The Brazilian Adventure: Week 53 June 2 -- June 8

           My Dearest beloved Family and Friends:

I can´t believe it. I´ve been out for one year now. It is so wierd, it went by so fast. I´m all mixed up with emotions. I´m proud that I have been out here serving the Lord and his children for a year. I never thought before my mission that I would be able to wear a tie for that long. I honestly don´t know what to think about it. I´m happy that I´m closser to see my friends and family. I´m sad because I only have one more year of this great service and of this spiritual happiness. I love my mission, I love this experience. It is just wierd to think that it could end. But I´m just living it to the best of my ability. I´m not going to worry about the future or the past. I´m just going to live it day by day. I just got to keep having faith that all things will happen in the Lord´s way and time. I just got to keep my focus in the work and keep giving it my all. I love it. I´m just more greatful for this great opportunity that the Lord has given me to do this mission for a year. And now I´m even more greatful that I get to do it for another. 

This week on June 5th, the whole mission got together. 259 missionaries for a multi-zone conference. It was so awesome. Presidnet Pinho gave long talks about how we can be better missionaries and it was great. I learned a lot about attitude and desire. We also watched a new church movie called "Ephrams Rescue". It was such a great movie. It was about a man from the time of the pioniers and this man had an amazing gift to help others. I cried. It was just motivating for me to look and to magnify my gifts that the lord has given me. I just want to be the best that I can be with the gifts and talents that the Lord has blessed me with. At this conference I saw all my group from the MTC. It was so awesome. We are still lacking a few, but a lot of them were there. It was cool to share funny and great stories with one another. 

So this weekend we had a wedding! We helped a inactive member named Eder get maried to his wife Viviane. And after the wedding we went to the church building and we baptised viviane. It was so awesome. I was blessed to be able to baptise her. It was a great day. The cool part about this baptism is that in the past Eder never wanted to get married before. Viviane has been going to church a day here and a day there for almost one year. And she never got baptised because of Eder. But one day we found them and we began to talk to them. We talked to Viviane and she said that she wanted to get baptised and married. And she told us that Eder didn´t want to get married. We then walked up to Eder and asked him if we can come by the next day and talk to him and Viviane. And he told us that we could and he knew why we wanted to talk to him. The next day Edler Cifuentes and I were thinking how we were going to help Eder have a desire to get married and we thought that we will just be bold with out words. When we got there we talked about getting married with Eder and at first he was laughing and just trying to change the subject. But then I told him really directly Eder something like this. do you love Viviane? and he said yes and then I asked  Viviane if she loved Eder and she said yes. And then I said perfect, and that is all you two need. So how about it Eder, will you get married. He thought for a while and then a miracle happened and he said alright. After that we prepared Viviane for baptism and she was married and baptised. After the baptism Elder Cifuentes told me something that Viviane told Elder Almeida (our Zone Leader who did the Interview for the baptism) that the day after we talked to Eder about marriage, that night, Viviane said a prayer to God. She told the Lord something like this. "God, if this church is really true. Please touch Eder´s heart and help hime have a desire to get married." I was like OPA! agora vai meu amigo. It was so awesome. Miracle. 

I´m doing great. Things are jamming! I have learned a lot but I got a lot more to learn. I hope you are all doing fine. Keep doing the things that the Lord wants you to do, and I promised if you do, you will be happy. 

Be happy.

Love The Elder Jones