Scripture Power Video

At zone conferences, the mission office took videos of the missionaries singing "Scripture Power".  They have posted the video here.  Maren appears at about 2:30 into the video.  We loved seeing her smiling face!

I'm embedding the video below in case you don't want to read and see the full post.

Also, I'm adding a slide show (to the right) of pictures from Maren's baptisms.

Scripture Power - Illinois Chicago North Mission from Sherman Doll on Vimeo.

Email Received March 17, 2010

No.More.Snow.

It is quite pleasant over here. Nights are still chill enough to need a sweater, but winter had become spring in the matter of a week.

We're still doing a lot of finding, but we're getting some methods down, and with the nice weather, we're able to talk to more people.

One of my favorite methods to get people engaged:


"Excuse me, do you know if Rosa (Juan, Maria, or other common Hispanic name) lives around here? No? Well we're missionaries...(etc)"  

We can usually get at least a three minute conversation out of that one.

That said we had invitation Sunday this week. Can you say "bust?" no one came, not even a larger chunk of members than usual. Other branches had much more success (Brown Lake had 70 odd people attend theirs,) so I guess our frustration boils down to the same thing as always, which is that we can't seem to help our members overcome their old habits as "creentes," or "believers."

We've added a new commitment to that which we frequently give out. It's "Turn off television, computers and personal devices for one hour a day while the family is home." frequently we suggest this is done over dinner. this is a harder commitment than any other, but we've seen some amazing progress where it's been done. I hope we can keep that in our minds as members as well, that it's better a lot of times to just turn those things off, and be at home with the family.

It sounds like things are getting busy over there. I hope that everyone is well.

Weekly Email, March 10, 2010

Still recuperating from my cold, i feel like I've done alot since sunday. We've made a lot of phone calls, and are trying to find a more people to teach, which since the ward here is lazy boils down to one thing.

Knocking.

Now, I don't mind knocking in and of itslef, but this week was just plain funny.

Ok, we've all done the thing where we knock on the door and they run and turn out all the lights, turn off the music that's shaking the roof, hush everyone, and pretend theur not home. that's par. We've all gotten the "I'm busy this week/how's next week/ well I'm just busy/take a card" scenario, but his week I've goten some doozies.

(knock knock)
No I will not give you money or go to your church. I'm catholic. Have a nice day.
(slam)

(knock knock)
(excellent english) "How can I help you?"
"Hi, we're missionaries (ect)"
(deliberately bad accent)"O, Soory, we don't espeak english."
"Esta bien. Habalmos espanol tambien." (ect.)
"Uhh... pues, estoy limpaindo la casa ahorita.." (I'm cleaning the house right now.)
(ect)

(knock knock)
"Is Angel here?"
"no, he's out."
"Oh. I'm sorry, what's your name?"
(mutter, something that starts with an M and has five sylables)
"Sorry?"
"Jose."
(his name, in this case, is obviously not Jose, and there is no way this kid could play poker. They like to give common hispanic names to gringas like me because they think It confuses me. I know the game, though.)

Alls well that end well though, and with a baptism this past saturday, I'm more than happy enough. Gina's a sweetheart, and we hope to use her for lots of memeber presents.

Sincerely

La Harmana Jones

Weekly Email, Received March 3, 2010

This is going to be short, mostly because I too am very sick, and would like to get some bed rest before the evening begins.

Hermana Secrist is out. I cried a lot, which was awful because I’m so stuffed up. She’s gone to Skokie (I think that's how it's spelled,) and I have received Hermana Pedilla as a new companion. I'm afraid what with my sniffing and coughing and losing my voice (and brain) I have made a poor impression. Still, I hope she will be able to help me and that I'll be able to help her. I don't think I'll have another friend like Hna. Secrist, but that's life. We can't all be best friends.

We had a conference between the two missions this Thursday, with elder L Tom Perry as the featured creature. I got to shake his hand, and just about got lost in there. He is a wonderful, kind man, and a powerful speaker. I learned a lot about myself through what he said.

This week we've done a lot of running around. Everyone sick, so we've gone several times to backups three and four deep. I only hope we can get more lessons in this week.

Hope you all get better. Tell Caedy that if Rhawnie beats her, she'll never live it down. Then tell Teg to ask his sisters to read to him from the books.

 ^_^.

Lots of love and hope,

La Hermana Jones.