April 30th 2012 in the Philippi Delt area of Cape Town.

   Hello,

Don't worry about sending me the ensign mom... I really appreciate it, but all of the Elders get the Liahona, and it will have all of the conference talks in it, so I’m all set! Thanks though, love you! I'm also really excited for these packages you sent! I probably have one waiting for me at the office right now! I just need the Zone leaders to go get post!

Ya I’m out of pens, I’ve resorted to doing everything in pencil now... haha! but I’m going to buy a nice pen that I can take with me to our working  area every day, and write in my planner and stuff with it, then have the pens that you are sending me for writing in my journal and writing letters! That will be really nice!

Thank you so much for sending me some of Elder Palmer's blog! It's so good to hear from him! And the pictures were a nice boost! I miss that kid! But I’m so happy to be serving along side of him!

Thanks for the monster truck and trailer pic’s dad! They are awesome! It's great getting pictures everyweek! I love it! Sometimes I save them on my memory card and print them off to keep! So that’s good! Thanks for updating me on our home teaching families too! Say hi to them for me please!  love you!

Well once again it’s P-Day!!!!! Woot! I love P-Days! And Sundays! It's the two best days in a row! This week was great! Elder Henerico and I, even though we still don't see eye to eye on anything, managed to get through the week fairly well! I found that if I am just SUPER patient with things, they go better! But that also means that we aren't having companionship study in the mornings... which sucks, but there’s only one week left till transfers, so I hope something positive happens!

Also, turns out the baptism of Anda, that was supposed to happen yesterday, is actually going to happen next Sunday! Woot! It'll be Anda and Khanyisa (from Mandalay Elders) getting baptized together! So that’s going to be sweet! But if I leave this area, I won’t get to see them get confirmed, but that’s alright! At least I’ll see the baptism! Also Jared has a date for the 20th of May! Too bad I might not be here for it! Jared is awesome! Still working with Blessing, but I think there is allot of promise for him! It's just tough right now with finances and being so far away from the chapel! He said it's easier for him to attend at another chapel in Mowbray than the chapel in Khayelitsha! So that might be what he has to do... Plus his family is moving back to Zimbobwe, so it’s hectic for them right now, but he has a solid testimony and so far in unwavering!

We have had quite a few nice lessons with “ less actives” this week! I even had faith that some would come to church yesterday! but... nothing.... which is a bummer... so I guess we have to just keep trying, since that is our focus right now... but once again, everything could change at transfers! So who knows! Or I might be staying for another 6 weeks! We’ll find out soonish! Maybe by next P-day I’ll know! We got to go into Khayelitsha and learn the area somewhat and get to know the members and people there somewhat! We are going into Khayelitsha again on wed to learn more... but ya! Tons of work! No time to waste! Always going at it hard!

About me gaining weight... the food people eat here is not healthy food at all! Starches like crazy! Few veggies, lots of chicken! But even then most of the time the majority of the chicken is skin! And plus whenever I make my own food, it’s always sandwiches because that’s easy to take into the area for lunch! It’s hard to eat healthy on mission! not to mention, time to cook nice food is very limited... especially when we are so busy in the area, sometimes we aren't back to the apartment till 9:30 or sometimes later, and by then I’m dead tired and don't want to cook... but a couple times a week I make a tuna casserole thingy because it’s easy to just boil noodles and crack open a can of tuna and put some mayo in and cheese and indulge! Paha! Maybe some very simple, inexpensive meal ideas would be of great help to me if anyone has ideas! I'm open to ideas! By the way I had 5 amagwinya's last night! SO UNHEALTHY! It was at a Dinner Appointment... I couldn't say no! I was stuffed after that!

Well... Ixesha lixatshwe yinja! Translation again, “The time has been eaten by a dog” I got to humba! I love you all! Thanks for the support! I got a package from Aunt Terri and a letter from Viktoria Sulz! Thank you so much.  Good stuff!

 Take Luck!

-Elder Jones

23 April 2012 Philippi & Delt area in the City Cape Town

Hello,

Dad that quad date thing sounds awesome for the month of May!!! Viktoria told me that she is going to Ukraine from May 22nd till June 3rd... So I don't think she will make it. I got 2 pictures of Anona's house and a picture of Aarons bike! Anona's house looks really really nice! :) and Aaron's bike is SWEET! Make sure he doesn't get into a speed wobble and die ok?

WOOHOO!!! I got 5 letters this week! 1 from Whitney, 1 from Viktoria, 1 from Mommy, 1 from Elder Kiss, and 1 from Holly! 4 girls to 1 guy ratio... but that’s alright! I love getting mail! Thank you so much for all of the letters!!! :)

So I just got finished hiking table mountain again! This time I was able to get better pictures! Thank goodness! It was really really windy! and kind of cold... but it was alot better than last time! I ended up lending my jacket to Elder Zarbok because he lent his to Elder Kyuvi... but I was alright! With wind-chill, it was probably only like +5 or so... so not bad :P all the Africans were freezing their butts off! It was funny! I’m actually quite impressed with how much I’m not sore after hiking that mountain! Not to mention, in General Conference this year, Henry B. Eyring talked about conquering mountains!... …Thought I’d do it literally! Paha!

Anda IS getting baptized! On the 29th of April! that’s this coming Sunday! Woot! I'm excited for that!!!! We still need to work with the other ones... Jared came to church yesterday so that was sweet!

Also, we now have ALL of the Khayelitsha area in our working area!! HECTIC?!?! I submit that it is! Our area is absolutely Ginormous! So I now literally have to learn everybody in the ward, and where they live, and what their callings are... I can't just chill with the ones I know from my area... Sheesh! there’s alot of work to do! No time to waste either!

We are going to have appointments up the WaaZoo!!! Yuppery doodah! So that’s pretty much the big news for this week... also! I saw a big (size of a loonie) red spider! Like bright red! It was scary looking! but someone squished it... I’m pretty sure that could have killed someone if it would have bit them! but I haven't really seen many spiders... I was told that in the Eastern Cape (If I ever serve in that province) there are lots of monkeys that you just see in the wild hanging around (literally) so I really really really want to go serve there just for that! And also I heard that in Queenstown, in winter they get snow! So I want to go server there for that as well! Yup!

But life is good! Life is great! Aaron's Bike is sweet and Anona's house is sweet! Big changes happening to my fam jam! It's exciting! I love all of you! Once again thank you so much for all of your support! And the letters! P-days, mail, and baptisms! The 3 things that make a missionary happy!

And I have all 3! I'm blessed! Take Luck!!!

Elder Jones

16th April 2012 in the Philippi & Delt area of the City of Cape Town

Hello,

I'm excited to see pictures of Anona and Rileys new house! Also mothers day is coming up soonish! but since I only have one day a week to communicate with you... could you figure out or let me know what day and time would be best for me to skype you guys? I need to know when, so that we are all on skype at the same time! Just keep that in mind. I love you both! Dad needs to drive safe all the time! I don't like landslides and avalanches and stuff!

 BY THE WAY, from the pictures you sent (I really want to cruise around in the escalade) it looks awesome. I am glad the weather is really nice for you guys!  Thanks for sending all the pictures of the family and stuff! I love getting to see you guys!

My new companion is 23 yrs old from Tanzania and is 20 months on mission... He's my senior comp... He's very difficult to get along with, but I am doing my best! I gave up at one point... I just completely gave up with trying to make things work between us... but then we had conference and I talked with one Elder who was companions with him once, and he gave me some good advice for getting along with him, and it's been helping so far... it’s just extremely difficult... From what I have been told from numerous Elders, he is one of the hardest missionaries to get along with in the whole mission... so I think Heavenly Father is testing me... First he gave me one of the best missionaries in the mission to train me, and then he gave me one of the hardest missionaries in the mission to humble and test me... So all in all, I'm working at it. It’s all for the good... Time will only tell what the outcome will be...

By the way, those exercises mom sent are already helping out! I do them every day!  Oh and some day you guys should get a picture of Riley's truck beside something or a small car to show how big it is so that I can show elders here in Africa. Here in Africa people only cruise around in little trucks like the Datsun we used to have, bigger trucks are very rare and only get to the size of dad's F150... so it'd be cool to show them!

As for this week... the week started good with 4 baptisms set for the 29th of April, but one of them got a job where she can't be at church for the next 3 months, and 2 others didn't come to church this Sunday, and we told them that if they didn't come, we'd hafta postpone the baptism.. so we are left with Anda (18 yr old) who has his baptism date still set for the 29th of April... we have to delay the other two baptisms... so that kind of sucks... because the two father led family baptisms will have to be postponed till next transfer, and I might not be staying in this area for another transfer... so all this work I have been putting into Blessing for the past 4 months is going down the pipes... that’s depressing... at least some other elders will get the baptism... I hope everything goes well with him... and with Jared... but ya... so that was the poopy news for this week...

Good news is that General Conference was Sweet!!!! I loved it so much!!! POWERFUL talks! Especially on Saturday! Not to mention that in the Saturday afternoon session I saw Elder Kiss from Raymond, which I was stoked about, in the MTC Choir!!! And Elder ARCHULETTA!! I bet Christine was freaking out about that! It showed a close up of him in the last shot of the final song in the Saturday afternoon session! So that was cool! Yup! Conference was sweet! I really need a copy of this general conference talks! I need to study them! Especially Richard G. Scott's talk about the spirit! He went into detail about everything that you need to know about getting the spirit, using the spirit, and what the spirit does! It was awesome! I got to study that one for sure! I couldn't write notes fast enough to keep up!

I clicked 4 months old on mission yesterday! So I officially only have 20 months left! Crazy! Time is cookin! Sometimes it feels like time is flying, sometimes it feels like time is inching along... but all in all, time doesn't matter, the length of mission isn't going to change, just how I use the time I have is what matters!

I do have to say that getting letters from home makes time more enjoyable! An elder said to me, "Three things that make an Elder happy on mission are: Baptisms, P-Days, and Mail!" It's true though! I got a letter from Matt J. this week! Thanks Matt! I got the first package from mom! And I got a post card from Mexico! I love getting post! Thanks to everyone for all of your love and support of me! I really appreciate it! It really boosts me and pushes me to work harder!

By the way, I have gained a couple pounds on mission... apparently its visible because someone told me that I was gaining weight! So I have now devoted more of my time to exercising in the gym in the morning! I didn't know it was possible that I could gain weight! This is crazy! I wonder how much weight Elder Palmer has gained! Paha! I bet he's HUGE!!!! :P Well... Ixesha lixatshwe yinga! I love you all! Take Luck!

-Elder Jones

9th April 2012 in the Phillippi & Delt area of the city Cape Town

The picture is of Elder Henerico and I overlooking Khayelitsha on lookout point

Hello!

I'm grateful for your update mom and dad! I love hearing about everything that is happening back at home! Thank you so much for inviting Viktoria quadding! That means a lot! And I’m sure she loved it! I am quite surprised! HAHA! But it looks and sounds like it was a blast! I'm sure I’ll hear about it in a letter in a few weeks!

Sounds like this winter has been awesome for everything! Too bad I couldn’t experience the awesome quadding! But that’s alright! My time will come though.  It sounds like Easter and Tristan’s B-day were both a blast! I can't believe he's two already! Sheeowsa!

 Mom, I really appreciate you sending the packages! Don't worry about how long it takes to get me the package :) I am not in a rush! But I am super grateful for your helpfulness! Thank you so much for all you do for me! Even during your busy work and school schedule! Just so you know I am doing well and I am super excited for these packages! I might even have your first one today! I won't know till later when I get post from the zone leaders. Excited to get those photo copies of my exercise stretches too, I’m pretty sore these days... and I’m really happy to hear about everything!

To answer dads question…the church services are the same as back home, but we are in just a small building, so it’s kind of different, but if we were in a normal chapel, we would have church just the same as back at home! I will answer the rest of dad’s questions next week. I haven't heard from Aaron and Kim in a while, hope they are doing good.  It’s nice that Anona and Riley write me every few weeks or so to keep me in touch of how they are doing. My new companion and I are getting along well now! It's just taking time but we are enjoying each other and working well together.

So turns out we have 4 baptisms for the 29th of April!!!! We met with a guy, Jared, who has been attending church for quite a few weeks now and who we found out was in our area. So we talked with him and he told us we should come visit him, so we arranged a time and went and saw him. I was thinking when we got there that this would just be another investigator and that we would have to start from the top, get to know him and see what he has learnt from attending church and teach him the restoration... but I was very wrong! As we started talking with him, he was telling us that he had already been taught all of the lessons and  that he was already set for baptism once before. He had his interview and everything! The problem was, the week he was supposed to get baptized; he was called back to work.

Now Jared works on a ship that runs cables on the ocean floor, and when he was called back to work, he was called to leave for 3 months. So just before he could be baptized he had to leave... so he got back in January, when I started my mission, and has been attending church for 3 months now! So that was absolutely incredible! All we have to do is very briefly teach him all the lessons again, because it has been so long since he was taught them, and then baptize him! We already set the date with him and everything! I am super stoked!

 It's funny because ever since we’ve been told to stop our efforts to find new investigators, we are just getting heaped with investigators and no real effort on our part! We are also now teaching an investigator that is a brother to one of our recent converts. His name is Lazola and he is 18 yrs old! We didn't do anything to find these people; they are just coming to us! It's pretty awesometakular! We are still focusing our efforts on reactivation and this week we had 21.5 hours of less active work! So that was awesome! The work is just super awesome!!!

But there was one thing that happened this week which was super poopy... to start the day, there was a soccer tournament between 4 of the wards and us elders were invited to participate... so I was SUPER STOKED and when the day come, it was pouring rain! Which I love by the way! But the tourney ended up being a bust and we ended up just playing soccer for a little bit between our own ward...

But after that, we had an appointment with this one family who saw us on the street one day and really wanted us to come visit them, so we set up an appointment!... I was kind of leery about the strange excitement for seeing us, I went into the appointment apprehensive about what was about to happen. Turns out my hunch was correct... they were merely trying to pick apart our church... and I later found out that they were watching anti-Mormon stuff as well... so that was kind of really sucky... but we defended and got no progression and I was posed a lot of questions that I didn’t know the answer to but that I knew that there was an answer to... so all in all, my companion and I were defeated... due to our lack of interest in bible bashing and the fact that most of their questions and accusations were absurd... but we spent 2 hours in there wasting our time... that was not a productive day that’s for sure... I did learn a lot though!

The things that they were saying stuck on my mind for days afterwards because I knew there were answers to them, I just didn't know where or who knew... so I did a lot of research into the things that they were posing, and I found that I was able to find answers to those things myself... these people were 7th day Adventists and I had never encountered them before... but now from that experience I was able to learn and to grow more! And if I am ever put in a position like that again, I will be able to hold my ground, keep the spirit with me, and confound men! And do all of that without bible bashing at all! (Did I mention that I did not feel the spirit whatsoever while I was there! except when I bore my testimony...)

Winter is apparently hitting... once again, I can't tell... it is raining more though! But once the temperature reaches below 20 Celsius, everybody is telling me that its freezing out! I keep telling them that it’s super nice! So I dunno anymore... my internal thermometer is going wacky and I don't know whether to conform to the crowd or just enjoy the nice weather! I'm just kidding I’m definitely enjoying the weather! Short sleeve shirt! And the rainy season is starting so I’m going to enjoy this a lot! I love rain! :D well I hafta humba! My time is far spent! "Ixesha lixatshwe yinja" translation "the time has been eaten by a dog" I love saying that at the end of appointments! I love you all!

-Elder Jones

2nd April 2012 NEW COMPANION SAME LOCATION Philippi & Delt area of Cape Town

      Hello again, Sorry no pictures today.

That's good news about the taxes! I’m Truly Blessed! Sheesh! Tell the accountant, if you see him again, that I am extremely grateful for all he has done for me! Thank You!!!!!!!

My toe is completely healed now so no worries about infection.  I'm excited for those flash drives that you got, can’t wait to get them!  Also I don't get to see conference until the 14th and 15th of this month. They don't broadcast it live here; we have to watch it later when they send them out on DVD... so I will let you know what I thought in a couple weeks! I'm honestly short of time today.  New email shop today...

Well this week was very interesting because of a bunch of stuff.  But the biggest reason was because I got a new companion this week! Elder Henerico! He's a really tall (taller than me) skinny black guy from Tanzania and he has been out on mission for 19 months. He is very interesting... this situation is really testing my Christ like attributes!  I know that I’ll be able to deal with this change and that if I am patient enough, things will end up a lot better!

This week was not too productive, but we have set 3 baptisms for the 29th of April. Anda, Blessing, and Munashe! I'm excited! They are all coming along very nicely! The work with the less actives is very difficult... we are trying to target those people on a list that bishop gave us to target, but we are find it very difficult... the people on the list he gave us have major problems that they are struggling with, like Word of Wisdom or Law of Chastity or homosexuality issues... and it’s kind of difficult to have progression with such major issues... so I hope that soon we we’ll be able to expand our search of less actives to those who have not so serious issues... Only time will tell...

Summer is officially over and winter apparently is setting in... This is what the people tell me anyways... I personally don't notice a change at all... apparently it is getting colder out but I can't tell... it’s still in the +20's every day! I can't complain! We had rain this week for one day and everybody was running around in winter coats! HAHAHA! I don’t know why, I think that’s so funny... but it’s HILARIOUS! I just jaunt around in my short sleeve white shirt and tie because I’m roasting hot all the time! I'm not complaining really! I'm still kind of jealous of the mild winter that happened at home... sheesh! It doesn't even seem like winter has gone! Has it seriously been 3.5 months since I was home?!?! Time is flying! Although this past week dragged along though...I think the new companion thing was the issue there...

But I’m sorry that I have to leave things hanging! I am right out of time! The work moves forward! And there is Zone Training this wed so I’m excited for that! Oh and we got a hold of Nomvuyo! and set an appointment for next week! so that'll be good! it’s been so long! Anywho... I gotta go!

 Take luck!

-Elder Jones