sometimes we ride in tricycles.... it looks like this!!

 tiny lil windows to see where you're at

 my awesome comp deep in thought ;)

lil side shot of our driver

And then there was ONE...

This week was weird. we had ert which officially stands for... emergency rat trigger? jk jk i have no idea. but it was all about jobs and they called us by our first names all day aka it was super weird. 

We also did a service project! where we literally walked down the street and swept. that's all! but it was pretty effective because we made the street clean and everyone and their mom saw us and wanted to know what we were doing and who we were and why they had a white person sweeping with them!!!!! (i was the only white person and it was waaaaay awkward.) 

But the best part of the week was most definitely church. it was my last real week here in the mission because next Sunday is stake conference. I spoke so that was fun but we finally had investigators come to church!!!! first time since i've been in this area....... 

we had liza there with her husband who we haven't even taught yet and their kids!!!! in case you didn't notice, that's a whole family!!!!!! best thing ever! 

Nope that's a lie, it gets better!

our less active, evelyn was there and her husband (ok live-in but we'll get them married) came too!!!!! he has never shown any interest in coming, in fact he is the reason she can't come a lot of the time. we taught her last week and he was chilling right outside the door, totes listening. and then he was just like i want to change my life. how do i do it? and he called her dad (who i think is a bishop in another ward) and he was like go to church with evelyn!! and listen to the missionaries!! so he did!!!! and at the end he was like i'll be coming with evelyn every week! and he's going to start playing basketball with the ward which means he will have good friends!!! soooo great. 

Most definitely a miracle. if not many. 

so yeah. things are good. this week is my last of everything!! which is way too much fun and im totes messing with my comp all the time. she's a champ :)

Have a great week!! see you in  America!!!!!

-sister jones

pictures!!
family we started teaching, Hernandez

 just walking down the road at golden hour... nbd.

Second to Last!! And the unexpected.

Second to last. i'll try to make it count ;)

This week was unexpected! i unexpectedly got sick and then unexpectedly got better pretty fast!

also unexpected! the festivities that went down the whole week for Holy week!!! i felt like it was just building and building and expected Easter Sunday to be crazy but then..... pretty much nothing happened. I was a lil disappointed.

It was interesting to see how much we have lost as a society in our celebration of Easter. In america i feel like it has too much commercial focus with the Easter Bunny and new clothes and the like but even here, with none of that, the focus was on buying palms and having the priest bless them, and walking the streets behind huge float like processions carrying statues of Christ and Mary and other unidentifiable figures. Also people here walk the streets carrying crosses and then the really extreme ones whip themselves and the really really extreme ones crucify themselves. they said it is for their repentance. how sad. 

yeah sure that looks like a swimming pool 

Anyway we taught a new couple this week! we went back to teach this family that has been giving us excuses the last couple times and this time they straight up ditched us and handed us off to the "mag-asawa" [married?] lolz but it turned out to be really great! it's a new young couple (when i walked in i thought they were like 15/16..... nope, 19 and 20 pala [of course - thank you Katie:)] and they're really smart and religious so it was way fun! they asked cool questions. then at the end we were just chatting and the guy (his name is rain btw) was like i have a question. how hard really is your mission? and we were like uh. it's hard. 

But it's so worth it!!!! and then we gave the sister the Book of Mormon and she was just holding it close and her husband came back in the room and she was like how long have i wanted a bible and the sisters just gave me one! the first time they met us! she was stoked!! 

Over all great lesson and then we stood up to leave and i stood up rather quickly and just smacked my head on the bottom of their stair. soooo hard. like that was friday. i still have a bump on my head. so hard. so i like bent over and put my hand on my head and immediately i feel another hand like rubbing the back of my head and i thought it was my comp. nope! it's this rain kid!  I look at my comp and she's like wide eyed staring at the kid lookin like "hey that's my job!" so hilarious. he was there so fast!!!

Also hilarious. remember the other week with the little kid that gasped when he saw me and my comp said it was because he thought i was a fairy?? cool well we taught them last week and the mom was kinda angry the whole time.... but we still taught :) and then we came back this week and we turned the corner and the mom had the EXACT same reaction the kid had the other day. so great. straight up GASP!!!!!! but then she let us in! and she was happy! and she was willing to listen more!! baby steps. she'll come around :)

So this week we set up a special Easter fhe for our less active and investigator that live way close to a member so we thought it would be perfect! and super chill to gather them all and the member was so excited! and volunteered to feed us all :) so we invited everyone and everyone is on board and excited and then the day of we go by our less active's house to pick her up and......... she can't come. her husband didn't give her permission to go to church or this thing. and she's got fresh bruises on her face so im not pushin it. lamest thing ever. they're not even married. she needs to peace out. so we're suuuuper bummed.

But we go to our investigator to pick her up! and she's watching her grandkid! so she can't come either daw [it is said]. laaaaaaame. so we go to another less active near by just so we have someone to bring to this awesome fhe we've planned!!! and she's got a bunch of family over.... and they're all eating..... lame. 

so we walked back to this member's house empty handed. ready to bring some "new investigators" in off the streets. and we get there and the elders are already there. also empty handed. lame! fail on our part. luckily!!!!! the members were doing work!!! so they call up the part member family the elders invited and work through all their excuses and get them to come!!!! yaaaaayyy!!!! so they came. and it was great! lots of bonding and good fellowship and nourishment from the good word of God :) 

That's all folks! have a great week! im off to ERT this week which may or may not stand for..... exit rain trauma...... or emergency rat thunder.... who knows. i just know i have to go...... and we get pizza lolz 

mahal kita! [I love you]  or in my comp's sweet language: Mujhe apsay pyaar hai.[??].. something like that :)

-sister jones

Some things I will greatly miss when I leave the Philippines. Others...not so much

Some things i will greatly miss when i leave the philippines. others... not so much. you can decide for yourself which list these things fall in. 

Tricycles: wind in your hair, on a hot day of walking a loooooong road. Just sit back in a crazy tricycle and try to carry a yelling conversation with the driver about his kids and why we speak tagalog and here's a pamphlet-- we would love to come visit you and your family if you ever stop working and go home!!!!!

Surround sound: watching conference with the whole stake we were amazingly given surround sound for all the hymns!! crazy how that works! except the sound quality lessened noticeably as you moved farther away from the actual speakers........... 

Diversity: Although it is crazy to be the extreme minority as far as white people go and experience all that that entails (constant stares, random dudes ages 8-80 professing their love in hilarious english and then being suuuper surprised to responses in Tagalog....)

Our house right now consists of a sister from the Philippines, Pakistan, Australia, and America. that's about as diverse as you can get and the conversations that we get are absolutely hilarious. for example. take the word "Water." now have people from all four corners of the earth pronounce it as they would normally.... laughter will follow. guaranteed. :D

Eagerness: people are just so excited to help and do what's right!!! and people here are soooo nice. like for reals. the story Elder Holland told of flying mashed potatoes, i have been so lucky never to see even a hint of that kind of hatred. people are also super excited to hold meetings and make things happen! sometimes they're so excited and inspired from the first session of sunday general conference that they want to have a meeting right then!!! during the first talk of the second session of Sunday general conference!! ngayon nga!! lolz. wait lang friends. we're not done yet. 

English as a Second Language: throw a teaching on the front of that and you've got my minor! it's really fun to work with people in a different language... once they realize they don't have to rely on english! also exciting, my comp and i really do have to rely on english!!! which she didn't really speak before she got here on the mish.... it's always interesting what words she knows and what escapes her.... like grumpy. she's got nothing. or masungit  [rugged]    tagalog doesn't work either. hahaha so we spend some fun walks between appointments finding the common language of charades. lolz. anyway back to my first point, some people check out if they can't understand. get a whole group of people together that are way good at english buuuut throw an accent on there and it's rough and you get... chatty congregation every talk not by a native english speaker..... alas. at least they're there!

Weather: from the heat to the...hot rain! in minutes and back again!! you can always use a payong!! (umbrella) love that everyone uses an umbrella for every weather. if it's sunny we hear constantly "saan yung payong mo!!? [where's your umbrella]   mainit!! [it's hot!] " or if it's even slightly drizzling "saan yung payong mo!!!!?? [where's your umbrella -- it's rainy!]        maulan!!!" doesn't matter what the weather is. you need an umbrella. or you will get pasma  [spasm]. and you will die.

My favorite response in these situations: (if it's hot) "ayos lang! kailangan kong umitim!!!" (it's ok, i need to get tan) (if it's rainy) "ayos lang! water proof naman kami!!" (it's ok, we're water proof) both are received with great surprise every time. you want to be dark??!!!!?? you're water proof?????!?!?! crazy american!!!! lolz hey we're all a lil bit baliw. [crazy] it's all good :)

have a great week! see you in a few more!!!

-jonesy

Sisters watching General Conference @ the Malolos Stake Center  April 12, 2014
Sarah, Sister Ayub and their housemates to the right

She's a ghost, no wait, she's a fairy...and the Salamat mystery.

So, this week was great! we got to watch the general women's conference!!! and that was wonderful. hope you all caught the lil Filipino kids singing I am a Child of God!!! (but not in tagalog soooo whatevs) there are a bazillion languages here... that may or may not have been.... yeah idk. 

General Women's broadcast with Sister Ayub

Story time! we went to visit a less active the other day and we turned the corner and this lil munchkin was like at the front of the house and he had his back to us and then turned around and saw us way fast and GASPED!!! like he saw a ghost.... i guess i'm whiter than i thought..... my comp thought it was hilarious and decided that it was because he thought i was a fairy.... but she couldn't remember the english word for fairy so we spent like 15 mins trying to figure out what the heck she was talking about that had wings and was me.... so great. 

More fun! we're teaching this family with the last name of Salamat. and another family with the last name of Salamat. yes they're exactly the same. one is a less-active family, one is a investigator family. it's generally very confusing. but the other night we were headed to the investigators and this dude was riding his scooter kwan the other direction and stopped and asked if we were his friends that used to come teach? so we start talking to him and his last name is Salamat! so im thinking it's the dad of this family we're about to go to (i've never met the dad) but the family has 13 kids and lives in the same direction he was saying his house was in... i thought it was a safe assumption. so i'm like oh! yeah! we're headed to your house right now! you have like a bazillion kids right? (13 is a lot.) and he's like ummmm tama lang. (just right) im like yeah sure sparky 13 is tama lang and he's like what? i have three kids! and it's super awkward and im not really sure why... after talking through that awkwardness a lil we come to find out that these three kids he's speaking of are actually with a mistress and he's very aware of that sin and that's why he stopped listening to the missionaries dati... he was embarrassed of his whoredoms... and here i am asking about what im sure sounded to him like "hey ya been sleeping around with any more women in the neighborhood????" good move jones.  

On a more successful note! we got a new investigator this week named Nicolas! he's super old. ok not really. but he's an older man.... and we taught him for the first time and he was super open and receptive and we're just talking to him and he tells us about his family that he has no contact with and how he just feels all alone and he wants nothing more than to reconnect with his family. So sad! but we were able to show him that he's not alone and really just help him feel that God is aware of him! it was really cool! then we got to see some snakes :) (he's the caretaker of this giant beautiful house that has a bunch of snakes) cool. 

This week we get to watch general conference!!! super excited for that. we've been spending the last two weeks inviting people. hopefully someone (anyone!!!) will come. i literally cannot get more enthusiastic in my invitations.... so hopefully all of you got to watch it this weekend!! if not.... i invite you to consider your ways and repent. and watch it online!! hahaha elder bednar is so awesome. 

peace out!

-sister jones