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The Brazilian Adventure: Week 37 Febuary 10-- Feburary 23
My Dearest beloved Family and Friends

  We are doing awesome. We are finding many of the Lords elect in our area. It is so awesome. After a lot of hard work and diligence. The blessings and elect are showing. The Lord is helping us find them. We have this one 14 year old teenager that we are teaching. He is going out with us and doing missionary work already. He has a great testimony already in the gospel. We are trying to help his whole family, but the father and mother aren´t as easy. His name is Tawan. And he is a great young teenager. He has a big heart. We are also teaching this 17 year old teenager named Fernanda. Her mom was baptised in the church when she was a teenager, but then became inactive a year after her baptism. We are helping her come back, but she is a little more difficult. Fernanda is doing supper great. We taught her about the Sabbath day last Friday, and this Sunday when she was going to church. She told us that she is going to get a new job, but she is going to work on Sundays and asked us what she should do. She is going to only work in the afternoon and she can still go to church. She told us that she needed the job really bad to pay for some school stuff.. I told her that if this was my church, I probably would let this go and let you work on Sundays in the afternoons. But this isn´t my church, this is the Lords church. And it is a commandment  for the sabbath day that we should not work. I told her that if she has faith that the lord will provide another way. She said that she was going to talk to her new boss about not working on Sundays and said that she is going to keep the sabbath day holy. We invited her to pray also for guidance. It is so amazing how much faith that she is showing. We also have this great japan man. He is very old and he went to church yesterday. He is so funny. I think he is about 58 years old.

   I´m learning something that is pretty sweet and helpful for me. I´m learning on my mission that every thing here on my mission and everything that happens to us in this life, good or bad, is a blessing. Hard times are times of blessings. Because those are the times  we are going to learn the most in our lives. I´m learning a whole lot. I´m out of time. I hope you are doing awesome and doing supper good. I love you all

 

Be Happy

 

Love, The Elder Jones

The Brazilian Adventure: Week 37 Febuary 10-- Feburary 16

My Dearest beloved Family and Friends

  Wow, this week went by fast. I think as you become a leader on your mission, your mission just goes by faster. Well being a district leader is a lot more work. I have to acompany all my districit every night and then talk to the zone leaders about how they are doing. and I have to go on splits with the other Elders and go on splits with the zone leaders every week.  So I don´t have to much me time. But it is so fun. I´m the district Leader of 7 missionaries. 5 Elders and 2 Sisters. I have Elder Dean, He is from Alaska. Elder J. Silva, he is from Berlin Brazi. Elder M. Silva, he is from fortalesa Brazil. Elder J. Braker, he is from Utah. My companion Elder Rezabala( or Elder He´s a bala, The r is portugese makes the h sound some times.) He is form Ecuador. Sister Barroso, she is from Argentina. Sister Velasco, she is from Mexico. It is a lot of fun. I´m so greatful for this great opportunity that I have to learn and grow. And to serve these missionaries. I´m excited for this transfer. I know that it is going to be crazy and a lot of work. I´m going to rock it out. I hope the lord can help me become the best District Leader that I can be. 

   Our area is recieving so many great blessing. We are finding a lot of great investigators. The Lord is trusting us with his children and we are jaming out. Yesterday in church. We had a 16 year teenager come to church. He was a contact on the street about two weeks ago. In the contact he told us that his grandpa was baptised in the church and that he remembers the missionaries coming over and teaching about the Book of Mormon and about praying about it to know if it is true. During the contact he said that he did just that and that the Spirit testified to him that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. I was trippen out. It was so awesome. After that, we lost contact with him. But yesterday he was in church and us missionaries did a great presentation in sacrament meeting. It was great. I was able to share my story and bear my testimony of the power of members and a ward. And started to share about how my Burnsville ward helped save me and my family. It was great. and then Afterward Luca walked up to me and asked how can he get baptised? it was great. 

Love you all

  Be happy

Love the Elder Jones

The Brazilian Adventure: Week 36 Febuary 3 -- February 9

My Dearest beloved Family and Friends

     Had another great week this week. Man it is so hot here in Sao Paulo. I never new this but I heard that sao paulo is the hottest city and place right now in all of Brazil. It is mainly because there is no trees here and that is is all concrete and city. Right now it is about 12% humility, in the desert it is normally about 9%. It is really hot. Many drops of sweat go down my face during the work. The mission President actually made a new rule, he said that we have to drink 6 cups of water a day. It is a new commandment in the white handbook. He also said that right now he doesn´t want any missionaries out in the sun between 2 and 4:30pm. We are doing practices in the church building during this time now. Normally right now is raining season in Sao paulo, but it hasn´t rained here for a long time also, and so Sao paulo is actually running out of water. They are cutting our water more. It is hot hot hot. But the work will continue. 

    Last Saturday we gave on English class. I only taught English one time in Embu-Guaçu, and we had a lot of people come. This Saturday we only had one person come. But it was fun teaching some English. 

    I also had some really bad luck on Friday and Saturday. So on Friday. After studies, we left the house and we were heading to lunch, and lunch that day was really far. On the way to lunch, we were walking by the church building and I wanted to leave my bag in the church so that I don´t have to carry it all the way to lunch, because right after lunch we were going to the church building to do some practices anyways. But we didn´t have the keys, and so I just put my bag through the fence and then I just chucked it kinda far. And then we went to lunch. After lunch, we went to the church building....and yup, my bag got stolen. Man I was upset. I guess someone really wanted it and they got some long stick or pole and took it out. Well I guess people really do steal things in big cities haha. But good thing I didn´t have anything to expensive. I did loose my marked up Portuguese scriptures. That really stinks. And then our maps, my umbrella, some pamphlets, a book of Mormon, sun block, playing cards( for lessons on faith) and my Portuguese missionary Manuel. I hope that maybe that person can read the pamphlets and the book of Mormon, and maybe he will get converted to Christ and the gospel. I know that it happened for a reason. Maybe to help someone out. Or maybe to just teach me something. The afternoon I was doing the work with out a bag and I felt so weird. haha   

     So the sidewalks here in Sao Paulo are not the greatest in the world. They are full of steps and things sticking out, bumps and holes, and are very small. On Saturday, we were heading over to another members house for lunch, and we where walking down the sidewalks. I was looking down at my feet making sure I don´t trip and kinda day dreaming about something and wasn´t paying to much attention, and then all of a sudden BAMMMM!!! My head ran right into a metal garage door that was open and hanging out in the sidewalks. It kinda hurt. When I was ready to continued on thinking everything was alright, the other Elders ran up to me and were all surprised and freaken out. I was still kinda dizzy and trying to listen to them as they were talking to me in Portuguese. They started to say in Portuguese things like open, split, and blood, and then showing me how big that open was with their finger. I was like ah man, it is worst then I thought. I touched my forehead and there was blood. There was a man in the garage door who helped me in and cleaned me up and then put a bandage on. He was so awesome and nice. Just like most Brazilians are. He started to make jokes about the American with the hard head. haha we then taught him about he Book of Mormon because he had a question about it. And then we left him with a invitation to church and I continued with my day. haha It was fun. I´ll show you all the scar one day. It wasn´t that big. 

     Well I´m out of time. Oh I have one more thing. Transfers were yesterday and our District Leader Elder Brandao was transferred. Elder E. Pereira called me this morning and the Lord has called me to be a District Leader. I´m excited, nervous, scared, confused, and praying for help. I don´t know why and I don´t know how. But I know that it is a calling from the Lord. So what ever he wants me to be, I´ll be it. And I know that I can be what ever he wants me to be. Especially with his help and guidance. 

  I hope you are all doing great. I love and miss you all a ton. I hope you are becoming the person that the Lord wants you to become.

Be Happy.

Love The Elder Jones  

The Brazilian Adventure: Week 35 January 27 -- Feburary 2

My Dearest beloved Family and Friends
     Primavera is so much more different then Embu-Guaçu. Our area is much smaller and has a lot more people. My new area is 20 times more smaller then Embu-Guaçu. My old area was HUGE. I´m in the more city part of Sao Paulo. It is crazy here. It is going to be a lot more easier to accompany our investigators now. So that is good. But people are just a little less receptive here and there are so many more Churches, everywhere. It is going to be interesting. So my new ward is different then Embu-Guaçu. It attendance is smaller then most and the members aren´t the most welcoming. My first Sunday it felt kinda of dead. And there is some tension between some of the members here also. So I don´t know how we´re going to help with that. It is kinda challenging because our investigators need to be able to feel good going to church. that is so important. They need to feel welcomed and feel the spirit there. I don´t know how we are going to help with that. But it is going to take a lot of Christ like love, charity, service, and patients. But I´m excited to work here, I´m excited to do my part in helping this ward. 

     So this week, we have been working a lot on the open house of our new Capella or church building. We had a lot of visitors during the week. Us missionaries were sitting outside just handing out invitation for most of the week. That is a hard job. You are just getting rejected and getting some attitudes. But it is understandable. The city is a stressful place and these people are coming home from work and just want to go home. The Lord helped us be diligent and positive. It was great. We had a lot of cool experiences on the streets and a lot of people went on inside and liked it a lot. We also talked to some inactive members and they said that they are planning on coming on back. 

    Yesterday we had are first Sunday school in the ward in the new church building. the attendance doubled. There were a lot of people. It was awesome. And the building was so nice. My new companion is a funny guy. He has a big heart also. 

   I´m doing great. Just learning how to help this ward grow. It is going to be fun here. I hope you all are doing great.

Be Happy.

Love, The Elder Jones