October 21, 2012
Update from Jennifer:
Thank you for your love and support. I thought I would share what I do every day.
Schedule: I wake up at 6:30 a.m., stretch for 20 minutes. We would exercise more but we walk everywhere all day long - so stretches and ab workouts start us off. Afterwards, we get ready for the day, eat breakfast ---cereal or pancakes. 8:00 a.m. - personal study, 9:00 a.m. - companion study. 10:00 a.m. we have a 12 week training program for new missionaries and 11:00 a.m. - language study...even though I am studying language all day long. At 12:00 p.m. we eat lunch with our cook - He usually makes us something with ---you guessed it ---rice and beans! One day he made a black bean soup with rice, hard boiled egg and banana. Did not like so much!!! Also, getting tired of rice and beans...haha...and it's only been a month. Ahh!
After lunch, the rest of the day is spent contacting people, attending to our appointments, visiting church members - who sometimes if we are lucky make us dinner...so nice. If we fix our dinner - it is generally cereal or nothing because we are so tired. At 9:00 p.m. we are back in the house. We review the day and plan the next day until 9:30 p.m. Then we write in our journal and go to bed at 10:30 p.m. Getting to bed on time is tough because we have so much to do and prepare for. Pretty much tired all the time - but that is life.
Mondays are preparation days. We got to go paintballing -OW ---hurt!!! So much fun!! We also play soccer, and plan to maybe visit the zoo and go on a hike to volcano sites. We will see. We also have to do our laundry, food shopping and e-mail/write letters and then be ready to work some more. Always busy.
Contacting: We knock on doors, yell outside the gates, get references from church members and our investigators, and contact randomly in the street. We do it all. The best luck at meeting people to teach is either talking to people on the street or references from church or other investigators (people we are already teaching). We found a new investigator this week while looking for another. We knocked on a man's door to ask where a family lives and ended up teaching him more this week.
Some of the people we are teaching: #1. Andres and Evaline are an awesome family. They have come to church and the ward members have really been so nice to them. They loved the people at church. We are using more families in the ward to help us and they are so excited. The bishop is planning activities for us to help our efforts, especially our new converts. We might take them to visit the temple on Saturday, if we get permission. They love the idea that families can be sealed together forever. Andres, for his job, cleans the outside of the temple and was so impressed with it's beauty and they want to know more about the purpose of temples and eternal families.#2. Karen and Rod are not married and they fight a lot. Rodney is married to a woman in Nicaragua...happens often! First, he has to divorce her and then can get baptized. He and Karen live together - so they would have to stop living together for her to get baptized...They talk about getting married in the temple...but because this would require so much change in their lives - it is a real challenge.We taught them at a member's house and the member shared with them how they deal with conflict. We showed them a film on "Together Forever" and read an article on the importance of Marriage and Family. #3. Alexis and Yoleni - also new - we were looking for another contact when we found Alexis. He was a bit skeptical - not a big fan at first of my companion because she is from El Salvador - with ticos, El Salvador is viewed as lower class. Ticos (Costa Ricans) are friendly, but a little arrogant. They like Americans. He warmed up later on. He had a lot of questions. We will see where this goes. The other night we helped a man carry an incredibly heavy box to his house and he told us that his daughter wants to learn English. I told him that I was a teacher and that if we could share our teachings with her that I would try to help her learn some English. He was great with it. Again, we will see. There have been many people struggling and out of work. We have trials that help us to be stronger and realize what is truly important in our lives. The trials I have had in my life - help me have more love and empathy for other people who are going through challenges. We understand more of what others are going through when we have experienced rough times in our lives. Many of these people literally - have almost nothing and are so happy.
Language: It is coming along. I guess that I am just not very patient. An Elder told me that one day... it will just come...I will be surprised. He said to just do the best I can. I get frustrated when I can't understand what people and my companion are saying. I want to understand so badly. There are so many exceptions, grammar and things to memorize. I just keep trying. I can understand what people say to me and context helps. Really, people have said that for just being here a month - my Spanish is good. Except that I messed up a Spanish word pretty bad. haha. When explaining about snow in Utah, I said that it was sometimes difficult to leave. Instead of saying leave, I said "to be horny". Yeah, not good!!!. My companion busted up laughing. Thought you might get a kick out of that. Ugh! I just keep pushing along.
My faith in Heavenly Father, Christ, and the Spirit have increased. I really feel that I am coming into my own. The people are so kind and pray for me to be able to understand the language. I again appreciate your love and support and all your prayers. Thank you for all of the updates about family and friend. I still love to hear from anyone who has a few minutes to write to me. I hope that everything is going well for all my wonderful family and friends. Keep me posted.
Love, Hermana Jones
Thank you for your love and support. I thought I would share what I do every day.
Schedule: I wake up at 6:30 a.m., stretch for 20 minutes. We would exercise more but we walk everywhere all day long - so stretches and ab workouts start us off. Afterwards, we get ready for the day, eat breakfast ---cereal or pancakes. 8:00 a.m. - personal study, 9:00 a.m. - companion study. 10:00 a.m. we have a 12 week training program for new missionaries and 11:00 a.m. - language study...even though I am studying language all day long. At 12:00 p.m. we eat lunch with our cook - He usually makes us something with ---you guessed it ---rice and beans! One day he made a black bean soup with rice, hard boiled egg and banana. Did not like so much!!! Also, getting tired of rice and beans...haha...and it's only been a month. Ahh!
After lunch, the rest of the day is spent contacting people, attending to our appointments, visiting church members - who sometimes if we are lucky make us dinner...so nice. If we fix our dinner - it is generally cereal or nothing because we are so tired. At 9:00 p.m. we are back in the house. We review the day and plan the next day until 9:30 p.m. Then we write in our journal and go to bed at 10:30 p.m. Getting to bed on time is tough because we have so much to do and prepare for. Pretty much tired all the time - but that is life.
Mondays are preparation days. We got to go paintballing -OW ---hurt!!! So much fun!! We also play soccer, and plan to maybe visit the zoo and go on a hike to volcano sites. We will see. We also have to do our laundry, food shopping and e-mail/write letters and then be ready to work some more. Always busy.
Contacting: We knock on doors, yell outside the gates, get references from church members and our investigators, and contact randomly in the street. We do it all. The best luck at meeting people to teach is either talking to people on the street or references from church or other investigators (people we are already teaching). We found a new investigator this week while looking for another. We knocked on a man's door to ask where a family lives and ended up teaching him more this week.
Some of the people we are teaching: #1. Andres and Evaline are an awesome family. They have come to church and the ward members have really been so nice to them. They loved the people at church. We are using more families in the ward to help us and they are so excited. The bishop is planning activities for us to help our efforts, especially our new converts. We might take them to visit the temple on Saturday, if we get permission. They love the idea that families can be sealed together forever. Andres, for his job, cleans the outside of the temple and was so impressed with it's beauty and they want to know more about the purpose of temples and eternal families.#2. Karen and Rod are not married and they fight a lot. Rodney is married to a woman in Nicaragua...happens often! First, he has to divorce her and then can get baptized. He and Karen live together - so they would have to stop living together for her to get baptized...They talk about getting married in the temple...but because this would require so much change in their lives - it is a real challenge.We taught them at a member's house and the member shared with them how they deal with conflict. We showed them a film on "Together Forever" and read an article on the importance of Marriage and Family. #3. Alexis and Yoleni - also new - we were looking for another contact when we found Alexis. He was a bit skeptical - not a big fan at first of my companion because she is from El Salvador - with ticos, El Salvador is viewed as lower class. Ticos (Costa Ricans) are friendly, but a little arrogant. They like Americans. He warmed up later on. He had a lot of questions. We will see where this goes. The other night we helped a man carry an incredibly heavy box to his house and he told us that his daughter wants to learn English. I told him that I was a teacher and that if we could share our teachings with her that I would try to help her learn some English. He was great with it. Again, we will see. There have been many people struggling and out of work. We have trials that help us to be stronger and realize what is truly important in our lives. The trials I have had in my life - help me have more love and empathy for other people who are going through challenges. We understand more of what others are going through when we have experienced rough times in our lives. Many of these people literally - have almost nothing and are so happy.
Language: It is coming along. I guess that I am just not very patient. An Elder told me that one day... it will just come...I will be surprised. He said to just do the best I can. I get frustrated when I can't understand what people and my companion are saying. I want to understand so badly. There are so many exceptions, grammar and things to memorize. I just keep trying. I can understand what people say to me and context helps. Really, people have said that for just being here a month - my Spanish is good. Except that I messed up a Spanish word pretty bad. haha. When explaining about snow in Utah, I said that it was sometimes difficult to leave. Instead of saying leave, I said "to be horny". Yeah, not good!!!. My companion busted up laughing. Thought you might get a kick out of that. Ugh! I just keep pushing along.
My faith in Heavenly Father, Christ, and the Spirit have increased. I really feel that I am coming into my own. The people are so kind and pray for me to be able to understand the language. I again appreciate your love and support and all your prayers. Thank you for all of the updates about family and friend. I still love to hear from anyone who has a few minutes to write to me. I hope that everything is going well for all my wonderful family and friends. Keep me posted.
Love, Hermana Jones
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