months of service there. I will seriously miss all of the people I
worked with and, of course, Elder Shurtleff. However, I am very
excited for my next journey here in Peoria. Let me just tell
you....it's beautiful here. It's half city, half rural and it reminds
me a ton of home. Some of the roads we bike on remind me of the roads
in Oronogo: narrow. Here was my week!:
Monday: it was a Monday work day. Those are always rough! I actually
did my laundry today because I was pretty sure I was getting
transferred. Not much happened during the day, but we did end up going
to Jack in the Box for lunch. It was my first time eating there and it
was pretty good! It was pretty warm for February...I honestly keep
forgetting it's winter. We taught Eliza the Restoration with Jenga
blocks. It was pretty fun!! They had homemade pizza and asparagus and
gave some to us. It was a blast! I love teaching Eliza and her family.
Temp: 83°F
Tuesday: P-Day. I got word that I am transferring out of my first
area. The members in Shaw Butte and Moon Mountain because my family so
it was pretty hard leaving them. It felt like just yesterday that I
was walking into Sister Simon's front door for the first time. It's
already been six months—crazy. We had two lessons tonight and they
both went alright. An investigator accepted a baptismal invite which
was cool. Too bad I won't be there to finish teaching him, but I
really enjoyed the time I had to teach him. Packing is stupid so it
was good to get that out of the way. I apologize again for the short
letter last week; I packed until like 6pm. Then we had to go out.
Temp: 81°F
Wednesday: I got transferred! I am now with Elder Flynn in Peoria, AZ.
He came out with me so it's pretty cool to be with a companion who is
learning too. We will definitely learn together. I got assigned to be
senior companion so that will definitely be a new experience. Elder
Flynn was with his trainer for four transfer periods (all 6 months) so
that's new. I'm his first companion that isn his trainer! We cover the
Centennial and Oakwood wards. Our area is just about as big as my last
area and we're on bikes still. I like being on bikes...especially with
this weather. I got to see Elder Jeong at the transfer meeting which
was AWESOME! Oh, and if you heard about that big Tongan guy who came
in to our mission, yeah. He's in my zone. He's a gentle giant. He's
6'7", 410 lbs and his trainer is about my size. At the meeting he
introduced him like: "This is my new bodyguard..." Haha. My new
companion is awesome! Love the guy already. We live with members, but
not quite like Sister Simon. We live in a renovated garage and it
smells kinda weird...haha. Don't let the word "renovated" make you
think it's nice—it's not very nice. But it works and it's gonna do!
Plus, this is my first time actually having to budget my money because
there isn't all the extra food from Sister Simon. ;) haha. We biked
around and I met some of the auxiliary leaders from both wards. We had
coordination meeting for Oakwood. They're some pretty great members!
Temp: 79°F
Thursday: Weekly planning! It was interesting kind-of leading the
planning session since I'm senior companion. I don't really know what
I'm doing but it went well. We planned for upcoming lessons and stuff.
The area book is kind of a mess, so we were thinking of ways to clean
it up. Their finding hasn't been very productive so we were thinking
of ways to make it more productive. Both wards are pretty slow
regarding current work, but it's about to pick up. And I'm in a very
wealthy part of Peoria, so that's nice! Almost every house is big.
It's awesome! We visited some more auxiliary leaders tonight and the
RS president of the Centennial Ward gave us a box of Thin Mints Girl
Scout cookies! The Holy Ghost totally prompted us to go there. Haha!
;) today marked my six-month mark! Crazy, I know.
Temp: 79°F
Friday: We had district meeting. Our district leader is a
Spanish-speaking Elder named Elder Canny. He's from Norway! His voice
is pretty cool. He's really tall.... His companion, Elder Rodriguez,
came out with me too. The other elders in my district are young too. A
missionary who came out a transfer after me, and his companion who is
in training. Met the bishop of the Centennial Ward and he gave us a
lot of people to go visit.
Temp: 81°F
Saturday: We spent the morning geocoding our area. I mentioned before
that the area book was a wreck. So. I just applied the same method
that my last area was geocoded. For example, in my last area, we split
up the wards into sub-areas. For shaw butte, we did: SB0, SB1..etc. So
for this area we split up the wards into CT0-4, and OW0-3. It's worked
really well so far and have made finding way more productive. We went
out and taught a lady in Centennial Ward who is recently interested
after her son just got baptized into the YSA Ward. We taught her and
she's really receptive. Her name is Brittney and she's from Belize.
I've never felt the Spirit so strongly in a lesson. The words just
came out of mine and Elder Flynn's mouths and they touched her heart.
She is reading the Book of Mormon and is very solid. It's the first
new investigator in centennial Ward in like 8 months. Crazy. It was
kind of funny because she gave us dates (the fruit) as we were leaving
and I HAD TO SAY IT: "We aren't allowed to date...." Hahahaha. We took
them anyway. They're pretty good, actually...
Temp: 82°F
Sunday: It was my first Sunday in the new wards! The Centennial Ward
is HUGE. They fill the front and the overflow. I got to meet Pedro,
who is an investigator. He's 18, a senior in high school, and is
dating one of the laurels. He's really awesome. He actually taught
priests quorum this Sunday...haha. We're waiting on his dad to soften
his heart and let him get baptized. He doesn't want to do it without
having the support from his dad. We also got to meet Leah, a 17
year-old girl who is dating one of the priests. She's interested too
so that's awesome!! We have a lesson with her and her boyfriend's
family Tuesday at their house. Her boyfriend's family is active. She
was at church! After church we went to meet a referral that we just
got and her name is Megan. She's 20 and her boyfriend just got
baptized in the Spanish Ward. She doesn't know Spanish so she wants to
come to our Ward. We set up a time to go teach her so that's awesome!
Two possible new investigators right there!!! Apparently this is super
good for these two wards so I'm excited.
So yeah, this area is awesome. It's slow just like my last area but I
love it. The members and investigators are awesome. I look forward to
my new journey! My address is safe to mail packages and letters to. My
mailing address is:
Elder Kevin Jones
7535 W. Banff Ln
Peoria, AZ 85381
I love you all! Have a wonderful week, pictures are on the way.
Sincerely,
Elder Jones
Oh, I forgot to mention, Elder Flynn and I are
the zone tech specialists.
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| Elder Jones packed and ready to move to Peoria! |
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| Elder Jones, Elder Shurtleff, and a priest from their ward |
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| Elder Jones and Sis Simon before he leaves |
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| Look who Elder Jones sees at the transfer meeting! Elder Jeong! |
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| Elder Flynn, Elder Jones new companion |
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| The kitchen in the apartment in Peoria |
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| Elder Flynn in action! |
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| Elder Jones Selfie! |
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| Old ward name |
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| Hard at work... notice the orange tree in the background. I gotta ask about that! |
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| Making an appointment I am sure, but check out those diamond studs on the sunglasses. I'm not sure they are mission approved! |
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| Favorite Restaurant!! |
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