Who Messed With Kolob?

Well first off, I made a mistake in giving you that Portuguese word. The word that I gave last week, "Cada", means "each". The word that I wanted to give was "Cara", which is "Dude" or "Man". The pronunciations are pretty close, which is why I messed up. Now I feel even more like a "greenie" with that mistake.

Proselyting was good this week. We made some good contacts, and I found out that my least favorite phrase to hear is, "Listen guys, I already have God/Jesus inside my heart". I´m not quite sure why people use that on us... I think they use it to try to make us go away. I hear that phrase at least a few times a day.

General Conference week was good. We got to see all 5 sessions, though as I´m 5 hours ahead of you, Priesthood Session ended at around 11 pm, so I was almost falling asleep by then. Although I was very alert to see Pres. Monson´s first talk as Prophet. That ear thing he did was the best thing that I had seen all week!

I liked the conference sessions a lot. But I didn´t like one thing. I dunno if I ever said this, but "If You Could Hie To Kolob" is my favorite hymn (even more now since they don´t have it in the Portuguese Hymn book, which means we never get to sing it), and I was excited when I heard that they were singing it. But it was the wrong tune! Whoever decided that the tune should be changed to the one that they sang should be... I dunno, but I didn´t like it. That´s what makes the song so great, the cool tune that it had, and they had to go and change it. That was the first time that the M-tab has let me down.

We got Pat... to come to the 1st Sunday session. It was a huge pain trying to find someone who could give her and us a ride though, but finally the members that we had lunch with that day offered one. They´re kind of a younger couple, no kids yet. What was funny was when we pulled up at Pat´s house, the Brother who was driving turned around and said "Uhhh... she lives here?""Yeah""Hmmm... I think I used to date her." Ha, at this point his wife is looking at him and me and Elder Johnson are laughing. We asked him if this was gonna be an awkward car ride, but he said that he didn´t think so. Long story short, it wasn´t awkward, and turns out that he didn´t date her, just knew her in high school.

So anyway, Pat... came, which was great. But we were sad to hear that her and Vand... separated again (I say again because apparently they´ve separated and gotten back together a few times). But she said that she was doing well and that she really enjoyed conference. We´re gonna extend a baptismal invitation to her next time, so I hope she continues her reading in the BOM.

Oh yeah, you know in the Mormon Tab. Choir, did anyone see that guy in there who looks exactly like Conan O´Brien? I know that you must have seen him, Levi. It´s great to see that the gospel is spreading even to people who resemble Conan.

In addition, I got to teach my first real lesson in English. We practiced in the MTC during the first couple of weeks teaching in English, but from then on it´s just been straight Portuguese lessons. But at conference, (us Americans were watching it in a classroom in English while everyone else was in the chapel watching in Portuguese) some Brother from our stake came in with a girl who´s from Indonesia. I guess he was in charge of her, but he doesn´t really speak English at all, just a few phrases. I´d guess that she´s in her mid-twenties, and doesn´t speak a whole lot of Portuguese. Her name was Sukur or Sukor or something like that. (She speaks less Portuguese than I do, which is waaaaaaay little) and she´s about 2/3 fluent in English. Anyway, turns out she´s here working or something, and she´s investigating the church. So my zone leader assigned me and another American Elder to take her on a tour of the chapel in between sessions, and give her the first lesson. It was kinda strange to teach in English, and I´m sorry to say that I don´t think the lesson was really good, (partly because I´m not used to teaching in English, and partly because I still need to work on my teaching skills) but she seemed to understand. When I asked her how familiar she is with the Bible, she responded that she´s read the whole thing cover to cover 8 times! So... more familiar than the majority of us Elders-- I think.

She had many questions about the Church as she only found out who Joseph Smith was today, and I was grateful that the conference talks that followed afterward were about how the BIble connects with the Book of Mormon so she could see that for herself. She was very accepting, and accepted the challenge to read the Book of Mormon, (which is rare because the majority of the people that we teach don´t like to read. I swear that sometimes people just have books on the shelves to have books.) Unfortunately she doesn´t live in our area, so we won´t be able to see how she progresses, but it was cool to help someone out. I know what it´s like to be in a place where not many people are speaking your language (actually it´s worse for her, cuz I dunno if anyone speaks her Indonesian language in Brazil), so it was easy for me to see her situation.

One funny thing that happened was during the tour of the chapel when we were asking her about Indonesia. She had just finished explaining about her city and other stuff in kind of halting English, when one of the Brazilian Elders came up and asked in broken English as well "So, where are you from?" She kinda gave an exasperated sigh, and they tried to talk with each other. The conversation didn´t last very long, as it was a Brazilian speaking with a Brazilian accent to an Indonesian person speaking with an Indonesian accent in a language that is native to neither of them. It was just funny to watch, and not nearly as funny on paper. Somewhere there is a punchline in that situation, but I can´t find it.

Well, that´s it for this week. Oh yeah, I remember that I saw in the BYU choir (I think), James Duncan and Jessica Heaton. When I saw them I pointed at the TV and said "Those people went to my high school!", and everyone told me to shut up and watch conference. Nothing like the warm care of the Elders!

Again, ´till next week. Excelsior!

-Elder =w= Heperi

Oh yeah, I got the package with the music and cards, and will send the one out today or tomorrow depending if the Post office is closed already. I hope I haven´t forgotten anything. As always, thanks guys, and I´ll talk to you next week.