A piece of Madalyn's letter to her Mom

I don’t have much time, but thanks for the solid email! Looks like Halloween activities are going good! Here in Portugal Halloween isn’t a thing. Like maybe the youth celebrate it just because of movies, but we don’t do anything special haha.

I was thinking about the fact that is had been 3 years since I broke my back and it seems so crazy. 3 years is a LONG time! I still look back on that experience as a miracle. The humbling experience that I needed at that time for sure.   The problem? Recently my back has been giving me major problems. idk what it is, but only 3 more months of toughing it out haha. But it’s nothing like when I broke my back. It’s the part of my back right bellow the fusion. I don’t want to get it checked out because of the cost and Sister Tavares will have to contact the doctor in Germany.  Its a pretty complicated case to explain to them here.. hahah ! You know.. I will just play it safe and not say anything.

We moved houses this week!!! Our house is so nice now!! But it is also empty!! Its so weird!!! There is only our beds and everything. Sorry the internet in the library stopped working so now we are in this sketchy internet café and only have an hour so emails are going to be way short.  Also I don’t trust this computer to upload pictures, so next week for sure!

Love you!!

​Conferencia e coisas boas!!

Olá Todos!! 

We had a really good week here in Barreiro!! We were running everywhere to teach lessons; we currently have 5 people marked for baptism who need LOTS of prayers. If you guys could include them, it would mean a LOT to us here! Their names are Paula, Vanusa, Nelita, Vitoria, and Maria! 

This week was a week of miracles! It started off kind of slow and we were having a lot of problems catching our investigators at home to teach them, we started getting a little discouraged about the work, or the lack of it. But we tried to do our hardest continue and try to work hard. 

Then we had zone conference that was really good! One thing that President talked a lot about is how our mission is the "Sabbath Day" of our lives. He heard Isaiah 58: 13-14, which says:

"13 ¶ If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:

14 Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it."

(I knew you guys would be too lazy to open it)

 Here in the mission, we have to turn ourselves away from doing our will and doing things we want to do, like on the Sabbath Day. But as we do that, is when we can truly call our missions a delight. One thing I have learned here in the mission is that one year and a half is NOTHING. Time flies so fast and that I really need to make every moment count. Things truly get easier when we give our will over to the Lord and resolve to do this His way. That is a lesson that took me a long time to learn here in the mission, but I am so glad I learned it. I am so grateful for this time I have in my life to completely forget about myself and focus on serving Heavenly Father, and never want this time to end! 

Also this week, we thought we found a golden investigator! We did a contact in the street and marked to pass by her house later. Here in Portugal, appointments with people aren’t really a thing really strong, and people rarely are at home when we marked with them. But before the appointment she called to make sure we would be there. We got so excited!! We show up at her house, and see that she invited her Pastor there to teach us some things. She trapped us in her house with her Pastor. Oh man, the first thing I thought was "So, how quickly can we get out of here?" It was quite the adventure. In the end they were all really nice, and could talk about what we believed. But I left so grateful to have the fullness of the truth in my life and to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. 

We were supposed to move this week, but it didn’t happen, surprise surprise. So maybe this week. I have basically lost all hope that we will actually move haha! In other news I am still halfway living out of my suitcases still because I thought we would move at the BEGINNING of the transfer so that’s fun hahahha man. 

SO yea, that’s about it this week! We are thinking of going to the temple grounds this afternoon to see how it is, I am excited!! (mom note: a Temple is being built in Lisbon right now). Hope you guys all have a great week!! Thanks for all the prayers and support! 

Sister Jones 

Quick Update!

Hello everyone!! 

Just a quick update to say I am still alive and working out here! After 3 weeks here in the area I am really getting to know the people and we are seeing miracles! We have 4 people marked for baptism and really high hopes for this month!! 

We did divisions this week with other sisters! I was with a sister who got here in Portugal like two weeks ago, so she basically didn’t speak any Portuguese, but she was so cute! She would stop people in the road and basically say "Hi I don’t speak Portuguese, but she does!!" and look at me and I would do the rest of the talking! She had a goal to give out 4 Books of Mormon at night. We gave out 2 without problems, but then it started getting later and we weren’t finding many people to give books. I was talking to this lady, but the bus arrived and she had to leave, and the sister just looked at her and handed her the book of Mormon and said, "Here this is for you!" and ran off. It was so funny!! It was a good division! 

We didn’t move this week.. still don’t have electricity in the apartment that we are going to move to. I am losing hope that we will actually move one day, we will see what happens. IN other news, there was an Australian being trained in our apartment but she was transferred and now I am the only person that speaks English lol Its all Brazilians and I which like never happens its funny. 

I actually heard about the fires in California! That’s scary. Its big enough that even people here are talking about them.

Dryers don’t exist here in Portugal haha we hang all of our clothes. I miss dryers so much haha

On Sunday I had to speak in church (surprise surprise) and decided to talk about the Book of Mormon. I have grown to love this book of much recently. It is literally full of power, and we can all receive this power. We only need to open the book and do our part! 

Hope you all have a good week!! 

Com Amor,

Sis Jones 

Picture with the Elders baptism!

Two sisters we did divisions with

 Lunch today with our apartment (they are all Brazilian.. I am the only American one here hahaha)

Busy Week!

Hello Everyone!! 

Short email this week, but we had a good week here in Barriero! It was SO busy. We had a day that we taught 6 lessons in one day, so basically it was just running around everyday. 

We are teaching some people who are going through things really hard right now and it has been pretty hard to see them so sad. I have truly felt like Nephi when he says in 2 Nephi 33:3 "For I pray continually for them by day, and mine eyes water my pillow by night, because of them; and I cry unto my God in faith, and I know that he will hear my cry." 

Here in the mission, it amazes me how quickly we can grow to love people and sincerely just want the best for them. I can truly feel the love Heavenly Father has for them and it makes me want to help them feel it too. 

We have 2 people marked for baptism, Paulo who just needs to stop smoking, and Vanusa, a teenager from Guine Bissau. I am really excited for these next few weeks to work with them and help them receive all the blessing Heavenly Father has waiting for them! 

The visas for missionaries are having a bunch of problems so it is expected for us to have less than 100 missionaries next year. Our mission is the smallest it has been since I got here, a bunch of areas are closing for missionaries. It’s really sad actually, we are not receiving like any new missionaries right now. 

We still haven’t moved apartments, but hopefully this Saturday. There is still no electricity so we will see. We are moving because we live 45 minutes from our area, so we have to walk 45 minutes to be able to work, and can’t return to eat lunch so we normally just eat in the church building, but its way annoying so I want to move so bad haha. 

Have an excelente week!! 

Sister Jones 

On the boat to get to our mission office in Lisbon. I was so excited on the boat I felt like a 3 year old haha 

Conference!

Hello Everyone!! 

I didn’t send out an email last week, but we had some changes! I am currently serving in Barreiro with a new comp, Sister dos Santos. She was born in Brazil but grew up here in Portugal, so she is basically Portuguese. Saying tchau to areas is always hard, Setubal was a good area, but Barreiro is seriously full of eleitos! Man every corner is full of people who want to talk to us! I am so excited to work here, it will be good! 

We got to watch all of conference this week, which was a huge blessing!! We even got to watch 3 in English (it is so much better to hear it in their actual voices!). I entered with A LOT of questions. Conference here in the mission is like Christmas! I was SO excited the whole week!! We watched it in the member’s home, who made us feel exactly at home with snacks during the songs and everything! I think my favorite talk was by President Uchtdorf, I felt like he was personally inviting me on a Heavenly Embark to know Heavenly Father better. I received so many responses to questions, and my testimony that this truly is the Lord´s church and he leads and guides it everyday was strengthened. I am so grateful to be a member of this church. If you didn’t watch conference, go watch it now!!! 

Other than that, the week was pretty boring. Just meeting a bunch of people.

Tenham uma semana maravilhosa! 

Sister Jones 

This is the family that we watched conference with! They are gems! I felt right at home. I love how every area has a family that makes me feel like I am family, and I have already found mine here in Barreiro!