Maps (CLICK on maps to enlarge) showing Luke's relocation from Ponta Pora to Campo Grande

Luke moved further North from Ponta Pora to Campo Grande











Campo Grande












Campo Grande, close up.

Hello from Campo Grande

So, turns out that I did get transferred, despite the predictions of all the Elders in my district (and prayers of the primary president, as the primary program in Ponta Porã was this past Sunday, and I wasn’t there to play, heh heh…)

My area got whitewashed. President had wanted to put the Zone Leaders in our ward for a while, as the Stake President (The stake covers both Ponta Porã and Dourados) lives in our ward. Elder D. went to Londrina, and I’m here now in Campo Grande.

I was actually quite sad to leave, as had grown to like my area a lot. The ward was awesome and we had some really good investigators. Solange´s baptism was on Sunday, so unfortunately me and Elder D. missed it. Ah well…

So now I’m here in Campo Grande. My ward is called Universitário. This house that we have here is the biggest one that I’ve had so far on the mission, and it even has a nice fruit tree that grows cherry looking things. The neighborhood is called Moreninha, which, according to my Portuguese knowledge, means “little brown girl”. It’s a nice area, although it’s quite hot. Yeesh, it’s hot. Ponta Porã was quite chilly at night, and I’d sometimes sleep in my hoodie and sweatpants. But here I roast during the night. It kinda reminds me of back in Bauru. I’m getting my nice farmers tan back at least.

Also, this transfer I became the Senior companion. That’ll be a bit weird for me to get used to, so everybody pray for me as I lead our companionship around. (Actually, since I just got here, I know next to nothing about the area, so my comp is doing a lot of the leading and I’m doing a lot of watching.)

My comp’s name is Elder Onofre. He has 5 months on the mission, from Rio de Janeiro, and has the very distinctive accent that people from Rio have, so I’m trying to see if I can pick it up. (Sounds like Jeff Johnson and Jenny Morris will get a chance to pick up the accent as well soon. I got a letter from Alex last transfer, so it looks like they’ll be plenty of people that I know serving in Brazil. Yeah!)

My district leader here is Elder Cooper, who was my first Zone Leader when I got in the field in Bauru, so it’s nice to have someone I know. He’s from California and in Zach and Austin Collie’s home ward, so he was sad about the BYU loss. It’s nice to have someone to talk football with who’s not a Utes fan. Our ward actually has two missionary companionships, ours and Elder Cooper’s, which is a first for me. Also, our Chapel has air conditioning, which is also another first.

Quick funny story. We were having lunch last week at a member’s house, and sitting on the porch waiting to start. I sat down in a chair, and looked at the 3-year old girl sitting on the chair next to me. She looks up at me, and then asks (in perfect 3-year old English) “Hey, what are you looking at?” I was pretty surprised, as I’ve never heard a little kid here speaking English. I responded “Uhhh…nothing. Do you speak English?” She rolls her eyes and says “Yeah.” Turns out that her family lived in Salt Lake for a couple of years, so her and her family speak Portuguese and English. I got to converse with her brothers about Utah a bit, so that was cool. It was funnier to see the kid talk and confuse her aunt who only speaks Portuguese, as she’d say some sentences in Portuguese, but then substitute English words in. It was funny.

Welp, that’s all from this end.

Thanks for the letter and prayers, and till next week.

Excelsior!

-Me

New Photos from Luke in Ponta Pora, Brazil (CLICK on pic's to enlarge)

Michael and Alecia. The tall guy is Michael who served in the Provo Utah Mission back in 02’. He’s super helpful with all our work, and apparently he’s planning to move to Provo in about 3 years to study at BYU. His wife is from Paraguay, and is one of the best cooks that I’ve ever seen. She usually only speaks Spanish, so I’m learning to pick up on some Spanish words or Michael translates, as he speaks English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Alicia, Michael, and me.

Me, Elder Madsen from Ogden and his comp Elder Diogo. It was pretty cold that night, so Elder Diogo took my Elvis pants to use









Some guy sells little bikes of the soccer teams here in Brasil, so I bought one with my favorite team logo, The Corinthians










Lizard in our house. I’d like to catch him, but I dunno if he’s poisonous.





The Gospel of Lucas (Luke)








My Scripture covers

One of the families we eat lunch with. Sister Dilma (pronounced ‘Gilma’) The guys are to 12 & 13, named Kenny and Bruno. They like to listen to Backstreet Boys. The girl is their sister, Pamela, about Lauren’s age, (14 or 15).

A big house in my area, Ponta Pora

Me with a good box of Trix. A bit expensive, but highly worth it.

Service Project “Hands that help” at a local high school.

Mural at High School: Green Arrow and Hawkeye

An American idiot in front of American Idiot, also at the high school.

I liked this mural. I’d like to know what fairy tale has a black lady chasing a pig with a broom.

Me in my room.

Alecia, Michael, and Elder D.

From left to right: Me, Nurian (Investigator), Lucas (member in my ward), Marribe (Baptized), and Elder D. after one of our lessons

Bratty dog of a member. She bites.

This family has what I believe to the only wii in Brazil. I’d love to play it but #1 I’m on my mission and #2 It’s from Japan and only speaks Japanese

Big spider that was on our porch.

My Corinthians notebook.

Mural at High School

The family dog of some members, named Diggy. A real beautiful huskie and really gentle too. He’s the only dog that I’ve met that doesn’t bark his head off at you. Really friendly.

Me and Elder De Angelo at Brazil/Paraguay border.

Sis Dilma and her children.

Field close to our house.

Our chapel in Ponta Pora.

Stake President’s bratty dog that barks a lot.

Our porch area at the apt.

"The Friend" in Brasil.

Poster I made to help with the 1st Lesson we teach.

My window.

My bed.

Close of week and Transfers

That´ll put a little sadness into my day knowing that BYU got slaughtered by TCU. Even worse now that the U is still on top... sob, sob…

So P-day is still on Wednesday, we just get to use internet today as many people will have to travel. We still don´t know about transfers yet, as the Zone Leaders haven´t told us yet. They said that we should have known by last night but of course it never happens that way. I´ve learned by now that if they say Sunday night, the soonest that you can expect results is usually Tuesday afternoon, so we´ll see. As of right now, it looks like Elder D. is leaving, as the Zone Leaders called last night and said “When Elder D. is in his new area…” then quickly switched to a new topic as if he didn´t say anything. Ha!

Transfers are like are really twisted version of Christmas morning: You´re excited for what could happen, and fearful at the same time. I´d really like to stay, as this ward here works really well and the people are very nice. I guess we will see what the Lord´s will here is soon though.

On a happier note, M... got baptized yesterday! It´s been a long and involved process, but finally she felt ready enough and had the desire to be baptized. It was way cool. She managed to overcome her doubts and challenges with coffee and other things and really commit to following Christ, so it was a special day yesterday. We had the baptism and confirmation right after church, and there was a good amount of people there to watch. Me and Elder D. were pretty happy, as we´ve been teaching her since July. Thanks for all the prayers family.

Now as always, the challenge now is integration in the ward. Unfortunately, the Relief Society is completely devoid of any women under the age of 35, except for one girl who leaves for a mission soon. Luckily, M... has already made some friendships with some of the other age groups (one of our tasks that our bishop suggested was that we try to get the priests more involved with the work and helping us with appointments and the visiting of new members. As of yet it´s still moving along pretty slowly, but the bishop predicted that that´ll soon pick up with M´s baptism. I guess whatever we can do to motivate the priests quorum will do…heh heh…) and enjoys the company of the ward. Horray for integration!

Other than that, just a couple miscellaneous side notes. My beard now grows at a faster rate than before. Last year at the MTC, I only had to shave every two or three days. Now, it´s daily or I look a bit scruffy. It´s awesome! Manhood has come to me! and I am unable to fully enjoy it for a while! Looks like summer of 2010 will be the “Summer of the beard” there in Provo. Prepare yourselves!

And as a closing side note, Brazilian women usually do the kiss hello and kiss bye-bye thingy, which means we have to be constantly defending our cheeks from this roving band of lips. So this week, Elder D. was finishing up a contact on the road with some girl and her Mom (I estimate the girl to be 14 or 15) and the girl gives him a handshake to say goodbye. Then suddenly…bam... she plants one right on the cheek then leaves. I´ve never seen somebody turn so red before, ha ha.

Gotta be careful here on the mean streets of Ponta Porã.

Welp, ´sall for now.

´till next week!

-Me

Russian Mountains

Thanks as always for the updates on the football and Rob´s blog http://maglebymissionaries.blogspot.com/.

I liked that Ferris Wheels are called “Hell Wheels.” Portuguese has a funny one as well. In Portuguese, Roller Coasters are called “Russian Mountains.” I dunno why.

This week was an all time high for me and my comp for investigators visiting at church. (I´m not a number guy so I won´t say how many, but I was happy with the turnout.) Next week is the end of the transfer, so we´re trying to see if our baptism that we have scheduled for next week will come thru.

I had a good experience giving one of our investigators, Solange, a blessing. She might have to go in for surgery as she suffers from digestion problems, and asked us to offer a pray on her behalf. We took the opportunity to teach her about the Priesthood and blessings along with the Word of Wisdom, and how she needs to watch what she takes into her body. She already had a firm belief and knowledge that alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, tea and coffee (rare to find somebody who accepts the coffee part right off the bat) aren´t good for the body, but she needed help to see that the stuff she liked to eat (chocolate, soda, BBQ, some types of meat,) weren´t helping as they aggravate the problem and therefore she should avoid them. It was an interesting learning experience for me as well, as the “all things in moderation” part became more real to me. If you´re eating and drinking stuff that could potentially kill you, that´s against the Word of Wisdom as well.

Another interesting experience as well. We went to go contact a reference of someone named Leticia, but unfortunately we found that her house number didn´t exist. I said a little prayer for help, and, though I didn´t feel a specific prompting, decided that I should make an effort and knock on the door that was closest to the address. A bigger surprise was that somebody named Leticia happened to be at that house, though it wasn´t the same Leticia we were looking for, and she was visiting as well. We found that she had been wanting to learn about the church for a while as her ex-boyfriend had been a member. She had visited Mormon.org and even sent in a couple of questions on the ask a question part, but never had the courage to visit the church or ask for the missionaries. It was a cool moment, as we found somebody that had been prepared to hear the message. Prayer answered, kingdom moves forward. Zing!

Welp, that´s all from this side of the equator.

`till next week!

(Might be a bit later depending on if I get transferred. My gut is telling me no, but we´ll see if that´s just the rice and beans talking…)

-Lucas Heperius

A Hug (Um abraço)

Good to here BYU is still at it.

Thanks for the package, I got it in between conference sessions on Sat. Normally we wouldn´t have gotten mail that day, but some guy from our stake had to make a trip to Londrina and brought mail back with him, for which everyone was very grateful. I love the new “The Quest” shirt.

Conference weekend was refreshing. Yes, we got to watch all the sessions, including Priesthood that ended at 10pm. And we had investigators in two of the sessions, which was a good blessing. I watched those two sessions in Portuguese as to lend support to the investigators. An interesting experience and I have to confess that I still like it better in English. Sometimes they didn’t do a very good job of turning the English audio all the way down, and we could still hear whoever was talking under the translator pretty well. Still, it was impressive to me to hear some of the speakers do their own translations. (Richard G. Scott's was cool.)

Yeah, there were quite a few Brazilian speakers. The ward seemed happy about that, ha. One of the speakers, Jay E. Jensen, mentioned that “A hug” (Um abraço) was a common thing to say. Almost all Brazilains say it at the end of phone conversations, the guys usually say a hug, and girls will usually say a kiss. (Example: Me: Thanks Elder Silva, bye.Elder Silva: Bye, a hug!)Usually the American Elders adopt the pattern of saying “a kiss” when their talking with any Brazilain Elders, just to be funny.

To tell the truth, I always thought that conference went a lot slower when I was at home, but now it seems that it passes really quickly. Maybe because I´m better at sitting thru a lot a meetings now, or maybe because I´m actually better at recognizing conference for the blessing that it is. It was really good to be able to listen to the Prophet and the apostles give council to us.

One of the talks that I was really grateful for was the one by Elder Hales on marriage. One of our investigators has a boyfriend who is a real meathead (keeps her from going to church sometimes and doesn´t want her to get baptized) and she said she received some good insight on why we teach and put so much emphasis on eternal marriage. She said that she doesn´t want to be a “shoplifter”, so she´s gonna think on it.

Welp, that´s all I got time for.

Until next time.

Luke