Interesting Facts!

We have had quite the experience here during these past couple of weeks. Here are some facts you´d maybe like to know:

• We are going to have a branch activity this Thursday and plan to watch a movie
• Elder Thorn and I have already talked to more than 400 people since our arrival. How many people do you think talk to the missionaries worldwide on a weekly basis??
• We made empanadas yesterday! They tasted great, and I will have to make some when I come home. One of my earlier entries might explain more about this Argentine food!
• Elder Thorn and I might do a presentation in a private English school here in Concepción del Uruguay!
• The Zone Conference last week was my last one, unless I serve again later in my life!
• Our Branch President is only 28-years-old!
• Not one active member has a car in our branch. Lots of people here in the city take buses, walk, or ride bikes, just like us :)

I also have some interesting info from scripture studies this week! Some of you may already know this information, but I´d like to share it:

• Luke and Mark were not called as part of the twelve apostles
• Although Luke wasn´t one of the twelve, he still wrote his gospel and Acts. He practiced medicine, and he maybe accompanied Paul in his travels.
• Paul took three missionary journeys. Look at the scale on Map 13 in the back of the Bible. Elder Thorn and I walk quite a bit, but Paul traveled and ventured incredible distances!
• Two of the twelve apostles have the same name: James. 
• Paul´s Epistles in our New Testament are in order from longest (Romans) to shortest (Philemon), except for the epistle to the Hebrews, since he maybe didn´t write it. So maybe Paul didn´t even write the epistle to the Hebrews. Who else could it be?
• During part of Paul´s early life, he was persecuting Christians. However, when he was on his way to Demascus, he saw a vision of the Lord. There are maybe some interesting parallels between Paul's experience here and Alma the Younger in the Book of Mormon. I might study that a bit more this week.

You can look up these topics in the Bible Dictionary if you´d like to learn more about them. I found these facts interesting.

Anyways, I hope you are all having a great week. I have learned so much on my mission and appreciate your support.

Bye,

Elder Jones

A few Q&A from email: 

1.      Are you focusing more on new investigators or working with less active members?

We try to focus on both. We only had around 12 people in church on Sunday, so we really need to get some more families active in the church, whether they be less-active members or new families that we find on our own. I also found out that our Branch is independent, which means there is no district president due to a shortage of active priesthood holders. So our Branch President reports to President Giuliani and his counselors. We are a pretty small unit here in this town!

2.      How was your Zone Conference?  Where did you have to travel?

The zone conference went well. We had roughly 20 missionaries there, so it was smaller than other typical zone conferences. We practiced teaching methods and listened to some workshops from the President, his wife, the assistants, and the zone leaders. We had to travel to Concordia! So yeah, we took another three hour bus ride. I slept most of the trip on the way there. If I´m not mistaken, the alarm went off at 4:30am that morning!

3.      Guess the weather is pretty cold.  Equivalent to January???

To be honest, it really isn´t too cold. I am in a sweater right now, but there defintitely isn´t any snow here! Maybe in another couple of weeks or so the temperature will drop more. We plan to gather prices together today so we can buy a heater maybe next week.