His Hands

Привет! 

I hope you all had a good week this week:) ALSO I forgot to mention last week that last Monday was my 6 month mark in Russia! I can't believe I've already lived here for half a year. Time is flying!

Starting this week, I finally have three normal weeks (aka weeks without traveling halfway across Russia:)) This past week, however, was not a normal week. Although, maybe it's more normal to have a abnormal week than it is to have a normal one?

Zone Conference was this week! We have zone conference in Irkutsk, which is an 8 hour train ride away from Ulan-Ude. We left Wednesday night, and spent Thursday and Friday in Irkutsk with the STL's (sister training leaders). Thursday, we had exchanges. Pretty much, that just means that I spent a day with one STL and Sister Bybee went with the other one. My companion for the day was Sister Blanchard and she's super cool! Turns out, she also went to BYU and actually stayed in the same dorm building as I did... but we didn't know each other. Funny how we lived so close to each other at school, but we had to come all the way to Siberia to actually meet. I specifically wanted to talk about a meeting we had together. We visited a woman named Юлия (Yulia). She is a mother of two little kids. Both her and her husband are members of the church, but neither of them are active. Her husband is not so much interested in the church thing anymore. He refuses to even do so much as to try to read the Book of Mormon or pray. Юлия is pretty sad about that, it seems. She misses the church, but she doesn't know how to go by herself. I think she feels uncomfortable with trying to take her kids to church or going to church in general without her husband there. On this particular day, her husband was at work, so we were able to talk to Юлия one on one (or I guess two on one, haha). She opened up a lot about her situation, about her family and about her feelings. She just seems really stuck right now. She is frustrated, and doesn't really know what to do. As she was talking, I found myself answering her. There were things that I was thinking that all the sudden just started coming out of my mouth. I was trying to help her talk through her problems without belittling her feelings. She has a lot going on right now, and I don't really understand how it all feels. That was why it was really cool that I could answer her, because I knew it wasn't me. I know that God was using me to help comfort His daughter.

There was another cool experience that Sister Bybee and I had together back home in Ulan-Ude. We met with this cute lady named Olga. She is a pretty poor lady, and her husband and son have both passed away. She wanted us to come over, give a spiritual thought, and help her pick berries so she could make jam. Side note: the most Russian things that I can think of are picking berries, and snow. Anyways, we went over and started to give our spiritual thought. We asked her about how she has seen God in her life, and she just went OFF for about 15-20 minutes. She talked about God a lot, but also about things that were on her mind. She was having a bad day. There was a lot going wrong with her house and her health. We didn't end up picking berries that day because it started raining, but we knew that we were exactly where we needed to be. Afterwards, Olga kept telling us how good we are and how much she needed to just talk. 

God loves all of His children. I feel like the longer that I'm on my mission, the more evidence I see of this. God is aware of us. He cares about our problems, even the small ones just like how a parent cares about the problems of his/her four year old. He cares, He listens, and He will give us help when we truly need it.

I love you all! Thanks for reading my jumble of thoughts from this week:)

Sister Jones

MiRaCLeS!!

Hello hello my wonderful friends!!

Where do I start with this week? Things are going so wonderfully. I am here with Sister Bybee, my new companion, and she's really great. We are already having a ton of success together!

I'll start off with game night. We had a lady come in with her daughter that tried to come to our English nights (when we still had them) back in December, but it never worked out. She came to game night, and started asking a ton of questions about the church. Very good questions too, about what we believe and different things she's heard about. It was very cool to see the spirit touch her. You could see in her eyes that she was feeling something she had never felt before. She wants to learn more! She couldn't come to church this week, but she's planning on coming next week, and we're very excited!

Another cool thing that happened this week was during finding. We were going home one night, and we walked past this girl on her phone. Sister Bybee turns around, runs across the street, and taps the girl on the shoulder. Turns out, they knew eachother from when Sister Bybee was here. She wanted to take the lessons, but her mom said no and she was only 17 at the time. BUT this month she turns 18, and we found her again. How cool?? It's really amazing to see God's hand at work in the lives of the people here.

I hope you all have an amazing week this week! Thanks for tuning in this week;) (sorry it was short again lol, short and sweet right?)

Sister Jones

I Was Homeless One Time

Привет from an exhausted Russian volunteer!

This week was crazyyyy and I say that a lot but this week really WAS crazy. This is also why I am emailing today instead of yesterday. Now I will explain to you all the crazy story of transfer week.

Sister Staiger and I left Ulan-Ude on Wednesday. We got into Irkutsk and stayed with the sisters there for a day. We played volleyball with some friends and it was super fun! Then, I left for Vladivostok on Thursday night. We were planning on taking a flight from Vlad to Korea, and then come back. We had a 4 hour layover in Vlad so it was all going to be fine.... WAS going to be fine. There was a TON of fog in Irkutsk, and I sat on the plane for 2 hours after it was already delayed for an hour coming in. Fast forward the 3 hour plane ride, I get into the airport, run out, look at the flight board, and the checkin was already closed. SO Sister Maccabee (who I was supposed to go to Korea with) and I ended up staying in Vlad for 2 days with Sister Brockbank and Sister Kofford (shoutout to Sister Kofford's mom! She's doing really great:)). I actually really needed that, just because I missed Vlad so much! Blessings in disguise.

We finally end up in Korea at 11 pm on Saturday night and had to stay there for 13 hours. The first thing we did in the airport was ask this random guy (that looked American) where Jamba Juice was because... well, Jamba Juice was the only good thing in my life at the moment. Turns out, he didn't know where Jamba Juice was and he didn't speak English. He was from Russia, and was trying to get home to Vladivostok but he missed his flight and wasn't able to get a new ticket home because he really didn't speak English. We helped this guy for 9 HOURS get a flight home and translate everything. I ran through the entire Seoul airport, and I only slept one hour so I went almost 4 days without sleeping/without a home. But, it was actually a big miracle for this guy, and he got home safely (eventually). All I can say, is that even though this weekend was a pain and I am still super super tired, God knew what He was doing, and it was really cool to see a lot of the blessings that came from it.

I hope that the rest of you all had a normal, restfilled week this week. If not, I can relate. Remember to look for the blessings! I promise that they are always there if you look for them.

с любовью,

Sister Jones

Pictures:

Bunch of pictures from my visit to Vlad this week:) I AM SO TIRED. ok bye:)

Weltschmerz

Привет всем!

This week was the last week of my 4th transfer. A transfer is 6 weeks, and I only have 12 of them... so I'm about a third done. So far to go, but I can't believe I've already been out that long! I still absolutely love it here:)

One of the best days that we had this week was Saturday. The mission president, President Lamb, and his wife were in town to visit our branch, and they came with me and Sister Staiger on our lessons. We had two lessons on Saturday, one with Sister Nina and the other with Sister Larica. 

Sister Nina lives kinda in the country in a little wooden house that is really only one room. She also happens to make the best piroshki (little stuffed bread things) ever! She has a granddaughter who lives with her, Ksusha, who is super cute and happy. We talked with them about the Holy Ghost and how the Holy Ghost guides us to do good. With Sister Larica, we talked about the Elder Uchtdorf talk from October 2018, "Believe, Love, Do" (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2018/10/believe-love-do?lang=eng). Specifically, we talked about Weltschmerz.

"There is a word in German, Weltschmerz. Loosely defined, it means a sadness that comes from brooding about how the world is inferior to how we think it ought to be.

Perhaps there is a little Weltschmerz in all of us.

When silent sorrows creep into the corners of our lives. When sadness saturates our days and casts deep shadows over our nights. When tragedy and injustice enter the world around us, including in the lives of those we love. When we journey through our own personal and lonely path of misfortune, and pain darkens our stillness and breaches our tranquility—we might be tempted to agree with Solomon that life is vain and devoid of meaning.

The good news is, there is hope. There is a solution to the emptiness, vanity, and Weltschmerz of life. There is a solution to even the deepest hopelessness and discouragement you might feel.

This hope is found in the transformative power of the gospel of Jesus Christ and in the Savior’s redemptive power to heal us of our soul-sickness.

“I am come,” Jesus declared, “that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”4"

Life gets us all down sometimes. That's why there's a word for it in German. But we don't have to live our lives in a gloomy haze. There is hope, and you can find it.

I'm sorry for the shorter email this week, but I love you all and I hope that this week is wonderful!

Love,

Sister Jones

Pictures:

1. My desk:)

2. Me and Sister Bybee and our ukes!

3. Khabarovsk<3