2 years

As I reflect on my mission, it's hard to think that almost 2 years have passed since I've seen family and friends. I think that as one loses himself in the work, the culture, etc, you kinda just forget about everything else. Not entirely obviously, you still worry about things (school, family, how many people email you haha) but the time has really flown by. I feel like just last week I was in my first area freaking out about everything. 

About 5 years ago I would say that I didn't believe in God. But today I can say without a doubt in my heart that I know that we all have a very loving Heavenly Father. Jesus Christ is my best friend. Both of them know how I and how all of us feel in every moment, and know when to help us, and they do in a very special, divine way.

It's interesting because I can say that not only due to my own experiences that I've had, but also because I've seen hundreds if not thousands of lives touched by Christ and his love. A mission is a wonderful start to a life, and I will never ever be able to thank God enough for the opportunity I've had to represent His Son and His church these two years.

A big thank you to all those who have written me during these past 2 years, sorry that I've been pretty bad at responding to all you guys haha, but when I get home I'll have all day, all week to be able to talk to you guys. In the mission I've got an hour a week hahaha. 

I feel like the biggest change that that has happened to me is my capacity to just love people like crazy. That also means that sometimes I get even more upset and frustrated with people because there are more feelings involved, but I know that life is just so much better when we love. If we can love people life just changes. it's easier, easier to put up with, and really we're just happier. And the best part is that loving isn't just a coincidence, I can choose to love everyone! I don't have to say "well that guy just isn't nice so I CANT love him" I mean it doesn't really work like that. God loves ALL his children...He loves those who make bad decisions, those who accept Him, those who say He doesn't exist, He loves all of us despite our flaws and weaknesses. I'm not perfect, but I have a perfect example to follow, we all have it, and my time as a missionary has helped me to learn more about how to follow Him. 

I love you guys! and I'll see you all next week.

August 18th 6pm - my house

-con mucho amor, Elder Jones

welcome to the jungle

This week I went to the jungle! I'll send some pictures soon. Let me tell the story: there's a girl, whose name is Blanca. We call her Blanquita. She's 18. She lives in a place called la Pedrera. la Pedrera is a farther, poorer part of our area, and at the very end of that part of the area there's a dirt road, and then there's a trail, and then there's not even a trail, it's just "the jungle" and you make your own pathway. Blanca lives at the end of this pathway in a house made out of sticks and tarps. They heat up food and stuff like that by the fire, no stoves or ovens. There is no carpet or linoleum floors, just dirt. In January Blanquita got a disease that paralized her from the waist down. She couldn't use her legs for a while, and then she got the feeling back and had a walker, and now in July she's walking fine. But this week I got to meet her. We taught her the restauration (the pamphlet in the picture....that's on the roof of the church btw)

On the front of this pamphlet there's a picture of Jesus. He's holding a little lamb. It looks like he loves the lamb and he's hugging it tightly. I explained this to Blanquita, and explained that there's a certain way that we can access that love that he has for us, and we do it through covenants, or promises, with God. The first of all these covenants is baptism. Blanquita accepted to be baptized on august 12th, and we're going to work with her so that that can happen. I've met many people like Blanquita in the past 23 months, but her story touches me. She's still willing to follow God despite her circumstances. How many of us would do the same? Blanquita is a great example for me, of humility and love for the Lord. Hopefully one day I can also make sacrifices like she does. I know Jesus loves me. He's my best friend. I've come to know him much better throughout my time in the mission. And I'll never be able to deny it. I love you guys!  Have a great week, Elder Jones

Trunky

I've been trunky for a while, but idk what the big deal about it is. I mean everyone is always like "elder are you dying?" "elder do you want to go home?" "elder are you trunky?" and I mean yes I'm ready to go home, I've been ready to see my family and friends and have a normal life for quite a while now, but that doesn't matter! Just gotta keep working. Obviously I want to see my family and I think about home a lot, mainly because every day I've got to tell at least one person that I've got almost 23 months in the mission. But this life isn't about what we want to do. There are lots of things I could do.....get a tattoo, or drink coffee, or play soccer on Sundays, but does God care about that? He wants us to be happy but in his way. We have to be obedient and do his will, not ours. That's how we'll be happy eternally. So yes I'm trunky, but it's normal. And I'll keep working, the same waywlaways I always went to church even though there were some days I would have preferred playing with the FC Dallas club or something like that haha.  In the mission you've gotta have hope. I mean if you don't, you just want to die. Actually, you want to die but you live because you have hope haha. That hope, like Moroni says in Ether 12 that faith is an anchor for our souls. Without that anchor we just float really wherever. That anchor keeps us tied to the gospel. Losing yourself in the work is also interesting. If you always focus on things like "man when will this be over" or "this sucks and is hard" or stuff like that, we cant immerse ourselves in the work.  Sometime we'll have those thoughts and stuff, but if we're lost in the work, they don't affect us too much. We continue on with life. I don't count the days hahaha. No worries there and I'm laughing about 75 percent of the day. The other 25 percent I'm either spiritual or angry. But I get over being angry pretty quick bc I laugh about something haha. Relying on the Savior is also a really interesting point. Someone once told me that they believe in God because we cant do it alone. TBH we can do this life alone, pretty easily. Lots of people do. But we cant do eternity alone. And life gets way easier whenever we rely on the Savior. Alma 7:11-12 talks about this, how the Lord took everything upon him to help us and that's pretty cool. It's a principle that's necessary for our lives.  Love you lots mom!! Have a great week!

​Elder Romero and I did interchanges and had a movie night. We probably should have gone to bed earlier hahaha

 ​I got my sombrero too

baptism in the water

baptizing in the water is my favorite thing to do

​in our ward we have about 180 active members! thats a lot of people, especially here in mexico. we got to church yesterday and this lady was like "elders! can you sing a special musical number right now?" and so out of nowhere i had to learn some random hymn on the piano and the other 3 elders in the ward with some other members sang (pretty terribly) but im sure the spirit was felt. 

haha but anyway im in the middle of nowhere! i mean literally people ride horses everywhere here. theres also cars and stuff, but horses are very popular. 

​heres just a sneak peek at my area. there are also pyramids! 

but anyway this week i was reading in mark about when Christ goes to heal jairos daughter, and so jairo goes up to him and is like "hey i need help me daughter is gonna die! and they start to go but then the lady touches Jesus clothes and is healed for her faith. but then as they continue on their way they say "whats the point in going? she already died!" but they continue and as they get there, it says that people made fun of and mocked Jesus for going to heal her, but he puts them aside and takes in the parents and his disciples (note that these are probably the only people that believed that Christ could heal her) and goes in and raises her from the dead. but whats interesting about this is that the people made fun of Christ, but he went in to cure her anyway. he put them aside and did what he had to do. i get made fun of a lot or yelled at or cussed at and ya know all that kind of stuff for being white, or Mormon, here in mexico, and its tough sometimes, but we can always follow Christs example and just put them aside. but the other interesting part is that he only took in the parents and his disciples to see the miracle. the others didn't deserve to see it and have that confirmation of their testimony. just a few things to reflect on this week. Jesus is cool!!! and hes our friend!! love you guys a lot, have a great week!

we got high today

Almost 22 months as a missionary and I still make dumb jokes like that. Today we went to the torre latino. It's just this really big tower. We went to the museum and I didn't actually learn why it was built or why its there, but it was pretty cool.

My compa and I inside the torre. 

It was really interesting looking out on all of Mexico city, and we could see things like the airport and the temple even though they're kinda far away. 

This past week it rained a lot. It wasn't a whole lot of fun. Getting wet all day every day as a missionary is not the best in the world. And the other part of that is that we were knocking doors all week, which is neither the best in the world, and so we spent many hours knocking doors while getting wet, and it was slightly miserable. But I remember in some moment something just clicked, and my situation didn't change, and nothing got better, and I was still knocking on doors and getting wet, but my perspective changed, and I was just content. I was happy that I was serving the Lord. Even though my circumstances weren't wonderful, I just chose to be happy. Many times in life we let our situations and circumstances and trials define us and control our lives. But yesterday in a meeting a new sister missionary from Fort Worth said something really interesting. She had to talk about hope, and in broken Spanish she said that if we want hope, we have to choose to have hope. It's as simple as that. If we make a conscious decision to change something, we can change it. That's what I was thinking about today, is that we can always be happy when and if we choose to be happy. Love you guys a lot! Have a great week, choose to be happy!

​

​

​Elder Jones

Pictures

"are you apostate?" no, we're mormons. "so you're apostate?"

Buenas tardes del hermoso lugar de la Ciudad de México. This week was just another normal missionary week. I could talk about miracles if you wanted but I'll save those for after the mission. I'll share one experience though: we were contacting some lady we found in the street when this other guy walks up and just butts in and asks "what are your names?" tbh he kinda scared me and smelled bad (i may have judged him a little bit but after being robbed 3 times you don't trust anyone) and so i didn't understand him, and he decided to ask me in English, and proceeded to ask if i wished for him to speak to me in English. I told him no and we began to talk and he said a bunch of weird things and then told us we were apostate a few times, and i finally got a little tired of listening to him and asked "sorry, but why are you talking to us?" and he said something along the lines of "I don't like you. I don't want to see you here. i don't want you here. Go away. Don't knock doors. If you want to talk to someone, you make an appointment. So go away." So I extended my hand to say goodbye and he told me "no. it's okay. bye." and so I wished him a nice afternoon and left. If you've ever asked yourself, a mission is about 40% experiences like that, 50% getting ignored or rejected nicely, and 10% getting accepted. but you get used to it, and typically the 10% makes the other 90% worth it.

This week I have learned some cool things. I've been studying the Book of Mormon a lot and it really is just such a complex thing. to show you a little bit of its complexity:

​

​This is every name that shows up in the Book of Mormon, up to around Alma 40 something. I couldn't get it all done before they erased it, but maybe some of you guys could figure this out. or maybe not because its in Spanish. but either way, I've been thinking a lot about the Book of Mormon this week. I don't know how many of you remember the earthquake back in September, but there's a certain area here in the city called la Condesa. it's pretty fancy, lots of big buildings and stuff like that. but there was a brand new building that had been built when the earthquake hit. the building didn't fall, but was so severely damaged that it can't be used anymore. Someone sued, and an investigation was done, and it turns out that the foundation wasn't dug deep enough and that's why the building ended up that way. but many times it's like that with our testimonies. We don't have a good foundation, or maybe we think we do, or maybe we think that our foundation is deep enough when really it isn't. There's a story in the Book of Mormon in 3rd Nephi 14 that talks about this:

24 Therefore, whoso heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, who built his house upon a rock—
25 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock.
26 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them not shall be likened unto a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand—
27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell, and great was the fall of it.

And then if we go to Helaman 5:12 we can learn a little more about this rock:

12 And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty stormshall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.

Our testimonies will never fall if we can build them upon a firm foundation. and for me the Book of Mormon is one of the firmest foundations there is. When we read that book, and study it thoroughly, it really is impossible to disprove it. I know that it's true. it can help us in every moment, and answers many questions that we have in our lives. 

I'm out of time but my next thought will come next week! love you guys, have a good week!

Elder Jones

drunk people

drunk people just arent very fun to be around to be completely honest. here's a fun story for your day: today were transfers, and because im a zone leader now they put me in charge of the transfers in the bus terminal. so we got there and to be completely honest it was terrible just bc missionaries don't always do what theyre told (oh well) but then at one point this super drunk guy just starting screaming and crying and talking to all the missionaries and i just thought "well the elders can handle this its not too odd." but if he started to mess with the hermanas i knew i would have to do something. so (of course) he starting messing with the hermanas (and this guy was big, about as tall as i am and about 300lbs) and i just grabbed him by the arm and dragged this man outside. thankfully another elder came out behind just in case the guy started to beat my head in, but i dragged him out and sat him down on a bench and we starting teaching him (or at least trying, its hard to teach drunk, crying hysterical people). but that was an interesting experience for today.

have a great week everyone!! hopefully i have some better emails in the weeks that come

here are a few pics of life:

1 - my zone last change

2 - my son elder bowles

3 - elder bennion, one of my fav companions, goes home tomorrow

pics

2 of these pics are from grilling today, and the other is from a random part of our area that looked cool!! 

swimming in the baptismal font

The kid that I got to baptize yesterday is named Jose Felipe, it was his 10th birthday!! He was really excited to just get in the water hahaha. Both of his parents are members of the church. but they don't ever go anymore, so some neighbors take him. It's really interesting to see that even though the parents don't go, their children are really willing to make the sacrifice to go to church! Satan really did not want him to get baptized. The baptism was at 8, (in the morning) so we had to get up at 3:30am to go to the chapel and fill the font. We spent an HOUR AND A HALF trying to turn on the boiler!!!! It was tough because the automatic turn on thing wasn't working, so we had to take apart the boiler so I could stick my hand in the boiler and turn it on. The water was warm (enough) haha. Whenever it was time for him to get out, he did not want to at all. He started swimming in there, and so I just grabbed him and picked him up and started to take him out by force, and he grabbed onto the handrail and just about pulled me in with him! I finally got him out and all was good. It was a great experience.

We played soccer this morning! Enjoy this picture:

Here's our house!

It's that small silver door by the two guys over there. It's pretty tiny, but it's cool.

 I'm excited to live in my house in Texas again though. I miss carpet and a bed that's long enough for my body.

Have a great week everyone!! Happy mothers day! Moms are the best, especially my mom. They're cool. Here's some scriptures about them so you all can see how awesome they are: Alma 56:43-48. Love you guys! Have a great week!

Elder Jones

another 20

but this 20 isnt in years, its in months in the mission. im getting old guys. this week was just another week in the life of a missionary, nothing really new just hanging around, trying to save more souls. few things that i acn say about the area:

this past week we saw another fight in the streets. its common for road rage to overcome people here and then they just stop all traffic, get out of their cars and go at it. its interesting. but everyone just stops life and watches haha, i mean people come out of their houses, out of restaurants and local business, and the other people in traffic get out of their cars to also watch. fun stuff

another common thing here is that people will get onto the buses and start to sell whatever they have, normally candy or chocolates, sometimes jewelry or cds, but its interesting and they sell it really cheap. many times the stuff is expired and tahts why its so cheap but oh well. but a few weeks ago someone got on a bus and started selling chocolates and they always present their product and stuff and one guy said "sera robado, pero nunca caducado" or in other words "it could be stolen, but never expired" pretty funny stuff

the other thing is that here in my area the buses are ALWAYS SUPER FULL. i mean almost every single bus has people hanging out the sides, and so if you want to get on, youve just gotta hang more out the sides. if youve ever seen the stereotype about how a million people fit into a small green bus, its not a stereotype, its real. so ive learned how to hang on to the side of a bus pretty well here. thats also fun stuff

This is a ginormous concha. its delicious sweet bread. also i had just barely woken up when i took this picture thats why i look like that haha

love you guys lots!! have a great week

elder jones 2.0

Get it??? Because it was my bday and I'm 20 now.

Hey everyone! Short email because I'm running out of time, but this week has been great! My new area is called Puerta Grande, and it's PURE UPHILL AND DOWNHILL,  I mean straight up or straight down, there's no in between haha. The work has been really good, and I'll just share one quick experience from yesterday! We were going to go visit this one Hermana but got dragged along to go visit someone so we went ahead and went to go see how this Hermana was. She had been operated on a few weeks ago on her back, and so we went to see how she was. We talked a bit, and then she asked us to sing her a hymn and give her the sacrament. So we started to sing How Great Thou Art, and I can not say that I have felt the spirit so strongly in such a long time. As we were singing, I looked over at the Hermana. She was laying in bed and couldn’t move at all, but I saw her singing as loud as she could. And as we were singing the third verse I could see tears rolling down her cheeks. It took everything I had to not just start bawling like a baby haha. I could see the faith this Hermana had that everything would be okay because it was in the hands of God. And it is. I know that when we can trust in God, that everything will be okay. He has the master plan, the full panorama, and we shouldn’t worry too much about what happens in life. I know that when we trust in God, we can learn and progress more in this life. I love you guys! Enjoy this pictures from this past week.

Birthday pizza

​The guys in our house

 A member from Sauces came all the way to my area to give me this for my birthday!!!

 A shirt a member in Sauces gave me for my bday before I left there

Mision Ciudad de Mexico Oeste

      April 15, 2018

Dear Jones Family,

It is a pleasure to write and inform you that your son, Elder Jones, recently has been assigned to be a
Zone Leader. After much prayer and inspiration, God has indicated that your son should take this role in
the work of the Lord.

Our mission is divided into seven zones, and every zone is divided into various districts. In total, every
zone contains from fifteen to twenty five missionaries. As a Zone Leader, he will be responsible for the
physical and spiritual well-being of these missionaries under his direction. Through his example, he will
instruct and guide them to achieve their full potential. He will also have the opportunity to serve
alongside other district and zone leaders in collaboration meetings with local stake presidencies
concerning missionary work.

I love your son and trust in his ability to carry out this important responsibility, and I know that the Lord
does as well. I love seeing the progress your son has made, and I feel very honored to work alongside
him in this great missionary work.

Sincerely,

President Carl D. Grossen

Mexico Mexico City West Mission

short email, many pictures

Hey everyone!! I'm in a new area this week, it's called Puerta Grande. I'm back in the city and I have a feeling I may finish my mission in this area, which is really weird to think. Just a few more months of hard work left. I don't have much to say, but enjoy all these pictures!

1 - my compa left the keys in the house so we went out to the high way to search for things to get back in. I found a piece of metal, a stick, and some rope. And opened the door. I'm a legend

2 - Seminario is seminary. It's also a place that buses go to, and I found this bus sign and kept it. Just imagine a caption on it saying "kids, go to --"

3 - I made pizza. it was delicious

4 -  We baptized! I also baptized, but it's an interesting story what happened hahaha. One day I'll tell you guys

5 - my new tiny house shared by 4 elders. Enjoy!

Elder Jones

Birthday

One of the way Elder Jones celebrated his 20th birthday was by taking this family out to dinner.

lessons on lessons on lesson

I've learned so many things these past few weeks that I could probably give a 6 hour sermon on all of them, but here's just a short email on a few of them:

WELCOME TO HOLLAND
by
Emily Perl Kingsley.
c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

A lot of times we can get to Holland when we want to be in Italy. The things the Lord gives us aren't the things we want! But he always knows best. I remember at the beginning of my mission when I was always sick or getting robbed or not having any success whatsoever that I was REALLY upset. I mean I was just sick and tired of being a missionary and could only think "why would the Lord let all this happen to one of his servants?" I was obedient and working hard, but all that happened to me. So one day I told my dad "Dad, the Lord isn't giving me what I need" and my dad definitely jumped right on that and corrected me, telling me that the Lord was giving me exactly what I needed, but it definitely wasn't what I wanted. I'm grateful now that I've passed through those trials and I've learned from them. So instead of just complaining and having the mentality of "woe is me" we should try to learn from all the difficulties we have in life. The Lord wants us to learn and progress, and that's why we're here.

Thanks for reading everyone! Next week or the week after I'll share some more profound thoughts. Writing these letters is just getting more and more difficult haha. But only 19 more! So make sure to read them all haha. Love you guys, have a great week.

This week was actually also great for us!!  I feel like most missionaries have felt discouraged at some point in their mission, I mean that it just sucks and it's not fun, but I feel like more than anything I've learned that Jesus is my best friend, and when no one else is there he always is. I feel like more than anything that's what I want people to understand from me, is that through Christ we can feel better. We can have a friend in Him. I played the piano for the young women's choir this week in our ward conference and they sang the mutual theme "Peace in Christ". I don't know the lyrics in English but there's one part of the song that says "there will be no more tears". I really liked that part. I've been doing really good recently, just really tired! Trying to get over the exhaustness that I'm feeling. President was like "just sleep when you get home" hahaha so I'm trying to do that lol. Have a great week!

Elder Jones

life be good

This week was the best week we've had (in the sense of numbers) in a loooongg time. It felt good to see all our work in the numbers we had. We were able to find a lot of new investigators and had a lot of people go to church. Pray for us out here! Pray for the family Chavez Pacheco, and Fernando, and Estela. Other than that, not much has happened. It's been a normal week of solid work. 

A thought that I had this past week was something I read in Alma 37:

And now, my son, remember the words which I have spoken unto you; trust not those secret plans unto this people, but 

teach them an everlasting hatred against sin and iniquity. 

I read this and thought it was really interesting that Alma says that Helaman should teach an "everlasting hatred" against sin and iniquity. I think some times we tolerate sin a little too much, or we have "favorite sins" in our lives. Even as missionaries we have them, things that we do that we probably shouldn't but we don't want to get rid of them. I believe that as Alma taught, we should all have an "everlasting hatred" against sin and iniquity. If we can develop that then we'll be able to avoid many problems that we could have in life. I know that small things we develop in our lives like this intolerance for sin, pure love for others, patience, and other attributes of Christ, we'll have more fun in life. We'll enjoy it more and see more of the good in everything! I'm sorry I don't have anymore pictures I really, really need to take some. Have a great week everyone!! Love you guys!

Elder Jones

Man I wish we had spring break as missionaries haha. I'm SO exhausted. I actually slept terribly all week except last night, which was like the best sleep I've gotten in my whole life. I took some nyquil cause I'm getting sick again and it knocked me out. It was heavenly. Church was good, I'm playing the piano for the young women's choir and they're gonna sing next week, and they actually sound super good! For my birthday I would like to just sleep for a day straight. The best part of this past week was seeing 4 of our investigators get to church. I was really worried, so we went outside to wait for them, but it turns out that they slipped in somehow and we didn't see them! So we got back in there and I saw them and was like "what in the world?????" but it was cool. Something that made me laugh...idk my compa is a funny guy, he's just weird haha so I'm always laughing at something. The worst part was waking up every day. I hate waking up. Something sad was that some of our other investigators didn't get there :/ Oh well. The best thing I ate was some pizza. I'll take you guys to the special pizzeria when we come back. Worst thing was a tamal in a bolillio, I normally love them but this morning it was gross. And that was my week! love you lots mom! One favor: an hermana in the ward that I'm really close to is teaching Sunday school and struggles with the fact that her students don't pay attention and stuff like that. Can you send me something or make a video so that I can translate it for her? I think she'd like it. Love you lots!!!!! Have a great week mom, talk to you soon.

lovity, love, love, and amor

I've been thinking a lot about love lately. Not necessarily in the sense of getting married haha. A few weeks ago president sent a talk called "agency and love in marriage" and it talks about how we don't just "fall in love". Even though we use that phrase a lot, it's become something that seems just like an accident, like "oops I tripped and fell in love with a person". What this talk talks about is how love and agency are intertwined. Everytime we love someone, it's not just a coincidence, but we choose to love that person. Also the phrase "fall out of love" has become very common, and it implies the same thing, that two people just accidentally fell out of love, but it's not true! I would say that God has many reasons not to love us because of the mistakes we make, and when we're not obedient and all that fun stuff, but he continues choosing to love us. It's the same in marriage, in the family, with friends, and members in the church. Our circumstances can not prevent us from loving someone, we have to choose to keep loving that person. 

The other thought about love that I've had is a scripture in
1 John 3:18 :

My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; 
but in deed and in truth.

This scripture is really interesting, because saying "I love you" and showing it are two very different things. Yesterday at church someone said "I can't hear you speaking because your actions are too loud." and that is really true, because love is an action. I can say "I love you" to my mom, but if i don't ever wash the dishes or sweep the kitchen or make my bed, do I really love her? I'd like to invite all of us to be able to not love in word neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth. let us all show the love we have for others not just saying it, but proving it to them. I know that if we do so, if we strive to love others more, we'll feel more loved in our own lives. I know that Christ and God live and they love us! I know that repentance is real, we can always change, no matter how far we've gone away from God. I love you guys! Have a great week!

Elder Jones