The Brazilian Adventure: Week 102 May 18th -- May 24th

My Dearest beloved Family and Friends:

I did divisions this week with Jardim Record. I stayed in my area with Elder Solano. He talks a lot during the lessons. and he always talks about so many lessons that his dad has taught him. He testify´s with power. He is a great missionary and he always has some companions that aren´t the easies companions. He has a lot of patience and a lot of love. 

This week Elder Paz got really sick. He had a fever of about 102 degrees. He was bad for about 3 days. But he still went out with me for 3 days and worked hard. He is a great example for me. He was almost falling on the streets. We aren´t finding a lot of success through reactivation for now. But I think the results are coming.

When you are knocking on the doors of less actives. You never know what is going to happen. We passed by an inactive member named Fabio. When we got there, his mother invited us in the house. When we came in to talk to him, we realized that he was drunk and he was sreaming at us to not come in and that he was busy and for us to go away. Then we were heading out. Afterwards the spirit took control and 30 minutes later, we were walking out of the house with a pair a shoes that he gave me, because he notice that I had a bad pair of shoes on. When you are on the Lords errand, you just see miracles. It is crazy. 

These are the 12th pair of shoes on my mission. I have only bought one pair of shoes since I have been on my mission, and they were in a supper cheap store, they were only 5 dollars. All the other shoes that I got, or someone gave them to me or I found them on the street or in the house. The Lord watches over his servants. I am very blessed.

Love you all so much

Be happy

Love, The Elder Jones

The Brazilian Adventure: Week 101 May 11th -- May 17th

My Dearest beloved Family and Friends:

We are working a lot again with less actives. I created a supper list of less actives. We are passing by everyone. This week, we brought back 3 people who were less active. And they brought some people who are not members. Oh yeah! We are also working hard to do divisions every night with members to doubel the work time at night. That night time is the best work time because that is generally when everyone is home. We did two division with elders in my zone. I stayed in our area with Elder Costa one day and Elder del Jesus the other day. Elder del Jesus is from Dominican Republic. Elder Costa has a great tesitmony. He grew up in a family who are from the macumba realigion. This is that religion who worship bad spirits. It is crazy. He would tell me that when he was little and when he did bad things. His mom always knew because, the bad spirits would tell his mom. That is what I understood half asleep when we were going to bed. It sounds crazy. I love the missionaries in my zone, I get a great chance to get to know them very well, and there are some great people here with amazing stories. I love them.

We are finding a lot of people to teach through reactivation. I´m learning a lot of great things from my companion. I´m learning how to be more positive and more happy and more everything. He is such a great companion. I´m doing great. 

Love you all so much. 

Be happy

Love The Elder Jones

The Brazilian Adventure: Week 100 May 4th -- May 10th

My Dearest beloved Family and Friends:

Thanks everyone for the Birthday wishes. I´m 21 years old. It is wierd. I can drink now. But I wont, because I´m mormon and stuff. haha jk

So my new area is here in Trianon, an area right beside one of my old areas, Jardim Record. It is so awesome. My new companion is elder Paz, that means Elder Peace. I got called to be a Zone Leader with him. It is a lot of fun and a lot of work. I have almost no time for anything. I am really greatful for all my Zone leaders in the past, they worked hard. It is really cool. This ward has been having some hard times. they use to have 4 missionaries, but then they clossed the 2 areas and sent in the zone leaders last transfer. So we are here to help them out. The work area is huge. We are going to be working a lot with reactivation. It is going to be great. Elder Paz looks like the guy from scorpion king. In my zone I can work With Elder rezabala, my son, and Elder Cordeiro, my old black companion. they are companions in Jardim Record. 

Yesturday was so awesome to speak to my family. I love you all so much. 

The Brazilian Adventure: Week 99 April 28th  -- May 3rd

My Dearest beloved Family and Friends:

I have been studing "Jesus the Christ" lately, MAN! this book is huge. And it is so great. Christ is way more incredible then I could have imagined. 

So I recieved the call sunday morning during church and I have been transfered. Ah, I didn´t want to leave. I wanted to die here in Grajau. But the Lord is going to be calling me to another place. The time passed so fast. But I have seen so many great things here. It is so awesome. I will let you guys know where I am at next week. 

I loved this area. This week Gilmar asked if he could go out with us and do visits. And we said sure why not. He is not even baptised yet and he went out with us for 4 hours doing visits and testifying to others the truthfulness of the gospel. It is so crazy. And he loved the visit with us. And he is going again this week. I´m sad that I´m not going to be here for his baptism. His papers took to long to get here. I payed 55 reals for the paper to get sent. But I´m not going to be here now. But I guess the Lord has other plans for me. 

While I was here, we helped this young man named Felipe come to church. His mom and little sister goes to church. He is 18 years old. And now we are trying to help him to go on a mission. We gave him a priesthood blessing so that he can come back. While I was here, we also helped Thalita come back to church. I spoke about her a few e-mails back. Yesterday, was her third day of going to church and it has been awesome. Yesterday she went to the bishop to repent and that was a great step for her. She said that she told him everything. She is making some crazy changes. before, she was smoking a pack of cigerets a day, smoking marijuana and using drugs everyday. I think I remember telling you guys that about how we gave her a blessing and how we blessed her house. She told me yesterday when I was saying goodbye, she told me that ever since that day of the blessing, she hasn´t smoked anything and used any of those things. It was so amazing. I´m so greatful for the great opportunity that I have to hold the preisthood, and especialy to be able to be worthy to use it when I am called to. I have a powerful testimony of the preisthood. 

I love you all so much and I´m SO Excited to talk to my family next week on mothers day. I´m pumped up!  

Be happy 

Love The Elder Jones

The Brazilian Adventure: Week 98 April 20th  -- April 27th

My Dearest beloved Family and Friends:

Last week I renewed my temple recommend. I´m so greatful that I can pass the temple interview and be worthy to enter the temple. I love living the gospel, so that I can go in there and do such a great work. 

We had a cool experince with a recent convert named Eliana on Tuesday. We had lunch with her this last Wednesday. She was going to work on Wednesday and so she was going to give us money. So Tuesday night she was going to leave her house and walk to our house to try to find us. While she was leaving she had fear that she wasn´t going to be able to find us at our house and she was going to do the whole trip for nothing and not be able to give us the money. And so she said a little prayer and asked God if she can find us on the way. When she said amen and a got a few more other things ready to go. She heard my voice calling her at the door, so that we can give her a message. She came to the door to happy and told us the story. Her prayer was answered so fast. She has a lot of faith. 

One of the young men that we baptised recently started seminary. He loved it. We also took his older sister Tatiana and her husband Gilmar to the temple saturday. It was so awesome. They are preparing for baptism. They just have to get married. But the papers are taking so long like always.  I truely belive that God was preparing him to meet us and to change his life with us. While we were going back to the house from the temple. Gilmar told me a lot about his life. He said that he started to use cocane when he was 15 years old and used it for 10 years. He stoped less then a year ago. Because he was loosing his family and just couldn´t handle it anymore. He said that during these years, he would sell a lot of drugs too. Then he told us that before the first day that we met him, he was drinking in the bar every day and he would come home drunk. But he said that ever since the fisrt day that we started passing by their house. He stopped drinking and hasn´t drank anything. They are so elect. They just have to get married. He always tells everyone that he can´t wait to be baptise so that he can enter the temple after a year. It is so amazing what God can do through you. You just have to be there and say a few words, and then the spirit and the Lord does the rest. 

I love you all so much. Have a great week. 

Be happy

Love the Elder Jones