Worlds Shortest Volunteer Email

Hello everyone!

As per usual, I am running behind on my emailing time. AHhhHHhhhhHhHHHHhhhhh. I am sorry. But I am in Novo now! Things are going great! I am still adjusting and missing Ulan Ude a little bit, but I love Novosibirsk!

This week, we had a meeting with Alina. She walked into church last Sunday (I wasn't here yet), already knew like everything about the church and wanting to become a member. What?? She is so cool! We talked with her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She is very excited for the church in general! She definitely knows and feels that it is something she wants to be a part of. The one thing she isn't one hundred percent sure about is when she wants to have the service. She wants the person who introduced her to the church to be there, but he can't come until February. We have explained to her that it will be harder to wait, and that it really isn't about who is there anyways, but it's her choice. We'll see.

We also spent quite a bit of time with her on Sunday. She came to the service of an 8 year old in the ward, and she said that she felt the spirit so strongly that she wanted to cry. We also got to go to her house and meet her grandmother who has read the Book of Mormon! I don't really know many people here yet, but things are going great here!

I love you all! I am sorry again for the short email and no pictures,... I need to figure out my life. I love you all! Have a good week!

Sister Jones

Hello :) Will You Save These Pics For Me?

WoW I love Ulan-Ude!

Приветтттт everyoneeeee!!!!!

This week was overall a really great week! But first some sad news. And happy news. I am getting transfered from the beautiful, wonderful city of Ulan-Ude:( BUT I am going to Novosibirsk Right Bank! I will be in a trio with Sister Krumperman, my first companion in Russia, and I will be finishing the training of Sister Sorenson! I am way pumped and way sad but it's going to be good!

Saturday was so ridiculously fun! It was overall an amazing day! We had a branch talent show. At the talent show, we had 9 non-members come, quite a few less active members that we hadn't seen in a while, and some of the strong branch members as well. We had a lot of good acts from a variety of people (volunteers, non-members, less actives, and strong members). As volunteers, we shared a few of our talents. We like to think we are funny, so we did a few funny skits and things that the people loved! It was a really cool experience when it felt like, after all of our seemingly unresponsive efforts, everyone just came together and was united.

Sister Bybee and I played our ukeleles, Elder Carlsson killed it on the piano, and Elder Soucek and Elder Kull thought they had no talents, so their talent was eating yogurt. They put a sheet with a hole cut out on Elder Kulls head, and Elder Soucek put his hands through and fed him the yogurt, and it was HILARIOUS! Then, we did the famous Jones family tradition (ok maybe not tradition but we did it a few times) of blowing into bottles. Our rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star was made even better by the fact that Elder Graham's note (the highest one) was wayyyy flat... no one could keep a straight face after that. SO pretty much we are hilarious and that is my talent:)

Sunday was probably one of the best church experiences of my entire life. We had our friend Nika come and Alacia as well. I sat with Nika and Sister Bybee was with Alacia. I was talking with Nika right before church started. She normally comes with her friend is Tuiana, who is a little bit less comfortable talking about church stuff, so we've been trying to play it safe with how much we say about church and stuff. However, Tuiana couldn't come to church because she was working. Nika and I were talking, and all the sudden, she turns to me and says "I watched the Book of Mormon videos", talking about the new BofM videos they have online. I said "wow that's great!", a little surprised. Then she said "I've also read the Book of Mormon. Just a little bit though. Only First Nephi and Second Nephi." I just about died. We hadn't even given her a Book of Mormon! She has been doing a lot of research on our church, and from what it seems like, she is getting all the information from the church's official website. I assume she just found the Book of Mormon online, and started reading it. I asked her if she understood what she read and she said "Most of the time. And if I don't understand, I read it again and I understand it. It's very interesting. Plus, the Book of Mormon videos helped a lot." Nika is a straight up miracle. Sacrament meeting was amazing this week. I bore my testimony, and then two members gave the best two talks I have ever heard on faith and how to build faith. After the meeting, I asked Nika what she thought. She said "I felt peace. I liked the talks. They talked from their souls." Unfortunately, after church I got really sick so I didn't get to follow up, but she is ready.

Now to Alacia. Sister Bybee talked to Alacia during church too. She loved the talks on faith and really wants to find her faith again. Sister Bybee talked with her about it and how we help people find their faith if they want to! Branch council, timely as always, started right then, so she didn't really get an answer, but Alacia was tearing up and she's looking very promising as well!

I just loved this Sunday because there were also a lot of less actives that came and all of the amazing members. I love them all so much. I am excited to come to Novo, but I am really going to miss Ulan-Ude.

I want to talk a little bit about how God answers prayers. There had been times during my service in Ulan-Ude that I felt like I wasn't doing anything, and that all my efforts weren't really yeilding any results. At church this Sunday, I felt finally like wow, I helped people here. I was able to be an instrument in God's hands, and I was finally able to see it. God answers prayers, ALWAYS, even if the timing is a little long.

I hope you all had an amazing week!!

Sister Jones

Pictures: We made the Elders Planners:)

Conference And SNOW!

Hey everyone! Remember how last week I said I was cold? Well.... take a look at my pictures this week. They feature me as my new goal in life (a Russian grandma) and a blizzard because apparently it's winter? But it's not? Please send help and lots of blankets!

This week was not as eventful as in weeks past, but we're still chugging along. We had a great game night this week! We had a lot of new friends come. It is so fun to just be around people and to have fun together:) I love the people here with all my heart.

We had a lot of fun meetings with people, we walked around a ton, it snowed, and it was a fairly good week. Wednesday was a special day because we had exchanges. Exchanges (i don't know if I've talked about this before) are when the Sister Training Leaders in our area come and go do our work with us for a day. Guess who I was with? Sister Brockbank! My second trainer/ companion from a few months ago! It was way fun to show her how far my Russian has come and to be with her again!

NOW I have finally watched most of conference.... some in English and some in Russian so we're still working on it. But I think one of my favorite talks so far was from Women's session by Reyna I. Aburto. I love her! She is just a really amazing person, and I also think it's cool that she's from Nicaragua, where my dad served his mission. Her talk was about mental and emotional health and how we can deal with it and help others deal with it. I loved her focus on the Saviour and His atoning sacrifice for each and ever one of us. Yes, it does cover sin and when we repent we can become clean from sin, but the Atonement of Jesus Christ does much more than that. As it says in 2 Nephi, men are that they might have JOY. No matter what we are dealing with in this life, Christ and His Atonement are always there for us. It is important to seek help here when we are having problems and taking advantage of modern medicine and things like that, but turning to Christ can help us find hope in a world covered in storm clouds.

I'm sorry for the short email (but maybe they're better like that... long emails get boring;)) but I hope you all had a good week and are warmer than I am currently!

Love, Sister Jones

Привет From A Cold Russian Volunteer

Helloooooooooooo I am running out of creative ways to start these emails.

This week was COLD. I am cold. Why is life cold. Darn Russia. And every time I say I'm cold, everyone's like "wait until winter!" and I'm like "you just told me it was going to snow next week! Isn't it already winter?!?" So yeah. That is my life at the moment, just in case y'all were wondering. 

Anyways, other than the fact that it's the beginning of October and I'm already freezing (but really who's surprised?), this week was really really really good!

First of all, this week, we met with our friend Lada to help her quit smoking. There's a program that our church has, and there are 15 steps that she can do every day for 7 days and then she will no longer be a smoker! It sounds kinda crazy, but I've read it and it makes a lot of sense! There are some funny things on there though. One of them is that after every single meal, she has to drink a glass of non-sweetened grapefruit juice and eat a healthy breakfast every single morning. After the first day, she called us and said "I HATE oatmeal and I HATE this grapefruit juice!" but she's on day 5 now of not smoking, so I'd say it's working! Woohoo!

We also met with our friend Ksusha this week. We walked with her just around the city and talked for a while. We actually ended up lost in a part of the city that neither I, Ksusha, or Sister Bybee had ever seen before. The worst part was that Ksusha's phone was glitching and kept telling us we were standing in the middle of the river:/ But it's ok, we got back safe (except my legs really hurt). Anyways, while talking with Ksusha, we asked her if she would be interested in talking more about what we believe in... and she said yes! So, we are meeting with her next week:)

This weekend was probably the most eventful weekend. It started on Friday night with Game Night. We had 15 people there (including the volunteers) and 9 were non-members which was actually pretty cool! It was a little stressful, but we all had a fun time and all the people enjoyed themselves:) 

Then, on Saturday, we met with our friends Nika and Tuiana to get sushi, and we brought Polina along with us. We wanted our friend Alacia (the one who came to church last week) to come with us, but she couldn't make it. They are really cool, and we invited them to come with us afterwards to a party we were having at the church to celebrate Polina and Sasha having been baptized for a year. We let them know there was going to be a spiritual thought and everything, and they came! We had Polina and Sasha share how they found the church and how the church has blessed their lives. The spirit was very strong, and it was really cool to see how very different experiences they had in joining the church. It was a testament to me that God does know us individually, and he helps us with our specific needs. On our way out the door, Olga called out to them, and invited them to testimony meeting on Sunday. As we walked with them to the tramvay, they asked us lots of questions about it, and told us that they would come! Also, side note, I now love sushi... well, chicken sushi:) I hate seafood still.

Sunday morning, we actually ran into them on the tramvay on their way to church! In sacrament meeting, I asked Nika (who I was sitting next to) a little bit about her religious background. She has been to the Russian Orthodox church, but she didn't like it. It scared her a little bit. But she said she really liked our church because it's very peaceful. I couldn't read either of them very well during church, but afterwards they just kept talking about how nice people were and things like that. They still like us at least, so we can follow up next week. We are going to put on a little showing of Womens Conference on Saturday night, and we are going to invite them. Hopefully they will come! 

Our friend Alacia couldn't make it to church this week because she went on a camping trip with some friends, but she is going to try to make it next week! We also want to meet up with her soon and see how she felt about church a little bit more in depth.

Also, one of our investigators, Alyona, came to church this week! We hadn't see her in a while, and I think it might have something to do with her husband, but this week she came! That was really good.

I have not been able to watch General conference yet, but we will watch it next week, and I am sooo exciteeeddd!!!

This week, I want to share a little clip from last General Conference. It's from President Russell M. Nelson's talk, "Come, Follow Me". 

“Pour out your heart to God. Ask Him if these things are true. Make time to study His words. Really study! If you truly love your family and if you desire to be exalted with them throughout eternity, pay the price now—through serious study and fervent prayer—to know these eternal truths and then to abide by them.

“If you are not sure you even believe in God, start there. Understand that in the absence of experiences with God, one can doubt the existence of God. So, put yourself in a position to begin having experiences with Him. Humble yourself. Pray to have eyes to see God’s hand in your life and in the world around you. Ask Him to tell you if He is really there—if He knows you. Ask Him how He feels about you. And then listen.” God cares. He is there. And He listens. 

I love you all!

Sister Jones

Pictures:
1. Me and Sister Bybee in front of Memorial "Победы" (Victory)

2. THE NEW TRAMVAY!!!!
3. THe old tramvay to compare to the picture I sent of the new tramvay

4. My chicken sushi:)

5. Me freezing every single day

6. Our friend Kristina took us to the Datsan (Buddhist temple place)
7-13. More fun pictures at the Datsan

Nice Girls And Creepy Men

Hello from Siberia! I'm already cold!

This week was very longggggg, but there were some cool things that happened!

We met a girl early on this week that goes to school at the local college. Her name is  Alacia. She was friendly, and wanted our number to hang out sometime. She actually texted US first (it's always exciting when that happens) and wanted to go to a cafe with us. We couldn't on the night she wanted to, but we told her that we could on Saturday. Saturday night came, and we went out to eat with her. We talked about our lives and showed her our pictures, and overall just got to know her a little bit. We both had our ukulele's with us, and it turns out she plays the ukulele too! She also plays the piano, but she doesn't have anywhere to practice. We told her we could all play together sometime at the church building. She asked us a few questions about church, and then (after we told her we have church meetings on Sunday mornings) asked if she could come to church with us the next day! We obviously agreed and the craziest part was - she actually showed up. 15 minutes early even! Elder Carlsson gave a really great talk on the Plan of Salvation and she cried a little bit during it. Afterwards she told us that she used to be really believing, but has kinda lost her faith. She's been wanting to rekindle it a little bit, but didn't want to go to church on her own. She said that she only had good impressions:)

We also met a kinda creepy man this week. He started talking to us, and wanted our number and stuff (we gave him the Elders number, lol), and wanted our help in his garden or something. We told him that the Elders could help him but he told us that he was only interested in girls helping him.... so we left that conversation really fast. We don't even remember telling him where the church is, but after church on Sunday, there he was. He wanted us to show him around the church a little bit because it was interesting to him. We had a meeting right after church, so we grabbed Elder Soucek (who was walking past at the moment) and had him take over the church tour. When we talked to the elders later, we found out that it went very well! The man is Buddhist... kinda. He's also read the Bible. He accepted a copy of the Book of Mormon, told the Elders that he would read it, and wants to talk to them about it when he reads a little bit! Moral of the story: be nice to everyone. Even creepy men. (But also be aware and safe)

Those were the biggest miracles that I saw this week, but there's little ones that we see here every single day. Our God really is a God of miracles, and I am so grateful that I am able to see His hand in my life and in the lives of those around me here. God is so good!

Love you all!

Sister Jones

Pictures:

Pictures at the datsan (buddhist temple) and the church building