I Guess I'm Not Hawaiian

Well, I arrived in Ponta Porã. This place is pretty interesting. I'll try to answer all of your questions. (That was a lot that you asked, so I hope that I remember all of them.)

So I arrived pretty late last week here, but fortunately my comp, Elder De Angelo (his name kinda looks Brazilian to me, but he's definitely American. He´s a nice kid, and about as pink as I am brown. He´s from Nevada, and he actually attended BYU and lived in Heritage Halls at the same time that I was there. Small world. He has about 1 yr. on his mission.) arranged a ride for us. The member who gave us a ride actually served in the Utah Provo Mission from 01-03, so I got to reminisce with him about Provo a bit. His wife was in the car too, and it was funny, because she only speaks a little bit of Portuguese, but is fluent in Spanish. So he´d relate what was going on to her in Spanish.

As for the city itself, it´s significantly smaller than Bauru, but it has a more friendly feel. The streets here are about as wide as any street in Provo, which is a nice change from the narrow roads that I´m used too. And what´s more, people here actually have lawns! I think I only saw about two houses in Bauru that had a lawn, but here there´s grass everywhere. I´m loving it. The city is kind of a mix of a lot of things. The outskirts of the city remind me of Ephraim, the downtown part is kinda like a little slice of Southern California, and we walked thru a park one night that looked exactly like one in Provo, only it had palm trees instead of pine. Cool stuff.

As you learned from Google Earth, the city has the Brazilian side, and the Paraguayan (is that right?) side. The border is about 6 blocks from our house, and doesn´t have a border crossing or anything, which is cool. The only sad part is that we can only go into the Supermarket in Paraguay, which is very unfortunate because I saw a Burger King there as we were pulling into town, and they have a mall of imported stuff (Root Beer, Maple Syrup). Apparently they have some cool stores with really cheap stuff in Paraguay.

The supermarket was a fun experience. I almost cried when I saw that they had Trix and Fruit Loops. Unfortunately I was running a little low on cash that day, so I had to settle for buying a kilo of Frosted Flakes at only 6 Reals, which is something of a miracle at that price. Looks like I get to return to my cereal eating habits for now!

The city has a good mix of Brazilians and Paraguayans, which is cool, although it does make it a little difficult to make contacts sometimes. Sunday night I was doing a trade with one of the Brazilian Elders in my district, and I stopped a man on the sidewalk and started talking to him. After I gave my little spiel, he started responding, and suddenly I felt like I was in my first week in the mission again, because I wasn´t understanding very much. It took me a second to realize that he was speaking Spanish. I guess he understood what I said, because he was responding, but I couldn´t make too much sense of it. So I just gave him a pass-along card and we moved on. I guess that´s kinda how things work here. I guess I´ll have to start practicing saying my “Buenos Dias” instead of “Bom Dia”.

My ward here is good as well. The Chapel here is way nice, about three times the size of my last chapel. And what´s more, they have a Piano, which is a nice change as well. My last ward just had an old organ that would sometimes play by itself during a meeting. I swear that it was possessed. Also, the ward doesn´t have a pianist, so I´m it again for my ward, as well as for the Ward Choir. (Which apparently doesn´t exist yet, but will start soon.) Also, we have the ward the other Elders meet at in the same building just a half-hour later, and they don´t have a pianist either, so I suspect I´ll be playing for them as well. It´s pretty funny.

We only have three areas (3 companionship's) in Ponta Porã, so that´s a change, as Bauru had something like 12 or 14 companionship's, so I´m used to a big zone. We only have a District here, as a zone needs at least 4 companionship's.

My ward is called Ponta Porã 1st and the Elders from Ponta Porã 2nd live in our house as well. Our house is better than my last house, (with some exceptions. The Bathroom is separated from the main part of the house, so it´s always freezing in the morning.) The weather is nice here too, actually significantly colder than Bauru, and I´m actually using my Elvis pajama pants to sleep in now.

Well, I´m outta time, so I´ve just got one more experience. When I arrived at the first house that we ate lunch at, the Sister there asked me where I was from. When I responded “Provo, Utah”, she said “Hey, you´re not Hawaiian!” Apparently, the last District Leader had heard that I was Hawaiian, and told some of the members that they were getting "a real live Hawaiian." I guess I disappointed some people.

´till next week!

Excelsior!

Luke “The Hawaiian” Heperi