Elder Kevin Jones: It's a Christmas Miracle! - week 72, 70 weeks in Phoenix Mission, 22 weeks in Glendale

It's a Christmas Miracle! -

Week 72, 70 weeks in Phoenix Mission, 22 weeks in Glendale

Dear friends and family,

Merry Christmas! I hope all of your Christmases were spectacular. I
had a great time seeing family and friends on Skype. Lots of fun
things happened this week.

Christmas
Let's just get this one out of the way...we had a great Christmas Eve
and Christmas! Both days were non-proselyting days. Christmas Eve was
spent hanging out most of the day. President Griffin told us we needed
to deep clean our apartment again to make it less disgusting. He
wasn't saying it was super dirty, it is just a gross apartment. So
that's how we spent the morning! Our district came over and we cleaned
the place from the ceiling to the floor. Then we hung out and played
board games. We had dinner with the Barton's! Their whole family was
sick with a stomach bug, but we risked it and went over there. No
sicknesses yet. I think we may have survived. That night our
downstairs neighbor was going ballistic because we were being too loud
I guess. If we even moved a chair he would bang on his ceiling and
yell at the top of his lungs. Bro, you're being louder than us! We
just opened all of our Christmas packages Christmas Eve night.
Christmas Day was great too. We spent most of the day with our whole
zone hanging out at the institute building. This skype call has been
the best so far. We had dinner with Javier and went home and hung out
for the rest of the night. Exciting right?

Weather
It has been pretty chilly for Phoenix! Everywhere I go, I hear people
complaining about how cold it is. Myself included... Temperatures have
been in the high 50's. You'd think that we had 2 feet of snow here by
how much people talk about how cold it is.

Baptism
The day after Christmas I was able to go back to Peoria to see Leah, a
girl I taught while there, be baptized. It's crazy to think that 10
months ago Elder Flynn and I had our first lesson with her. She was so
excited to be baptized, but her mom remained skeptical for quite some
time. After showing her commitment by attending church and institute
at college, her mom lightened up and supported her being baptized. It
was awesome to see everyone again and to witness the miracle of her
being baptized.

Investigators
Even though there was a lot of down time this week, we still taught
quite a few lessons. Lucilia is set to be baptized in a couple weeks.
She turned 9 recently so she was switched to our jurisdiction. She is
so excited! Rusty and Liz are still going strong, waiting on Rusty's
baptism approval from headquarters.

Special gift
I normally don't talk a lot about gifts I receive, but I did receive a
very, very special gift this Christmas from my family and loved ones.
A little while ago, my mother asked me to put together a list of the
12 most influential men in my life. I thought about it, and I came up
with the list. I didn't think much more about it until I opened my
Christmas package from home this week. Inside were 14 envelopes and 14
little boxes. (They got 14 instead of 12) Each envelope contained a
letter from one of the most influential men in my life, and a tie from
each of them. I have, since then, enjoyed wearing one of those ties
every day. I am so blessed to have such wonderful people in my life.
Thank you to anyone who may have contributed to the gift.

Gospel Principles
Elder Fernandez and I taught Gospel Principles and I got to share my
experience of the Joplin tornado with the class. We talked about how
the Lord protects us, and how we can better follow the Spirit. It was
a good class with lots of participation. I'm glad I've learned how to
teach on the fly, because we got a 30-minute notice that we were
teaching. Yay for the Spirit!

That was my week. Thanks for all of your prayers and support. Have a
very happy New Year! May you all make resolutions to change and be
better.

Much love,

Elder Jones
Black Canyon Ward
Arizona Phoenix Mission