May 16, 2016

Hello everybody from Chicago! I am sending this email just so you all know I am still alive and preaching. This week I actually had a way cool encounter with some people of other faiths which I will talk about a little later. Real quick to catch everyone up! I am in my second area right now with my fourth companion in the field. My ward is Chicago 3rd and my area covers pretty much all of downtown. (That's not really where we proselyte too often but I like telling everyone that's where I serve). My companions name is Elder Vandenhazel and he is from the salt lake area and has the exact same amount of time as me in the mission!

This week we had two exchanges (for some reason unknown to me) and the first was on Tuesday. Elder Erekson and I were together and I had the greatest luck ever! We had an appointment with one of their investigators named Marco. He is a bike expert and knows how to fix my bike when a screw comes way out on the way there. Way good guy.

Quick experience on miracle prayers, we had a zone meeting on Wednesday and it was a chilly morning so I put my gloves in my pockets before we went out. I never put them on and when we got to the church I found that one of them was no longer in my pocket. After zone meeting I said a prayer and had all of the elders in my district say a prayer. Then I retraced my steps to our house (which was super weird because that day I decided to take every alley way in Chicago to get to the building) and I found it!! I couldn't believe it but it was in the middle of the road, two streets away from my house. Later that evening we happened to run into this crowd of people with signs and protesting phrases. As I walked up one of them said, "this must be divine intervention, we were just about to end this march against violence with a prayer". I was like what the heck?? So they proceeded to ask us to say a prayer with them so we all joined hands and asked God to keep the people safe and it was very interesting.

I know this is like a day day by and probably way boring, but on Thursday we had a surprise menudo visit. For those of you don't know, menudo is the most disgusting thing a person could possibly put in their mouth. I had an experience in Gurnee where I had two eat bites and then the hermana made me a quesadilla and I didn't have to finish it, but I wasn't getting out of it that easy this time. We set up an appointment with this less active and as we sat down she said, "do you like menudo?" And I almost died right there. I am proud to say that I drained my entire bowl with the help of a lot of coke. ( I had given up soda 2 years ago but it helps the yuck go down)

Last thing real quick I just wanted to tell you all about our baptism that we had on Saturday. His name is Giovannie and I have been teaching him ever since I got to this area so I was so hyped. I also got to confirm him a member in sacrament which makes that my second time in this ward. Love you all and thanks so much for your support!!

Elder Jones