Exciting week garbage car

This week was pretty cool. There were a couple fun things that happened.
First of all, our car (Chevy Cruze) is total garbage. We started
hearing a loud noise in the front wheel last week, and last week we
took the car into a firestone and they told us that our wheel bearing
is going out. They said it might still be under warranty since it only
had 36000 miles on it. This week we took it into the chevy dealership
and it took them 2 days for their techs to find out that the wheel
bearing was going out, even though we had already told them that is
what was wrong with it. But they didn't even have the parts, so we
have to go back tomorrow to have them fix it.
Oh well 😔 life goes on. Just without a car 😔

But on the bright side we have been working hard with Kelli. She is
super close to being baptized it's crazy. We were a little concerned
that she wasn't really converted to the gospel, so we went over there
a few days ago and taught her how to really study the Book of Mormon,
not just read it. We told her to take some notes from what she
learned, and when we came back the next day, she had written two full
pages of notes on only 3 verses in the Book of Mormon. It was really
cool to see her progress more and to really apply the Book of Mormon
to her life. She should be baptized now on the 29th which is actually
her 18th birthday. She is super excited to be baptized on her birthday
too.

This week has been pretty great. I'm glad we are working with Kelli so
much because it's keeping Elder Kohler from getting too trunky 😂

Love you all,
-Elder Jones

Theology Majors

This week was pretty great. Elder Kohler and I taught a lot of
lessons. We met with these two people named Alex and Joseph, they are
really cool people. They are however, theology majors, and they know
the Bible front and back. We were teaching them the restoration and
they kept asking us super hard questions. Even Elder Kohler, who has
been out almost 24 months couldn't answer their questions. Hopefully
they read the Book of Mormon so they can know it's true. Some prayers
would be good.

We have been meeting with Kelli a lot. She came to church Sunday and
she is still progressing very well. I had an interesting experience at
her house last night. So we were standing on the grass in front of her
porch and we were starting to teach her. Her mom came out and started
to talk to us. Then her mom said to me "you know what your standing
in, right?" And I said no, and she said "I threw up right where you're
standing this morning" that was super gross to hear, but we had a good
lesson regardless. Some prayers for Kelli (and my shoes) would be
great!

Anyways, this week has gone pretty good. We have been focusing on
finding new people to teach, and we have found a couple people who are
pretty promising. We'll see where they go in the future! That's all
for this week

- Elder Jones

This is Elder Nabo, Elder Fraley and me in Vidor Texas. We had to
drive them over here because Elder Nabo (the African) hurt his arm and
had to get it looked at by a doctor. Vidor is the KKK capital of the
world, and it's where the KKK started. Elder Nabo was very proud of
himself for "Surviving Vidor Texas"

First week of 2017

This week has been pretty good. We have had a lot of fun, and there
have been a few big changes in the mission.

We have been I guess in a way sifting out the noncommittal
investigators. It sounds kinda harsh and sad, because there are quite
a few people we won't be visiting very often any more, but it's good
because it makes way for investigators who are prepared and ready for
the gospel. We also have a new investigator named Kelli. She is the
daughter of a member, and she is going to be baptized on the 28th. It
seems like all of the other investigators we have had on date for
baptism seem to become less committed to meeting with us once we set
some expectations from them, but Kelli is really excited to get
baptized, and she has been praying and reading her Book of Mormon a
lot. It's really exciting.

We have also had some fun this week. We were driving to an appointment
and we saw a Christmas tree on the side of the road. When we were
driving home, we put the tree in the trunk of our car and took it over
to the other Elders apartment here in Beaumont. We have a key to their
apartment, so we went in and put the tree in their living room.
Needles got everywhere and made a huge mess. It was really funny.
They took the tree and put it outside when they found it, so the next
day we picked it up and we put it back in their apartment in a closet
that they hardly ever use. We vacuumed up all the needles and left no
trace. It took them a couple days, but eventually they needed
something from their closet and they opened it up to find the
Christmas tree there. Haha it was pretty funny (at least for us) :)

We also had a zone meeting this week and we got some crazy news. So
our mission standard for 2016 has been to get 5 lessons with a member
present, get 5 investigators progressing towards baptism and 5 new
investigators each week. We also have to invite 14 people to baptism
each week. This year we raised the bar again (since it used to be
3-3-3 for 2015). Now we need to do a 7-7-7 so 7 member present
lessons, 7 progressing investigators, and 7 new investigators. It's
pretty tough to get the 5-5-5 so it will be crazy to get the 7-7-7,
but it's come from inspiration, so we know it's possible. We also have
been promised that we can baptize 2 people each month. This was raised
from 1 person a month. Our goal for 2017 is to baptize 888 people this
year. Last year we baptized 435 people, which is the highest yet. But
if every companionship baptizes only 1 person each month, we will
reach 888 baptisms this year, so we know it's possible.

Things are looking to be pretty good this year in the mission!

A new companion

So transfers was last Tuesday. Elder Saunders left and went over to a
place called Onalaska. I got a new companion Elder Kohler. He is from
Midway. He's really cool too and we have been having a lot of fun
together. The other night we were spinning credit cards at each other
and we would spin them so fast that they would chip the paint on the
walls if they hit the walls. Then we started throwing CDs at each
other, and they really hurt. Then Elder Kohler threw a CD at me and it
missed and hit our window and shattered it. It was really funny.

We have also been teaching a lot of people. There is a man named
Fredrico that we are teaching. I actually met him about 3 months ago
when he came up to me and Elder Saunders and asked if we could visit
him. We had stopped by his house maybe 5 times and he had never been
there. But when Elder Kohler stopped by a few nights ago, he was home
and we taught him. He is really interested. The only problem is that
his wife is super anti and doesn't want us coming over, so it's a
really tough situation.

Things are going good here in Beaumont. It will be interesting to see
how this month goes.