Week 33 "Butterfly"

Good Morning family, good morning everyone, I hope everything is good for all of you!

   I enjoyed, this week, our daily adventures included patisseries, a doctor's visit, and a trip to Lille for stake conference.  

  I'll start with the patisseries: we tend to get tired after talking to people on the street for a couple of hours, so we like to take breaks eating french delicacy. So we stopped in a quaint lille shop, and a lady entered from the back, which was her house attached to the shop, I thought that was cool! So we got our patisseries and we headed back home to go have dinner.  As we got to the door, I was feeling really uneasy for some reason, and I told Elder Smith about how I felt, and that I also felt that we should walk around the block to find someone to talk to.  So he agreed and we went down the street, as we walked up the opposite side of the block, we started to talk to a lady, and she turned out to be very kind and open to us.  As we started to talk about the Book of Mormon, the foundation of our religion, she seemed really interested in it, so we offered it to her and she accepted with pleasure! It's not every day we get to give a book of mormon to someone especially excited about religion like this.  

   Doctor's visits...old man Elder Smith threw out his back, like Mr. Incredible fighting the Omnodroid, but Elder smith wasn't fighting anyone, he just slipped on the bathroom stairs.  We drove to the doctor with a member, and we're pretty sure he will be alright, he has to take pain medication and can't carry too much weight.  The good thing is Pascal got us patisseries after we went to the doctor.  Elder Smith is gonna be fine, he just has to carry on for three more weeks then his mission finishes.  I'm happy for the opportunity to be his companion.  He can cook well and I enjoy asking him for help with the french language, I hope we see some more success so he can finish strong!

   We visited Lille for our stake conference yesterday, and I was surprised to hear our mission president, pres. Babin speak at the conference.  He talked about l'effet papillon, or the butterfly effect, which states that the flap of a butterfly's wings can cause something like a mountainslide on the opposite side of the world because of the chain reaction of events from the simple flap of the butterfly's wing, we may not make mountains slide from moving our arms, but by our small kind actions we can make someone's day way better, and I can definitely say I have been on the receiving side of that effect.  There are so many people who help me be stronger, and I'm greatful to my family and a lot of people who have helped me.  So, everyone, flap your wings, and let other people start to feel the effects of the nice things you do!

  Love you all! Elder Jamison Jones

Week 32 "Oranges"

  Our week started off with zone confernce, which included a train ride to Paris and trainings by some of the mission leaders. After hearing trainings for three hours I was about to fall asleep in my chair.  I hadn't eaten much food in the last 12 hours, we didn't have time for breakfast and I started to have one of those lack of food mini-comas, ha. but the last training given by the president of our mission woke me back up and made a lasting impression. President Babin shared a talk by Randall L. Ridd, in which Ridd shared a story called the Parable of the Oranges.

Me and Elder Smith!

   He recounts the story of a man who worked hard to win an entry-level position in a good company.  When an opening came up for a better position, the man worked harder, putting in extra hours so his boss could see he wanted the posision.  To his dissapointment he didn't get the position; it was given to another employee who had worked for the company a mere 1/10th of the time the first employee had.  In rage, he went to his supervisor and asked for an explanation.  

Pairs

   The supervisor agreed to answer the man, but asked him to do a favor first. The man hastily agreed, and his supervisor asked if he could run by the store to get some oranges for his wife.  He agreed and quickly returned with some oranges.  The supervisor asked him what kind of oranges he got and how much they cost, but the man didn't remember, since the supervisor just asked him to get some oranges.  

Foggy this Morning!

   Then the supevisor told the man to take a seat as he called in the employee who had won the position, and asked him to do the same task. He agreed and upon his return the boss asked him the same questions.  The second employee responded, "Well, I didn't know which ones to get, there were so many kinds, but then I remembered your wife needed them, so I called her.  She said she was making orange juice, so I asked the grocer what kind of oranges would be best, he said the Valencia oranges had the best juice, so I got those.  For how much they cost, I didn't know how many to get, so I called your wife again, and she said she was making the orange juice for twenty people, so I asked the grocer how many oranges I would need for that.  He said it would be a lot, but he gave me a good discount. I then dropped the oranges by your house and your wife was very happy.  Here is your money and your receipt."

   The first employee walked dejectedly out of the room and said to his supervisor, "I see what you mean".

Sacre Coeur

   So this story is really making me think about the 'why' of my actions a lot more.  Our mission President used the story to illustrate a push to act with 'real intent'.  We should do our best to go about the day having a real and purposeful intent behind every action. Otherwise we'll end up with a bunch of useless oranges like the first employee.  We should act as the second employer who bought oranges with the intent to serve his employer his very best. The better employee's effort involved a little more brain power and effort than the first, but his 'real intent' made his actions worthwhile.  As a missionary I've got to do the same thing, giving effort with real intent to serve God and help others improve their lives through the teachings of the Gospel.  I feel like as I do this and as we all apply this principle of real intent, we will have actions more filled with purpose, and be able to see real results, good ones too.  

Selfie

My missionary planner

    Well as you all know this week we had Valentine's Day, and I had fun eating lunch at Pascal's house, and eating a hot mini donut with powdered sugar and nutella from the town carnival.  We found a new lady to teach this week and I hope we will see her soon.  We had a ward get together after church, and I am looking forward to getting to know the members better.  We had a cool experience yesterday after church.  An senior lady in the ward invited us over to teach an adolescent girl she was taking care of.  The girl said the had always felt the presence of someone with her her whole life, and Elder Smith and I felt good about telling her the feeling was God watching over her.  I feel happy when I get the opportunity to reach out to others as a missionary.  Things are well here.  There was the most beautiful sunset the night of Valentine's day, so cliche for France.  Stay positive, love you all!

  Elder Jamison Jones

Week 31 "Hello from St. Quentin!"

Bonjour tout le monde, I love you all so much!  I have changed cities and now I'm serving in St. Quentin. The mission roller coaster went through even bigger ups and downs this week but overall it was a great, great week, because metaphorically, hey, I'm riding a roller coaster and riding roller coasters is fun! The week started with a fun finish to missionary work in Lille, with a night at the Gouttin family's house.  The following day I enjoyed my final day eating at the Jean and Dampt family's homes. The families and ward in Lille is amazing, but now it's time to move on to new things.  

Here we are eating with Pascal!

   Transfer day we woke up, ate breakfast, exercised, studied and headed off to the train station. I rode in a two level TGV, which was so cool.  Later Elder Smith and I met up then headed to St. Quentin, the new city.  St Quentin is beautiful; the first day Elder Smith showed me around the city and already I think it's really cool; it's situated on a little hill and there's a cool canal running through the center of the city.  Not too far from our apartment is the town Basilica, celebrating 1700 years since construction.  In brief, this is a really cool town!

The view from our appt. with the basilica above and behind

    With a small town comes small time between places and more time to find people, so we did a lot of that this week, which I honestly enjoyed. Even though we haven't found anyone new to teach yet, I felt so happy walking around and just trying to share the happiness I had.  Pretty physically tiring but all worth it, in the end we're alive and that makes me happy.  Despite our lack of new investigators we have a few already who I've met and I hope progress toward baptism.  I meet most of them this week so stay tuned folks.

The full moon my first night in St. Quentin

   The best part so far is the members and their food, ha. For a relatively small city the ward is strong here and the members really help the missionaries; I've felt the love of the members and it's only been a week.  Missionary work works really really well when members work closely with us.  There are a couple investigators we have who are close friends with members and that makes us really happy.  Pascal, one of the members here helps us a lot, and of course he makes good food.  

   I don't think I've had many weeks when I felt as emotionally, spiritually, and physically tried as this one. I haven't had many weeks when I've felt happiness like this one, just going out to work and being happy, and this is really hard to do but I'm sure it will be worth it.  I'll make some great memories here with Elder Smith!

Week 30 "Change"

CHANGE

   I don't like change enough that I don't even want to tell you all I'm getting transferred this Wednesday, in the haphazard event that I don't change cities and stay in the same place, haha, that would be nice.  I have loved Lille so much, especially the last month.  The four elders in our apartment have been great friends to me, and the fact that all four of us can quote 'spongebob squarepants' has helped relieve the stress that comes as part of missionary life.  I've also enjoyed the fact that everyone works out in the morning because I feel more motivated to work out when everyone else does, and Dad, we're taking advantage of the protein powder.  I will say that I am getting transferred to St. Quentin, about 75 kilometers south of Lille, north of Paris, right in the middle of the two.  

Cathedral in St. Quentin

A few times already I have been there for momentary visits.  The coolest things I've seen there from my short trips are a really old, big cathedral, and a vending machine that sells eggs.  Haha. We will see what happens this week, as I depart Lille and start missionary work in a new city, I'm hoping and expecting the change to be fun and updates will come next monday!

Dinner with Gouttin's!

   So, what has been good this week, too much to fit in an email, that's for sure, but I'll do my best to expound.  We kicked off the week eating dinner with a wonderful family in the ward, the Gouttin's and an ami, L. who's baptism was approaching. The french food, a meat roast with veggies and fries, was as always really, really good.  Elder sanchez and I ate happily, sharing a spiritual thought with the family and joking with them about how Joseph their son was late to dinner working out, trying to get muscles for his girlfriend.  I felt happy realizing that I can actually joke in french, or in brief, my language abilities have improved since the beginning, WOOHOO!  Tuesday, we held district meeting at our church, and saw some less-actives later in the day.  The next highlight of the week was the meal suggestion a less-active who works in a Thai restaurant gave us, some chicken dish with a creamy tomato sauce with cooked veggies; we made it three times this week.  Saturday, we attended the baptism of Laura, a new member of our ward in Lille.  She is Mexican, and Elder Sanchez enjoys having spanish conversations with her.  I'm picking up a little spanish along the way.  Words like, pero, pa so, carro, caro, are now in my vocal.

SNOW! Finally!

   Sunday was really nice, I said goodbye to the members of the ward, and a few invited me over to eat! It made me really happy to see the diffence that God can make on a ward through the missionaries.  I was really touched to see that I helped the members of the ward a lot by just trying to do good, and be myself in the process.  

Stay tuned for St. Quentin. I love you all and I'll try to give you updates soon.

Love you!

Elder Jamison Jones