Journal writing by candle light

Hey Y'all!!

So this was probably one of the best weeks of my life cuz this week LAÍS WAS BAPTIZED!!! It was so incredibly special! We had the baptismal service in the sacrament room cuz there were so many people there! Laís is such an incredible person. She has sacrificed so much to receive the blessings of the gospel in her life! She is such a huge example to me! Her testimony is so strong. I feel so humbled to have had the opportunity to teach Laís. 

On another note, we finally moved!!! and now our house is LEGIT. But we were all so anxious to moved that we decided to move in before the electricity was turned on so we ended up using a lot of candles! Hahaha it was so cute to see the candles lit up but the electricity was turned on this morning which was good cuz it was getting a little tough to live without a fridge and a washing machine!

Tomorrow we're headed to the temple!! 

Have a great week!

Love,

Sister Jolley

standard: sister campos

Hey family!!! How are you guys doing!!!!

This week was pretty much wonderful!! My dear companion was cured from her ant bite FINALLY and we started working again! Who would've thought a little ant could cause so many problems! Poor thing, her feet were the size of loaves of bread! Another bit of cool news is that the sisters of Neopolis are moving to a new house!!! And we're getting all new beds and all new desks and I'm really pumped! Now we won't need to take showers at the bishop's house lol. But on the down side, the transfer ends in 4 weeks and we haven't exactly moved in yet, and I'm worried I'll get transferred! hahaha 

Anyway for more exciting news this Sunday will be the baptism of Laís!! And I'm so excited! She is so incredibly amazing! She's telling her dad on Saturday and she's already started making plans to  move into a friends house if needed. She´s so incredibly brave! and she has such a strong testimony. I feel so humbled to have the opportunity to know her and teach her! 

We're also planning some other really special baptisms for February! and I'm so excited! I'll tell you about them next week! 

This week President and Sister Campos came and gave us the new house key! Afterwards they came and inspected our current house. So they walked in and looked around and at the end Sister Campos was about ready to speak but President just said "Let me tell you something, it's not bad here, but it's not Sister Campos standard" The Sister Campos standard is worse than the white glove test ya'll. Hahahaha, we cleaned reallllll well today!!

Have a great week

Sister Jolley

ant

Alrighty folks this week was fantastic and I'm running outta time so you'll be getting the best of the best!

Highlights of the week

1. I got a new companion, her name is Sister Arana and she's from Ecuador!!!

2. My comp was bit by an ant and her foot got swollen and she couldn't walk for 3 days. 

3. We didn't have water so we took baths at the Bishops house lolz.

4. I translated 3 hours of church into sign language and nearly died of fear.

5. I STAYED IN NEOPOLIS AND I'M SO PUMPED.

6. We're also teaching some really really cool people but I haven't got time to explain but miracles are real and I'm really happy!!! 

Love

Sister Jolley

dog at church

Alrighty y'all! 

This week was fantastic!! We had some killer rainstorms, some killer commentary and a killer baptism!

Lemme start off telling y'all about the baptism! So, for almost 2 transfers we've been teaching Mauricio! and he's really amazing! He changed his life completely to recieve the blessings of being a member of the Church. He's been going to church for almost a year now, but wasn't ready to give up some things in his life to be baptized. When we started teaching him, he only needed to stop drinking! And so we made tons of goals and said tons of prayers and bore our testimonies and it worked out alright. He was baptized this Friday and just about the whole ward was there! It was so cool and so special. ALSO Y'ALL THE BISHOP'S WIFE BROUGHT HER DOG TO THE BAPTIZM. ONLY BRAZIL Y'ALL ONLY BRAZIL. He almost fell into the font and when a member was up there bearing his testimony and CRYING the dog was doing all sorts of stuff right at his feet. COMO ASSIM BRASIL COMO ASSIM  and then if y'all wanna know something else yours truly was wearing her hair down and it's a little humid here in Brazil so I was looking worse than Hermione but sometimes you've just gotta go with the flow and the Ward Mission Leader, as we were walking out to take a photo, said "you're gonna take a photo with your hair like this?" ALRIGHTY FOLKS I KNOW THAT I'M NOT A HAIR MODEL BUT IT WASN'T THAT BAD. But take a look at the photo and send in your votes--Was it or was it not necessary to make that comment?---thank you for your participation

On the other hand, we received another miracle here in Neopolis! We have started to teach a 17 year old girl that is really really amazing. She was introduced to the gospel almost 2 years ago by a friend, already read the whole Book of Mormom 2 times, and lives all the standards and has a killer testimony. The only problem is her dad won't let her be baptized. So in 3 weeks, she'll turn 18 and legally be able to be baptized. She has such a strong testimony. Her family is completely against the church and she is preparing to leave her family and live alone to be able to receive the blessing of being a member of the Church. We hope that through lotsa prayer and fasting her dad will accept her baptism and let her live at home. But let me tell you teaching her is like a scene from an action film. We can't teach her at her home obviously so we have to make all these plans to meet her at the house of someone and we can only call her during certain hours of the day and it's complicated. But it's worth it, because she is so special and has waited so long. 

Also this week we got transfer calls! I'm staying here in Neopolis!!!!!!!!!!!!! and I'm so pumped! We have tons of people who are GOLDEN here y'all!!

have a great week!

love you

Sister Jolley

Mountain Climbing

Hi everybody!!!!

This week was so great! We saw tons of miracles in our area and we got blessed with lotsa rain so it was way less hot! BLESS UP! But this week it'll be straight humidity so you know, that'll be way fun. 

But lemme tell you about one of these miracles. So my comp and I were leaving lunch with a day full of appointments in another neighborhood and my comp said Sister, lets go knock doors right here, so we moved our plans and started knocking and knocking and knocking and knocking (it's not new news to knock doors but just to let you guys know we were really knocking doors) and at the end of the street, 3 streets over we knocked at a little orange house and this grandma came out and just started saying "the sisters, the sisters, are you guys really the sisters? come in, come in." So we went right in, and turns out this lady is a member from another stake that was visiting her family for Christmas and didn't know where the church was and said she had been praying and praying for a way to go to church this week and we were sent there to help her. It turns out that her son that lives there is less active and his wife is interested in the church and we gave a lesson to the Grandma and 2 grandkids (the parents weren't home) and marked baptism dates with them and they are all so excited. It is so important to listen to the whispers of the spirit because when we do the miracles just come running! I'm so grateful for a companion that was tuned in and that we were able to help this family!

Highlights of the week

Sister Santos took a great fall and rolled down a hill (sad that I wasn't there to see it but from what I hear it was great) so we've had a great week playing nurse.

We've eaten soooo much churrasco this week! We had dinner at a members house (holla for dinner cuz it's rare here) on New Years Eve and it was a fantastic churrasco. We had churrasco for Christmas Eve, for Christmas, and today!

Today, we had P day with our whole zone and President and Sister Campos and their family and we climbed this mountain and took tons of photos and it was so beautiful and it was legit.

 
 

Have a great week

Love you guys

Sister Jolley

Just Like the Movies

Feliz Natal!!!!

My Christmas week was great!!! To start off, we had a fantastic Christmas Conference! Presidente and Sister Campos really outdid themselves this year! It was the whole works with a talent show, a play of the life of Christ, a musical rendition of the life of Christ, the best lunch I've had in my 8 months here, a balloon release and to top it all off Santa came and visited all the missionaries and gave everyone a new leather back triple. At the very end we went to sing Christmas carols at a bus terminal, but as we were leaving the chapel someone had the idea to sing right there in the parking lot (the chapel is surrounded by tons of highriseing apartment buildings) and as we sung the windows started opening and people started watching and filming​​ and it was just like the movies.

On Christmas Eve we went to the Ilg family's house and I learned how to make churrasco! It was fantastic. They also had a little Christmas puppy there that was soooooo cute! and liked to bite lol.

On Christmas we saw so many miracles! Our star investigator was there at Sacrament meeting which was fantastic! and we also did some tracting after lunch before we skyped and we were able to spread some Christmas cheer with a few little kids who live in pretty sad conditions. It's amazing to see how the love of Christ can permeate across all boundaries if you only let it. As we were walking to the members house to skype, we were running really really late and we ran into a recent convert who was walking alone. We were able to talk to her and she told us that she feels like God has left her and she no longer wants to go to church and that she is falling into depression and all sorts of things and there at a little bus stop me and Sister Alves got the opportunity to bear our witness of the Savior's love for her. As we finished up, she told us that maybe God hadn't abandoned her after all because she knew that she had 2 representatives of Christ in front of her. At a time when I was really really hot and running really behind and I knew that my family was waiting for me, I'm glad we took the opportunity to talk to her.

And as always, your Sister Jolley is always having a few adventures (or better yet misadventures)

Today we went to the doctor and as we were on the bus coming home, we both fell asleep and all the sudden my comp wakes me up and says Sister we missed our stop, we need to get off of the bus. So, we stop the bus, get off the bus and as I'm still waking up, I realize that we're not even in our area and that we're really far from home. We got to walk and walk and walk some more until we got home. HAHAHAHAHAHA and it was so hot outside.

Have a great week!

Love you guys

Sister Jolley

Feliz Natal!!

Alrighty everybody we had another killer hot week (literally) here in Neopolis

So this week turned out to be fantastic just like they all do!

I'll cut right to the miracle of the week okay!

So for like 2 transfers we've been praying and praying to find a really solid family to teach and yesterday at 4 o'clock we found an ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC  family to teach! They have 6 kids and wowe they're all so cute and so great and we marked baptism dates with all of them!!! CHRISTMAS MIRACLE y'all!!

Also my comp has some sort of spine problem so we travel to the center of town every P Day to visit doctors and today we got to get all dressed up in these ugly clothes for her CAT scan. HAHAHA it was great

LOST IN TRANSLATION (ha y'all thought these were over but if only)
So I translated the ward Christmas party in sign language last week and instead of telling them that we came here to make friends I told them that we came here to KISS friends. HAHAHAHAH I died laughing when I realized 3 DAYS LATER!!! 

But on the Portuguese side of things I got asked what part of Brazil I was from so that was great! 

I love being a missionary and I love the opportunity I have everyday to share the saving message of the restored gospel and testify that Jesus is the Christ! 

MERRY CHRISTMAS

SISTER JOLLEY