Jory's Mission

March 18, 2010

2010-03-26T05:25:00.001-07:00

Hey!!!! I love you all and wasnt able to write a letter to you all this week because my companion and i went to one of my last areas to saw goodbye to everyone and we ended up running out of time. So I decided to break the rules real fast a send you all a quick email and let you all know that I love you and I will see you all next week. I miss you all and am excited to see you all and I think that I am going to call you when I am in the airpost too. I don’t know if you can or not, but I don’t see why not. But I will talk to my president and see what he thinks, so if I call you don’t be surprised but act happy to hear my annoying voice. But I love you all and as for presents, you can all wait until I get home because I have no idea what I want. But I am pretty sure that I am going to need some new clothes but we can go shopping and I don’t know what I want to eat for dinner either. I have learned to follow the spirit in teaching the gospel, so when I get home I will follow my stomach. So what I am in the mood for I will eat and be happy. I love you all until next week.

March 10, 2010

2010-03-26T05:24:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! I hope that everything is going good. It sounds like everyone is doing really good and that everyone is getting really excited to see me. I too am getting pretty excited to see everyone. But I am also really scared and I do not want to leave Brazil. I love it here, even if it is unorganized and hotter than heck and everything like that. It is getting harder and harder as it gets closer and closer. But I am getting excited to be able to do a few things that I could do when I wasn’t a missionary. I am pretty sure you all know what these things are. But yeah….

As for the week, things have been going pretty normal. The other night we participated in Family Night with one of the members and we invited a few inactive and recently baptized members to participate as well. And that turned out to be pretty awesome, two families went. One that is starting to return to church and went to church for the first time in ages on Sunday and another family that the mom was recently baptized but the father has been a member forever. Well the family night was awesome, they talked about family and the importance that the family has in our lives and it was really cool. Recently I have really been thinking that I don’t want to get married anytime soon because it just doesn’t seem to be my thing, but after that lesson I kind of moved my thoughts. But I really don’t want to get married to fast or time really soon.

We also received a referral from a member this past week and it turned out to be a guy that is ready and willing. He went to church on Sunday and loved it and then said that this is the true church and that it is the only true church. And he will be getting baptized pretty soon, he might be my last baptism on the mission or maybe I will go home first. Either way it sounds good to me, it really doesn’t matter to me. I just hope that he gets baptized.

Today we also went to the center of the city to finish up my shopping and I ended up buying this way rad thing that doesn’t even fit in my luggage so I have no idea what I am going t do with it. But I am going to have to figure out some way to get it home, because I am not going to leave it here because it is way too cool to just buy it and leave it. But yeah, things are pretty normal.

Juarez is going really good, we visited him last night and he is almost done with the Book of Mormon. And he is already getting really excited to see General Conference. And the rest of the families that we have baptized here are also doing really good still. I am super happy with the miracles that I have seen performed by the Lord here. Yesterday I got to talk really quickly with Franciane. I don’t know if you remember who she is, but my companion and I baptized her and her husband a year ago. And they are doing really good and are still strong in the church and are going to be able to go to the temple in a month. And I am going to visit them next week, I am getting excited to see them again. But it sucks because it is going to be last time that I will see them for a long time. As soon as I get home I am going to start saving cash so that I try and visit everyone here next year when the temple is supposed to get finished. But yeah, that is about all that has been going on around here. But I hope that everything is going good and that everyone is still missing me. Only two more weeks!!!!!!!!!!!! This is my second to last email. So enjoy them while they still last. Because the annoying red head is coming home.

March 3, 2010

2010-03-26T05:23:00.000-07:00

Boa Tarde Familiares e amigos. Hey everyone, how is everything going? I hope that all is well. But how is the weather looking? I am excited to feel the cold again. I am so sick of living in the heat; it is over 100 degrees almost everyday. But how is the family? How are our friends? How is juston and kaya? I sure do miss you all and I cannot wait to see you all. Well this week my letter is going to be a little short because not a whole lot has happened this past week. Because of the sickness, but I am better now. I just passed a couple of days on my bed at home. Only getting up to use the bathroom, drink water, and eat. I have never felt so sick in my entire life. I almost cried because of the pain that I was feeling in my head and my entire body. But we still had the baptism on Saturday and that was pretty cool. But I am thinking that it might have been my last baptism on the mission. But it was spiritual like always and we had cake afterwards,Yesterday we had a pretty difficult day, but it seems like everyday has been like that recently. We went knocking doors and talking to a bunch of people in the streets and no one let us enter in their house. But we were still able to teach a little bit in the street and we found a few people to teach as well. But things are difficult but I am still trying to stay busy. It is hard to not think about home because it is already getting so close, but we are still working. Today we went to see Carla and Jane Kelly. I don’t know if you remember them, but Jane returned to Manaus and is living with her mom again and Carla came with her to study. Carla finished high school and now is starting college. And it was really good to see them again. Jane Kelly´s family also got baptized. So it was really cool to see them and play some uno with them and then eat lunch with them. But then Jane Kelly started to cry when we were leaving because it is going to be one of the last times that I am going to see them. That has been the hardest part of the end of the mission so far. I almost cried today when I left their house today too. I am going to really miss everyone here. I love this place and the people that live here.But that is about all that has been happening. Two men that we baptized received the melchezidec priesthood on Sunday. Nelito and Francisco, and Juarez will start preparation here pretty soon too. But I love you all and I don’t really have anything else to say to you all. But I will talk to you all next. Only two more letters.
Elder Spotts

Feb. 24, 2010

2010-02-24T11:45:00.002-08:00

Hey!!!!! How is everyone? How is the weather? How are preparations coming? I want home coming presents? It isn’t easy being a missionary and I think that they deserves presents when they get home ;). How is the sports world? How is the country? Well let me in on everything, because I am only going to receive three more emails. We will have to see how the letters go, if they will get here or not. And I wanted to know if Kaya has a boyfriend???????? Because I don’t know how many elders and young men here have said that she is good looking, and that they want to be my brother-in-law. Oh, and kaya needs to watch out for a crazy one that is called Elder S. Moreira. He keeps threatening me that he is going to go to the States when he gets off his mission in February next year. But everything here has been going pretty good. On Monday we had Zone conference and it was my last one on the mission so I bore my testimony in front of all the elders. And I couldn’t help it, I cried. These last few weeks are really hard. I am going to miss this place so much and the people that the Lord blessed me to teach. I have learned so much here and I am so glad that I decided to serve the Lord for two years. I have learned things here that I cannot learn anywhere else. I recommend that every young man serve a mission, no that every person serves a mission. Whether when young or old, because you learn things here that you cannot learn in any other place. Yesterday I also got really sick. I will try and describe to you all what I am feeling. I have a high fever, an enormous head ache that is none stop, my back aches, my legs ache, my arms ache, I don’t have any strength, and I can barely walk. I also get very tired very quickly. It sucks, and I think that it is dengue. I don’t know if all know what that is, but it is a sickness that comes from mosquitoes. And on the first time that you get it you live and pass A LOT of pain. But the second time you body cannot handle it and you begin to bleed from every open hole in you body. So pray that I don’t get it again. And pray that I can get better; I really need those prayers. But don’t worry, the Lord will bless me.Other aspects of the work are going good as well. Juarez is progressing really well. I confirmed him to the Aaronic Priesthood and ordained to the office of a priest on Sunday. And two men that we baptized here in this area are going to receive the Melchezidec Priesthood on this coming Sunday. So I am very excited about that. We are also going to have a baptism on Saturday and we have marked another baptismal date for March. And we are trying to mark some others as well. My companion and I are working a ton and having some pretty good success in the area right now. We are teaching a few families that are really cool too and are progressing pretty well. Hopefully they will get baptized as well.Last night at Juarez’s house he born his testimony to us and it was very spiritual, he really really knows that this is the Lord Church. He is also already started inviting his family members to go to church and we haven’t even taught him about the importance of missionary work. It has been going really awesome with him. And the members have started to help us a lot more too. We have been having meetings in their homes and they invite people and so do we, so we receive referrals too. The Lord has really been blessing us lately. It would have been cool if my entire mission could have been like this. But it seems like that now that I am getting the hang of the work and really know what to do I am already finishing. It is kind of annoying. But the mission has always been like this, President always transfers me when things are going really and the work is starting to progress, so I am already used to it.But that is about all that I have to say this week. Things are going good, I am just a little sick right now but I am happy because I am going to see you all in 28 days. I want a huge party and I want to invite a bunch of people to be at the airport. It songs like Justin Oberg wants to be there and I know that Clint will want to go. Just invite everyone that wants to go. Tell everyone and don’t have any party until I get home. Because I don’t want any one running out of cash before I get home. But I love you all and I hope that everything is going good. Give everyone hugs and kisses for me. I truly love you all and I dream about you all every night. Last night I dreamed that Justin and I were at our old house in Alaska and that we brought to sexy babes with him too. It was a pretty sweet dream I cannot lie. But I love you all and I sill talk to you all next week. Everyone better stay out of trouble and get ready to go to church on the first Sunday that I get home. and Mom you need to talk to my bishop and stake president as soon as possible so that they know that I am coming home and so that I can get released as soon as possible, because I don’t want to have to sin as a missionary(breaking mission rules) when I get home, but until next week. 4 more weeks, or as Elder Keller says, 3 more weeks and 7 days.
Elder Jory Spotts

Feb. 17, 2010

2010-02-24T11:45:00.001-08:00

Hey!!!! How is everything going? How is the family? Friends? The weather? The country? Preparations for my arrival? Have you talked with my bishop lately and is my stake president also knowing? Well I hope so and I hope that everything is going good for you all. Things here have been going pretty good. The work with my new companion has been going pretty good. We are staying pretty busy and trying to find some more people that we can baptize before I go home. We found some pretty cool families and people last week and we are hoping to have some success with them this week and hoping that we can find some more people this week.On Saturday the baptism went really well. Juarez is an awesome guy and has a very strong testimony of the church. And while we were in the water and I baptized him I managed to even hit his head on the stairs. And afterwards I told him sorry and he said that he didn’t even feel it. But it was really good. He was way prepared to baptized and yesterday we were at his house teaching him and he was teling a bunch of stories about how a lot people have already started telling him that he made he made the wrong decision and the he shouldn’t have gotten baptized and all that. But he told us that nothing that they say can change his decision or will they make him regret it. He said the he KNOWS that the that he has learned are true and that he is story to continue and never look back. He says that he has never felt happier in all his life than he does right now and that he loves the Book of Mormon and all the teachings of the church. It is just awesome being able to chat with him and hear all the things that he has to say. He should also receive the priesthood next week. And then on the 28th two men that we baptized are going to receive the higher priesthood, the one that s tarts with an m. I cannot remember how to spell it so I wont even try.We also had a pretty cool experience on Saturday. We passed by a members house to leave a message with them. And well the son, Kaleo, has asthma and started to have an attack. But to his medicine that he uses he needs energy in the house to use the machine and the mask. But they hadn’t had any energy for a couple of days. So he asked us to give him a priesthood blessing and so we did. And just a few minutes after we gave him the blessing he was breathing perfectly and the attack passed. He was feeling 100 % good. I have had so many experiences one the mission like this one, and I know that the priesthood is real and that it truly is the power of God.But yeah…..that is about all that has happened lately. Things are going pretty good, except for the fact that I still haven’t received my itinerary. The secretary said that he already bought my ticket and that he would send it to me as soon as possible but I am still waiting and I am little upset with him because he hasn’t sent it yet. But it looks like I will have to talk to him again and see what I can do about this. But I hope that everyone is doing good. I received a package from grandma and grandpa last week. And today my companion and I went to the center of the city to buy some presents for everyone at home. And I ended up spending 150 bucks or so. And we will go back in a couple of weeks to finish the shopping. But I love you all and I miss you and I cannot wait to see everyone. It is hard to believe that it has almost been two years.

Feb. 10, 2010

2010-02-24T11:43:00.000-08:00

Hey! How is everything going? How is the family? How are our friends? Just how is everything going? Well I hope that everything is going good at home. It seems like everyone is getting pretty TRUNKY at home. Even mom is counting the days. But like you guys I too am getting a little excited to come home. Well I really don’t know what my feelings are. I am going to miss this place a lot. I have grown attached to the people and I love them soooooo much. If things were a little more developed here I would think about living here for the rest of my life. But I have things to do at home, so I am going to by coming home next month. But about my itinerary, I didn’t receive it yet. I am not even sure if they have bought my ticket yet or if the secretary knows that I am going home. I do know that a lot of the elders from group already received their itineraries. So I am going to call the secretary and talk to him about this and see what is going on, but don’t worry because he will send a copy of it by email to both mom and dad.But as for the things that have been going on here. Yesterday we had transfers and I received a new companion but stayed in the same area. HECK YEAH!!!!! It was just what I was wanting. And I am going to die without any worries, because I am just senior. OH YEAH!!!!!!!! But my new companions name is Elder Lopes, so he is now my second companion with this name. He is from São Paulo and he is pretty cool, he is a hard worker and a good missionary so I know that I am going to be able to enjoy this last transfer working with a good companion. And I am way excited to finish my mission here in this area too. I love this area and the members so I will be able to party with them at the end of my mission. Things have been going pretty good too. My old companion and I had a pretty good week last week. We were able to receive a referral from a recent convert that we baptized last year. The referral is his buddy and he really wants to change his life. He was telling us how one day he saw Nelito, the recent convert, walking in church clothes and was shocked. Because him and Nelito used to drink together and well this guy thought to himself, if Nelito can change his life so can I. So he talked to Nelito and then we got to him and we talked to him, but he is really interested in the gospel and we are going to teach him this weekend. So hopefully everything goes good with him. About Juarez, everything is going good. He is still planning on being baptized this weekend, we are going to go to his house today to talk with him and teach a few things and mark his baptismal interview. But yeah….things are going pretty good. I am trying not to get to trunky, but it is pretty hard not to think that I am going to return home after this transfer and that my group is now the oldest on the mission.Today we had a pretty rad P-day. We went to the IMPA which is a zoo where the animals don’t stay in cages but wonder in the jungle and they have paths where we can walk and see the animals. It was pretty cool! Then we went to a party that they had in one of the areas of a different elder that was with us and I had already met the people from his area so we went and had some fun messing and joking around with them. And that is about all that is happening right now. But I love you all and just wait for the email for the mission that well tell you all about when I get home on what day and all that stuff. But for now I don’t even know that right now. And mom I am still not 100 percent sure on where I am going to go to school, I think that I might just wait until I get home to accept unless you tell me of some specific date by which I have to decide. But we will see what happens in the future. As for now I am trying to stay focused on the work, but I am also going to start packing my luggage this week. I mean I cant procrastinate and thought that I should get started a little early. :)………But I love you all and I will talk you all next week. Give everyone loves and I will talk to you all next week.
Elder SPotts

Feb. 3, 2010

2010-02-24T11:39:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone! How are things going? I hope that everything is going good. How was your week? How is the family going? How is the world? How was the Super Bowl? I hope that the Colts didn’t win. Well everything here is going pretty good. Everything has been the same lately. And the work is getting harder and harder every day, because everyday I am getting closer and closer to arriving home. But my companion and have working hard and we are trying to find some more people that are interesting in following the Lord. But things have been going really good with Juarez, he went to church on Sunday and really liked it, and last week we had a pretty good experience with him.On Thursday last week we went to his house to teach the third lesson, The Gospel of Jesus Christ. So we taught him about the first principles and ordinances of the gospel. Faith, Repentance……you know. Well while I was teaching I felt like I needed to invite to be baptized and try and mark his baptismal date in March, because I wanted him to be my last baptism on the mission because he is an elect. But I was super scared that he was going to say no so I started praying and starting asking the Lord to bless me with the Spirit and the right words so that he would feel the importance of baptism and he was accept. So we came to the end of the lesson and I grabbed the picture of Christs baptism and I should to him and invited him to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone that has the authority of God. And I invited him to be baptized on the 21st or 14th of March and he responded……You only have baptisms in March??? It cant be sooner??? So we talked with him some more and we decided on the 13th of February. And then he started telling us how he always knew that missionaries like us would one day visit his house and he said that he was just waiting for us to visit him. And he said that he was ready to be baptized and that he knew that the church was true and the Book of Mormon too. It was a pretty cool experience and I was scared to death to invite him because he is such an intelligent man, but everything went well and he is going to be baptized this month., in fact he is going to be baptized next week. Heck yeah!!! Take that Satan!!!!Other than that we haven’t really had anything special happen. We are teaching this one family that went to church on Sunday and also really liked it. The only problem is that the father really likes to drink, like he is super addicted to drinking. He cannot go one day without getting drunk, he drink, like he is super addicted to drinking. He cannot go one day without getting drunk, he is kind of like uncle troy. But we are going to continue to teach them and see if we cant help him to stop drinking so that he can also get a job and be baptized.We had ourselves an interesting little experience the other day too. We have visiting this inactive member a couple of times and we went to his house. While we were there we met a couple of girls that were at his house and we decided to teach the first lesson to them, so we did. And right at the point that my companion got done teaching the first lesson the idiot inactive member started saying how he didn’t believe in Joseph and he totally killed the spirit. So I was little upset at him for being a retard. So I started asking him some questions and he started answering them. Why don’t you believe in him? And he started asking why God would wait so long to call a prophet after chirsts death? And he started saying that the Catholic church was the first church and that it existed before Christ and i started thinking to myself, this guy is a complete retard. And I was getting a little frustrated with him. So I grabbed my bible…..BIBLE BASH. And I started teaching the retard about a ton of stuff. He said the Law of Moses wasn’t changed too. So I started teaching him with the scriptures because testifying wasn’t doing anything. The spirit wasn’t there too. So I started teaching about the law of Moses, sacrifices, and all sorts of stuff and how the of Moses truly was changed and everything. I cant explain everything that I said because it was a lot, then I started teaching about why God waited so long to call Joseph to be a prophet, the reformation and the Catholic Church and that is when the spirit returned and I started testifying about the restoration of Gospel and after that he said these words…..I think that I am going to go back to church on Sunday. It was pretty funny. My companion started laughing after we left because of the stupid things that he making up, but it turned out to be good. And hopefully he really goes to church; we are going to pass by there tonight again. So we will have to see how things go.But yeah….that is about all the interest things that happened this week. Hopefully next week I will have some better stories to tell. We are also started to work a lot more with the members lately too. They finally decided to invite us to participate in the ward meetings and things are going a lot better now, and on Sunday I am going to sing in the sacrament meeting because they ask me to do so. So that will be pretty cool. And I am also going to find out this weekend if I am going to be transferred to my last area or if this is going to be my last area, hopefully I stay in this area because I don’t want to get to know new members and have to start all over again. But things are going pretty goodI hope that everything is going good and I hope that you are all missing me and starting to get trunky too. It looks like I passed in on to Dad but I hope that mom is too because I am WAAAYYYYYY anxious to see you all. The 1st of February was the 50 day mark. So if you guys want you can start counting the days, but I don’t recommend doing that because the time passes a lot slower. That is why I am going to work harder and the time will pass by a lot faster. But mom don’t worry about BYU anymore because the deadline to apply was the 1st of Feb. and I think that I am already set on going to USU, but I need to know by when I am supposed to tell them that I accept and that I will be going there. But maybe I don’t even have to worry about this until I get home. But I love you all and I miss you, I received some letters this week too, so I am happy. And I think that mom should be receiving my itinerary soon too, but I am not sure about that. But I love you all and I miss you.
With Love, Elder Spotts

Jan. 27, 2010

2010-01-29T07:48:00.000-08:00

Hey! How is everyone doing? How was the week this week? How is the weather? How is the Famn Damily ? Well I hope that everything is going good. Every one is in my prayers always. I sure do miss you all and am looking forward to seeing you all in a few weeks. But let us get down the good…..the things that have been happening in Terra Nova, Manaus, Amazonas.So this week was another difficult week. We are having a little bit of trouble finding some really good people and getting people to church. But we are doing what we can. We have been teaching a few new people like every week but no one is very promising. We were planning on having a baptism this week, but the girl didn’t think that she was going to be ready yet so we moved you baptismal date to next month. We have also been teaching one guy and things are going really good with him. He went to church for the first time on Sunday and was only able to stay for the first hour because he is sick and has some problems with his legs. But he said that this week he will be there and stay the entire time. He has already said that the Book of Mormon is true and he really likes the teaching of the church. He says that he wants to be a part of the church but he wants to learn a little bit more first and read the Book of Mormon too. So we are just being patient with him and we continue to teach him and feel the spirit with him. His name is Juarez and is 62 years old.And yesterday we had our regular interview with President and it was really good, like always it is a great spiritual experience. President is a very spiritual and inspired man and I have grown to love him and follow all his teachings because they work. But after I said the opening prayer he started with his questions like always….As you look back at your mission and work you have done, how do you feel? Now that you mission is coming to an end, what do you think that the Lord expects you to do? And what is getting in the way of accomplishing that? How is your relationship with the Savior? How is your family? How is your health?.....etc. The questions that he asks are as well different. But we talked a bunch about my companion and how we are having some problems and after chatting for a while he asked to try to talk with him once more. So I promised that I would and when we got home I did and we worked things out finally. So I am feeling a lot better and I am feeling the spirit a little better too. But president and I talked a bunch and at the end of the interview he asked me something that he had never asked before…..I would like to give you a blessing, may I? And I let him give me a blessing, and it was the most spiritual blessing that I have ever been given. I can only compare it to my Patriarchal Blessing, it was that spiritual. And I was absolutely needing it, it was awesome. So yeah….Other than that not a whole lot has been going on. I received my first letter in I don’t know how long. And it was from Josh, my good ole faithful friend. But things are going good, but I hope that you all enjoy this letter. You better enjoy them, because after this one I am only going to send seven more. But I love you all and I miss you all too.Well I think that is all that I am going to send. Dad I hope your knee continues to get better and I know how you feel seeing your buddy go to church and repenting. Because it is a little bit of what I have done for two years, and I am really going to miss it. I hope that the Lord has some work for me to do when I get home. Mom, thank you for getting my school applications done. I just wanted to ask if you even sent my high school transcript and the bishop interview thing to BYU as well. Because you have to have those too. But yeah I love you all and I miss you. Keep Counting, we are now at 7 more Pdays. Elder Spotts PS. i dont know that stuff that you want me to do on the internet on my BYU application. that is why you have to get my high school trnascript and see what college classes i have already taken. because i dont remember. you might have to go to timpview to find that stuff out. but i cant do anything about it. and what is my username and password on the Utah Stat website?

Jan. 6, 2010

2010-01-29T07:47:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone! What is all up? How has everyone been doing? I hope that all is well and that everyone had a great New Year I sure do miss everyone and I love you and I cannot wait to spend the next New Year with you all. I hope that everyone is also enjoying life and that you all had a great week this week. After reading some emails I could see that some of us had a pretty interesting and difficult week while others had an awesome week. But either way at least everyone is still alive and the Lord continues to give us breath. So that we can continue to learn and grow.But my week was pretty good. I think that it could have been better. It had some ups and a few downs. But at least time is passing and I am getting closer to be able to see everyone. It seems like I am becoming very tired. But I keep on going trying to to the best that I can and I hope that it is enough for the Lord. At times I feel like I have no idea what I am doing as a missionary and I have been here for so long. I feel as though I haven’t really learned anything here but then I know that I have My testimony has been strengthened so much, my knowledge of the gospel has grown and expanded, I learned how to speak new language, and I got a little skinny. But I am glad to be here for now.The baptism on Saturday was amazing. It was the highlight of the week. At the beginning of the week my companion and I planned out the baptism so that it was very spiritual and it was exactly what we wanted. We asked all the members to give the talks and we prepared it so that the spirit was there to testify and touch the people. And it was so spiritual that the lady got baptized, Val, cried. She was the only remaining member of her family that wasn’t a member of the church because she had to get married. On the 19th of last month she did that and got baptized this weekend. And she got baptized with a very strong testimony of the church and a great desire to get sealed to her husband and children in the Temple. Her husband is an ex-branch president and helped divide many branches in small city near by. But fell to temptation and was living with her for thirteen years without being married but is now super excited to be back at church keeping the commandments. It was awesome!On the other hand this week we were rejected by quite a few people. Being New Years and everyone drinking and partying it is very hard to work. We are now trying to find some new people to teach so we have been looking a lot this week. But we have been successful in already finding a few. Yesterday we went to teach a family and after teaching the first lesson. The wife cried telling us that we were an answer to her prays. She said that she had been praying to find something in here life and with tears in her eyes told us that we are that something. So hopefully the Spirit continues to touch her heart and help her understand the importance that the restored gospel has in our lives. It was a great experience and we felt very good after leaving their house. But we need help from the Divine to continue performing miracles among this people. And we need the prayers of all of you at home, so please continue to pray for us, especially for me, in order for me to be able to continue strong to the end of my mission without getting discouraged or tired. But I love you all and I miss you. And no I still haven’t been able to talk to my president but I will. Mom, I am glad to hear that everything is going good. I hope that it continues and I will pray that Tony Romo plays good so that you can win your bet. Tell Kaya that she needs to try and be smarter with the choices that she is making. It doesn’t matter where she finishes High School it just matters that she get s good education and Utah is one the better states in the country. And I think that it would be better for to continue where she is instead of switching school one more time. She has already done enough of school switching. But whatever……I love you guys and I got the package and I enjoyed it. I just haven’t been able to play with the car yet because it doesn’t have batteries and batteries a expensive here but I will buy some soon and play around with it. And one of the elders wanted to know how much it cost because he wants to buy one. But yeah I love you and continue applying for my schools, you need to get that done as soon as possible. But I love you and I miss you and I will talk to you next week. WIth Love, Elder Spotts

Jan. 20, 2010

2010-01-29T07:44:00.000-08:00

Hey Family! How is everything going this week? How is the hot winter? How is the States? How is everything going on? I don’t have a whole lot to say this week, because not a whole lot has been going on. But let me see if I cant squeeze some things out of my mind. On Saturday we had a baptism and that went pretty good. A few young men that were watching and participating were a little irreverent but what can you do. But Wallace got baptized and is really excited. On Sunday he received the Holy Ghost and it was a very spiritual sacrament meeting. It started out with a huge rain storm right after the opening prayer and water started poring from the ceiling in the rented home. And all of the members were getting wet so they started making a ton of noise moving the benches a way from the poring water. And then the bishopric started grabbing buckets and filing them up with water and the other two elders decided to help and they ended up breaking a huge plastic garbage can that was full of water trying to carry it out and water went everywhere. But in the midst of all the chaos I could still fill the spirit after a while bishop told them not to worry about it anymore and we just kept on with the meeting. And it was quite spiritual even with the sound of the poring rain and water falling from the ceiling. It was pretty cool.On Thursday we had a service project and on of the elders ended up getting bacteria on his leg because he was working in the sand with just sandals. But we all know that you shouldn’t do that. So he has been itching and scratching his leg for the past few days waiting to be able to put some medicine on it to get rid of it. But other than that my companion and I have jut been fighting and things aren’t going very good between us. I had the worst work week this last week because a bunch of things happened and my companion and I aren’t getting along so it has been impossible to work. And my companion doesn’t want to work anymore. He doesn’t talk to anyone, doesn’t plan with me, doesn’t do contacts, or want to knock doors. So I have been doing all of this alone for the last few days and I cannot handle it anymore. I have tried talking to him and tried to work things out but he doesn’t seem to want to. We are two complete different people and it is hard. But he could at least try but doesn’t want to. A couple of days ago I got super upset with him because he didn’t want to walk by side, it was either way ahead of me or way behind me. So when we arrived at home I gave it to him and started yelling at him and burning him telling him that he needed to do something and start working. And he got upset with me and afterwards I apologized but he didn’t want to accept it and it is killing me. I want to finish the mission strong but he is making it so hard. It is just like trying to work with a high school girl. They are sensitive and all that stupid crap. I just cannot handle him anymore. So please pray for me. I am going to try and talk with him again but I don’t know if that will do anything, because I have already tried so many times.But yeah that is about everything that is going on, not much. But on Monday we ran into a pretty cool guy and had a great lesson. I saw this man sitting outside his house and I decided to talk with him and while I was talking with him it began to rain so he invited us to enter his house and we took advantage of the moment and we taught him the first lesson and he loved it. The Spirit was really strong and it was pretty cool and we are going to go back to his house on Friday. His name is Carlos.But I hope that everything is going good for you all I miss you and I love you all and I hope that you all have a great week this week. I pray for you and I still need for prayers and your support, the mission isn’t over yet. I haven’t received a letter from anyone in at least a month or so, so I am starting to think that people think that it is already over but it isn’t. You all cannot stop yet. Mom, well i hope that you arent upset with me or something for some add reason and that is why i didnt receive an email from you. but nonetheless i still love you and would still love to hear from you. i love you very much i and really need your letters. i look forward to them every week and when i dont get them it leaves me pretty low. i havent received any letters in a long time from anyone and now i dont get an email from my own mother. but i hope that every thing is alright and that you arent upset with me. but here is my letter and i hope to hear from you next week. if you want you can even write me back after receiving this letter because i might still be here or i will pass by later to get your email. but i love you and i miss you too. but please dont stop writing. i really need you letters especially in moments of difficulties.
With Love,Elder Spotts ps....dont forget about my schooling. you dont have a lot of time to apply left. just a reminder because i am worried about my future.

Jan. 13, 2010

2010-01-29T07:40:00.000-08:00

Hey! i am just writing this quick letter to you because i wanted to ask you about my schooling. How are the application going? was i accepted at utah state? i can see that you havent finished my BYU application and i havent heard anything about my SUU application or my UVU application. I really need you to get this done as soon as possible. Today would be better than tomorrow. The faster you get it done the better chance i have at getting in. This is my future that we are talking about and because i am on the mission i am forced to rely on you to get it done. If i was at home i would already had finished it last year. PLEASE!!!!!! Get this done AS SOON AS POSSIBLE! Thanks! Your Son, Elder Jory B. Spotts

Hey everyone! How have things been going? How was the week? How is life in the states? I has the weather been? How has the family? And friends? The ward? Well I hope that everything is going good. I sure do miss you all and cannot wait to arrive home and see you all. And that day is coming up a lot faster than we think, just a couple more months and a few more weeks. But yeah…..Things here have been going pretty good. Nothing has really changed in these past few days. We have been working and we have been finding some pretty cool people and also losing people that are not able to recognize the whispers of the still small voice. Lately we have been teaching a man called Juarez. He is a elderly man, 62 years old, and is very intelligent. He has a lot of knowledge about the gospel and has had a lot of spiritual experiences in his own life. So on the first visit like always we taught the first lesson and we left the Book of Mormon with him. We left a strong promise that if he read and prayed he would know that it is true. So a few days passed and we returned to his house and he sat down to teach the second lesson. But first we had to follow up on the reading and the prayer. Se we did and he began to tell us how he KNEW that the Book of Mormon was true and how he loved reading it. He had finished the entire first book of Nephi and practically told us everything about it and what he had learned. He absolutely loved the Book of Mormon so much that he said that it is better than the bible, because it explains the principles of the gospel in such an easier way to understand and because it is a very interesting book. He told us that he wants to continue reading and he wants to finish it and then he said that he might even join the church. He said that he has seen and followed so many different teachings but said that what he teach is much better than anything that anyone else teaches and that what he has read is much better than anything else that he has ever read. We are rally enjoying teaching him because of his knowledge and the Great Spirit that we feel in his house. If he gets baptized he will be a very good leader in the church and will really help the members in this ward. So hopefully he is able to see and more importantly feel the truthfulness of the everlasting gospel which we now expound as missionaries. It has been a great blessing teaching him, he has strengthened my testimony in the gospel.On Monday we also had zone conference and we enjoyed the lessons that the assistants taught and the words of our Mission President and his wife. Like always it was very spiritual and was good to hear their words. It is a little weird though because both of the assistants were my companions, Elder Mills from Wyoming and Elder Del Guerso from Rio de Janeiro. But it was always good see them. I sat with them and we chatted about the mission and how we are all getting ready to go home soon. Elder Del Guerso is going home in February and Elder Mills and I are going to be going home together. But at conference they talked a lot about the Book of Mormon and the Second lesson, The Plan of Salvation. So we learned a ton and enjoyed it. And I haven’t talked to president yet, but I did do a lot of praying and thinking about extending my time here. And I think that it was just a phase that I went through. So I don’t think that I am going to be extending my time. I will be coming home on the 23rd of March. So I will most likely arrive on the 24th or so.Well things have been going good and I sure do miss you all. But continue to pray for me and help me, because my time is not over yet. But I love you all and I hope that everything can go the way that you all need it to. I pray for you all and I hope that your leg can get better soon dad and I hope that you can get better soon as well mom. I miss you and keep my updated on the playoffs, on the things that are going on there, and mom especially on my schooling, because that is very important. But I love you all and I miss you all as well. I hope that you all have a great week and I will talk you all next week. With Love, Elder Jory B. Spotts

Dec. 30, 2009

2010-01-29T07:38:00.000-08:00

Hey! How are things going? How was Christmas? I was the New Year? I hope that every thing is going good and that you all enjoy the New Year together. I sure do love you all I miss you and you are all in my prayers. I think of you all often. But yeah….How is the family? Friends? And everything else that is going on?Things here have been going pretty good. Christmas was really good, we went to some member’s house and we made food and then we ate and we had a good time. On Christmas Eve we had a white elephant party with a family in the ward and that was really fun. I really like my area and the members that live in it as well. They are always willing to feed us and that always makes a missionary pretty happy. But on the 23rd like mom and dad already know. My companion and my son, the elder that I trained, got robbed by a guy with a revolver. The guy put the gun on both of their heads and asked them to fork over their goods, a couple of members with also with them. So the assaulter managed to take three cell phones and a digital camera. But lucky for me I was inside the house busy talking to my mom. But my companion was a little shaken up because of the situation and was having a pretty hard time. But I sat down with him and we had a good long chat and he starting feeling a lot better. The Christmas conference was pretty cool. They talked a lot of Christ and we watched The Chronicles of Narnia and then we went on a boat ride and that was all cool. And it was pretty spiritual as well. We also had transfers yesterday, but both my companion and I are staying in the area together. There is a lot of work to be done in our area. We have been teaching a few people that are getting ready to get baptized. We are going to have a baptism on Saturday and in a couple of weeks we will be having another one. Things have been going really good. I am just trying to stay busy with my companion and try not to think to much about home and what I will doing when I get home. But I am totally excited to see you all in a few weeks/months too.I just wanted to share a quick experience with you all. Yesterday my companion and I went to a member’s house to let her know that her friend is going to be baptized this weekend and when we told her she got so excited that she began to cry. And it was the first time that I have ever seen a member cry because of a baptism. I could truly see and feel the love that she has not only for her friend but also for the gospel. It touched me to see her react the way that she did. And it was pretty cool. But not a whole lot has been going on, just normal stuff. Work and Work. The ward is going to get divided in a couple of months, so we are trying to help the members get ready for the division. We are visiting members and helping them prepare a few men to receive the Higher Priesthood. But that is about it, I also wanted everyone to know that if you have written me and not gotten a response that isn’t my fault. I responded to every single that I have received. The problem is in the mail system it really is a dump. But I love you all and wanted to wish you all a belated Merry Christmas and a Rockin New Year you are all in my thoughts and prayers. Love you ALL!!!Mom, I hope that you didn’t put on the application to USU that I graduated from Box Elder like you did on the application for BYU, because I graduated from Timpview. Don’t you remember…..you were there. But I thank you doing this for me and I already did the application and the other things that I could. You are going to have to get my Transcript from Timpview and finish the rest because I don’t know the rest, but I love you and keep on keeping on. And if you have any question send me an email. I still haven’t gotten your package. But I am patiently waiting, but I love you and I miss you. Sorry the letter is so short, but we talked last week.

Dec. 16, 2009

2009-12-18T10:12:00.000-08:00

Hey! How is everything going? How is every doing? How is the holiday season? I hope that it is going good. The holiday season isn’t the same here but I am still able to feel the special spirit that Christmas brings. It is kind of interest how the spirit is a little bit different during this time of the year. I realized that Monday night while we were leaving message at a members house. For some reason felt like we needed to visit this family and leave a Christmas message with them, so my companion and I did and we felt the spirit so strong as we talked about the Savior and this time of the year. It was a pretty cool lesson, I really enjoyed it. And afterwards we enjoyed cake and juice. The members here like us…..:). We also enjoyed the Christmas Devotional that the First Presidency put on and as I watched that I got a little trunky. Seeing Temple Square all lit up and beautiful really hit me. I really wanted to be at home to be able to see the lights at Christmas time. But you can’t always get what you want. But I really enjoyed the talks that they gave and what they talked about. It is always good to here the First Presidency. I also had the opportunity to watch a movie that the church made about the life of President Monson and I really enjoyed that too. I felt the spirit really strong as I learned what makes President Monson different from the rest of the world. And it was something so simple that I was almost surprised the willingness to ALWAYS follow the spirit without hesitation. So I have now made the same goal in my life, to follow all the feelings, impressions and thoughts that come to my mind, so that I can become an instrument in the hands of the Lord. This week was a pretty good week. I really enjoyed it. On Sunday two men that my companions and I baptized received the priesthood and that is always a good feeling to see the people that you teach progress in the gospel. I was talking to Elder McNeil the other day, our district leader who is going home in a couple of weeks. And we talked about how we both are grateful for the mission and how we both feel like we are happy with what we have done on the mission. The Lord has blessed me so much. I have had the opportunity to teach some great people that truly wanted to serve and follow the Lord. And now they are progressing so much in the gospel. And I am glad that I have been able to work with the Lord in this mission.Yesterday we had our interviews with our Mission President and that was good like always. But I didn’t have the guts to ask him about extending my mission. I didn’t feel like the time was right yet, but the next time that I have the chance I will talk with him and see what he thinks. But I really enjoyed the interview, like always I felt the spirit as we talked about the work and my family. I love my president because he really worries about me and my family. He asked about Juston specifically and wanted to know how he is doing.And today my companion and I are going to go to the center of the city to buy some Christmas presents because one of the families in our ward wants to do a present exchange on Christmas so I have got to go and buy a present. But yeah things are going pretty good, nothing to complain about. It is just weird to think that my mission is ending and the feelings that I am now having. It is weird and hard to explain but things are going good and I am enjoying the work. We are going to have a wedding this week and after the wedding we are going to see if we can’t baptize the lady too. But yea…..not much to talk about this week. I just hope that everyone is doing well and that everyone is enjoying the holiday season.Mom, I hope that everything is going good. I just wanted to ask you when would be the best time to call you and on what day would be better too. So that I can talk with president about that, but I need to know today so when you get this email write me back as soon as possible. But I love you and I miss you and I hope that everything is going good. I love you and until next week.
With Love,Elder Jory B. Spotts

Dec. 9, 2009

2009-12-18T10:10:00.000-08:00

Hey! How have things been going? How was your week this week? How is the family? How are our friends? I hope that everything is going good. Our week was alright this week. Nothings amazing happened, it just seemed like a normal week to me. But we just keep going and we do the best we can. But I sure do miss you all and I hope that everything is going good.My birthday was awesome. I loved it, because they people here made it special. We started the day out by going to one of my old areas like I had told you and we had BBQ and Lasanga( I think that is how you spell it). And it was awesome, because I love the family that made it all for me, they are probably the coolest and best family that I have met on the mission. And the other cool part was that she invited a family that we baptized while I was there. And it felt so good to see them and talk with them, because it had been over a year since the last time that I saw them. We played uno and we just talked and ate and it was great. They made me a cake and sang to me too. Afterwards we came back to our area and we went to another member’s house and they made me a cake too. Then we went to another member’s house, Rosana, and this was the best part of the day. We should up and they had planned up a ton games that they were going to play. But I couldn’t play. They said that they were going to play and whoever won got to write all over my face with lipstick. And I said no way and said that I was going to play and if I won no one was going to do anything to me. So I played and I won every single game. At first they thought that they would get me, the American, with a Portuguese language game, where we had to repeat a long tongue twister piece by piece. But did I prove them wrong. I was the only one that got it right. So I marked and wrote on everyone’s face with lipstick. Then they wanted to play musical chairs. But the mother, Rosana, was running the music. And I won two times in a row and Rosana thought that was ridiculous so she wanted to play and we did. And the last two standing were her and I, and at the end of the music she was closing to sitting down so I pulled she chair out from under her and she grabbed the chair too, but I sat down first so I won again. And everyone got mad so they grab and wrote on my face anyways. I have tons of pictures of face all red because of the lipstick. My birthday was awesome. This week my companion ran into a couple of difficulties as well. It started on Saturday with a problem with the wedding that we are going to have on the 19th. So we had to take the bus to the Mission Office grabbed a paper and take it back to our area to be signed by the couple and the witnesses. Then on Sunday we ran out of water and we went three days without water. So we ended up having to take showers at Rosanna’s house and at the chapel. Then on Monday the landlord was asking for the rent and said that he couldn’t wait until today so we spent the entire day at the bank trying to take out money so pay him. It was very heck tick. But it is the life of a missionary. We have also been having trouble finding new people to teach. So we are now working in a part of our area that is a way long ways away to be able to try and find people to teach. And it has been the hardest part of the mission; it seems like I really don’t know how to find people to teach. But when I do they almost always progress really well. So we have been teaching a few people that have really been progressing well. We had 8 people at church on Sunday so that is always good and we are doing what president asks. So we are going what we can to help the ward grow and do what the Lord wants us to do. And that is all that we can do. So I am not complaining about anything. I am doing what I can.And this morning a member in the ward here took us site seeing. It was pretty cool. He took us to a waterfall, the area where they filmed Anaconda, the Hotel Tropical, where they are constructing the temple, and it was pretty cool. I got a little dirty but it was pretty cool, we walked on the beach and ate mango, and it was pretty rad. And now I am at the internet writing to you guys. So things are going good. I am looking forward to Christmas because president decided to rent a boat and take us out on the river to see the part of the river where the two rivers come together to make the amazon and the waters don’t mix. I don’t know what they call it in English. But yeah…..i love you guys and I hope that everything is going good. Mom, if you need me to call on a different day I can. Just let me know what day and I can talk to President and he doesn’t have any problem with it. But I don’t how I am going to call you, because I don’t know where the calling card is that you sent me. I don’t even remember receiving one and if I did I have no idea what I did with it. But I will try and find it. But I also thought that I would tell you something that you need to know. I think that I am going to ask president to extend my mission…………..but let me tell you why, because for some odd reason this has come to my mind recently. To be absolutely honest I wouldn’t complain if president sent me home honorable early for some odd reason. Because I miss you all sooooo much and I am getting excited to go home. But for some odd reason I am thinking that I might ask him just be a hundred percent sure that I am doing all that the Lord wants me to. So I am thinking about talking to him and one of the other elders in my group to stay with me. But we will see what happens. I just hope that you understand and don’t get upset. I also got the package and wanted to thank you. You just forgot to send two things that I asked for; A Real Salt Lake Soccer Jersey and an Ensign in English from November. You sent me a jazz jersey instead of the real salt lake. And with the analogy of the pregnant women…..i think that you just convinced me that I don’t want to have any kids, because nine months is a long time. And if my wife suffers that means that I am going to suffer too. So count me out. And I cant see your motorcycle that you are going to buy, you have to send it as an attachment. Because the computers here don’t let you see the pics. But yeah…..i love you and I miss you a ton and I hope that you have a great week, until next week. And give kaya and bruiser a hug for me.
With Love,Elder Jory B. Spotts

Dec. 2, 2009

2009-12-18T10:08:00.000-08:00

Hey Everyone!!!! How are things going? I hope that everything is going great. I sure did miss you all on Thanksgiving and on Saturday…..wanting to see the BYU vs. Utah Game. But I am glad to hear that BYU pulled off a close win. It is always good to hear that they win the big game. It doesn’t matter if they lose all their games in the season, but if they beat Utah, it’s a good year. But I sure hope that everyone enjoyed Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving here was just a normal day for the American missionaries; no one in Brazil even knows what it is. But they don’t know what they are missing out on. But things here have been going really well. It seems like I am going to be able to finish my mission on a good note. The trunkiness is going away, I think that it was just a phase. But yeah….This week my companion and I had a pretty good week. We worked hard, found a few new people to teach, and we had two baptisms. The baptism on Sunday went great. We had a little bit of a problem with the bishop because he wanted to change the time of the baptism but no one wanted to listen to him so it started when everyone else wanted. My companion and I were willing to do whatever the bishop said but the rest of ward was against him. But the baptism was very spiritual like always. We planned the baptism and it went really well. I was the only missionary that participated in the program. I sang a special musical number and I baptized the women. But the other elders just sat back and enjoyed the baptism. But it went really well. The people we baptized were an awesome couple. Their son is a member and had been talking to them about the gospel for a long time and after insisting that they visit for such a long time they finally decided to go to church and they received a testimony of the gospel. They went to church about four times and then told us that they wanted to get taught by the missionaries. We hadn’t talked to them in the beginning because someone had told us that they were already being taught by some other elders because they don’t live in our area. But the elders didn’t want to go to their house. So they came to our chapel to be taught by us. And on the first visit they wanted to be baptized and they did get baptized. I really enjoyed teaching them; it was blessing that the Lord gave to both me and my companion.I also received a pretty big surprise on Monday. We went to Zone Conference and I enter into the chapel and sat down next to one of my old companions, Elder A. Oliveira, and we started chatting and then I heard some say my name behind me. So I looked back and I saw Abelardo, I don’t know if you remember him. But he is a recent convert that one of my companions and baptized when I was in São José. Well he was there at the conference because he is going to serve a short time mission because he is preparing to serve a mission. He was the young man that we baptized after having to cast out a demon, I think you remember. But he his really good and now is going to serve a mission and we are serving in the same zone together. It was really cool seeing him there at the conference. I can’t even explain the joy that I felt when I say someone that I taught and baptized being a missionary. The blessing that the Lord gives to missionaries are amazing and you can’t receive these types of blessing doing anything else, only on the mission.But the Zone Conference was really good too. President talked a lot about The Book Of Mormon and how we need to testify more about the Book Of Mormon in our listens and we need to use it more. Because in Preach My Gospel it says that we should teach about it in the first lesson, but most of the elders don’t teach it until the second visit. Because a lot of people don’t take care of it and it seems like a waste to give one to somebody and then they throw it away or don’t read it. But President said that we should always teach it in the first lesson. Only if the Spirit tells us not to we should. I really enjoyed the spirit that was felt at the conference and what I learned. They also put together a video of the Talk that Elder Jeffery R. Holland gave about the Book of Mormon at General Conference. It went really good. And as for today my companion and I are going to go the party that the member family is going to put together for me and then at night two other families said that they are going to make me cake and have a little too. So I get not just one party but three on my b-day. That is how special I am, the people love me.  But things are going really good, just having a hard believing that I can now buy beer in the States. I feel like I am getting old. And I am starting to feel like I don’t want to go home at the end of my mission. I think that I am just going to stay here. I already feel like Manaus is home. I love it here and I love the people, I already have tons of people that say that I am a member of their families and I already have a Brazilian mother. And I can find myself a wife really fast here. I have got everything that I need. So I don’t think that I wanna come home. Just for vacation…..jk. But I really do love it here and am going to miss it a ton when I have to go home. But I miss you all too much. But I hope everything is going good for everyone, I miss you all.Mom, well it sounds like thanksgiving was pretty cool for you guys, I worked. But I am glad to hear that it went well. I love you all and I am looking forward to see you all again pretty soon. And I will be able to call home for the last time on the 23rd. because that is when we are going to have our Christmas program and president wanted us to call home on this day. But if it is a bad day he said that we can call on a different day too. But yeah, apply to those schools as soon as possible for me. But I love you and I miss you and thank you for the happy birthday, I am getting old. But I haven’t gotten your present yet but I think that I will get it pretty soon. But I love you and will talk to you next week. 15 more P-Days
With Love, Elder Jory B. Spotts

Nov. 25, 2009

2009-12-18T10:06:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone! How have things been going? I hope that everything is going good. How was thanksgiving? I am sure going to miss my favorite holiday. And I am going to miss you all very much tomorrow too. But you will all have to let me know how everything is going and how the holiday went. And you are going to have to tell me about the BYU vs. Utah game as well. That is always the best game of the year and hopefully BYU wins this year. But things here have been going pretty good. Just work and work. But things have been going pretty good. We have been losing and finding new people to teach all the time. It doesn’t even seem like we really get to know the people before they decide to reject the gospel. But we are going to have two baptisms this Sunday. So mom you read my letter wrong….sorry. But we didn’t have a baptism last week. But the baptisms are going to happen this coming week. And my companion and I do not seem like to be the as happy about the baptism as the couple that is going to be baptized. We talked with them yesterday and taught for the last time before their baptismal Interview and they are really excited. They are totally ready for the baptism. Everything we ask them to do they do it. We asked them to stop drinking coffee and they stopped immediately. They also asked us about a few things that the love to do like play Domino and face cards and they said that they are willing to stop if they have to. But we explained to them that they can. They know that the gospel is true and are really excited about their baptism. I learned a lot from them teaching them. I learned that I didn’t have anything to do with their conversion….it was ALL the spirit. They were prepared by and touched by the spirit. And I am excited for the baptism on Sunday.Things have been going pretty good with my companion as well. We are getting along well and things are looking pretty good. We are working well together and I am really enjoying the mission. I think that I am now having the best time of the mission right now because I have learned the language and I have almost mastered the mission techniques. i cant say that I am the best missionary because that would be a lie. At times I feel like I have no idea what I am doing, but when I follow the Spirit and the Lord everything works out. We are looking at having a few baptisms next month as well. We have a few investigators that are really interested in the gospel and they are really enjoying the lessons. But yeah the mission is going good, but I am having trouble forgetting how much time I have left. I cannot get that out of my head to matter how hard I try to forget I always remember that I have got 17 weeks left……16 more pdays.But I really cannot think of anything to write to you all. This letter is going to be a little bit shorter than usual…sorry. I still love you all but I am not really remembering anything that is going on. We did have a bbq with some of the ancients….the old missionary, and I am one of them. It is really weird to think about that. I don’t feel any different. And next week there is a family in one of my old areas that is wanting to put together a little party for my birthday. So next pday I am going to have a party and that will be pretty good. But yeah………I sure do miss you all and I love you and I hope that everything is going good. Mom, I wanted to ask you something but I forgot….oh yeah…..were you able apply to those schools for me yet or not. If not you need to get on that. Because if you don’t it is going to be harder for me to enter into them. So please apply as soon as possible and send loves to everyone at Grandmas house for thanksgiving. I love you all and I miss you;
With Love, Elder Jory B. Spotts

Nov. 18, 2009

2009-11-18T13:23:00.000-08:00

Hey! How is everything going? I hope that everything is going good. How was everybody´s week? It seems like things have been pretty crazy. But it is good to hear that everything is going good. Things here have been going good. Just the same old stuff every day. The same old schedule everyday. Wake up, study, and walk and walk and talk and talk and work and work, then plan, then sleep and it start all over again.But Saturday we had ourselves a baptism and that went pretty well. It was a little frustrating because at the last minute my companion and I decided to try and get some jumpsuits and when we went to the closet there was only one and it was for a little child……so that wasn’t going to work. So after running around trying to find some jumpsuits we were able to find one at home and one at the Ward Missionary Leader´s house. So thank goodness we were able to have the baptism. Then another thing happened. We didn’t know that they were having mutual the same night either. So we didn’t get started on time, we had to wait for mutual to finish because they were using the home that we were going to have the Baptismal Meeting in. but after a little bit of stress and worry, we were able to have the baptism. And it went pretty good. The spirit was there like always and I really enjoyed it. I gave the message about Baptism and my companion and I sang a special musical number. He played the flute while I sang and it turned out to be a very spiritual meeting. Which is good, because the guy that got baptized had been being taught for a long time. But didn’t decide to get baptized until now. But it turned out to be good.But we had ourselves a pretty good week this week. We had a few up and downs, but we finished the week off with a baptism and it went really well. We have been teaching a few people that have a lot of doubts so we have been trying to answer all their questions, but after answering one they always come up with another. It´s almost like they are trying to find flaw in the church or in the gospel. We had a little bit of an experience a few days ago. While arriving at lunch my companion saw a lately carrying a bucket full of water and he said that the spirit told him to help her, so he did and after carrying her bucket full of water for her he asked her if we could pass by her house. And to find out she had talk to her neighbor, a member, about us and she said that if we truly are servants of God and if she truly needs to her our message we will go to her. So we did, the spirit led my companion thru an act of charity to help her. So we went to her house and we taught her and her husband. She paid a lot of attention during the message and really enjoyed it, but her husband was being a little hard hearted and said that he doesn’t believe that God and Jesus are two separate beings. So I grabbed the bible and used some scriptures and testified. And well he decided to have us pass by on Friday and he is going to invite his pastor. So we are going to have a GREAT experience on Friday. But we are not to going to argue, just teach and testify and is they don’t accept we are going to leave. But I already decided that we are NOT going to Bible Bash with him. We have also been teaching an inactive member and after a great lesson at his house he finally went to church and he took his non-member wife as well. He also said that he is going to go back to church and we are going to see if we can’t teach his wife as well. But things have been going really well. My companion and I were having trouble for a while, but we kept at it and we are being blessed now. I learned so much with Elder Sales. I learned a lot about the importance of being obedient and diligent and the blessings the Lord gives to those that are obedient and diligent. But yesterday he got transferred and I received a new companion yesterday. Elder Menezes from Piauí, he is from the same state as João and Franciane ,the family that we baptized about 9 months ago. And they are doing really well; they are firm in the church and doing really well. It has been a long time since that last time that I saw or talked with them. But I am glad to hear that they are doing well. It is the best feeling in the world hearing that they people that you baptized are still active and strong. There is a young boy that my companion and I baptized a year ago that is going to go on a mission and another young man that is going to be going about the time that I return home. The amazing blessings that the Lord has given me, i love the mission and hope that the Lord allows me to be a part of at least one more miracle before I get home. And I believe that is going to happen next week when we baptized a couple that is awesome. They really want to get baptized and follow the gospel. And things are going good with them so far. Their son is a member of the ward here and it has been cool teaching them. Because they do everything that we ask. But yeah, I love the mission and the things I am learning. I have a new opportunity to learn now with my new companion so we will have to see what the Lord has is mind for us.Mom, well I am glad to here that Kaya is alright after that accident I am glad that she hit the tree. I sure do miss her and want to see her when I get home. So tell her to be more careful. But I hope that everything is going good. But I need to know the address of the new house, because the mission needs to know. They will have to send things to you when I am getting ready to return home and sometimes they send other things. So send that to me as soon as possible. And you already sent the package to me or will send it to me in three weeks. And yesterday one of my favorite companions went home and said that he was going to give you guys a call so be ready for that one. His name is Elder Mathew Milkanin from Riverton. He is way cool; he reminds me a lot of Steve. But I love you and hope that all is well and will talk to you next week. And you forgot to answer the questions that i asked in my last letter. so look at the letter again and anser them please i wanna now all that stuff.
With Love, Elder Jory B. Spotts PS>>>I am working on this poem…….I´m no savior,I´m no superman,I´m no hero,I´m just a simple man.Black and white, without color.A bum without shoes,I´m just a simple man. Plain, No thunder, nor lighting….just rain. I´m a simple man.A lion without his mane.Just me, a simple man.

Nov. 11, 2009

2009-11-18T13:22:00.000-08:00

Hey Everyone,How is everything going? How was this week for everybody? I hope that it went well for everyone. How is the weather now? How is the family? I hope that everyone is doing good. But things here have been going good. My companion and i had a prety good week this week. And we have been enjoying ourselves.Yesterday we had a pretty good experiences and some blessings fall from heaven. My companion and i had marked with a new couple to teach them yesterday. They have already gone to church a couple of times but they live in a different but visit our ward because their son goes to our ward. And their son...or someone...had told us that they were being taught by some other elders in a different ward so we didnt really think anything. But then on Sunday they came to us and said that they wanted to be taught because it seems like they had scheduled a few times with the elders in their area but they never went to their house. So they drive from their house to our chapel just to be taught by us now. So we were teaching them the first lesson yesterday and the spirit was there and is was a good lesson. And at the end we asked them if they had any questions and the only question they had was.......What do we have to do to get baptized?......so we are now looking at baptizing a couple in the next couple of weeks. And it was a blessing from the Lord. Because we had been having some trouble finding any investigators that are actually interested in the gospel. And after praying and fasting the Lord gave us even better, a family that wants to be baptized and soon too. So that was pretty cool.My companion has also been feeling pretty sick lately, so yesterday we stayed at home. In the morning he didnt want to leave because he wasnt feeling very well. But i made him leave and we went to na appointment and lunch, but he was feeling really bad so we went home and stayed home. So i got in some good reading yesterday in the Bible and i found out that David was red-headed. In the english bible it says ruddy but in the Portuguese bible it say ruivo....which means red-headed. So i thought that was pretty cool. But yeah......on Sunday we also had another guy that we had stopped teaching because we marked his baptismal date and at the last minute he decided to not get interviewed. So we stopped teaching him and said that if wants to get baptized he can come talk with us because he had been getting taught since march and hadnt made a decision yet. But on Sunday we went to his house because his entire family are members. And he told us that he wants to get baptized on Saturday. So he we will have another baptism as well. The Lord has trully been blessing us. We were really struggling for a while and now things are just falling out of the sky. But i am not going to complain because i like it.But lately we have just being working with members and have been passing by their houses to leave messages with them and ask for referrals. And we are starting to have a little bit of success with that as well. The members are starting to get referrals for us. So that is good. But yeah......we are just working and trying to do our best and are having a little bit of success. Things have been going pretty good and nest week we are going to have another transfer and one of best companions is going to go home. So i am going to miss him. But he lives pretty close to home....Riverton....so i will definetly go visit him and hang out with him when i get home. And i am starting to fill a less trunky lately and the time is flying by. I really do love missionary work. I am learning a lot and my companion and i are trying to better ourselvs a lot. We established a bunch of new goals to try and do better. I am having some of the best times of my mission right now. President has really been helping us out a lot. He really is a spiritual and inspired man. It almost seems like he knows more about us than we do. But i love you all and things are going good. Thanksgiving is coming up and i am really going to miss you guys on that day but that is alright. But i hope that everyone had a good week. I sure do miss you all and i love you. And i wish the best for all and i pray for you all as well.Mom, How have things been going? How is kaya doing? Is she enjoying the braces? I was kinda thinking that i might want to get some when i get home as well. How is the new house? How long have you guys been living there? I really wish you guys would stop hiding things from me. I dont worry to much about you guys. I know that you are all in the Lord´s hand and that he will take care of you. So dont think that i am worrying to much about you. Just tell me what happens when is happens instead of waiting for ever. But where is this house at? Is my room big? How is my tv? How is my laptop? Did you guys move all my stuff too? Is troy still living with you guys as well? How is work? How is school going for kaya? How is kezia doing? And how are her kids? I havent heard anything from them recently. But send them hugs and tell them that i love them and that i miss them too. But i hope that everything is going good. I sure do you miss you all and i love you . but i will talk to you all next week.
With Love, Elder Jory B. Spottsps.....i started learning italian and i am really enjoying that. I have a Book of Mormon in italian and i am starting to read it. It is pretty easy to understand because of portuguese. They are similar.

Nov. 4. 2009

2009-11-18T13:21:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone!!! One more week has gone by, and i still miss everyone. I hope that everything is going good for everyone. How is the weather? How is the world? How is the family doing? I hope that everything is going good for everyone. You are all in my prayers and i love you all. The weather has been pretty good. It looks like summer is over here so the rainy season is starting up which is good. Because that means that it will get a little cooler around here. But the still means 90-100 degrees. But with clouds and rain alot more often, which is awesome. It makes it a lot easier to sleep a night.But i dont have a lot to say for this week. Because we hard a pretty diffilcult week. We lost a lot of investigators so we started searching for some new ones but we didnt find anyone. I havent been rejected so much in all the mission. My companion and i had a pretty difficult week this week. No body went to church and no one is progressing right now. So my companion and i are now starting from scratch to see what we can do to try and turn this area around. I swear that it seems likt President sends me to all the areas where the field is burned and black as night. But we are working and seeing what we can do. We are putting our trust in God to see if cant make some miracles happen here. But i did have a good experience yesterday in my interview with President Jayme. We had a good talk about studying and the work and i learned a lot from him and i really enjoyed our chat. It was pretty cool because he asked me questions that i needed to hear and said things that i was needing to learn. He helped me figure out how i can help the people that we are teaching and how i can find some new investigators. So my companion and i are going to start putting those this in practice as soon as possible so that things can get going in our area. But things have been going really good with my companion and i we have been having a lot of fun with each other. He is really cool and i have really enjoyed working with him. The transference is already getting ready to end and i am hoping that President leaves us two together because he is one of the better companions that i have already had. My other fav companion Elder Milkanin is going to be going home on the 17th. He is from Riverton and is planning on going to same school as i am when i get home. So that will be pretty cool.But yeah, President also gave me a ton of ideas so that i dont get to trunky and keep myself busy so that i dont end up wasting any time on the mission. He explained to me how a lot of elders have cried in their last interview with him because they ended up throwing their last weeks out the window doing nothing but slacking off and not working on the mission. And i explained to him that i dont want that yo happen to me so i am going to start settinf some goals and i am going to start doing the things that he suggested to me.I really dont know what to tell you guys, because nothing really exciting happened this week that i can think of. But things have been going good and i sure do miss you all, i am sorry that this letter isnt very long and it isnt that good. But i still love you all and i hope taht everything is going good. And mom, as for the schools.....i think that i will move it down to four then......Utah State, BYU, SUU, and UVU. But i really dont want to make the list any smaller that this. Because i wanted some back up plans and some choices. But i am nbot 100 percent sure of what i will do. But I hope that everything is good. Halloween sucked, because they dont really celebrate it here. And Thankgiving is also going to suck because it doesnt exist here. But i sure do miss you all and i love you all, i hope that you all have a great week and i hope that next week i will have more to write about. But i love you mom and i miss you.
With Love,Elder Jory B. Spotts

Oct. 28, 2009

2009-10-31T07:44:00.001-07:00

Hey everybody!!!!How was the week? Any good and exciting news? How is the family? How are Lacia and Alicia? I hope that everything is good. How is clinton doing? I havent heard from him in a long time. How is Robin and his family doing? How is Aunt Ann and Roger doing? How is Uncle Morgan and his family? And how is glenna doing as well? And how is Kezia doing? I hope that everything is going good. I sure do miss you all and love you all. And i hope that you all know that.My companion and i had another week. But not a lot happened this week. We had a pretty rough week actually. We have been teaching a lot of people that have no interest in one the gospel, two their own lives, three there families, four in God. It is relly hard for me to deal with these type of people. Because i cant handle seeing them reject the most amazing and Marvelous gift the God has given us.....The gospel. The gospel brings so much joy, life, love, emotion, feeling, light, and guidance to our lives. It is hard to think of a life without this great blessing. I trully cannot comprehend the thoughts of those that dont accept it or do not have the desire to understand more. And it hurts me inside literally hurts me. On Sunday, i think is was Sunday. We passed by a bar and i saw a man drinking and smoking. I got eye contact with him and said Good Afternoon, How are you? And he said...Peace to the Lord. Everyone says that to us here because they trully recognize us as servants of the Lord. And when he said that to me ans i saw him i seriously felt a pain in my heart, because i could see and feel the pain that he was passing. I see the darkness and emptiness of his life. And it was weird feeling that. It is the worst part about being a missionary, seeing and feeling the darkness that is cast of the people but Satan, our own brother.But we were able to teach an awesome lady on Saturday. I told you all about Marcilene and Gilson, the family that we found last Saturday. Well Marcilene took us to her neighbors house to teach her, who said that she wanted to here our message. So we went there with them and we taught the first lesson. And while we were there Nizia, the lady, told us that she had been looking for a church because she had just got down leaving her old church. And she said that one night she prayed and asked the Lord to show her what she should do. And that night she had a dream and in the dream she saw thousands of churchs and she said that she saw one church that was lifted up into heaven. And that all the other churches were burned by fire. And she said that she knew that God was trying to tell her that she needs to find this one church that was taken into heaven. So she has been looking for this church, so we testified to her that this church is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And she really enjoyed our message and wanted to go to church with us and she went and relly liked it. So we have found another great person to teach. The Lord is blessing us, i just hope that she is able to recognize the Spirit and the truthfulness of the gospel.But i think that is just about all that has happened this week. My companion and i are just working and trying to found the Elect sons and daughters of our Beloved God and Father. I love the gospel and i love you all. Joseph Smith was and is a prophet of the only livng God. I cannot wait to be able to go to the temple again. This week i have reading a lot about it and i have missing it a lot. In fact i have decided that when i get home the first thing i want to do is go directly to the temple and do a session in the Salt Lake Temple. And i want to do this as a missionary too so it will be before i am released. I would to go directly to the temple when i arrived off the plane in fact. But i love you all and i miss you and i hope that you all have a great week.Mom, i love you tons and i hope that you have a great day and a great week. Things have been going good and somethings have been relly hard. It has been very hot lately and it has been hard working in the heat and in the sun. Especially when it seems like nobody wants to hear your message and you get stuck in the sun the entire day. But it sounds like things are going good for you all. I hope that things can get better in our country and in the world. I hope that BYU can start playing better as well. That sucks that they lost and dallas better get their act together as well. But yeah.....and apply to those schools as soon as possible. But i love you and i miss you and i hope that you have a excellent week and day. and tell Kaya that i love her and miss her and that she needs to continue to do good in school AND in church. most importantly...CHURCH. The Lord comes first....Matthew 6:30 somethingWith Love,Elder Jory B. Spotts

Oct. 21, 2009

2009-10-31T07:43:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone!One more has past by and we had ourselves a really good week this week. I would to say that i really ejoyed it. But first how is everyone doing? How is the family? How is the world? How is our country? How is the sports world? I didnt hear anything about that this time. But i hope that everyone is doing good. I really love you all and i thank you all for everything that you have all done for me while i have been on my mission.We had some pretty good experiences this week. On Saturday we probably had the most marking experience of the week. We woke up and studied and went about our normal day and then left to work. And we went to our first appointment with Gilson and Marcilene. We went knocking doors in an area on Friday and we found this family. But they were leaving their house so they marked with us to return on Saturday. So we went to their house first thing in the morning. And it was na AMAZING experience. The Spirit was most definetly present during the entire lesson. And after the lesson Marcilene said that she was looking for a church and that she didnt like the churches that she had already visited and attended. And she proimised that she would go to church with us and she did. So on Sunday we went to their house to take them to church and Gilson told us that he felt something different when my companion was teaching the first vision and he said that there was no way that he couldnt believe that it is all true. He said it is true what you guys taught us and Marcilene said the samething. She went to church and loved it and said that she is going to return next Sunday. It was na awesome experience to feel like you are being used as na instrument in the Lord´s hands. And we trully felt that when we were teaching them. They are na awesome family and already have a testimony that these things are true. So we are going to continue to visit them and in a few weeks probably baptize them.We also had some cool little experiences during the week when we felt the spirit really strong in our lessons and we found some cool new people to teach. We are going to have a baptism on Sunday, Nelito is going to be baptized. He has been investigating the church for a long time and now wants to be baptized so he is going to get baptized on Sunday. We had a pretty interesting experience last night in the rain.....it rained a ton last night and because of that we ended up having to cross na overflowing creek bare foot. Because our area is really big and he have a routine route that we take everyday to get to one part of our area. And we always have to cross this little creek. And because of the rain it was way flooded and the water had carried our normal crossing log with her. So we wandering upstream in the dark at night looking for another way to cross the creek. And we found one.....a wobbly log that didnt look very safe, with water flowing both over and under it. And our shoes were full of mud so we knew that if we tried to cross we would end up in the creek. So we decided to take off our shoes and socks and cross it bare foot. And after struggling a cross we both made it safely but our feet were so dirty that we decided to walk to our next appointment bare foot with church clothes. So people we lughing at us during and after we crossed the log. So that was pretty interesting experience.But i hate writing letters because i always remember tons of cool sutff that happened before i write. But when i sit down i forget eveything.....so i am sorry. We also had Zone conference again on Monday and we both really enjoyed that. They talked about planning and goals. And both my companion and i were thinking that we would do a little bit better in both those aspects. So we are doing better and trying to better too. Haha i just remembered something else that happened on Monday too. We got on the wrong bus to go to the conference and ended up on the other side of the city. When we were waiting for the bus we saw a bus that was going were we wanted to go so we got on it. But we didnt look at were else it was going. So it happened that it went to the other side of town first. So we ended up arriving way late at the conference as well. It was pretty funny. Both my companion and i got a little bit of a laugh out of it. But it also was a little bit annoying. But....Mom, i hope that everything is going good and that you and Kaya and lving life. Things here are going good. Things are going pretty good here. My companion and i are getting along great and we are working a ton. We ran into some problems with the Bishop because he doesnt want to help evandro. We do pass by his house all the time to help him and are trying to find someone in the ward that is willing to help him as well. And dont worry, i understand that it is both my companion and i that teach the people. But yeah......i hope that everything is good. And yeah apply to those schools for me and i think that i am going to go sutdy Economics as my major. So if on the application they ask for my major put that. Because i think that is what i want to study. But yeah.....things are going good. Dont worry to much about me but i love you all and i hope that you all have a great week.
With Love, Elder Spotts

Oct. 14, 2009

2009-10-31T07:41:00.000-07:00

Hey! How is everyone doing this week? I hope that everything is going good and that everyone had a great week. My week turned out to be pretty good. My companion and i have been working and trying to find some new people to teach. And i sent some pictures to you all through a member that lives in my area. Because it is a lot easier that way, so i think that she is going to send you guys some pictures every week or something like that. I dont really know.So i just got done with my first week in my new area. And i would have to say that i enjoyed it. This area seems to be one of the better areas on the mission. The members are awesome. We try and pass by the house of atleast one member day because they are that cool. Just about all of them are older members, meaning that they have been members for some time already. And my companion and i get a long really well. I have never met a brazilian that speaks english like he does. We can talk about anything in english without any problems. And he speaks without a accent like other missionaries and brazilian do. So we talk about music and movies and all sorts of things. We sing worldly music in the street together because he knows them all. It is pretty rad!But as for our experiences or this week......we had a couple of downers and a couple of awesome experiences too. On Thursday last week we had a downer. We got up early to visit a recently baptized member named Evandro. He was baptized in between the sessions of General Conference . Well after having a great lesson with him and leaving we went on with our normal day until after lunch we were walking home to use the bathroom and we saw evandro drunk and high. He confessed to us that he was addicted to drugs and that he needed help. And it was really sad to see him that state. So we called the bishop becaue we cant do anything anymore because he is a member so the bishop is in charge of that stuff. And the bishop said that he was going to pass by his house that night.....but NEVER did......he decided to wait until Sunday to pass by. Apparently he didnt feel that it was THAT important. So Sunday came around and Evandro had gone missing.......so bishop didnt pass by. After a few days we went back to his house to find him at home, but evandro was totally different. His countinance had totally changed. And it seemed like he had falling a little bit. But yeah.....Evandro is really struggling but the bishop doesnt even seem to care. He told us that he was going to pass by there on Monday and once again did not. So we are a little annoyed with the bishop and really dont know what to do. But that is life.Yesterday we also had na awesome family that was going to get baptized move to another state. But we passed their address to some other elders so that they continue receiving them so that they can still get baptized next week. So we helped them pack up yesterday and helped them move. They were na awesome family and it was hard to see them go. But they are still going to be baptized and that is really all that matters.The other night we also had a pretty cool experience. We went to Rosana´s house to teach her husband, Nelito, who is going to be baptized pretty soon. And we left a message with them and then she arrived home from work and said that she wanted a priesthood blessing. So my companion and i gave her one. I did the anointing of the oil and he did the sealing. And soon after i put my hands on top of her head to anoint her with oil she started to cry. And she didnt stop crying until after the blessing. And it was really weird. Becaue she said that she was crying because she was happy. And my companion and i were talking afterwards and we both realized that it was because she had felt the spirit very strong during the blessing. And it was good. Because it helps us know the the power of the priesthood is real and i am so grateful for the opportunity that i have to be able to be a Priesthood holder. It is a very important responsibility but it brings such great blessings in our lives. I have had many experiences on my mission that are evidence that the power of the priesthood is real. And i know that it is.On Saturday i also got some great news. Elder mills called my and told me that two people from my old area that i was teaching got baptized and that on Saturday they are going to baptized one other person that i was teaching. So atleast i know that the work that i did in my last area wasnt in vain. Because another elder was able to benefit from the hard work that i put in to help those people. And that makes me happy. Well things have been going good and i am looking forward to one more here in Terra nova.Mom, i sure do love you mom and i miss you tons. And i too think about you everyday and i also pray for you every day. I sure do miss you all. But i will see you all very soon. But as for the schooling.....i want you to apply to these schools for me mom. BYU-Provo, BYU-Idaho, BYU-Hawaii, USU(Utah State), SUU, UVU(Utah Valley) and Wyoming(i know that i will have to spend extra but i am just applying to see what happens). I think that this is a good start, 7 schools and then i will start narrowing it down as i go. But i am still trying to figure out what major. I am having some dificulty with that. But i will work it out. and you can go ahead and send all that stuff when ever is best for you or what you think would be best. But it might be more expensive because of the weight. But yeah.....i wanted to ask you something or say something but i cant remember what it is...but i do want to know what Ariel had to say about me.....i wrote to her a couple of times but i never got anything back. But yeah i love you all and i thank you all for everything. You are in my thoughts and prayers. Take care and start getting ready for me to come home because it is coming up soon.
Elder Jory B. Spotts

Oct.7,2009

2009-10-14T09:29:00.000-07:00

Hey family and friends! How is everything going? I hope that everything is going good? By the letters and emails that i receive it seems like everyone is having a pretty good time with out me and that no one is really missing me too much. But it is good to hear that everything is going good for you all. Things have also been going pretty good here too. I am now in my 7th area and i received my 11th companion yesterday. I sure have been moving around a lot. Yep, i got transfered yesterday. But i think that it was for the best. President ended up closing my last area which this is the 3rd time that he has done this to me. So both my companion and i were transfered. But it definetly was for the best of things.I was struggling a ton in my last area. I passed through 6 weeks of work work and work without any results. But on Saturday and Sunday we were able to take 10 investigators to General Conference and they all loved it. I know that they felt the spirit and i know that they were spiritual strengthened. Because i sure was too. Elder Jeffery R. Holland sure did give na very spiritual talk and made it very clear that the Book Mormon IS ture and that the this IS the church of Savior Jesus Christ, and that Jospeh Smith WAS and IS a prophet of God. I really enjoyed his talk and i will never forget the spirit that i felt while he talked. I have already forgotten the words but will never forget the feelings. I really learned a lot for General Conference and felt that i have some changing to do. But things are going pretty good. I got my last General Conference under my wings. So the next time that i watch General Conference i will be watching it at home on the couch with my family. OH YEAH!!!!!!But i am really enjoying my new area. I was feeling pretty horrible in my last area because i was working so hard and nothing was happening. It was the longest 6 weeks of the mission and i didnt baptize a single person. But i was able to help a ton of people and Elder Mills, my MTC companion, will now teach all the people that i was teaching and should be able to baptize a few. Because we had a baptism coming up on the tenth and we had a few people tell us that they wanted to get baptized. So i am sure that elder mills will enjoy baptizing the people that i taught. But that is all good, i am now in a new area with a new companion and i am hoping that i can make a difference in this area. My area is called Terra Nova(New Land). And the members are really cool. I met quite a few of the members and the bishop yesterday and i liked them a lot. They seem to be great people. And my companion is also pretty cool. He is from São Paulo and his name is Elder Sales. He is a little bit new on the mission, 4 months. But he is pretty cool, i will have the priviledge of being his first american companion. He also speaks english and he speaks pretty dang good too. I was pretty shocked to hear him speak it so well. He doesnt have a thick accent like the other brazilians do.But things are going pretty good but i am having trouble in remembering what happened last week. But i am not really having any luck. We did have a Zone Party at our house and it turned out to be a mess. But the food was really good. We ate lasagna and i really enjoyed that. But things have been going good and i am hoping that i can make a differen in my new area. But that is about it....i cant really think of anything else to say.Mom, i did want to thank you for the stuff that you sent me and i think that i am going to be telling you next week to what schools i want to apply so that you can get on that. Because i think that i have just about figured it out. but yeah....i hope that everything is going good for you. I sure do miss you and i think about you everyday. The trunkiness continues. But it seems like while i am working i forget about home and am only able to concentrate on the work which is good. I also wanted to ask if you could send a few things to me. A baseball for one of my companions, a real salt lake soccer jersey for one of my comps, jazz basketball shorts for one of my comps, a sweet tie, and the Ensign(Liahona) from November in english when it comes out. And i know that that might be a lot of stuff, so buy the cheaper stuff first if you dont have the cash. Because the jersey is going to cost from good cash and the shorts too. But the baseball shouldnt cost too much. But yeah.... i should be sending more information about applying here pretty soon to the schools. I think that i am going to apply to Wyoming, BYU, USU, SUU, and UVU. But i will gett he rest of the info to you next week. I love you and i miss you.....until next week. Prolongue os Bons Momentos.
Elder Jory B. Spotts

Sept. 30,2009

2009-10-14T09:28:00.000-07:00

Bom Dia! How is everyone doing? I hope that all is well. It sure does sound like things have been going pretty good. And that makes me happier knowing that everything seems to be going good. I sure do miss you all, but things here have been going pretty good. I am getting really excited to watch general conference. And we have been planning on taking a ton of people. We starting talking about it and inviting everyone a long time ago so a lot of investigators are going to be able to make it. And it helps a lot that the ward here is going to take a bus to the stake center. So we wont have to take all o four investigators to the stake center, but just the bus. So we are pretty excited about that.This week was pretty good and little bit interesting. We were able to mark another baptismal date. There is a yound kid(14) that hás a bunch of friends that go to church and he told us that we wanted to be baptized. He has already been attending seminary and he plays soccer with the young men in the during the week and has been progressing really well. Which is good, his name is Wendell. He is pretty cool kid. But we marked one date and we lost another. The girl that is madly in love with my companion got mad at us because he doesnt want to date her. And said that she didnt want us to pass by her house anymore. So we starting going to her house to teach her sister. And they are going to go to conference with us Sunday. General Conference is going to help a ton. Because we have been teaching a ton of families and a ton of people that have doubts and stuff. But i know that the conference is going to swipe away all their doubts and questions. So we are planning on taking 10 investigators....atleast. we also started teaching all the members that live in our area how to invite their friends and family members. So the members are all planning on taking atleast one person with them as well. So if everything goes as planned there are going to have a ton of people visiting at the conference which is going to be awesome.Today we are also having a Zone get together to try and excite the elders and chill out a little bit. So we have a TON of elders sleep at our house last night. Which was a little annoying because i had sweeped the entire house and then they all came in and messed it all up again. But that is just the way things have got to be, so i am going to have to clean it again after everyone leaves the house. Last week on p-day after i wrote to you guys my companion and i also went to Pizza Hut to celebrate his 20th birthday. Which was AWESOME!!!! I was able to taste a little bit of home in every bite  but pizza ended up a little expensive. But it was worth it. We had a blast. And it was funny, because my companion wanted to take a ton of pictures and Elder Mills didnt like that too much because it makes us look like tourists and Elder Mills being from a small town doesnt like to call to much attention. So Mills was making fun of him and telling him to put the camera away. It was pretty funny.And on Saturday we had a little bit of a funny experience. We were all walking to lunch ando ut of no where Elder Mills was like i gotta poop. So i asked him if he wanted to go back home, but he said that he didnt, and that he would wait until after lunch to go to the bathroom. So we went to lunch and after lunch it got worse and he was like rushing with my companion. But i stayed behind them with Elder Souza because i didnt want to walk fast. And it started to rain and i got pretty wet and it left the roads all muddy. But elder souza and i got home after the other two and we say elder mills shoes outside the door and they were all muddy. But Elder Souza looked at me and said......Será que ele se cagou.......(Do you think he pooped himself?) and sure enough elder mills was in the bathroom taking a shower because he had filled his shoe with onions and tomatoes. It was hilarious!!!!But yeah....Things have been going pretty good. I dont really have anything to complain about, except for the fact that all my leaders are all over me because my companion and i had a really rough transfer. We didnt baptize anyone and my leaders are asking me all these like what are going to do different and i finally got upset and told them to worry about their own areas. Because my companion and i have been working hard but we havnt had any luck in finding people that want to accept the gospel. And it has been hard, and i also dont teach people just to baptize them and let them fall away. I alone baptize people that are trully ready and that really are going to stay in the church. And there are a lot of elders here that just baptize and let their baptisms fall away. Like in one area close to mine one elder past through and baptized 30 people but no one is going to church any more. And i dont see the point in baptizing without helping them to stay in the church,But i love you all and i very thankfull for all that you have been going. Keep up the good work and pretty soon i will be at home. I love you all and send hugs to everyone. I sure do mis you all. With Love, Elder Jory Spotts Ps. The stuff that you sent me was good. but you didnt get me the information for all the schools that i put on the list. but thank youas. Because my companion and i have been working hard but we havnt had any luck in finding people that want to accept the gospel. And it has been hard, and i also dont teach people just to baptize them and let them fall away. I alone baptize people that are trully ready and that really are going to stay in the church. And there are a lot of elders here that just baptize and let their baptisms fall away. Like in one area close to mine one elder past through and baptized 30 people but no one is going to church any more. And i dont see the point in baptizing without helping them to stay in the church,But i love you all and i very thankfull for all that you have been going. Keep up the good

Sept. 23, 2009

2009-09-23T08:32:00.000-07:00

Dear Family and Friends,
How was the week this week? I hope that everything is going good. Things here are going pretty good. Atleast i dont have to much to complain about. The weather is still HOT HOT AND HOT. But winter(rainy season) is coming up pretty soon, which will be a blessing. But i will have to think a little bit about the things that have happened this week.....Well we did have a pretty good week. We ran into a couple of problems because we have an Elder that lives in our house that is dying(going home in two weeks). He is dead......the only thing that he wants to do is stay at home. So we go on splits a lot with Elder Mills so that his area doesnt go way down. He is already struggling enough because his companion doesnt want to work. So i figured that my companion and i could help them out a little bit. They are going to have a baptism on Saturday and we are looking at baptizing a 17 year old girl on the 3rd. But we did have a couple of cool and funny experiences this week.The first stroy will be the funny one.......so the we were teaching the girl that we is preparing to get baptized, Liza, the third lesson which is about the first principles and ordinances of the gospel....Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Holy Spirit, and Endure to the End. And the lesson was going really well and at the end of the lesson i felt like i needed to invite her to be baptized, so i did. She accepted but she said she has a few doubts . but after accepting the funny thing that happened was she said that she entered into the church because of my companion. She said that she wants to date him.......so i asked her if she thought these things were true and she said that she really thinks that what we are teaching is true but she got interested in the church because of hime. She says, ´Ele é LINDO´. Which means that he is really good looking. And it is funny because he got really embarrassed and had no idea what to say. I started laughing a little bit. because she really wants to date him but we had to explain to her that he cant because he is a missionary and that he cannot date until after the mission. So she decided to say that she is going to wait for him and the entire time my companion was all red and didnt say a single word. I had to do all the talking, because he is a little bit of a shy guy or as some people say he is a nerd. But he is way cool. I like him a lot, he is a great mission. Elder Mills and i always joke around with him because he knows a ton of stuff that doesnt have any value. But he is cool.The other story is a little bit spiritual. It was an awesome experience. On Saturday we were walking to an appointment and we passed a guy that was sitting a lone with his baby son. And i felt like i should talk to him, so i did. We went and explained about the family and he really enjoyed the conversation so we gave him a pamphlet that talks about the families and the first lesson for him to read and we marked a day to go to his house(the next day). So on Sunday after church we went his house and we taught the first lesson to him, Cristiano, and his wife, Patrícia, and we to find out he read the entire pamphlet and really loved it. We taught him and during the lesson he stopped us and asked if he could say something, and we said yes and let him talk really fast. And i thought that he was going to say something about the church and how is was wrong or something. But to my surprise he said these words, ´Vocês trazem a bênção.` You bring the blessing.....or what it really means is that we brought a different feeling in the house. He said that he felt peace and joy and really enjoyed our presence in the house. And i really thought that was cool, because no one had ever said that on the mission. It was the first time that i had heard that and it was awesome. To know that we really do carry the Spirit with us everywhere that we go. But they turned out to be an awesome family and we are going to go back there pretty soon. He said that he really enjoyed the Joseph Smith story. We will just have to see if we really did find an elect family or not. But i really enjoyed the experience in there house. But things have been going really well and we are having some success lately. Atleast it seems like it. We dont have anyone to baptize, but we have a couple of people that are really progressing and if they go to general conference i know that they are going to get baptized. So we are trying to take a TON of people to conference because it is the most spiritual event that they have in the church. Just about every single person that we took to last General Conference got baptized because of it. So i am getting really excited for that. But yeah....I hope that everything is going really good with everyone. I sure do love you all and i miss you guys sooooooooo much. And Yes Mom i am WAAAAAAAYYYYYYY TTTTRRRRUUUUNNNKKKYYYYY!!!!!!!!! I cannot lie. I love the work with all my heart. I love the joy that the gospel brings to the people. I have had the opportunity to help a ton of people and i am so thankful for the time that i had here. But i am just about ready to go home. Because i miss you guys so much. But i am still working hard and i wont stop working. Because a missionary cannot do his OWN will but always has to do the LORDS will. And beause i promised the Lord that i would give him Two Years, not a year and a half. So dont worry about me mom. Yes i miss home a TON and i cant wait to get home. But i am going to continue to work until the end. Not for me, but for the people, and for the Lord.But i got a few letters from Sherra today and that made me WAY trunky. Because she sent a ton of pictures. Of Alexis Melbergs wedding and Elliot Tuttle got married too. And it brought back a ton of old memories and i couldnt stop thinking about home and how much i miss everything. But i love you tons and i hope that everything is going good for you guys. It makes me sad knowing that my father doesnt help me on my mission, but i love Robin and Juleah tons because they have helped me out so much. And i know that someday i will be able to thank them and i will. It just sucks that Mike has decided not to serve a mission. But in a few years he will regret it, because we will see the consequences. Because the mission is incredible. You CANNOT replace it with anything else. You learn soooo much. But yeah.....i love you all and i miss you all as well. I hope that eveything is going good. And dont forget about the college stuff, i really need to start doing that. I love and i miss you tell Kaya that i love her and that i miss her and tell Juston the same thing the next time that you see him.
Elder Spotts

Sept. 16, 2009

2009-09-16T08:50:00.000-07:00

Good Morning! I hope that you are all doing great. To anyone that is reading this. The time here sure does seem to fly by when you are working. It doesn´t even seem like a wek has passed by since the last time that i wrote to you guys. But things have been going pretty good. The weather has cooled down a little bit so i havent been dying anymore and i am no longer feeling sick. I am getting over two weeks of pooping water. I thing that i got some type of bacteria in my body or something. But that problems is being resolved and i am now pooping solids. I thought that everyone might like to know that . But things have been going pretty good. We had ourselves a pretty good week.We worked pretty hard this week but i was slowed down a couple of days because of the sickness. On Wednesday and Thursday i was throwing up and pooping a ton. But i called the presidents wife and then the Area Doctor called me and we told me to take this one medicine and i also got a blessing from my companion and i am now feeling a lot better. But this week was a good one. We set a few goals with some of our investigators to help them get to church and we were able to reach quite few of these goals . 9 investigators went to church and they are progressing really well. One investigator really enjoyed the church but she doesnt even live in the city. But she decided to come to the city every weekend just to be able to go to church. But yeah....my companion and i were feeling really good when we saw all these people at church. And we felt een better when they all said that they loved it. We also had zone conference yesterday and that went really well. I really felt the spirit and learned a lot of things that i can do to help my investigator feel the spirit i feel the desire to follow God. And i felt the Spirit and learned a ton. And i am now feeling a little less trunky and a lot more excited. I think that it was the sickness that was killing me. I was always feeling tired because i wasnt able to eat and i wasnt gettin the nutrition that i needed. But i am feeling a lot more excited and i am going to work my butt off again until the end of the mission. This past week i also found out that a sister from one of my old areas is moving to my area. So i went to her house and helped here prepare her house a little bit because she will be moving in prety soon. I am really excited for that. Irmã Antônia is her name and she is one of my favorite sisters. She loves me and i love her family so much. I am probably going to go to here house almost everyday just to say hi and to eat because she always gives us food and she cooks good too.We have also havent had running water in our house for the longest time. I had to take a shower at the church and we have to get water at the church to be able to wash our clothes and our house. The owner of the house had just forgotten to pay the water bill for about seven months. The last time he payed the bill was in Feb. So the water companion cut our water line. So i am now not only suffering a little more but i am learning what it was like to be a pioneer. We dont have water.......but yeah. What happens, Happens. Enjoy it right? So i am enjoying not having water. I have also managed to lose 20 pounds in the last two months. So i am pretty skinny. But yeah......I am pretty excited to hear that BYU is winning. That is awesome, lets just hope that it doesnt turn out to be like last year. Starting out good and then sucking it up. And i am sorry to hear that Kaya broke up with her boyfriend, but i also think that it is for the best. But how is school going for her? Work? Friends? And things like that. How has everyone been? I sure wish that i could be there to be able to see the leaves change, because they dont change here. Everything is the same all year around.....Green. Keep me up to date on the games and BYU. Who are they going to play this week? You got to let me know how there schedule is and things like that. How they will play each week and all that jazz. I was talking with one elder, Elder Hopkins from Provo. And he was telling me that they are going to play against Tennesse too. Which is another really good team. But if they start doing really good it might make them decide to change the BCS into a playoff. Because he was telling me that the Mountain West is looking pretty strong this year. But yeah......Let me know how everything is going. I sure do miss you guys and i love you tons. I Hope that you all have a great week. And give kaya a hug for me and tell her to keep her head up, because it could be worse. Love you guys.
With Love,Elder Jory B. Spotts

Sept. 9,2009

2009-09-09T17:18:00.000-07:00

Well one more week has passed by and it sure does seem like things have been going really good for you guys and that you guys have been having a ton of fun. Which is good, i hope that things can continue to go good for you guys. I sure do miss home and now that it is getting closer and closer i am starting to get trunkier and trunkier. But my companion and i are trying to stay pretty busy and it has been working. We have been working our butts off. But we just arent having any good results. We pass the entire day working hard in the hottest month of the year here and we dont have any investigator progressing very well. So we are just going to continue to do our part and hope that some time in the future we will be blessed with some elects. But we have been having some experiences that have been a little bit different. We have been really struggling with Carla and Marcio lately. The couple that was suppossed to get married this month. They have been fighting a ton and have been having a lot of difficulties. And we really have no idea what to do. We might have to stop visiting them, but i hope not. A couple of days ago we had a really weird experience at their house. We went there and we starting talking about the impostance of the family and how they can have a better family. We took with us a little booklet that the church made that helps with that and we decided to read a little bit of it with them. So we did.......but something weird happened. During the lesson Carla started acting really weird. She started looking at us really weird like she had never seen us before and she was breathing weird and looking at everything in the house really weird. But we kept teaching and didnt really think anything of it. But she kept doing the same thing and she was grabbing her head like she had a headache and she was crying so Marcio put something on her forehead to help her out. But at the end of the lesson we decided to just say a prayer. And after the prayer she like woke up and started asking us if we were going to give a lesson and a bunch of questions. So we had to explain to her that we already gave the lesson and that we had finished and that she was acting weird and she said that she didnt remember anything. And the other thing is that we felt a terrible feeling while she was acting weird. Like satan was in the room trying to get in the way of this family. Like he doesnt want us to help them. But it was a horrible feeling. I have already felt it a couple od times in my life and i would have to say that it is the worst feeling. After we left my companion said that he felt the samething and that he didnt like it. It was really weird so we left out telephone number with them just in case anything happened. But yeah.......the mission is full of weird experiences.I also went on splits yesterday with my district leader and that was pretty cool. I worked in his area that doesnt have any hills so i was able to rest a little bit from my area. Because my area is full of hills and i hate it. I have never felt so tired in all the time that i have passed here. It sucks! But we are really working hard and just have some struggles. We arent teaching Josemar any more. Because we cant find him at home. But hopefully some other elders will be able to run into him and help him out.But yeah i think that i am going to cut this letter a little short because i really dont have anything else to say. Because nothing has really been going on, just that we are trying to fix the relationship that the missionaries do not have with the members here and you know how important it is that the missionaries have a great relationship witht the members. So we are trying to find out where all the members live to be able to visit them and start a relationship in this area. But i am definetly jealous to hear that you went to the temple and Costa Vida. I miss those two places soooo much. And it has been the longest time since i talked with Jen and i cannot believe that she is married. How weird is that? The next time you go there you will have to tell her to write me and let me know how she is doing. Because i wrote her twice and she never wrote me back the little butt. And i was way excited to hear that BYU won. That is awesome, but i just hope that this year doesnt turn out like last year, thy started out the season really good and then they started to slip. And ended up not having such a good year. But i just thought that i would let everyone know that i am starting to get really trunky and it is making the mission really difficult. Because the time is starting to pass really slow and i want to know what the cure is for trunkiness. Because it is going to end up killing me. But yeah i love you all and i miss you all as well. I hope that all is well and if you can, try and write me a little bit more. I am starting to feel like i am not that very important to you guys anymore. But i love you all and i hope that you all have a great week. You will have to tell my how dallas is doing too. I love you and her name will stay a secret. I dont even know how you guys found out that i am writing her. But yeah.....they are just letters. Its not like i am planning on marrying her or anything but when those plans are made i will let you know who she is.
With Love,Elder Spotts

Sept. 2,2009

2009-09-02T10:22:00.000-07:00

Well.....Good morning everyone! I hope that everyone is doing good. Thongs here are going pretty good. I woke up to some letters this morning and it was a good feeling to be able to hear from some people. I got kaya´s letter and i also received a letter from Brandon Goggia and some special girl......:) Brandon seems to be doing really good and has some high hopes. He talks so positive, i wish that i could be a little bit more like him. And it seems that kaya is doing good as well and the special one too. It is always good to hear from her.;) but i dont think that i am going to let anyone on the secret yet. She is just a friend that writes me and gives me support on my mission and helps me stay strong. Maybe something will happen between us when i get home or maybe not. For now i am trying to stay focused on the work of the Lord. Because that i is my calling so yeah in the future we can take about that.This week was a pretty good week, my companion and i have been working a ton. We are trying to baptize eight people this month. That is our goal this week, but we arent sure if you are going to be able to reach it. But we are going to do our best to do so. The house is a lot cleaner and no i wasnt able to take anypictures of my scrubbing the floor....sorry but i didnt even think about that at the time. I was to discussed by the house. But the house is a lot cleaner now. We cleaned it again a little bit last night before bedtime and we are going to clean the bathroom when we get home. My companion and i also had a pretty good lunch yesterday.........Pancakes with syrup and Macaroni and Cheese. Yeah it doesnt exactly sound very good, but when you dont have any money and nothing else to eat......you gotta do what you gotta do. But it turned out to be good enough.We had a funny little experience the other day as well. I had forgotten how Manaus is a little bit because my last area is a lot different. So we were walking in the street and this girl was looking at my companion like she had met him so i figured that she was a member. Being new to the area i dont know who everyone is. We passed her and she hissed at us like they say.....she called us by making the psss sound with her month so i turned around to talk to her. And she got all nervous she was with her friend and turned to her friend to say “i didnt think that they would come back” and her friend said “ Well of course they would....they arent def”. Because she just thought that we were good looking and i forgot that is wha the girls do here, so we got her name and she wants us to pass by her house so we will. But i thought that it was funny because she called us but had no idea what to do if we turned around and she got nervous and scared. My companion thought that it was hilarious. But that is what the “snakes” do here....they like the missionaries.We have also been having a little bit of trouble with a family that we are teaching, Marcio and Carla. They are supposed to get married and baptized on the 26th but they started fighting and they arent sure if they want to get married anymore which also means that they cant get baptized. But i know that satan is entering into their lives to try and stop the good from entering. So we are working with them and are trying to help them out a little. But it is a little difficult to fix marriage problems when you have never had any marriage problems. I have no idea what it is like to be married. But the more i see these fights the less i want to get married. I think that i am going to have to date a girl for atleast five year like Brandon to try and get to know her first. Because i dont wanna get married for time and all eternity to a witch. I wanna be happy for the rest of my life. But yeah we ran into a little bit of a difficulty there. But with patience, prayer, and fasting we will work this all out. They are an awesome family. We also found a guy called Josemar that is pretty cool as well. He was sitting in the street and i felt like i should talk to him so i did and we had a great spiritual lesson with him, we are going to go back to his house on Friday so hopefully something good comes out of it. But things have been going good, we have marked a few baptismal dates and have found some pretty cool people. So i am pretty excited about this area. But my old companion Elder Milkanin was training and he called me the other day to tell me that his son.....his companion decided to go home. He said that he doesnt like it here and wants to go home so he did. Milkanin was a little bummed because he did everything that he could to help him but his son was already set on going home. He didnt even want to give it a chance. Which is sad because he is really going to regret it. The mission is hard but you CANNOT replace it for anything. It is best thing that eny 19 year old young man can do with his time and it is a great investment to be able to have a better future. There is also a family here that reminds me of our family, because they have the rebelious child that wants to do everything his way.....Juston. and they are really strugglinh with that. He wants to move to São Paulo so they are going to let them do so. They are going to make him live on his own more than a thousand miles away. Praying that he will grow up. But things are going good. Time is flying by fast and we are working our butts of here. I use the butt word too mom. But that is about aour week. I dont really know what else to say. But it seems like everything is going good for you guys. You are all in my prayers and i hope that everything can go good for you guys.Mom, i wanted to thank you for everything that you do. I love you a ton and i miss you, i think that i have learned to appreciate you more being thousands of miles away than i did when you always by my side. I love you tons. I got a letter from Jadie Kendrick as well and i wanted to thank her for sending the pictures and the letter. Sorry i cant write her back but you know how the rules are. But i wanted to thank her and tell her hi for me and that it was nice to hear from her. It sounds like you guys had a blast fishing. I sure do miss fishing a lot as well, we will have to go when i get home. But i love you all and i hope that you all have a great week and that you all Go with God as the brazilians say, which means let Him always have a place in your lives. It is awazing the difference that He makes in our lives. I love the mission and i love you all as well. But i think that i will have to say good bye until next week. Everyone hang in there and remember that in life we cannot do want we want to do, but we do what we have to do. The gospel is true and i konw that God has a great love for you all, always do His will and not yours. Until next week......LOVE YOU ALL!!!!! With all the love in the World,
ELDER JORY BRENT SPOTTS

Aug. 26, 2009

2009-08-26T18:03:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody. How is everything going? I hope that everything is going good. Things have been going pretty good around here and a lot of things have been changing as well. But is sure is summer and the hottest month of the year is coming up next Month......September, it gives me chills. But things have been going really good. I am feeling a little sad right now because i am missing my last area a lot. I got transfered on Tuesday so i am now back in the big city and i really miss my last area. Maues was the best area that i served in. I am not going to lie, i cried a ton when i left. At church they let me bear my testimony to everyone in the front and i cried. I had to say good bye to a lot of people that i have grown to love. That are almost like family, i would have to say that i miss Carlas family the most. They are awesome! And they cried so much when i left too, when me and this other elder, elder teixeira left, everyone in the branch went to the airport to say goodbye. And the branch is so cool that they even gave my presents to give to Mom and Kaya. It was hard to have to leave them, but it seems like i am needed in some other place. My new area is pretty cool, it is called the City of God(Cidade de Deus). There is only one problem.......TONS of hills. I have met quiet a few of the members and they seem really cool and i think that i am going to like this area. I also live with the Zone Leaders and one of the Zone leaders who just barely got called to be Zone leader is my old companion from the MTC Elder Mills. So i am now sleeping in the same room as him once again and it has been really cool. But when we arived yesterday i was priviledge to see the dirtiest house in the mission. We spent almost the entire day today scrubbing the entire house. I was on my hands and knees scrubbing the floor because it was so dirty. We also renewed our visas today and that took up half of the day. But we had a pretty good day. We had the devotional last week also on Saturday and it turned out awesome. The spirit was there so strong the entire time. The members thanked us and said that it was really good. And it seemed to help them out, because for the first time in a really long time. I think since i got there the Elders President went visiting and it was really good. We as had Princesas Baptism and it went really good. I was able to baptize and it went really well. I really will miss that area a lot. But what can i do, some day i will be able to go there again. I hope that that day will be here in 7 months when i finish my mission.......hint.......hint.But i really dont have anymore time to be able to write you guys. My new companions name is Elder Cook from Fort Collins, Colorado. He is pretty cool and i think that things are going to go prety good this transfer. We already have a family that is going to get married and baptized on the 24th of September. But yeah i hope that all is well and that things can start getting better for everyone. I love you all and i will talk to you all next week. Sorry that my letter wasnt very long, but i didnt have a lot of time today to be able to tell you all about everything that has gone on. I love you all and MOM......stop crying about me being gone. I will home in 7 months. It is coming up really fast. Until next week! With all the love in the world from the white gangsta and the man of the streets.......
ELDER JORY B SPOTTS

Aug. 19, 2009

2009-08-20T06:16:00.000-07:00

Good Morning!!! I hope that all is well. I hope that things are able to cool down for you all. This letter might be a little short because i am not exactly sure what to write but i will do my best to fill you all in. But things have been getting better and worse at the same time. We are going to have a baptism on Saturday and we are also going to have that devotional that i was telling you all about. Which is going to be awesome. Things have been slow but they keep going. Nothing new has really been going on. We just keep doing the same things everyday...Sleep, study, work, sleep, and everything all over again. I am hoping to leave this area soon. I really like the members and everything but i feel like i am ready to move on. But right now we are working with a few people that are progressing pretty well. A few investigators have baptismal dates already marked and things are looking pretty good in that area. But we are now trying to find some new people to teach so that when these people get baptized we have some other people ready to be baptized right afterwards. Saturday we will baptize Carla´s cousin that has been progressing really well and is really cool. Her name is Vanilsa but everyone calls her Princesa(Princess).We are teaching on investigator that has been having trouble believing that the church is true but she does everything that we ask her. So we decided to try and teach her the first lesson again and we did with a little bit of a twist. We decided to read Joseph Smith History with her to help her understand the story better from Joseph Smith´s point of veiw and it turned out to be a pretty good lesson. It was actually my companion´s idea to use Joseph Smith History and it turned out to help a lot. But i am still not sure if it will help her see the truth. But we will have to see we are going to go back to her house on Friday i think. But yeah.....that is about all that i have to say about this week. I know that it wasnt much, but i really dont have anything to say. I am really not having a good day today. I really need your guys prays. I am struggling to be a good trainer and a good companion. My companion and i are having some problems and i dont know what to do. You all know how i am.....a little prideful. So pray for me to be able to learn to be more humble. And to have a little bit of patience as well. I love you all and i thank you so much for everything that you have all have done, or are going, or that you will do to help me out. i love you grandma and grandpa norton and i miss you guys and you are always in my prayers. I love you all and hope that everything is going for everyone. Mom, i am glad to hear that Juanita is going to serve a mission. You will have to congradulate her on her calling and send a good luck from me. And tell her that i said that it is going to be an amazing experience that she will love. I hope that all is going for you mom and just keep saving dont give up now. I have already been telling everyone that you are going to come. Just have faith and keep saving. Keep going your best and everything will work out. i really want you to come and meet all the people that i have taught and met. You will love the experience. Just keep working at it. DON`T GIVE UP!!!! And tell kaya that she is never going to figure it out. the only way that she will figure it out is if she asks and i tell her. But transfers are coming up and i dont know how it is going to end up. We will find out what happens on Saturday. But i have a feeling i am going to stay here for atleast one more transfer. But everything is in the Lord´s hands. I love you all and i hope that everything calms down a little bit at home. Give hugs to grandma and grandpa norton and to grandma roberts for me as well. And i think that Grandma Roberts birthday is coming up next week so i will try to send her a letter but i am not sure if it will arrive on time. So buy her a birthday card and then Put this message inside it. Dear Grandma,It seems like you are starting to get pretty old. I have already lost count on my fingers. But i hope that you know that i love you and that i miss you. And i hope that you have a fantastic birthday. I am going to try and write you a letter soon. But Happy Birthday!!!!!! I love you Grandma!Your pain in the rear grandson, Elder Jory Brent SpottsBut i love you mom and just hand in there and keep going. Try not to get discouraged. Everything has a time and everything will work out.
With Love,Elder Spotts

Aug. 12,2009

2009-08-12T10:38:00.001-07:00

Well........One more week has gone by......A few more struggles and a few more experiences. The mission isn’t easy. A lot of things happen that you wish wouldn’t, and a lot of things dont happen that you wish would happen. It has been really difficult in this area and especially this transfer. I haven’t been able to baptize in over a month and that is a very discouraging thing at times, because missionaries have the tendency of looking at their baptisms as a success mark. Which really isn’t the mark of success. And we end up comparing ourselves with other elders that are having a lot more success. But I am struggling and trying to get through it.We have been having a little bit of trouble with the branch here. The members are becoming very unexcited and I don’t understand it. We work so hard and have been doing our best to help the branch but a few things have been happening and the members are becoming very unexcited and the attendance at church has been very low. So this Monday we sat as a district and decided to chat about what we could do to help the members. Because I haven’t been having a lot of success with the non-members, so I figured that I should try and do something to strengthen the branch. So we decided to start planning a devotional that we are going to have next week. We are going to try and mark a slide show and talk about the church and the history of the church and how it all started. Because I don’t think that very many of the members understand what the early saints went through to be able to have the gospel. So we are going to try and help them understand that they are the pioneers of this city and this branch and that what they do today will have an effect on the future of the church and the gospel in this city. So we have been working on that are hoping that it will help them get a little excited about the gospel and the work. But that is a work in progress. So you will hear more about that a little later.We had a pretty interesting week. It has been really hot lately so the work has been very tiresome but we keep at it every day. We were able to start teaching a bunch of people and we are also in the process of stopping to teach a few people. Trying to find the people that are waiting and have been prepared for the gospel isn’t an easy task. It is actually the hardest part of the work, because you have to be rejected so many times to be accepted once. But we are teaching a few new investigators and one family of old investigators that once again didn’t go to church to they cannot be baptized this week. But I got some ideas from my Zone Leader to help them. Because they do everything that we ask but it is hard for him to go to church because he plays soccer on a team and almost all the games are on Sunday. But we are going to see what we can do to help them out. The struggles continue as a trainer as well. I am in the process of teaching him how to plan and all those things and I am going to let him be the senior companion on Thursday so he will plan everything and do all those things. You know how it is mom; you have already down it once. But it is just so hard to try and teach someone to do all these things when you yourself aren’t even sure that you know what you are doing. I am still having trouble in the lessons because I don’t think that the investigators are understanding what he is teaching and I don’t feel the spirit in the lessons like I did with my last companion because my last companion and I taught so well together. We flowed so well together, but I don’t have the same thing with my son. I just hope that it ends soon and I don’t have to do it again. But yeah, I feeling like president is going to leave me here for at least one more transfer so we will have to see how things continue. But yeah………That is just about all that I can think of right now, I don’t know what else to write. But that is really what has been going on. I am struggling right now so I really need your prayers right now. But I love you all and I hope that everything continues to go well. I am still in the dark with what is all happening with Grandma and Grandpa Norton. I got a letter from them that says that Grandpa is going through chemotherapy but nobody is telling me anything and I would really like to know what is going on. But yeah tell them that I love them and I miss them and that they are in my prayers. I am really thankful for all that they have been doing to help me while I have been on the mission. But I love you all and I hope that all is well. Mom, keep strong and always remember that somewhere in the world there is someone that is struggling more than you. But we are both in the same boat, I feel inadequate. I don’t feel like I am qualified to be doing what I am doing. But God loves you and so do I. the storm will pass soon and the winds will calm and the sun will shine. And will how have things been going? How is the family? How is work? How has the weather been? What are you guys doing to start and prepare for winter? Man do I miss the snow!!!! Kaya, stay out of trouble and be careful. Logan might be an awesome guy and might treat you right and might really care about you. But you have got to think of your eternal future. Is he going to take you to the Temple? Is he going to take you to the Celestial Kingdom? Encourage him to go to church and prepare to be able to do that for you. I love you and I want the best for you. And as for the music……..I wrote it for a girl. Why do you want to know? And yes you know this girl? She has been writing me on the mission and is an amazing girl. And no she doesn’t know that I wrote that music for her. But she does know that I like her. But anyways……….if you give me a good enough reason to tell her name I will tell you, but it has got to be a really good reason. But I love you guys and I will talk to you all next week. Pray for me and I will pray for you all. Have a great week!With all the Love in the World,
Elder Jory Brent Spotts

Aug 8,2009

2009-08-06T11:05:00.001-07:00

Well.....Hope that you all had a good week this week. I am sorry that I wasn’t able to write a good letter to you guys last week. But I was in a hurry and I really didn’t have time to write a letter. We actually almost missed the boat so if I would have sent you a letter I wouldn’t have made it back to my area on time. But I am now here and things are going pretty good. But quite a few things have gone on since that last good letter you all received. But things have cooled down and are a lot better. Zone conference was really good. We received a few trainings from President and the Assistants and it was really good. We learned about how we need to find more new investigators through the members and our own efforts. They talked a lot about doing contacts in the streets and President has now made a new goal for all of the missionaries. He wants us to do at least 25 contacts every week. Which probably doesn’t seem like that much, but for our mission it is. So I now have to try and accomplish this every week as well and I am not very good at that, because we have a ton of people to teach. And tons of things to do and now president is asking for more. But I will have to see I am not able to do so. But the best part about the Conference was the last talk that one of the assistants gave. He talked about the value of time. And it really got me to thinking….I only have eight months left. It seems like yesterday I arrived on the mission and all this time has already passed by. I felt like I am running out of time and really need to do the best that I can to be able to finish off with my head held high knowing that I did all that I could. But yeah….the conference was great!After the conference Elder Milkanin, Elder Teixeira, Elder Oxborrow (my son), and I snuck off and we took the bus to my last area where Elder Milkanin and I served together and we went to visit some of the people that we met there and everything. And it was awesome. We visited a few members that we learned to love in the area and we also went to visit João and Franciane, the amazing family that I was able to teach and baptized. And when I knocked on the door he came to the door all surprised and let me in and I was able to chat with them and take some pictures. It was really good, I really enjoyed be able to see them. And they are doing really good, they are firm in the church still and João got his first calling in the church the Sunday before I passed by. He is going to be the first or second counselor in the Sunday school. But I can’t remember exactly which one it is. But I really enjoyed visiting our last area. We should up at one ladies house and we scared her and she started crying because she was so happy to see us and I couldn’t help it. She had done so much to help us so we both gave her a hug. I know that it was breaking rules, but she deserved the hug for all the she does for the missionaries. We also tried going to the center of the city to buy some things that they don’t have here but I weren’t able to because of the traffic, which is why we almost lost the boat. So we went but to the mission office and we packed up and we left. But it was a good trip and I really enjoyed it. The only part that sucked was the boat ride, because it is a 25 hour trip. It was rough and you know that I am not exactly a real patient person so I didn’t really love the boat ride. But the moon was gorgeous and so were the stars, so we stayed on top story on the boat the entire night. And the boat was packed so I ended up practically sleeping in the same hammock as an old lady because she decided to put her hammock so close to mine. I got a little upset with that and thought about talking one side of her hammock of and letting her fall on the floor while she was sleeping. But I thought that might be a little rude, so I didn’t. But yeah after a huge trip on the boat we made it back into the city.And that is when the work started again and everything was awesome until we started finding out that some of the members starting talking bad a bout us and saying that we are in love with Carla and her sisters and planning on returning to marry them. This really pissed me off. They have a little problem in the branch with gossip and well somebody started this rumor up and so we passed a good week trying to fix that problem and on Sunday we were able to, but we lost a couple of investigators because of it. Carla´s parents no longer want to go to church because all the young women are saying all the things. And Carla’s mom told me it would be better if I don’t pass by her house anymore. So I can’t even teach her daughters anymore at their house, I have to teach them at their grandma´s house. It just caused a ton of problems. But yeah……it sucked and I was super pissed off at the branch for a few days before I was able to talk with the branch president and it seems like we are going to be able to get it under control. But we are looking to have a baptism next week if everything goes the way it is planned. We have been teaching a family for a while and they have been progressing but they just have a problem with going to church so if they go to church on Sunday we are going to baptize them but if they don’t then I won´t baptize them. Because I didn’t come on the mission to baptize people that are not doing to stay strong. We also have a couple of other people that are progressing and I am hoping to be able to mark their baptismal dates here pretty soon. But we will have to see how their progress goes.We saw a dead monkey yesterday and training is still the hardest thing that I have done on the mission. He struggles a lot with the language and I have to teach everything and do everything. I have been hoping that this is the first and last time that I train someone because I have no idea how to train and I feel like a chicken trying to swim. I have no idea how to do it and I wasn’t made to do it. So I am trying to do the best that I can, but I think that I am going to drown here pretty soon. But with the help of the Lord I just hope that my son can at least learn something from me. So pray for him if you can. But that is about all that as been going on; I hope that this letter makes up for last weeks. But I love you all and I hope that everyone has a great week. But I as able to have a little bit of a cool experience this past week. My companion and I gave a blessing to a really sick lady and after two days she said that she is feeling ton better. She had a huge pain in her stomach for the longest time, but said that she is finally starting to feel better after the blessing that we gave her and we are now teaching her and it is going pretty good with her.And mom…….as for the day that I am set to go home……..let my call the secretary and I will tell here in a second…………..I called the secretary and he isn’t a hundred percent sure yet because it hasn’t been planned yet, but I did the math and looked at the calendar and it looks like my last day on the mission will be the 23rd of March. So you could plan on arriving one day before or on the same day. It is up to you or sometime around there. And I loved the idea of Camille coming too. That would be awesome and what about Juston, how are things looking for him to be able to come as well. And I will be waiting your package with my glasses and the ensign and the goodies. And I never got that package yet, I think that it must be a different one, but I have no idea who it is from. Because I did receive one from you with my shorts and the jump rope and guess what? I am starting to lose a ton of weight last night I was looking to in the mirror and I saw my six pack for the first time in two years. Which is awesome! But I love you and I hope that Steven can get better, he is in my prayers and I tell him that I love him and have Camille give him a hug and a kiss on the forehead for me. I love you him and I hope that he can start feeling better soon. Give Kaya a hug for me and tell her that I love her and I miss you as well. And say hi to the ward for me, I love you and I miss you tons. Sorry I didn’t have any cool stories, but we are kinda low on those right now. But I love you and I will talk to you next week. LOVE YA!!!!With Love, Elder Jory B. Spotts

July 22, 2009

2009-07-23T05:38:00.000-07:00

Olá, eu espero que todo mundo esteja bem. Tivemos mais uma semana de trabalho, mas não foi uma semana tão boa. Mas estamos trabalhando e tentando fazer nosso melhor, mas eu sinto muito saudade de todo mundo. E não ajuda quando ouço que todo mundo está viajando e se divertindo sem mim. Well there is a little bit of Portuguese for you guys, but I will now in English so that you can all understand what I am saying. So this last week hasn’t been a really exciting week, it has actually been a difficult week. But we are making the best out of what we are given and we are trying to keep our heads up. I really don’t even know where to start. But let me think of what I can tell you all that is going on. We have been working a ton and really staying busy, but I am not going to lie. It doesn’t seem like things are going our way. We have been teaching a bunch but we aren’t having any amazing experiences. And being a trainer isn’t the easiest thing to do on the mission. You have to have a lot patience to be a good trainer. And I know that everyone at home knows that I am not the most patient person and I get frustrated quiet easily. So I am thinking that I have been called to be a trainer so that I can develop patience or at least try and develop it. My companion doesn’t know really how to do anything; he is trying to learn everything right now. He is just starting to get the hang of things and I have to do almost everything alone. It is just something that I am not used to doing. I am used to having somebody by my side that knows how everything works and supports me and helps me. But I am now trying to teach almost all the lessons alone and it is difficult, but I am learning and slowing trying to teach my companion. So with patience and a little bit of time things will start to get better. But I am being a little tested right now and am learning. I got sick on Thursday last week as well, but mom nothing to worry about, it is just a cold. I have been coughing; I have a sore throat, a stuffy nose, and at times a runny nose. And I have and a headache for the past few days. So that puts a little bit more stress on me. And I have been really exhausted lately because of the work and the sickness. But yesterday I was able to rest a little bit, because Elder Teixeira, he lives with me, decided to put his hand in the fan and it cut his hand all up. So we had got to the hospital and my companion with Elder Milkanin because they had appointments. So we went to the hospital and decided to return home and wait the other elders and I took a nap that I needed. And then I started feeling a lot better and am starting to feel a little bit better.And you will never believe what happened on Saturday, we went to this guy’s house and he was drunk. But he wanted to talk with us so we entered and I had no idea what to teach the guy because he was drunk. So I just asked him if we could start with a pray and I said the prayer, at least I think I said the prayer. But anyways during the prayer I felt like I should teach the word of wisdom, so I did. But the drunk didn’t like to be told that he shouldn’t drink. So he told me that God governs his life and I was going to tell him that God does govern his life and that God is telling him to stop drinking but he didn’t give me the chance. He threw us out of his house. On my son´s third day he got thrown out of a house and it was the first time for the two of us. But I have already been here for almost 1 year and 4 months and he has only been here for a few days. So it was an interesting experience for us both. But on Sunday we had a few great investigators go to church, we were able to take 9 people to church which is good. And I also got invited to visit the Seventh Day Adventist church so we are going to go to another church on Saturday morning just to see how false this ladies church is. But we have a few investigators that are progressing and will be baptized on the third of next month, or next week. We also found out the Carla´s parents believe that we are anti-Christ because she prefers to believe all the crap that she hears from everyone. But there is nothing that I can do, we will continue to pass by there because of the girls but I don’t think that I am going to teach he parents anymore because I am tired of looking at her face. But I love her and I hope that some other elders can pass by there in the future and help her feel the truth, because I have tried everything. But that was about the summary of our week. It was a difficult but interesting week. Hopefully this week will be a little bit better. But I hope that everyone is doing well. I am shocked to hear that Whitney has a kid……when I left she was single…..and now she has a family. It is just really weird for me to have to see things changing without being a part of it all. But the next time that you see her, give her a hug for me and tell her that I love her and tell her congrats as well. If possible, visit Adam for me and tell him that he is in my prayers and that I love him. I feel bad that he has to go through this; I wish that I could take the suffering away from him. But it is good that he is repentant and is willing to change his life. But give Grandma Norton and Roberts a hug for me and send a hug to Camille and Becky as well. I am way jealous that you get to spend time with them. I sure do miss them and love them too. But I will let you go and I will stop talking, but I love you mom and I miss you………..8 more months and I am going to give you the biggest hug a kiss ever. I love you tons mom. Send Kaya a hug and tell her to stay out of trouble. Love you ALL!!!!! Until next week.
With All the Love in the World,Elder Jory Brent Spotts

July 15, 2009

2009-07-15T14:08:00.000-07:00

Hey! How is everyone doing this week? I hope that everything is going well. It sure does sound like everyone is doing well. And so am i…things have been going pretty good here. We have been having some success and things have also been a little slow at the same time. But not a whole lot is going different. We had a pretty normal week this week. But let me fill you all in on everything. The assistants decided to come and visit us and work with us a little bit this week, so we worked with them for half of the week. Which was pretty cool. On Thursday we went to the jungle and we helped one of the members out. He just got down buying some land so we went to the land that he bought and we cleaned it up a little. We cleaned the house and we painted it and we cut the weeds in the front and we just cleaned up the yard a little bit. We actually ended up staying there almost the entire day. We even did some exploring in the jungle it was way rad. We cut down a bunch of bananas and we ate a ton of coconut and we had a blast. I was hoping to send some pictures but they are on my camera and I can’t take them off yet. But I will try and send some pictures some time soon. And I also forgot to tell you about some things that I ate these past few days. I ate Rocky Mountain Oysters, alligator, and cow tail. But I would have to say that alligator is the best out of the three. I actually think that alligator is one of the best meats that I have eaten in my life. I really liked it a lot; I even ate a ton of it…things that only happen in the Brazil Manaus Mission.And on Friday I had the best teaching day of the entire mission, I don’t know how…..but I managed to teach 13 lessons in one day. And usually I struggle to teach 5 or 6. I was also able to teach a few people that were really interested in our message. And one of my investigators said that he wants to be baptized and so does his wife. But they have to get married first, so we will have to help them out with that. But the work has been going good. I hope that it can keep going as good as it has.On Saturday we had three baptisms and the ward had two baptisms. Jessica, Jane Kelly, and Alzicleide we all baptized. They are Carla´s sisters and cousin. It was an awesome baptismal service; the only problem was that during the day some time the church ran out of water so the font didn’t fill up all the way. But we managed to get a hose and we pumped water from outside into the font so everything went great. The only problems with Carla’s family now are the parents. Apparently Carla´s testimony wasn’t enough. The parents have now started looking at the internet sites that talk bad about the church. So I am going to have some problems pretty soon, but hopefully sometime the mother will be touched by the spirit a little bit stronger. But I am not too worried because the girls have been showing a great example to their mother, they have been going to seminary and everything is going great with them. So I am excited about their progress and am a little bit worried about the parents.And well as of Saturday I also found out the Elder A. Oliveira wasn’t going to be my companion anymore. He got transferred on Monday and my new companion´s name is Elder Oxborrow, he is from Vegas and he just barely arrived from the MTC. I am his first companion and that means that I am training. I have now received the greatest responsibility that there is as a missionary, trainer. I am really nervous for that but I am also excited, it will be a new experience. But it is also going to be very difficult, because he doesn’t know anything; he only speaks a little bit of Portuguese. So I really need your prayers, so pray for me.But that is just about all that has been going on lately. My new companion arrived today and well that is just about it. But I am glad to hear that you were given the time off to be able to come and get me and I hope that Juston is able to come as well. I really wanted him to come too, because he really needs it. I just hope that he will be able to come, but we will see how everything turns out. And I am also glad to hear that Kaya is back with you, it sounds like she had a bunch of fun with Dad and his family in Alaska, but I hope that everything is going good for you guys and that you guys have a great trip to Blanding. Take some pictures and send them to me. Oh, and that reminds me that I need you to send me some things. My glasses broke and I think that I might need a new pair, I also wanted a copy of the May Ensign because I wasn’t able to get that from the Mission Office and they already ran out. But I think that is all that I need, but I hope that everything is going good and I wanted to tell you guys that I love you and I hope that everything goes great for you guys. Everything is awesome here; I am really enjoying the mission a lot more now. I love you and I miss you!
With Love, Elder Spotts
PS-Sorry this letter wasn´t as good as the last

July 8, 2009

2009-07-13T16:29:00.000-07:00

Well, one more week has gone by and things are going pretty good. We had a pretty good week this week. We received some pretty good blessings but we also had some difficult days. And right about now I am trying to remember just exactly what happened this week. But what I can remember was that it was a pretty good week. But I hope that everyone doing good. It seems like everyone had a great pretty good Fourth of July. I wish that I could have been there with you all but it isn’t exactly an option as a missionary. But I think that I did have a pretty good Fourth, Elder Milkanin and I sang the National Anthem which is just about all that we can do to celebrate. But yeah….on to the news of the weekThis week we started teaching a new investigator, Brisola. He is a young man that is really interested in the gospel and believes that the church is true. He went to church with us and is progressing really well and is wanting to join the church. So we are going to continue to work with him and see if we cant mark is baptismal date here pretty soon. The only problem is that he lives with his girl friend and she is pregnant so they will have to get married if he wants to be baptized. But things have been going great with him.We did have a great week with Carla´s family. They are starting to make more progress. Alzenira, the mother, really liked the message about the family and then on Sunday we decided to follow the guidance of our president. I received an email from president on Wednesday last week and he recommended that we read the Book of Mormon with them and pray about the Book of Mormon with them. The lesson actually started out horrible with them saying a bunch of ridiculous crap about the church and spirit wasn’t there. We answered their questions and stupid comments about the Book of Mormon. But it wasn’t helping because the spirit wasn’t there. But out of no where I don’t even remember what my companion said, but he said something and when we said it the spirit entered into the room. We testified about the Book of Mormon and with the spirit still in the room I asked Sildo, the father, to offer a prayer and asked God if the Book of Mormon is true. He did as I asked and the spirit was so strong. Even I received another answer that the Book of Mormon is true. I actually have never felt the spirit testify to me so strong about the BOM. After the prayer the girls were crying and I know that they felt and so do they. It was an amazing experience. But the parents didn’t feel anything. I even asked them if they were going to go to church and they said I don’t know. But the girls said yes. After the lesson we went home to grab some things for church. And we went to church. We passed a few houses first to grab some people but no one wanted to come with us. And when we arrived the Carla´s parents hadn’t arrived yet. So I figured they weren’t going to come but they did after the first hour. And well as it was fast and testimony meeting everyone bore their testimonies. I went up and I bore my testimony about the mission and how I have never felt so much joy in my life and sadness at the same time because of the people that accept and reject the gospel. And afterwards I sat down next to Alzenira and she turned to me and asked me if I feel sad after leaving their house sometimes and I told her yes. And I bore my testimony again to just her and after I got done talking with her, her daughter, Carla, got up to bear her testimony. And while Carla was talking, her mother started to cry. Her mother for the first time was touched by the spirit. It was awesome. We went back to their house last night to have her mother sign the paper for the girls to be baptized because the girls want to be baptized. Her mother said that she isn’t sure if the church is true. But she has a lot more of an interest in learning about the church she asked for the Church´s internet site and she even kept one of the Baptismal Papers and signed it. After signing it she looked at me and said I am going to keep this one. So that when I get baptized it is already signed. So she admitted that one day she will get baptized. So things have been going well. The girls will get baptized on Saturday and sometime in the future that parents will as well. Things have been going great. After she signed the papers my companion and I stayed there just talking with her for the longest time. And it was an awesome talk. I have to thank my Father in Heaven for touching her heart. After trying for so long He finally succeeded and I am receiving the blessings.I also had the opportunity to teach a little bit of the gospel in English. For the first time in forever, and boy was that hard. It has been forever since the last time that I spoke English to an American and I struggled A LOT. We ran into the American from Kansas on Monday night outside the house of a member waiting for our family night to start. And he told me that he was on a mission and he just wanted to argue with me but I didn’t let him. I just chatted with him and then started to teach after he said what he wanted. I struggled but was able to teach a little bit of the gospel in English. And it was a little bit interesting. He said a lot of truth as he talked with me, but he was missing a lot of the truth as well. Where just a lot of holes in what he taught, missing a lot of the truth. He believes that he are saved by the grace of Jesus Christ, which is true. But he doesn’t understand that we are saved by His grace after ALL that we can do. But I didn’t want to argue with him, I know that it was just going to cause problems. So I didn’t say anything about that. Just bore my testimony about Jesus Christ. But things have been going really well.We are also having some great success with the guy on the bike´s, Rosemir´s, family. The last time I was at their house I felt like I needed to invite them to be baptized, so I did and everyone accepted. So they are going to be baptized on the 25th of this month. They have been progressing pretty well. Even a member that has been helping us with them went to their house and had a family night with them without even warning us. But it turned out to help a ton. Things have been started to go a little bit better here. But that could change at any second. Because not everything is going perfect, the branch hasn’t been helping us very much and we have been having problems with the leaders. They just like to tell us what to do and just wait for us to break a little rule to judge us and criticize us. They worry way to much about what we do and not enough about the branch. But we are trying to work things out with them. But yeah things have been going good. I don’t really have time to go into details of the problems. But it has been difficult.But I hope that everything is going good for you mom. I sure do miss you and I wish that I could have been with you on the Fourth. But next year I will be there. And it sounds like Kaya will be coming home pretty soon so you won´t be alone any more. But I enjoyed you letter and the pictures. The city looks gorgeous and so does timpanogas. My companion enjoyed the pics too. But I love you and I miss you and just try and send the memory card when you can. I love you and I will talk to you next week. And send Melissa Louder a hug for me.
Thanks love you mom and send everyone else hugs as well.

July 1, 2009

2009-07-13T16:28:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been one more week and things seem to be about the same. and i am coming to realize that this is probably the hardest area that i have worked in on my mission. but i am holding in there and hoping that i will be blessed in the long run. but i hope that all is going good for everyone at home. i have been thinking about you guys a ton and now that the Fourth of July is coming up i a going to miss you guys and remember about the great times that we always have at the parade. but the bright side is that next year i will be back an the real party can begin. but we had another week and it went pretty well. Nothing to complain about. Latey we have been seeing a bunch of snakes around here and it has been heating up. we saw a snake yesterday at one of our investigator´s house and i didnt exactly like that. but whatever.....but i cant remember if i told you guys about the experience that we had last week. The experience about the man that was sitting on a bike and i felt like i should talk to him so i did. well we started teaching them and things are going pretty good with that family. they werent able to make it to church on Sunday because of the soccer game, Brazil vs. USA. this country lives for soccer and it is terrible trying to teach a lesson when the Brazil soccer team is playing, because no one wants to listen. but that game was pretty crazy, the USA almost won in the Final Game. all of the brazilians were shocked and almost crying when the States were beating Brazil 2-0 at half time. but then the states started playing worse and brazil started playing better and brazil won, 3-2. It was a really good game and it looks like the States will do good in the World Cup next taking second in the world in this tournament. And i will be at home to watch that as well. Oh and some new news with the mission. We just got word today that the mission is moving its boundaries and combining with another mission. so our mission is now bigger and has a lot more missionaries, which should be pretty cool. so i could not be transfered even further into the jungle now. The mission now covers 4 states here. Amazonas, Acre, Roraima, and Rondonia. As for the work and teaching in our....we are wrking and teaching, but we are having a lot of trouble finding people that really have the desire to serve and follow God. we have been teaching a few girls that want to be baptized but their parents wont let them, so we are now trying to teach their parents the messages so that they will let them. and the same family that we have been taching or a long time is having some troubles, Carla´s Family. Her sisters want to be baptized but their parents are fetching losers and dont want to be good examples for their daughters and the mother says a bunch of crap to them so they are scared of the mother. and i am started to get really impatient with the mother. but i just got a letter for President and he gave some good ideas to help. because the parents dont want to pray to know the truth. so we are going to read and pray with them. because i really like this family and i want them to accept the gospel. But it is hard for me to let them make their own decisions. because they have no idea what they are doing with their lives. they are going to regret it if the reject the gospel of the Saviour of the world. so i am trying to do my best to help them receive a testimony of gospel. But things have been going really good with Carla, she is the example in the house and we are working with her to help her family. She is now the Music Leader in the branch, which was weird because she doesnt even know how to lead music, so i have to teach her everyday how to sing the songs and lead at the same time. She lead the music for the first time in Sacrament meeting on Sunday and did a pretty good jobs. Her sister Jessica is also awesome, she wants to be baptized and went to seminary for the first time last night and loved it. She said that she is going to go again tomorrow. but we have been having trouble with the parents. so i am going to start being a little bit more serious with them and help feel the truth. But yeah.....i am thinking that that is just about all that has been going on. There was an activity in the branch on friday that didnt go to good because it started way late. but we had about thirty investigators there which is awesome. but the members didnt even talk with them or try to help them. so we got a little bit upset at that but we didnt sa anything because we cant. but things have been difficult in this area so pray for me and my companion so that everything can work out for us. but i think that is about all with things that have been happening around here. things are going good. just trying to do my part and hoping that success a long the way comes.It sounds like you have your hands full with work and things, sorry that i cant be there to help you out around the house. i looked at the blog and it is pretty cool, i didnt even worry about asking my president. because he will probably so no so i just looked at it with being told no. so if it was breaking the rules it was breaking the rules innocently. ;) but i hope that all is going well. i wish you a happy fourth of july, it will be my last. but give everyone hugs for me and tell them all that i love them. and my companion also wanted you to see if you could buy a memory card for the PSP, either a 2GB or a 1GB. Look at the prices and you decide....look for something that is around 40$ or so, but hopefully it turns out to be less. but i love you and have a great week. i will talk to you next week.
With Love, Elder Jory B. Spotts

June 24, 2009

2009-07-13T16:27:00.002-07:00

Dear Mom and Family, How is everything going? I hope that all is well and that everything seems to be going well. But it sounds like things are going pretty well for you and everyone at home. But things here going great and i have been feeling a lot better lately about the work and things are going. On Sunday we had 10 people go to church. Which was good, and things have been going a lot better with most of investigators. On Saturday we had a good lesson at Carla´s house. For a while we were struggling a lot there and it didnt seem like things were progressing, because they were reading and fulfilling every commitment that we left with them. But for some reason i wasnt able to feel the spirit at their house and we Just couldnt figure out what they were needing. But we finally remember that we didnt explain about the Book of Mormon to the mother, Alzenira, because she wasnt there the day that we taught about that. So on Saturday we decided to teach it again and it went perfect. The spirit was there and it was exactly what they were needing. And things seem to be going really well there. The daughters seem to want to be baptized, because they have already said so but we are having alittle bit of trouble with the parents. But we are going to continue and pray that the parents finally realize the truthfulness of the gospel. The next time we go we are going to try and mark their baptismal date but yeah, that is everything goes as planned. But i am feeling a lot better about the work and things have been going good. We had a few Young girls tell us that they want to be baptized, but the only problem there is that their parents dont want them to be baptized so we have to convince the parents first and then we can baptize them. But things are going pretty good.On Monday we had a pretty cool little experience. We were walking in the street and i passed by a man that was sitting on a bike and i didnt think anything of it. Then out of no where i felt like we needed to go talk to him. So we turned around and went back to talk with him. We explained about the church a little bit ando w God loves him and then i said that we would like to leave a message with him and his family. And He didnt even say Yes or no. He Just gave me his address and said that we could pass by whenever we wanted. So we went there yesterday and we felt the spirit really strong inside his house during the lesson. It was a great lesson and we are going to go back there on Thursday to teach them again. But yeah... i am trying to think of some other things that have happened that are pretty interest to fill you in on. Sorry that my letters really havent been that good that i heve written to you guys. I really dont like to write very much and i always forget about the cool things that happen during the week. But things have been going really good, and i hope that my letters will start getting better. We had a little bit of an interesting experience on Thursday last week. We were sitting in front of a members house chatting with her about the church because she is having some trouble because the members here arent very good examples for the people in this city and she doesnt want to go back to church because of that, and she doesnt want to take her fiancé to church either because of that. But we were chatting with her and leaving a message with her and out of no where we see like three men running in the street with HUGE knives and right behind them are the cops. We saw a chase!!! But the men entered in some weeds and got off of the Road so the cops slammed on their brakes and one decided to get out armed and chase after the guys with knives. So they ran into the woods and my companion looked and me and said listen for the gun shot. And no less than a few seconds after He said that we heard the BANG. Then the cops drove passed the members house again with three guys in the back seat. It was pretty crazy to hear that and witness that. And right now we have a member that is wanting to feed us rocky mountain oysters because they eat weird things here like that. Today the US soccer team is playing Spain in the world cup selections , you probably dont even know about that. And they Will be playing in the semifinal, which is pretty cool and that game will be today. Oh and i found out on Wednesday last week that one of my investigators likes me and wants to date me. But i had to explain to her that missionaries cant do that. But yeah.....Summer is also coming here. We have been experiencing some REALLY HOT weather lately which isnt to exciting. That is one thing that i am definelty not going to miss.......the hot weather. I hate the Sun, all it wants to do is burn me and make we sweat a ton. But that is Just the way that things go here. But ever since the Zone Conference i have been feeling a lot better about the work. I have been able to feel the spirit a lot better and things are going good. And i have also recently stopped reading the scriptures and i starting actually studying them. Looking at the footnotes every chance that i get and i have been learning a lot. It is incredible the things that you can learn and realize looking at the footnotes. I have learning more and more about the way taht God works and teached His children, i have been getting to know Him so much better. It is pretty RAD!!!But yeah......it seems like things have been pretty interest at work. You had a guy put a pen in is his butt and now some guy hung himself. It sure does seem like you have got your hands full there. And i thought that Kaya already had her drivers license, but i guess not. And let her know that she cant put any stupid stickers on the car because i dont want to have to take them off when i get home. Dont let her put any bumber stickers on it. And it seems like everything is ready with the PSP, and my companion will be excited to hear that. And when you send it, dont send it in the original Box. Take the PSP out and everything that comes with it and put it in a different box and you can put it in any name it doesnt matter. Either way he will get it and he will pay me too. But my companion does want to know a little bit about the PSP. The color and the accessories that come with it, so in your next letter describe it to me a little bit. And i think that is Just about all that i have to write. I really cant think of anything else. But everything has been going really good. I miss you and i Love you and i will talk to you next week. Stay out of trouble and keep up the good work. Give everyone hugs for me and i will talk to you next week. I Love you and i miss you.
With Love, Elder Jory B. Spotts

June 17, 2009

2009-07-13T16:27:00.001-07:00

Hey Mom! How is everything going? i hope that all is well. things here are going pretty good and it isnt my fault that you didnt get a letter from me, because i had written you a huge letter and when i went to hit that send button the internet stop working and i didnt get to send it. so did get upset because it wasnt my fault. but it was probably a good thing that you didnt get it because it just talked about a ton of negative things. Because i have been struggle a little bit lately and it has been hard. My patience has trully been being tested lately because a lot things are started to go wrong here. the members have stopped helping us and it is difficult without them. Our teaching pool is small because no one wants to go to church, they just like our visits and i cant keep teahing people that just like to hear. they have to progress our i have to let them go. we are having some trouble with Carla´s parents. we dont exactly know what is going on there but we are still teaching them and the daughters all want to get baptized and the are progressing and fulfilling all of the commitments that we leave with them. but the mother is scared of being baptized and the father doesnt want to accept the Book of Mormon as the word of God. but i am not playing around anymore i am getting a little frustated with them and i am going to be straight forward with them from now on. but we did travel by boat again, we actually just got off the boat because we had Zone Conference again. and it was really good. It helped me out a ton, i felt like everything was said directly to me. President talked about the importance of every soul and also the importance of trials. and i was struggling for a little while to believe that i am that important to God and that He had lost confidence in me. but after Zone conference and my interview with President i am feeling a thousand times better. and hope that we will be able to get back to week this week and find some people to teach. The trip to Itacoatiara was pretty good too. On the way there we had clear skies and we were able to see all the stars. so the four of us missionaries laid on top of the boat and just looked at the stars and talked the whole night. it was a gorgeous night and it felt good to just relax and forget about all the stress that the mission brings. and while we were in Itacoatiara we went around visiting a bunch of members after the conference with Elder Milkanin(one of my old companions) and i met some pretty sweet people. i met a family that had recently traveled to the other side of the country to get sealed in the temple. and they are a very humble family with a small house and not a lot of money. and they were happy and talked about the experience they had in the temple and how it was the greatest thing that had ever happened to them. it was pretty cool. the trip went pretty well. the only thing that sucked was that we had to wait on the ship port for 3 hours to catch the boat go come back to Maués. and the boat was PACKED full of people. i ended up sleeping on the ground at the port for a long time at 1 o´clock in the morning and i was way tired. i am still pretty tired because of two trips. And as for the baptism.....it went well. but she almost didnt get baptized because of her mother. her other signed her Church record and was cool with the baptism. but she kept talking to carla about it and she tons of stuff and well Carla went to the interview crying telling us that she wasnt going to be baptized because of her mother. but we talked to her and she decided to do it and it went really well. now we are just going to try and help her family out. but we are going to need the help from the Lord to be able to help them understand the importance of baptism and the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. but yeah......just pray for me every day because i need the prayers. and as for the PSP......my companion wants a white one if you can find one, but if not then you than just buy a black one or whatever color. and you can go ahead and send it in his name......Elder A. Oliveira. and he wants the psp that has a microphone and that costs around $200 or cheaper. he doesnt want anything more expensive than that. and go ahead and send it with the Halladays(the family in grandma´s ward) and it should get here some time next month then. and well i dont know what else to tell you about that. but yeah.....Well everything is going pretty good and i hope that this letter makes up for the one that didnt make it last week because the internet fell. so dont be mad at me because it wasnt my fault. and say hi to the new neighbor for me. and what do you mean that he is doing to help me with my grants and schooling stuff, because we are going to have to start looking into that here pretty soon. because i want to be able to start studying as soon as possible when i get home which means that i am going to have to get prepared and you will have to take care of all that stuff while i am on the mission. but yeah....sorry that you are a lone. if i could i would totally come home and give you company, but that is kind of hard because i am on the mission. but i love you and i miss you and i will write you next week. Love you and give everyone hugs and kisses for me. talk to you later.
With Love, Elder Spotts

June 3, 2009

2009-07-13T16:26:00.000-07:00

Well i am going to have to apologize in advance, because i am not going to be able to write a big letter because we have to go to the airport to pick up the new elder that was transfered to here. i am staying with my companion for atleast one more transfer which will be cool. he is an awesome missionary and we have tons of fun. but we did lose an elder in our district because he was tranfered to the city. but one of my old companions will be coming here and him and i are going to be able to live in the same house together which will be tons of fun. and things here have been about the same. the family that we have been teaching is still progressing and we are looking to mark their baptismal dates, we just havent quite felt like it was time yet. but Carla will be baptized on the 13th of this month. so not saturday, but next saturday. but yeah.......other than that not a whole lot has been going on. our other family fell through and things just arent working out there very well, we really dont know what is going on there. but we are still visiting them to see what we can do to help them. but Carla´s family has been awesome. they always ask so many questions and always comment on what they learn from the Book of Mormon and things have been going really well. i am falling in love with this family and really hope that we will be able to baptize them. the only problem is that we will have wait to get them married because they arent married and he has to divorce from his ex-wife too. but he is going to do that this month and we will see what we cant do to help them. but yeah we also played soccer again today and that was fun. but yeah.....i really cant think of anything else to write, but i love you and thank you for the pictures and i will send an email to grndma telling her to let you take money out of my account to help my companion buy the PSP. but i love you and i hope that verything is going great. love you and i miss you all]
With Love, Elder Jory B. Spotts

May 27, 2009

2009-07-13T16:25:00.000-07:00

Well first i want to thank you for the letter, because it was a good one. which means that i will forgive for last week. but how is everything going? is sure seems like everything is going really well for you guys there. Having fun, going to the Zoo, and playing around. which is always good. we do the same thing here when we want to have a little bit of fun. like today for example we played some soccer and had some fun, and it is pretty good having a district that is awesome. we always joke around and have tons of fun, but it doesnt interupt our work. our district has been having a baptism every week and we have to thank Our Father in Heaven for that. Because very week we are able to find some one that is interested in moving their life. and that is one thing that i have really been able to see on my mission. The gospel moves livs and blesses people beyond anything that you can imagine. i am really gratful for the gospel and for the opportunity that i have been givn to serve in this area. last week we had a really good week. the assistants arrived last week and they stayed with us until monday morning. they came to see how the work is going and how we are doing. we had a lot of fun with them but also we got a ton of stuff done. and as you know that two of old companions are assistant and well one of them came here and i was able to work with him. it was pretty cool being able to work with him again. but yeah.....as for our week....... We started the week out with marking four baptisms. A family that we had been teaching for a long time but we had stopped teaching them because they werent progressing. but on Sunday last week they came to church without an invitation. so we marked their baptism for next week and if everything goes well they will all be baptized. and then on the same day we starting teaching an incredible family, Carla´s family. Carla is friends with a recent convert and we started teaching here two weeks ago. but we were only teaching her and then she told us that her family wanted to hear our message. so we went there and we taked with all of them. they are a family of 5 and their cousin is living with them right now. and they are just an awesome family. they went to to church and are progressing everyday more and more. all the kids have said that they know that everything that we have been teaching is true. and the mom also received an answer to her prayer. but the father hasnt prayed yet. and you know how they are.....they are always the hardest to teach. but tonight we are going to mark their baptismal date, knowing that the kids will accept and praying that the spirit has already touched the father´s heart.I also want to tell you a little bit about Carla. she is way cool.....she is 17 and already has a strong testimony of the church and is a great help and example for her family. She already loves to do missionary work and is always living with the other members to visit investigators and recent converts and less active members. On Sunday she brought a family of recent converts to church. she went to their house to take them to church. it was a first for me, i have never seen an investigator take recent converts to church. she also has given us a couple of referrals and went with us one day to her cousins house....one of her referrals. we left the message with her and then Carla said the closing prayer. and it was a pretty dang good prayer....she asked that her cousin could make it to OUR(meaning her church as well) church and also that her cousin could feel the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon.....i couldnt believe that she is already calling The Church Her church. and her cousin is way funny too. she is a fourteen year old girl and you know how they are. hey way they talk and the way the act. well yeah.....we were at their house on Monday and we were answering their questions. and she always asks tons of questions. and so she started.......she asked us if God really forgives us when we repent. so we explained to her that He does. then she asked if we can trick God into believing that we have repented but in our hearts we really havent. so we explained that God knows our hearts and knows our deepest desires and even our thoughts and He knows when we have really repented. and then came the last question......But how does know our hearts when our heart is only a red ball full of blood?.......and i couldnt help myself, i started laughing my head off along with everyone else. it was really funny, and she always asks us things that that too. but on monday night we had a great lesson there. we had a little bit of a testimony meeting there, because a few members showed up to help out with the lesson. so all nine of us bore our testimonies. and it was a really good thing too, because it helped them feel the impact that the church has had on all of our lives. Our Ward Mission Leader used to be a drunk that always past out in the street and slept in the street and now is a leader in the church and helps us out a ton. we was really good to be able to also bear my testimony to them. because it has been awhile since the last time that i was able to bear my testimony like that. i was able to tell them how i gained my testimony and i cryed and it felt good to do so. alot of the family was crying there because the spirit was so strong, it was awesome. i love the mission, there is no other place that i would want to be. i mean i miss my family and my friends and a lot of things that i used to do at home. but i have never felt so happy in all my life. the gospel is true and it is because of the gospel that i am able to enjoy happiness. i have had a lot of struggles in my life and i know that there are other people in the world that have had worse or more struggles than i have. but i know that anybody can receive happiness beyond there wilderness dreams through the gospel. i know that Joseph Smith was called to be a prophet, like Moses and Noah and Adam and Enoch and all the holy prophets from the Scripture. Jesus is the Christ and it because of Him and His love that i am able to say all of this. it is because of all the He as done. On the earth and in the Heavens, because He is no longer on the face of the earth. but He continues to guide this church through a living Prophet of God who is Thomas S. Monson. i love you all and i hope that everything is going for everyone in the states. i miss you all but i love being a missionary. but yeah.... think that that is all that i have to say for the time being. but pray me and pray for my investigators and pray for everyone so that they may all be able to come unto the marvelous light that is the gospel. love you and until next week. Hugs and Kisses to all!!!!!
With Love, Elder Jory B. Spotts

May 20, 2009

2009-07-13T16:24:00.000-07:00

Well i am not going to lie. i am little upset that you didnt write this week. i mean it cant be that hard, i am the only son that you have on a mission. and i thought that you worried about me, but now i really know how it is. but no matter how mad i am i decided to write you a letter, and i almost didnt. but yeah.......How are things going? i hope that everything is going good. i sure do miss you guys and love you all too. how is kaya doing? how is work? are you still having tons of crazt things going on there at the prison? you better be careful in there, because you are the only mom that i have and i couldnt substitute you. i love you too much and am too grateful for everything that you do. But things here are going pretty good. today we played some soccer and we had some fun with that. but i decided to try and play like true brazilian, without shoes....barefoot, and well that was a bad idea. i was having a ton of fun in the beginning but then i decided to scrap my foot on the ground and i took a chunk out of my big toe. and my feet ar hurting a little it right now. but we had a ton of fun. We also had two baptisms on friday and things are going really good here. staying busy and getting exhausted everyday. but that is the life of a missionary. On Sunday i also managed to fall on my butt walking down a small hill in the rain and it happened right before church so i went to church with a muddy butt. and my companion and i also managed to laugh at a guy that doesnt know how to talk like at all. my companion started laughing at him and i couldnt help but laugh and then the guy starting laughing too. it was a little funny and my companion felt terrible afterwards. but i couldnt believe that he was laughing at him. but things are going really good. today i am hoping that i will be able to receive some letters and my package that you sent me because the assistants are arriving here today and they are going to stay here for a while. and my old companion Elder Parker called me and told me that he baptized thre people that i was teaching and i also marked their baptismal date before i was transfered and he is going to baptized to ladies that are just awesome here pretty soon. and one of them is going to come to the city where i am next month because her brother lives here so i am pretty excited to see her. but yeah i really dont have a lot to say, but i love you and i miss you. and if you dont send me an email next week i am not going to write you either. i am just warning right now. but i love you mom and i hope that everything is going good with you and kaya. i will talk to you next week......i hope.
With Love, Elder Jory B. Spotts

May 13, 2009

2009-07-13T16:23:00.000-07:00

Hey! how is everyone doing? i hope that everyone is going good. it was good to talk to you guys on Sunday. i was able to talk to juston for like twenty or thirty minutes and it was good. i really enjoyed talking with him. we were able to laugh together and just chat a little. it was good to talk to him, but i dont know. it looks like he is going to a different church now. he says that the church is really weird, but he likes it there because the people accept him for who he is. it just really upsets me that the TRUE CHURCH of God cant accept him as a sinner. i talked to dad a little bit about that and it just made me upset to here how the people treat him in the TRUE CHURCH. i just hope the i dont ever witness someone judge him, because i will get very upset and i wont let that happen. i just cant believe that people cant understand that the church is a place for sinners. it is a place that the Lord created while He was on the earth to PERFECT the saints. i just cant wait until i get home......but things here are going really good. i love the mission and i love everything that i am learning. we fasted on monday and that was good. and we are trying to be able to find some people that are waiting to hear the gospel. people that are going to follow the Lord and not the world. we played some basketball today and that was pretty fun. but we did have a really good day of work on Monday, but tuesday was terrible. somedays we are able to teach a ton and have great lessons. others we teach little and the lessons just arent as good. but we just have to continue working with patience. But things have been going pretty good. it seems like things are going pretty good for you guys there. i really enjoyed talking with you guys. but i really cant think of anything to tekk you guys, because we chatted on Sunday. but yea.....i hope that everything is going good for you guys, i love you and well. i received an email from Justin Oberg and Matt . it is alwas good to hear from them and i wont you to continue to send my emails to them so that they can know what is going on here. i think that i am going to write Matt a letter today and i hope that it will arrive to him fast as well. but yeah. today i am running out of things to say but i love you all. i know that the CHurch is true and i really grateful for the opportunity that i have to serve the Lord here in the Amazon. it is hot and i sweat a lot and a lot of times the people dont want to acceot our message. but we keep walking each day and the people that do want to hear are put in our path. we just have to open our mouths and teach them and let the spirit touch there hearts. i am so grateful for the Spirit and the help that he gives us. it is through him that we learn and we grow. as we apply the things we learn from him and as we cultivate our seed we grow more amore each day and some day, our tree will give fruit and it will white, whiter than any other thing. The Fruit being the fruit that Lehi tasted......Eternal Life. i pray that all of you and i can work hard toward tasting this fruit. i want to taste with you all. i dont want to taste it a lone.....i love you all and i hope taht everything is going good for you all. the gospel is true. LIVE IT!!!!! Never let the gospel be an influence in your life, but turn it into the essence of you life.....do everything that you can to become closer to God each day. give your plant water each day. i love you all and hope that you have a great day and week.
With Love, Elder Jory B. Spotts

May 6, 2009

2009-07-13T16:22:00.002-07:00

Hey! How is everyone doing? how was your week this week? i hope that everything is going good. things here have been alright. the trip on the amazon was pretty cool. i didnt see any monkeys though because we were going so fast on the river, but we were able to see some tucans(but didnt get picture of them) some fresh water dolphins, sting ray, and a ton of trees and birds and houses full of water, and some boats and a HUGE ship too. i wasnt able to get any pictures of any animals because we were moving so fast but i did take about 50 or pictures and i will try and sendsome to your guys. i will be going to Manaus sometime soon to renew my visa and i will need to buy a cable to be able to send pictures to you guys through the internet and it will be much easier. but you will just have to wait until i go to the city, which should be some time soon. But things are going really well here, we are having a little bit if trouble finding people that are ready to hear the gospel and are willing to follow it. so we are looking and trying to find people to teach. but with patience and hard work we will find them. but things are going good. we will have a baptism next week, atleast we are planning on having it if nothing goes wrong until then. We had zone conference and that went really well. i really enjoyed the trainings that we received and hope that it will be able to help me out. And i am excited to drive my new car when i get home now. atleast that will happen if Kaya decides to take good care of it. Do you think that she is capable of that? teach her how to be smart with my car please. and hey what the heck is this that i hear about the Pig Flu of something like that. it would be nice to have a little bit of information on that. because all i hear is that everyone is dying in the United States, because that is what passes on the news. but yeah just fill me in on that.And also forgot to tell you that i was able to play with a monkey here, because he lives on our street here. but he doesnt let you take pictures. every time you reach for your camera he makes an ugly face and runs and hides. but monkeys are really weird, they are exactly like people. but they have hands for feet and really strong tails. but yeah.....So i hear that Brandon is finally going to get married. That is awesome, but i just have one question.......Why the heck does everyone have to get married while i am gone and cannot be there? that is absolutely ridiculous. but i guess that is life, i am sure that when i arrive home no one is going to get married. but whatever......congradulate him for me and tell him that he sucks because he planned on getting married while i am on the mission. and tell him that i atleast want a wedding invitation. But things are going good and i now know that i definetly will not be getting your package for a little while longer, because it hasnt arrived yet and i wont be going to the city anytime before mothers day. but that is alright and about calling to you. i will call you on sunday and then you can call me back. and being that i dont know what time you hav church on sunday i think that you will miss church to talk to me because we have church at night and i cant call during church, so i will have to call you in the morning at like 7:00 your time so that you can try at make it to church. so be ready to answer the phone at 7:00 in the morning. And i will tell you one thing that is really annoying......trying to take mony out of your personal account when it doesnt work. so i dont have any mony right now. becuase i had to buy some new shoes and i bought a hammock for the boat ride as well. because th boat ride was 11 hours and it was over night. so i ran out of cash and well the ATM here sucks. i have tried a bunch of times but it doesnt work. but yeah.....i will get money from the church tomorrow. so i will starve for one more day. jk my companion is buying things for me because he has a little bit of cash.But i am now running out of things to say, but i hope that you are still sending my emails to those people that i told you. Josh, Matt, Justin, and Sherra. but i hope that everyone is doing good and tell Kaya to write me. she doesnt hav any excuse to not write. but i love you and i will talk to you next week. Love you and i miss you.
With Love, Elder Jory B. Spotts (O Cara....Mano)

April 29, 2009

2009-07-13T16:22:00.001-07:00

Hey! well i hope that all is well with everyone there. i dont know exactly what is going on there with juston and everyone. but i know with certainty because i feel it, that the Lord will take care of him and that everything will be alright in the end. i hope that i can have the opportunity to talk to juston on mothers day as well. but we will have to see how that all works out and if president will let me call dad as well. but i will be with president on Monday because we are going to have Zone Conference. which means that our district here in Maués is going to have the opportunity to travel tens hours by boat to the city where they are going to have Zone Conference. and i am pretty excited about that. the Zone leaders called me last night to tell me that and i got support excited. because there are very few elders that get the opportunity to travel by boat on the amazon river. it is going to be awesome. But this week wasnt a super amazing week. right now i am getting used to my new area and trying to get the hang of being DL and Senior. but things have been going really well so far. we have been able to find a few people that are ready to hear the gospel. we are teaching one lady that is trying to find a church and is looking to get baptized and is really interested in the church. and we all know that when someone is searching with an open heart they are going to feel the truthfulness of the gospel. so we are teaching her and just whating for her to have this answer so that we can mark her baptism. but things here are going really well. i really like this area and the people.....i wont lie we arrived home a little late last night because we last track of time and we talking with a member family that lives on our street. and their daughter is going to go on a mission in June. but the area is awesome and i really like it. the city is on the river bank and it is just beautiful. i am going to try and send you guys some pictures but it is going to be harder now because of were i am. but i am going to see what i can do to try and send some to you all.My companion and i are doing good as well. he is way awesome and things are going really well. today we are going to enjoy P-day but we arent sure what we are going to do. we might do see the other side of town where i havent been yet or we are just going to stay at home. but either way i am happy. we are also going to start teaching english today at the church to see if we cant find some investigators doing that. and by the way the people here LOVE americans. the girls in this city are crazy for them. when you shake their hands you have to yank your hand away from them because they wont let go and they just giggle and tell you that they love you all the time. it is ridiculous. but things are going good. but i really dont have any news or anything that is going on. i am just getting the hang of everything right now. but things are going good and i love you all. oh and is Zech still living with you or is he living in Alaaska? but yeah love you and i will talk to you all next week.
Com Amor, Elder Jory B. Spotts

April 22, 2009

2009-07-13T16:21:00.000-07:00

Hey mommry and everyone else that reads this email. i hope that everything is going good for you all. things in brazil are going pretty good. and sorry about nt putting details in the dead body story. but after we saw it we keep on walking and met up with the other elders and told them about it and they went to see it and they called the police. but you guys have to understand that the police dont give a crap. they had the guts to tell the other elders that it was a dog. but that is BS because i say it with my own eyes. the police here get payed by the drug dealers and all those guys. and a half an hour after the elders passed by the body we passed the same area and it wasnt there anymore so i have no idea what happened. but i am pretty sure that no one cares where the head is. all they think about is that he is dead and there isnt anything they can do about it. But anyways......how is everything going? how did the jazz game go? how is kaya? when did you buy a dog for her? and what did you do wih Bruiser? i hope you didnt sell him because i will be very upset at you. how is the family? how is grandma roberts? i need to write her. but yeah......how is the ward? how is justin oberg? you should stop by his house some time if you ever have any time to tell him hi and see how he is doing. but things here are going pretty good. yesterday i got transfered again.....and i am a long ways away from the city now. i am now in the city called Maués. it is a small interior town that is in the middle of the jungle. the only way to get here is either by boat or by plane. so i arrived yesterday by plane, but i was a little sad to leave my last area. i really loved mmy last area. i learned so much in that area and the members are just awesome and the people that i baptized and taught. i really will miss it......a lot. but my new area seems to be really good. it is way beautiful here and it is a small town, it reminds me of alaska because of the size and it is so quite here as well. i really like here so far, it has only been one day. but i am sure that it will be awesome here, there are a ton of mosquitos here and that is way annoying. but it is way cool. i also like my companion as well( Elder A. Oliveira a brazilian).but i did receive a few shocks from the transfer, i received a couple of new callings as a missionary. i am now the senior companion but that isnt all, i am also distruct leader. because this city only has four missionaries so it has to have two district leaders to do the baptismal interviews and i am now one of them. which came as a shock to me because i wasnt expecting it and dont think that i am read for that. but things are going good here and i am loving the mission. but i also wanted to share another experience with you guys. i hadnt said anything about this one yet because it was a growing experience. but i will now share it with you guys.....on saturday we had a baptism and it was a baptism of a young man that turn 20 yesterday. he has a desire to serve a mission and is an inspiration to me. i will now start from the beginning, the first time that i met him. i was with one of the greatest elders i have served with Elder Del Guerso and we went to visit this young man. and Del Guerso hadnt said anything about it. but we walked into his house and a member was there. she has asked us to visit him because he hadnt been doing very well. i dont even know how to say this, but he was possessed by a demon. he passed a few days without having any control over his body, and he wasnt doing very good at all. i dont even know how to describe it, it wasnt very pretty. but we decided to leave a message with the family and give him a priesthood blessing. afterwords we left and the next time saw him he walked into the doors at the church perfectly fine. but he wasnt a hundred percent, he was a little slow. he wasnt able to think fast and was quite and didnt understand everything that people said to him. but we started teaching him and he struggled with praying. he just wasnt able to pray very well at all. but he had the great desire to learn about the church and to be baptized. the first question he asked us was that.....How do i get baptized?....and so we taught him for a few weeks, about a month or so. and he kept progressing more and more until he got baptized on saturday and now he has the desire to serve a mission. and on monday i was able to visit him for the last time and say good bye. and he said the closing prayer.....and he said the most beautiful prayer that i have ever heard. it was absolutely incredible. tears filled my eyes during the prayer, because i was able to see his great effort. he struggled, but continued doing what we asked him and he progressed so much. he started laughing with us and talking more and its was just awesome to be able to be a small part of his life. i will never forget about him and i hope that he is able to serve a mission here in about a year. his name is Abelardo Torres de Farias Neto.i will never forget him. but things are going really well and i am so grateful for the opportunity that i have been given to serve the Lord during these two years. the time has gone by so fast and will be home in only 11 months, but it has been an experiencing of a lifetime. i am so grateful for it all, the difficulties and the great experiences. it is awesome. and i hope that everything is going really well for everyone at home. i sure do miss you guys but i also love this place. it is way hot and i am a long ways away fro my family but i still love this plce. but i think that i will let you all go and i wil talk to you all next week, and i ate armadillo again but this time it tasting good and next week we are going to eat turtle, and we saw a monkey today. but i didnt take a picture. but love you all and give everyone a hug for me i love you and i miss you.
Com Amor, Elder Jory B. Spotts

April 15, 2009

2009-07-13T16:20:00.000-07:00

Hey Mom! how is everything going at home? how has Kaya been doing? i hope that she is doing good. it sounds like you guys had a blast over the weekend and during the holidays. i sure wish that i could have gone with you guys to see all the things that you guys saw. things here have been going pretty good here. i have had a couple more experiences. one interesting and the other amazing. but yeah....that would great if you could get those things sent to me pretty soon, i am really needing them. but i hope that you had a happy birthday and you were able to have a little bit of fun. well this morning my companion went to the mission office to renew my visa but it looks like i dont have to renew it until next month. so it was a little bit annoying going to the mission office and not having to do anything. but things here have been going pretty good. i guess that i could get on to the experiences now.......well last thursday we had the interesting experience and well you have to promise that you are not going to get worried i am not going to tell you......do you promise?.....alright i will tell you then. well we were walking in the street and we had to cross this river thing(igarapé) and under the bridge in the water we saw a headless dead body........and i am not kidding either. i didnt believe it at first, but after the second look i knew for sure. because it had arms and pects and had the shape of a human body, except for the head. and it had been then for a while....it was really white and ugly. so that was the interesting experiences that we had......now for the amazing story. so on saturday....two days after the dead body experience. we were visting with one of our investigators and we were seeing if she had accomplished the commitment that we left with her the day before(i dont know if i worded that right, but i tried. i just dont have the ability to think in english anymore).and the committmet was to read and pray about Joseph Smith, and well she told about the experiences that she had. she told us that the night before she read and prayed before going to sleep. and she didnt just pray but she really prayed to know. and she had an amazing experience. during the pray she described the feelings that she had and they are the feelings that the spirit brings when he is with us, a warm feeling in the chest, goosebumps, and she also started crying. she said that after the pray she still kept crying and she couldnt get to sleep. but after finally getting to sleep she had a dream that is incredible. she dreamed that she was in a forest and she was seated on a laid down tree in the middle of the woods. and right in front of her she saw Joseph Smith enter into the wooded area and kneel down and pray. she then described two angels that came to him and talked with him, she descrbed the first vision. and then after her dream she heard a voice that said.....You have now seen what you wanted to see. Now do you believe?........after i heard that i was astonished. i didnt know what to say. but i just kept thinking about it after the lesson and i started to feel a little jealous. because i realized that i had prayed tons of times to know about the truth of the prophet Joseph Smith but i never had any experience like this. and i thought to myself and then said it to my companion......what the heck? i have been praying about that experience for my entire life and never saw anything like that and she goes and prays one time and SEES it.........i just couldnt believe it at first but it is amazing that she had such a strong answer. she even said that she is confused because she always learned one thing as a child and now that she has received an answer she cannot deny that all she learned was false. she went to church on sunday and really enjoyed it. the next time that we go there we are going to mark her baptismal date. i just am so grateful for the opportunity that the Lord has given me to serve a mission here in Brazil, and to have such amazing experiences like this one. it was awesome to hear her explain the feelings that she felt and the things that she saw. but that was my week. other than that nothing has really happened. we are still teaching and still trying to baptized and also help the recent converts. João who we baptized on the 28th is going to receive the Melquisedeque( i dont know how to spell it in english) Preisthood in two weeks. and if i dont get transfered on the 21st i am going to ask the bishop to let me be the one to give it to him and i know that he will let me. he is just an amazing person and his family as well. they are already planning on going to the temple next year. he was telling us that he hates to go on long bus rides but he is going to have to travel to venezuela in a year to go to the temple. i love this area. i love the members and the investigates and everyone that is here. i am going to cry when i have to leave, and i think that i will cry a lot. it is the worst part about the mission, having to say goodbye. but i love the mission and i am grateful for the time that i have to serve the Lord. and time is now starting to run out. Monday i had a rough day but made it though one more day like that. you know how it is......those days suck but all the others are amazing. but i love you and i have got to get going. i want you also to send this letter to steven taylor, josh pickering, matt mclean, and justin oberg. because i cant write to them by email, but tell them that they can write me and tell me how things are going with them but i cant send emails to them. but things are going really good here. in less than 50 weeks i will be at home looking for a wife!!! yeah!!!! haha jk. but i love you mom and dont cry to much. i love you and tell kaya that i love her too and that i miss her. give her a hug for me too.
love you With All My Love, Elder Jory B. Spotts

April 8, 2009

2009-07-13T16:19:00.002-07:00

Hey! how is everyone doing? how is the sports world? how is the family doing? i got your package on monday night. i love the pajama pants. they made a little trunky, because i thought about juston a ton. i sure to miss him soo much. it is really weird, because i love you all and i miss you all a ton. but i miss him the most, me and my companion we talking about our brothers a couple of nights ago. because he has a twin brother and he said the same thing. he misses his brother more than anyone else. we talk a ton about how juston and i used to have boxing matches and we used to fight a ton. but i just miss that rebelious child so much. it is weird, but he has a lot of qualities in him that i wish i had. i really think that he is a better person than i am, he has more love for other people that i do. atleast i think that. and i sure do miss him a ton. i wish that he would write me more. i sent him a letter last week too. but i do miss you all. kaya......i cant believe that she is going to go on her first official date today. that is so weird to me. and you mom.....you are getting old. you are going turn 47 next week. what a HUGE number!? next year i am going to need to buy you a wheel chair and take you to the old folks home. that is going to be weird letting someone take care of you all the time. but it will be good for you because you have the necessity. haha jk. i love you mom. but you are getting a little old. in a couple of years you are going to be a grandmother. Já pensou???(have you already thought about that?) but yeah.....things here have been going pretty good. i loving the mission. this weekend i really enjoyed conference. we were able to watch every session of conference. i really enjoyed practically all the talks. but a couple stick out in mind......Elder Neil L. Anderson and Elder Jeffery R. Holland. i really enjoyed the spirit that i felt as the gave their talks. i could feel that Elder Anderson was called of God to be the new apostle. he is such a humble and spiritual man, i really enjoyed his talk. i also enjoyed the amazing spirit that i felt while Elder Holland talked about last week of Christ´s life. i could seriously feel the love of the Saviour surround me as he talked. i really enjoyed it, and i also enjoyed Elder Bednar´s talk on the Temples and so many others as well. but i am sure that you really enjoyed it as well. and mom.....is it just me or do your letters seem to be getting smaller and smaller? what is it, now that i have a year on the mission you just wanna wait till i get home to tell me everything is that it? well fine......i guess i will have to start doing the same thing. jk but thank you for the package i really enjoyed it, the pop rocks were the best. i shared the pop rocks with our Ward Missionary Work Leader and he really enjoyed them. he is brazilian and just thought they were the coolest thing. i also gave him a ton of candy, because i shouldnt be eating all that candy. i have already gotten fat enough. i think that it has been awhile since you saw a recent picture but i have gained all the weight that i lost at the beginning. so i am trying to lose it all right now. that is why i asked you to send me a few things, that you havent sent yet. like.....jump rope, gilete razer blades(five blade ones for the fusion), some basketball shorts, and some refill colored pencil things for a scripture marker that i bought in the MTC in provo. it is a multi changing colored pen and i need refills for all the colors, because i am running out. you should be able to find those at desert book of some place like that. i know they have them at the MTC, but i dont know if you able to enter in there. i also wanted some stickers that you are able to put in the bible that i are like seethrough. i think that you know what i am talking about. but yeah i needed those things if you could get them for me, thanks i love you for the help. but everything has been going really good here. we have a few more investigators that are getting ready to be baptized this month. one of them is an awesome family that really enjoyed conference and we have a couple of men that we are teaching that are looking to get baptized. the work is going awesome. the members are helping a ton and it is just awesome, they are always willing to help. atleast a good part of them are willing to help, not all of them. but it is going really good. dad told me that uncle mike might have cancer in his colon and he also told me that eliza chadwick had her appendicts taken out on sunday. which is weird because i just barely got a letter from her and she said that she was doing really good. Mt. Redoubt exploded like 20 times too. but yeah......things are going good and i love you and i miss you. but i really dont know what else to write or ask you about. but i love you and i miss you and tell kaya that she better be careful with the boys that she is dating. because eu vou arregaçar eles na purrada( i am going to rip them to pieces) if i need to. and tell her to go back to church, because it is absolutly ridiculous. she cant have an excuse for not going or doing the things that she needs to. because that is what our purpose is as children of God. but i love you guys tons and i miss you all. but i got to get going.
Com Amor, Elder Jory B. Spotts
p.s. send me a bigger letter next week

April 1, 2009

2009-07-13T16:19:00.001-07:00

Hey! how are things going this week? i hope that things are going good. you will have to tell Kaya happy b-day for me. because it is coming up pretty soon, next wednesday. i cant believe that my little sister is turning 16. is she looking into getting her drivers license? or did they make a height limit too? haha. but it is really weird thinking about how things have been changing so much and how i am missing out on so many things there. it is hard. i feel so left out. but here in a year i will be back. tell kaya that i love her and that she better be careful with who she dates. because if i have to i will knock someones teeth out. and it wont be her teeth, but the idiot that she is dating. if he happens to be one. but yeah.....Things are going good here. the baptisms were awesome! the baptismal service was just amazing, i was given the opportunity to baptize João and he is a bit bigger than i. while in the water he didnt think that i was going to be able to bring him out of water so one of his legs slipped but his leg got stuck under mine so he didnt have to get baptized twice. but it was awesome. after the baptism we had them bear their testimonies to everyone. and almost the entire ward was there to watch because these four people are trully amazing. i have learned so much with them. i think that they have taught me more than i have taught them. but while they bore their testimonies the spirit was so strong that i nearly cried. my eyes got way watery and it was just amzing. i am so grateful that the Lord gave me of all the missionaries that He has serving in the mission to teach them and baptize them. it was an amazing experience. they have got such strong testimonies of the church already as well, it has been so amazing. we went to their house last night to watch The Testaments with them and we were able to play with their daughter a little bit and just have an awesome time with them. things have been going really well. i am loving the mission more and more everyday. and last night my companion decided that he wanted to run home because the time was cutting short for us and i almost died. so i think that i might be out of shape a little bit. but yeah........i dont know what to think anymore with the whole juston situation. i am glad that you told me, because dad didnt mention anything like that. he said a few other things but i dont understand. but i will pray for him and i think that i might talk to president to see if he would give the right to talk to him for just a few minutes on the telephone. but we will see. i just hope that everything turns out good in the end. for now all i can go is pray for him. but i love you and i will talk to guys next week. i hope that everything is going go for everyone. i love you and i miss you. give everyone a hug for me and have a party for me tomorrow. because it is the day!!!!
Elder Jory B. Spotts

Mar. 25, 2009

2009-07-13T16:18:00.000-07:00

Hey! well how is everything going there now? i hope that things can turn out better for kaya. i am just a little disappointed to hear some of the things that are going on there. i dont understand why juston and kaya dont seem to want anything to do with the gospel. i really dont even know what is going on at home. that is probably the worst part about being on a mission. you really dont know what is going on at home. you kinda know but not everything, and you cant do anything about it. but yeah.....i hope that something will kick those two in the face, and i hope that is hits them hard. because they need to realize where to put their priorities. but that day will come some day. Things here are going pretty well. Hump day is coming right around the courner.........in one week. which means that everything is just down hill from there. but things are going good, i think that you might have misunderstood me too. because we didnt have any baptisms on saturday, but they are going to happen this saturday. but we were able to participate in a dedication of the new stake center that they just finished here. they are getting ready to form a new stake rightnow as well. the gospel and the church is really growing here. our ward here is going to be dividing in a month or so as well. things have just been going really well as well. the members have really been helping us out to try and strengthen the ard for the division. which is going good, because in this month a lot we have been able to baptize 6 different families. and they are really helping us to get them ready to receive the priesthood, the higher one......Melquisedeque in potuguese. i dont know what it is in english anymore. i have really been losing my ebglish lately. but it is good, because i am starting to like portuguese more than english. because it is becoming easier than english. but things here are going good. i sang two solos on friday at a presentation and we gave at the open house of the new stake center and apparently that went pretty good. and this morning i finally was able to kill the mouse in our house. i have been trying fot three months now and i minally got it with a mouse trap. one of the families that is getting baptized saturday gave me one and i put some bread with peanut butter on it and it died. i took some pictures and will try and send some to you a little later, some time in the future. i still have an entire cd to send you you guys still and i will have another one here in a little bit. but things are going awesome and i am really loving the mission now. we have been having some really good success in this area and with this awesome ward. i also got a letter from Marcelo(the young man that i baptized that is going to go on his mission) he is doing awesome and loving the gospel more and more each day. he said that he is excited to go on his mission to serve the Lord and he just got such a great testimony. i am so glad that the Lord blessed me with the opportunity to teach him and baptize him. and it is people like him that make the mission worth all the hard times and all the struggles. but things are going awesome here. i just hope that you can help kaya get herself on the right track, i love her but i sure wish that she would go to seminary and to church. same thing with juston. dad told me that juston should be getting his GED nest week or something like that, which is good and i am glad that he has made that decision. i just hope that he can now make the decision to change his life around. i love him and kaya soooo much and hope that the Lord can bless them with the smack in the face that they need. but i didnt receive your package yet, but it will probably get here pretty soon then. i hope that you sent me a tie in it, because i really want to give a tie to an elder that i served with here in this area. he was already transfered to another area, but i want to give him one. so if you could in your next package send me a tie and some deodorant( i think that is right). and tell jeremiah that i still cant believe that he is a father, pretty soon......steve is going to have a kid. just imagine that!! haha but i love you mom and i miss you and i love everyone there. give kaya and everyone else a hug for me. i love you tons and i will talk to you next week.
Com Amor, Elder Jory B. Spotts

Mar. 18, 2009

2009-07-13T16:16:00.000-07:00

Hey! how is everything going there? how is the family doing? i need to writ=e grandma roberts and i will try and do that next week when i have some t=ime to write letters, because i wont have anytime to do it today. we had =a little bit of bus trouble today because we went to the center of the ci=ty to try and buy some new shoes for my new companion that i received yes=terday(Elder Davis from farmington) and we took the wrong bus coming back=to the house and we ended up pretty far away from our house and we ended=up having to walk some and then grab a different bus. but things here ha=ve been going really well. we have been having a ton of success in this a=rea and i would have to give most of the credit to the members because th=ey have been helping us out so much. i love this ward and this area becau=se of them. it has been an awesome experiences. we are looking at baptizi=ng two amazing families next week. one of them is going to get married an=d going to get baptized and then the other is just going to get baptized.=but things have just been going awesome. i got good nes from both you an=d dad that says that juston is taking a turn for the good. i was really h=appy to hear that from you both. it really makes me happy when i hear the=se things, i just really hope that it happens. and well i dont have a lot=of time to write you because i have got to go. my companion already fini=shed writing and he wants to leave. but everything is going awesome and i=love you tons. tell everyone that i love them and i will talk to you nex=t week.
Com Amor, Elder Jory B. Spotts

Mar. 11, 2009

2009-07-13T16:15:00.002-07:00

Mother, dont sell bruiser! send him to juston if you have to. but dont sell him, please dont sell him. but how have you all been? how is life going? how is the ward? i dont really know anything that i want you to tell about. but maybe a few of the cool stories that i have told you. or something like that, because i sure have sent you a few of those you know. you could tell them that we are going baptize a future stake president because they accepted to be baptized on the 28th of this month. and i am super excited for that. they are just such an amazing family, the one that i told you about last week. they been progressing really well. he stopped drinking after the first visit and we didnt even teach the Word of Wisdom. he just said that he didnt have the desire to drink any more after the first visit that we did in his house. it is awesome. but you can tell them about anything that you want. but i do want you to read this when you talk: Hello, Slate Canyon 4th. i am sorry that i couldnt make it today. but i am little preocupied spreading the gospel. which has been the greatest opportunity that i have been given in all my life. i have been experiencing things that i never thought could happen. i have learning things that only a mission can teach you. and i have been fried by the sun in the mean time, i mean it is like really hot here. but i just wanted to leave you all with my testimony that i am a witness that this is a marvelous work that the Lord has started among His children. this is the work of God and He IS the hand that makes it go forward. The gospel is true! That is such a simple but powerful phrase. many people dont realize the amazing blessing that the Lord has given us in a living Prophet. Thomas S. Monson is a prophet of God and he is guided by the hand of God. This is His church and it is perfect. i love the gospel with all my heart. i know that if we try our best to do our best we will be blessed. because no one is perfect but we can be perfected in Christ. i once heard from a missionary here in this mission somthing that i will always remember. but he said it in portuguese i need to translate it real fast......Everyday when we wake up we look at ourselves in the mirror. and if you see the same person that you say yesterday you have wasted an entire 24 hours of your life......may we have the strength to do our best to be our best. i love you all and i hope that you all have a wonderful sunday. sorry i didnt have anything way inspire to say. but i hope that everyone there is doing well. i love you all. and dont forget that if you guys want you totally write me. but Bom Dia But how have you been doing mom. i hope that everthing is going good for you and that you are having a good day. i sure do love you mom and am thankful for al that you do and have done for me in my life. but how is kaya doing? and how is the family? how is grandma roberts doing? how is work? how are the jazz doing? well things here are going good like said. we marked the baptism of the family that rocks. but i did have a pretty cool little experience in which i learned a good lesson. on thursday last week i felt the desire to visit this family in the area that are already members. but we didnt have time to until monday, and by that time a young women from the family lost her boy friend to cancer. she is only sixteen and it was really hard on her. but we went there and my companion and i decided to leave a message about gratitude. so we used a talk from last conference that President Thomas S. Monson gave and the lesson went really well. it was a very spiritual message where we had everyone share about one thing that they are grateful for. the spirit was there very strong and it touched my heart. while I was teaching I was being taught by the spirit. i started realizing a lot of things that my Father in Heaven as done for me. about how He has blessed me so much on the mission. how i have had the opportunity to help so many people and how i have been moved so much. i am eternally indebted to Him for His uncomprehensible love. i cant understand why He loves or how, but i know that He does. He loves me more that i deserve. i am just so grateful for everything that i have learned on the mission. the Lord has grabbed a handful of mud and is molding that mud into something and that something is turning into who i someday will be. but i love you mom and i hope that you have a great day and that the Saviour takes care of you all for me. i love you and give kaya a hug for me. and i thought a lot about grandpa this week mom and i sure do miss him.
With Love, Elder Jory Brent Spotts

Mar. 4, 2009

2009-07-13T16:15:00.001-07:00

Hey! how are things going there rightnow? it sounds like the jazz are doing good which is always good to hear. what place are they in the west right now? with all the winning that they are doing they would have to be moving up in the bracket. but things here are still going good. we had a pretty good week this week. we marked to baptismal dates and looking to baptize two men on the 28th of this month and then we have this awesome family that we are still teaching that is progressing really well. they have gone to church two times now and are really liking. their names are Franciane and João. he already has a testimony of the book of mormon because of a passage that he read in 1 nephi 10:16-18 or 19.he has been reading alot of the book of mormon and said that he cant stop reading because he likes it so much. he works a ton and doesnt get a lot of time to read but he has one day off every week and in only one day he read 10 chapters of the book of mormon and he is very intelligent. i could seriously see him as a stake president in the future if he continues. and tomorrow we are going to try and mark their baptismal dates. so we will need your prays on that one. the spirit is just so strong in their house and i love going there. they also already have friends in the church and just love the ward. i swear that the Lord prepared them for the lessons. he was telling us that he was watching soccer on sunday(something that he just loves) and he couldnt even pay attention because he kept thinking about the Book of Mormon. i love this family so much. it just amazing to see the power that the spirit is having on them. there is no way to even describe it. but things have been going really well here. i loving this area and i hope that i dont get transfered. but with way that the mission has been so far i dont stay in the area very long. usually only one or two transfer and this is my second transfer in this area. i wouyld love to stay but we will have to see what the Lord has prepared for me. oh and something a little interesting happened a couple of nights ago. i was sleeping and for some odd reason i woke up in the middle of the night. almost like something i woken me up and will i sat up and looked at my pillow and sleeping on my pillow was a BAT. i thinking that he fly into our room and hit my in the head and i woke up. it was really weird, but i kicked him off my bed and went back to sleep. and mother just to let you know that you are never going to use a bikini. i dont give you permission. but yeah.....how have things been going? you gotta let me know more about how kaya is doing? dad told me that she has a new boy friend or something. but i am really scared for when that little girl turns sixteen. i hope that she is careful with the boys that she chooses to date otherwise she is going to regret it. because with the things that they do now that are ....normal......as they say are not normal and i dont like the idea of kaya dating a guy that is going to be like that. but i love oyu guys and i hope that everything continues to go well with you. and i didnt know that kaya had a computer. who bought her the computer? and how is my computer doing? good? i hope so. but i love you guys and i miss you as well. i will talk to you next week.
Com Amor, Élder Jory B. Spotts

Feb. 25, 2009

2009-07-13T16:13:00.002-07:00

Well hey mommy! how are things going? it sounds like things are going good for you and i really am glad to hear that the Lord is taking care of you guys for me. i pray for you everysingle day atleast twice a day and sometimes more. and today i was taking a nap and i had a dream about you and i in brazil. but i didnt like it very much because you were crying. but i love you and i miss you. and i just wanted to tell you to be really careful at work alright. because i love you and i miss you alot. but yeah......well another week has passed by and it passed by really fast. recently i havnt been working with my companion a lot because of his callind here. but we have still been keeping busy and have been having some success. we are teaching a really cool family that went to church on sunday and they really liked it and want to go back. they are progressing really good and we are hoping to baptize them next month. we are also teaching a young man that accepting the invitation to preapare to be baptized so we are going to mark his baptismal date and continue helping him. yesterday we had zone conference and it was really good i really liked it. our new mission president is really awesome and is really trying to focus the missionaries on baptizing families. which there are going to be four families baptized on saturday....9 baptisms. they are practically my investigator because i teach them all the time but they are really investigators of the other elders but they are some awesome families. our district here is having some really good success, just in our district there are going to be 17 baptisms on saturday. which is way awesome. but anyways the zone conference went really well, president is doing a really good job here. and here pretty soon we are going to have an open house for a new chapel that they just finished constructing here and our ward is going to be doing a singing presentation and the ward here asked me to sing two solos in portuguese. so i will doing that here in a couple of weeks. but things are going good. i got over the little trunky hump thingy and i am doing good and it sounds like matt and josh are also doing good. matt almost got in fight with a drunk guy in Chile and josh is going to sing a solo in his ward too, Hotel California by the Eagles. but i am glad to hear that kaya is going to be living with you still, i just hope that she decides to return to seminary. she really doesnt understand the importance of it and the importance of the scriptures. i just hope that she stays out of trouble. oh and about the questions in portuguese....i dont have any problem telling you the translation because no one here in Manuas is rich and single, there are very few rich people for the matter. but are you single? is.....você é solteiro? and are you rich? is......você é rico? and will you move to america? is......você quer se mudar para Os Estados Unidos(América)? but yeah.....things are going good here. right now i am soaking wet because it was pouring rain out here when we were walking to the internet place. i had to pour my shoes out before i entered and i am way soaked. and we were also able to play some soccer here today and we had a bunch of fun with that. but yeah....i hope that all is going good for you guys and that it will continue to stay that. you are in my prays and you need to say hi to everyone and that i love them as well. and i feel bad for tylor, good luck for him in life. but i love you and i miss you all give everyone hugs for me.
Com Amor, Élder Jory B. Spotts

Feb. 18, 2009

2009-07-13T16:13:00.001-07:00

Hey! how did things go for you guys this week? espero que tudo esteja bem( i hope that all is going well) i figured that you need to start learning some portuguese because it seems like you might be coming to pick me up. but how is the family doing? how is robin and his family? how is grandma roberts been doing? you need go over and visit her. i hope that everything is going well for everyone. things here are going pretty well. i did have a couple of days of MAJOR trunkyness last week but i got over it and am doing good now. the baptisms went really well, i performed two of the four baptisms that we had and they went really well. like every baptism the spirit was there, it always is. it just shows the true importance of the first ordinance that we perform. that at times seems to be such a simple thing. you go in the water say a prayer and you get dunked. it really is prety simple but sooo important. the baptisms went well. then we also had a couple of good lessons this week. we havent been able to work a lot in our area lately and with our investigators because of splits that we ALWAYS have to do because of the assistants. so our teaching pool is a little low. but it doesnt matter because just everyone that is in our small teaching pool is progressing and that is all that matters. we have teaching this awesome family Franciane and João. they are progressing really well and are really liking the Book of Mormon. the only problems is that they havent prayed to know the truthfulness of it. becuase she believes that it is true with out the prayer but we still encouraged her to pray because the spirit gives such a stonger testimony than we do of its truthfulness. but they will going to church with is this weekend. they havent been able to go because he works every other sunday. but they are an awesome family. and then yesterday we founf an inactive family that is awesome and how have been wanting to return to church but just havent been able to yet and we are going to try and help them out. we taught them about the importance of the scriptures and we used 1 Nephi 15:25-26(it might be 24-25). but things are going awesome and thanks for the pictures of the baby and jeremiah. i just cant believe that he is a daddy already but it is soo awesome. i am so excited for him. looking at the pictures gets me stooked for when i am going to have kids. but i am still scared of the whole marriage thing. :(..... and i hope that they are doing good as well. but yeah......i cant really think of anything else to say. but it does look like the Jazz are coming back and making a run at the playoffs this year which is awesome. but things are going good here and that is really all that you guys need to know. but i love you all and i hope that everyone is doing really good. and i received two packages but i dont know who they are from yet and you also should be getting an email from the mission becuase of the whole address thing. that you CANNOT send packages to the Caixa Postal address. but i love you and i miss you too. mais 59 semanas!!!!!!
Com Amor, Élder Jory B. Spotts

Feb. 11, 2009

2009-07-13T16:12:00.000-07:00

Hey! how are things going there? i sure look likes things are going well, but i am sure that there little difficulties everywhere. things are going pretty good here, we are going to be having four baptisms this weekend end. which is good, because it has been about a month since we baptized anyone, so that is come good news. and we also have a ton of people in our teaching pool. we have been finding a ton of new people and the members have been giving a ton of referals and we have been having a lot of success. we had a really good starting week in the transfer and i hope that the transfer will either continue like this or get better. but things are going really well and i also forgot to tell you something pretty cool about my companion. he is the oldest elder missionary in the world....he is 29 years old. it is crazy, because he left for his mission when he was 27 because of some complications with his papers and he still had the desire to go so the church gave him permition. it is pretty cool and he is way cool. but things are going way good here. but i just received a huge suprise today. i cant believe that Jeremiah has a kid! but that is awesome, i am super excited for him and michele as well. but you should tell them to write me and send some pictures of the kid and them together. and i cant believe that camille and sam are going to hawaii, it sure would be nice if someone would tell me about all the things. i havent been receiving any letters from any one. so either my letters arent getting to the people that i write to or people just arent writing to me. but either way it would be nice to receive some letters. it is kinda annoying not receiving any letters from anyone. but i guess that the life of the missionary. it just sucks, because i wrote about 20 letters last week and i havent received any. except for one from you and a couple from grandma norton. and you need to continue to send my emails to them as well. but yeah i things are going here. i almost pooped myself two times this week, because we got stuck in a lesson for a little one time and the other time was because we were way far from home. and i am tell you that that feeling is one of the worst feelings in all the world. i pray that i dont have to feel it again. but we did find an awesome young man this week. and it was a pretty cool experience because we found him in an area that has a bunch of houses and i had no idea that this place even existed. we were just looking for an address one day but couldnt find it, so we decided to go down this alley and we found him. it was a cool little spiritual experience, because i know that the Lord lead us there to help him. because he has an addiction to drugs really bad, but he really wants to stop and leave the life that he is caught in. so we are trying to do our best to help him out and get him baptized as well. because he went to church with us and he really liked it a lot and said that he wants to be baptized, but first we have to take care of the hard part first and then we will dunk him. but things are going really well and i hope that you will be able to get some time off. because i bet that you do need it. i have already decided that i want a good vacation after my mission. because it is alot of work and you really dont have a lot of time for yourself. so i am already trying to think of some things that i will be able to. but i love this work it has been going really well. and if you write to casey anytime soon tell him that i did write him, but it looks like there might be some mail problems there. of the letters that i have been receiving they have been coming in really late as well. like i received a little from him the he sent almost a month ago. but things are going good and i am really loving the work. but i do miss the family and i love you as well. i hope that all is going well for everyone and well i love you and i miss you. tell kaya that i love her and miss her as well and give her a hug for me. and tell her to stay out of trouble and be good. tell the ward hi for me as well but i love you and i miss you mom.
Com Amor, Élder Jory B. Spotts

Feb. 4, 2009

2009-07-13T16:10:00.000-07:00

Hey! Well how are things going? it sounds like the Super Bowl would have been pretty cool to see. the only bummer is that the Steelers now have the most Super Bowls wins in history. it used to be tied between them and Dallas. but oh well....sounds like it was a good game. but my comp just got done with writing his parents already so i am going to try and wrap this up pretty quick. it sounds like a lot of things have been happening there lately. i cant believe that Heather and he family moved to Texas. did devin have a jod offer there or what? well i hope that all is going good. but i am very disappointed to hear that Kaya decided to drop seminary. she has no idea what she is doing, she is really going to regret it in the future. i am so gald that i finished seminary, one because if i hadnt i wouldnt be here. because to serve in brazil you have to have four years of religious study. but things here are going pretty well. yesterday we had one of our investigators tell us that she prayed two times and that the prayed two times to know if Joseph was really called to be a prophet of God and well she received the same answer two times that he trully is a prophet of God. so we are going to contine to work with her and see what we can do about her baptism. the teaching pool is actually pretty good. we have a lot of good investigators that are progressing and we are looking to have quite a few baptisms coming up. but we didnt have a baptism on sunday, the other companionship in our house had one. and that one went pretty well. but we also had transfers this week and my companion after 8 months in this area was finally transfered and is a district leader. and well i got quite an unexpected surprise yesterday as well. i am now companions with one of the assistants. so i have a pretty good opportunity to learn a lot from him in the next transfer or so and i am pretty excited to see how that goes. my comps name is Elder Lopes and he is a brazilian from São Paulo and he also used to be my Zone Leader and now he is my companion. but i am pretty excited for that. we are working with a few families that are progressing well and we are going to try and baptize a few people this month. i think about 4, that is our goal. but we will have to see what happens, because i dont make the decision for them. they have to decide to be baptized, but it is looking pretty good. but i love you and i got to get going. but i will hear from you next week. FALTA 14 MÊSES........i hit 10 months on the mission.....but who is counting. tell kaya i love her and i miss too. but tell him that i am disappointed in her.
Com Amor, Élder Jory B. Spotts

Jan. 28, 2009

2009-07-13T16:09:00.002-07:00

Hey!!!! how are things going? i hope that everything is going good and that you are all having good times. things here were a little slow this week and not really a lot to write about. but my companion and i are having a pretty good week this week. we found ourselves a really good family at the end of last week. the wife is a member but she hasnt been to church in a long time and he is really interested in the church. he already prayed and he feels like joseph was really called to be a prophet and then we taught him about the Book of Mormon and he is excited to start reading it. and we have also been just expanding things a little bit and we have a few baptisms coming up in February and are hoping to have a couple of weddings and baptisms as well. the work has been going really well. the only things is transfer are next week and i might be losing my comp because he has been in this area for 8 months. but things have been going good. oh yeah we had a pretty interesting experience last night.......one of the elders in our house find a bunch of baby mice in his luggage. because he have mice and we have been trying to kill them because they have been destroying everything. and well we found baby mice, it was kinda funny. but elder miranda is a little bit upset. but things are good. sorry, but my week was kinda boring as well. but i love you all and i hope that all is well and that everything continues to go good for everyone.
Com Amor, Elder Jory B. Spotts

Jan. 21, 2009

2009-07-13T16:09:00.001-07:00

Hey! how are things going? i hope taht all is well for you guys there in the STATES and the great old state of Utah. things here are going pretty well. the work is a little sow right now and i am thinking that my companion and i are going to need to start knocking some doors....my least favorite part about missionary work. but we just need more people to teach. but things are going good between my companion and i and the ward is awesome and so is the area. they are going to be dividing the stake here next month and they will divide the ward so i will probably get a new area and maybe a new companion as well here pretty soon. but things are going well here. but it sounds like some pretty crazy things are going on there. the Arizona Cardinals are in the Super i didnt expect that. but that is awesome, i hope that they win as well. and you guys now have a new president, but we will just have to see if this black man can do any good. i sure hope that he can do something to help out. and that all the good things that he must have said will happen and he was just saying them to help him become president. but things have been going really well. sorry i probably say that a lot. but it is true......and i think that i told you a little but about the war that we are having in the house. it is kinda like the war that you told me about that you had on your mission when you and the elders would play pranks on each other and i actually thought of something that i will do next because of the stories that you told me. but a couple of days ago my companion and i decided to hide the matresses of the other elders so we grabbed them and took them to a members house. and they came home and had no idea where they were. they looked on top of the house and in the attic and in our room and every where. but they couldnt find it, but for some reason they went to the members house and they find them. but it was really funny and we have a lot of fun in the house. this morning i was wrting a few letters and my companion decided to grab the dart gun that we have in the house and we decided to shoot me with it, because the darts are wooden and they dont really hurt to bad. but first Elder Del Guerso (reminds me of Jeremiah) shot me in the foot and it stung a little. but then my comp shot me in the arm and the dart broke the skin and got stuck in my arm.....and just to let you know......when a dart penetrates the skin it hurts a little bit. so i took a picture of it and then i pulled it out. but we have a lot of fun in the house. but things are going really well, but i really cant think of anything exciting that has been going on. josh wrote me and he got a new companion and it looks like he has been doing better, except his legs hurt because he isnt used to walking because he has the luxury of a bike. but he sounds like he is doing better. but i still havent heard from matt since he made it to chile. but i a hoping that i can hear from him pretty soon. but the mission is the mission. it has it difficulties but nothing that we cant overcome, the Lord is by my side and is helping me every step of the way so you need not worry about anything. but i love you and i hope that you guys have a great day and go ARIZONA CARDINALS!!!!! tell kezia and the girls hi for me and give them all hugs for me. but i love and i will talk to you next week.
COM AMOR, ELDER JORY B. SPOTTS

Jan. 14, 2009

2009-07-13T16:08:00.000-07:00

Hey! well how are things going? how has the family been? have you been over to visit my ward lately? you forgot to tell me that Kalee is getting married. that is just so weird to me, because i have been and everything is changing while i am not there. it is just weird to think about the kids that i went to school with are all starting to get married. and i have come to the conclusion that i dont want to get married soon after the mission. my companion and i were talking about it and i got scared. i wont be able to handle it, it to much commitment. and everything about it just freaks me out. i just cant do it. i have got to stop thinking about it. but how are things going? you have got to tell more mom, because i feel so left out of the real world. and i cant believe that the Arizona Cardinals are in the Conference Finals. but i totally hope the the Baltimore Ravens go all the way, because i really like them. But things here have been going pretty well. i got you package last week and i opened it after i wrote to you guys and thanks you. the candy is already gone. but the pictures were awesome besides the fact that you guys sent me one of juston and stevens rear end. the other missionaries in the house got a kick out of that one. oh and when the heck did Kaya grow breasts? its just weird.....tell her to stay out of trouble and that her husband has to have my permission to marry her and any guy that she dates has to have my permission too. i want him to send me a letter first.....then i will send the O-K. but yeah things have been going good here. i am still having a letter drought, i didnt receive a single one this week. but my companion and i did have an awesome wedding and baptism on Saturday night. the Lady that got baptized (Luciana) was baptized by her father who is a recent convert to the Church who also lives in a different ward and the spirit was really strong. it was just awesome and we also had cake.....and boy did that cake taste good. and in the house the other missionaries and i have all been having a little war. we play little tricks on each other all the time and it is pretty fun. a couple of nights a go i went to take a shower but i didnt look at the shower head before i turned it on....and well one of the elderes turned it upside down and put a couple of juice packets in it. so when i turned it on juice came pouring out all over my head. it has been pretty funny. the district that i am in is a bunch of missionaries that just love to joke around. so we have a good time. and well do you remember that naked lady that i say in my last area.....i say her on Monday in this area. and she was still naked.....i think that she is following me. but yeah things are going pretty good and i still dont have anything to complain about. things have been going really well with my companion and i think that i might have found my first companion that actually became a friend. but i love you and send hugs to everyone and if you find time. you have got to tell Kalee congrats on the wedding. and just give everyone that you think deserves it a hug. and tell kaya that i love her and give her a hug too. love you and i miss you.
Com Amor, Élder Jory B. Spotts

Jan. 7, 2009

2009-07-12T22:23:00.000-07:00

Hey! how are things going for you guys? i hope that all is well for you guys and that things have been going really well. it sounds like things are going well, because i am not hearing to much complaining. but it sounds like you had a pretty cool experience with that McFadden guy and i think that it sounds pretty familiar, hit name anyways. but that is nuts. but things are going pretty well for me and my companion here. i arrived right after his companion died or went home. so our teaching pool wasnt huge so we are doing some searching and we have found a few people and are still searching, because you know how some people are about wanting to hear the gospel. they dont wanna hear it. so we search and those that accept the messages that we teach we keep teaching and those that dont well we dont show up at there houses anymore. but we have a wedding and a baptism this coming saturday and then we will have another wedding that we just marked at the end of February of a family that the mother is a member but no one else is. so we a looking at 5 mot baptisms with the family and it has been good. my companion and i get a long really well and we have been having a blast together. there is also this brazilian that i live with that acts exactly like Jeremiah. it is really weird. but their personallities are so similar so we have a blast with him as well. i love the district that i am in they are all hilarious and it is good. because i took the place of a slacker missionary that had a difficult on the mission in the field. and he would set up places to see and he would kiss her. i just couldnt believe some of the stuff that he was doing and everybody couldnt stand him. so when i came in they were so excited and it is just been awesome. we might go bowling today still, but i am not sure. we will see what happens. and well this area also has a lot of problems with (snakes) or in this case girls that want missionaries WAY BAD. where we live the girls stare at our house outside of windows watching us get undressed and stuff. it is pretty creepy. you have to be careful. and even some of the member girls have tried holding missionaries hands and it is just a crazy area. but no worries if some girl touches my hand i am going to give her a round house kick in the stomach. i daont take that crap. haha jk, but seriously. anyways.....it is good that Utah won it is pretty cool to hear, but it sucks because now i am going to hear all about it forever from my companion. he is a lot like steven, but he decided to repent and go on a mission. but things are going awesome and i dont have anything to complain about. except for the mission isnt easy and it is really hot in this fetching city. but the other day we got into a freezer that was at -15 degrees Celsius. it was freaking awesome. i could have stayed in there all day and i would have loved it. we went in it because there is a member in this ward that owns an ice cream factory and we wanted some ice cream so we went there and we bought 100 ice cream things. and now our freezer is packed full of ice cream. but i really dont have much more to write about, but i love you and i hope all is well for both you and kaya and tell kaya to stay out of trouble and that she needs to start going to church. but i love you guys and i will talk to you next week. i love the gospel and i love the mission. and i got the package. THANKS!!!! IT IS HUGE!!!!!
Com Amor, Elder Jory B. Spotts

Dec. 10, 2008

2009-07-12T22:22:00.000-07:00

Hey! how is it going? how have the holidays been without me? i hope that all is well and that you guys are enjoying it. because brazil doesnt really celebrate anything until christmas when everyone just get smashing drunk. but things are going well here except for the mail system. i am starting to get a little frustrated with that. one because i am not receiving anything, but that wasnt that big of a deal. but now since you have said that matt hasnt gotten my letters. i wrote two huge letters and sent them together. but it sounds like he isnt getting them which is ridiculous because i sent them at the beginning of last month. i havent received anything but a couple of letters since then either. i did receive the card that you sent me in the mail with the letter from Big Sam and it was good to get a letter from him. Thanks Sam and thanks for everything that your family does for me. i hope that you have received the letters that i have written to you all. it sounds like things are going well there in alaska. i cant believe that Jeremiah is going to have a kid. but it sure does sound like he has changed since i left. i guess the wife kinda sticks a leash on the man after the ring is slipped on the finger. but it sounds like things are going well for you guys and your family and really hope that it is. things are going good here. we started out this week with some difficulties, on monday we had our entire day stuffed full of appointments. but every single one of them fell through, it was absolutely terrible. so we decided to try a knock some doors, but nothing came out of that either. it was just a terrible day, both my companion and i felt like crap after our day. because our numbers were low and so was the spirit of the day. i never want another day like that on the mission. TERRIBLE!!!! but yesterday got better. we had a really good day, with another awesome experience with the same young man that we baptized. we were at his house teaching him about the priesthood and the importance of it because he has received it on sunday. and he was just telling us all these great stroies that happened before his baptism of things that just pointed to the fact the he is a Elect child of God. he attended many different churches but never felt good in any of them, one time he told us that he felt really bad one time when he was in a church and tons of people were falling down and rolling on the floor and many other things. but also how he prayed to let God show him if this was of Him or not. and also how he prayed to know that the church was true and the feelings that he felt. it was just awesome. and we also had another awesome experience with another family that we are teaching where the father prayed to know if the church was true and he said that he felt that it is so strong that he had goosebumps all over his body. so they are going to get married and baptized on the 17th of january. they are such an awesome family. after he told us about this experience he asked for us to return the next day and we asked him to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. so he did and he felt the exact same answer and it has just been an awesome experience with this family as well. so we have a few people that we are teaching that are progressing and doing well and we are looking forward to having a few baptism coming up here pretty soon. but the mission has its ups and its downs. it was kinda cool something that my president here said about the fact of a mission beeing hard. because tons of missionaries have been complaining about it. i will try to translate it. because he said it in portuguese..........Honestly, i give thanks to our Father in Heaven that this work(missionary work) is difficult, because if it was easy it wouldnt be such an amazing learning experience for the future leaders of the church. Our tests, difficulties, personal challenges, and sicknesses all are part of the purifying fire that will take our imperfections and leave us worthy and prepared to do greater works in this life and in the eternities........well that is what he said...i think. but it was the best i could do to try and translate it. i hope that it makes sense to you. i really like the whole talk that he gave on the subject. but things are going pretty well here. i love the mission and i am learing so many things everyday. the other day we had interviews with the president and he helped me out so much. i knew that some of the things that he told i wasnt doing totally the best and that i could do better. but i wasnt exactly sure what else i could do. but he help me see what i need to do and he chastised me on a few things and it was good. like he made me do a contact with him as the person and it was difficult i had no idea what to say to a man that knows so much more that i. but i did and he gave me a few pointers on what i can do better. he said i did good but could do better and he helped me understand how. but i love you and i got to get going because i am getting a little frustrated with this keyboard because it sucks. but i love you and hope all is well and mother i am doing fine no need to worry about me. i dont have allergies here. i am fine. but i love you all and mom give everyone hugs for me. especially kaya and tell he she can write me. but i love you and will talk to you next week. P.S. still dont know what cream of tarter is. i need a description
Com Amor Elder Jory B. Spotts.

Dec. 3, 2008

2009-07-12T22:21:00.000-07:00

Hey! how are things going for you right now? i hope that all is well for you and that things are going really well. how has work been? i hope that it has been going well for you. how is the family? what are they saying about the country this week? what about the sports how are things in that department? well things here are going really well and i have nothing to complain about. and the baptismal service on Sunday was awesome. i have a little bit of a story about that........but things are going really well here for my companion and i, we had a baptism on sunday and had a pretty cool experience with that as well. he is a 21 year old young man and he is awesome, he is going to be a great leader in the church one day i can just feel it. he is at the age to serve a mission as well, so we are going to try and get envolved in the missionary work with us and he can get the feel of it and if he feels the desire to serve in a year he will be heading out to help even more people. but about my experience on sunday. it started out on saturday night when we filled up the baptismal font. we filled it up because we were going to have the his baptism the next day, but the font takes forever to fill up so we cannot fill it up on Sunday so we did on saturday. but when we got to church at 3 in the afternoon the font was empty......there wasnt a drop of water in it. and we had no idea what we were going to do. so we turned on the water to see how far we could get it filled by the baptism which was right after church. well after sacrement meeting the water ran out.......at the font wasnt very full at all. maybe a little ways past my ankles, like up to the first step in the font. and we were even more worried, but there was another area in the church that still hard water, i really dont know how to explain the whole water system here.but it sucks that is why this happened. but anyways we grabbed some buckets and decided to try and fill the font up the rest of the way in 2 hours. but before we started i decided to say a little bit of a personal prayer and asked that we would have enough water to be able to baptize Marcelo. and then we went to work and it was going really well for a while and we thought that we would get there but by the time came up to start the Meeting for his baptism the water wasnt even to the young mans knees. but my companion decided that he was going to baptize him and well of course since his knees were above the water beforehe was baptized when my companion dunked him in the water his knees were still completely out of the water. so we had to baptize him sitting down.....my companion got on his knees and the young man sat down in the water and there was still barely enough water to baptize like that. but it worked and my prayer was answered. when i prayed i wasnt thinking that we were going to have to baptize him sitting down. but it doesnt matter, because he got baptized and it was an awesome batpism. he was way emotional and it was awesome. it is even cool to find out how we ended up meeting him. he was supposed to be a referral from a member but the member kept forgetting to get his address. but we found him with out the help of the member, because the Lord trully wanted him to hear the gospel and it is just an amazing experience that we are having teaching this young man because he is just awesome. but that is my experience that i have been having and i thought that i would share that with you all. it was pretty cool and i am not ever going to forget about either. that is the same way that i told dad about it and i didnt want to write the same story two so i just copied and pasted it. but it was way awesome and things are looking really good with him. he is looking to be receiving a calling pretty soon and well it just might end up being the Ward mission leader. because the ward mission leader here sucks and we have been having some problems with him. but the rest of the members are awesome. they go out with us and visit the investigators when we ask them to. so things are going well. and yesterday on the my birth day things went well. we had a zone conference so i didnt work on my bday. but we were trained by the president and the assisants and the LZs and the DLs. it was a really good day, i love zone conferences, because we feel the spirit and also realize the things that we need to do better in our work. it was really good, and we also had a Pizza party because all the missionaries ate together and that is what we had for lunch. so i stuffed myself full of pizza yesterday and had myself a pretty good day. the elders in my apartment also woke me up at 530 in the morning to sing happy bday in portuguese and well i also burned my wrist on the iron yesterday. so i have this burn mark on my wrist that looks almost like i tried slicing my wrists. but yeah.....things are going well. beside the fact that my companion and i have to go searching for new investigators because we are having to leave a bunch of them because they are not progressing. so it looks like we are going to be doing some knocking doors and some contacts, which is my least favorite part about the work....the first contact. i still have a little bit of trouble with that, because i am a little bit shy. but whatever my companion is going to make me get over that and i hope that i can get to the point where i dont think twice about talking with someone. but i just open my mouth and talk like the scriptures teach. but things have been going great, i have nothing to complain about. but it doesnt sound like things are going to well for our country, but let us see what Obama can do to try and help. i hope that i can atleast help us a little bit, i dont want to see another depression and i definetly dont want to return to a dump country so you gotta call someone and tell them to get on that. because they only got a year and 1 months until i come home. they better clean up the mess that they made. i am just kidding. but i do hope that things can start cleaning up. but i am going to tell you one last time that you need to start a food storage. and not a small one either. but you are going to need a big one and i think that you should get started on that. but yeah i really dont need anything right now. my shoes are doing awesome and it looks like they might last me until the end of my mission. because i have using just one everyday and it looks like it will last me past my one year mark. so i am not worried about that and i think that things are going well. the only the thing that i need is a package. because i didnt receive a single one yesterday. the only thing that i got was a letter from grandma norton. but the mail system here realy sucks soif you want my package to arrive for christmas by christmas you might want to send it like today. because it will take forever to get here. but yeah i love you and i hope that all is well. it sounds like things are going well. and i didnt know that TJ was living with you, how long has that been? i hope that he isnt messing to much with my guitar if he is ever even playing. but if he asks i dont know if you should let him, because i dont know how he is going to treat it. but yeah i love you and i miss you. and i will talk to you next week, but give everyone loves for me. and i will keep praying for and the family.
Com Amor, Élder Jory B. Spotts

Nov.26, 2008

2009-07-12T22:20:00.000-07:00

Hey! how are things going for you and Kaya? i hope that all is well for you two and that you guys are going to have a great thanksgiving together. you will have to let me know how that ends up going.and how is the family? Clint said that he might be coming down to visit for thanksgiving. so that should be good. but how did sports go this week? and how is the government going up there? is the constitution hanging by a thread yet. i feel that it is coming pretty quickly. it is a good thing that the CHurch is established there in the states or else it would fall all the way. but things are going pretty well here. i really dont have a whole lot to report to everyone. things have been going well but pretty much just the same old stuff every day. my companion did get his tooth pulled on monday so he has been stuck in the apartment for the lastcoupleof days and i was stuck there him on monday. but yesterday we had splits and i went with a different missionary and we worked in our yesterday and had a pretty productive day. we have a baptism coming up on SUnday of a young 21 year old man. who is loving the church and is pretty excited to de baptized. and it is raining pretty hard today so it is a bit of a colder day today. because we are now in the rainy season so it isnt has hot as it used to be all the time. but i find it funny here because the people here dont really believe in seasons of the year.just Sun.....summer and then rain.....winter. so right now it is actually summer, but everyone says that it is winter. but yeah.....i think that they are all crazy for believing this.apparently none of them payed attention while they were in school. but things are going really well. my companion is crazy but awesome at the same time. he was also telling me the other day that if we make a pit stop in Rio de janeiro when you and i fly back home from here we can go sight seeing with him. because his city has tons of way cool things and he said that he would love to take us sight seeing. and i didnt ask him to, he just offered. so that is something to think about when you buy the airlinetickets to fly down here and back. plus i think that it would cheaper that way anyways. but things are going really well and sorry that i really dont have any stories to tell or anything inspire to say. but i love you and i miss you and Happy thanksgiving and i will talk to you next week. tell everyone hi for me and give EVERYONE hugs for me, but only the people that deserve them. like the people that write me. i havent received a letter in over two weeks.so start telling everyone that they better start writing me and i hope that i receive some letters next week. because it is my B-day. but whatever......the mission is sifting out the ones that trully love me. but i love you all and i miss you. GIve kaya a hug for me and thank Lacia for the pillow case.i think that is who gave it to me. if it wasnt thank whoever it was and dont send this part of the letter to the rest of the family it is isnt. but i love you
Com Amor, Elder Jory B. Spotts

Nov. 19, 2008

2009-07-12T22:19:00.000-07:00

Hey! how are things going? i hope that all is well. it sounds like things are pretty crazy at work, but the missionaries in the district got a good laugh out of the guy on the fences. but how is work going? you have got to let me know how the BYU game goes. i am going to pray for them that they win. i am just kidding, but i do hope that they win. but how is the family? how is kaya? i know that they butt head decided to go back to alaska for a little while, but i hope that she knows to make the important decision in life. she needs to do the right things. i dont think that it is right to tell her what she has to do really anymore. but she needs to understand that we only get one shot at life and we need to be careful with every decision that we make and things would be better for her if she stayed in utah. but maybe the Lord has a different plan for her. but i hope that she is careful and that she will come back after her little vacation. but things here are going pretty well for me. my companion and i had a baptism on Sunday, we baptized a 71 year old man. i gues he decided to repent just before he died.....jk but things have been going really well here. my companion is awesome! we have a lot of fun together and we have meeting and teaching some pretty cool people. i had a man stop me in the street a couple of days ago all drugged up and drunk and he just confessed to me about every sin that he has ever comitted. how he had killed people and uses a lot of drugs and how his life pretty much sucks. it was sad to him take and it was weird. i hope things turn out well for him in the end. but my companion and i have been teaching this 21 year old yound man that is really interested in the gospel. he is a brother of a member in our ward and it was pretty cool. the first time that we talked to him he talked about how he had read a book from the Church all the way thru and how he really liked it. and we have been teaching him and we just got down a few days ago with teaching the book of mormon to him and things are looking really good for him. we are hoping that we can baptize him on the 30th of this month. but we will just have to see what happens. but i love you and i miss you. i cant really think of anything else to tell expect that everything is going really for us in Manaus Brazil. but i love you and give everyone hugs for me and tell them that i love them. and thank juleah for the letter that she sent me. i hope all is well for you guys Juleah and Robin, it sounds like Michael is doing pretty well in class. it came as a little bit of a shock to me, but that is good. tell everyone that i say hi there for me. and thank you for everything i love you guys. i love you mom and i miss ya too. GO BYU!!!!!!
Com Amor, Élder Jory B. Spotts

Nov. 12, 2008

2009-07-12T22:18:00.002-07:00

Wow!!! How are you guys doing? how are thihngs going? you forgot to tell me about the sports world, what is that about? must not have been a good weekend or something. but it does sound like things are going to go down hill there, i know it. everyone here loves Obama, but as soon as i saw his face and heard his name i knew that he wasnt going to be a good president. Mitt Romney would have been the best choice and i really think that he would have won if he would have kept going. but oh well. but how are you and Kaya doing? how is work? how is school going for Kaya? i hope that it is going well for her. how is the family? things are going pretty well for me. we just finished another transfer on tuesday and i got transfered again. and once agian i didnt want to get transfered, i have come to the conclusion and they are my least favorite part of the mission. and i at first i was feeling like i was going to get transfered a long ways away. like the interior where the indians live, jk. but way far away from the city. but the opposite happened. i crossed the street literally. i am in the area right next to my old area and it is a really good area, i am excited. we have a baptism this weekend and things are looking pretty good, i have a bunch of new pictures that i need to send to you. and i will try and do that here pretty soon. and as for my new companion, he is AWESOME! he is a brazilian and i can tell that he is going to be awesome. we get a long really well and he has the spirit sooo strong. he has 10 months on the mission and is still a youngster and i am his first junior companion oh and i forgot to tell Dad that i am no longer the AP anymore i was only that in the MTC. but things are going to be really good in this ward as well. i already know the Bishop from my other area and quite a few of the members and they have a really good ward and i am super excited. but we will have to see how long i will be here. but i still am a bit sad that i had to change wards. because there are a couple of families that i am going to miss a ton. one family you are 100 % no doubt going to meet when you get here, one because they want to meet you and two because they are just so awesome. i love them tons. i even cried when i had to leave them. i have tons of pictures with them and they gave me some sweet camo boats as a departure gift. and they cried so much i will miss them a ton. but i think that she is going to bring me Cake on my birthday becuase she doesnt live very far away and because i love her cake. oh and mom i really need you to get me a recipe to make pancakes. because we are going to have an activity with them, but no one knows how to make them. so my companion said that i am going to make them. so i really need a recipe for that, i am not asking but telling you that you have got to get it for me....please!!!!! thanks i love you. but things are going really well but i dont have a whole lot to write to you about. but i got a few words from justin and he said that he is doing really well and he is trying to clean his act up. he hasnt been hanging out with anyone except steven and zech. but he says that is doing better and is trying. and dad says that he is doing well as well. try not to worry about him, just pray for him. i have told you so many times that he has got to take of this stuff on his own. because that is just the way that he is. dont wrooy about him he is going to be fine. but i love you and i have got to get going, because my companion has a dentist appointment, because he has got to get hiw wisdom teeth pulled pretty soon. but i love you and i will talk to you next week. xoxo and give everyone hugs for me i love you and i miss you
Com Amor, Élder Jory B. Spotts

Nov. 5, 2008

2009-07-12T22:18:00.001-07:00

Hey! How are things going? i hope that everything is going well. how is work? how is Kaya? how is the ward? you got to let me know how everyone is doing there and if they got my plack up yet the slackers. it isnt like they do anything, haha i am just kidding. but i hope that everything is going well for you guys, things seem to be going pretty well here. but you probably arent going to get a really long email like lasts weeks. because not a whole has been going one. just the same old things have been going on. my companion and i have just been staying busy and trying to find some people that are ready to hear the gospel. we have been teaching some pretty awesome people, but most of the time being awesome isnt enough. but we ahve teaching the Hoff and his family lately and they seem to be pretty interesting in the gospel. well i did just remember this bad experience that we had that i kinda learned a lesson from. we were teaching the and the Book of Mormon at this house and then this lady that was there just wanted to bible bash and well i got upset and tore into her about the things that her church believes. she just wanted to argue about how the bible says that we are supposed to keep the sabbath day holy, which the words for sabbath and saturday happen to be the same word. so i am pretty sure that really helps a lot. but anyways, we just pretty much bible bashed with her. and i got a little upset, i almost said something to her that would have been really bad. because her church lives the Law of Moses still almost to its fullest without sacrifices and i almost made a comment about how only her church and the Jews lived the law of moses and well the Jews crucified Christ. but it is probably good that i didnt make that comment. but it really didnt go very well, so i learned from hands on experience that bible bashing does not work. but oh well, i wont be doing that again. and well then i think a day after that happened we were walking in the street and this car drove by and the guy in the passanger seat reached out and hit me. and i didnt like that at all. but oh well, it isnt the first time that something like that has happened so i am just trying to get used to things like that. but yeah that is pretty much our week. not a whole lot of new things. but things seem like they are going pretty well but i hope that all is well for you. but anyways........things are going good and i love you all and tell kaya that i love her and i hope that all is going well for her, tell her congrats on the grades. what did she get the A´s in? but i hope all is well. and i well waiting for my b-day present in the mail. you might wanna get on that, because it is coming up in less that a month. but i love you and give everyone hugs for me. i will keep you all in my prayers.
Com Amor, Élder Jory B. Spotts

Oct. 29,2008

2009-07-12T22:16:00.000-07:00

Hey!how are things going? i hope that all is well. how is steven doing? i really hope that you dont kick him out. but i hope that he finds a job in time. how is work? how is the weather? and the sports world? it sounds the sports are going pretty crazy but it seems like that happens every year. but it is to bad that the craziness isnt going our way. but if the Cowboys dont get their defense together they will not go anyway and the same with the Cougars. but enough of that. things here are going pretty well. we just barely got out of a Zone meeting that was really good. we watched a very good movie about the Book of Mormon and how the gospel changes peoples lives and i felt the spirit a lot in that. and then afterwards the Zone leaders asked me and a couple of other missionaries from the Zone to bear our tesimonies on how the gospel has been such an important part of our lives. and it was just a great meeting that we had. our zone has been having a few problems with baptisms lately and we really havent been having any. but that is starting to change, this past month we almost met our goal for the month and this upcoming month i think that we will be able to reach it. beause just our district will have 4 baptisms this weekend. one being ours, but the other companionship taught her. even though she lives in our area, so the baptisms goes to us but they did all the work. and well we found out about that saturday night so we went to her sisters house and all four of us missionaries taught her and got to know her and we marked a day with her mother to go there and teach them and talk to them because they live in our area but she is always at her sisters house which is in the other elders area. but we went there yesterday and we met her mother, father, and brothrs. and her father has already taken the lessons....15 years ago. so he know quite alot about the church and the reason why he wasnt baptized, was because he didnt believe in baptisms for the dead. and this guy looks exactly like David Hasslehoff from Baywatch, with his mullet and everything. it was the funniest thing, i wish that i had a picture to show you. because he looks exactly like him. but anyways we talked to him about the ordinance of baptisms for the dead and how important that it is and that it is the only way that every single one of God´s children can have the oppotunity to enjoy eternal life. but he just wasnt listening, and i was a little frustrated because he wasnt understanding what we were talking about. and he also talks a thousand miles an hour and for an american that has only been talking portuguese for about 6 months it was hard to understand everything that he was saying. so i just starting asking him questions about, trying to get him to think or ponder about the ordinance and we went over the things that we explained as well a little again. reread the scriptures that we had used from the bible about Christ preaching to the spirits in Prison and some other ones as well and then i started to feel the spirit come in, it was amzing how we had turned an argument into a conversation and invited the spirit in. and he entered the home pretty strong, so i stopped and bore my testimony about it, my companion and i just bore testimony of the importance of the ordinance and how we know with out a doubt that it is an ordinance of the gospel and that it is necessary. and then he stopped asking questions about it, we starting talking about other things and well the next thing we know he is asking us over for dinner and we are going to go back here this week. it was just an amzing experience and to find out he has been trying to find a church and change is life because he has a lot of problems and we talked a lot about faith and how if we want to change we need to take the first step and God does the rest and the spirit was really strong it was an amzing experience to be able to teach the twin of David Hasslehoff from baywatch. and then later yesterday we were teaching the first lesson and again we felt the spirit really strong and it was a pretty good lesson, and after the lesson we asked if they had any questions and the only thing that she said was yea when you guys going to come back? and it was just awesome. so we are going back there as well and we just had a great day yesterday. we find 9 new people to teach and we had great lessons with them yesterday. it has been a good week. haha and we also had a really funny thing happen not to long ago. i think that i told you about the naked homeless lady, but if not she homeless and naked and she lives in our area and i am going to try and take a picture of her and send it to steve since he wants a picture of a naked chick, and it isnt a very pretty sight. but anyways, we were walking down the street together, my companion and i, and then i say something running up form behind us out of the corner of my eye and it didnt have a shirt on, but it just looked like a little kid. because they all walk around without shirts on. but it wasnt.......it was HER.....the naked lady. and she attacked my companion. she just clubbed in the side and hit him. hahahaha it was hilarious i was laughing at him so hard. and afterwards she took off and then strip her pannties off right in front of house and just took off naked down the street. she has some mental problems, but it was hilarious. i couldnt believe it. but yeah that was pretty much our week and well it was a pretty good one. the Lord is starting to bless us and things are looking pretty good. but i got to go, but i love you and i hope that all is well you and the family. tell kaya and juston that i love them and give them hugs for me and steven too, i am going to try and write him today. but i love you and i miss you. have a great day and a happy halloween. thanks for the card, the zone got a kick out it. but i love you and i will talk to you next week. the gospel IS true!!!!!
Com Amor, Élder Jory B. Spotts

Jory's favorite scripture

2009-07-12T22:09:00.000-07:00

D&C 112:10 Be thou humble;

and the Lord thy God shall lead thee by the hand,

and give thee answer to thy prayers.

Oct. 22, 2008

2009-07-12T22:08:00.001-07:00

Hey!! How are things going? how is the family? and has steven and juston gotten themselves a job yet? i hope that they do soon. how is work? how is the sports world? it sounds like things arent looking so good for our teams, but oh well. i am thousands a miles away and i cant even watch the games, so i am not to bummed. i did receive you package and thanks for the Reeses and the Pictures and the pillow case. i am not going to lie, i was looking forward to getting a lot more pictures than just the few that you sent me. but the next time that you send some pictures, try and send a bunch of up to date ones too. because i havent seen your faces in forever. and i am also waiting for the pictures from the weddings, i was really looking forward to them. but no problem, just try and get them to me the next time. start thinking about christmas and my birthday....they are both coming up right around the corner. but things have been going really well for me and i dont really have any complaints....except for the heat here.....still. it is so blazing hot here and it never cools down. but other than that things have been going pretty well, my companion have been working quite a bit and things have been going pretty well. we still dont have any baptisms marked or anything like that. but the teaching is looking promising. we have still been teaching the lady that cried during the first lesson with her, Sonia, and she is just awesome. we taught her about the book of mormon and she was excited to get that and start reading. but she wasnt able to make it to church, and i cannot remember why. but i am not to worried, because she already believes that Joseph Smith is a Prphet. so we are just waiting to go back and hopefully be able to mark her baptism soon. but we will have to see what happens. but yesterday we starting teaching an old investigator again and he was telling us how he has the desire to be baptized, but he still needs to go to church a few times and get to know the doctrine a little bit more. but things are going well and things are starting to look a little more promising. and today i got a letter from Zech and that was a bit unexpected but it was good to hear from him and it sounds like he is doing pretty well, he talked to me a lot about juston has been struggling. but dont tell anybody that i told you this. and we also had Zone Conference on Monday and it was good to be able to some words from the President and the Assistants and to get some training from them and also the Zone leaders. and yesterday we met another great young man that we started teaching and we had another good lesson with him and i hope that we can just start getting things going on the baptisms part of the mission. but nothing much to complain about this time. but yeah i am trying to think of things to write about, but nothing is coming to my head. but the work is good and i am sorry that this letter isnt very long, but i dont have a lot of time left. i also have to go get my haircut today. oh, but i wanted to tell you that i know that it might be hard for yo because you are supporting the two boys. but i dont know if it would be the greatest idea to kick them out. especially with the way that Juston has been feeling lately. i dont think that he would be to happy about that. but just encourage him to get a job and try and give him some love. he is struggling and he is just having a hard time, because he doesnt understand life yet. but just give him some love. and i am going to try and write him today, because it has been a while since i have written him. but i love you and i hope that all is well and if it isnt, i hope that it gets better. but i love you guys and i miss you. but i well be sending you another letter next week. and you better start enjoying them, because you are only going to getting about 75 more. but i love you and ill talk to you next week. give loves to everyone for me and tell everyone that i love them. and well that is about it...
Com Amor, Élder Jory B. Spotts

Oct. 15, 2008

2009-07-12T22:07:00.000-07:00

Hey! How is everyone doing? How is the family? and well things are going pretty well here. we have been keeping ourselves pretty busy and things have been going really well. today we are going to go to the Center of the city to go see some of the tourists things that they have here and to just relax and see what they have there. i have never been there, so i have no idea what it looks. and sorry to bust you bubble, but i havent been able to see the Amazon yet. in fact i dont even know where it is. but i do know that it is big and cool, but never seen it yet. i have seen the Rio Negro which is another huge river here. the amazon is actually two rivers that meet together and one of those rivers is the Rio Negro and it is a pretty big river itself. and we had another great experience this past weekend. i cannot remember what day it was, but one of our lessons fell through after lunch and we were going to go knocked some doors in one area of our area. but my companion had to use the bathroom, and they dont have any decent bathrooms in our area except our house. so we had to walk back to the house which is on the other side of are area, well actually it isnt in our area. but it was a really long walk and we decided not to return to the area that we wanted to knock doors, because it was really long. but we decided to knock doors somewhere else and we walked down this alley and the first house on the right i knocked. but i didnt just knock right off the bat, but i sat there thinking for a while should i or shouldnt i well i felt like i should so we did and we met an awesome lady that we are teaching but she turned out not to like the Book of Mormon to well. so we are praying for her, but that wasnt the really good story. but like two after that we decided to go down that same alley again and knock again. so we did and well my companion knocked at a door that he felt like he should knock and i felt good about it as well. and well the lady let us in and we taught the First lesson, but we didnt teach it like normal. the spirit guiding us and we taught quite different and the spirit definetly touched her heart. one the spirit was there strong and two she said the closing prayer before we left and she was just in tears as she was saying the prayer. thinking the Lord for sending us there and bringing her the Truth and that she knows that she needs a better life and that she wants a better life. it was an amzing lesson, i was practically in tear after we left and it was just awesome. i am way excited to go back and see how her prayer was. because she said that she would pray to know if these things are true and i really think that this will be a good one. but i try not to get my hopes up, because almost always something happens and they end up changing there minds in the end. but i really have a good feeling about this lady, her name is Sonha and she is just awesome. but other than that we havent had anything really amazing happen. but things are going really well, we have teaching a bunch and things are going really well. i have been noticing and becoming more of the missionary that i want to be with my new companion and it has been a good experience. because for the first few weeks with him i have practically been the senior companion because he doesnt know the area really well. i have to decide everything and it has been a good experience for me to have that responsibility. and things have just been going really well, we are still haveing trouble with getting a lot of help from the members here. but we are still pushing to get there help and are trying to figure stuff out. we have already starting a few things, like we have strting helping the ward get on reactivating the less-active members and well that seems to be going pretty well. but we are busy and doing well. i have thinking about home less and less. so things are going really well. but let me in on the details on how everyone is doing. how is kaya? Juston? steve? seince they dont write me anymore and did you give steve my email so that he can email me because that would be s much easier for me. but yeah let me know how things are going; and that sucks about Dallas, but oh well, and that is super exciting about BYU. wish that i had the chance to witness what it going on. but you cant always get what you want but. Mas, Tudo bem.but i hope that everyone is doing good and tell everyone that i love them and Morgan has been good about writing me and i dont have a whole of time to write him specifically, but i wanted to thank him and tell him that everything is going good and that it sounds like the family is keeping bust and doing well and to congradulate Josh and Ashley on there New baby and to tell everyone hi for me. but i love you all and i hope that everyone is doing well. oh and tell nick hi for me i havent had time to write him a letter. but things are going good nick and i hope that everything is going well for you as well and thank you for the letters it sounds like things are going well for you and the girls. but May God Bless you all and i love you. esta obra é a obra de Deus. Ele nos guia pelo espirito santo.
Com Amor, Élder Jory B. Spotts

Oct. 8, 2008

2009-07-12T22:03:00.002-07:00

Hey! how are things going? how is the family? how are kaya and justin doing? and you have gotta to tell Justin oberg to start writing, because i still love him too. how are the politics and the problem with the country? how are the cowboys doing? is t.o. still whining? i hope that the defense picks it up, because that is what we need. it sounds like the team has the talent on offense, but we need the team work of the defense. i hope they can pick it up. but things here i going pretty well, my companion (Elder Williams) and i have been working pretty hard and trying to get our area back on track, because with my last companion we didnt have a lot and he was really trunky so things we really slow. but my new comp. and i are trying to get things done so that we can get this area back on track. we did have a good lesson yesterday at the house of lady that talked about the things that she believes and she pretty much talked about everything that the church believes and she is pretty intelligent and the spirit was there and i hope that something will come out of it. we also had a good family night last night with a member and a few investigators. my companion and i are trying to work with the members, but it is pretty hard when the members dont feel like it is ther responsibility even though the leaders of the church are always talking about how the missionaries are called to teach and the members are called to find and the members are a huge part of missionary work. i dont know it just gets pretty annoying when the members talk about they dont think that it is their job or calling to help us out. but things are going well, the language is going well and i still working on that everyday with studying at least 30 min to an 1 hour. and i know that if i work hard and study i can be the best portuguese speaker in brazil. but things have been going well, it has been very hot. hotter than normal here but we are just trying to stick it out until rainy season which should be coming up here really soon. and i am also starting to see myself shiver at night when my fan is on, which i dont like. because that means that i am getting used to the heat and then when i get home i am going to have trouble adjusting to the colder weather. but whatever it is cool. i received a package today from grandma norton and a few letters. i finally received my first letter from Sherra, because you gave me the wrong address. apparently all her letters where ending up at the Senior Citizen Home. but she is doing well, she is living in colorado now and is going to school there. things are still difficult for her because she has little things in life that are difficult just like everyone else. but if you could put her name on the prayer roll in the temple as well and please pray for her as well. but yeah......things are going well and when you go to grandma roberts house give her a hug for me and do the same for the rest of the family. Robin and his family, Ann and Roger and their family, morgan and his family, and anyone else that you can think of that i love. but i really dont have a lot to talk about. but my companion is a good comp and things are going well. teaching is getter better now, we have had a better week so far this week with only two days of work this week than last week. and i dont think that he knows anyone that works at the prison there in gunnison because his dad is a truck driver, but i really dont have any other details to give. but all is well and i love you and i miss you all. give juston and kaya hugs for me and till them that i love them and that i miss them and that they can write me. i still have yet to get a letter from juston and it has been a while since i got one from kaya. but give loves to everyone for me and i will talk to you next week. love you and miss you
Com Amor, Elder Jory B. Spotts

Oct. 1, 2008

2009-07-12T22:03:00.001-07:00

Hey! how is everything going for you guys? i hope that all is well. it sounds like things are going pretty well with every one and i am glad to hear that Juston is working. but i am still really worried about him, because i feel that he is still doing things that he shouldnt. i have to talked to him about going to church, in a way that he wouldnt get upset. because i know that he gets upset really easily. i just hope that something will a happen and that he will see what he needs to do, and not continue to do the things that he wants to do. because the 100% independent route is not smooth and is very difficult. but the road of dependence on God is smooth and beautiful. i hope i spelled those things right, but if i didnt i am sure that you understand what i am talking about. and well it sounds like steven is just being a bum, i hope that he will finally get himself a job and start doing something. but it is good to hear the good things that have been happening, i know that not everything is going to be perfect, but it sounds like and i feel like things are going well there. and i have some idea of how you can help out the family and bring the spirit into you house more. start reading the scriptures with Kaya every morning and if juston will participate do it with him as well. and start praying together and start trying to have family night on SUnday night. i promise that things will get better in the house and you will see a difference. it might just start it with you and Kaya alone, but i think that juston will begin to as you invite him and encourage him to participate. and if he says no, dont chastise him but just say ok and that if he would like to you guys are there and maybe Zech and Steve will even start and want to participate. you never know, just start slowing with that and try to start with kaya and work slowly with juston and then maybe the other two will as well. i hope that makes sense and i do know that it will help. because it has been a promise from the twelve and the first presidency and that is enough of a reason to me. but things are going really well here, yesterday my companion went home and i received a new one. but i also have a few questions, i wasnt sure if you got those scriptures off for my old companion and have you sent that package to me yet. if not that is cool i dont have a problem with that, but it definetly would be nice to receive it. but my companion is my first american companion, Elder Williams, from Gunnison, Utah. he has 14 months on the mission and seems like a pretty good companion. yesterday was our first day in the area together and it was a good day. it wasnt a day of teaching a ton, but a day of visiting people so that he can get a feel for the area and the ward and all that stuff. and we had a meeting with the bishopric and it sounds like things should start picking up with the members in the area. and also it seems like my companion i have some of the same visions on how the work should go and on what we both what to accomplish in the area, so i think that things should be good and that we should get quiet a bit done together in the area and i sure do hope so too. but things are going good and i really dont have anything new to talk about. that is pretty much the update on everything that has been going on. because we are now in the transition mood from companion to companion. but things are going really well. oh and last night we found out that we have a naked homeless lady that lives in our area. and we found this out not by hearing from somebody......but by actually seeing it. she was completely naked laying in the street last night and i will tell that i hope she gets some close or leaves our area soon. because i really dont enjoy seeing it. it is the second time that i have seen it, the first time she has pants on without a top, but this time she didnt have any pants. but thinsgs are going well and you letter was a bit better, but you didnt answer all the question that i asked in my last letter. i still dont know where kaya has been going to school and she needs o be careful with that......boyffriend.......of hers. but i love you all and i hope that things continue to stay well with you guys and thanks for the sports update. i am a bit bummed that Dallas last to Washington, but oh well i do hope that it was in washington and not in dallas though. but i love you and i will keep praying for you all. love you and miss you
Com Amor, Élder Jory B. Spotts

Sept. 24, 2008

2009-07-12T22:02:00.000-07:00

Hey! how are things going? i hope that everyone is well. it sounds like things are going well and i hope that they well stay that way. it sounds like my sports teams are doing well and that is awesome, but it is a bummer that i am not able to be there to see it. but oh well and it sounds like the Cowboys did some good picking in the Draft Felix Jones was the pick that i wanted them to take first and then i thought that they needed a new CB after that and well isnt that what Pacman Jones? well i think so and he is a good corner too, he has talent but he needs to keep his off the field problems straight and i am still hoping that their defense can pick it up. because that is what is going to give them the Super Bowl run. i have tons of confidence in the Cowboys during the Regular season, but the playoffs are a different story. they need to make sure that their defense picks it up and stays that way. and about BYU, that is AWESOME. i really didnt even think that they were going to be that good this year, but it sounds like they are slaughtering everyone, and that is awesome. and i also thought that their weakness was going be the Defense. but if they havent been scored on yet i guess i am wrong. but it sucks that i cant walk it. i am really bummed about that, but oh well. i well be able to watch in a year and a half. but you really dont give me much to talk about or really let me know much what is going on. i feel left out, where are the details of things. you got to let me know more of what is going on, where is juston working? where is Zech training? why doesnt steve have a job? did he quit or did he get fired? is he looking for a job? where is kaya going to school? has she been hanging out with people? what are the reasons that she wants to return to live with dad? how is the rest of the family doing? how is work? why are you liking it? you got to let me know what is going on with politics too. how are things looking? and i cant believe that you didnt tell me that Brett Favre backstabbed the Packers and is playing for the Jets now. you are my contacted to the normal world. where are the details......? what is going on in Iraq? what have the president candidates been talking about?i have a chance to vote and i think i will. but how will i know who to vote for. you got to tell me the details. not just who you are going to vote for. sorry if i sound rude. but i have no idea what is going on in america and i wanna know what is going on there. please....please.....please....please! you gotta let me know what is going on. but things here are going well. havent had anything really different happen around here. it is the last week for my companion on the mission and he is getting really excited to go home and i am pretty sure you know what happens to the missionaries when they get ready to go home. they slowly stop working and well there isnt anything different about that situation here. but we do have a baptism this weekend on Saturday. Florisvaldo is going to be baptized and my companion and i are getting super excited for that. it has taken is a long time and a lot of patience with him and he has finally received the desire to be baptized. and the cool thing is that he has changed one hundred and eighty degrees. it has been a pretty cool experience to be able to see that and to be able to help him with that. and his wife is pretty excited too, i think that she has been the larger impact on him and i am very grateful for here help with him as well. because she has been pushing him to have the desire and he has also been reading the Bible a ton and that really helped a bunch. and he has started the Book Of Mormon and he is now in second Nephi there. and it has been really good. but other than him, we really dont have any investigators. we have this one family, but i really dont know about them. we had a GREAT lesson with them on Saturday last week and the spirit was so strong. we watch the movie finding faith in Christ in the home of a member and after the movie my companion and i both bore our testimonies and then afterwards the member bore his testimony and the spirit was so strong that it brought tears to his eyes and mine, so i testified another time and oh just went really well. i know that the investigator felt the spirit, but i dont know if she will accept that feeling or not. we are going to pass by there again either tonight if we have time, or tomorrow. because she wasnt home yesterday for our marked appointment. but things are going well, i am just trying to stay patient. because last week i lost my patience and i just couldnt handle it. but i figured out why, because i lost sight of the good things that had been happening and i lost sight of the missionary that i invisioned myself being before the mission and well i decided that i cannot lose that vision again and i just need to be patient and take every difficulty and trial with a smile on my face and look at the blessings that i am receiving and not at the things that are difficult. but things are going well, today should be a good day of sitting in the house and studying. i have fallin in love with the Bible i starting reading that i love it. the stories are amazing. i just finished genesis and i am going to start Exodus today and i am going to do bit of reading in Jesus the Christ as well. that book is freaking awesome, i talk even begin to talk about it. my companion always makes fun of me because i am always reading the scriptures or some other book about the gospel. he calls me a nerd, but i dont care. i love to read them and that is all that matters to me. but things are going well, i really got nothing else to talk about. except we had a pretty funny experience yesterday while we were teaching a lesson. we were teaching a lesson and the girl that we were teaching was telling a story and then out of no where she starting screaming bloddy murder and i was thinking to myself...What the heck is you problem?...and then i saw the problem, there was a HUGE rat running aroung my feet and my companions feet and then it started jumping and it jumped on my companions feet and leg and then took off. it was hilarious. and the rat was huge, big. but things are going good. and i wanna something to kaya because i want her to understand the whole situation with moving back anf forth. so this part is to kaya so call her over if she isnt already there. but kaya........look, i dont know what you are thinking or what you reason is for moving back to Alaska. but i want to listen to what i am going to tell you. dont do what you want to do........because that isnt what you need to do. do you understand what i am trying to tell you. because i have a feeling that you want to return to Alaska because it is the easy way out. maybe because things arent perfect for you in utah. but let me ask you a question. how many times have you moved back and forth? and why did you move back and forth? i think that it was because you were running from something. i dont know what that thing was, but i know that you were running from something. but i have some advice for you, dont run! look at what alaska has to offer and also what Utah has to offer. alaska has dad and it is a great place to live and it has your friends, but utah has mom and it is also a great place to live and the education there is better and you can have friends there too. look at what i did. i moved with mom to utah i didnt have friends there but i know that that is where i would receive a better future. that is what is important, not the here and now. but what will happen in the future. utah has more boys that are members of the church and the environment is better kaya. i know that you want to live in Alaska. but as a brother, i am telling you not because i am trying to tell you what to do. but because i love you and because i know with all my heart that you well find yourself a better future and a better life with less problems in Utah. maybe you wanna go back because dad is alone and it struggling and you love him. but dad is fine and he will be fine, he is a strong man and has the Lord. he doesnt need you. but what you need to do is what you need to do. if you understand that. the Lord knows what you need to do and He will show where you need to be. you need to think a lot about what you are thinking and why you are thinking it, because every decision in life whether big or small has an effect on it. and this will case your entire life to change. dont just make an irrational decision. but think about what you are doing. i love you and i know that you will make the right decision, but dont make that decision in the blink of an eye. i love you guys both and i hope the best for you. on Sunday give matt a hug for me and tell him that i am super excited for him and Bom Trabalho!!!! you need to tell him those words, i think that he will understand, it means good work. and tell him Sede o missionário que Deus quer que você seja. Be the missionary that God wants you to be. i am so excited for him and i want you to let him know that for me. but all is well with me and i love you all. and tell steve that i said to get a job haha. but i love you all and give everyone a hug for me and give juston and kaya both a huge hug for alright. LOVE YA!!!!!! and miss you too. remember details....the word of the week.
Com Amor, Élder Jory B. SPotts

Sept. 17,2008

2009-07-12T21:58:00.000-07:00

Hey! How are things going? its like things are going well. and i super excited to hear more about BYU and Dallas. you need to give me more details. but with dallas it looks like our defense needs some work if the Eagles are scoring that much on us. i dont doubt that the offense is awesome like it has bee lately. but Defense is what is going to do us good in the playoffs. we need that. and you have got to let me know who they drafted this past year. and why is ben working on the computer. did somethings happen to it? and well the baptisms were awesome of course. it was a good day, it was the first baptisms in this area since July. i have been really starting to lose my patience in this area, because no one seems to care about the message that we are bringing. we have tons of people say that the gospel is true, but none of them want to change. it is really sad to see. and i am not in a great mood right now so you might get a lot of complaining in this letter. because i was writeing dad and i had written a ton and then we had a stupid black out and i lost it all, so i am a bit irritated right now and am not liking brazil very much. because they have these black outs like every day. it is really annoying. the slogan for brazil is order and progess, but they have neiter. the brazilian people have so much pride for there country and it is all in vain. because they have nothing. and my companion just looked over and read that and he told me to shut up. but he is from São Paulo and it is a thousands times better there. Manaus just doesnt have anything but jungle. but yeah things here are going alright. you talked about the members and how they are starting to help. well it seemed that way, but they arent helping as much as they started out to. a couple of families are and that is because they a some great families. but at the baptism one of the members in the bishporic gave the welcome to the ward speech and he taught some apostate things to the people there. i cant give details, i actually cant talk bad about the are. but things are working slower i just hope that things will start to get better. but things sound pretty good for you. and yeah i did know that dad is getting another divorce he has been talking a lot to me about it. he hasnt been holding things back from me lately, so things for him have been really difficult for him lately. so i have been praying a lot for him and juston as well still. i just hope that things can get better for all of you guys. it is hard for me to hear all the things that i going bad for you guys and knowing that there is nothing that i can to help, because i am thousands of miles away. but i just have to have faith that the Lord will take care of you all. but also about the baptism, the mother and daughter were both baptized, because the father hasnt really hard a true desire yet. but on monday night we went to there house and talk to them a bit and found out that he has a desire now. so we marked his baptismal date for the end of this month. i dont know really exactly what happened, but the spirit touched his heart somehow. which is awesome, so my companion and i were pretty excited about that. it will be my companions last baptism on the mission. which will be good for him. and well i found out that my companion and i are not going to be able to go to McDonalds yet. because it is to far from our area and the assisants to the president wont allow it. but i dont know they have one closer to our area that we just barely found out about. so we might try to go there next week. but it is really dumb. they dont have one at the center of the city where they have everything......except McDonalds......it is really dumb. but oh well. and i am sorry that i have been talking about quiet a few negative things, i am just not in the greatest mood right now. because a lot of things have been happening to me that i dont want to happen or things havent been happening that i want to happen. if that makes an sense. but i have been study the scriptures a lot lately and the book Jesus the CHrist and i have been loving it. it has been so cool to be able to study the life of Christ so in depth. i love it! we have zone conference tomorrow which will be good. but things are going well and i hope that you guys finally got that package of mine in the mail. but i love you and give everyone loves for me. and tell steven thanks for the letter and give him my email address, because it is easier for him and i to recieve things that way. but dont give it to everyone and tell him that he has to watch his language in the emails. because the church monitors the words that are in the emails and they might close my email if he sends something that isnt appropriate. but i love you tons and i miss. i wont try to be to trunky.
Com Amor, Élder Jory B. Spotts

Sept. 10,2008

2009-07-12T21:55:00.002-07:00

Hey! How are things going? How is the family doing? How is juston? i worry about him out here so much. i pray that things are getting better for him. steve finally sent me a letter, well he sent an email to his mother to send to me. so i received that today. all he talked about was the cool fun things that he has been doing lately without. which doesnt that just help to keep me from getting a little trunky. the little butt, it seems like he trying to get to come home or something. but that isnt going to work. things have been really well here. we are finally going to have a couple of baptisms this week. two, a mother and a daughter, we wanted to baptize the father as well. but he has a problem with the WW and are going to have to help him out with a little before he can be baptized. and then the ward here is finally wanting to start working with the missionaries so they gave us five families to work with and try to reactivate them. so my companion are going to be helping them with that, and are hoping that in return they will be willing to help us bring people to church and also come with us to our lessons so that they can give the investigators some support. which will really help us to get some baptisms. but things have been going really well. on the 30 of this month i will have exactly 1 year and 6 months until i will heading home, or the mission will end for me. but who is counting......right. =P not me...........i am just kidding, but things are going really well. it sounds like you guys had a great a stake conference, two apostles where there atleast that is what it sounds like. and that definetly means that they were there to help out someone. because the Lord never sends the Keys of the Priesthood anywhere without a good reason, and to send two apostles to one place together is even greater a possibility that the Lord is looking out for someone that really needed to hear the words from them. but maybe i misunderstood and it wasnt the apostles that where there. but i think that is what you meant. but things are going really well here. my companion is really excited to go home, really really excited. and now that i told him that we are going to McDonalds he is really excited even more. so he is happy and things are going well. when he leaves i well be getting new companion and i will have the opportunity of pretty much like training for a week and showing him the area and all that good stuff. but yeah that isnt for quite awhile. but things are going really well. and i love you guys and i miss you tons. Keep your heads up and the Lord will show you what you calling in life is right now. maybe your calling is to just help juston and kaya for right now, they really do need your help at this time. especially juston, try and do things with kaya and him. like set up a day in advance to go somewhere with both of them like the movies or bowling or camping or a fun night with kezia and them. think of something up with kaya that you guys can do to help juston out. spend some time with him, it will help out a lot. and well tell everyone that i love them and that miss them and that you are only going to get 79 more letters until we will be able to talk face to face. i love you and try not to get trunky or anything. haha jk but love you guys and here the address to my companions house in São Paulo.

Aug. 09,2008

2009-07-12T21:55:00.001-07:00

Hey! well this is the second that i have to write to you. because i wrote a huge letter and tried to send it to you but i couldnt i had to write it all over again and i am a bit upset about that, because it was a good letter. now it will be a lot smaller. because i dont have time to explain everyrthing that is going on now. well my first thing is that the man that we met drunk in the street wants to return to his old church now. we went there yesterday and he exlained how he was going through some hard times and we helped him out and that he was going to return to his old church. so that was pretty depressing and my heart pretty much hurts because of that. but the last week i found out some news about my old area and the people that my companion and i had been teaching. that just about every single person that we found and had been teaching was baptized. it was such good news and a great feeling to here that. and it was awesome i love hearing the good things. and well things are going pretty well for me and i really dont have anything to complain about and well i dont have a whole lot of time to write more than this now. but i wanted you to give everyone loves for me. i really need you to give hugs to Juston and kaya for me and tell them that i miss them and also tell juston that i think about him every day and i wish that we could talk to, but we cant. but that when i get home him and i are going to kick it and have a blast together. and i also need you to give steven a hug for me and tell him and i do miss him and i think about him often, and at Matt and Josh´s farewells i need you to tell them that i am honored to be able to have two friends that are going be able to serve missions with me. and i also need you give Justin Oberg a hug the next time that you see him, because i miss him too. well and i think that is about it, but i love and i miss but i gotta get going. i gotta write a letter to president. but love you and miss you and i will send you my companions address next week, and he wants blue scriptures and send those before you will send my package. but i love you tons things are great the gospel is true. i pray for you all eveynight. i pray that the Lord will take care of you all while i am gone, and i know that He will. and keep it up, it sounds like things have been going been not so good for everyone. but i love you and hope all is well Com Amor, Élder Jory B. Spotts

Aug. 25,2008

2009-07-12T21:54:00.001-07:00

Hey! well i was a little sad to see that i hadnt recieved anything from my own family on p-day this week. i know that p-day is normally wednesday, but they moved it to monday this week, and just for this week. because we have a conference with the Area Authorities this week and so they moved for that reason. but yeah nothing really new has been going on, things are going really well, and things seem to be picking up a little in this area and i am starting to like it a little more. yesterday my companion and i had a pretty good day. and we had a good last lesson of the night with a man that we met drunk in the street last week. we schedules to go to his house on saturday night, but we ran out of time and had to be back in our house. so we decided to go by there last night, and when we arrived you was excited to see us and we had a great visit with him and we taught the first lesson and the spirit was really strong and i think that it was probably on of the best lessons that i have had on the mission so far. it always seems like when i teach the best too is when the spirit is really strong. because i know that it isnt me, but it is the spirit. the words come off my lips smoother and everything just goes smoother. and i know that it isnt i or my companion, but the spirit. the gift of tongues works so much better when the spirit is there to testify and to help me. it was a great lesson because the spirit was there to guide us and to help us. and after the lesson he explained to us that he was in his house alone and that he was waiting for someone to come by, or for something to do. and then we knocked on his door. it was a great experience and i really hope that something will come out of this one. we have a couple of baptisms scheldules for not next week but the week after. and things are going really well. but i really dont have a ton of things to talk about but i just wanted o write you and let you know that i love and things are going great here. i hope that everything is going even better for you guys.i love you so much and sent some letters to kaya and juston last week, so they should be getting those here in the next week or so. hmmm.......and since i wont recieve a letter from you until next week, it better be a HUGE one. two weeks worth or more. but i love you and i miss you, give loves to everyone for me.
Com Amor, Élder Jory B. Spotts

Aug. 20, 2008

2009-07-12T21:53:00.001-07:00

Hey! How are things going? I hope that all is well and that juston is doing better now. tell him that i love him and that i miss him and that i think about him all the time. and i will try to write hime today, because i only recieved one letter thin week and i dont have any one to write, so i will try to write him and kaya as well today. but it sounds like things are still going really crazy at the Prison, i hope that things will start to calm down there, i wonder why it is like that now. but i really also hope that things will start to get better for juston and that he will start to turn around. i know that if steven is there he will help him, i know that steven wont stand for him to be disrespectful to you and i think that things will work out. i really hope that they do too. but things are going pretty well here, still pretty slow and havent had any baptisms in a while. but what can you do, i know things will turn around too anyways. but when, i ave no idea. and i also hope that things are going well for kaya with school. where is she going to school at? where did she finally decide to go? i just realized the other day though that she will start driving next year.... that is a scary thought and almost not believable. but it is going to happen. but things are going pretty well here, i had the opportunity to try Bull Heart a few days ago and it was actually pretty good, i really liked it. it just tasted like meat. and as for florisvaldo, he told us that he doesnt have a desire and doesnt want to be baptized. which is sad, because his wife and daughter want to be baptized but we dont want to have to baptize them and not him. we want to baptize them all together, but i dont think that is going to happen. but i sure hope that eventually some time down the line he will be baptized. i hope that he will maybe finally see the light in his family. but we have also started teaching some pretty cool families, one has as already been to church and they are awesome i really like them. haha they have a six year daughter and she is really funny. when she was younger she had an accident and fell a really long ways and busted up her head. so she has a piece of skull missing and they are waiting to see if it will grow back or if they need to put a plate in. but the funny things is that you would think that that would damage her brain falling a long ways. but actually, she is one of the smartest little 6 year olds that i have ever met and she is really funny and she is a beautiful little girl too. the first time that i met her she said, Porque você nasceu burro? which is really funny, it means why were born like a donkey and after she said that to me she said it to her grandfather...who was drunk at the time. haha she always says little things like that and always laughs really funny. she is the cutest and funniest little girl. and the family is a great family, and they always offer us to eat with them and stuff. and my companion was telling me that if an investigating family offers you food they will be baptized and well we have had that happen with two different families now. so i keep my fingers crossed. because things are starting to look better and that we should have a good transfer this tranfser. things are going good. and last night a new missionary right off the plane moved into the apartment, so i might be able to help him with learning the language of satan, as it is at times. jk but things are going well and the language is still going pretty well, i an learning more and more each day. and things are going really well. but i hope that things will start getting better for you guys there and make sure to give juston a huge hug for me. because i think about him so much i really do. he is on my mind constantly, i really miss the little punk. and give kaya a hug and a kiss on the cheek for me. i love you and i miss you. but you all and i are in the Lords hands and i trust him with all my heart. love you Com Amor, Élder Jory B. Spottsp.s. when is my package going to get here. i am still waiting. oh and i forgot, didnt get transfered and i also promised my companion that since i am killing him this transfer that i(you) would buy him some scriptures, the quad with all the bible, BOM, D&C, and everthing. and that you would put his name on it Eliabe Vieira da Silva. so since promised him, you hope that you can get that done and i will also get his address and then you can send them to his house in São Paulo for me. just buy him smalls like i got at Desert Book. thank you and i love you tons and give steve a hug for me too

Aug.13,2008

2009-07-12T21:51:00.000-07:00

Hey! How are things going? It sounds like things have definetly been interesting at work, did you see these things happen or did you just hear about them. well i pray that you didnt have to see it, because that is some pretty crazy stuff. things here are definetly not that crazy. but things are going really well. you have no idea how excited i am to hear that juston has decided to move back home. i am been praying alot for him, and i mean a lot. in fact a few days ago. i dont know how many exactly. but in my personal prayer before i went to bed poured my heart to my Father in Heaven about Juston and told Heavenly Father that i wanted juston to turn his life around and i didnt care what the Lord needed to do. but i know that He could help my brother and i poured my heart. i am glad to hear that my prayers are being answered. i really hope that he can get things together,i been praying for him to see the light and realize how much he needs the Saviour in his life and i think that Juston is starting to see that light, at least i hope that he is. i will write him a letter today. but as for things on the mission they are still a bit slow. things with Florisvaldo, the man that was having a lot of doubt, i getting better. we just decided to teach him the Plan of Salvation and it helped a ton. because we were really confused on what to do. but things are starting to look better, we are still trying to get him to go to church though. his entire family has been to church almost every single week since we started teaching them. but he hasnt been one time yet, and he was going to go last week. but something happened to hs foot and he had to have surgery on saturday night and wasnt able to make it, because he cant walk very well or very far and the church isnt exactly right next door to there house. in fact it is quite a ways a way. but things are looking alot better with that family, the mother has a desire to be baptized. but they need to get married before they can be baptized and we want both of them to be baptized together. so we posponed the wedding date and are trying to help him gain a testimony of the gospel. which has been very difficult, because he is pretty hard headed and has some pretty apostasizing beliefs. but we will continue to work with him until he finally comes around. maybe he wont until after they get married. but we have until the 30th of this month to work with him. and then last week we had a very slow week and didnt get alot of lessons in, and really nothings happened, it was a bit difficult. but this week so far in the first two days of the week we almost taught more than we taught all last week and we have quite a few new investigators. because we had to leave a few investigators, because they wont go to church and we have been teaching them for a while and we dont have time to keep teaching them. so we decided if they trully have a desire than they will come to church. because they already know where it is. so we are going to wait and see if they show up. But then this last week we also had another difficulty come our way. we were teaching this family and things were going really well, we had marked a date of baptism for the oldest child in the family and were about to mark dates for the parents. but something happened at the place that the mother works at. she works at a market store that a lot of members work at and an something happened where one of the members wasnt a very good example and did something they definetly should have done. and well the investigator didnt like it very much and now she is questioning the church. but we are trying to work with her and that family now too. so things are definetly not easy and we have been having to work pretty hard to even get a baptism. but we know that something will come if we continue to work hard, and this is the last week of the transfer. so we will find out on sunday if one of us will be transfered and we are both hoping no. because it is his last transfer next transfer and he doesnt want to be transfered and i dont want to be transfered either. because being trasnfered sucks. but i am in the Lords hand and we will see what happens. but things seem to be going pretty well. as for the things that people have been saying about america, it has really just been the other companionship in the apartment that just say the dumbest things to me, like america is only good for war, and they always call my the american this and american that. almost like they think that i think that america is a better country. which up until yesterday i had said nothing about the matter. but my patience had been running thin, so i kinda tore into them and let them know how it really is. and how they need us and well i havent heard anything about america since. which is how i like it. but we will see, they will probably say some other stupud thing today. but as for the olympics, no i havent been able to watch them. because i dont know if you forgot, but we cant watch tv. but i have been hearing about it from the members and i also hear about other things that go on in the world from them. but things are going really well and i am happy to hear that things are things are going well for you guys as well. and when juston gets down then and settled in you have remind that he needs to start saving his money to buy me a motocycle like he promised. but i love you and send my love to eveyone. but i got to get going. i need to write a letter to president. but i love you and i miss you tons.
Com Amor, Élder Jory B. Spotts

Aug. 06, 2008

2009-07-12T21:49:00.000-07:00

Hey! How are things going? it sure sounds like things are going really for guys? I sure do love ya and am gratiful that the Lord is taking care of you. it reminds me of the scripture in D&C, which i cant remember exactly where it is at, but i know that it is in D&C. and it talks about how that the Lord will take care of the family if we work and do the work of the Lord. i think of you guys everyday and pray for you every night and morning and everytime that i pray. and tell Kaya i am sorry.....but she cant use my computer, because i am really going to need it for school when i get home and i need it to last me awhile. and you are going to believe but i found out what i am going to do when i get home for school. I am going to go into Law, because our country is falling and with the new president candidates it isnt looking for us. so i didnt that i dont want to see my country go down and i want to try everything that i possible can to keep it strong. i hear so much about america this and america that here. and i am sick of hearing people putting down my home country. he really gets irritating, very very irritating. but that is in the future. we are in the present now and things here are going pretty well. we have been trying to stay busy and have been working on few families still. and we have still been having some trouble with one man. he is the husband in one of the families that we are teaching and he is just having a really hard time and we really dont know what to do. we are just trying to be patient until we finally figure out what is his problem and we can help him. but things are going good and we have a few baptisms marked for this month and we are hoping to have more. and you have gotta tell me what all the girls have been saying about me down there. haha jk but i did recieve a letter from a girl that i dont even really know. we hung out twice and then i get this letter from her, it is a little bit fishy. what is it with all these girls wanting missionaries.........we are kinda busy and dont have time for them........i wish that they would disappear until we get home. but they linger around and cause problems for us that we dont need. but i dont mind getting a letter or two from them once in a while. because it is the only girl contact that we get at all. oh and once in while we get a hand shake. haha i have no idea why i am talking about this. make sure that when you send this letter to everyone else that you delete all this part out. because it makes me sound ridiculous. but anyways..........things are going good here. and i am so excited for Matt and Josh. that three out of four of our high school group. and speaking of them......do you know what they are doing without. tons of freaking awesome stuff and am way jealous. i cant even believe it.....they are going to arizona, las vegas, and freaking chigago. what the heck is that? i cannot believe this. bt oh well...life goes on. but yesterday i got a ton of letters from all of them and i was excited to get them. it sounds like justin oberg missed me alot. i was told by a couple of people that he got teary eyed when he would talk about me. i think that you might need to explain to him that we are just friends. and i dont think that it will work out any more and that he needs to start seeing other people. but i was really excited to hear from them. it is always great to get some letters in the mail once in a while. oh and i forgot to tell ya.....i have been feeling a bit crappy lately, i got sick yesterday and havent been feeling very good. all last night i had the fire house spraying out both sides, and my stomach has really been bothering me. my companion had the same thing a few days ago. but i got a little bit lucky, i was sick on P-day not a work day. but things are going good other than the fact i am bit sick, i am feeling better now but last night was rough. and i got a letter from casey today, but the weiner has been sending the letters to Gina Ellis and then she sends them to me, so it takes them forever to get here. i dont know what is up with that, but oh well it is good to hear from him once in a while. and i am trying to think of things to write about, but it is hard, because nothing way exciting has been happening. oh well the other day it was 43 degrees Celsius here and i dont know if you know how hot that is.........i mean it is only about 110 degrees and then with the humidity......lets not talk about it. but i am glad to hear the kaya had a good time at Girls camp and that she is doing good. has she found another Job yet? tell her that she needs to get on that. because it really is a blessing to have a job when you are in high school, but on the other hand it also great to have parents that pay for everything in High School, but i wouldnt know what that is like. ;P but things are going good. you can probably tell by the way that i am talking that things are going pretty well. well......i kinda received my personality back, because the language is going really well and i have no one to thank but the Lord. yesterday at Zone Conference i said the closing prayer and afterwards Sister came up to me and couldnt believe that i was talking so well, she said that she thought that it was a Brazilian. so that is good, because last zone conference her and i talked about the struggles of the language because she has been learning it as well. and my conidence has been getting stronger and stronger and i can understand what people are saying. and it feels so good. and i really have no one to thank but my Father in Heaven. it has been really good. But i got to be getting going. but things are going great and i love it. oh and one last things.......you know what would be nice.......a package. jk i know that you are working on it. but i really want those pictures soon, because everyone has been asking to see pictures of my family and i dont have very many. and you still need to make sure that you show all those pictures to Josh and the clan, because he really wanted to see some pictures of Brazil. but let him know that Salvador will be a lot different. Manaus is like the Armpit of Brazil. atleast that is what all the Brazilians say. but things are going really well. oh hahahahahaha......you will never believe what i ate on Monday night. we had a family home evening night with an investigating family and some members, and they cooked Tatu(Armadillo). i freaking ate armadillo and it was the nastiest thing that i have ever tasted. well it wasnt that bad. but it was really weird, but i really got to go. i still have to write a letter to presidente. but i love you and miss you....and my love to everyone.
Èlder Jory B. Spotts

August 6th, 2008

2009-07-09T14:11:00.000-07:00

July 30th, 2009

2009-07-09T14:08:00.000-07:00

Hey! How are things going? Things are going really well here, and if you think that time is flying there, you should see it here. i cant even believe that i have been away for 4 months already. next thing i know it will be a year. but things are going well and just trying to stay busy. my companion and i have been in a bit of a slow time. we have teaching, but no baptisms. and we have people that have been reading the Book of Mormon and are really interested, but they havent been church yet. we had ten or so people tell us that they were going to go to church this past sunday, but only one person showed up. it was rather sad. but to find out it was because of good reasons and hopefully they will all be able to make it next week. the work is good i love it, but right now it is a bit slow. but i am still grateful for what i have experienced, it has been good. but i am not gonna lie, i cant wait to come home and be able to do things that i havent been able to do here....like throw my toilet paper in the toilet, take a warm shower instead of a freezing one, listen to music, watch movies, hang out with some girls, and play my guitar, and be with family. but things have been going well, i gotta stop talking about this or i am going to get trunky. but it sounds like things are going better for you and that is good. has kaya found a new job yet? i sent her a letter last week so she should be getting that and i still need to know when you get thoughs photos that i sent. i really hope you do, because some of them i will not be able to get back. because they are only on the CD that i sent. but oh well if you dont. life will go on. oh and it is winter here. but that doesnt make any difference, it just means that it doesnt rain as much. but the hottest months of the year are coming up....August and September. so we will see how those months go. i am just super excited for them. but the good things is a will only have to experience them twice. and the first time will be over before i know it. and i cant believe that everyone is going and getting married and i cant be there to witness the weddings. what the heck is that? heck when i get married.....no one will be invited if they wanna all be like that. it isnt fair! i am just kidding. i am happy for them, but it would be nice to be able to witness things like that. because they only happen once. but things are good here. my companion and i had a bit of a rough lesson last night. we have teaching this family and we marked a date for the wedding of the mother and father for the 16 of August. but last night, we were teaching and the father just started hammering the church and us. about so many things and it was hard to sit there and listen to him saying all these things. the spirit ran out the door and soon as he started. we tried bringing it back in. i bore my testimony and explained to him that i know that it is hard to know that things are true, but that i do know. and i know because i searched for the truth and i prayed to know and i received an answer. and then he cooled down and we continued to try and teach and then he started again about something else. then we testified again and he calmed down. and then he would start up again later about something else. he was really heart breaking to see that. because it seemed like things were starting to go well. but then they stopped and i am starting to think that it has something to do with the Word of Wisdom, because we taught that to them a few days ago and he has a problem with a few of the things we arent supposed to use. and well he has a desire to stop some but not all. and i think now he just trying to prove the church is false and in turn the Word of Wisdom isnt of God. but i dont know. we have a few days until we go back and i hope that the Lord can help us and show us what we need to do by then. but things have been going really well. i really like my companion he is really funny and really cool even if he is a computer nerd. jk he really is awesome. and Zome conference is coming up next week and i think that i will be able to kill my companion. because the new mission president wants to keep us missionaries in our areas for more time so that we can gain and build relationships with the members and other things. but things are going well and i would like to talk about and write other things but i have to get going. i still have to write a letter to the presient and then i have to get my hair cut and go buy some groceries and then clean house and then if i have time write some letters. and i got the letters from the taylors finally. and i will send letters to them tomorrow, but i still havent heard from Jeremiah the weiner i would kinda like to know how the butt is doing. but i love and i miss ya. i hope that things get better with you and glenna. and it might help if you just dont say anything to her, let her be who she is. no one is going to change her, because she is just like grandma. and by the way i want you to give grandma a hug for me. because i guess adam moved out and didnt say anything and she is probable having a hard time being a lone. but i love you and send my love to everyone. and no need to worry about me. i am in good hands. Com Amor,Élder Jory B. Spotts

Jory

2009-07-04T18:27:00.001-07:00

Letter July 23, 2008

2009-06-30T13:26:00.000-07:00

Hey! How are things going? It definetly sounds like you had a bit of a difficult week this week. but it also sounds like things are working out. which that is always good. i am definetly sorry to hear that Kaya was let go, because they decided to sell that restaurant. but i bet that she will find another job really fast. and i know that she is going to have a bunch of fun at girls camp, she always does. and remember to let me know when those pictures get there that i sent two weeks ago, and yes i definetly want reeses, i dont care if they melt. i brought my pajama pants with reeses on them and every day they remind me that they dont have reeses here in brazil, and then i am sad. and you well have to let me know when you hear from Matt about his mission call. i am going to write him today i started writing him before my companion and i left the apartment. but i wasnt able to finish it, i also wrote josh, i am so excited for him. i think about him just about every day now, but before the only time that his name popped into my head was when i got a letter from him and i read. haha jk. but things are going pretty well, i am still progressing in the language and am doing a lot better. i think that now i have a better companion and he has been helping me a lot more with the language, one because he has more patience and he lets me teach. and i have really been trying to push myself and i have been seeing a big difference lately. and for juston dad tells me that he is working two jobs now. he got a graveyard job at Home Depot loading trucks and he did tell me that he got your package that you sent him. but i guess he is struggling and dad also told me that he has been complaining a bit. because he thinks that kaya got everything that she ever wanted since she was practically born and that i have gotten all that i wanted ever since i turned 17, but i just pray for him every night and i just have to have faith in God that he will take care of him. because there really isnt a whole lot that i can i do for him now, being nearly around 8000 or so if not more miles away from him. but things are going really well for me. i mean my companion and i seem to be in a bit a slump right now, because we have been teaching and teaching. but none of the investigators seem to be really making any progress, because they dont seem to have the desire to change and start living the gospel. we have marked a few baptismal dates for next month and we are hoping to get some baptisms, but we will see if they actually hold up. because you never know, they might back down at the last minute. Because none of them really seem to have a great desire, but all we can do is just keep teaching, praying, working, and fasting and then just hope for the best. i finished the book of mormon again today i plan on starting it again tomorrow. and i also plan on writing juston today i really need to. i wrote kaya last week, so she should be getting that soon and i also sent those pictures. so you should be getting those with in the next few days. and if you could, please send a few of them to dad, because i really dont have a whole lot of time to do that. but things are going really well. and send me some pictures of the family if you can, because every one here is always asking about my family and if i have any pictures and all i have are the pictures that we took together at the MTC in Provo and i would like some more if you could get some to me. but there really isnt anything that i need that i can think of right now, but i would like some stain remover if you can find any anywhere that you will be able to send really easily, because the stuff here pretty much sucks. but yeah......my companion and i did have a good lesson last night that i ofrgot about. with a man and his son, we ran into this man a couple of weeks ago while we were giving a lesson to a family outside there door. he was drunk and he just came up to us and starting talking to us about all sorts of things, like his bible and he really wanted to show us his bible. so he went home got it and came back and started talking to us again, and then we decided to mark an appointment with him. so we did, but we ended up missing it, because we were way busy the day that we had him marked down for. so we returned like the next day or so and marked a different day, which was last night and we taught him the third lesson. and it went really well, the spirit was there and we mark his baptismal date. and i really like him, there is something about him that i really like. i have no idea what it is, but i really hope that everything continues to go well with him. because i can tell by look in his eye that he needs this gospel and that he is struggling. an i pray that everything will work out with him........and then on sunday, we had a bit of different experience. my companion and i had the opportunity to teach the first lesson to a prophet.....atleast he thinks that he is.....it was really weird but interesting. because he really believed that he was a prophet, i mean he admitted that he had never talked with God or anything, but he still believed that he was a prophet. and we also found out that he is a member of a church here in brazil that has a prophet and 12 apostles, and they stay inside all day searching for God. which was really interesting. but some crazy things go on here in Brazil, and it is just a really weird place. but everything is going really well with me. but i need to be getting going and i need to write a letter to the president still. but i love you guys so much and i miss ya. you are always in my prayers and i hope that things get better and they stay that way. i am starting to fall in love with mission and it has been really good. but i really cant think of anything else that is going on. i love ya and tell kaya hi for me and give everyone else my love. tell steve that he needs get of his lazy butt and do something with his life like maybe write me a letter or something. jk but i love you and i miss ya. O evangelho é verdadeiro e esta obra é a obra de Deus. Eu sei que com a ajuda de Deus e Jesus Cristo nos podemos fazer e realizar todas as coisas. Com Amor, Élder Jory B. Spotts

Letter July 16, 2008

2009-06-30T13:25:00.000-07:00

Hey! How are things going? Things are going a lot better this week than they were last week. i have had a turn around in the language at last i think that i have. after i vented to you a bit last week about it. things really changed, i had tried so hard to be patient with the language. but i dont know what happened last week, i guess i kinda lost it. because i want so much for people to be able to understand what i am trying to say and how much i love this gospel. but it is so hard to explain myself when my vocabulary is so limited. but i did have a turn around, i pretty much understand almost everything, atleast it feels like that. i dont really have to ask people to repeat things over and over anymore and things are going a lot better. i am still having a lot of trouble with the speaking thing, but my new companion helps me so much more that my last companion. my last companion was a bit of work horse and my new one has a lot more patience with me with the language. and has been letting me teach more and letting me teach newer things that i have never taught before and i am gaining more and more confidence in the language. my companion and i can have good long conversations, not just pitty little chats. and thigns have been going really well, i mean of course i miss america and the great country that it is. but things are going good hear, it is sad that juston isnt doing really well, but i try and write him. because dad says that he sees him once and i while and i hope that juston will atleast get on his feet i pray for him and i fasted for him last fast sunday. i know that he will some around, i just dont know when. but the work is going pretty well, we had baptism last week and we have couple more people that we are teaching that have the desire to be baptized and we have been meeting some really great people. and things are going really well. it sounds like kaya is doing really well, which good to hear. tell her that i love her and miss her and that i will try and write her today, because i didnt recieve any letters today and i have plenty of time to write. so i will write her and try and write juston again. but things are going really well, i am trying to think of things to tell you. oh yeah yesterday we had a bit of a rough day, we went tracking all morning ang tried to get some lessons taught. and we walked and knocked a lot, but no one would let us in and let us teach them. we got rejected all morning and that was a bit discouraging if you ask me. but we finished the night off with some good lessons and we visited a family of new members. we go to there house about every night, because she makes us food everytime that we go there and they are a really neat family. and i really like them and so does my companion. and things have been looking up and i am doing well. i am mean it is hotter than heck here, but things are going good. haha today the elders in the apartment were talking about how many p days they have left until they go home and one leaves in 4 weeks and my companion leaves in 10 and then there is me.......88. haha but yeah things are going good and i cant really think of anything else to talk about. and i have received two letters from the taylors. one from big sam and then one from camille. and i have been receiving other letters from people all over the place and i am feeling the love. i look forward to every p-day, because i get to read letters from family and loved ones. and i know that you will send this to the Robin Roberts family and i just wanted to thank Juleah for the encouraging wards. things have been looking up, i had a bit of a hard week. but i am doing better now. i just need to press forward, because i know that i will be fluent someday. i just want it to be now. but i dont always get what i want. but things are going really well and i love you. but i gotta write my letter to the president. but i love you and send my love to everyone. your photos should be there soon, because i sent them last week. and in the package i want REESES. and then whatever else. but i love you and i miss you. Élder Jory B. Spotts

Letter July 9, 2008

2009-06-30T13:24:00.000-07:00

Hey! Things are going as good as they can i think at this point. it has been really hard this first transfer i never imagined what it could be like, but it has been nothing but hard. the language is still a pain in the rear and i can never explain myself to anyone or say what i want to when i want to, i have never been this quiet in my entire life. i swear that everyone thinks that i dont have a personality. but things are coming along, i am just trying to be patient. which isnt exactly something that i have gifted with. but i am trying to do the best that i can. it sounds like you guys have been doing really good and having a blast without me, i am not going to lie. i am a bit jealous, but i love this gospel and i love this opportunity to be a missionary. and we had transfers this last week and to find out they closed our old area, because 12 elders are leaving home this transfer and only 1 is arriving. so both my companion and i were transfered to different areas. so i am now in a new area with a new companion, which is weird and is a real bummer. because i had just started getting to know some of the people and i just started to get to know my companion too. but what can i do i am in the Lords hands and he does with me what he will. i have been writing casey, but i havent received a letter from him in a long time. not since i was in the provo mtc. but i hope that everything is going well for him. i really like our new mission president, at the zone conference i was able to sit with him and his wife and just talk. his wife doesnt know any portuguese and is about the same boat as i am. but they are from New Jersey and they are a great couple, i think that i am really going to enjoy the time that i have left here with them. i hit the 21 months left mark last week and the 15 transfer left too. which i guess since i konw that you could call me trunky. but i dont know, i dont want to come home though i just want to learn this stupid language and start having a real impact. i am so sick of sitting there and listening to my companion talk to people. i can understand quiet a lot when people speak slower, but when they speak fast. ha i am totally lost. and yesterday i fell asleep during a lesson, because i couldnt understand anything and my companion was just taking with the investigator. but then it got a little better, because last night we taught the first lesson to a sister of a member here in my new area, which by the way i have no idea what the name is, and i was able to teach more than i have ever taught before. which is good, i see the progress in the language almost everyday. but i dont know it seems like i have always been able to conquer almost ever obstacle in life a lot easier than this one. but i am doing good i dont want to come home or anything so dont worry. when you come pick me up i will be fluent. but right now the children in the nursery can speak portuguese better than i can. but i have plenty of time. but my new companion is pretty cool, he is a brazilian as well and his name is Elder Vieira. He only has two transfers left, so maybe i will get the chance to kill my first companion, but not in the literal sense. but things are going good, in my last area we had two more baptisms and a wedding and they went great. i have tons of pictures on a cd that i will try and send sometime and you need to get a hold of josh so that he can see alittle bit of what brazil is like and looks like. but i have pictures of my first contact ever, because my professor in the CTM took pictures of us and put them on cds. so you will be able to see me at work and a picture of the first person that rejected me, well not me, but the gospel. but things are going good and well i dont know what i want you to write to me. just things like how people are going ang how things are going at what you have been doing like you did in this letter. it was a good letter, i did get a little homesick because of the rollercoaster talk but other than that it was good. oh and the camping, i want to go camping and when i get home you get to buy me a bike too. because you bought kaya one and i dont wanna hear that you wont buy me one, because you will. jk i dont care i understand that she needs it and i am really proud of her, she finally got her first like real job that is awesome. but i really dont have anything else to write about, i will try to send these pictures to you today but i might not be able to get them off until next week. but i will do my best, send my love to everyone and tell kaya that i love her. but i love ya and i miss ya. Élder Jory B. Spotts