Thankyou mom for the nice letter you sent. I love you too and I wish I was smart to send a card to you but this is my card. You have been an awesome mom and I am so grateful for your weekly letter every single week. If I don’t get any mail on Friday, I can always count on the email on Monday so that is a huge blessing. You really have motivated me to keep on moving while I am out here and just the bresh air from air every week is a good balancer with all the lessons and missionaries and rules and things like that. So I am extremely grateful for everything you do. I just want you to know that I love you too.

Hey family! Sounds like you are all having a good time taking hikes to Flat Iron. I wish I was there to do it as well. I miss going on hikes, playing golf, hanging out with the family, and eating at some burros. I could use a good pollo fundido. haha. Next time you have to make it all the way up. The view is gorgeous. You can see everything. I remember the first time I hiked up Flat Iron, I was either a 11 year old scout or a deacon when I did it. It was fun. Its a nice close and convenient hike. Well sounds like you had fun. I cannot believe Sterling is going to Samoa. I see samoans all the time here. He fits that mission so easily. He will do well out there. I am excited for him. I am jealous mom that you get to talk to Matt Parisek. I would love to talk to him again. It has been three years since I have seen him. I cannot believe it has been that long. The kids sound like they are all doing great. I miss them too. I just want to thank everyone that has written me since I have been out on my mission. It has been a very good support. People like the Shreeves just keep producing great treats. Thank you. Yes, I did get the tie for christmas Aunt Louise. By the way, that tie is like my favorite tie. I wear at least once a week if not more. Its awesome thanks so much. Thank you so much Saurey family( I think I spelt that right) for the shoes. I have worn the same pair of shoes my whole mission so far. They still are in excellent shape. No worries mom, I do not look trashy with them on. I try to shine them every week. Eccos are the best kind of shoes.

Well this week was ok. Lots of people ended up dropping us. 3 people told us they didn’t want to learn anymore. Which was a huge downer. They are missing out on the greatest blessings they can recieve. I hope that they want to learn soon. So that was the biggest downer of the week. Also that we could not contact Lamarr again. We have no idea what is going on. He doesn’t answer our calls or texts and he is never home when we come by. He seems like he is really busy and has lots of things he is trying to work out. We just hope he contacts us today or tomorrow. We might get transferred on Wednesday. We had 4 people at church this week. Rosa, Claudia, Chu, and this kid named Brian Price( Not my cousin but a different one who plays defensive tackle for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers)

Chu Chu: She is for sure for sure getting baptized this Saturday on my birthday. The building is scheduled and she has friends flying in from out of town so its 99.99% sure that it is going to happen. She is so excited as well. She is totally ready and is super strong. She enjoys the whole social aspect of it and she loves the gospel and knows that it is true. She is really funny and she is ready to get baptized. She just needs an interview and that it is it. Elder Lee is still really nervous about the baptismal ordinance in chinese. He is stressing over it a lot and he is scared. Hopefully he can get confident and happy about it soon. It should be a very good service. Everyone in the ward is going to be there because everyone has been an awesome help for her. The USC ward has amazing fellowship. Student wards are all fired up about missionary work. So anyways, we are super excited for the baptism!!!

Rosa and Claudia: They are still doing really well and they still love going to church. They are pretty emotional latin women but they sure are strong and diligent in finding out if the church is true. They are praying really hard to find their answer. We are too praying hard to help. We love going over to teach them. They feed us some kind of barbque every time. It is super good. They are funny latin twins. We found out that Rosa is still married to some other guy and is trying to get a divorce and at the same time she is living with her boyfriend. She claims that she is “celibit” but that still won’t cut it. We are planning on teaching both of them the Law of Chastity tomorrow so that they can understand what they can do to before they can get baptized. So continue praying for them.

Brian Price: Huge black guy that plays NFL football for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He was a referral from his fiance who is in the USC ward. She is a super good track star and is going to be trying out for the Olympics next year for hurdles. Anyways, we ended up teaching Brian this week the Restoration. He liked a lot and told us that he wants to get baptized. He has had some dramatic things happen to him in his life. Two of his brothers were shot and killed when they were in gangs. So he has tatoos in memory of them and so he is in great spiritual need. He has been spiritual his whole life and knows a lot actually from the bible. He just has a problem scheduling appointments because he is flying back to Tampa Bay tomorrow until March 5th for camp. So we won’t be seeing him anytime soon. We will be teaching him when he gets back though. So we are looking forward to that. Hopefully I don’t get transfered. I would love to be here in the USC area for at least one more transfer to see all these people get baptized.

Damon Ray: He is the black recent convert that we have been teaching. He is going to be famous one day and I mean that in a literal sense. Anyways, we are teaching him more and more about the gospel. Basicallly reviewing all of the basics so that he has more of a solid understanding of everything. Good news is that he is quitting his job that requires him to work on Sundays and stops him from coming to church. He is in the process of finding a new job. We love working with Damon. He is a great guy and very funny.

Everyone else that I have mentioned has either fell off the radar or is not progressing. Tenchi Gao hasn’t contacted us either this week. So that has been difficult. It has been a tough week in regards of teaching people who were once progressing. Hopefully things get going soon. The week has been good though. I have enjoyed it a lot. This saturday, our ward mission leader is taking us out to lunch at a korean barbque for ward correlation. I am excited. Saturday is going to be a good day. Lunch and a baptism. I am excited.

The gospel is true and I encourage everyone to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. It is true as well. I hope everyone has a good week this week! Happy Valentines Day

Love,
Elder Kevin Jones