The Brazilian Adventure: Week 20 October 14-- October 20

 My Dearest beloved Family and Friends
   I am so incredibly thankful for this great opportunity I have to serve a mission. This is such a great honor and privilege that the Lord has given me to be a missionary and be a part of this great work. Every night I come home and before I turn off the lights, I just thank the Lord for another day of him helping me become just a little better. It truly is one of the greatest blessings to serve a mission. If the Lord wanted to, He can come down here and do this work all on his own and he can get it all done in one day. Or He can send all the great older folks in the church with their great wisdom and Testimonies to come out here and do way more then we can. But no, the Lord actually gives some teenage boys and young women a chance to come out here to do the work. And that is how much he loves us. He actually trust us with his children, it is so amazing. He blesses us with the great opportunity to come out here and learn and grow and actually become more like our older brother, Christ. This mission is teaching me so many great things and is changing my life so much. I flippen Love it. I probably write that every week, and I´m sorry. But I think I´m going to keep on writing it.

    This week, the lord has allowed us to be able to Baptise a 17 year old young women named Marianha. She has been an investigator and has been going to church for 8 months! She completed that one young women program, I think it is called like Personal Progress or something. She also went to General conference and was taking notes. We talk to her and she said that she didn´t feel like she was ready for baptism. She said that she doesn´t feel like she has good enough faith. But with help from the Spirit, we were able to help her realize that she had great faith and that she is more than just ready. We said a lot more things. The spirit help her feel ready and we baptised her this last Friday. It was a great baptism. A lot of youth came to support her. That hardly ever happens. It is sometimes hard to get members at the baptism. But it was so great.

     We went knocking on a lot of our investigators doors yesterday to go to church with them. But a lot of them either didn´t answer, were sleeping, not ready, or just didn´t want to go. So we didn´t have no one in church yesterday. It was also daylight savings. So time moved forward one hour.

      One day we went to eat at a members house and it was pouring rain outside. And my shoes are all torn up  and tearing off from all the walking during the day. And so my shoes have these holes in them and all this water came inside my shoe. The member, her name was Celia and her daughter Precilia, noticed that my shoes were all torn up and the soles were coming off. So they grabbed my shoes and supered glue them and the used a hair dryer to dry them. Members here are sooo nice. We then took off and were on our way back to work. And about twenty minutes latter they found us in there car walking down the road, and they wiped out a brand new spanken shoes for me. I was sooo happy. I have never been so thankful for a pare of shoes before in my life. I just started crying a little because of how good the Lord is to me and how amazing these members, almost with nothing, can just give so much. I tried giving them back, but they told me to put them on right now. And so I put them on, and they were perfect. And they told me to not be stubborn and to just accept them. They said that it is the least we can do compare to how much we do for them and everyone. I was just so thankful. 

       This mission just keeps getting better and better. It is so hard and there are some bad moments. But the good moments totally out number the bad. I´m so grateful to be a missionary. I love you all. And I hope you guys are doing good and learning how to become the person that the lord wants you to become. 

 

Be happy. 

 

Love your Elder, The Elder Jones (that´s me!)