Hit All the Notes

What is up mom and dad?!

Sorry, I have to act very mature most of the time...so you get to see the part of me that reverts back to a teenage...boy I suppose. Ya! :) This week has been a "hit all the notes!" week. Let me explain. Whenever Sister Seaman and I are back in our apartment for lunch or dinner, we always listen to my AWESOME shuffle and speaker. Thank you very much Colton, I truly don't know what I would do without music in the apartment, you are very much so, my favorite cousin. But shhhh!!! Don't tell the others! :) Our mission is pretty strict on music, so I have to skip through the Christian rock, but there is still a really great selection in there. Well, I was making dinner (orange chicken, yum :) ) and I turned on the music. Alex Boye ( I think that's how you spell his name) came on and was singing a rendition of "Be Still my Soul". And sorry, not to offend anyone who likes Alex Boye, but that song was just ridiculous. It reminded me of when pop stars sing the national anthem, and they just have to do all of those slides and trills...just hit the note! is what I'm thinking. I look up from the chicken when he starts doing his thing, gettingi into the groove, and I look at Sister Seaman. She has this look of disbelief on her face...and maybe a little bit of disgust as well. :) I burst out laughing and yell "Hit all the notes!" She busts up laughing too and whenever that song plays, we smile and make sure that he's not just hitting the one note, but all of the notes. Ah the little things we do to entertain ourselves.

So this week has been a "hit all the notes!" week. We hit some very very low notes...and some very good ones as well. One of those lower notes, you know the kind  that only the very large and dignified men can hit, those good old basses, was that on Tuesday we tracted...all day. We literally had nothing else that we could be doing, and that is terrible! We have been trying very hard to work with the ward but so far there has been limited success. We are hoping to get the members more active, but this week, it wasn't so. So for 6 hours, we tracted, and all of the cliche things happened. There was many a door slammed. Many a curt and rude no, and there were many a fake telephone calls to close the door. It was hard...and Sister Seaman and I were like Bon Jovi, livin' on a prayer. We had to have faith that someone...ANYONE would be interested in our message. If nothing else, we had to have faith that future missionaries would come and harvest those seeds that we planted. And man oh man did we plant seeds! The harvest will be bountiful in the future, it just wasn't that day.

But...duh duh du duuuu! The next day was fantastic!!! Heavenly Father was truly blessing us for our diligence and our afflictions because we found 3 amazing investigators and all of them are going to be on date this next week! (We just didn't have calendars for them but they said they'd be baptized. They have to have a calendar in hand to count as "on date") So please pray for Lisa, Brenda, and Rachel. They are all so amazing and deserve the happiness that this gospel brings.

I'm finding, that the people in the South, are in a word, crazy. Crazy, but I love 'em!!! We went to an investigators house for a follow up appointment, and she got to talking about her son who still lives in the house. How he wanted to be independent and make his own choices...but he still wanted her to make him a banana sandwich, or a baloney and egg sandwich. And in my mind I was just like what to the huh?! Baloney and egg? Banana sandwich? Oh, oh! And a banana sandwich isn't just banana...it's banana and MAYO. I've shockingly come to the knowledge, that if you've got two slices of bread, you can put anything in the middle and it's a sandwich. Ah! I miss the normalcy of Utah sometimes, but then again, I never had this much fun in Utah either. Much to many "normal" people in Utah. :) But then again, to these people, I'm the weirdo. I eat fry sauce with my fries, and have a western accent. Go figure! I've been living with an accent my whole life and never knew it!

We had stake conference this weekend and it was amazing! Two members of the 70 came and spoke to us. Elder Parker and Elder Cordbridge. They talked a lot about missionary work and Elder Parker at one point asked all of us full-time missionaries to stand up. It as amazing to look around and see so many of us. An Army of Helaman indeed. I really am so grateful for this opportunity that I have to be a missionary. I feel like I have grown so much and have had my testimony strengthened so much about the truthfulness of this gospel. I'm also learning that there is much that I don't know...but that's the exciting part isn't it, discovering the new and interesting everyday of our lives.  

I am grateful for this week, I truly am. This week reminds me of a song, any song really, and how the song doesn't reach its full potential for beauty or depth without, you guessed it, all the notes. The sweet wouldn't sound so peaceful, and so kind, if those bass notes didn't have their chance to mess around for a bit. My life as a missionary is like that song, sometimes sharp and disonnent, sometimes flat and sad, but all together, it makes a beautiful melody, and that's what my life is, beautiful. I am so grateful for all of you and how you've been part of my melody and brought so much sweet into my song.

Thank you for your prayers and I am so proud of all of you!!! Keep up the great missionary work

TLLY, and in case you forgot, I do too.

Love, Sister Jones