Dear Family and Friends
Yeah, I´m kinda in Brazil right now. Pretty dang sweet. But it is whatevs, not a big deal. haha just kiddding. OH MY GOSH!!!! I´m really in Brazil everybody, such a big deal. I can´t even believe it still. I wake up in the morning thinking "where am I" and then my native Brazilian companion starts talking to me and I can´t understand him, and then I remember. Oh yeah, I´m in Bazil!! Da heck dude. So last Tuesday, my mission president, President Batt from the New Mexico Farmington Mission, and surprises me with the news of my VISA. I was so mix up with emotions, I didn´t know how to feel. I was supper excited to finally get down to Brazil, but I was working with so many people in Sanders and I already fell in love with the people there, and so it was supper hard to leave. I just had tears in my eyes and didn´t want to leave Sanders. But thanks to the Lord and the help of others, I understood that my time has come to go. I did my part in Sanders. And now the Lord has work for me to do else where. I was really upset especially because I was going to be getting my first baptism the next Sunday. We have been teaching this family for the whole time I was there in Sanders and they where finally going to be baptized and they wanted me to baptize them all, but then I had to go. So that was supper hard to leave, I wanted to see them be baptized so bad. But I also realized something that is so cool while I was there. We as missionaries and members are a team. We are all one, working together for one purpose. Numbers don´t matter. The people we teach matter. There is no "My baptism or My Investigator". There is no "I" in team and there is no "u". But there is a "we" when you flip the m and put it next to the e. haha We are all here to help people come unto Christ together. Something that I also learned that we as missionaries don´t do the converting with our investigators. It is all the Lord. We don´t deserve any glory, all the glory goes to our Heavenly Father. So even though it was tough leaving Eli, Tim and Gene and having another Elder come in and Baptize them for me. It doesn´t matter. I´m so happy that I was able to be apart of it. I did my part that the Lord wanted me do, and now some one else needs to come in and do there part. This is the Lords work. We are just the Lords tools that he uses in his work. And what a honor that is. I´m so thankful to be apart of this great work and that I was able to learn these things. I feel like I´m going to do so much better with this attitude.
Last Sunday I gave a farewell to the people of Sanders and it was so tough to leave them. Almost as hard as leaving my family and friends. I love the people of Sanders. There were many tears. And many hugs. So many women, especially our investigators ran up to me and hugged me. I was tripping out. It was so weird. I just pat them on the back. It was so cool though. I dropped by Eli, Tim, Gene and Marlin´s house to say my good bye one last time. Before I could walk out the door, Marlyn, the mother who is was a less active member, walked up to me and told me something like this with tears in her eyes "Thank you for all that you have done for us, thank you for bringing this happiness into our live, and thank you for making my kids laugh again." All I could do is just cry and say your welcome. It was so hard to leave. This mission is so powerful. It is helping me become better and better everyday. The Lord has guided me so much in my mission and has helped me do and say so many great things to help change lives.
So last Monday I woke up at 5 in the morning to start flying to Sao Paulo Brazil. I traveled all day and all night. I met up with a lot of my missionary friends in my Zone from the MTC at the airport in Atlanta Georgia. I saw Sister Andresean, Elder Surresigg, and Elder Hanekamp. It was awesome. We just hung out and told each other our stories so far on our mission. It was so awesome to see them. We then hopped on this huge plan to go to Brazil. It was so cool. The plan had a lot of Brazilians on the plane and so we all just started practicing our Portugese right away. The people of Brazil are so awesome. They are supper nice. They are a beautiful people outside and inside. They all have such a great spirit. We flew for about 9 hours towards Sao Paulo. When we were flying in to land, I looked out the window and this city is HUGE!! We then landed and all of us missionaries were pumped. Well I know I was at least. I was also a bit nervous. We then walk through security that non-Brazilians have to go through. That took a while. After that this lady was outside the airport with a sign that said "Missionaries of the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints". Well that sounded about right. So we all gathered together around this Asian Portugese speaking lady. After a while, a big van pulled up and she told us to get in and to put our suit cases in the other van. This all seemed very schetchy, but we just did it and trusted her and the drivers. And it was all good. We then all got separated to go to our mission areas. I had to say good bye to Elder Suressigg and Elder Hanekamp for two years. So that was sucky. The van guy took us to our mission president house, where we got to meet President Pinho and his wife and other new missionaries, later we ate some good Brazilian food. After that we went to this meeting were we got to meet our trainers and some of the presidents assistants gave us a speech about the mission. These missionaries in Brazil are so awesome. They have such a great high spirit. They are always smiling and laughing. They are supper friendly to everyone. They yell a lot. haha I love my mission so much. My new companion and father´s name is Elder Carlos, he is a Brazilian and speaks no English. So that is rough. I have to start my training all over again. Which kinda stinks. I´m going to be officially done with my training 6 months into my mission. But it´s cool, I get to learn a lot more.
Ok, I have to tell you all. I don´t think I can explain how crazy these past week here has been. This Brazilian mission is so crazy different. I go from a small, desert, English speaking, truck driving mission, reservation town in Arizona to one of the biggest cities in the world, that is in a jungle and that speak a different language. It´s been flippen CRAZY here. It is so crowded here. There are people literally hanging out of buses because the bus is to full. There is traffic everywhere. These people are the craziest drivers I have ever seen. I get so scared driving in cars with members or on the bus. They drive supper fast and with inches of each other from crashing. This city has roades that are supper confusing. They are never straight. They are roades that go all kinds of directions and up and down hills. And the drivers are so fast. As a missionary walking everywhere, you really have to do like mom taught you when you were little and look both ways and then, this is something else that she probably didn´t teach you, run across. There are trees everywhere. There are trees that grow out of the sidewalks. Which is pretty dang cool, I really like the way this city is.
I finally had the chance to be apart of my first baptism yesterday. We Baptized these two little girls. It was supper awesome. and I believe that Eli, Tim and Gene were baptized yesterday. So that is supper cool.
The work here is so great. There are people here ready to hear the gospel. I just hope I can learn the language quick and find these people. I do have a lot of challenges here. I need to learn the language and the gospel better, but I´m sure in time, they will both come. I must admit though, I can speak better Portuguese then a dog can. That I am proud of.
It is so awesome here,I´m loving it. I hope you are all doing well. Write me when you can. I would love to hear how you all are doing.
Love your Elder, The Elder Jones
