July 25, 2011 - Photos

Here are some new pictures.

Two of them are members that we have visited recently who are both awesome.  They are both great woman whose husbands are sadly not members, but we are trying.

Also, there are a couple pictures of a cool storm that we had the other day and I even caught some lightning which was cool.

There is also one of a new tram that they have here which is one of the ways we travel.  Hooray for pictures!

Love you,

Elder Jones

July 25, 2011

Hey Mom,

So I can't believe that Jacob is already on his way to Germany.  That is so cool for him.  I am so excited and I hope to hear from him soon.  (Ryan's friend, Jacob, leaves today from the MTC for the Berlin mission.)  I sent him a letter about a month or so ago and so I hope he got it before going to Germany.  If not, then they will send it on.  Oh and what is up with Caitlin thinking she can take over everything that belongs to me.  I am not dead, just on the other side of the world.  I still want to wear those shorts when I get home.  Tell her that they are really sweaty and gross or something and maybe she won't want to wear them.  She does look really tan and with super bleached hair in that picture!

I sent this picture to Ryan of Caitlin wearing his lacrosse shorts (one of many things she's confiscated of his.

I hope that you all have fun with the trek and that Chels enjoys it.  It will be a great experience for all of you I am sure.  It would have been fun to be a pa, but I am sure that being a missionary is a lot more important so I won't complain.  Hopefully Caitlin won't stress too much with her new computer and with a head start on this week's studies. 

I do remember being at Liberty Jail and I think about that place fairly often.  My patriarchal blessing even tells me to remember it and the suffering that Joseph and his brethren went through and tells me to learn from them.  I think that is part of why I love those verses and that story so much.  Heavenly Father knows that they are important for me to remember too, because sometimes I get impatient with myself or others.  It is really cool how we can learn from the scriptures or from our ancestors and directly apply the things we learn to ourselves.  That is one part of studying the scriptures that the majority of members don't get.  In fact, most members of the church in general just don't get the importance of the scriptures at all, which is one thing that President Klebingat is teaching the members here.  I will bring home what he teaches :)

We had a pretty interesting week and lots of things didn't work out, but we also had some miracles with members and with non-members. We met a couple of people that want help and so we are going to do what we can to help them.  We also have a less active member who has come to church for two weeks straight and started reading the Book of Mormon again which is a huge step for him.  He is a great man and I really feel that we are going to be able to help him become fully active again.  He really doesn't know the doctrine well so we are basically treating him like an investigator and soon I feel that we will be able to help him use the Aaronic priesthood and prepare to do baptisms for his deceased family members in the temple.  Yesterday after church we also had two members who helped us go by less actives and we are working really hard with the ward council to bring back those lost sheep whom the ward has sadly forgotten about.  We have some big goals and plans and are really excited to bring back many of the Lord's children.  The worth of each and every one of these souls is priceless to our Heavenly Father.  That is why home and visiting teaching is so absolutely necessary!

Elder Ballard's message is absolutely true.  This is God's work!  We are all his hands, here to fulfill the work that we have.  The second coming is so very near and there is truly a great sense of urgency in this work.  This work is an eternal work, but the earth's portion is nearly complete and we need to do all we can while we are still here to bring as many of God's children back to Him.  We do need to continue to believe, work, serve and love and as we do so, we will have success.  We need to do all we can everyday to fortify and strengthen our faith which will help us to get through the difficult times and to truly perform miracles for the Lord.  Jesus Christ is at the head and as we follow Him by doing what he did and become as he is, we will succeed in this work and at the last day, God will accept us with open arms and a deep gratitude for our works.

I know that this is the true Church of Jesus Christ.  He lives and this is His work.  Joseph Smith is the great Prophet of the Restoration and Thomas S. Monson and his counselors and the twelve apostles are living prophets today.  This work will not be stopped so let's not hinder it ourselves.  Let's be the best that we can be for the Lord as we continue to perform His great work.

Love,

Elder Jones

July 18, 2011

Hey there Mom,

So I am glad that you enjoyed the McDonald's picture.  They do have them all over the world and it is probably the wealthiest company in the world just because of all the real estate that they own.  Genius to keep your real estate business secret with the mask of 1 dollar burgers.  Yummy!  They have a couple in Lviv and many of them here in Kyiv and so it is a treat to go there every once and a while.  Today we are going to TGIF's though which is a real treat.  We decided that we have never been there and just want to go have a real burger once because it has been a while.  By the way, the MSN account worked for Cailtin's email but the other one didn't.  I think the problem is just in her hitting reply every time instead of starting a new letter, but it might be hotmail.

Yeah, the girls told me about their experience at Bear Lake, but it sounds like they are doing just fine.  Caitlin was a little more dramatic about it, but they both sound that they are doing ok and that the staff is working together to get through it.  There is a missionary here that had a real tough week and everything just seemed to go wrong for him, even though he is a wonderful missionary, and I thought about how sometimes the Lord just tries us, even when we are doing what is right.  Keeping the eternal perspective really is an important trait or skill that we need to learn.  I just love sections 121 to 123 of Doctrine and Covenants where we can learn so much from the Lord and from the example of Joseph Smith.  Speaking of Doctrine and Covenants, I finished it yesterday which was pretty cool.  Now the Old Testament is the only standard work that I still need to finish on my mission...that isn't going to happen though, but I am going to read it a little bit.  I am trying to finish the Book of Mormon again before I go home which means I need to read about 7 pages a day to get there.  That isn't too much, but I don't have a whole lot of study time so it will be a challenge.  I just love the Scriptures though and I am happy that we have time to study them. 

So I am glad that you had a fun week with Kathy and Dean and Josh.  It is fun to see the family, isn't it.  And 24 is a pretty good count.  Not quite like Adam's family, but they are getting there, aren't they!?!  Before they know it, that number will be a lot higher.  Family history and all that stuff is really exciting, isn't it?  I was thinking about the pedigree chart that I have and I know the story of most of the people on it, but not all of them.  That is one thing that I will have to learn more about when I get home.  The members here have really been focusing on family history and they have talks about it every week and it is just really cool to think about all that we are doing.  There is a quote from President Kimball in Preach My Gospel that says something along the lines...never mind, I'll just look it up - It says "I hope to see us dissolve the artificial boundary line we so often place between missionary work and temple and genealogical work, because it is the same great redemptive work."  Whether they are living or dead, we are still helping God bring to pass His great work and glory (Moses 1:39).  Anyway, so that Spirit of Elijah has struck me a little recently as I have thought more about our family's history.

Sounds like the girls are having a pretty crazy time up there at camp.  Does Chels just sit in the trading post from morning until evening?  That is a pretty tough job.  It is pretty important though to learn about our own personal limits and then plan to better manage our time.  I am grateful for what I have learned on my mission about using time.  Have fun yourselves with all of the shopping you have to do.  I am sure that Dad will have a wonderful time!

Hmm, so member missionary work is a real battle here for us.  We sat in on an hour and a half long ward council that was all about missionary work yesterday and they have lots of excuses.  I don't blame them, because it is the same everywhere throughout the church, as far as I understand, but still, it is the duty of every member.  The sad thing is that the ward here has somewhere around 66 or 70 percent less active members and no one even knew about it.  As President Klebingat has been stressing, if they won't do their home teaching (and there is another quote about how home teaching is missionary work for members and missionary work is home teaching for non members - President Lee) and take care of the sheep that the Lord has already given them, then the Lord isn't going to send more sheep to be baptized here.  Anyway, that is probably pretty mixed up, but the point is that the missionary work that the members really need to be doing more than anything else right now is in fact home teaching.  I don't know what the percentages are in the Stake here, but I know that in the branches I have served in, the missionaries are the ones that do 99% of the missionary work which is not acceptable.  But, we have some good goals and plans to help the members here and we are really going to see some success which is great.  Our investigators have kind of lost interest for one reason or another and so we are still looking for the elect out there.  The work is going well though and yesterday there were a lot of non members and less-active members at church which is great.

This work is true.  I know that Jesus Christ lives and that He is leading us all in this great work to bring salvation to all of God's children.  What a blessing to have the knowledge that we have that God lives and loves us and that through Jesus Christ, we can become perfect.  I know that all of us are here to learn these things and prepare ourselves for something much greater!  I love you mom.  Thanks for all you do.

Love you,

Elder Jones

July 11, 2011

Hey Mom,

So happy Fourth of July to you as well.  I completely forgot about it until after I wrote last week and so then we decided to go celebrate along with the Assistants and we got a burger at McDonald's.  That is about the most American thing we could get.  So how are Kathy, Dean and Josh doing?  I am excited to see them again when I get back.  It sounds like you had a lot of fun together, even if you allowed yourself to get fried.  (Kathy, Dean, Josh, Rachel and boys and I spent the day at Ogden at the farmers market and I ended up with a good sunburn.)  It is a lot of fun to be able to see all of the family isn't it.  I also have no tan by the way, because it has been so wet and overcast here...and because I am a missionary and have so many clothes.  It is getting really hot here though which is fun, but tough at the same time.  I don't know if I like a cold summer or hot summer more.  So, do you have pictures or not?  (My batteries died on my camera.)  I was confused by what you said.  I hope you do ;)  Oh and that is cool that Randi and Monique are pregnant.  Grandma and Grandpa's family is getting so big.  How many great-grandkids are there now?

So that is crazy that Caitlin's computer has been such a piece of junk.  I am sad that it hasn't been working for her.  I haven't heard from her for a month now, so I don't know what is going on.  Why isn't Caitlin getting enough sleep?  I think that my mission has taught me that 11 is about as late as I can get to bed....getting up early and then going to bed early is truly a correct principle.  I am probably going to be waking up at 5:30 or so at home to get an hour of exercise and then an hour of study in each morning.  That is the best way to start off a day.  I am glad that all is going well and that you are staying busy, and it sounds like you are doing as President Uchtdorf taught and focusing on the important things.  Anyway, keep on staying busy and having fun there, even if it is just the two of you - that means you have more time to go to the temple, right?

Hey, so who was the convert that spoke?  Is he/she originally baptized in the Garden Park Ward and was it a member's friend or just someone the missionaries found or what?  That is cool to hear that the work is still going on there at home as well.  I am glad that it was a good meeting and that you all got to hear Sam as he spoke about his wonderful mission experiences.  Members really are the key all over the world, and members referrals have an incredibly higher chance of both getting baptized and staying active in the church.  I know that President Klebingat has some great plans to make member/missionary relationships even stronger and luckily here in the Borshahivsky ward, we are some of the privileged few to test out his ideas in the stake where he doesn't have as much say in member missionary work.  He is already working very well with the Stake President and it is exciting.  We had a great meeting yesterday with our Bishop and started to coordinate some of those plans that we want to get rolling here and it is so very exciting to see that the work is just going on.

We had a pretty good week and found a couple more new investigators and Igor is still coming along.  He probably won't be ready as fast as we were hoping, but he is already building great relationships with some of the members and he is slowly starting to understand what Christ is asking us to do.  Also, another investigator of ours came to church yesterday and he loved it.  He has a young family and we are hoping to be able to teach them.  Also, we had a huge miracle - three hours of church in the newly renovated chapel.  It was sad that we went for so many months without three hours of church, but we are finally back and ready to receive all the blessings of church.  We had a member of the stake Presidency talk about that and how we need to prepare each week and it was really good.  It is tough, because most of the meetings are in Russian and I am not used to it, but it is good practice too and I need it.

We also have a couple of inactive members that we have gotten in with the past two weeks and we are starting to build relations with them and it is so wonderful.  They are awesome and although they have their problems, I feel that God has led us to them for a reason and we are going to be able to help them make the fundamental changes that must be made.  I love working with members and getting to know them and serve them.

So yes, President Klebingat has three children, Katja (17), Daniel (15) and Alexander (11, I think) and they are all really cool.  They are all going to be in school here in the Kyiv International School where Katja and Daniel went about 6 years ago when President Klebingat lived and worked here in Kyiv.  The Steinagel children went there also and there are lots of members that work there too.  President Klebingat has some big goals, which I don't really know yet, but he is definitely going to lead us to be very successful in God's work.  We have been able to eat lunch with him a few times already and it is always so cool to just listen to his ideas and plans for the future.  He went to Lviv and Odessa this last week and has met all of the missionaries now, and this week I think we will see a little more of him.  I will let you know more as I find out more.

Thanks for being such a good mom.  I love you so much.  I know that this Church is true, that the Book of Mormon is the word of God, and that Joseph Smith is the Prophet through which God restored His true Church.  Thomas S. Monson leads the Church today, and this work is God's great work and glory.  How lucky we are to be a part of it!

Love,

Elder Jones

July 4, 2011 Photo

Here is a fourth of July picture with the Assistants, Elder Hadley (taking the picture) and Elder Sorenson.

Enjoy!

July 4, 2011

Hi Mom,

So I am glad to hear that you and dad are doing alright, even if tired from a busy week.  Ours was really busy too, but I am so excited that I am not too tired.  It is good that you had a fun time with the family and got to reconnect with people that you haven't seen in a while.  That is always really nice.  I bet that you had a good time and weren't as antisocial as dad was.  It's ok though.  I am glad that you had a fun time and then were able to spend time with the family on Sunday.  When are grandma and grandpa going back?  And how are they doing anyway?

So I am glad that it was a good weekend and that you got to see the girls.  It sounds like they are having a pretty good time up at the camp; well at least Chelsea is.  I haven't heard from Caitlin, but it is ok.  I am sure that she is pretty tired and busy.  I hope that next weekend isn't too lonely for you with an empty house.  I think that is cool that they are having a great time up there and that all is going well.  I hope they have a lot of fun and the cots aren't too bad for them.  Many missionaries slept on worse...but I guess today it is a little different.  We all have decent beds most of the time. 

Tell Sam hi from me.  I told everyone else to tell him hi too, so I guess it will be a race ;)  I am glad that he is doing so well and I am excited for him.

So last week was an awesome week for us.  We had some good meetings with members and our investigators and on Tuesday, Igor accepted a baptismal date.  He is so excited to find out more and to be able to receive the blessings that the Lord wants to give him.  He chose the 21st of July and so we are really excited for him.  We are going to meet tonight to talk more about what he needs to do to be ready.  He is a really interesting man and I feel like there are a few things that we are going to need to emphasize to really help prepare him, but he already has a relationship with a couple of members families now.  There were fourteen of us at that family home evening by the way.  It was pretty crazy.  Getting the members involved is really so important though and we are so much more blessed when we do so.  They can relate with the investigators a lot better, speak the language a lot better, and have the same conversion essentially as our investigators.  The Apostles really emphasized it when they created Preach My Gospel and there are entire sections about working with members.  It really is a central part of missionary work.

The weather is great here and I think it is going to warm up in about ten days.  The rain keeps coming and it has been cool which is nice, but really weird too.  I don't know if I like the cold summer too much, just because it isn't what I expect.  Eventually we are going to have a hot summer here, but probably not until the end.

President Klebingat and his family are incredible.  President Steinagel was incredible and really prepared the mission for President Klebingat and all that he wants to do.  We are really going to get moving and see some incredible jumps in the success here.  He is a very spiritual man and when he feels that the Lord wants him to do something, he will do it.  His conversion story is incredible and really too long to tell, but the Lord's hand was truly in it.  Everything from when President Klebingat was baptized to his call as a mission president was done because it was the Lord's will.  As he explained it, tender mercy after tender mercy is what has turned him into the person he is.  Anyway, I would tell you more, but I honestly don't have time.

I love you mom and if you ask some questions I will tell you more about President and his family.  He has three children by the way who are here with him.  Oh and President Steinagel really loved the slide show.

Anyway, this gospel is true.  The Church is Jesus Christ's Church and He is our Leader.  I know that He lives and that He loves each and everyone of us, because I feel that love daily. 

Love,

Elder Jones

June 27, 2011

Hey mom,

I didn't get Caitlin's letter, but I will write her a quick one so don't worry.  How does Chelsea get home every weekend by the way?  Tell grandma and grandpa hi from me.  Let them know that I love them and that all is going well.  I hope they have a good time up in Preston visiting family.  That is probably a pretty special opportunity for them to go back to their hometown, isn't it...I hope that the family reunion goes well.  I don't even know anyone on the Hawkes side very well, but that is cool that everyone is getting together.  When was the last reunion?  And yeah, you're right, I am a little bigger now.

Wow, so you and dad are the barbeque champs if you got to do it last week and this week.  Fun stuff.  It is always great to be able to get together with the other members and talk with them.  I think that visiting members is one of my favorite things here in Ukraine, but especially here in Kyiv.  They are literal pioneers and many of the members that we visit have been members for anywhere from 10 to 20 years which is awesome.  Tonight we are doing a FHE at a members house with one of our new investigators which will be so great.  It is so cool that the members here are willing to help fellowship investigators and help us as missionaries to teach. So cool.  Anyway, I will tell you more later.  I can't believe that they messed up with your blood.  That doesn't sound fun at all.  How did they miss the vein?  Ужас!  That doesn't sound fun.  What do they use blood platelets for anyway, because they don't last very long.  Maybe for surgeries I guess.  I am glad that it was a good week though and that you stayed busy.  I love being busy. 

I am glad to hear that stake conference went well.  I miss having those and may not get one here in Kyiv.  They had one just before I came here so the next one will probably be in November and I may not be in Kyiv for that.  Plus, I still haven't had a normal Sunday here. We have had a month and a half now of only sacrament meeting.  It is crazy, but the renovations should be done soon so I am hopeful that we will finally have a normal Sunday next week.  It makes it fun trying to talk to all the members when you have one meeting and that is it.  I am glad that it was a good conference though and I can't wait to see all of our leaders again when I get back.  And it is cool to hear from Seventies, isn't it?  It sounds like it was a great conference.

Things here are going along wetly... :)  It rained for much of the week and it has been cold too.  Four straight days of steady rain made for a tough weekend of missionary work, but we actually had some success which is awesome.  Vadim is doing ok and is progressing slowly.  It is honestly hard for us as missionaries to be patient with people when they aren't deciding to get baptized right away, because we know that baptism is necessary and that they can't procrastinate the day of their repentance, or their baptism, but when investigators are doing what we ask, then we just have to be patient.  Vadim is reading and trying to find out if it is true, but because of work, he hasn't been able to make it to church which will be a huge step for him.  We have another meeting tonight so we will see what happens there, but we have faith in him.  Also, we found three new investigators last week which was cool.  Two of them seem very elect as they have been searching for God and really want to know if this is the true church.  One of them, Julia, really was excited about the Book of Mormon as is ready to read it and find out more about it.  Then yesterday, Igor, a guy who came to the temple by himself the other day, came to church too by himself and loved the meeting.  I sat with him and it went really well.  He is so cool and is excited to meet and we are meeting with him at the members house tonight.  So the work is moving forward.  President Klebingat is coming on Thursday and then President Steinagel leaves the next day.  We are going to have a luncheon thingy on Thursday with the office staff to get to know the Klebingats and Elder Kashiwagi and I are going to show President Steinagel and his family a slideshow of pictures that the missionaries sent in.  It will be a going away gift for him, and for the Klebingats, it will introduce them to the missionaries which is cool.  Elder Kashiwagi spent last week putting it together last week.  Anyway, so we have a lot of things going on here.

Oh and that family is the Melnichuk family and their son is serving in Russia.  His sister came up to me yesterday and had me write him a little note because she is sending him a letter and wanted other people that he knew to write to him.  It was neat.

Well, I got distracted in the middle of writing to you and lost all of my time so I will have to finish up.  I love you mom.  Thanks for all you do.  I know that this is the true Church of Jesus Christ and that He lives and loves us.  He is the only way and as we go on and do as he taught, we will receive all the promised blessings, including that our family will be together forever. 

I love you,

Elder Jones