Sister Madalyn 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