Sept. 2,2009

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