6 Elders, One House

Hey, congrats to Jeff Johnson for his call to Rio de Janeiro. Good luck man, and make sure you look for and say hi to an Elder Honeycutt there, one of the Americans from my group at the MTC. Good guy, even though he plays football for the Utes. (I think you might remember him mom and dad, we met him at the airport the day I left. He was the one with the three girls following him around.) And good luck with spending all three major holidays in the MTC. Remember, if you can make it past Christmas, you´re home free.

So this week is Zone Conference. Tomorrow we travel to Dourados and get to receive instruction/hang out with some of the other Elders. I´m excited.

This area definately has a different feel to it. People are a lot more willing to let us in to hear the message, but unfortunately it´s still pretty hard to get people to come to church... If it´s too cold outside, the won´t leave their houses to go to church.

So yeah, my area is pretty cool. It´s also significantly richer than my last area. There´s some ridiculously big houses around here, and even one that´s a replica of Elvis´s house in Graceland that someone lives in. I really wanna knock there and see if they´ll accept the message/let me in and see the house. I´ll try to get a picture to show you guys. It´s pretty sweet.

Also, apparently some church member years ago owned a lot of roads and property around here, so he named some stuff after the church. In our area, we have a Road Angel Moroni and Road Joseph Smith.

Well, that´s my time this week.

See ya next time.

-Excelcior!

Oh yeah, I heard something about China opening for missionary work. Is that true? Somebody tell me.

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

Google Earth Tracking Luke (click on maps to enlarge)

Google Earth Screen Shots that track Luke's move from Bauru to his new area, Ponta Pora.

Brazil-Paraguay-Bolivia

Sao Paulo, Brazil

From Londrina (right) to Dourados and Ponta Pora (left).

Ponta Pora, Brazil and the border (Yellow) between Brazil and Paraguay.

Side view of border dividing Brazil and Paraguay

Heperi goes a travelin'

Well, turns out that Heperi finally left his missionary birthplace.

I officially left my first area in Bauru, and I´m currently en route to Ponta Porã. En route because right now I´m in Endourodos (That´s not how you spell it, but I can´t remember the correct way), passing P-day with the other Elders until my Bus leaves at about 7 tonight. I traveled alone from Bauru to Londrina, so I had all kinds of thoughts in my head about getting lost and not being able to remember my Portuguese, but in the end there was no worries. I got to see my comp, Elder Hanratty from the MTC today, and it was cool to catch up.

Apparently Ponta Porã just has one district with 6 Elders and no zone leaders, which will be quite a change from Bauru with about 24 missionaries. We´ll see how P-day works with just your district to hang out with... BTW, this keyboard is being stupid and substituting Portuguese words for English words, so IF my spelling is worse than usual, that´s why.

The trip so far has been good, though I´ve got bus-lag as a result of it. 4 Hrs from Bauru to Londrina, and 13 hrs. From Londrina to Endourados, and I´ve still got another 2 hrs. to go. Didn´t get much sleep on the bus last night, so I´m hoping that I´ll be able to sleep well tonight.

It was quite weird to leave my first area, after having comps come and go. What was good is that we wrapped up the transfer with a baptism. The wife of the member who´s Just returned to full activity accepted the invite. She couldn´t decide Who she wanted to baptize her, so me and Elder C. settled it in the ancient scriptural way of casting lots. ie: We played rock, paper, scissors. He won, so He did the baptism. Went perfectly, and we picked up 3 of her in-laws as new investigators. Zing!

Oh yeah, about 5 hours ago I got those letters that Corey, Carrie, Celeste, and Aunt Claudia and Uncle Conrad sent. I loved the missionary shirt envelopes, they were hilarious. So thanks to Corey (three kids? Wow, last time I checked there was only one), Carrie (Yes, I remember you were, despite how bad I am with remembering people in our family. I wasn´t aware that you got married, so here´s a belated congratulations!), Celeste (Your discounts that you gave me at Barnes & Noble Will always be remembered), And Uncle Conrad and Aunt Claudia (If you need anymore help will moving boxes, Levi is still in town...) I especially enjoyed the missionary drawings from all the kids. I´m very happy to know that I was the focus of somebody´s FHE for once.

While I´m at the thank you portion, thanks to Grandma and Grandpa for the letters from NZ, (my comp stole the stamps from me), from Elder Jacob Green in Canada, (I even thank people Who don´t read the blog), Steve, Mat6t, Talisa, Kamalei, Amy, Tristan for the postcard of the caves (If you guys did what Mat6t Said you did, I can see that Mat6t and Kamelei are gaining more influence on people. Yeah!) Also, of the above people group mentioned above, I believe Amy and Tristan are the only two who have yet to send me a letter. Let´s get on the ball kids! Every one who sends one to me gets one back. And remember, If you guys become married/pregnant/deported/Pres. Of the US etc. etc., I´d like an invitation to said event. Thanks.)

My next comp is going to be an American, which is a little funny considering that nobody else from my district has had an American comp yet, and I´m on my 2nd. I hear that he´s a nice guy, so I´m excited for a new area and new comp. Also, apparently Ponta Porã borders on Paraguay, so I get to meet some Spanish speakers. Unfortunately, we´re not allowed to cross over into Paraguay, except at one point which has just one store, so I won´t get to go country hopping. I guess earlier on in the mission it was allowed, but the rule was changed for some reason. Drat!

Well, that´s all my time for this week kiddies.

Thanks again, and see you next we from Ponta Porã.

Excelsior!

-Elder Hepdizzle

Baptisms and Guns N' Roses in the Chapel

This week was pretty eventful.

So last week, (This actually happened before last P-day, but I forget to write about it last time) we got the call from our Zone Leaders that Pres. Leal was going to come to Bauru to make his usual visits and interviews. And, surprise, he had selected my ward to visit! In addition, Sis. Leal was going to visit the house to see how things are. Há, needless to say, we spent a good part of the last P-day cleaning the house. (By the way, in the end she decided that she didn´t have enough time, so our cleaning was in vain...ha ha) Anyway, we were a little nervous. Not that we´re slackers or anything, but you know, having “The Boss” come to visit your cubicle of the office for the day kinda makes you hope that everything goes well.

And actually, it did. That week we didn´t have many investigators at church, but the ones that were there Pres. Leal was really happy to meet. One of them is the wife of our neighbor. He´s an RM, but when they got married he was inactive in the church. But he returned to full activity right after last General Conference, so she´s been receiving our discussions. And what´s more, she accepted our baptismal invite, and is getting baptized on Saturday! Whoo hoo! The power of member referrals at work, eh?

Anyway, back to the visit with Pres. Leal. Turns out he made the visit to our ward because he wanted to see the population of the ward and area, because he might put one more companionship in our area, which would be a real relief. Our area is pretty big, and there are parts of it that we rarely get to visit.

In other news, the Sisters in our district have been teaching a single mom who has three daughters who have all been accepting baptism one by one. The Mom hasn´t yet, as they are going to move to the USA ((Some small town somewhere in New York)and she wants her future husband who lives there to accept the gospel first. And since my comp. Elder C. is the District Leader, we´ve been traveling every week to the Sister´s area to do the interviews. And funny enough, I got to baptize the two daughters who have accepted baptism. Elder C. asked the first kid who she wanted to baptize her (I thinks she´s about 12 or 13), and she pointed and me and said, “I want the Gringo to do it.” So I baptized her two weeks ago, and last week was her sister.

There´s kind of a funny story with the baptisms. When I baptized the other girl´s sister (I´d use names but they´re hard for me to remember...), I was a little nervous with because I was trying to remember the baptismal prayer in Portuguese AND her long and complicated name (all Brazilians have at least 4 names. She had about six.) I had to ask her to repeat it about 6 times while we were standing in the freezing cold water in the font. (The water heater is perpetually broken.) Also, the last baptism that I performed I had to do twice because she forgot to tie her hair up. Anyway, add up all those factors, and I ended up using a bit more force than was necessary when I was putting her under the water. Elder C. said it kinda looked more like a drowning than a baptism for a second. He and the girl´s sister laughed at me for a bit after that. I wasn´t trying to be irreverent or anything, just a combo of Portuguese and cold water = a good dunking.

So, it was a good learning experience for me to practice my baptism skills, and I was glad to help out the Sisters and get to know people outside of my area. The twelve year old girl always carries a guitar around, and has a strange affinity for Guns N´Roses. I never thought I´d hear “Sweet Child o`Mine” being played by a Brazilian twelve year old in an LDS church.

Oh yeah, last night as we were heading back to the house, I stopped and gave a pass along card to a lady standing in front of our house. After I said my part, she asked me if I was American. I said that I was. But even more interesting, she asked if I was from New Zealand! I said that my Dad was, then I asked her how she knew that. She replied that there used to be an old man who lived down the street, (just a few blocks from our house) who was from New Zealand and who spoke Portuguese like I did, and who looked a little like me. (By the way, she is the first Brazilian who correctly identified a part of my nationality. I was getting a little tired of being asked if I am Mexican...) Apparently he died a few years ago, and I tried to found out if she knew his name, but all she could tell me was “Donald something”. She said the other part to his name she couldn´t say because it was in English. Now, I know that I don´t have any New Zealand accent whatsoever, but maybe when you speak Portuguese it doesn´t matter, everybody sounds like a foreigner. Há, it was interesting to find out that there had been a Kiwi living among the Brazilians of Bauru. Small world, huh?

Well, my time´s spent for this week.

Catch you kids later.

-Luke “I´m-Maori/Mohawk-not-Mexican” Heperi

The Weather Has Been Cooler

So Mom and Lauren are at Girl´s Camp, huh? Há, good luck with that. You know my opinion on the whole thing: You can´t call it “camping” if you spend a week in a cabin. Camping requires the use of a tent.

So this week the cold spell that we´ve been having went away, and now the weather feels a bit like Southern California, or something like that.

This week I got excited because we thought that we could mark Rita´s baptism...but when we went over to the appointment she was sick in bed, so we returned three days later. And, of course when we show up there, José has returned, not drunk, but still there. Yeesh. I´ve been teaching her since January, thought that we finally had her ready, but now we´re back to square one. It was pretty frustrating, but we´ll see how it goes.

I dunno if I mentioned, but about three weeks ago we got a reference for someone that wanted a Book of Mormon. We delivered it and taught the first lesson to a woman named Joice. She´s a newlywed and her and her husband live not too far from the bishop´s house. She was really excited to read, and we were really hopeful that she progress quickly. The only problem is is that she has to go to a job training in a city about two hours away from here every day, so she has no time for us for the next month and a half. She´s a good investigator, just way busy right now.

Also, I´ve been improving my phone conversation skills these past few weeks. We have lunch with a different member in the ward every day except P-day. Everyone in the ward gets a calender so that the know who´s day is who´s. The only problem is that about half the ward never remembers to check their calenders or forgets, so we have to constantly call to find out if their remembering. Both Elder R. J. and M. took care of that when they were here, but since Elder C. has only been here a month, I usually have to speak to the people. I feel encouraged that I make enough sense on the phone for people to understand me.

Well, as always, ´till next timey.

Excelsior!

-Eldiddle Hepdiddl

Pork and Beans (I eat them every day!)

This week had some good ups and downs.

We´re still lacking in the investigator department, but the ones that we do have are doing well. And this week, Rita (the one investigator that couldn´t get baptized because the drunk guy that she lived with wouldn´t leave) finally got the guy to leave, so now she´s gonna get baptized. Zing! Heh, it´s been a long time coming. I´ve been teaching her ever since the first week in January, so I´m way excited for her. She told us she wants to wait a couple of weeks to mark the baptism, (I think she´s afraid that the guy will come back) but she´s getting baptized!

Also, instead of church on Sunday, we got to watch the temple dedication at the stake center. It was pretty cool to see Pres. Monson dedicating temple, and when they were putting the mortar into the side of the building outside, he was making a bunch of funny comments as people were sticking the mortar in. It was even funnier because the majority of the people there didn´t speak English, so I don´t think everyone quite grasped what he was saying. Even his translator couldn´t keep up sometimes with his comments. Pres. Monson said a couple words in Spanish to some of the people as well.

We also got to watch the celebration at the stake center the night before. It was kinda like an opening ceremony of the Olympics. They had a bunch of people dressed up to represent different countries, with traditional clothes. It looked pretty good, although the people who were dressed up and waving a flag that said “Estados Unidos” weren´t wearing anything that I´ve seen Americans wear-- at least not while I´ve been alive. I can´t describe the clothing, but it looked way 80´s. Kinda like something Will Smith wears on the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

Well, besides that , not too much else. Sorry for the shortness of this, but I promise that I´ll have more next week.

´till next time!

Excelsior!

-Eldah Heperi