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| Beautiful art in the city |
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| No Hands! mom I am getting really good at this. |
Illinois, Chicago Mission Spanish Speaking July 2015-2017
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
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
May 9 2016
Best day ever! When you have way fun family skype calls on Mother's day :) thanks mom for everything and you should get your card... Soonish;)
Soo... This week we had this way funny experience when we were looking for some less actives and we went to their address and this black girl named Juhquita (pronounced how I spelled it.... I think) and she was like, "oh those people are the land lords, you want me to shoot them a text?" And I was like ya! So I have her text this guy with our number and that we want to come over and he calls us like 10 minutes later!! So we totally went over and had a much needed dinner;) haha and met this fam! They kind of live out of our area though so we are now passing them over to the other elders. I also got to contact a couple groups of black kids in the ghetto part of our area cuz we were down there for some reason. And this one was playing ball and I was like let me get one and I air balled two times in front of them and they were like nah you can't ball and then I was like nah I'm hustlin y'all and I drained the next one so lucky me;) haha and it was cool! We had an interview for our investigator Giovanni with President Woodbury and he passed! So that is going down on Saturday:) umm... I think that is a lot of stuff compared to usual :)
Elder Jones
Soo... This week we had this way funny experience when we were looking for some less actives and we went to their address and this black girl named Juhquita (pronounced how I spelled it.... I think) and she was like, "oh those people are the land lords, you want me to shoot them a text?" And I was like ya! So I have her text this guy with our number and that we want to come over and he calls us like 10 minutes later!! So we totally went over and had a much needed dinner;) haha and met this fam! They kind of live out of our area though so we are now passing them over to the other elders. I also got to contact a couple groups of black kids in the ghetto part of our area cuz we were down there for some reason. And this one was playing ball and I was like let me get one and I air balled two times in front of them and they were like nah you can't ball and then I was like nah I'm hustlin y'all and I drained the next one so lucky me;) haha and it was cool! We had an interview for our investigator Giovanni with President Woodbury and he passed! So that is going down on Saturday:) umm... I think that is a lot of stuff compared to usual :)
Elder Jones
May 2, 2016
This week like you know I had a visit from Jeremy and Brandi Jamison from Utah. They were in Chicago for Jeremy's work so I was able to meet them for lunch. It was raining and we had to ride bikes but we got there early so I was mostly dry when they arrived. I am so glad they got to text you pictures of us. It was so much fun to see them.
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| I found a street named after Grandpa he is famous everywhere |
April 25, 2016
Thanks for the birthday present box full of stuff. Mom you asked me to video tape opening the present from Kalen so here goes. I loved, loved, loved the present from Kalen. I am just going to send a video of me opening it and you will know how cool it was.
(note from mom: Kalen sent Kelly a personalized custom made scripture case from Bolivia ) Listen for Kelly to say that squirrels have feathers it's pretty funny.
(note from mom: Kalen sent Kelly a personalized custom made scripture case from Bolivia ) Listen for Kelly to say that squirrels have feathers it's pretty funny.
April 18, 2016
Wow! Tell Will I am so proud of him for getting his Eagle way cool k? And Ally is so cute in her birthday photos:) And no I haven't got the rain jacket yet but my zonies called me yesterday and said they had something for me so I assume that is it but it hasn't rained for like a week now. I hope we aren't out of the season for it right before I have an actual jacket.. Haha
Alright so here is some more about me cuz I know that's all you wanna hear:) So my companion right now as of two weeks is named Elder Vandenhazel. We get along fine and I don't mind him. He went to the Provo MTC because his Spanish was supposedly "advanced". He is my first non-native companion right? And apparently down in Blue Island (his previous and only other area in the mission) they had a very high Mexican population. Mostly from like two different cities that he knew super well. Well here in our ward, and in my last ward as well, we don't have very many Mexicans at all. Like they are there and stuff but we have tons of people from all over South America and they speak differently than the Mexican dialect. So we are in one of our first lessons when he got here with this super old lady that we call Abuelita who is from Peru. And she speaks very... Peruano :) haha so like halfway through our time there he looks at me while she is speaking to him and says, "dude what is she saying to me?" Hahaha and I laughed so hard!! I have said that so many times to my other companions but now I am so used to all the other accents that I understand them perfectly and it was just funny:) so I am not very used to the Mexican accent actually and it's very easy to pick out for the most part. So some things that have happened since he has been here is I crashed twice on my bike, I don't think I told you about the first one. It was really cold one night and we woke up to a bunch of ice on the roads. And we had an appointment at 10 am so the ice was still there when we were out. So I was just going and all of a sudden my tires flew out from under me and I slid with my bike for like 20 feet on ice and it was awesome. Also we have been doing tons of work with inactives and have found a couple of families that the elders didn't know about but the members do so we are working with them now:) and ya... It's all going well:)
-Elder Jones
Alright so here is some more about me cuz I know that's all you wanna hear:) So my companion right now as of two weeks is named Elder Vandenhazel. We get along fine and I don't mind him. He went to the Provo MTC because his Spanish was supposedly "advanced". He is my first non-native companion right? And apparently down in Blue Island (his previous and only other area in the mission) they had a very high Mexican population. Mostly from like two different cities that he knew super well. Well here in our ward, and in my last ward as well, we don't have very many Mexicans at all. Like they are there and stuff but we have tons of people from all over South America and they speak differently than the Mexican dialect. So we are in one of our first lessons when he got here with this super old lady that we call Abuelita who is from Peru. And she speaks very... Peruano :) haha so like halfway through our time there he looks at me while she is speaking to him and says, "dude what is she saying to me?" Hahaha and I laughed so hard!! I have said that so many times to my other companions but now I am so used to all the other accents that I understand them perfectly and it was just funny:) so I am not very used to the Mexican accent actually and it's very easy to pick out for the most part. So some things that have happened since he has been here is I crashed twice on my bike, I don't think I told you about the first one. It was really cold one night and we woke up to a bunch of ice on the roads. And we had an appointment at 10 am so the ice was still there when we were out. So I was just going and all of a sudden my tires flew out from under me and I slid with my bike for like 20 feet on ice and it was awesome. Also we have been doing tons of work with inactives and have found a couple of families that the elders didn't know about but the members do so we are working with them now:) and ya... It's all going well:)
-Elder Jones
April 11, 2016
That is great that you guys are doing missionary work in the neighborhood. I can't wait until Kalen goes home so he can show you guys how good he is at it now. I still am not very good at being a missionary but I'm learning more and more! Every companion I get helps me be better at teaching... Man I really still am terrible at teaching though. I forget like the biggest parts of every single lesson. And I get way flustered so I talk fast and who knows if they can understand a white kid throwing words at them, but I have fun wherever I go:) Conference was great! Did I tell you I got a new companion. So his name is Elder Vandenhazel. He is actually younger than I am. His birthday is in June and he came out at the exact same time I did. He went to the Provo MTC instead of Mexico. He is from Salt Lake. We don't have any pictures together yet and my iPad still it terrible with memory so I can't take any but if we do sometime today, cuz we are going downtown with Elder Peralta, and if I can upload them I will send them to you:) Oh and I crashed on my bike today...
So let's see how good you are at understanding my story in spanish?
Qué pasa mama? :) quería decirte una cuenta cuando yo estaba en mi última área. Fui con mi compañero a la mall en pday para comprar algunas cosas. Y en esa experiencia encontramos este muchacho que nos reconoció. Entonces yo pare para hablar acerca de algo que él quiere. Primero nos dijo que su nombre era "Rooster!" Y dijo eso con fuerza. Era chistoso porque sabía que no estaba usando drogas el, pero estaba en la forma de si. Y nos dijo muchas cosas sobre las eternidades y como espacio es en actualidad un oyó negro) y cosas locas así. Fue muy raro pero aprendí que algunas personas son locas aún que aparecen muy normal.
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