The Brazilian Adventure: Week 30 December 23 -- December 29

My Dearest beloved Family and Friends

 Wow, this week was great. On Christmas morning, Our zone and another Zone got all together in a really big Terminal in Grajaú. It is a huge Bus and train Terminal. We got together to sign some Christmas Hyms or songs. There was about 50 missionaries or more. We were a huge fat group. At first we were singing for about a half an hour, but there was almost no one there. It was so weird to see the place to empty. We only had a few people stop by and cheer us on, some recorded us. Some cried, they could really feel the spirit of Christmas. After a while of singing, we all decided to go out into the streets of Grajaú to sing there. It was so awesome! We were just marching all around singing like champs. A lot of people were going out side of there windows watching us and we were going around hading out pass along cards and pamphlets. We had the chance to teach some people about the Restored Gospel. It was supper awesome. I will never forget that sweaty, hot, Hymn, Christmas morning in singing in the streets again. It was legit. 

     That same day, I had the great chance to talk to my family with my dad. It was so awesome to see their faces. The internet wasn´t to great and so I couldn´t talk to them to well and see them. I was also kinda of in shock that I couldn´t even think and talk to much. I have been speaking Portuguese so long that when I started to talk to them, I couldn´t talk in english very well. I couldn´t tell a good story to save my life. I forgot a lot of words during the conversation. It was so weird. But it was just supper awesome to see there faces. They all seemed like they are doing great. I am so thankful for my families support. 

   I had the chance to talk to my amazing mom yesterday. She seems like she is doing good. I had  great time talking to her. I could talk to her a lot better. I was so thankful that I had the chance to talk to her, I almost didn´t have that chance and she seemed like she really enjoyed it also. This mission is so weird, I can´t believe it has been so long since I haven´t seen my family and that I haven´t been with them. This christmas was tough being away. But I know that I only have one more and I know that the sacrifice is worth it.

   I hope you all had the great chance to think about our great older brother this Christmas. I hope you had the great chance to really remember what he did for us, and about who he was and think about his amazing great example that he set for us. I´m so grateful for His great example and His teachings in my life.

   Today was Elder Salles Birthday. We just ate some cake and stuff. He is going home in about 6 months and he is kinda trunky. He keeps telling me about his marriage this November. It is so weird. His women is on a mission too. He tells me that he is going to send me an invitation. He is so funny. 

   This week was a rough week. There is almost no one here. The streets are so empty and almost all of our investigators are gone on vacations. 

   I´m loving my mission so much. It is changing my life, and helping have so much peace and happiness in my life. It is great.  

Be happy.

Love, The Elder Jones                                                                

The Brazilian Adventure: Week 29 December 16 -- December 22

 My Dearest beloved Family and Friends

       I just got back from a Christmas get together with my mission. It was so awesome. We heard some great music from orchestra instruments. And we heard some great talks. Four of our missionaries are leaving our mission this next transfer. And they are 3 assistants and 1 district leader. Some great leaders. We had the chance to hear them bear their testimonies and it was so awesome. This next transfer, we are going to have a lot more leaders leaving, I think there is about 8 of them. And they are all Zone leaders and district leaders. All of our leaders are leaving, it is really scary. Our mission is so new. We are getting so many new missionaries. Over half of our missionaries are under 6 months. We have about 170 missionaries. We are such a young mission. But I´m sure that is becoming normal all over the world because of this great increase of missionaries. Our mission is going to have to start making some young leaders fast. I´m so grateful for our leaders that we have here, they are such amazing examples to me, I have been learning so much from them. We are going through big changes and getting ready for 2014. We are going to rock it out this next year. I can´t wait to get to know our new future leaders in our mission. 

    This week was a tough week with the work. We had to cut a lot of investigators. But it is great, we are cleaning out our teaching group and going out to look for the elect. Gods children who are ready to hear the gospel. The ward is getting so pumped up about missionary work. Our ward is so awesome. And our WML is supper awesome. Transfers are next week, and I´m getting so nervous to leave. I´ve been in Embu Guaçu for a long time. About 4 months. I think I might be transferred this next transfer. I really hope not though. I have really learned to love the people here and the members also. They have been teaching me so much. 

    Yesterday the Sisters had a baptism. It was supper cool because it was the baptism of a man named Marcio. Marcio was my old investigator before we splitted the area and I gave him and his wife Andrea (Who by the way got baptized last week) ( oh and by the way, these are the parents of Maria and Larissa, my first two baptisms in this area.) It was so awesome to see them come into the gospel. The sisters really did an amazing job. I didn´t think Marcio and Andrea were going to be baptised this soon or at all. They had their challenges, but with a little of Sisters touch, they were able to help them accept the restored gospel and help them be baptise. And now they are great members. Yesterday at the baptism, the water in the church ran out while we were filling up the baptism fount. We were all panicking because the water was to low and we didn´t know where to get more water. So then all of a sudden one of the church leaders, Irmao Paulo, said that there was a church water well out side the church building. So we found the key and unlocked this door top of a well. And then we found that there was water!! So then we all were running around grabbing a bucket and a rope and then Irmao Paulo and Robson got two buckets with a rope tided to it and they through it down the well and begin to pull up buckets of water, and then my companion, other youth and members, and  I got buckets to fill them up with water. We then were running in and out of the church building to fill up the fountain. And after a while, we succeeded! And that´s what I call, getting er done. Nothing is going to stop us from helping someone walk into the waters of baptism! haha it was supper awesome. 

      I´m supper excited to talk to my family this Christmas. I´m pumped up! I love my mission. I hope you are all doing great!

Be happy. 

Love, The Elder Jones

The Brazilian Adventure: Week 28 December 9-- December 15

 My Dearest beloved Family and Friends

  This week was a good week. I have been learning so much this week. Our president has been teaching us so much about working and life. He sent us these five great advices and I have been trying to use them and they are great. it is translated and so it might not make sense.

1 - Pray with faith that the Lord will pour the powers of heaven upon you and your areas. Elder Bruce R. Mckonkie said we should "call upon the Lord openly and effectively, not only with words, but also in the spirit and power" so we can do is shed upon us the very powers of heaven. "The powers of heaven are real and can dramatically influence the course of events in our lives .. "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be the humble, and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me, for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them . "(Ether 12:27). "Nobody, at any time, did miracles until after their faith;. Therefore" (Ether 12:18). "The Lord is able to make all things according to his will, to the children of men, if they exercise faith in him." (1 Nephi 7:12). "Do not deny yourselves the power of God, for he worketh by power, according to the faith of the children of men." (Moroni 10:7). "Behold, I am God, and I am a God of miracles ... and does not work with the children of men save it be according to your faith. "(2 Nephi 27:23). "And Christ hath said: If ye have faith in me ye shall have power to do whatsoever thing seem convenient." (Moroni 7:33). "Remember those without faith you can do nothing." (D & C 8:10) 

2 - Be Obedient and Righteous (Righteousness) - "That the rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven and the powers of heaven can not be controlled nor handled unless in accordance with the principles of righteousness." (D & C 121:36). "I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say;. But when ye do not, ye have no promise" (D & C 82:10) 

3 - BURNING DESIRE in their hearts - "I know he gives to men, yes, give them unalterable decrees according to their desires" (Alma 29:4) "Verily, verily, I say to you what you desire of me be- You will be granted "(D & C 11:8) Desire is more than a simple will, it is a motivating belief that encourages us to action. In other words, convince the Lord that his desire is to baptize, as did Ammon and the Lamanites are willing to pay any price for it to be successful, and then "the Lord will grant according to their prayers." (Alma 25:17) 

Elders and sisters, we will have greater success in our jobs, if we heed the following advice from Elder McConkie: 

"Perhaps what is wrong is that we have not wanted faith with all our heart, to bring souls into the kingdom. Perhaps we have not yet decided what we can bring and bring many people to the church. "Whether the missionaries cultivate a sincere desire to baptize people and to convince the Lord that they are willing to pay any price in terms of conscious work, the Lord will answer your wishes and they will become instruments to baptize many people. Elder Bruce R. McConkie. What the Elder McConkie said concerning the desire in, the context of missionary work, applies to all the righteous desires, the mission and post-mission in our lives. If we are not realizing our desires is because we are not exercising faith with all our heart, therefore, the Lord will not help us accomplish our desires. Let us remember that we will receive according to what we want. As Elder McConkie said "If you want to achieve or have something and have faith in the Lord, it will materialize." 

4 - Hard Work - If we set a goal to achieve a specific desire in righteousness, and then we find that we lack the initiative to achieve it, we must conclude that it is not a true desire, for if it were, we would be motivated to action. Many people claim to see a piano: I would give everything I own to be able to play the piano well. However, they would never pay the price every day practicing for many years to hone their talents. If you truly want something, we have the necessary motivation to achieve our goal successfully and work with all our strength. On the contrary, if it is not a sincere desire, we are not inclined to pay the price required to accomplish it. Attitudes and desires are formed in direct consequence of what we think. 

5 - Attend to your thoughts - When a person prefers not to use his free will to guide your thoughts, suggestions let free to the dimension of the mind that controls your desires. If we do not make great effort to control and direct our thoughts, our desires and attitudes will be influenced mainly by the opponent, other people, music, film, television, radio, newspaper, etc.. So, we have the choice to deliberately guide our thoughts or allow other sources orient our desires and attitudes. We are responsible for our thoughts. Therefore, as individuals, we are responsible for our attitudes and desires because our thoughts govern our innermost desires. We are hardworking or lazy; attractive or insipid; faithful or disobedient; trust or doubtful character; successful or unsuccessful, according to our attitudes and desires. Frankly, whether or not performed many righteous desires, depend largely on the size of our mind. Therefore, it is important that we learn to control our thoughts and focus them in righteous desires. Elder MCkonckie 

 We are having some great success here. I´m not just learning about the gospel. I´m learning how to live it. I love my mission so much. I´m so grateful to be an Instrument in the lords hands. Nothing is greater then that. I hope you all are doing awesome. 

Love, The Elder Jones

The Brazilian Adventure: Week 27 December 2-- December 8

 My Dearest beloved Family and Friends

   This week was just a bunch of random weather. This place is like Minnesota, I swear. It is a  boiling hot day in the morning with out a cloud in the sky. We are just sweating like crazy. And then all of a sudden there is thunder storms and pouring rain everywhere. The wind is blowing our umbrellas all over the place. It is just crazy. We been hit with a lot of rain storms this week. But we didn´t let that slow us down. We got out there with our suit and tie, and teared it up. And heavenly father blessed us afterwards. We did a fast this week as a zone, it went well. On the day that we fasted, it was a supper hot day. And so we had a bunch of head aches. But the blessings came right afterwards. So it was great. 

   One supper rainy day, we were working supper hard trying to find less active and inactive member and also visiting investigators, the day was supper hard because we passed by 17 peoples houses and no one was home or they moved. And we were getting bummed out. But we said a little prayer and kept our heads held high and we kept jamming and doing our best. And at the end of the day, we found a supper elect investigator at a less active family house. We told them how our day was. And he said that he believes that is was a bad day because the Lord was leading you guys to me. And we were so happy to hear that from him. When we walked out side the house, we just gave each other a big high five afterwards. Yeah! good stuff. 

   What the junk! It is December! I can´t even believe it. I didn´t even realize that thanksgiving had past. Time is flying so fast. I have 6 months on my mission. That is crazy! I´m supper excited because I have so much time left. And I´m proud of my self that I have already put that much service in the missionary work in the Kingdom of God. I´m just supper pumped up. I can´t believe I´m going to talk to my family this month. 

   I hope you all are doing awesome, miss you like crazy. Hope you are making everyday worth living for.

Love, The Elder Jones (That´s me!) 

The Brazilian Adventure: Week 26 November 25-- December 1

 My Dearest beloved Family and Friends

     This week was pretty rough. We had a lot of meetings this week and so we didn´t have a lot of time for the work. Over the past few weeks we have been working in the neighborhood called Val Flohr. It is a neighborhood of mostly houses called chacara´s. A chacara is a very nice house that has a huge lot, these houses are mostly in the jungle. Val Flohr is 20 minutes away from our house when you ride a bus. It has been pretty hard because it is so far away and we have been using a lot of bus money so we kinda ran out during this week. We also haven´t been having a lot of success out there because there is literally so little bit of people on the streets, it is not like the town center. Every time we see someone way down the street. I get all excited and yell at my campanion "Look! there is someone to talk to! Lets go!" haha It is hard to go tracking because the house is so far away from the door that the people have a hard time hearing our yells and claps. And also mostly some prideful rich people live here and so they know that we are at the door, but they don´t want to hear us. We had the chance to meet some families that were so great and who were supper interested in our message, but then we met the fathers and they did not want to hear our message and who had a heart of stone. So that hurt the interest of the rest of the family. But I guess the fathers weren´t ready yet. We are still continuing with some of the them, but we will see how it goes. So we talked to the sisters about the area and we decided that it would be better for us Elders to have an area around our house to work with and so we splitted the town center and now we have a way better area to be working in. I think we are going to start doing a lot better in the next couple weeks. 

   This week we had Zone Conference and it was sweet! We had the chance to hear from Elder Mazzagardi, a member of the quorom of the Seventy. This man was so full of Wisdom it was incredible. He has a voice that has so much power and that has a sound of wisdom to it also. It was great. Everytime we had a leader from the church talk to us, my mind is always so blown of what I learn there, and then it is blown again just to know how little bit I do know. I learned a lot of great things from him.

  One morning, last p-day, I woke up and was sitting at my desk ready to study. And then my companion walked up to me and asked me "Did you feel the house shake last night" I told him that I didn´t feel anything and didn´t know what he was talking about. He told me that last night he woke up hearing a big boom from outside and felt the house shake and then he heard it the second time and was scared. And then he heard these little bangs gun shots from outside and police sounds going off. My companion likes to joke around a lot so I just thought he was just joking or that he just had a bad dream. Latter on that day when we walked through the town center. A block away from our house we noticed a bank that had a big whole on the side of it. And as we walked by we looked in side and the bank was completly destroyed and then I was like what the junk! This is crazy! And then I remembered what my companion said about last night. Last night this bank was jumped. It had two bombs go off to destroyed the outside walls and atm´s. People robbed the bank last night. That was so wierd to see. I thought things like that only happed back then with western cowboys and stuff. Or the first couple of American Gangsters. But nope, it happend last night, a block away from our house. It was Flippen crazy! 

    Well, everything is going good here. I´m learning a lot, my testimony just grows every single day. I love my mission.  I hope you are doing awesome. I love and miss you all.

Be happy. :)

Love, The Elder Jones