Pictures!

We HaVe FrIeNdS

Hello hello everyone!

I still love it here. This week, we placed 3 loaves of zucchini bread and 1 Book of Mormon!!!!!! (half reference to the Best Two Years) 

I'll start with the Book of Mormon story. So, a few weeks ago, we ran into this cute girl that Sister Bybee met when she was serving here like a year ago. Her name is Lada and she is 17. She's very spunky and full of energy! She has a bit of a hard life. Her mom left her with her 12 year old sister and 4 month old sister for 6 months while she works in Moscow. She is also very addicted to smoking, and she started smoking when she was 7 years old. We met with her to make snickerdoodles on Sunday night, and she smoked 3 cigarettes in the hour we were with her. She doesn't think that she is a very good person, but Sister Bybee and I agree that she is a good kid. Since we can't have people in our apartment, we made the cookies at the church. She was pretty interested in getting "the grand tour", so we showed her around it. She believes in God, and she's read the Bible, so at the end of our meeting with her, we said "Here, we want to give you this book". She said "really? ok, thanks!". And then she took it and said she would read it! We'll see, but it was exciting anyways:)

This week, we met with an English teacher, and let me just tell you, I am so glad English is my first language. OUR LANGUAGE MAKES NO SENSE. But Bayarma (the English teacher) speaks English very well, and she wanted to practice with us. We just drank hot chocolate at a cafe. We showed her our pictures, and talked about everything about our lives. She was very interested in us, and specifically in church. She thought it was very interesting how much we think about our future (jobs, families, etc) forbeing so young, and we explained to her that families are a central part of our religion. We talked for a while, and she told us a little about herself. She has a son that is our age, and she says she's really far from religion right now. But she wants to talk with us again! Even if nothing comes of it, it's really cool to share what we believe and how it's blessed our lives.

We also had zone conference this week, and I have some WAY pretty pictures of the sunrise from the train:) Zone conference was wonderful as always. One thing that stood out to me was how we need to be bold. This gospel is something that has blessed my life in every single aspect, and that is something that I've especially realized while being a volunteer here. I have literally seen miracles, and they are all around us if we look for them. This is something that I want to share with other people. That is why I am currently writing this email in the middle of Siberia. The gospel of Jesus Christ is special, and I know it changes lives.

I love you all! I hope you had a wonderful week:)))

с любовью,

Сестра Джонз

Pictures:

Tea (чай), Irkutsk(where we have zone conference), a Stalin wall, and two of our Elders on a tramvay(it's like trax in utah).

Lady Friends (Don't Worry, I'll Explain)

Hello everyone:)))

This week was a pretty good week but EVERYONE was busy:( School started last week and all of our friends are in school or university.. soooo Sister Bybee decided we need new "lady friends" aka friends who are NOt in school or university. This ended up working out fairly well for us. On Thursday, no one could/wanted to meet with us (which I don't understand, I personally think we're all that and a bag of chips but whatever). So, we went and walked around and talk to people for guess how long? 6 HOURS. And guess how many conversations we had, not PEOPLE, but conversations? 50. I think we set a record! We met a ton of interesting people.... There was a group of 18 year old boys (who I thought were 14 haha) that photobombed all of our pictures, although that was actually pretty funny. We also talked to a cute bab who didn't speak any English, but for some reason she randomly said "money money" in the middle of our conversation. I love babs. We also talked to another bab who was 80 years old and she was the cutest! Her and her husband were just sitting in a park and they talked to us for 15-20 minutes about life. There was another lady who congratulated us on being American's, lol. We made a few new friends that day, so overall it was pretty productive. I did learn a lot on Thursday. A lady told us that morning that we were lazy. She said "What are you even doing? You're here as volunteers, but you've been walking around all day. What have you got to show for it? You're doing nothing.". We ended that day in the home of a 9 year old recent convert and her grandmother. At the end of our lesson, the grandma turned to us and said "Sisters, you are doing a marvelous work here.".  The contrast is really interesting. It reminded me of how the world sees us and how God sees us. The world sometimes tells us that we aren't worth much. There is always someone better than you, and you will never measure up. That real love isn't real. That people like you, and then don't like you. But God loves us. He knows what we do when no ones watching. He knew how many appointments Sister Bybee and I tried to set up on Thursday and how many places we went trying to do service. He knows that we are worth more than we could ever know. That is one thing that I've been trying to do since coming on my mission, trusting in the Lord and remembering that what He thinks is more important than what the world thinks.

Back to some fun stuff we did this week: we made brownies! Well, we tried to make brownies. We have a really cute friend named Dasha that we met with after school one day. She thinks we're super cool, and so we invited her to the church to make brownies. We put it in a pie tin and the depth combined with the fact that we were cooking it in a oven that doesn't cook that well made it kinda into a chocolate lava cake type thing. She loved it though! We got to show her pictures from home and talk about her family. It was a really good day. We love Dasha:)

Last but not least, we had District Conference this week! District Conference is just when the the branch here and the branch in a different city (Irkutsk) get together and have a big meeting. It was sooo gooooooodd!! President Lamb gave the best talk ever on families and why they are important. He talked about how to strengthen marriages and families, and how to build them on love, prayer, and trust. Some of the strongest members here bore their testimonies too, and it was really powerful. Everyone here was a convert and some point, and their faith is really amazing and special.

That was my week this week! Also it's already cold and I'm sad. 

I love you all!

Sister Jones

Pictures:

-Sister Bybee's painting of Baikal

-A balalaika (Russian instrument

-Me bc I love Ulan Ude!!!

Real Live AMERICANS???

Happy September from a real live American!

So this week was really great:) We have a new investigator!! One of the teenagers in the branch invited his friend to church, who brought his mom, Alyona. Alyona came to church for the past couple of weeks, but this week, she told us she wanted to start taking the lessons! We told her a little bit about the Book of Mormon, and it was super cool!

Now onto the story behind my subject line. We met a way cute lady on the street who could NOT believe we were Americans. She like touched us and everything, like "you're American??". Anyways, she also thought it was cool that we were from a church because she loves church. Her oldest daughter passed away a while ago, but before she did, she had a major head operation and had a dream where she saw Jesus, so now her whole family is believing. She even named one of her daughters Kristina after Christ. They were pretty interested in our church, so they may come to our Family Night! We'll see!

We also went to our friend Alyosha's house to meet his mom and grandma, and they thought we were the coolest people on the face of the Earth! They also couldn't believe that we are real live Americans. They kept going on and on about how beautiful and talented and cool we are (we brought them zucchini bread and our ukuleles, so it's understandable;)). That was a super fun meeting, and it looks like we're friends now! Also, the grandma thought that we were a cult before, but I think we charmed her:) (for those of you that are wondering, we are NOT a cult, and we do NOT have horns. If you want, you can look at my dad's head for proof. He's bald.)

So, I mentioned that we have a new investigator, but we also have two half investigators right now. Delara, who showed up to game night a few weeks ago and is way interested in the church, came to game night again. She and her daughter were really excited about our family night that's happening this week, and we met another lady this week who we gave an impromptu first lesson to! I just wanted to say that miracles are real. I have seen so many miracles since being here, and it's way cool to see God's hand so prominently in my life. 

I love you all! Have a good week:)

с любовью,

Sister Jones

1. Our names for bowling ahahha!

2. me and food:)

3. cute man playing the accordian

4. bowling shoes

5. my face!

6. us with a statue!