Elder Kevin Jones: "Joneswood & Flynntennial" 3rd P Day in Peoria 26th P day

Hello, friends and family!

I hope you all have had a wonderful week! I know I sure have. I'm
enjoying my time here in Peoria! It's much quieter and peaceful....but
it still has some of the chaos of Phoenix. Peoria is like Webb City to
Joplin. Kind of.... To explain the title of this email: We cover the
Oakwood and Centennial wards in this area, so our zone leaders came up
with "Joneswood and Flynntennial". I think it was pretty clever. Then
again, I love puns. I'll stop boring you. Here was my week! Enjoy! :)

Monday: P-day. It was my first pday in this area. We did the normal
things, though. The only different thing was having to get a ride from
our zone leaders because we don't have a car. It's weird not being
able to just go ask Sister Simon when we need a ride! Haha. We were
super spoiled there. Anyway, after shopping we biked up to get a
haircut and we got one at this legit barber shop. I am pretty sure the
guy who cut my hair was either French or Russian and he kept talking
to me in his language. It's like, dude, I don't speak your language
just chill haha. His name was Ed. He did a great job, though. Elder
Flynn had a gift card to Burger King so we ate there for lunch. After
pday we went to a less-active/recent convert's house named Chris. She
has had trouble praying recently, so we've been helping her with that.
This visit was mostly to introduce her to the new missionary and she
gave us cake and ice cream. And soda. And lots of other things that we
probably don't need haha. I swear they have a clock on every inch of
wall in that massive house. The ticking would drive me insane. Pretty
good day, though!
Temp: 79°F

Tuesday: It was a very great day! HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAM! :) Not much
happened in the morning, but it was a successful evening. We got a new
investigator! Her name is Leah and she's the girlfriend of a member of
the priests quorum. She is a senior in high school. None of her family
is religious, but she has been for a while. She really wants to know
what church is true and her boyfriend's family set us up! We taught
her the Restoration and she really liked it. She has tons of
questions, which is great. It means she sincerely wants to know, not
just follow her boyfriend. She has been coming to church every week
for about a month! We have another lesson this week with her. She's
great!
Temp: 77°F

Wednesday: Pretty normal day. Study, lunch, finding, dinner, and then
a lesson. We taught Darin, who has been investigating the Church for a
while now. Pretty sure it's been for about 4ish years. He's had some
drug problems but is working to overcome them. He has great fellowship
from the Ward; someone stops by like every other day to check on him
and see how he's doing. He wants us to re-teach the lessons again so
that's what we're doing. He really likes to talk, so we only got half
of the lesson done. That's okay, though. Bonding time is good for him,
I guess. Haha.
Temp: 82°F

Thursday: Another great day!! I'm really enjoying being here with
Elder Flynn. He's the man. We weekly planned most of the day until
dinner, then we had interviews with President Griffin. Elder Flynn and
I are the zone tech specialists, so he talked to us a little bit about
the new iPads. I'm super excited because my iPad is a wreck. The
screen is cracked everywhere and pieces of the screen are falling out
hahaha. Thank goodness we're getting new devices.... He told us that
we will be having an all-mission conference March 3rd, so that's when
we'll be getting our new iPads-most likely. We then had separate
interviews and I love that guy! President Griffin is so cool. He's
very encouraging. That night we got a new investigator! Her name is
Megan, and she's 20. Her boyfriend just got baptized in Tempe, and we
believe she was taught a little bit over there with her boyfriend. The
only problem is that we think hey taught her in Spanish...haha. That's
what the referral said. Anyway, we taught her the Restoration and she
accepted it well. Invited her to church and baptism and she accepted
both! She's really solid. She's been reading the Book of Mormon too
which is essential.
Temp: 79°F

Friday: We had district meeting. Our district leader, Elder Canny, is
super awesome. In case you forgot, he's from Norway so he has a pretty
sweet accent. He's a Spanish-speaking missionary so it's like a mix
between Spanish and Norwegian. :P We had a lesson with a newer
investigator from the Centennial Ward, Brittney. We taught the rest of
the Restoration and committed her to be baptized on March 211! She is
super great. She's probably in her mid to late 50s, and wants a change
after being catholic all of her life. She saw the change the Gospel
made in her son who was just baptized about a year ago. She said she
knows the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith is and was a
true prophet. It was awesome; I've never felt the Spirit that much in
a lesson. Oh, and she gave us cheesecake to take home. :)
Temp: 80°F

Saturday: Pretty dull day. We helped clean the church building in the
morning, but that's about it. One funny thing did happen, though. We
were out biking and this guy was pulling out of a parking lot and sped
up and almost hit Elder Flynn. We slammed on our brakes and so did he,
then he leaned out the window and rudely said, "Calm down, I want
going to hit you." Yeah, that's why you sped up. Man, Christlike love
is hard sometimes. I have discovered that "bike rage" is way more real
than "road rage" haha.
Temp: 79°F

Sunday: What a wonderful day. Pedro and Leah came to church and sat
down pretty early, but we were sad because we didn't see Megan. I
turned to Elder Flynn and said, "Dang, no Megan." And right when I
said that she walked in! One minute to spare! Haha. She loved church
and got fellowshipped really well from the relief society. We actually
set up her next lesson to be in the home of a member she met today.
Pretty cool! It was her first time ever being at a church service and
she loved it. Leah stopped us after church and said that they talked
about the Plan of Salvation in young women's class, and said she had
some questions. It was perfect because that's the next lesson we're
teaching her! It was fast Sundayy so we took a nap for our lunch hour.
We studied a bit and headed to dinner. We had some kick-butt jalapeño
stuffed burgers straight off the grill. Man, best fast-breaking meal
ever! We taught Chris again tonight. She gave us some Oreos :) oh, and
Elder Flynn broke our toilet seat.....hahahaha

That was my week! We have a dinner appointment tonight, so I will
probably have to be done emailing by 4:300 rather than 6. Pictures are
on the way! I love you all and if you need my address to send mail,
just email me and ask for it or ask my mom!

Much love,

Elder Jones