Hmmm...sounds like quite the party was had at Rob’s homecoming talk, huh? I tell you, there better be at least that many people at my one, or I’m going to weep bitterly for having lost the RM popularity contest.
A lot more moving around of missionaries happened this week. I guess the missionaries that we got from the new areas have a different transfer schedule than us. Their transfer ended, today, so some missionaries went home, which generated a little chaos with some emergency transfers. I’m not even sure if the same missionaries are in my district anymore, so I guess I’ll find out this week.
This week we were highly disappointed as two really good families we were teaching didn’t make it to church. We stopped by to visit one of them with the bishop (The family is Ro... and Pat... and their kids) on Saturday night, only to find that Pat... had gotten some pretty bad food poisoning and had to go to the hospital, so that was a no go. The other family had relatives visit from out of town at the last minute, and couldn’t go either. (BTW: that’s probably the most common excuse that I hear, that some relatives showed up last minute to see them, but this time it was actually legit. We stopped by their house just to make sure)
There was a ward temple trip this last week, so about half the ward went for about a week to the São Paulo Temple. It made it a little difficult to teach lessons with the members, but we’re hoping that they are back with some extra motivation.
I talked to a guy who I think had the best/most extreme reaction to my talking to him about the gospel. Me and my comp. were strolling along, when I spotted a nice couple in front of us. (In their late 40´s or so). Stopping to talk to them, I had just opened my mouth and stuck out my hand to shake hands, when the guy screamed “Noooooo! I already follow a religion! I’m already Christian!” Then he shoved me in the chest and started backing up slowly like I was wielding a knife or something. I looked at his wife who was pretty calm and expected something like, “Oh, don’t mind him, he’s a bit nuts.” Or an “I’m sorry that he pushed you,” from her. But, she just started shaking her head and said “We already have a religion.” At that point the guy grabbed her hand and they were off at a pretty brisk pace. That guy definately gets the award.
Well, sáll from me for now.
Till next time;
-Elder =w= Heperi
Monday, July 20, 2009
Monday, July 13, 2009
Letter from/to Parkway 2nd Ward CTR 5 Primary Class
LETTER FROM PRIMARY
Dear Elder Heperi,
Our class has been learning about missionaries and how Heavenly Father blesses and helps them. Our class wanted you to know that Heavenly Father loves you and protects you. Your family loves you too.
We hope you have a good day on your mission. Be happy, good, and keep
smiling.
Our class was wondering if you are a good missionary? Do you like Brazil? We hope you are safe, and you can help your family when you get home.
Sincerely,
The CTR 5 Primary Class
Parkway 2nd Ward
Cooper Roscher
Jackson McCarty
Keith Borrowman
Sierra Walker
Lydia Peterson
Madeline Stochlia
Danielle Slagowski, and
Sister Martin (Teacher).
RESPONSE
Dear Primary Class,
Thanks a lot for the letter. I really appreciated the love and concern that you guys show for me. It helps to know that people pray for me, even while I’m far from home.
I do my best to be a good missionary. It isn’t always easy, but it’s always worth it to follow the Lord’s commandments.
I’m loving it here in Brazil. The people are very friendly, the food delicious, and the members very accepting. Thank you again!
-Elder Heperi
Weather still cool...
Another cold week.
Ha, I feel bad for my comp. because every night he goes to bed looking like he’s going to leave for a Klondike campout(pants,sweatshirts,gloves,beanie) even though it’s only about 14 Celsius in the house. He’s really missing that Northern Brazilian sun right now…
This week, my comp and I have got to go help the other Elders in the district with some of their work. Unfortunately, with us losing a bunch of areas and missionaries, there are two newbie’s together as comps. (One Elder has about 6 months, and the other is only in his 3rd week in the field), so we get to head over there and help them with some stuff. The Elder in his 3rd week has had 3 companions in 3 weeks because of all the moving around that’s been happening. Poor guy never gets a chance to get used to anybody. His name is Elder D.S., and it turns out that he’s a rugby player and a big NZ All-Blacks fan. He plays on some local team in his city in southern Brazil (which is pretty rare, as rugby isn’t very popular here). I think you’d like to meet him someday, Dad. He wants to buy a ball here at the store, just that it´s about 130 Reals. Maybe we could get a game started some P-day...heh.
We found a bunch of good people to teach this week, but unfortunately everybody really good isn’t married, or has a family who doesn’t like the church and ends up scaring the person away. We found this really good guy named Fe... who actually asked during the lesson “You know, I’ve always really wanted to know, with so many churches around here, there must be just one that’s true. But which is it?” His wife also just had a baby, and he asked “Where was she before she was born last week?” Two questions that we, of course, love to hear. We had a great lesson with him, but unfortunately right as we were finishing, his uncle (a minister) showed up. We just passed him on the way out, but he didn’t look too happy to see us. Anyway, long-story short, Fe... told us later that it would be best if we didn’t come back. Definately a low point on the week.
On a higher note, Se... (our investigator that needs to get married and stop smoking) managed to stop smoking this past week. He had been cutting it down to about 2 cigarettes per day for a while now, but finally decided just to stop altogether. Now we just got to see about that dang marriage…
For P-day today, we’ve got a nice basketball game lined up with the whole district. I haven’t actually played basketball since I left the MTC in São Paulo, as it’s kind of difficult to find somebody who has a good basketball (or a bad one for that matter) and even harder to find a court with hoops. (They have a lot of basketball courts here, just that kids like to hang on the hoops instead of playing basketball, and they’re always broken.) We’ll see how it goes. We usually play Brazilian's against American's when it comes to sports, which means that we lose quite badly when it comes to soccer, so I figure we might do well today in basketball. (Actually, there’s only 3 Americans, Me, Elder Han... and Elder Har....)
Sáll from me today.
´till next time!
-Elder =w= Heperi
Ha, I feel bad for my comp. because every night he goes to bed looking like he’s going to leave for a Klondike campout(pants,sweatshirts,gloves,beanie) even though it’s only about 14 Celsius in the house. He’s really missing that Northern Brazilian sun right now…
This week, my comp and I have got to go help the other Elders in the district with some of their work. Unfortunately, with us losing a bunch of areas and missionaries, there are two newbie’s together as comps. (One Elder has about 6 months, and the other is only in his 3rd week in the field), so we get to head over there and help them with some stuff. The Elder in his 3rd week has had 3 companions in 3 weeks because of all the moving around that’s been happening. Poor guy never gets a chance to get used to anybody. His name is Elder D.S., and it turns out that he’s a rugby player and a big NZ All-Blacks fan. He plays on some local team in his city in southern Brazil (which is pretty rare, as rugby isn’t very popular here). I think you’d like to meet him someday, Dad. He wants to buy a ball here at the store, just that it´s about 130 Reals. Maybe we could get a game started some P-day...heh.
We found a bunch of good people to teach this week, but unfortunately everybody really good isn’t married, or has a family who doesn’t like the church and ends up scaring the person away. We found this really good guy named Fe... who actually asked during the lesson “You know, I’ve always really wanted to know, with so many churches around here, there must be just one that’s true. But which is it?” His wife also just had a baby, and he asked “Where was she before she was born last week?” Two questions that we, of course, love to hear. We had a great lesson with him, but unfortunately right as we were finishing, his uncle (a minister) showed up. We just passed him on the way out, but he didn’t look too happy to see us. Anyway, long-story short, Fe... told us later that it would be best if we didn’t come back. Definately a low point on the week.
On a higher note, Se... (our investigator that needs to get married and stop smoking) managed to stop smoking this past week. He had been cutting it down to about 2 cigarettes per day for a while now, but finally decided just to stop altogether. Now we just got to see about that dang marriage…
For P-day today, we’ve got a nice basketball game lined up with the whole district. I haven’t actually played basketball since I left the MTC in São Paulo, as it’s kind of difficult to find somebody who has a good basketball (or a bad one for that matter) and even harder to find a court with hoops. (They have a lot of basketball courts here, just that kids like to hang on the hoops instead of playing basketball, and they’re always broken.) We’ll see how it goes. We usually play Brazilian's against American's when it comes to sports, which means that we lose quite badly when it comes to soccer, so I figure we might do well today in basketball. (Actually, there’s only 3 Americans, Me, Elder Han... and Elder Har....)
Sáll from me today.
´till next time!
-Elder =w= Heperi
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Scaring the Drunks
Sad as it seems, I completely forgot about the 4th of July until yesterday. Too bad, as I was gonna celebrate by lighting something on fire. Also, I´m a bit tired of hearing all the news about Michael Jackson dying. If it happens in the USA, it becomes the question of the week for people to ask me around here.
Yeah, so the big news this week was the mission boundaries changing. I guess it happened to all or most of the missions in Brazil. (BTW, I hear that the Rio North and and Rio mission are now one mission. Does that mean that Jeff Johnson and Jenny Morrisse are in the same mission now?) We lost the state of Mato Grosso Do Sul (Where I was in Ponta Porã and Campo Grande), along with about 24 or so missionaries who were there to the Cuiabá Mission. A good chunk of the Elders that´d I would be coming home with went there, including Elder Mont... It was actually pretty sad to hear about it, and President had a meeting for us last week, and he was feeling it too. We did gain a couple of cities here in the state of Paraná though, so maybe I´ll get to go there sometime. Who knows? I was glad to stay put here in Londrina, but I did think that it would have been interesting to say that I served in 2 different missions, if I had had to switch.
Some companionships got shifted around, so my comp. Elder Per... went somewhere else, and now I´m with Elder Lima. He´s from the city of Belém (Bethlehem in Portuguese) in the state of Pará, which I found out is a city that sits basically on the equator. He said that 105 F weather is pretty normal for him, which makes me happy that I´m not serving there. Unfortunately, he´s suffering a bit for the cold here., (65 F for him is cold) and usually walks around in a long sleeve shirt and gloves. Ha, he´s a good guy, and we get along pretty well.
This week, church moved from it´s 10:00 am time slot to 8:30, which resulted in many people not showing up to church yesterday. I personally like the 8:30 time better, but 10 was a lot easier for our investigators. The frequency is kinda low at our ward, at times approaching the number of people that would go to church in Adamantina. (That´s worrysome). Those who do go to church seem to be a happy, motivated lot, which helps when we have investigators at church.
President challenged us to invite people to get baptized more, even in our contacts on the road, so we´ve been having success on that front. Those who do accept a visit already know why we´re there, and so they´re more prepared. I´ve also found that it helps scare away drunks. Last night we were doing contacts when some drunk guy approached us and started begging for money. (At least he was honest. I asked him why he needed money, and he said he wanted more beer.) I told him that we didn´t have any, but that we could help him to be baptized and could even show him the baptismal font. He looked a little fearful, and left in a big hurry after that.
Not much else from me.
Hey, I thought that Rob and Alex would be home by now, but not till next week, huh?
Did Levi get all his mission shopping done?
´till next week.
Excelcior!
-Elder =w= you-know-who
Yeah, so the big news this week was the mission boundaries changing. I guess it happened to all or most of the missions in Brazil. (BTW, I hear that the Rio North and and Rio mission are now one mission. Does that mean that Jeff Johnson and Jenny Morrisse are in the same mission now?) We lost the state of Mato Grosso Do Sul (Where I was in Ponta Porã and Campo Grande), along with about 24 or so missionaries who were there to the Cuiabá Mission. A good chunk of the Elders that´d I would be coming home with went there, including Elder Mont... It was actually pretty sad to hear about it, and President had a meeting for us last week, and he was feeling it too. We did gain a couple of cities here in the state of Paraná though, so maybe I´ll get to go there sometime. Who knows? I was glad to stay put here in Londrina, but I did think that it would have been interesting to say that I served in 2 different missions, if I had had to switch.
Some companionships got shifted around, so my comp. Elder Per... went somewhere else, and now I´m with Elder Lima. He´s from the city of Belém (Bethlehem in Portuguese) in the state of Pará, which I found out is a city that sits basically on the equator. He said that 105 F weather is pretty normal for him, which makes me happy that I´m not serving there. Unfortunately, he´s suffering a bit for the cold here., (65 F for him is cold) and usually walks around in a long sleeve shirt and gloves. Ha, he´s a good guy, and we get along pretty well.
This week, church moved from it´s 10:00 am time slot to 8:30, which resulted in many people not showing up to church yesterday. I personally like the 8:30 time better, but 10 was a lot easier for our investigators. The frequency is kinda low at our ward, at times approaching the number of people that would go to church in Adamantina. (That´s worrysome). Those who do go to church seem to be a happy, motivated lot, which helps when we have investigators at church.
President challenged us to invite people to get baptized more, even in our contacts on the road, so we´ve been having success on that front. Those who do accept a visit already know why we´re there, and so they´re more prepared. I´ve also found that it helps scare away drunks. Last night we were doing contacts when some drunk guy approached us and started begging for money. (At least he was honest. I asked him why he needed money, and he said he wanted more beer.) I told him that we didn´t have any, but that we could help him to be baptized and could even show him the baptismal font. He looked a little fearful, and left in a big hurry after that.
Not much else from me.
Hey, I thought that Rob and Alex would be home by now, but not till next week, huh?
Did Levi get all his mission shopping done?
´till next week.
Excelcior!
-Elder =w= you-know-who
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