The Brazilian Adventure: Week 47 April 21-- April 27

My Dearest beloved Family and Friends:

This transfer just flew by. I couldn´t believe we got transfer calls last night. Well Elder Cifuentes and I are going to be sticking together again! oh yeah baby! I was happy to continue his training. I will be continue also being District Leader here in Primavera. Elder Dean got transferred. It was so sad. It was awesome to have us four in the ward and in the house. I´m going to miss him and his cookies like mama makes em. Elder Dean has taught me a lot. He also got called to be a district leader at just 5 months. He is learning so fast. He is speaking Portuguese so well. He is using words that the native speakers don´t even use here. He is talking more correct then they are and his companion. He is teaching his Brazilian companion how to speak his language. He is an inspiration to me, I need to study Portuguese more. I have been satisfied with just speaking the basic gospel words and speaking until they understand me a little. But I need to study it better and speak Portuguese more fluently. Elder Dean is a hard worker and was a pleasure to meet him. He is a great friend of mine now. And some day I´ll probably go hunting with him in Alaska. But I know that the Lord has a purpose for everything, so I´m excited to meet the new changes. 

So here are some facts about Brazil here. Brazil is so awesome, it is a great place to serve a mission. Most of the people here are so awesome and supper friendly. So it is not so hard to be able to baptise people. But the hard thing, is helping people to stay active. The members here don´t know exactly to hang on to converts. The USA has about 70-80% of members active. But here in Brazil, It is about 70-80% in-active. The members are learning slowly by slowly. So the area of Brazil has came up with a program to try to help out the rentencion in Brazil. Normally, us missionaries help people be baptised and teach them everything and then we try to pass our converts to the members so that the ward can begin to take care of them. Because once the missionaries leave the converts don´t have anyone. But the members here are learning their role and their importance in this work. But it is going kinda slow. So the Presidency of Brazil came up with this new program. They chose our mission out of all the 34 missions in Brazil to test out this new program. This program involves working and reactivating all the new converts, and to also work a big part of rentention in our mission. Half of our missionary work right now is going to be working with new converts, reactivation, and retention. We are also going to be working with "My Family", a cool program about family history work. It is an awesome program, pure revelation. I´m so excited. It is going to help our converts stay stronger in the gospel. We are also going to find a lot of references to work with. If this program goes well in our mission, it will be past to all of the other missions in Brazil. So we have a great responsibility to do this program right. I´m Pumped up!

This week we talked to Mario, the old Japanes that we baptised, about passing the sacrament. We told him that he would have to start wearing a tie. And he doesn´t want to wear a tie. He said that he will wait to the future more. I hope some day he can put it on. haha He is so funny. This Sunday, all the converts that We have baptized so far they were all in church this Sunday. It is so awesome to see that and to know that I was apart of the growth. I´ve heard that Patricia started to smoke again from an investigator. We are going to visit her this week and try to help her. She was strong for about 2 months. I was really sad to hear that, but everything is going to be great. 
We also helped someone move this week.

Well that is about it, I have more that I want to say. But I don´t want to bore you all. I hope you guys are all doing awesome. have a great week yall. 

Be Happy 

Love The Elder Jones

The Brazilian Adventure: Week 46 April 14-- April 20

My Dearest beloved Family and Friends:

We are finding some elects again. It is going so great. It is amazing what the Lord can do. I´m so greatful to have the opportunity to be part of this work and the chance I have to be an instrument in the Lords hands. I love helping to change lives. I love serving others. I love helping others become better then they were yesterday. There is no other greater joy. I also love changing also, and I love being better then who I was yesterday. 

So this week, we found a young 17 year old teenager from the old area book. Her name is Renângela. When we taught her, I felt like I was talking to an inactive member. She started going to church when she was 11 years old. When she was 11 years old, she found a pass along card on the floor of her house. She picked it up and told her mom to call the number because they would get a free movie about Christ. And so they did. A few weeks later the missionaries passed by and left a message with them. They invited her to church and she went all by herself. The missionaries then tried teaching the family but the parents didn´t want anything. She still went to church though. She went with a member her age that she knew and her family lived close by Renângela´s house. The missionaries then began to teach her and she believed in everything and believed that it was true. The missionaries then asked if she can get baptised, but the dad didn´t let her get baptised. He said that she had to wait until she was 18 years old. She went to church for 5 YEARS all by herself. But about a year ago she stopped going. We talked to her this week to see why. She told us that she just got burnt out and just gave up. It was hard for her to go by herself without the support of her family. She also had a couple of problems with a leader. But now she forgot her testimony a little. She has a boyfriend who is going to the Baptist church and she is going there now. We are trying to teach her and trying to help her remember her testimony again. I believe that she still has it, deep down she knows that this is His church. It just made me kinda sad inside to see her burnt out like that. She has actually helped a lot of other young teenagers in the church become baptised in our ward today. But I hope things can go good. 

So I have a habit of plucking leaves off of trees when I walk by them. and yesterday I was walking by a house and there was a tree beginning to grow in a plant plot in front of this house, I walked by and gr abed a branch and broke a big peace of the little tree. I had it in my hand and my companion looked at me and gave me the "uuuuuuu you shouldn´t have done that" face. And right behind me we began to hear a Lady screaming at me. I couldn´t understand her. she was drunk but she was so mad at me. I just tried calming her down but she was exploding. My companion just ran ahead and I, in a desperation to calm her down, I tried to put the branch back where I broke it. But then I thougth, ok this is not going to work. I tried talking to her, but she just kept screaming louder in her drunk tone. I just apologized and just layed the branch down next to the tree and just kept walking. My companion could not stop laughing. It was kinda funny afterwards.   

Well I hope you are all doing awesome. I love you so much. and I hope you are all giving this life all you got to become the person that the Lord wants you to be. 

Be happy.

Love The Elder Jones

The Brazilian Adventure: Week 45 April 7-- April 13

My Dearest beloved Family and Friends:

                  So last week on P-day. I found this pile of pappers. It was the old Area book with all the information of the other misisonaries who have passed here in my area. This house that I live in right now has been used as a missionary house for about 10 years now. It is old. And this pile of papper has information of old investigators and of the baptisms in that has happened in this area. It is really cool. It is kinda like a history book. But as I was looking through the list of old investigators. I was able to find the reasons why the investigators were dropped. There were some that said that the people were just working a lot and just didn´t have time at the moment but they were elect, others that went on vacations, others who had to wait to get divorced, others who just had to wait until they were 18. We are finding these people and we are finding some great results. It is so awesome. The area book is so great. 

Man, sometimes it is a little frustrating when investigators just don´t come to church. It is so amazing how so many of them say that they are going to come and how so many don´t actually go. The Brazilian cultral is a very nice clture, but sometimes that is a problem as a missionary. People just don´t tell you things straight up. So ou never really know if they are just saying things to try to impress you or if they are really honest. But it is all good. 

 the computer is having some trouble. I think I´m just going to send the e-mail now. I hope you are all doing great. I love you all so much.

Be Happy

Love, The Elder Jones

The Brazilian Adventure: Week 44 March 31-- April 6
My Dearest beloved Family and Friends:
  I first want to tell my mom happy birthday. I´m sorry that I didn´t
get the chance to tell you on your real day mom. But I want you to
know that I was thinking about you. I want to thank you mom for
everything that you have done for me in my life and helping me to
become the young man that I am. I want to thank you for all your love,
service, and care. I love you so much mom and I hope I can make you
proud.
  This week was great. One day I decided to walk around with the book
of Mormon in my hand all day. I did and I swear this book has some
special power. It turned out to be a great day. We found some new
investigators and found some random inactive members on the street.
Some of them just shouted at us on the street and asked us when church
started. I was like oh yeah baby! I´m going to start walking around
with the Book of Mormon in my hand all day. I also heard a cool story
from one of the missionaries in my district. He has an older brother
who just returned from his mission that I met back in the New
Farmington Mexico Mission. I was supper surprised to find that out by
the way. He told me that before his brothers mission, his brother
wasn´t doing the greatest things in the world and wasn´t on the right
path. His brother wasn´t even thinking about going on a mission. But
one day he decided to read the Book of Mormon and read the whole
thing, and then he said a prayer and got the answer. Next thing he
talked to his bishop about preparing to go on a mission. His brother
actually became the assistant to the president. It was a cool story.
    Oh my gosh, General Conference was so awesome. I´m so greatful to
have the opportunity to have a living prophet on earth today guiding
christ´s church today. I´m so thankful for the inspiring leaders of
the church and their amazing talks. I feel like so many talks were
just for me. It is amazing how the lord answers our prayers through
his servants. One of my favorite talks this general Conference was the
talk given by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf when he talked about not
sleeping through the restoration. I don´t want to sleep throught the
Restoration. I want to be apart of this great work. I Love general
Conference, I just want to be better after hearing the talks. I have
so many things that I need to improve on and change. I am so greatful
for the great opportunity that I have to repent. Repentance is such a
great gift from God. I love improving and becoming better. I´m so
greatful for christ atonement that allows me to change and become
better. I hope you all read and study those talks and get ready to
improve and change also. I´m so happy to be a missionary in His church
and to be apart of this great work. I love it.
  I think I forgot to write about this some weeks ago. But I have
been tearing up shoes after shoes on my mission. A few weeks ago I was
using a very bad pare of shoes and they were torn apart, but as a
missionary, you don´t have much money. So I couldn´t buy some shoes. I
was planning on saving some money, but it would take some time. One day
I was walking down the street and theres this bag of shoes near a garbage
can. We walked over to look and there was these pair of church shoes.
I tried them on and they fitted perfectly! it was awesome! they aren´t
the best in the world. but they will do. It was like an answer to my
prayers. I guess the lord is watching over me.
  You all rock! I hope you are doing supper man good. I love you guys
with all this heart of mine and even parts of my left lung.

Be Happy :)
 

Love Elder Jones.

Elder Jones on his amazing mission:)