New transfer, same comp.

New transfer, but me and Elder De Angelo are stayin.

O yeah, Happy birthday’s to Levi and Lauren. Hey Lauren, if you lived here in Brazil, you’d have a huge party, because for some reason, a girl’s 15 year old birthday is one of the most important. I dunno why.

Hey, thanks for sending me an update of them Magleby´s. They do write short letters, don’t they? That’s weird to think that Andy only has one transfer left. And that’s great that he gets to hit Burger King when I have one just 15 min from my house and can’t go because it’s in Paraguay. The sacrifices…

As for wondering about how close the food at Tucanos is to real Brazilian food…I’d say it’s pretty dang close. The BBQ places that they have here that are the equivalent of Tucanos, called “Churrascarias”, basically serve the same type of food. The only thing is that they are a bit expensive, so I’ve only been to one here on the mission. Basically the diet here is a lot of beans, rice, meat, and salad. (Not like American salad. It’s pretty sour. I had to get used to it.) I guess I’ve kinda gotten more educated about the World since I got here. Before the mish., I just kinda assumed that everyone south of Tucson, Arizona ate spicy stuff, but here, nobody even has any idea what a taco is. (Taco in Portuguese can mean “baseball bat” or “golf club”, so the first time I asked if people here eat tacos, I got a strange look.)

I do have one request. If anybody has a good apple pie recipe they could send me, I’d be very grateful. Although I’ve never cooked anything more complicated than eggs, I’d like to try my luck. Thanks!

Well, back to stuff that matters. This week our baptisms that we had marked fell thru because some investigators didn’t show up to church; some went and bought more cigarettes when they threw out the old ones; and some felt that they weren’t prepared yet. Word of Wisdom and getting to church on time/at all are the problems that the majority of our investigators have. Not everybody smokes, but as I found out, everyone and their dog drinks a good amount of coffee. (Literally some dogs too. One family gives the old, cold coffee to the family dog.)

On a good up side, we picked up a family of 5 to teach. I guess someone talked to them on the road about 3 months ago, but their address got lost in the Area Book. They’re pretty cool, and as an added bonus, when we showed up there for the appointment, one of the guys from the other ward happened to be hanging out with one of the girls there, so we got in a good lesson with a member. The Dad in the family used to be a Jehovah’s Witness, has been reading the Book of Mormon for about 6 months now, and is already in Alma. He said he’s enjoying it, but finds parts of it a bit hard to understand. His only complaint about it is, “Just when I get to start to liking and enjoying Nephi, suddenly a new guy like this Jacob or Alma guy comes in and I have to start learning everybody’s names again!”

We had the opportunity to explain about the different prophets and why it’s important to have them. I also got to emphasis why it’s so important to pray about the book, not just read it. He and the rest of the family promised to read and pray, so I have high expectations.

A thing I’ve noticed is that it’s kind of a new thing for people to pray in the way that we teach them. Usually when we ask if they’re used to praying, everybody says, “Yeah.” What they mean by “yeah” is that they know some of the words to the Lord’s Prayer or Ave Maria or something like that and say it a couple of days a week. Everybody is always embarrassed to say a prayer out loud at the end of the lessons, but when they do, the vast majority feel it's a good change and that they’re getting somewhere.

Yesterday was pretty rough for me. We planned pretty well, but everyone we went to visit wasn't home, and knocking doors wasn't going to well either. We taught about 4 lessons that day, but it just seemed to me that no one was really paying attention. We were teaching, testifying, asking questions, and basically doing everything, but I didn’t feel like any of them were feeling the Spirit. Those are the kind of days and types of lessons that I like the least. People rejecting us and people accepting I’m used to, but apathy towards our message kinda makes me, I dunno, irritated. So the day was rough, up until the last lesson of the day. We brought a member who works at the same place as one of the twins that we’re teaching, and he bore a good testimony about the importance of reading and praying about the book. One of them reads all the parts that we mark and has prayed to know about it, but doesn’t feel that she got an answer. The other never really makes time to read. But I think that they really felt the impact of the message from the testimony of that Brother.

To finish on an interesting note, this week I found out another interesting term in Portuguese. We were teaching some new investigators, and they had the usual question about why we are both called Elder. After which, they asked what our real first names were. Elder De Angelo’s is Anthony, but that names a little hard to say for Brazilians that so he just said Antonio. I could Portuguese my name and say Lucas, but I’ve never like that name. (I see it as an inferior version of my name.) So I just say "Luke", to which everybody always repeats “Lukie?” Well, as it turns out, here they call a belly shirt or a tank top a “Baby Lukie”, so I was happy to find out that my name can be an enormous joke here in Brazil. Who knew that all my growing up years when you guys would call me “Lukie” I was really just being called a belly shirt?

Well, that’s me time for this week.

Thanks again, and good luck with the birthday parties!

-Elder “belly-shirt” Heperi

Oh yeah, and thanks for letting Tristan (and anybody else in the future that asks) know that there is no pouch mail for Brazil. As one of the Church News says that I got “Pouch Service to Brazil and its 27 missions has been discontinued, largely due to the improvement of the Brazilian Postal System.” So send freely to the mission home!

Thanks again, and see ya next week! (Not literally)

-me