PIZZA!!:D

The Brazilian Adventure: Week 25 November 18-- November 24

 My Dearest beloved Family and Friends

    This week was pretty rough. It had a lot of challenges. But the blessings were still great. As always. Last Monday after P-day. We went to a very poor part of my area to teach one of our investigators. His name is Jose. He is about 50 years old. He is such a great guy. He is so nice. He has a problem with drinking, but we are helping him quite. He has a great desire to change his life and to let God enter his life. He has been enjoying our visits a lot. He is from Rio Rijanero. He has been staying with a friend of his. But this friend of his is not such a good person. He does a lot of drugs and is a bit crazy. He has been doing some dumb things to Jose too. Jose has been wanting to leave and go somewhere else. But the problem is that he has no where else to go. Here he has no family or friends. He doesn´t talk much about his family from before. On Monday when we where going to his friends house we found him walking out side the house into the ally with his two blankets full of his stuff in both hands. He was all wet also. He told us that he can´t do it no more and that he is leaving. He told us that his friend just poured a pot of boiling water on him. He didn´t know where he was going or what he was going to do. He is a handy man, so he works very little. He was walking out with nothing but cloths in his hands. No money. no home, just nothing. All we could do is teach him that his Heavenly Father loves him and is always there for him, we also taught him about prayer. And then he broke down and started to cry, I just gave him a hug and told him that everything is going to be alright. I told him that God knows what you are going through and he is always there for you. We went on talking about more great things. He was so thankful for our words. I feel like they weren´t much, but to him they meant the world. My love for this humble man has grown so much over the last couple of weeks that I have known him. After the lesson, we said goodbye and he was off to go live in the streets. It killed me to watch him walk into the streets and just to know that I couldn´t do anything about it. That was sooooo tough. It teared me up inside. But I know that the Lord will take care of him. Over the past week, we have been catching him on the streets and teaching him some more. He says that he is staying somewhere else that is pretty good. He says that he has been finding some work. We have been asking some members for food for him for the days that we have found him. And the members are so awesome and they help. He went to church yesterday, that was so awesome to see him there. He says that he wants to get baptised. He says that he wants to change and have a better life. So we are helping him. It is so awesome and is such a blessing to be apart of this. I`m so thankful.

    I´m out of time again. I want to write more, but i guess maybe another time. I love you all so much and I hope you guys are magnifying who you are as people. I hope you are tearing it up out there where ever you are. 

Be Happy :)

Love, The Elder Jones

The Brazilian Adventure: Week 24 November 11-- November 17

 My Dearest beloved Family and Friends

   This week has been crazy and full of new things. So my new companions name is Elder Salles. He is Brazilian and he is from Espirito Santo. He is a great guy. I love him already. He is a simple guy. He is pretty chilled and layed back and with a little motivation, he is a great worker. He is supper nice. He likes learning. He has been on his mission for 1 year and 3 months now, so he knows a lot. The new sisters are supper great. One has been out for about a year and the other is being trained and is fresh right out of the MTC. They are already working hard and tearing it up. Which is so great. I think I can trust them with my old are and my old investigators. It is kinda hard working in the same ward with sisters because there are a lot of rules and that we have to live by and so it is kinda hard working with them. But the Lord provides away for us to do it. and so all is well. My new area is so awesome. We have to walk supper far every single day to work out there, but it is all good. We moving into the deep jungle finding some neighborhoods to teach some people. We didn´t find anyone really great this week, but this week we will begin our search again to find those people who the Lord has prepared. I´m so excited to find them. We are also looking up the member list and going out to find less and in-active members to help them come back to church. but it is a little challenging. We are aren't going to have as many people to teach as much as the sisters. But I have a feeling and faith that we are going to find some of our heavenly father´s elect and help hear about the Lords restored gospel. The jungle is so awesome too. We have been finding some awesome trails. I thought when they splitted my mission and they gave us just the city part of the mission, that I would never work in the jungle. but it is happening now and I´m so pumped up for it. YEAHH!!! see.

   Yesterday in the morning it was pouring rain. And so we had a little bit of people in church. It was sad. I also notice that Ivanete wasn´t there to receive the Holy Ghost. So Elder Salles and I and another member got together and we planned to go out to find her after sacrament. But just as we were walking out. There she was out side the church gate in the pouring rain making her way to church. All I can do is smile and then look at my companion and tell him "Yup, I baptised her". haha just kidding. She is so awesome. She then received the Holy Ghost and it was so great. The lord is so amazing. 

    So there is a recent convert named Vanessa in the church. She has been a member for a about a year. She is 20 years old and she is getting ready to go on a mission. She has a great testimony in the church. She is the only member in her family though. She says that her mom doesn´t want her to go on a mission and she has been having a hard time with that. Ever since I have been here, she always asked Elder Carlos if we can go visit her mom. But we never ended up going. I think it is because she lives supper far. And we had a lot of work. But now we have the sisters to take care of the town center and I think now is good. Vanessa is so amazing. Every Sunday she walks about 1 or 2 miles from her home to get to the main road and she takes a bus 30 minutes to make it to church every Sunday. She does this all by herself. I was touched by her story and her faith. And I just thought and the spirit was telling me that she deserves at least a visit from us. So we made the time yesterday after church and we made to long trip to visit her and her mom. It was sooooo far. And it was so amazing. I´m so amazed that we found her house, it was way deep in the jungle. But the Lord helped us find it. We walked up to the house and found Vanessa outside playing with her cousins and then we shout out for her name. It was so amazing to see her amazement and joy on her face when she saw us. We then met her mother who is a hard cor Catholic latty. She was pretty nice and pretty sweet. We then shared her a message in the BOM and bared our testimony about the church, the book of Mormon, Thomas S. Manson, Joesph Smith, about a mission and about what great faith her daughter has. We complimented her daughter a lot, well it was kinda easy, she is such a great member. The spirit was so strong with us and it was so amazing to see the spirit work through her too. I looked over at Vanessa and she was filled with so much joy with tears in her eyes. I know her mom felt it was true. After that she thanked us for coming and sharing our message and we went back. We are planning on visiting her again this week and inviting her to come to church. I hope it goes good. It is so amazing how much a simple visit like that meant to Vanessa. She was so surprised that we actually came. It was such an amazing experience. I hope her mom comes to church this next Sunday I hope things go well. 

   I love my misison. I wouldn´t want to be anywhere else right now. I know that this is where I´m supposed to be today. I´m so happy. I hope you all are keeping it real and making the best out of this great blessing that the Lord has blessed you with, called "life". not the cereal. I hope you are taking advantage of every day He gives you to become a little better. I hope you are not sitting around and letting great blessings and opportunities go by. I love you all and I hope you are all doing amazing. 

Be Happy. 

Love, The Elder Jones 

The Brazilian Adventure: Week 23 November 4-- November 10

 My Dearest beloved Family and Friends

      Wow, this week was amazing. There were a lot of miracles. I´m working on being not just obediant on my mission, but strictly obedient. And I swear the Lord is trusting me so much with so many of his children. We have been finding some new investigators. And some of them are supper elect so far. The work here is going supper great. 

      Ok, so I have literally been eating beans and white rice every single day at members houses. It is so funny, it is like tradition. They have really good food here. It is kinda pasta food mostly. It is so good. 

     Yesterday was such a great and spiritual day. We had Ivanete´s baptism and it was so perfect. She has been such an amazing investigator. She is soooo elect. The Lord has prepared her so well. I remember when we had our first lesson. We taught her about the restoration with such a strong spirit. She said that she knew that this was true and that this is what she has been looking for. And then we invited her to be baptized and with out any hesitation, she accepted. But she did have one question, she asked "What do I need to bring to the baptism?" haha she is so awesome. And after that we taught her the commandments and she completely changed her life to get ready for baptism.  In the morning for church as we walked out, we found her outside our house already walking to church. Our new Mission ward leader is so incredible. He did everything. We didn´t have to do everything for ounce. He also made an awesome program for her baptism. there was amazing speakers. He also got so many members there. There was 3 to 4 times as many members there then there has ever been before. We also had two investigators come and see. And they said that they enjoyed it a lot. It was so awesome to see Ivanete in the white baptism clothes. She picked me to baptize her, I felt so special. The water was SUPPER COLD. and it was also supper low. So it was a challenge. But she held my hand and I held hers the way you do for baptism. I raised my hand and said the baptism prayer and then with some water, she was baptized with success. It was so amazing to be right there to just watch her come out of the water with the first glimpse of heaven in her eyes. After I walked out of the baptism fount and into the bathroom. My heart was filled with so much joy and gratitude. I became a little weak in my body and sat down. I just started crying. And I just started thinking about how I just can´t believe that the lord has given me, Tommy Jones, the opportunity to be apart of such a great life changing experience in the life of Ivanete´s and so may others. I was just filled with heavenly´s father´s love. And I think about my life and were I was before, and were I am today. I just think it is a miracle. I´m so thankful to be a missionary. I´m so thankful for my heavenly father. And I´m so thankful for my family and friends who have helped me get here today. Our Father is so amazing. After the baptism program. We had some cake and soda. Everyone was so awesome with Ivanete, they all were so welcoming to her. I was just so filled with joy. It is so amazing how you can love someone so fast out here. She is just so precious. I can´t wait for her to get the holy ghost next week. After we talked to the investigators and ate some cake and soda, we took off and were off to work to find someone else that the lord has ´prepared. 

      So we got transfer news. My companion is leaving. It sucks. We have grown to love each other so much. Elder Carlos was great. I learned so many great things with him.  I´m going to be taking over the area. We are also going to be getting a new companionship of sisters. We are going to be splitting the area. We are getting so many missionaries. I don´t know if I have already mention this. But in this transfer, we saying good bye to 2 missionaries and saying hello to 30!! missionaries. We are getting a ton. And I´ve heard that most of them are sisters. So I´m going to be giving the sisters our area´s where we have been working in the town center mostly. And other neighborhoods here. My new companion and I are going to start working on areas and neighborhoods really far in the jungle area. I haven´t been out there so much, so it is going to be challenging. We are going to be doing a lot of walking. I´m kinda going to be opening a new area. I´m really sad to be giving up all my investigators to the sisters. Hopefully they take care of them well. I hope the work. We are planing on splitting Embu Guaçu eventually, we will see if that can happen while I´m here. I´m supper nervous to take over the area, I hope I can do a good job helping the sisters know the area and doing good in my new area. But I know the Lord never gives us anything that we can´t handle. And with him, anything is possible. I´m supper excited to finish training and start working at my full potential. 

      I hope you are all doing good. I´ll let you know how everything is going next week. Write when you can. Have a great week. keep jamming out there. 

Be Happy. :)

Love, The Elder Jones

The Brazilian Adventure: Week 22 October 28-- November 3

 My Dearest beloved Family and Friends

          This week was great. We worked supper hard this week. We are cutting a lot of our investigators because they aren´t keeping there commitments. So we are going to look for a new teaching group. These last couple of weeks have been hard with investigators. We have been loosing a lot of great investigators. They just don´t want to continue with us and the truth just comes out. It is so hard, because I can´t speak the language so well and so I can´t express my self and I can´t explain to them how important this all is. I try but they just don´t want it in the end. So all I can do is just walk out their door with tears in my eyes. It´s so hard because you begin to understand the gospel so well as a missionary and understand how important it really is for people to have the gospel in their lives. And then you just fall in love with the people so fast and it is just so hard to let them go. But I´m all good, the lord helps me to understand that investigators are like Oranges. Some are ripe and ready, and some need a little more time and more preparation for the gospel. Also that I need to let them go for now, and to go out find the people who are ready and that have been prepared by the lord. I am excited for a new week to go out and find the elect out there, Or as Elder Leroy says, the golden nuggets. We actually have a golden investigator right now. Her name is Ivanete. She is about 35 years old. She is the only investigator that made it this week to church. When we went by her house to pick her up for church, she was all ready to go. That was awesome. She has a job on Saturday where she works until 2 in the morning on Sunday. But that didn´t stop here from going to church. She is such a great example to me. Church starts at 9 by the way. She is not even a member and she wants to go. It was her fist Sunday. the members where so welcoming, it was so awesome. She is going to be a great member one day. She knows that I am learning Portuguese and so when the said what hymns we where singing, she helped me find the hymn. I knew what number is was, but it didn´t matter. I was soooo happy that she was helping me. She is going to be awesome in the church and help so many people. 

      Well I hope you all are doing well, keep jamming. 

Be Happy.

Love, The Elder Jones