Email from December 22, 2010

Well Hermana Lockwood wrapped all my presents. It is a tradition in her family to try and make presents as unidentifiable as possible, so I've been having fun trying to guess. It was funny because she told me when I could come look, and just looking, I said, "Well one of those little ones is a matchbox car." she immediately goes into panic, saying, "Oh man, where did I put it?" and starts looking around frantically. I see the little car on the floor first, unwrapped, and forgotten. she insists on wrapping it anyway.

Since then, she has forbidden me to feel any of my presents. Once I identified the chocolate orange and the boxes of Pocky, she then forbade me even to look at them. It has become a game in the evenings when we're writing in our journals for me to peek and try to figure out what is in the packages before she stops me.

I will be calling Christmas night, probably at 8:00, my time (which I believe is 6:00 pacific time), in accordance with what Daddy told me. I hope that does not clash with plans you may have had to go see Grandma. I will be calling the house number (509.545.5129) since I don't remember any of the cell phone numbers. If you want me to call another number or need me to call another time, you'll have to call the office and let them know.

We had the great opportunity to do a service activity this week. While knocking, a woman had asked us if we could help her sister for Christmas. She said that they had no work and no money, and would not have Christmas. She had called several churches the area and all had told her that "the lists are closed." We said we would think of what we could do to help. We talked to the relief society, and expected perhaps one dinner, and one by toy and one girl toy.  Well, we got a HUGE basket of food, and 75 dollars in wall-mart gift cards for toys. (Our additions consisted of a "Joy to the World" DVD and a Book of Mormon.) Holy Cow!!! The family was so thrilled, and surprised, and we just felt happy. We don't know if we'll ever see them again, but we hope they felt the love of Christ through us.

Sill hasn’t mailed the package. Sorry. Will do today.

Love,

Hermana Maren Jones.

Email from Maren, December 15, 2010

First off, some notes from President Doll:

Christmas Phone Calls:  You’re all allowed to make calls on that day using your mission cell phone as long as you adhere to the Missionary Handbook:  You may call your parents and the call should not be longer than 40 minutes. (Maren's Note: also, as minutes are free after 7PM, we are encouraged to wait until after that.) No calls to friends, girl/boyfriends, or other family unless you have permission from the mission president. No international calls should be made from the mission cell phones.  However, you may receive an international call if your parents are outside of the U.S.  You may call on either December 25th or December 26th. We’ll be checking the phone logs to be sure calls are made according to these guidelines.

Christmas Activities: Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are wonderful times to share the joy of Christ and His gospel.  Look for innovative ways to share the joy of Christmas – singing on doorsteps, shoveling snow, sharing “Joy to the World,” visiting the aged and the lonely or a nursing home, baptize someone.  Missionaries may accept invitations to a member’s home for a meal, but you should not spend more than two hours at the home.

Right now, It's looking like I'll only have a little over a half hour to talk to everyone, since I don't really know of any members willing to let us use their phone. Do you want me to call Christmas or Christmas Eve?

My presents will probably be coming late, and it's going to be smaller this year. I'm doing a little Indian gifting, as many of them are things I picked up from members and investigators, or things I've had for a while that I think would find more use at home. Mommy and daddy get to share what will probably be the oddest thing you'd get from a missionary, but I think you'll like it.

I re-read some of my Christmas e-mails from last year, and I think I can see the growth that Father was pointing to. On the other hand, I'm not sure If I have matured, or if I just got better at hiding the fact that I'm still a silly little girl.

Christmas zone conference was fun. By sheer luck, I was the first to receive my Christmas stuff (the box DID make it). Since you wrapped all my stuff last year, I assumed it would be wrapped again, but My companion suggested I be more careful. In fact, since we had the English sisters at the apartment, we did this thing where we took turns opening each other’s boxes to see if the contents were wrapped.

One sister in our zone, Sister Falikakala, got seven boxes. She had a hard time getting everything home.

I really don't have much else to say. I'm looking forward to calling of Christmas.

Love, Maren.

Weekly Letter from President Doll to His Missionaries

Maren forwarded this, calling it "Awesome!"  I think it is very good too.  It makes me appreciate how lucky Maren has been in getting the Mission President she has. -  Ty

The Mighty God

Many times during the Christmas season we hear the lament that Christ has been taken out of Christmas.  Indeed, much of the celebration of the birth of the Savior has been lost amongst commercialism and gift giving.  But, perhaps more troubling is how Christ himself has been diminished in the eyes of many, including those professing a belief in God and Jesus Christ.  Too often he is relegated to the position of teacher, philosopher, leader of a movement, or martyr.  We, of course, know better.  He is and was much more than this.

King Benjamin and other prophets foretold the coming of the Messiah, describing his role as the Son of God and the Savior of the world.  But, they also knew he would be diminished and rejected by many.

“And he shall cast out devils, or the evil spirits which dwell in the hearts of the children of men. And lo, he shall suffer temptations, and pain of body, hunger, thirst, and fatigue, even more than man can suffer, except it be unto death; for behold, blood cometh from every pore, so great shall be his anguish for the wickedness and the abominations of his people. And he shall be called Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Father of heaven and earth, the Creator of all things from the beginning; and his mother shall be called Mary. And lo, he cometh unto his own, that salvation might come unto the children of men even through faith on his name; and even after all this they shall consider him a man, and say that he hath a devil, and shall scourge him, and shall crucify him.” (Mosiah 3:6-9)

A favorite quote of mine comes from the author and philosopher C.S. Lewis:

“I am trying to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: "I am ready to accept Jesus as the great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic … else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice.  Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”  (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)

That is how we should feel about and teach about Christ.  There is no middle ground.  He either was and is all that he proclaimed to be or he was a madman.  We either believe everything about Christ or accept nothing.  And, further, we either accept all of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ or we accept none.  There is no middle ground.  That has not been left open to us.

What a thrill it is to hear and contemplate the titles of the Savior as proclaimed by the prophet Isaiah as he foretold His coming to earth.

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6)

Let us all have deep love in our hearts for the mighty God who is Jesus Christ.

Your fellow servant in Christ, President Doll

Email Received December 8, 2010

Editor's Note:  I need to make a quick comment on this communication from Maren.  She references a letter I sent telling her how proud I was of her and that I could see profound changes in her.  She starts out arguing, for most of the letter,  that she hasn't changed much and is not a very good missionary.  She then ends by disproving all she said before this.  All I could do was laugh.  How little we see the changes the spirit works on us.  How terribly proud I am of her! -- Ty

OK, so my dad wrote something interesting last week: "I was proud ... (of) your desire to just get in and do the work.  That is a change in you that I'm very proud to hear about.  In fact, I'm just proud of all the changes that have happened to you and the maturity and commitment I can see in your life."

Ok, to be honest, I try to sound pretty suave and self controlled in my letters. Not that I'm dishonest, I just leave out the most annoying details.

I'm not that great of a missionary. I hate waking up at 6:30 AM, and I don't, if I haven't slept well. I struggle to force myself to study the language every day, and our companionship studies are not very focused at all - we talk about the work most of the time, but rarely what we planned to talk about. When we do, our conversations are kind of dry.

And I really do not like knocking. We plan it out, modify our approach, but when the moment comes to actually get out of the car and knock, I feel absolutely sick. I have to pray every single time for the help to make that simple act of will to just get out of the car and do it. We see miracles, and it's not actually that bad once we get started, but I feel awful at the start of every session. if I don't watch myself, I'll make stupid excuses not to do it, or to end early, or whatever. And when it gets down to 7:00 in the evening, I really struggle to keep going, because, really, no one wants you on their porch at 7 PM. (BTW, I'm not sure how or why, but by 4:30 PM, it's fully dark out here.)

Most of the time, I'm pretty sure that if I didn't have a companion, I wouldn't get much done. I know... and I'm working on it, and I've improved somewhat, but I'm still pretty much the lazy me I was before. Ok, maybe not the same lazy me: a wiser, more experienced, but still lazy me.

Don't get me wrong: I am working hard, but I could be working a whole lot harder, and every day I try a little more to reach that level, but I'm nowhere close.

Take for example, this week: we went and did what we call shovel-tracting. You go knocking, but while one of you knocks the door, the other one shovels the walks of the people. Surprising enough, we get a lot of mixed reactions (you'd be surprised how angry people can get when you shovel their walks: "Why are you shoveling my walk?!? Don't do that!! My Husband can do it!!") Well we came back, and we found that someone had quite purposefully buried our car, and had carefully packed snow around all the wheels. My first reaction: anger, sadness, disappointment. Well, my companion just laughs. She thinks it hilarious. well, I start to smile, but I still feel kind of bad. She takes a few pictures, and we dig ourselves out. Reminded me of the part in Stranger in a Strange Land when Michael first discovers a sense of humor - and how he explains, that laughter is there for those upsetting moments - because when things go wrong, sometimes you just have to laugh, because otherwise, things are just too tragic, and we'd never survive.

[endrant]

We're doing well. We had 4 new investigators this week. Exciting as well is the fact that a lot of the investigators who were given to the elders are also shaping up. And Araceli Saldana, our most recent convert, got over her nerves enough to give her testimony (she's unbearably shy). And she went to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. We're feeling really good this week. We know that miracles are happening. The people who came to church just showed up out of the blue. We're finding people left and right, and while many of them are going to the English program, we feel good about it.

For example, we were knocking some apartments, and we get this girl who's out on her won for the first time. She doesn't speak any kind of Spanish, but we're here, and the sisters aren't, so we go and give her a L1. She asks great questions, and even though her family is American Moorish (Muslim - and just that morning I had the section on teaching to people with a non-Christian background - not planned, it had just caught my eye) she is wide open. She asks about priesthood authority, prophets, obedience to the law of chastity, and so many other things. It's so great, and we commit her to be baptized the end of January. Well, imagine that call to the English sisters:

"How do you guys feel about the end of January?"

"Huh? Why, do you guys have a baptism then?"

"Nope, YOU do."

Miracles happen. And we're happy to be part of them any way we can.

Love you all, and hope that things are amazing for you.

Hermana Maren Jones

PS. The Christmas List:

• 1 box Pocky, and one dark chocolate (orange, raspberry, whatever you feel is good. I'll split it with my companion.) Any more candy than this will simply be given away. (nuts will be gladly accepted.)
• 1 hat (use own judgment. Red or black beret suggested)
• The Statedler pencil I requested last year (I've forgotten the model number to my sadness. I know it was a 20XX, the Xs being unknown numbers. It was noted in a snail-mail, not an e-mail, otherwise I'd have record of it.)
• Scarves, gloves, socks, not really suggested. I have a lot.
• Thigh-high nylons, and maybe some thigh-high tights, socks, leggings, whatever, too.
• Music, with judgment (ask to see someone's copy of the missionary handbook.)
• Pictures welcome, as is money, although at this point, I'd rather that all money goes into my savings account.
• Referrals: not necessarily to me, but I would consider it a great gift for you to give the missionaries someone to teach. Even better if you let the missionaries teach them in your homes.
• Flannel board: a lot of investigators we have right now can't read, so we need a portable way to teach them. Stories I'd like Include: The First Vision, Lehi leaves Jerusalem, Noah and the ark, the birth and death of Christ, Moses and the 10 commandments. Also, It'd be nice if I could get a plan of salvation diagram.

Email Received December 1, 2010

So this week has been COLD. I mean, like, high of 27 and low of 18 is kind of cold. My companion swears it wasn't that cold in Utah, and I believe her: 25 and humid is as different from 25 and dry as 80 humid/dry. I have to freely admit, I have very little desire to ever live in Illinois. Everyone talks about how a lot of missionaries leave their missions and are like, "I love this place! I want to come back!" But quite honestly, I am ready to go back to the desert. I don't like the climate here, and I if want to find Mexicans, I'll go to Mexico. I really don't see any reason to stay here.

We're doing' just peachy, when all is said and done. We're starting to really get a lot of return appointments going, so we're no longer knocking ALL the time. Thanksgiving was interesting, because we had a "thought he went back to Mexico, been inactive forever" member show up. He was a really good guy, but you could see how he had let a little thing ruin years of his life. I hope I never let anything like that happen to me. Still, it was awesome, because the atonement is starting to work in this guy's life, bringing with it humility, contentment, and peace in a man who wasn't sure those really existed any more.

So, I got a weird call from Elder Cuentas, our district leader the other day. He's a good guy, but he goes home in December, so he's getting a little trunky. Anyway, he calls me up and asks if we were having issues with the area. I asked him to explain, because I really didn't understand. He said that both he and the zone leaders were wondering why our numbers, which had been so high before the split, were now so low. Well, I thought it was obvious, but gently explained that when they area split, he and his companion got all of our investigators that were on date, and all that were progressing, and all of our new investigators, while we were left with a bunch of MIAs and a few good solid people that were just ridiculously hard to get a hold of. We had been spending day’s tracting, and we'd been firmly pushing the members for referrals. It wasn't being easy, but we were just beginning to reap the rewards that day. "It just is taking some hard work to get the area up to speed," I said.

He didn't say anything for a moment, and then asked, "Wait, you guy's didn't have ANYONE on date after the split?"

"No - you got all three of them."

"Oh."

We talked for a minute more, and then he hung up. but then five minutes later, he called back:

"Um, I just called to tell you that we're really grateful for all the hard work you put into our area, and because you did that, we want to do something for you."

And I'm sitting there going, “What on earth?”

"Do you know what a blitz is?"

"A what?" (I'm still back on "We're really grateful")

"A blitz." (A blitz is where missionaries get together and just knock out a whole area in one day - sometimes a whole city.)

"Yeah, I know what a blitz is."

"Well we want to come blitz an area in Woodstock for you Friday."

"Um, we're in Marengo Friday."

"OK then, just pick out some streets for us to knock, and tell us where it is this Wednesday at coordination."

"Ok, elders. Thanks a lot."

And all the time I'm still going, "Huh?" Still, the elders are so sweet.

Well that's all for now. Stay warm. Love you and miss you, and hope your Christmas is the best.

Sincerely,

Hermana Maren Jones