The Brazilian Adventure: Week 34 January 20 -- January 26

My Dearest beloved Family and Friends

   This week it has been pouring rain like crazy hear. We have been getting hit with some rainy thunder storms and it has been so fun. We can´t use our umbrellas because the wind is just blowing them all over the place and we get all wet anyway. So we just put are Scriptures and paper things in plastic bags and just continue getting wet. one day it was raining so hard that the roads were flooded. We were walking in water up to our thies. It was awesome. We also had some fun times going throw the jungle trails in the storms. So if you ever see three guys with white shirts with a black tag and black pants walking thought the jungle in the middle of the storm. Well that is us. Just running to our next teaching appointment. 

   So this week on Friday, I got the sad news from the assistants that I am going to be involved in a emergency transfer. So after close to 5 months in Embu-Guaçu. I had to leave on Saturday. It was so hard and sad. I didn´t get a chance to say bye to no one. It was so hard to leave. I have learned to love the peolpe there and the members. Embu-Guaçu was doing to great. I can definitely say that I have left it better then I found. I will always miss it. I don´t like transfers and especially emergency transfers. It was hard to say good bye to Elder salles and Elder Gutierrez. I had to finally tell the truth to Elder Gutierrez that Brazilians don´t really eat dogs. That was funny. I had him thinking that everyone had a pet dog because they were going to eat it one day. haha it all started out when a member told us that we where going to eat some hot dogs next week at hear house. and I just twisted the story a little.

   I´m now in Primavera and I´m training My new companion Elder Rezabala. He is from Equador and he is short. I´m out of time.Hope you are all doing great.Be Happy

Love, The Elder Jones

The Brazilian Adventure: Week 33 January 13 -- January 19

My Dearest beloved Family and Friends

    I´m loving this mission so much. I´m having such a spiritual high, I can´t explain to you how amazing I´m feeling. This week we a great training from the assistants of the the president this last Friday. I learned so many great things. I learned a lot of things about faith and teaching better. The assistants are such great missionaries. Their conversion is so great. This transfer we are seeing a lot of great miracles. We are finding a lot of great people to teach. I will be honest with you guys. I didn´t talk about it to much. But last transfer was actually pretty rough. We had a really hard time and we weren´t having a lot of success in the work. We taught a lot of people and a lot of them fell through and didn´t want to continue with us. We had to drop a lot of great people. There was a lot of things that I wanted to happen, but many times things didn´t go my way. It really hurt me inside and I started to get down on my self. But the lord helped me to learn how to keep continuing to work hard and to keep being diligent in the work. He helped me to keep being strictly obedient and keep pushing on with a positive attitude. He helped me to learn how to have hope and to continue with a smile on my face. And it has been awesome. I´m learning a lot about faith. I´m learning in the lords work that we need to do everything that we can to do our part and then let the lord do the rest. And let him do it the way he sees fit. In his own way and his own time. If I am doing my best and doing all I can to do my part. Then that is great. I´m feeling so much more peace and joy. 

    This Saturday we had a great baptism. The Lord helped us baptise an 18 year old teenager named Bruno. He has been an investigator of the church for about 4 years and has never wanted to be baptise. He has been through a lot of missionaries. But the Lord helped us teach him, and a month later. He was baptised. It was supper tough, but we were able to do it. His baptism was so great. And yesterday he allowed me to give him the Holy Ghost. It was so awesome. He walked up to me after the baptism and told me thank you for helping me find this happiness and doing this. I just told him that it was all the Lord, just thank him. I honestly felt like we didn´t do much.But I was so grateful to be a apart of that. 

   A lot a great stuff is happening. We are finding a lot of great people to teach. Valeria said that she read the Book of Mormon and that she said a prayer to know if it is true. And on our next visit she said that she received an answer, and that she knows that it is true. It was so awesome. She really wants to visit the church and her kids are excited about it too. Yesterday she didn´t come because she said that she was taking care of her kids. But her 12 year old daughter came and she said that she really enjoyed. Hopefully they can make it this next week. 

    My companion is so flippen funny. We are having a great time. I´m learning a lot of great stuff. He knows a lot of deep doctrine and is teaching me some. It is so cool. and so weird. haha 

    I hope you all are doing great. I love you tons and miss ya. Keep jamming out and doing some good.

Be happy. 

Love, The Elder Jones 

The Brazilian Adventure: Week 32 January 6 -- January 12

My Dearest beloved Family and Friends

  There has been a lot of cool miracles this week when it comes to finding people. We have this new investigator, her name is Egliça. She was so prepared. She loves the plan of salvation and she loves the gospel of Jesus Christ. She has done some things in her past and she is loving the part about repentance. She has a desire to change her life and to improve. I´m just so glad to be a part of that. Elder Salles has been on a lot of splits and Elder Gutierrez and I have been teaching her, she has been asking some great questions, but there has been some times when we couldn´t answer some, because we didn´t know what she was saying exactly or we didn´t know some words in Portuguese to tell her. But I think this week we are going to get a chance to meet with her with Elder Salles. 

   On Saturday we were also doing some contacts on the street and we found this mother. She started to talk to us and told us that we can go to her house the next day. We left her the pamphlet of the Restoration for her to read and we invited her to church. The next day, on Sunday, a member came up to us (the member that we asked to go by and take her to church) and she told us that the lady said that she couldn´t make it to church because her mom was coming over from some state that is far away, but that she read the pamphlet and prayed about it and that she was really excited for our visit that day. When we came over, she started to tell us how she has been praying lately for God to give her religion and that she wanted to find God more and know more about his teachings. But she told Him that she didn´t want to go back to her same church. And then we found her on the street the next day. She said that she read the pamphlet and that she received her answer and she believes that it is true. She started talking about how she was receiving good feelings into her heart and some great thoughts into her mind. And we helped her realized that that was her answer. And we talked about how the holy ghost worked. It was awesome. I have been praying a lot for opportunities to help find the elect. and the lord is helping us. I´m praying with faith and having a great desire to help Gods children who are ready. And I have been receiving these great opportunities. I just hope I can take care of them and help them even more. I hope I don´t loose them. 

   My companion is learning a lot. He is so secretly funny. It is so great. I love my mission. I am learning so much. Well that is it for now. I´m out of time. 

Be happy. 

Love, The Elder Jones

The Brazilian Adventure: Week 31 December 30 -- January 5

My Dearest beloved Family and Friends

    I can´t believe it is 2014. Man that was fast. Well the year is starting off great. We had to come in early for the New Years. We came in at 6.My companion and I just played some Chess and studied. It was so hard sleeping that night. The fire works were so crazy. It was like everyone had some. They were so loud. It sounded like there was a huge war going on that night. There were kids and people screaming and yelling like if they were dying. We didn´t sleep like little princesses that night. 

   So transfers came along, and my companion and I are staying here. I can´t believe I´m going to stay here another transfer. I have been here in Embu-Guaçu for over 4 months. That is not so very normal. It is so awesome, I love this area. And I know it is for a reason. My companion got called to be a district leader. One of the sisters got transferred and now there is an American sister here. Her name is Sister Hills. And then guess what. 2 more Elders got called here. On Thursday Elder D. Silva and his Trainy, a Visa waiter from the mission in Washington, Elder Sharp, just got here in Brazil. He spent a transfer there waiting. It is so strange having more time then other missionaries. So we have 4 missionaries living in our house. It is fun. On Saturday morning, we had a call from one of the Assistants, Elder E. Peirerra who was my old Zone Leader. He asked us if we had more room in our house for one more missionary. We told them that we had some room. Then they asked Elder D. Silva if he could train two missionaries. And he said that he could. After that Elder Salles and I left the house to go do a service project for a member. On the way over there, we got another call from Elder E. Peirerra, he then wanted to talk to me. He then told me that they wanted to call me to be a trainer of this new missionary and asked if I could accept, and I said you bet I do. So I´m training right now and I´m so grateful for this opportunity that the Lord has given me. That same day, we went out to pick this new missionary up. To my surprise, it was someone that I knew, Elder Gutierrez. This Elder was in my same zone in the MTC. I was so happy to see him. I guess he just got his VISA. He is from California and he is Mexican. He is kinda of a shy guy and a little serious. But it is probably just the cultural shock. I think he will get use to it soon and loosen up. He is humble and is ready to let this mission change him I believe. I just hope I can take advantage of this great opportunity that the Lord has given me and I hope that I can do my very best in doing my part in helping this missionary become the best missionary that he can be. It is kinda cool to train, you really feel like you are raising a son. I hope I can do good. I feel terrible already because when we do contacts on the streets, he gets nervous and he mumbles when he trys to talk Portuguese and he says a lot of random things. The people have a hard time understanding him. And it is kinda funny because I´m just on the side trying my best to not laugh. haha Man I´m a terrible trainer. He just reminds me a lot of my first days also. I love training already. You need a lot of patience and a lot of love. I hope I can do my best with him. But with the Lords help, I can do it. 

     Our ward has 7 missionaries!! This is so crazy! We are a district. Yesterday we got together with our ward mission leader and our bishop to talk about how to divide the area and about what our mission goal is. We have a goal to re-activate members and complete part member families. We also have a goal to find a lot of priesthood holders to baptise. Just families!

    One time we were doing a contact in the town center with a lady and her kids. While we were talking to her, her two little girls went to go play an the side of this restaurant. They were playing along side the window. And then all of a sudden a big bucket of water got poured out from the window and they got all wet. It was so funny. The mother was just laughing. 

    I´m excited for this next transfer. It is going to be a great experience to learn some more and to grow. I love it! I hope you all are doing great. Have a great week. 

Be happy.

Love, The Elder Jones