The Brazilian Adventure: Week 73 October 20 -- October 26

My Dearest beloved Family and Friends:

My companion is so funny at night. He falls asleep so fast! Literally the last word he says, 3-4 seconds later he stars snoring. And MAN, he snores SO loud. Some of you have sleept in the same room as me, and I know that you know that I snore loud. But the missionaries in our house say that Elder queiroz snores way louder then me, so you can imagine how bad it is. To try to sleep, we put the fan on every night, even when it is cold. It was hard sleeping the first couple of weeks of the transfer, but now the fan helps. We try to block out the sounds. And he talks also. He sometimes wakes up while he is snoring and says "Stop poking me" or "leave" or "Shut up". And he also laughs, roles over, and moves a lot. So last night we were begining to slpeep and Elder queiroz was snoring super loud. And then he woke up and began to move a lot and then I all of a sudden hear "aita" (which means "oh Shoot") very calmly and then 2 seconds later we heard a big crash on the floor. I grabed the phone and shined it over where he was at. My companion fell out of bed and we all had a good laugh including him. It was so funny. 

The work is going great. We have been having a lot of investigators in church and we are finding a lot of great families. We are learning how to call upon the powers of heaven in this work. I´m trying to learn how to exercise my faith. Faith is like a muscle, and I´m giong to exercise it a whole lot. We are facing a lot of opposition, which is normal, and we are giong to get past them. I´m learning a whole lot about goals, and they are hard. I have to think a lot about them. 

Love you all, hope you are doing supper good. I hope you are becoming who the Lord want you to be, Because I promise you that he can do a lot more with your life then what you can do for your own life. So let him, and you wont reget it. 

Be happy.

Love, The Elder Jones

The Brazilian Adventure: Week 72 October 13 -- October 19

My Dearest beloved Family and Friends:

Well it is true. The water is running out here in Brazil, and here in São Paulo is the worst in all of Brazil. The members say that we probaly only have one to two months until the water here in São Paulo completly runs out. I have no idea what will happen to us missionaries if the water actually runs out. Maybe we will get called to serve in another part in Brazil and I will have three missions. But hopefully the goverment does something. People are begining to become hisitant to give us water when we ask at the doors. 

I hope that I can explain this story well. Last Friday my companion and I were walking through the appartments at night to go to appointment. In this place there are these men smoking some weed and using drugs. It is skechy. It is kinda funny here in Sao Paulo, the people just use these things in front of everyone. But anyway, as we were walking, I notice up ahead of where we were walking was a little wall for a stair case. I saw thes two men peaking out looking at us. And then when I saw them, they went back really quick. I thought that was wierd. We continued to walk towards our path on the other end of the little wall. A man then walked out and he was pretending to mess with something in his hands and he was looking at us. I then stopped and told my companion to stop. A deep feeling came over me to not go any further. When we stopped, the men turned away really fast and bent down near a moto and mess with it. I just told my companion that we were going to take another path. We took another path near by away from the man, but we were able to still see him. When we were gone, he got up and another man walked out from behind the wall and they seemed like they were mad at each other and frustrated. Toma bad people! (That´s Portugese for "Get some!") I love the promptings of the Holy Ghoust. I´m glad that he helped me to realize all of those things and that I was able to see and notice those things. 

This week we took Maria to visit the temple to teach her there. She is the woman that has been having dreams of her family members that have already past away. She loved that temple, and she can´t wait to do the work for here family that have already past away. 

 Love you all. 

Be happy

Love The Elder Jones

The Brazilian Adventure: Week 71 October 6 -- October 12

My Dearest beloved Family and Friends:

Transfers came and NO one got transfered in our district. It is so awesome. I got another transfer to be with my son. Elder Queiroz is so funny sometimes. He spends such a long time in front of the mior doing his hair and the funny part is that when he is done. I can´t tell any difference. A lot of brazilians are like that. He reminds me of my trainer. I love my companion. 

We have been finding so many great families and our teaching group has been growing so much. We have been having some great experiences finding some people from the spirit. It is so awesome. A thought just comes to my head and a feeling in my heart to do something or talk to a specific person and then I have the courage to speak to them and then they are elect, or they know someone who is elect. I love it. I´m learning how to fallow the spirit so much and it is so real.

So yesturday during sacrament meeting, a young man gave a great testimony and shared a cool story. So one time he was walking home from a youth acrivity really late at night. In sao Paulo, it is very dangerouse to go home alone home. So he said a little prayer asking the Lord to protect him. As he was walking home, he walked by a group of young men who were using drugs on the street and he heared there conversation. One said "Hey, aren´t those the shoes that you wanted?" The other anawered "yeah". The one then said "Well why don´t you go over there and get them." Then the other said "I can´t, he is being acompanied". Danilo wasn´t with anyone that he could see with his eyes. 

I know that this is christs true church. I´ve seen and felt so many great miracles. 

Be happy

Love The Elder Jones

The Brazilian Adventure: Week 70 September 29 -- October 5

My Dearest beloved Family and Friends:

General Conference was so great. I love hearing the words of the Lords choose leaders of his church. I love hearing the living Prophet and twelve apostles. I just want to change and do so much better. I can´t wait until the Lihona so that I can study the words. I loved that talk of President Uchtdorf, "Is it I Lord". I loved the talk of Elder Bednar also. During the break time yesterday between conference, us missionaries were preparing to fill up the baptismal fount. During the first session, the missionaries left the water running. And then during the break we realized that next to the bathroom there was water coming out of the bottom of the door of the baptismal fount, so the water was kinda full and OVER FLOODING. We tried opening the door, but it was locked. And the only missionaries who had to keys went out to do something and their phone was off. And so all the missionaries who were there got dust pans and buckets and mops and other things to get the water and start down the toilet drain. (The drain in the bathroom wasn´t working) We did that for a while so that the water wouldn´t go to the other parts of the church building. And then the missionaries finally got back and all was good. And we cleaned up the water and went to the next session just on time. 

Man, the priesthood is so real. Last Saturday we ate at a members house named Maria. When we we got there Maria called us to go and eat with her family and the food was ready. Before the prayer, Maria told us that she had a nephew named Tiago in the hospital and that he had some problem with his blood and that he was in risk of passing away. With tears in her eyes Maria asked us if we could give him a priesthood blessing. We told her that we could. And then she said that we can just do the blessing here and that will be enough, just say the word and it will be done. I was so impressed with her faith. We then asked who she would like to give the blessing. She choosed me out of the four. I felt honored. Then, with faith in gods priesthood, I gave the blessing there. The next day in Sunday, Maria said that he was getting better. Last Tuesday we went by the house and Maria told us that Tiago was getting out of the hospital. I had that great privilege to speak to him. Maria told him, "Speak with the missionary who gave you the blessing". I spoke to him and he sounded like a champ. He thanked me. He then asked me if I could take him to Disney world. haha I was so impressed more because of the faith of Maria, I told her that it was her faith that did that miracle. It reminded me of the story in the scriptures in Mathew 8:5-13. When that man asked for his servant to be healed from Christ. 

Love you all

Be Happy

Love The Elder Jones