The Brazilian Adventure: Week 76 November 17 -- November 23

My Dearest beloved Family and Friends:

Well, I´ve been transfered. I will be leaving tomorrow to a new area and recieving my new companion. I´ll let you guys know where I´m at next week. Transfers are really tough if you´ve nver been through one. They are supper wierd, a lot of changes. I´m going to be a little sad saying good bye to these awesome families who we were preparing to get married and baptised next transfer. But I´m thankfull that I was at least able to be apart of their teaching. I´m going to be leaving my son Elder Queiroz to take care of the area with his new companion. My son is growing up so fast. :´) He is supper nervouse. 

We did have this cool expierience with one of these families who we are teaching and trying to help mary them. The mom and her kids were going to church and the husband never wanted to go because he doesn´t have his front teeth and he feels embaraced. and he is poor and he won´t be having his teeth for a long time.  But this week, the mom and the kids were busy doing some things and they couldn´t go. And on Saturday nigth, the husband just randomly told us that he is going tomorrow to church. We were surprised. We passed by his house to even go with him. But when we got there, he was already gone. We went to chruch and found him there. He went all by himslef. Afterwards he said that he loved it. I´m giong to miss that family so much, they have 7 children and the kids are awesome. 

Today is going to be fun doing my suitcases. I hope you are all doing great. I heard that Kimberly and Douglas got married now. FINALLY!! haha I´m so happy for them. 

Be happy 

Love The Elder Jones

The Brazilian Adventure: Week 76 November 10 -- November 16

My Dearest beloved Family and Friends:

So last week on monday I had a great interview with Presidnet Dalton. I was asking him some advice about how I can just do better on my mission. It was supper awesome, and he helped me out so much. President Dalton is the man. And this week we also had interviews with Presiden Dalton on Thursday, but this time it was faster. The first time he talked about having faith in my self and then the second interview he told me that I´m doing great and now all I need is patience. So I´m working on these two things. I love President Dalton, he is such a great man. 

This week was great. We began to apply some things that the assisstants taught us during the interviews with President Dalton. One of the things that was really cool is some thing that President Dalton learned with a training from the Area President of Brazil, President Costa, with all the mission presidents of Brazil. One of the Presidents asked about how much time the missionaries should teach. President Costa said that there really isn´t a time limit, you just have to always feel the spirit. But normally we want to try to make the teaching time shorter. But then he started to talk about the spirit and he said that what you should teach your missionaries is that they should learn how to leave a lesson when the spirit is the most strong. For example, on the 1st lesson about the Restoration,  he said that we should try to end a lesson right after the First Vission. Because that is when they are going to feel the spirit the most, and then you leave the commitments, mark the next visit and leave, so that we can leave the spirit really strong. We started to apply this, we teach about the Holy Ghoust at the beginning of the lesson so that people can pay attention to it. and it is awesome. 

The spirit is so amazing. This week it happened again. I finished saying the first vission and then I ask this person if they would pray and ask god if what we have taught them is true. They then relpy no. And then I get confussed and ask them why. And this lady tells me "I don´t need to pray, when you were saying those words, I just felt that it was true. I don´t need to pray because I know what you are telling me is true." It is awesome. 

I love my mission. It has it´s hard times, and sometimes I get so close to just falling and pushed to my limits. But I just hang in there a little langer and the Lord pulls me through. If you are thinking about going on a mission. DO IT! I promise you that you won´t reget it and that the Lord will take car of you. Love you all. 

Be happy. 

Love The Elder Jones

The Brazilian Adventure: Week 75 November 3 -- November 9

My Dearest beloved Family and Friends:

This week we had a great chance to go to the temple of São Paulo, it was supper cool. I love going to the temple and remembering and pondering about the covenants that I do there. My companion had a great chance to be able to do the baptism work for his grandparents that have past away. I baptised his grandpa for him and 15 others who have passed away. I love doing the work in the temple for the others on the other side of the Vail. 

I had a great experience this week. We were teaching an investigator named Juliana. She hasn´t prayed to God to see if the book of Mormon and if Joseph smith  were true because she is afraid that she woun´t get an answer the first time. But then in that lesson we explained to her that she can pray several times to know and that sometimes people don´t get an answer the first time. And then we invited her to pray tonight to know. And she said that she would. And then we ended the lesson with a prayer that Juliana offered. She started off saying the prayer normally, but then she told God right then and there. "God, I´m going to use this moment right now to ask the question." I was thinking oh my gosh! She is finally going to ask the question RIGHT NOW. Right when she began the question, I began to feel a feeling in my soul that began small and then it began to grow, until it filled my whole chest. It was a feeling of great peace and I know that the spirit was there and testified to her at the end of her question. She then ended the prayer and got to her feet with her eyes wide open. And I asked her, how are you feeling? And she told us that she is feeling exactly how we described it would happen. she felt a very calm and icy feeling within her chest. she then said that she knows that the book of Mormon is true and that Joseph smith was a prophet. It was sick!

Last Saturday, we helped this investigator with a leaking roof that she has. She has a house that is not the greatest in the world. It´s in the favela. It is a house with some pile wood walls and a tile roof. some of the tiles were broken and we fixed and replace some. We also helped a less active move this week. And with a result from that service she and her friend came this week in whom we are going to be teaching this week. 

Love you all, hope you are doing great. 

Be happy.

Love, The Elder Jones

The Brazilian Adventure: Week 74 October 27 -- November 2

My Dearest beloved Family and Friends:

Happy Holloween!!

My companion and I are having some cool experiences following the spirit to find some people. This weekend we baptised  Maria who we found about a month ago. I wrote about her in the week 68 letter. That is how we found her. It was so awesome. Yesturday she did a fast and payed a fast offering. She is so great. And now we are teaching more of her family.  

I had another great experience finding some people. One time I was talking to this lady and doing a contact on the street, the lady wasn´t supper interested and she was talking a lot about some random things. I then saw a young man and women behing her walking towards us. A deep feeling came over me, a prompting to speak to them. The Lady was still talking a whole lot and I didn´t want to be rude and cut her off. Then the two walked right past us and I started to think that maybe I will just let them go. But then the feeling came again, a strong prompting. So as I promised the Lord that morning, that I was going to follow every prompting that he was going to give me. So I cut her off and said sorry and then I ran after the two and started to talk to them. (which is something that I would normally never do, run after some one to speak to them) When I started to speak to them, they didn´t seem so interested. And I was confused for a second, but I knew that the feeling was from god. I knew that he wanted me to talk to them for some reason. So I was just about to ask for a referal, when all of a sudden she told us to go visit her mom that lived down the street. And then I knew why, God probably wanted to us to teach her mom. The next day we went there. And it turns out that her mom and family was taught by the missionaries 5 years ago. Her name is Maria Lucia (Everybody´s name is Maria here) She lived there with her 7 kids and huband. We taught the first lesson about Joseph Smith and at the end, we invited everyone to pray about our message and ask god if it is true. Everyone said that they would, except Maria Lucia. We then asked her why? What she said next surprised me. She said that I don´t need to pray, I already know that this is the only true church, God told me 5 years ago. I was just disobedient back then. It was awesome. We just have to start working to get here and her husband married now. And that is a LONG processe. But we found a great family. 

Love you all, I´m doing supper good. It is tough at times, but the sweet moments make it worth it. 

Be happy

Love The Elder Jones