Happy Easter!!

Hello friends!! 

I don’t have much time this week but I am still alive out here in Faro and I am still loving it! It’s waaay hot already. I am sun burnt right now because we went to the beach for Pday hahaha but its good. I need a good tan!! 

The sun is shining and the laughs keep coming! Hope you all had a great week and that you found time on Easter to think about our Savior!! Here Easter is a thing pretty small. We had lunch and dinner with members on Saturday for Easter but then on Sunday everyone just passed it with family, barely anyone came to church. It was strange and opposite from home. But it was good.. we made our own fun at home haha. 

Here are photos of me pretending to be a statue and and awkward selfie during a meal with a member (they are from France so its really hard to communicate but its always really fun and they treat us really good haha) 

We are teaching some awesome people who will be baptized in these next few weeks and I am so excited to keep teaching them!! 

Have a great week! Love you all! 

The Week of a Batismo and Pranks

Olá todos!! 

Hope you guys are all having a great week!! We had a good and crazy week here in Faro!! 

We have been working hard this week and we were determined to end this transfer on a good note, and it happened! We ended up baptizing Maria Graça on Saturday!!! She had a lot of test of faith to arrive at her baptismo but she recognized all of them and still showed up, early!! 

We basically lost contact with her for almost a whole week. She came to conference last Saturday and Sunday, but after that every time we called it went straight to voicemail. We became really worried and didn’t know what happened. But finally on Thursday she answered, we marked an appointment with her and taught her! That night she said that her Saturday is really busy and she can’t be baptized, but after some talking and praying she decided she needed to be baptized on Saturday.  So on Friday she made some calls and arranged her schedule to be baptized! She called us on Friday morning to say this so we literally spent all Friday planning a baptism and making sure everything was good. She was interviewed on Saturday night and passed!! Up to this point basically everything that could of gone bad, went bad and we really recognized the law of opposition with this baptism. We explained this to her MANY times and told her not to get discouraged. And she didn’t!! On Saturday after the interview we were walking back to our apartments together and like 2 minutes after we parted ways she fell, and almost broke her wrist. She was in a lot of pain during the baptism but she showed up and said "I know that I am doing the right thing and that is why there is so much opposition coming my way". But she was baptized and received the Gift of the Holy Ghost yesterday and it was just so good!! I was so happy for her and I know her life will be SO blessed because of this decision!! 

But while we were planning this baptism, the elders decided it was a perfect time to play a prank on us. SO what actually happened is that last Sunday they locked their keys in their apartment so we had to get them for them, and while we were in there we decided that they needed a little prank. So we put some salt in their toothpaste. Just a harmless little prank (this prank thing has been going on for some time). BUT they didn’t even say anything until almost a whole week. We were convicted that they don’t brush their teeth but they were saying that they thought they had a problem with their mouths or something (who knows, elders are weird). SO we knew something was coming for us, but we were so busy planning this baptism and doing everything we couldn’t stay on guard. SO long story really short on Saturday we had a feeling they were in our apartment so before an appointment we stopped by our home, only to find TWO ELDERS hiding underneath our beds. We attacked them and they left running. They didn’t have to time do anything in our apartment and we thought we scared them away enough. We were also so busy with back to back lessons that we couldn’t just stay at home and protect our house. So what happens.. We continue with our day, have an interview with Maria Graça and finally arrive home barely before 10pm. We are exhausted. We enter our apartment and it smells like fish. We are very very very suspicious. We enter our bathroom and find literally the UGLIEST, GROSSEST, BIGGEST fish in our bathtub. Like its dead of course but I couldn’t even look at it without screaming. I was dying. Luckily my comp is Samoan and these things don’t phase her too much so she was able to take it out of our bathtub. I was dying. So we called the elders and started yelling at them. They were dying laughing and just said that we hadn’t found everything yet. That is when my comp decides to look in our beds... and what did she find?? SQUIDS UNDER OUR PILLOWS. I died. Literally died. I already know our neighbors hate us after Saturday night. It was SO SO gross. SO yea we had to wash EVEYTHING on our beds that night. It was so bad. And the worst part?? The next day we were so busy that we didn’t even have time to prank them back. But what we decided to do is say that we called president and that he is really mad and he will call later and arrange the next transfers. They were really scared because this next transfer (that we started today) is their last transfer, and they didn’t want to end their missions with a bad comp or in a bad area. They were SO mad and SO SO scared. We got the office and everyone in on it.. SO on Saturday they were about ready to call the president and explain what happened and that they pulled the prank when we entered the room and said we were joking and didn’t say anything to president. They were SO mad and SO relieved at the same time. The looks on their faces were priceless. 

SO yea it’s a good thing that one of these elders is being transferred this week so maybe these prank wars can end for good. I do not want any more fish in my bed. 

But other that that, our week was really really good! We are teaching some INCREDIBLE women that are going through some hard times and I just know that the gospel will help them SO much!! I am so excited to see them progress and grow their relationship with Christ!! 

Also transfer calls were last night and we are staying together here in Faro! I am really excited because I really like this area! Also sister Aiono will end her mission with me! We will see how that goes!! 

Last week for Pday we went go carting and I won from all of the sisters we were with. SO yea I am not out of practice of driving.. yet. 

Have a great week everyone!! You are all amazing and I am so grateful for your support! 

Sister Jones 

Officially Legal in Portugal!!

Hello Everyone!!

We had a great week here in Faro!! It was one very spiritual and uplifting week!!

It started off with zone conference! It was so good to receive direction and help from our leaders in the mission and then resolve to do better and apply these things into our work. One thing that president spoke a lot about is how important our role is here in Algarve to help this district grow into a stake. All the members really want a stake here and they are willing to work hard and help us, but a lot of the responsibility is on our shoulders too. I really

felt the pressure to help this area grow and strive and I know the Lord trusts us a lot to work here in the area.

After zone conference and interviews with president we got a ride to Lisbon with them. Us and a companionship of elders piled in a minivan with president and his wife for a 3 hour family road trip. But when I arrived here in Portugal president drove us to the mission home, and he is such a scary driver. I think people drive different in Brazil than the United States because I was SO scared of him. I mentioned this to my companion before we left and she told him. SO the whole car ride was just jokes about how scared I am of him, but with just a few close calls and a miner heart attack on my part we made it to Lisbon safe and sound. We were all together joking and squished in this minivan. It was a good time. I really do like president. I had to do my residency this week. We had to stay in Lisbon for a long time for this which took a lot of time out of our work and area.  We got to hang out with the senior couple, the Hoffman’s. They are literally my favorite people and we have permission to speak English with them and it’s SO good. Sometimes I just really miss English ya know. But yea we basically just passed the day with the Hoffman’s and elders and couldn’t do anything.. it was really boring and kinda frustrating but we tried to make it fun. The next morning we had SEF and we had to take lovely passport pictures again.. they get worse everytime. But after that we could return to our area and really work.  I am officially legal here in Portugal so that’s all good things. Also it was fun to see a few people from my MTC group again!!

We got to watch all sessions of conference Also this week we had lunch with a lady in our branch who only speaks French, some English, and very little Portuguese. The only problem is that one of our investigator works for her so she came along too and she only speaks Portuguese so there was a lot of hand gestures and translating and I really don’t think she understood like anything we said.. but she we didn’t really understand her either but it was so fun! She picked us up and we went a resturante on the beach here. She ordered us this HUGE plate of food and it was all seafood, and the weirdest thing happened.. I actually liked the fish?? I don’t know what is happening to me?? But I have pictures of that crazy food we ate. It was seriously SO huge and SO yummy.

Then we came home and had the chance to watch all sessions of conference this time!! Here it’s 5 to 7 and then 9 to 11 but we had permission to watch all of them. They also had a room with English so we stayed there. I really did like conference a ton and it always just goes by WAY too fast. But also crazy to think that its already been 6 months since last conference. It feels like just a few weeks ago.. but at the same like a really long time ago.  It was so good and I am SO grateful for conference!! I had so many questions that were answered and I felt the spirit whisper to me many things that I need to change to follow the counsel of the prophets and have the spirit in my life more. I am so grateful for revelation the prophet receives and the chance we also have to receive personal revelation to guide our lives and help us become the people that our Heavenly Father wants us to be.  I really liked Sunday night conference for investigators but sadly none were there at night because it was really late and they had to work the next day, of course. So that was sad. I don’t have my notes with me but I really felt like the themes of conference were the importance of learning, studying, and growing closer to Christ, and also the importance of the Holy Ghost. I am excited and ready to make goals to apply these teaching in my life and become better everyday.

The work here in Faro is continuing to go good! I love this little city and all the good people in it!! This work is too good, but more importantly this Gospel is just too good and I am just SO grateful for it! One of our investigators is Maria Gra;a. She is one of those shy

people who will just show up to church and doesn’t want to be found or be taught.. but we finally cornered here and forced her to have one lesson with us a few weeks ago and now she is calling us to schedule lessons!! She is really amazing and is marked for baptism on Saturday! But she has also been having some problems with health so every prayer

for her helps!! That she can feel confident about baptism and not let these health issues hold her back!! She really is amazing and a great example of strength through trials.

I used the JetBlue card this week to buy new shoes.. they weren’t that cheap.. sorry! But you can take money out of my personal account also.. I just didn’t want to pay the fee. Sister Tavares saw my shoes this week and did not like them because they are really warn out right now and she said they look too much like tennis shoes.. I also wanted to buy sandals that are closed toe for the summer. We were in Lisbon for the day because I had to do my residency and they have a shopping mall HUGE so we got permission to go shopping and buy new shoes while we were there. The sandals were pretty expensive but they are SO comfy and good solid shoes.. so I wont have to buy more in the future for sure. 

Funny:

This week we were too busy to prank the elders (April fools) and they didn’t prank us either which was really surprising. But then yesterday we were making cookies during the priesthood sessions *its Sunday morning here) and we had to use their brown sugar so we went to their house and while we were there we decided to put salt in their toothpaste.. They still haven’t said anything to us though. I don’t know what they means.. that they don’t brush their teeth or that they like the taste of salty toothpaste! Haha!

Love you all! Thank you for all of the prayers and support!!

Sister Jones

Pictures of our yummy lunch with Imra Lulu and our investigator, Marline

A selfie with the sisters at Zone Conference. Sister Foster was in the MTC with me and I just love her!