Love Of God

Hello hello friends!! Another wonderful week this week:) Not too cold either;)

This week, we had a lot of good family meetings. We did an FHE with the first counselors family on Tuesday and talked about the first vision with them and how they can receive answers to their prayers just like Joseph Smith did. We also met with the district president's family, which was good for a lot of reasons. His wife was just made Relief Society President, so we have begun working with her. She is marvelous! She has already talked about a lot of less actives she wants us to work with and things like that. Plus they have the CUTEST little kids!

We had a really good game night this week! We had 12 friends come in general! We played charades together and because there were so many people, it was just a big party! Although, the elders forgot the cookies:/

We also went to our family friends, Karill and his family again this week. They are just so wonderful! They are always busy and doing things. Their 7 year old son always wants to practice English with us, and loves playing the guitar and wrestling. They made us the best borscht EVER when we went over (for those of you who haven't tried it *MOM* it is amazing! Even if you don't like beets. It's worth trying I promise). 

Sorry for the short email this week, but I just have one more thought. When I was studying this week (using Come, Follow Me), I was reading in the Book of Mormon about the interpretation of Lehi's dream. In the Book of Mormon, there is a prophet named Lehi who has a dream about a tree with fruit that is desirable above all other fruit. There is an iron rod that leads to the tree and many people are trying to walk through mists of darkness to grab hold of the rod to get to the tree. The story goes on (for those of you that want to read it, you can find it in 1 Nephi 8 online) and all of these things, the fruit, the iron rod, the mists of darkness all have different meanings. Nephi wants to understand the meaning of the dream, and because he searches for an answer, he receives his own vision. He explains the meanings of the objects in the dream in 1 Nephi 11. The thing that I love is when Nephi asks "What is the meaning of the tree of life with the fruit that is desirable of all other fruit?". The angel in the vision doesn't give him an answer, but instead shows him Mary, the mother of Jesus and the baby Jesus. From this image, Nephi immediately understands that the tree and the fruit on it represents the love of God. He came to this conclusion because Jesus Christ is the ultimate example of God's love for us. He sent Him here to be spit on, persecuted, and crucified. He also sent Him to comfort, to heal, and to be resurrected. Because of this gift, God's greatest gift, we can overcome any trials in our way, any negative emotions, any hard times. He is the light and life of the world. He represents God's love.

I love and miss you all! Have a wonderful week!

Finland And Snow

Heyyyyy! Another fun week in Russia/Finland!

So this week, I had my visa trip. On previous trips, we went to Korea, but this time I went to Finland!! It was so exciting despite the fact that we didn't get to leave the airport. The funniest part was going through passport control. There were these huge guys in uniforms sitting behind the desk and I was like "uhhh they look a little scary". When I walked in, they just said "hey". I wasn't scared after that, lol:) Visa trip was fun, and I was really tired coming home. Two days of no sleep will do that to you.

We also had a ton of dinners and orientations and stuff this week for the new volunteers who came in! We have a new Russian sister, a sister from Norway, two elders from America and one elder from England. I love it when new volunteers come in because A) it's always fun to meet new people and B) they always have so much energy and excitement to be here! Ahhh I love Russia!!

We didn't have a ton of time for meetings and things this week because of the previously mentioned activities, but we did try to stop by one babooshka's house... and I fell into a snow bank. Ok, so maybe I willingly walked into it, but I didn't think it would be so deep! I got in up to my waist almost and pretty much my legs were freezing the rest of the night. Thanks Siberia!

Lastly, I just wanted to share a few verses that I read in the Book of Mormon this week from 2 Nephi 2:7-8:  

7 Behold, he offereth himself a ^asacrifice for sin, to answer the ends of the law, unto all those who have a broken heart and a contrite spirit; and unto ^bnone else can the ^cends of the law be answered.

8 Wherefore, how great the importance to make these things known unto the inhabitants of the earth, that they may know that there is no flesh that can dwell in the presence of God, ^asave it be through the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah, who ^blayeth down his life according to the flesh, and taketh it again by the power of the Spirit, that he may bring to pass the ^cresurrection of the dead, being the first that should rise.

These scriptures are talking about the Atonement of Jesus Christ and how those who humble themselves and repent can become clean again! Can you imagine how it would feel to have all those things you regret doing, all those sins and mistakes washed away? All the guilt and pain? It is possible through Jesus Christ. And that is why I wanted to go on a mission! To help those who want to know about Him come unto Him and feel that redeeming, cleansing power. I have felt it, and it is something that I want to share with everyone. 

I hope you all had a good week this week! Don't fall into a snow bank. Learn from my mistakes.

Love,

Sister Jones

Pictures:

1. Common occurrence of cars literally buried in snow

2. Me trying to take a "shortcut" through a field and realizing that the snow is like waist deep

3. A cup one of my 6 flights this week #YayVisaTrip

Taco Fridayyy

Hey everyone!

We met again with Karill and his family (the family we met last week). Immediately at the beginning of our meeting, they wanted to set another meeting with us for next week. They really like us! I think they feel the spirit around us. It was so cool to see their enthusiasm! Then, we made tacos with them, which was the best thing ever)) It was so much fun! It was so funny to watch them eat tacos for the very first time. They thought it tasted really good, but Irina (the mom) took a bite from the top of just the tortilla and her cute son was trying to eat it, but literally everything was spilling out the back! They were like "the flavors are so interesting! I've never tasted anything like it!" which was so funny because we've literally grown up on tacos. We also had a really good conversation with them later on about the Word of Wisdom (our health code in our church). They believe a lot of the same things we do. They teach their kids that smoking is harmful (neither of them smoke) and they are wary around alcohol, although they do drink on holiday's and things like that. It was interesting to see how even though our lives are completely different, we can always find similarities.

Alina is doing well! She hasn't decided when she wants to get baptized yet, but she's moving forward and learning more and more that God loves her and hears and answers her prayers. 

We also met this week with a lady in our branch named Hatalia. She is so wonderful! She knows everything about how to do family history work in Russia. Because of some of the laws here, it is hard to find people's personal data, even those that are dead. As we were talking, I am so grateful for the way we can learn about our families at home. We have so much access to so many things, and most of us don't use 

it to the fullest extent! Take advantage of it! Families are important!

Hatalia also showed us a lot of paintings from her favorite artist, James Christensen. He was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and a lot of his paintings have spiritual meanings. I attached my favorite one to this email. I really like it because of how relatable it is! It's a little man holding on to a bunch of things. We all have responsibilities and tasks that come with day to day life. A lot of them are important too! Everyone is busy. To hold on to the iron rod (the word of God) and follow it to experience the fullest of God's blessings for us, we need to prioritize and let go of some things. It's hard, but if there was no sacrifice and doing the right thing was always easy, we wouldn't grow from it and we wouldn't learn.

I love you all and hope you all had a wonderful week!

Sister Jones

Pics
We got a lot of food from a grandma

we found a nativity!!

our tacos we made with Karill and his family

С Новом Годом! Happy New Years!

Hello hello!! Weekly weather report: kinda hot actually. Only like 25 degrees F. I'm sweating buckets;)

Happy New Years! We had a wonderful week this week! Our week started off really well on Monday when we had a meeting with Alina, our investigator. We were planning on discussing repentance and President Nelson's "We can do better and be better" talk from May 2018 conference, but as we were talking, we ended up talking a lot about prayer and answers to prayers. She was thinking about when she wants to be baptized and she doesn't know if she wants to wait anymore. She asked us to remind her to pray everyday this week, and she decided to rethink her decision about when to be baptized! She is such an amazing girl, and hopefully she'll get her answer this week!

The other really amazing thing that happened this week was this cute family we became friends with. We went to stop by some grandma's earlier this week and a man with two cute little kids came up to us and asked us if we needed someone to let us in the building. We ended up talking for a while and he invited us over for dinner with his family a few days later. So, Sunday night we went and had dinner with him, his wife, and their two kids. They are so precious! They are such a loving, accepting family. They were asking us quite a few questions about ourselves, our work here, America, everything. I think they have a lot of potential! They are a really close knit family. They have a 6 year old son and a almost 2 year old. They're way smart! The 6 year old was teaching me a whole bunch of animal names in Russian that I can't remember anymore, like "meerkat". He knew a lot of their names in English too! The mom speaks some English and she practiced with us. It was a really good night for us!

Saturday was a really fun day as well. We had a youth conference type thing here for youth and young single adults from all over our mission. It was a blast because all my Novosibirsk friends were there like Anton and Tanya and also all of my Ulan Ude friends were there as well! I didn't realize how much I missed them until I saw them and it was so fun to catch up and just be with them again! Ah I love my people!!! We (the volunteers) were in charge of doing a presentation at the conference and it was so much fun! We decided to have them go through the life of a missionary kinda. We had different teams represented by different missions around the world. I was the "mission president" of the South Korea mission. It started off with a contest who could tie a tie the fastest, then who could eat hot instant noodles the fastest without spilling it all over themselves, and even a contest about who could learn their language the fastest (my team learned a few lines in Korean and ROCKED IT!). It ended with a food eating contest of really gross canned turkey and baked beans - cold. Sometimes, you have to eat really gross things people make for you and pretend you like it, so we had a contest about it. Then, Sister Richardson gave a presentation about her leg and why she wanted to come back on her mission, and we did a Q&A as well with some current missionaries and already returned missionaries. Pretty much, it was really fun and I hope that they all want to serve missions now!

This week was the first week of Come, Follow Me for the Book of Mormon, which is pretty much a study guide to help you study scriptures better individually and as a family. I started it this week, and it is wonderful!! The Book of Mormon, for those of you that don't know, is a record from the prophets in ancient America and records a visit from Jesus Christ after His resurrection. It was preserved through the ages by the power of God, revealed to a boy named Joseph Smith by an angel of God, and translated through the power of God. I was thinking about how amazing it is to be able to see God's hand in the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. It is truly a scripture written for our day, and when we look at how God preserved it and brought it forth in our time, we can see how important it is to Him that we have these scriptures and study them daily. They truly help you come closer to God.

I love you all! I hope you all had a wonderful New Year's:))

Sister Jones

photos:

Some from the Nutcracker last week

Me in a winter wonderland!