Patita de Pollo

Greetings folks! Hope all is well and just peachy over there. This past week was lots of fun as always. I had the pleasure of trying yet another exquisite dish from here in Mexico: chicken foot! Thankfully it did not have large talons :) We went home for the afternoon to stay the night holed up in the apartment due to the Dia de Independencia festivities and the Familia R invited us to join with them and their relatives for dinner (this was after one of our investigators had bagged up 8 slices of pizza, two members had brought us pambazos, and H gave us a container of Oaxaca style beef with salsa -- there is no escape from food but I am so thankful for the generosity and kindness shown to us here). We enjoyed eating pozole with tostadas de tinga con crema and, at my request, una patita de pollo. I had not yet tried chicken foot and figured that this was as good a time as any to go for't! It was actually not to bad. Tasted like chicken. It is basically skin and tendons with a teeny little bit of meat. I was instructed to just put the toes in my mouth and then spit the bones out afterwards. Anywho, we enjoyed hearing people do fireworks and sing karaoke from our little apartment and just enjoyed a day and a half of rest. During that time I was able to read back through all of the letters and cards that you wonderful people have sent to me throughout my time here and I just want to say thank you for that. I am surrounded by incredible people and I appreciate the time that many of you have taken to write to me.

This last week we enjoyed a special lesson with one of our investigators who has been through a lot of tough stuff. When we arrived we ditched the original lesson plan and instead read 1 Nefi 7 with her. In this chapter Nefi is tied up by his brothers and left for dead in the desert. He prays for strength from the Lord to loosen the bands, works to get them off, is set free and tries to talk with his brothers only to have them get even more angry with him. They are finally humbled by other family members and ask Nefi for forgiveness and then Nefi does something incredible. He writes, "And I did frankly forgive them" or en español "Y yo les perdoné sinceramente" and then invites them to pray to God for forgiveness. This was not the first or last time that this would happen to Nefi -- his brothers tried to kill him on a number of occasions but he forgave them every time and always relied on the Lord and exercised faith in Him. After reading this story, this woman shared with us that this story relates to her life perfectly due to things that have happened in her past in relation with her family. We shared with her that although we cannot change other people, we can always change our attitude or ourselves and not let the negative choices of others create anger or hatred inside of us. Nefi is an example of faith and forgiveness and Christlike love. My companion and I had the opportunity to teach the Principios del Evangelio class yesterday about el servicio, or service. As we were discussing, I realized that one act of service that we can perform, while maybe not the most traditional, is to forgive others. Any time we give service we grow to love those that we serve as well as our Savior. Any time that we forgive someone we allow the love of the Savior to work in our lives. I am grateful for Him and His perfect example and atoning sacrifice for us. I am grateful for all of you and I wish you a happy week :)

Love Hermana Jones

My mission family tree! From left to right: Hermana Llaguarima from Ecuador who trained me (mi mamá) and just finished her mission last week, your favorite guerrita Hermana Jones, my second "hija" Hermana Torres from Mexico, my first "hija" Hermana Carrasco from Ecuador, and the missionary who Hermana Carrasco just finished training, Hermana Becerra, from Mexico (that would make her my "nieta" or granddaughter").

Chicken foot! My companion and Hermana R laughing at me in the background, how kind. It almost looked like it was making a "peace out" sign.

Homemade gelatina with three different flavors -- strawberry (fresa), coconut (coco), and green grape (uva). ¡Feliz Día de Independencia!

Everybody enjoyed dolling me up a little bit. I really do love these people.

It was so much fun to spend time with Familia R laughing and eating and talking. Thank you!

With Hermana R, one of my most absolute favorite people in the whole world, and her little nephew.

Children of people we are teaching.

Hermana R and her daughter R. They are the ones who gave us the shirts we are wearing.

I enjoyed doing some interior decorating during our time in the house. 

My companion and I started a new family home evening lesson that we use with families who have kids. It is the armor of God and we read from Doctrina y Convenios 27 while explaining the different pieces. It has been fun to give him different names every time we teach. Adventure Time or "Hora de Aventura" is a popular show here so one time one of the little boys we taught called him Finn el Humano. I made it in about 20 minutes so the first time I attempted to make the "helmet of salvation" it didn't quite fit :)

Our last district/zone meeting before changes. Love these crazy kids :)

I said goodbye to Hermana Llaguarima and Hermana Martinez last week before flying home. It was fun seeing ward members from Fovissste who came to see Hermana Llaguarima as well as other old pals from other areas.

Elder Alverio and Elder Miller. Here we are 15 months later after leaving the CCM together!

Hermana Llaguarima and Hermana Martinez.

Hermana Nebeker and Elder Orchard.

¡Feliz Dìa de Independencia de Mèxico!

Hello everybody and ¡Feliz Dìa de Independencia de Mèxico! This coming Thursday afternoon, and all Friday, we will be holed up in the house once again after hopefully eating lots of pozole and chiles enogadas. I remember last year when Hermana Llaguarima and I ran up to the rooftop of our apartment building to see the fireworks. Hope to do the same again this year :) We had another fast and busy week. We are enjoying working in the two areas and finding more people to teach little by little. There is a tire mechanic place where we teach H, a man with nine kids. He took us and a few others to Church Sunday in one of his beat up taxis :) So just picture me sitting on an old gasoline stained sofa teaching H as he sits on an overturned bucket with El Libro de Mormòn is his hands :) I love it. On Friday we were running from one place to another, late to everything, and it was a little stressful but when we went to eat at a Church members' house I had the opportunity to share Mosìah 8:18 with them -- I remember when you shared that verse in an email with me Dad and it is one that I have enjoyed sharing with many throughout the mission -- and I shared a few tears as I told them how genuinely grateful we are for their service and feeding us in their home. This has been one of my favorite parts of the mission -- learning to truly love people and feel the impact that their service and faith has in my life. We truly are capable of doing miracles in the lives of others.

Something weird happened last night. We went over to a home of some Church members to help one of the family practice speaking in English and honestly...it was a bit difficult for me. Writing in English is fine because I have been doing that every Monday. However, trying to have a normal small-talk conversation, or report, or do interviews, or Church related things in English is hard! Early on I never thought that would happen. I am seeing the fulfillment of part of the blessing I received when I was set apart. I also dream mostly in Spanish now. Last night I woke myself up because I was teaching a lesson in Spanish in my dream. It is really weird because now I neither speak Spanish nor English perfectly haha I am a mess. We did a lot of teaching lessons in the streets and peoples' doorways and store windows this last week. We helped one of our investigators in her work disassembling old jerseys and sorting the pieces of fabric into different bags. The other night we shared with the wife of one of our investigators a list of scriptures that teach the need of a restoration of all things after a great apostasy, as prophesied in the Bible, and how the Bible also prophecies of the Book of Mormon. It is so cool to find and teach and understand these doctrines better and better.

I must say that lately I have started to feel sad about ending the mission and coming to grips with the fact that I will never have the same calling again and all that comes with it. I know it is going to be a hard adjustment. When the time comes a little wise counsel on how to handle that will be appreciated. For now I still have 3 months! :) Well take care this week. That is all I have for now. Please keep Hermana Stutznegger in your prayers! Les quiero!

Hermana Jones

I don't have any pics from events of this last week so here are some long awaited pictures of the inside of my apartment in Izcalli (previous area) in the street Circuito Citlali.

It was just another enjoyable busy week and I couldn't ask for more.

Hey everybody! We went to Chapultepec Park today (Tuesday, September 6) with Hermana Martinez before she finishes her mission and it was so much fun! It was also fun to take the Metro into the city – sure do love that thing :) People give me weird looks every time I say that. (Chapultepec is the largest city park in the Western Hemisphere. It was originally a retreat for Aztec rulers and later, during Spanish rule, Chapultepec Castle was built there. For a time, Mexican heads of state also lived there. It also has a zoo and two museums.)

It´s good to be back after another crazy week. I honestly don't remember much of what happened but it was all good things. Last Thursday and Friday I went on divisions with Hermana Pinto from Peru and worked in her area -- my old stomping grounds, Fovissste! It was good but also weird to be back. We visited R, the first person I was able to work with and see baptized. We had a very meaningful talk. She has been through a lot this last year but I was able to remind her of the things she needs to be doing and the worth she has as a daughter of God. The look on her face when she opened the door and saw me made my whole day. I was also able to see a few other people I had visited which was nice. My companion and I also enjoyed getting to know the rest of our area a little bit more. There are so many wonderful people we are teaching who are going through tough times and really trying their best. We are teaching a man named J who is so cool. We met him and his brother in the street outside their house. He came to Church this week and was planning on leaving early to go to his soccer game but after watching the John Rowe Moyle video, in the Principios del Evangelio class, he decided to stay. We learned about the principle of effort and sacrifice during that class and it really impacted him. We went to visit him and his mom later that afternoon and he told us that being in Church that morning was a very peaceful experience and that he knows that this is all true. He accepted a baptismal date for October 8th and really wants to keep learning. His mom also accepted baptism (all of the Church members who live on her street are in shock that she even opened the door to us). We have found a few other people who are interested in learning and are making headway with a few Church members who are currently less actives. We also taught a woman that the Elders were teaching who has been listening for awhile. Our zone leaders came with us and we had a great lesson. She is so prepared. When I invited her to be baptized she made one of those bon apetite kisses with her hand in the air and, with tears in her eyes, said yes. It was so sweet :) It was just another enjoyable busy week and I couldn't ask for more. I hope that everyone enjoyed their first week of school!

Love Hermana Jones

The pics above are all from Chapultepec.

Celebrating Hermana Carrasco´s 20th birthday during our zone/district meeting yesterday.

With V and her abuelita.

Hanging up laundry in the house after it got rained on up on the roof haha our clothes did not smell like clean laundry any more.

A view from our rooftop. I love it here!

I am not really sure what health benefits come from eating solidified cow blood but I feel fine!

¿Que onda cuates? Todavia estoy aquì en Neza York disfrutando la vida misional. Some fun new adventures and exciting news from this past week. So our beloved Elders abandoned us Friday morning due to special changes and the mission shrinking (there are only 71 companionships now, bien poquitos!). One of them found out late Wednesday night and the other one Friday morning so they had to pack up their things and go to new areas, leaving my little companion and I with the other area book and the whole other half of the Ward. So now we are looking forward to meeting with all of the investigators and recent converts from the other side of Ward this week in addition to our own! As Matthew mentioned in regards to being Seminary student council president, I don't even know what I am doing hahaha there are always new things to learn but one of my favorite things about missionary life is the fact that I am just here to do the best I can in the time that has been given to me. This is my little corner of the world for what I hope will be the last 3ish months of my mission. We don't even have a map but we have lots of fe y oraciòn! :D I think this will be really good for the Ward here, too. For years they had four companionships of elders working here and now are down to one companionship of hermanas. The members are great and very willing to work with us and move things along. There are many people here ready to be baptized who just need love and encouragement so that is our plan for the next few weeks. Seriously, Neza is one of the most prepared places on earth. Sure, there is a lot of drug dealing action and borrachitos in the streets but also many who are looking to come unto Christ. Last week we met a woman named V who is 22 and has been here about 1 month. She dealt with some pretty difficult family tragedies and decided to start a new life for herself here, living with her grandma and aunts. She started working for a family in our Ward about two weeks ago when the Elders met her and was introduced to the gospel. When we started teaching her she really opened up and the three of us have grown to be great friends in a short amount of time. When we visited her on Wednesday and Saturday we were able to share the incredible message of the Plan de Salvación with her, testifying of the reality of familias eternas y nuevos comienzos, thanks to La Expiación de Jesu Cristo. It is one of my favorite lessons that we teach as missionaries because it provides us with a very clear road-map of what we need. It was one of the hardest things for me to learn in Spanish but it brings me so much joy to share this with people who, until this point, did not understand that they will be reunited with loved ones again after this life. As we finishing the lesson on Saturday we invited her to be baptized on el 8 de Octubre and she accepted :) She is really excited to attend Church with us and we are planning on taking her to El Centro para Visitantes with her employers (family in our Ward) and their family this Saturday. It should be great fun :) During these past 14ish months as a missionary I have come to more fully understand and appreciate that incredible reassuring feeling I had in my heart when I opened my mission call and read that I would be serving in the Mexico Mexico City Southeast Mission. I felt in my heart that day, and several occasions during my mission, that this is where I am supposed to be and that there are certain people I needed to meet and teach here, as well as people who have taught me things that I need to learn that will help me throughout my entire life. Another example of this is my dear friend H who was baptized last September. He is the only Church member in his family but they went to the Temple open house last year and his wife remembers me helping her and their 6 year old daughter find the bathroom -- now I live a few doors down from them! Small small world! These past few weeks we have been visiting this dear friend helping him set goals to stop drinking and he is doing such a great job. He came to Church this last Sunday for all three hours with one of his 9 children who is not currently a Church member. He is so sweet and makes sure that we are well fed and taken care of haha which leads me to another adventure of this last week. We enjoyed getting roped into eating molleja or rellena tacos a few days ago. We were sitting outside of H's tire and car mechanic business enjoying a good chat with him when one of his pals passed by with a container full of hot fresh rellena that he was selling. He cut me slice right then and there to eat and H bought a bag of it and invited us in to eat. His wife fried it up with tortillas. Rellena is basically congealed solidified cow blood with chunks of fat and a few spices encased in a thin layer of cow intestine. It looks like grayish black sausage. I had actually eaten it once before back in the little pueblos in the mountains but after eating a nice hefty plate of it this last week something tells me that the preparation process here in the city may be a little bit different than back in the mountains. I was able to eat all of mine but my poor little doe of a companion asked to take her's in a container to the house after getting a little bit of it down. (She sends a big hello to you all by the way :) We then enjoyed eating our normal lunch with one of the hermanas after that. Not getting any slimmer over here haha oh boy anywho life continues to fly here. I am loving my day to day routine of walking and talking. It really hit me the other day after talking with someone just how much I love talking about the Gospel and finding different ways to relay it to the many different people we meet here. Also, President and Sister Stutznegger are such great people who really care about their missionaries individually. I love them. I am excited about the invitation the stake received at home last week because it helps the missionaries so much, and more than anything it is just good healthy clean fun to share something so special with people we love! :) Keep up the great work everybody. Love you all. And enjoy your first week back in school!

Saludos, Hermana Jonesie

This is what my companion brought home for dinner in the evening. I am not really sure what health benefits come from eating solidified cow blood but I feel fine!

It was fun seeing my old companion, Hermana Martinez, on Friday during a meeting. She goes home in two weeks, along with my trainer Hermana Llaguarima! The bottom pic is Elder Labra who was an assistant to the president and one of my zone leaders for a little bit. Such an incredible person. He goes home to Chile next week. I really hate goodbyes. That is one of the worst parts of the mission and I will never be good at them!

My companion, Hermana Torres, really is a little doe and I love her to death! The plan is for her to finish out the mission with me and when she gets her visa in December to go to her mission in Utah.

Without this essential key, we are stuck and unable to progress.

Greetings everyone! Here I am again, one week more in the mission. It honestly felt like two days. I wake up, work, do missionary service, eat, and go to bed again. Two minutes later I wake up and blast into another day. Everything is just flying and blending together and I don't know how I feel about that haha it's plum loco I tell you. We had a fun week full of adventures as always. On Tuesday Hermana Herlinda in our Ward helped get a few recent converts started on family history in one of their homes. It was fun to see how excited these people were to do this work and to focus on the Temple...one of my favorite things about the gospel. We will be doing the same thing this Tuesday as well. Saturday was fun. We took a group of people to El Centro para Visitantes (Temple visitor’s center). It was fun getting jam packed into a combi again -- haven't done that for awhile. It always amazes me just how many people manage to squish themselves into public transportation. The majority of them were investigators of the Elders (Elder Perez, our district leader, who is training Elder Revolorio from Guatemala City) but we brought along one of the most precious old men I have ever met named Jose. He is coming back to Church again and we visit him about once a week. He has the biggest most precious toothless smile and laugh ever and he enjoyed the visit. We met up with our investigator Ana and her little girl Isabela. Ana is the daughter of a recent convert named Leticia who I taught during the activity we had with the jovenes, and was baptized the weekend before we got here. Ana is an amazing person who does all of her tarea (homework) and comes ready with really good questions. She is preparing to be baptized at the end of September. She mentioned to us a few times during the visit how excited she is to come back but this time to be able to enter the Temple. She told us that she now has hope of seeing her father again who passed away seven years ago thanks to the Savior’s gift of resurrection. The Savior’s Restored Gospel is what brings us that kind of hope. Later in the afternoon Juan Carlos was baptized! He is the brother and uncle of a few recent converts who had been listening and attending Church for awhile but eventually came to a standstill due to the pressure of others to be baptized. I think he pushed a little reset button when we arrived and felt reanimado to be baptized. It was a very nice little service. The Bishop baptized him (didn't get a picture with him sorry) and his sister Magdalena who was baptized in April spoke. My companion and I also shared short little messages and the other missionaries in the district were able to bring investigators as well. I took the opportunity to relate a fun little experience my companion and I had a few days ago with the principle of baptism. What happened was we had just closed the door when my companion asked me if I had the keys. I made a "doh!"sound in my head as a I realized that they were still inside the house. We cannot enter our apartment nor leave the main entrance below without these keys. We were literally stuck...unable to progress. Fortunately, the Bishop lives right above us and his wife was home and provided us with a screw driver which we used to successfully removed a window, and then stuck our hand in to open the door haha my handy man skills/eagle powers are developing quite nicely. The point is that baptism is a necessary ordinance and covenant that we need in order to progress back to our Heavenly Father. It opens the door for us to journey through this life en el camino de Cristo (the path of Christ) and eventually return to live with our Heavenly Father. Without this essential key, we are stuck and unable to progress. The baptism went very well and on Sunday he was confirmed by the Bishopric second counselor Hermana Arellano. This Ward is really great. Last night we had a very cool experience with an investigator named Victor. Remember the hermana I told you about a couple of weeks ago who met by accident in the rain and turns out they are a less active family who came to the ward again? Well, Victor is the "husband" (not actually married yet) of the daughter of this woman. It has been very neat teaching him. It has been slow progress but last night something miraculous happened. They had invited us to cenar (dinner) and during the whole thing I was wondering "how are we going to approach this lesson tonight? how exactly are we going to teach it?" because, until last night, it had been difficult even getting to a discussion about the restoration of the gospel. As I sat there waiting for an answer I heard in the back of my mind that we needed to teach him about the restoration because he would listen tonight. Honestly I had my doubts but we waited for the right moment and eventually Victor started asking the right questions and basically served everything to us on a silver platter. I wish I could tell you the whole experience but honestly could not if I tried because it was the Spirit talking, not me. It was so perfect and so powerful how everything just fell into place. I do remember that he asked me directly where he would be able to find all the because's to all of the why's that he has, what scripture references I could give him to understand more clearly and receive all of the answers he is looking for. I paused for a moment, took a breath, and then told him that I could refer him to many different books, internet sights, historians and all sorts of things that would give him a human, imperfect knowledge of what he is looking for, but that if he wants real answers, untainted by human error and perspective, the only source that he could turn to and the only person that he could ask is God. I had him read Santiago (James) 1:5 in the Bible and he sat there and just nodded his head. He understood so clearly. We talked to him about how to conquer fear by exercising faith and many other things I can't remember. It is so incredible being an instrument and saying things in another language that don't come from me. I don't share this to brag or anything like that and I hope it is not taken that way. I simply share this because it was a very special, reaffirming experience for me. Hermana Torres and I are so excited to continue teaching him. Things are great here and I am happy :)

Love,

Hermana Friendita Juanita -- another nickname from Elder Perez and Elder Revolorio

Baptism of Juan Carlos.

 

More from the baptism of Juan Carlos. We really struggle to take nice group pictures haha :) good old memories. The woman in the purple is Juan Carlos's sister Magdalena. The woman in black to my left is Dalia who will be baptized in September and her mom Veronica who is below her was baptized in January. The woman next to Magdalena is Leticia who is Ana's mom and was just baptized. The woman in pink is Martha and she will be baptized at the end of September. So many amazing people here. Martha and Dalia are also people who have been listening for a very loooooooong time and are now overcoming their fear and making the decision to be baptized. Speaking of baptisms, Julio who I was teaching in my old area was baptized on Saturday as well. Hermana Martinez told me that two other people who we taught together will be baptized in the next two weeks. I love that casa de oración and am so happy to hear that it is growing. It was such a privilege to serve and work there and I feel grateful to be a small part of such a huge and wonderful work. It is a blessing now being one of the people who gets to see the culmination of many seeds that missionaries planted before me in my current area. Many of the people we are teaching right now are what we call "eternal investigators" who are now finally making the decision to be baptized. It feels good being on both sides of the story and to realize that what matters most is that people are coming unto Christ, regardless of what part of the journey we are there to witness.

Breaking into our house :)

Our trip to the Mexico City Temple Visitor’s Center.

One More :)

Many greetings from Neza!

Many greetings from Neza! Lots happened this last week. We continue to meet new members, all of whom seem determined to fatten up mi compa and me. They say that we look medio delgaditas and need to eat more. My bubble face just keeps getting bubblier. I have a master plan to get a membership at the gym down the street here pretty soon and go early in the mornings if possible. My futile attempts to decline food are just not working. I pulled a Nacho Libre this past week and swallowed a raw egg yolk. We were teaching a man named G at his natural juices stand and I made the mistake of pointing out what looked to be quail eggs he had sitting out. He cracked one into a glass, squeezed some lime juice on it, and handed it over to me. I downed the thing and it was actually pretty tasty. Still waiting for my eagle powers and nutrients to come so I can call upon them in time of need....or possibly land in the hospital with salmonila. Whichever comes first :) My comp and I navigated the ever exciting Metro Train when I took her to Cami Hospital to check her wrist. This time it was not my fault! She sprained it playing volleyball in the CCM long before she became my companion. There are always Church members who say hi to us in the Metro or who help us find our way. I love the Metro! Everybody makes fun of me for it but I think it is just the coolest thing ever -- takes me back to train rides into Chicago as a little kid. So guess what? We have a baptism this Saturday! J C, the brother of a recent convert, has finally made the decision to be baptized after months of going to the Church and receiving las platicas. He has been working on quitting smoking, too. Finally I decided to just invite him to be baptized as we were getting ready to walk out the door and, after a pause, he firmly said yes. I was delightedly surprised. We were able to visit him yesterday after Church with the Bishop and the second counselor. The Ward here is great and so willing to help. So we will be planning that this coming week. Also, I received word from my old compa Hermana Martinez that a cute 9 year old boy named J who we taught together will be baptized this Saturday as well! I sure did love that casa de oracion. Tomorrow, we will be having a little class with the recent converts, and soon to be baptized investigadores, about la historia familiar (family history). Two hermanas from the Ward who work in the family history center will be helping them set up their own accounts. I am excited to show them the family tree and pedigree chart I packed with me and will be fondly thinking of my grandparents from both sides of my family who have put so much time into this.  Que mas les puedo decir? I am having a hard time remembering much of what happened this last week. All I know is that it was a good one. Oh, we had interviews and some great capacitactiones from the asistentes and los lideres de zona. Hermana Gonzalez and I were able to help out as well. We trained about the three compromisos we always extend -- praying, reading the Book of Mormon, and coming to Church. One of the examples we used was giving two missionaries each an apple. One of them was allowed to eat it, the other one no. They each shared their "experience" with us concerning the apple. Obviously they were very different; one was able to truly enjoy the goodness of the apple and the other one was not. We then read in 1 Nefi 8:10-12 about when Lehi partook of the fruit of the arbol de la vida (Tree of Life) and knew that it was most desirable above any other thing. The fruit represents the love of God and our Savior. El Libro de Mormon es otro testamento de Él (The Book of Mormon is another testament of Christ). It is something tangible that the people we teach, and each one of us, can read and experimentar and come to know. I do love that book. That's all I have for now. Saludos!

Hermana Jones

Gelatinas are a very popular dessert here. These have flowers inside. They were gifts from a guy who contacted us on the street. We didn't eat them. The Church members have told us to not eat anything that strangers give us. They have even gone so far as to give us a can of pepper-spray I keep stowed in my bag for protection. I feel that this area is safer than my first one in Oriental but we still need to keep alert.

My eagle egg haha :) 

Always fun to see my hermana friends, especially the crippled ones ;) haha everyone is giving me a hard time for this!

A very popular thing here is the moto-taxis. You sit in a little metal and plastic cart pulled by a guy on a motorcycle and pay 15 pesos to go from one place to another if you are in a rush.

My little study space :)

These are the stairs outside our front door that I run up and down in the mornings.

Part of our bedroom. I will try to send pics of my last apartment next week. Speaking of which, I am getting permission to go with Hermana Martinez and our companions to Chapultepec next week so I may write another day...not really sure yet. This is her last cycle and this is something that we have been talking about since last cycle :) Talk to you next week! Love you!