3 Oct 2011 - Jardim América Area (Mom)

I loved Pres. Monson [in General Conference]. His first talk he just walked up and said, "Hello!" What a hero. He gets more and more funny as he gets older. I loved the British guy too, Ardern. He is my new favorite General Authority. "We send tweets and tixs." It took me awhile to figure out what he was saying when he said 'tix' (texts). He's cool. I liked Uchtdorf's talk about the amount of God's creation. He talked a lot about how all of us matter to God our Heavenly Father and how important we are. Sometimes that isn't so obvious to me as it should be. People talked a lot about how the world is changing and stuff like that. Robert D. Hales got fat too, I came in late and I didn't even recognize him :) Poor guy. New temple in Provo, that'll be cool.

3 Oct 2011 - Jardim América Area (Dad)

I was able to watch conference this weekend. It was good, I liked it. Pres. Monson is crazy though :) He likes to joke around a lot. I love conference here on the mission and I'm sure that I will love it afterwards. I didn't pay much attention before the mission, but now it goes by super fast. As long as they keep cool British speakers, I'll keep listening. We had a crazy week with a lot of crazy things happening. Crazy members, crazy drunks, crazy bishops. It was good though. It made for good laughs. It's fun here, and for some reason things get a lot crazier when you have 2 americans together. 1 Brazilian and an American is generally ignored, but once you have 2 Americans people start talking to you and screaming swear words at you and crazy girls. We went to a bread store with a member to buy something for lunch and this crazy old guy on a bike just stared at us and shouted "Killers!" in English. .....Uh ok. We were minding our own business and we went to the cashier's to pay. Somehow, he was there and screamed "Killers" again. Who knows what was going on. He said, "You kill African babies and Iraqi babies". Apparently, he had seen me when I went to Iraq last weekend. Just kidding. Everyone was looking at us and the funny part was that they didn't even realize we were Americans. They asked us if we understood what he said. I thought it was hilarious. I love good mission stories. These kinds of things only happen with 2 Americans. We had a drunk guy feeling my face and telling me that I needed to use more lotion. He kept on telling me to get closer to the walls because you never know when a bus might come. Then as we were leaving he yelled at nobody and said "Let them pass, they are with me." Good times.

 

We had a baptism in between the sessions (which I will never do again, it's a headache). It was a really good baptism and the father that we baptised 2 weeks ago got to baptize his wife and daughter who were finally ready to be baptized. It was cool. I'm happy, really happy. The transfer was a battle and so was the conversion process. Satan worked HARD to destroy this family, but they succeeded. They will bring me eternal joy because of the faith that they showed and the love for God that they showed.

 

It's cool when people in conference talk about the missionaries because they are talking about me! I get all tingly inside when they say they are grateful for us. It'll end though, but I'll never forget it. I'll never forget the people or the lessons that the Lord has taught me. He has tried hard and sometimes I don't accept what He teaches, but I'll get better. I can't explain to you all how my mission has completely changed my life. It is wonderful. Don't expect a perfect Jeffrey Hawkes when I return, but I'm at least a smidge better ;) It is truly a miracle and I love my Lord and Savior with all of my heart!

26 Sep 2011 - Jardim América Area (Mom)

[Enjoying volunteering at the elementary school.] You aren't a kid anymore but you get so much joy from teaching them and helping them. At least I do. I love the kids here in Brazil. Some of them have so much crap going on in their life but they still are happy and they somehow still have hope. They love giving hugs and saying good things about you. Theirs is the kingdom of God!

It's hard sometimes when people don't want to listen. They don't value the words of the prophets like they should. They think they are things they already know. One day they will go and they will see what they have been missing. That is one of the best feelings ever. When they finally go to church and love it!

The Relief Society Conference is this Saturday here in Brazil. Hopefully I will be able to listen to General Conference in English. It's nice in Portuguese but I love the voice of the Apostles and Prophet. Plus their jokes are better in English :) Yeah time is passing by almost a 1 year and 4 months. I saw some Elders packing up their stuff to go home and it made me kind of sad. The day is coming. It will be a bitter sweet day. Other days it feels like I have been here forever. I'll miss it terribly though. I'm not very good at moving on :)

26 Sep 2011 - Jardim América Area (Dad)

Some guy told me today that I need to like math and overcome my hatred for math. He called me lazy and stuff. He was mostly right though. I just don't want to work doing something I had to force myself not to hate. Who knows, I'll just live in the forest and watch football. Maybe I'll copyright a squirrel flavored ramen noodle.

 

I talked to the parents of an Elder that is going home. They are from Danville but they lived in Pittsburgh for awhile. Ring any bells? Yep Uncle Mark was their Stake President for awhile. He said something about Hawkes in Santa Mona or something like that too. Their names are Debbie and David Bromley and their son gets home here sometime soon. Fun fact, tell Uncle Mark about it.

 

Wow the letter isn't very long today but at least I found long lost friends of Uncle Mark. It was a good week, that's a lie. Not so good. My comp is going to Pernambuco to the new area they opened up 4 months ago, Trindade. He is excited. My new companion is from SLC so maybe he knows Aunt Michelle. He almost has a year. I'm staying in the same area. I don't know what I'll do for the next 6 weeks but I'm sure the Lord will keep me busy. I've heard this new kid is good so that'll be fun. It's fun to have an American too because you can talk about real stuff like Football and well the Gospel of course :) Who wants to talk about soccer? :) Did you have any native companions? I'm assuming not because you served before the races were split apart. I got my hands on those old school movies you use to use. Meet the Mormons, Voice from Ancient America and stuff like that, but in Portuguese. I don't know if you used them, I think they were after your time. Apparently all the houses are getting a DVD player. I'm not sure why though, but that is what President says. The general authority is going to be a Seventy I think. I got a little bummed but then that seemed blasphemous. I'll pretend like he is an Apostle :)

19 Sep 2011 - Jardim América Area (Mom)

[Buttons (our new cat) is awesome.] Cats are no good. They just bite and attack you. You should have got a Scruffy 2.0. Cats will live for like 3 years and then keel over. How big is this cat going to get? In Idaho they had perfect cat breeding tactics. They are all cute and fluffy as kittens but they never make it past that because they die ;)

[Lauren was called as Relief Society instructor. She is nervous, but she will do fine.] That's good for Lauren. I hope I never get called as anything :) She can just read the book, that is what our teacher does here. All the girls will help her too. Imagine an Elders Quorum lesson in college....silence/slumber. [Besides how many teens/20's do you know that are excellent teachers at that age.] Ummmm I know one 21 year old excellent teacher...me!

I got to bless the sacrament yesterday at church. It was cool. It's been 3 years since the last time I did it. Well that's a lie, I did it once in the MTC. It was cool to do it in Portuguese. I didn't have a microphone so that was good, nobody could hear me mess up or anything. I was watching everybody though afterwards since the priests stay up there the whole time here. I like to watch people. I noticed some people were paying attention and others weren't. Someone said something interesting that their old mission president told them. During the sacrament they should think about Jesus and forget about the mission and the investigators for just a little bit and focus more on Jesus. I thought that was cool.

19 Sep 2011 - Jardim América Area (Dad)

[We finally broke the record for 100-degree days at 70.] Yes! Record! Good thing I was here during the record. Missed one more thing while one the mission ;) I'll tell my kids anyway.

 

This week was better. We were able to baptize the father of the family that we have been working with for 5 weeks. It was hard, probably the hardest week in his life. Satan threw everything he had this last week to try and destroy this man's life. The Lord won after all though. We talked to him, pleaded with him, fasted for him, prayed for him constantly. It was a good experience for me. It showed me the power of prayer and fasting and the power that the Holy Ghost has on people. It was probably one of the most spiritual baptisms that I have had so far. I'm glad he was able to overcome a mole hill to see the mountain of blessings that waited on the other side!

 

[We had the missionaries over for dinner and as part of their spiritual thought they asked what blessings we've seen due to having a missionary out. To an extent it is kind of hard to know because you don't know how life would be different without a missionary, but to me one of the blessings is simply receiving email from you each week and reading about your love for the people and your love of doing the Lord's work.] I'll tell you the blessings that you have been receiving while I'm gone: new car, mountain resorts, vacations out the whazoo. Just to name a few ;)

12 Sep 2011 - Jardim América Area

Here are some pictures of the state stadium, some mountains we took pictures of. We hiked up the lone mountain here in Fortaleza and took some pictures of the skyline. Guess what the mountain is made out of? Trash! Oh and the bat that attacked us.