Jay Family Missionaries

Elder Jay quer pizza

Monday, February 28, 2011 by Sora Jay

Querida familia,

In the photo album that you sent me there is a picture of Brigham reaching for a pizza. They don´t have good pizza here, but now I want to eat good pizza. Maybe you could send a pizza in a package, it only takes two or three months to arrive.

This transfer started a little rough. The first day, in the morning before we started our studies, the first counsilor in the branch called, and he was really mad at Elder Siqueira for no reason. We went and talked to him that night and smoothed things out, but we still have to walk on glass when we are around him. The next day all of our investigators disappeared, and then two of our recent converts told us that they didn´t want to come to church anymore, but we will bring them back. On sunday only 88 people came to church, and there are lots of members that are having problems right now with their families and everythings. The Devil really doesn´t want the chapel to be dedicated.

The way I see it, if everything goes bad right now in the beginnig everything will go really well in the end. We just need to keep working, teaching, and helping, and the Lord will do his part. I feel like everything is going to start falling in place and things will get a lot better.

I have been getting a lot better at soccer because I play with Elder Siqueira every morning for our excercise. When I go back home I will be able to smoke everyone.

Rayssa´s aunt said the she only heard voices in her own house, but since we talked with her the first time she is doing a lot better. She didn´t come to church on Sunday though.

I don´t have much to write this week, so see ya.

Elder Jay Brazil

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Romania 28 Feb 2011

by Sora Jay

Hello again everybody,

Things are going pretty well here. We got three lessons this week (I would like to see Tom's and Ed's reactions to that), but not for lack of trying. We haven't gotten more than five for the past few weeks here, so for next week we are setting a goal to get ten lessons. We got a few good investigators from street-boarding the week before last. I went to the Primaria (the city building) and requested permission for us to put up a table and some posters on the street and contact people there and the guy at the front told me that missionaries had tried before but hadn't succeeded, but I was able to do it. We had to go back and forth between a few offices in the Primaria and get the right request forms and fill them out and pay like 6 dollars and show them my ministerial certificate and my visa and get everything stamped by the right people, but in the end it worked out. When we did street-boarding it was freezing cold outside and it was snowing on the first day so we didn't set up a table, we just hung up some posters that we found in the church about the Book of Mormon and the Restoration and some basic doctrines of the church. Not many people stopped on their own, but we stopped lots of people. I noticed that if we had one person stopped and talking to a missionary, all of the other missionaries could get somebody to stop and talk to them, because people just follow the crowd. We gave out a lot of pliants and some BoMs and we got a few people's numbers, and a few people have actually called us. It's a lot better that way. I guess this would be the equivalent of Mom's street-preaching in Brazil, but this is the most that we can do without getting arrested, or maybe stoned.

Anyway, one of the member girls here got her mission call and I recorded her opening it on my camera then downloaded it onto her computer for her. She is going to England. Her call letter was in English which surprised me. I guess she speaks English well though. She said she put it on facebook, so you guys can become friends with her and see if you can see the film. Her brother recorded it so the camera swings past me sitting with a bunch of members at the relief society activity where she opened it. Her name is Andreea Stoica (or maybe Andreea Stoica I've seen it both ways here). So that was cool. We visited them at their house and taught them a little bit out of PMG and while we were there her mom called her Andre-ushca, and I remembered that Jesh had told me that you put the 'ushca' on the end of a name to make it diminutive in Russian, so I asked her if she spoke Russian, and she said that in the town that she was from (Suceava) they actually speak a dialect of Ukrainian because they are really close to Ukraine.

The guy who has been wanting to film us followed me and Sora Puckett out contacting on Tuesday. He told us we were the fastest walking girls he had ever seen. He also seemed to feel bad for us because people said really stupid things to us. There was one guy who said something to us that I didn't understand and I asked him what it was, but he wouldn't tell us. The guy probably swore at us or something. I realized how tough you learn to be as a missionary, and how good your motivation has to be. It was interesting to look at it from an outward perspective like that, and I realized how many things I have had to learn to do, or actually just do without any experience, since I have become a missionary.
I read a letter that I got from our home ward from Annalee Strong and she sent some articles about how they have changed the curriculum in the MTC, and it kind of bashed on missionaries. I thought it was dumb. People seem to forget really quickly how much you actually sacrifice to be a missionary and that you're out here doing hard work (except for maybe in Tom's mission). But all they have to offer is criticism. The people we contact, the members, the other missionaries, etc., and now even the guys up top at the MTC freely bash on us. Tell them to be a little more grateful.
There was one part that I liked in those articles, where Elder Holland spoke to the missionaries and talked about how they expected us overnight to become "master-teachers" and that they were changing the curriculum so that they could help us out more. I liked that better. We already know that we're not the best, but we're the ones that are called.

The branch president, President Pitulan, told us during a correlation meeting last week that we should stop asking people to get baptized because it scared them, and we showed him in PMG where it says to ask them even after the first lesson if appropriate. He told us that was crazy. But, on Sunday he came and apologized to me for having told us that, and told us we should follow the counsel in PMG and follow the spirit when teaching. He said he had received revelation and that he understood why it had to be that way, and told us that it wasn't his place to tell us how to do missionary work. We asked how we could help him and he told us that we helped him best by helping the branch members and by helping the branch to grow. He's cool.

We called up a 20 year old guy from the potentials section in our Area Book and were able to set up and meet with him. We were expecting to visit his family, but when we got to his address he was the only one there, and his family lives in another city. It was a really awkward lesson because we were in his apartment sitting on the bed (which is pretty normal) talking to him. He seems genuinely interested though, so he probably won't mind being passed off to the elders. He is the first person I've met here who is a member of the 'old-style' orthodox church, which I think means Russian Orthodox. They celebrate Christmas on the 7th of January or something like that instead of in December. He said his grandparents are from Russia and I asked him where and he said they live in Saint Petersburg. I wonder if they have ever seen the missionaries there, they could have even come into contact with Pete or Jesh when they were on their missions (if either of them actually served in the city of St. Petersburg). It was cool to think of.

Well, I'll talk to you again next week.

Love,
Sora Jay

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I EXPECT YOUR URGENT COMMUNICATION...

Friday, February 25, 2011 by Sora Jay

FROM THE DESK OF MR.ABEL TAMBOURA,
THE SENIOR AUDITOR INCHARGE
FORIEGN REMITTANCE UNIT,
BANK OF AFRICA (BOA).
OUAGADOUGOU BURKINA FASO.

DEAR FRIEND,

HOPEFULLY YOU'RE IN GOOD HEALTH,

I PRESUMED THAT ALL IS WELL WITH YOU AND YOUR FAMILY.PLEASE LET THIS
NOT BE A SURPRISED MESSAGE TO YOU BECAUSE I GOT YOUR CONTACT
INFORMATION FROM THE INTERNATIONAL DIRECTORY FEW WEEKS AGO BEFORE I
DECIDED TO CONTACT YOU ON THIS MAGNITUDE AND LUCRATIVE TRANSACTION FOR
OUR PRESENT AND FUTURE SURVIVAL IN LIFE. MOREOVER,I HAVE LAID ALL THE
SOLEMN TRUST IN YOU BEFORE I DECIDED TO DISCLOSE THIS SUCCSSFUL AND
CONFIDENTIAL TRANSACTION TO YOU.

I AM THE SENIOR AUDITOR INCHARGE OF FORIEGN REMITTANCE UNIT OF OUR
BANK AND I DECIDED TO CONTACT YOU FOR THIS FINANCIAL TRANSACTION WORTH
FOURTEEN MILLION TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND US DOLLARS (14.2M) FOR OUR
PRESENT AND FUTURE SUCCESS. THIS IS AN ABANDONED FUND THAT BELONGS TO
ONE OF OUR BANK FORIEGN CUSTOMERS WHO DIED ALONG WITH HIS ENTIRE
FAMILY THROUGH PLANE CRASH FEW YEARS AGO.

MEANWHILE,I WAS VERY FORTUNATE TO COME ACCROSS THE DECEASED FILE WHEN
I WAS ARRANGING THE OLD AND ABANDONED CUSTOMERS FILE IN OTHER TO SIGN
AND SUBMIT TO THE ENTIRE BANK MANAGEMENT FOR AN OFFICIAL RE
DOCUMENTATION AND AUDIT OF THE YEAR AGAINST 2009.

INFORMED CLEARLY THAT IT WAS STATED IN OUR FORIEGN BANKING RULES AND
REGULATIONS WHICH WAS SIGNED LAWFULLY THAT IF SUCH FUND REMAINS
UNCLAIMED TILL THE PERIOD OF TEN YEARS STARTED FROM THE DATE THE
BENEFICIARY DIED, THE MONEY WILL BE TRANSFERRED INTO THE TREASURY AS
UNCLAIMED FUND HOWEVER, IT IS NOT AUTHORIZES BY THE RULES GUIDING OUR
BANK FOR A CITIZEN OF BURKINA FASO TO MAKE THE CLAIM OF THE FUND
UNLESS YOU ARE A FORIEGNER NO MATTER THE COUNTRY.

SO THE REQUEST OF YOU AS A FORIEGNER IS NECESSARY TO APPLY FOR THE
CLAIM AND TRANSFER OF THE FUND SMOOTHLY INTO YOUR RELIABLE BANK
ACCOUNT AS THE NEXT OF KIN TO THE DECEASED.WHEN THE FUND IS
TRANSFERRED INTO YOUR ACCOUNT 35% WILL BE FOR YOU IN RESPECT OF ALL
YOUR ASSISTANCE FOR THE TRANSFER OF THE FUND INTO YOUR ACCOUNT AND
PROVISION OF THE BANK ACCOUNT WHERE THE BANK WILL REMIT THE FUND, 60%
WILL BE FOR ME BEING THE PIONEER OF THE BUSINESS WHILE THE REST 5%
WILL BE SHARED TO RESPECTABLE ORGANISATIONS SUCH AS CHARITY AND THE
DESTITUDES HOMES ARROUND US IN THE WORLD.

IF YOU ARE REALLY SURE OF YOUR TRUSTWORTHINESS,ACCOUNTABILITY AND
CONFIDENTIALITY ON THIS TRANSACTION, CONTACT ME AND ACCEPT NOT TO
CHANGE YOUR MIND TO CHEAT OR DISAPPOINT ME WHEN THE FUND IS
TRANSFERRED INTO YOUR ACCOUNT.SO REPLY FOR THE ASSURANCE WITH YOUR
TELEPHONE AND FAX NUMBERS TO FACILITATE EASY COMMUNICATION. AS SOON AS
YOU REPLY, YOU NOTIFY ME SO THAT I WILL LET YOU KNOW THE NEXT STEP AND
PROCEDURE TO FOLLOW IN ORDER TO FINALIZE THIS TRANSACTION
SUCCESSFULLY.

I EXPECT YOUR URGENT COMMUNICATION.

YOURS SINCERELY,
MR.ABEL TAMBOURA,

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PACKAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wednesday, February 23, 2011 by Sora Jay

Querida familia,

I finally got my package on Sunday. Thankyou guys for the candybars and the pictures. The photo album is really cool, I already showed it lots of people, but unfortunately I had to share my candybars as well:( Now onto the rest of the week.

This week we had transfers, but no one was transferred. Everyone always thinks that I am going to be transferred, but I think I will stay here for nine months. When everyone thinks that I will stay I will leave. We had a little party in the church the night of the transfer so we could say goodbye to the members if we left. Rayssa (our golden recent-convert) made a cake, and someone brought salgados e soda. Elder Siqueira got the call at about 8:30, but no one knew except for me. We set an alarm on the phone and when the alarm went off Elder Siqueira answered and pretended that it was the Zone Leaders telling him the transfer. He told everyone that there would be another compionship of sisters and everyone got real happy, but then he said that they were taking out the elders and everyone got real sad, then we told them it was a joke and they got real mad. I felt a little bad though, because Rayssa started to cry, but it was still funny.

On sunday I gave a talk in church, a member baptized his daughter, we baptized a 20 year-old named Junior, and we held a fireside. In my talk I spoke for 15 minutes all in Portuguese with just a couple of notes. I talked about our vision, that we need to look for the good in everything, including ourselves and especially other people, I also talked about enduring to the end. The baptism of the little girl was really cool, the dad started to cry, then the little started to cry, and then everyone else started to cry. I almost cried. Later that night we baptized Junior, he took out his earrings and hasn't put them back, and the next day he cut his hair. It is cool when the people start to make little changes by themselves. Then we had a firesiede that was all about waking up. We found all the scriptures that talk about waking up or sleeping and made a slideshow. We also made some movies where Elder Siqueira and I woke each other up. In one Elder Siqueira was fell asleep while praying and I stuck a tack in his rearend, another one I flipped his mattress over while he was sleeping and a couple more. There is a creepy guy that keeps on looking at my computer screen. I'm glad I am writing in English. We also showed the video where the dad has to sacrifice his son to save all the people on the train and we showed the video "Church Growth" where they put a red dot for every stake that is made. We are trying to get the members excited to work more.

I bought a cool cowboy hat too. It is like Ed´s but is dark brown

We taught Rayssa´s aunt who turned crazy a couple of months ago. She hears voices and thinks that everyone wants to kill her. We talked with her for a while read some scriptures took her back to her own house with her kids (she was staying in her mom´s house)said a prayer with her, and took her to church on Sunday. We promised her that if she came to church the voices would stop and she wouldn´t be afraid anymore. It worked, she is back in her own house and she is doing fine. Now we just need to baptize her, her husband and her kids.

Tchau,

Elder Jay

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Romania Feb 21, 2010

Monday, February 21, 2011 by Sora Jay

Hey everybody,

How's it going? For Valentine's Day we went to an FHE activity at the church and we had called all sorts of less-actives to come to it and the ones that said they would actually did, and they brought their friends. It was cool. The missionaries were used to judge a dance competition at the end of the activity, since we aren't allowed to dance. We didn't actually choose anybody in the end, though, because we had to leave to get home on time.

We have had some cool experiences this week. We were knocking in one bloc and a security guard came and told us that we weren't allowed to be knocking in there. We were really nice to him and told him that we didn't know that. He asked us why we were there and what we were doing and we told him. He actually seemed interested. I asked him if he would be allowed to take something and he accepted a pass-along card, even though he was on-duty at work and they're not supposed to take anything. I told him that they should put some sort of sign on the building so that we won't ever try knocking it again, and he pointed us in the direction of some blocs that he knew we would be okay knocking. Once we got into that bloc an awesome middle-aged couple let us in and we taught them. We went back to them again on Friday and they are still really cool. The husband is really outgoing, and he would be perfect to have as a member in this branch because everyone is really intraverted and shy and awkward.

Two of the members in this branch, a brother and a sister, are getting ready to go on their missions. Radu has already gotten his call to go to Scotland in April, and Andreea turned in her papers about five weeks ago and is waiting for them to come back. Maybe I will be able to be here for Radu's farewell.
There is already one other missionary out from this branch, Petru, who is on a mission in Spain. It's crazy that they will have so many missionaries when the branch is so small. There are only about 15 active members because the influence of the orthodox church is so strong in this city. Some member's families have put them into mental hospitals for joining the church, and one investigator disappears every once in a while when her parents send her in for counseling. It's crazy.

We had Zone Conference this week in a little city called Bacau. The Zone Conference focused mostly on us obeying small rules like getting up on time, doing morning exercises and having good personal and companionship studies. Our companionship doesn't have any problems with any of those things, because Sora Puckett was in the Army and I was in orchestra and college. So we both learned to discipline ourselves before coming out on our missions, I guess.
We did role-plays where we taught each other, just like we usually do, and President walked around and listened to us. I taught one of the senior couples in English and I taught one of the other sister companionships in Romanian, and in President's email he told me that he was impressed by my teaching skills. One of the sisters from my group told me that I speak Romanian really well. It was just happy all around.

I was able to speak in church on Sunday about keeping the Sabbath day holy. The branch president told me to prepare for ten minutes, but when I got there I realized that there were only two speakers and the other speaker's talk didn't last very long, so I was left with a lot of time and not a lot of material, so I just had to ramble for a while, and then we ended the meeting early. After the meeting a lot of the members told me that I speak really well, and some of them invited us to go over to their houses or told us that they had referrals from us. That's why it's good to speak in church as a missionary sometimes, because it can give the ward members confidence in you.

Recently I have witnesses a cool miracle. Even before my mission I had my shoulder that is permanently damaged from carrying a heavy backpack around all day every day (it's more like my upper spine I guess) and when I had my physical the doctor didn't think anything of it, but it always has hurt because I have to carry around contacting materials and stuff all day every day. So, a couple of weeks ago I asked for it to not hurt anymore so that I wouldn't be effected in my teaching and in my motivation to keep contacting, and it stopped hurting. It hasn't bothered me at all since then. I still carry around all sorts of heavy stuff still too. I even had to carry a heavy backpack to and from Zone Conference and I was still perfectly fine. It's cool.

This week a guy from Iasi has been asking to make a documentary about us missionaries here in Iasi. He interviewed some of us and he wants to go to P-day activities to see what we do. He wants to go film some of the missionaries in Craiova contacting there. It could be good publicity. He came to church yesterday to see what it was like, and he even participated in Sunday School, so I think he is a good guy and wont bash on us, so we will probably try to help him make a good documentary about us.

I don't have a ton of time to write today because I had to type up an essay and send it to President (that I was actually supposed to give to him my second transfer but that I thought was busywork so I procrastinated it). So that's it for now.

Love,
Sora Jay

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Mr.Fedric Aloysius

Saturday, February 19, 2011 by Sora Jay

Dear Friend.

I am the account officer to late Mr Henri potter of France a well known Philanthropist after his death the bank gave me the permition to make a random draw of emails and your e-mail address was picked as the beneficiary to his Will of $14.5Million USD, send to me your full details as follow's and also call N°0022678719685 for full detail of this very will.

1. Your Name in Full:.....................................
2. Your Occupation:.......................................
3.Your Nationality:.........................................
4. Your Mobile number:..................................
5. Your Age And Gender:...............................

However, feel free to ask me any question and I promise to clarify you on any doubts If any.

Mr.Fedric Aloysius
Foreign Remittance Exchange Manager
Société Générale Du Banque Au Burkina
Ouagadougou Burkina Faso.

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looking forward for your urgent response

Tuesday, February 15, 2011 by Sora Jay

Dear Friend,

I am the manager of the bill and exchange department of BANK OF AFRICA (here in Ouagadougou the capital city of Burkina Faso. In my department i discovered an abandoned sum of US$14.5M(FOURTEEN MILLION FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS) in a dormant account belonging to Late MR. PAUL LOUIS from Paris, France who died along with His entire family in July 2003 in a plane crash

Please visit this site that is one of the Incident

http://newswww.bbc.net.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/oxfordshire/4537663.stm

Since we got information about his death, we have been expecting his next of kin to come over and claim his money because the bank cannot release it unless some body applies for it as next of kin or relation to the deceased as it was indicated in our banking guideline and laws but unfortunately we learnt that all his supposed next of kin or relation died alongside with him at the plane crashed leaving nobody behind for the claim.

It is therefore upon this discovery that I now decided to make this business proposal to you so that you can stand as the beneficiary to the deceased customer and to enable the bank to release the money to you as the next of kin or relation to the deceased customer for safety and subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming for it and we don't want this money to go into the bank treasury as unclaimed bill because the banking law and guideline here stipulates that if such money remained unclaimed after Twelve years that is almost near, the money will be transferred into the bank treasury as unclaimed fund.

The request of foreigner as next of kin in this business is occasioned by the fact that the customer was a foreigner and a Burkinabe cannot stand as next of kin to a foreigner, and I agree that 45% of this money will be for you as a respect to the provision of a foreign account, 5% will be set aside for expenses incurred during the business and 50% would be for me, thereafter, I will visit Your country for disbursement according to the percentage indicated.

Therefore, to enable the immediate transfer of this fund to your designated bank account, you must apply first to the bank as a relation or next of kin of the deceased with a text of application that I will send to you, so I will like you to send to me your private telephone and fax number for easy and effective communication between each other and also about the location where the money will be remitted.

Upon receipt of your reply, I will send to you by fax or email the text of the application that you will use in claiming the money as the beneficiary to the deceased customer. I will not fail to bring to your notice this transaction is hitch-free and that you should not entertain any atom of fear as all required arrangements have been made for the transfer.

Thanks.

Trusting to hear from you immediately
looking forward for your urgent response.
Best regards,
dr.miles davies

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