General Conference Was Spectacular!

I enjoyed hearing from the leaders of our church this weekend. So wonderful to receive profound counsel. I missed hearing from Elder Holland for sure, though. Elder Townsend and I listened to the Saturday sessions in English with the other missionaries, and then the two of us watched the Sunday ones in Spanish. I didn't understand all of the Sunday speakers, so I'm going to re-listen to them in English when they get uploaded to Gospel Library. At the final session, a new friend came and watched with us. His name is Edgar, and he moved from Los Angeles. We are anxious to seek him out and visit him. He said the missionaries in California rarely visited him, so we're going to do better than that.

We had two wonderful lessons this week that specifically indicated great progress. One was with José, and the other was with Hugo. The thing in common is teaching the importance of marriage and the Law of Chastity. When we met with José, he said he is open to marriage; however, he claimed the problem to be talking to his girlfriend Maria about it. We invited him to talk about marriage with her, and we want to talk to her in the lessons too. Cesar, their young son, overheard our conversation and told the person on his video call, "My Dad is getting married!" I share the same excitement as him, hoping that our prayers and fasts will have God's will come to pass.

As for Hugo, we had a member with us! This member is stellar. We want him to come to our lessons before he moves to Texas. We planned to talk about the Plan of Salvation, but we only got through a little bit of it. Our member got to know them and wasn't afraid to ask Hermana Gastelum how long she'd been inactive! She opened up surprisingly and talked all about her desire to return to the temple! I realized that she and Hugo didn't need to be taught the Plan of Salvation in that moment—the Holy Ghost prompted us to invite her to watch General Conference and back into church activity. Hermana Gastelum even admitted that Hugo is open to being taught the gospel message! It was a wonderful lesson, and they felt a connection as they got to know Hermano Castillo, our good member. We plan on inviting them to get married and also inviting Hugo to eventual baptism at our next lesson! We would love prayers as we go for this!

Sadly, our lesson with Raúl canceled, but we still plan on boldly teaching him the importance of keeping the Law of Chastity. This topic is the consistent one that we're teaching our friends as of right now.

As for Reynolds, he and his wife Janet are great! We always have Sunday evening lessons with them. They had wanted to study in the scriptures, so that's what we did! We read John 6, John 10, and 3 Nephi with them. Reynolds downloaded the Gospel Library app on his phone and said he wants to try listening to the scriptures in his car when he drives far distances! This is a fun couple. They want to come to English class too.

Zone conference happened on Thursday. I loved it as usual. We also had our 2nd New Missionary Training. My missionary posterity is growing so much! Elder Miller is training his second greenie missionary, and his first greenie, Elder Bloomfield, is training as well! We got a good photo together of the six of us.

For our district activity, we carved pumpkins.

That is the Elder Jones update! Hope that was better than some of my past, shorter emails.

Also, Elder Townsend is still a fantastic companion/greenie missionary. His language and teaching abilities are always climbing! So proud.

De todos modos, ¡¡Auburn es el mejor en verdad!!

Elder Jones