week.