Yeah, General Conference was really great. We got to watch all of the sessions, but unfortunately we (us missionaries) weren’t staying awake too well by the time Priesthood Session rolled around (it started at 9 pm here I think), so we ended up having to leave about half-way thru, so I didn’t get to see all of the Priesthood Session.
It’s funny, about a year and a half ago I couldn’t get to sleep before midnight, and nowadays past 10 and I’m dead.
Yeah, that talk by Elder L. Tom Perry on missionary work was really good, but, unfortunately I only heard a bit of it, as we were watching conference in English on a TV in the kitchen, and everybody decided to take a lunch break at that time, so I’ll have to read the full thing when the Ensign comes out.
I was quite grateful for all the talks, and it gave me a lot of encouragement. We watched in the city of Tupã, about two hours away from Adamantina, and, unfortunately, we didn’t get any investigators to make the trip. However, our recent converts did go, and on Wednesday they’re all headed on a temple trip to do baptisms for the dead! I’m really impressed with their determination, as a couple of them have only been members for 3 weeks now, so that’s cool.
Elder Fr. (my comp) left for Dourados, a city that’s close to Ponta Porã. (He has about 13 months on the mission.) Now I’m with Elder Ulysses from São Paulo (I guess he lives not far from the MTC in São Paulo, kinda like us with the Provo MTC.) He’s pretty new in the mission; I think this is his third transfer. We just got back from a 5 hour round trip, so I´m a bit tired. (An annoying thing: The bus we take passes thru the same city doing a circle to pick up people, so an hour trip to Tupã always is actually a two and a half hour one.)
A big thanks to Talisa, Andrea, and Grandma and Grandpa for the letters that I got today that have been lost in the mission mail system. (I forgot that St. Patrick’s Day passed.)
Ha, I loved the picture of me boy Dave Ridge back in town. There was a moment of trunky-ness when I saw that someone from my age group is back already. (Andy M. doesn’t count, he’s older than me). Good luck in the marriage quest that Talisa tells me that you’re on Dave!
Welp, that’s my time for today.
Thanks again for all mail, prayers, and well-intentioned thoughts of sending a letter that never materialized.
Till next time.
-Elder Hepper (as the people in the branch call me. No one even bothers to look at the name-tag anymore)
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Thursday, April 2, 2009
More Technology Problems
Here’s hoping that this Internet café has less problems than the one last week.
Well, we had a baptism this week. A girl named A. Paula. (Who’s the daughter of a lady who got baptized last week) She works a bunch, so we had to do the baptism on Sunday morning. It went really well. Unfortunately, the branch here is a little iffy when it comes to baptisms, as they’ve seen more than a few go inactive soon after, so we’re trying to help the members along in the part of integration.
As for the technology problems, Unfortunately, Saturday night our cell phone went nuts and wouldn’t let us call anyone, which is almost a death-blow in terms of getting investigators to church, as Sat. night is when we call around to make sure that they’ll go, if they need us to come by there and help them, etc. We kept dialing from the moment we got in the house to almost bedtime, but unfortunately we managed to make only one phone call. Many prayers were said, (and many things were thrown at the cell phone), and fortunately by morning it was working. We managed to get a few people to church, so I was happy.
So with General Conference coming up, I’m not sure what’s going to happen. Apparently, everybody has to travel to the city of Tupã to watch, so we might end up spending two days out of our area, depending on what President decides to have us do. The other problem is that this transfer ends conference weekend, so if my comp gets transferred (highly likely I think. He’s been here for a while) he’s not going to have time to pack his bags. Here’s hoping that I’ll get to watch all four sessions of conference. (In English. Last time I watched in Portuguese because there was a problem with the English TV. Cool, but why watch something dubbed in another language when you can see the original, right?)
Some interesting experiences this week. More discussions with some pastors, from local churches. These guys don’t usually want to Bible bash to much, they just don’t listen to what you’re saying and then quote scriptures from the Bible when you ask them if they understand.) A couple of crazy guys (I got a nice bear-hug from some drunken guy in at the bus-station.) And my first ever lesson taught to a JW! (A lady who’s about 50 and a bit inactive because of some health problems, and very nice. We might be doing a service project around there this week. I was surprised that she let us in to teach, as most of the people from that church get a bit ticked off with our message. Maybe Adamantina is a bit different.) My district leader (Elder Tass) did a trade with me so that he could do our baptismal interview. He’s a funny guy. We ran into a couple of people who said “Nah, we don’t want to hear your message. We’re Jehovah´s Witnesses.” To which my DL responded “Wow, cool! Us too, we’re Witnesses of Jehovah, we bear our testimonies about him and his church!” They looked a bit confused and left in a hurry, but not before each getting a pass-along card, ha ha.
Welp, sáll from me.
Till next time.
-Me
Well, we had a baptism this week. A girl named A. Paula. (Who’s the daughter of a lady who got baptized last week) She works a bunch, so we had to do the baptism on Sunday morning. It went really well. Unfortunately, the branch here is a little iffy when it comes to baptisms, as they’ve seen more than a few go inactive soon after, so we’re trying to help the members along in the part of integration.
As for the technology problems, Unfortunately, Saturday night our cell phone went nuts and wouldn’t let us call anyone, which is almost a death-blow in terms of getting investigators to church, as Sat. night is when we call around to make sure that they’ll go, if they need us to come by there and help them, etc. We kept dialing from the moment we got in the house to almost bedtime, but unfortunately we managed to make only one phone call. Many prayers were said, (and many things were thrown at the cell phone), and fortunately by morning it was working. We managed to get a few people to church, so I was happy.
So with General Conference coming up, I’m not sure what’s going to happen. Apparently, everybody has to travel to the city of Tupã to watch, so we might end up spending two days out of our area, depending on what President decides to have us do. The other problem is that this transfer ends conference weekend, so if my comp gets transferred (highly likely I think. He’s been here for a while) he’s not going to have time to pack his bags. Here’s hoping that I’ll get to watch all four sessions of conference. (In English. Last time I watched in Portuguese because there was a problem with the English TV. Cool, but why watch something dubbed in another language when you can see the original, right?)
Some interesting experiences this week. More discussions with some pastors, from local churches. These guys don’t usually want to Bible bash to much, they just don’t listen to what you’re saying and then quote scriptures from the Bible when you ask them if they understand.) A couple of crazy guys (I got a nice bear-hug from some drunken guy in at the bus-station.) And my first ever lesson taught to a JW! (A lady who’s about 50 and a bit inactive because of some health problems, and very nice. We might be doing a service project around there this week. I was surprised that she let us in to teach, as most of the people from that church get a bit ticked off with our message. Maybe Adamantina is a bit different.) My district leader (Elder Tass) did a trade with me so that he could do our baptismal interview. He’s a funny guy. We ran into a couple of people who said “Nah, we don’t want to hear your message. We’re Jehovah´s Witnesses.” To which my DL responded “Wow, cool! Us too, we’re Witnesses of Jehovah, we bear our testimonies about him and his church!” They looked a bit confused and left in a hurry, but not before each getting a pass-along card, ha ha.
Welp, sáll from me.
Till next time.
-Me
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Not an OK computer
The darn thing switched off in the middle of my last e-mail, so this one will be a bit short. Sorry guys!
So this week was interesting with the Zone Conference. Pres. gave some good trainings, and I left more motivated. The only downer was that our mail was sent to another area (again), so I´ll have to read any letters sometimes in April.
Sunday had its ups and downs. The down was that an investigator named J. who has a baptismal date told us that she didn´t want to go to church anymore. I dunno what happened, as she really enjoyed last week, but she said that she feels more comfortable in her church. Luckily, she still is up to having us visit, so we´ll have to see what the problem is. The "up" on Sunday was that a guy named Well... visited church. We met him on the road in Lucélia-- a neighboring city that we take care of as well. He just moved here from São Paulo, and said that he was looking for a fresh start and wanted to “be born again”. Heh, our interest was high, and I gave him a pamphlet of the first lesson with the invite to go to church. He said that he´d go, but when we offered to pass by his house to go with him, he gave the usual “No no, I can get there by myself” that people usually give when they don´t really want to go. But Sunday came, and he was there! We were pretty happy, as it´s very rare (or rather, never happened to me before) that an person will travel from another city to attend a church meeting that they´ve never even heard off, so I took that as a good sign. He said that he liked the church, but seemed a little burned out from the three hour block. Unfortunately when we offered to pass by his house later this week, he said that he´d have to get back to us, as he has to “work some stuff out”. We´re praying that he´ll come back again or that we´ll run into him.
Much love
-Me =w=
So this week was interesting with the Zone Conference. Pres. gave some good trainings, and I left more motivated. The only downer was that our mail was sent to another area (again), so I´ll have to read any letters sometimes in April.
Sunday had its ups and downs. The down was that an investigator named J. who has a baptismal date told us that she didn´t want to go to church anymore. I dunno what happened, as she really enjoyed last week, but she said that she feels more comfortable in her church. Luckily, she still is up to having us visit, so we´ll have to see what the problem is. The "up" on Sunday was that a guy named Well... visited church. We met him on the road in Lucélia-- a neighboring city that we take care of as well. He just moved here from São Paulo, and said that he was looking for a fresh start and wanted to “be born again”. Heh, our interest was high, and I gave him a pamphlet of the first lesson with the invite to go to church. He said that he´d go, but when we offered to pass by his house to go with him, he gave the usual “No no, I can get there by myself” that people usually give when they don´t really want to go. But Sunday came, and he was there! We were pretty happy, as it´s very rare (or rather, never happened to me before) that an person will travel from another city to attend a church meeting that they´ve never even heard off, so I took that as a good sign. He said that he liked the church, but seemed a little burned out from the three hour block. Unfortunately when we offered to pass by his house later this week, he said that he´d have to get back to us, as he has to “work some stuff out”. We´re praying that he´ll come back again or that we´ll run into him.
Much love
-Me =w=
Milwaukee
Hey, so Dad mentioned last week that he discovered a blog of an Elder Harrington. Well, turns out that Elder served here not too long ago, and (as I found out when the Assistants visited the other week) he just passed thru my first area in Bauru. Funny Cowinkydink, eh?
We’re still chugging along here. We had a baptism this last Saturday, a lady that Elder Fr. and the last Elder had been teaching. It was pretty cool. As our chapel is not actually a real chapel, (it’s an old motel) it lacks a baptismal font, so we have to use this big pool thingy. All the little kids that showed up with their parents got all excited and wanted to dive in. It was good, because the lady that got baptized (named C.) was pretty uncertain even after the baptismal interview. She comes from a really strong Catholic background, and was unsure about leaving some things behind. But during the service, she said that she really felt sure about what she was doing.
Another highlight is that I ran into an American family. (Only the 2nd time that’s happened, for the record.) We travel to the city of Osvaldo Cruz every other week for district meeting with the other two Elders, and us four we’re walking and doing some contacts. One guy, who wasn’t too interested, pointed to a house nearby and told us to go knock there, as “some American dude from Millie-waky lives there” (Turns out he was trying to say Milwaukee). Upon knocking, the lady that answered turned out to be the wife of the guy that lived there, who turned out to be a ... minister. And, despite the presence of a fellow countryman, she was none too happy to here about our message. (Interesting teaching the gospel in English. I haven´t done that yet on my mission) After being told about 20 times to read the Bible, my brief but interesting teaching session in English ended. My comp. commented that he kinda felt how new Americans must feel, as he just stood there with a smile on his face while I talked. I almost laughed out loud while she was trying to burn us in English, because she kept talking to my district leader, (a blond, white guy who everybody mistakes for an American, but who speaks almost no English) and he just kept nodding and saying things like “ah yes” and “uh huh” to look like he was understanding. Heh, not our finest moment.
Zone Conference is this week, so on Friday we´ll be off to the city of Presidente Prudente. My thanks in advance to any and everybody who still writes me, despite my fairly low out-put of mail. (to all those who have sent a letter, please know that I´m trying to respond ASAP. Unfortunately, letter writing makes me quite tired, and very often I fall asleep either due to lack of sleep or sheer boredom of writing about my own life.)
Sáll for now kids.
´till next time.
-Me
We’re still chugging along here. We had a baptism this last Saturday, a lady that Elder Fr. and the last Elder had been teaching. It was pretty cool. As our chapel is not actually a real chapel, (it’s an old motel) it lacks a baptismal font, so we have to use this big pool thingy. All the little kids that showed up with their parents got all excited and wanted to dive in. It was good, because the lady that got baptized (named C.) was pretty uncertain even after the baptismal interview. She comes from a really strong Catholic background, and was unsure about leaving some things behind. But during the service, she said that she really felt sure about what she was doing.
Another highlight is that I ran into an American family. (Only the 2nd time that’s happened, for the record.) We travel to the city of Osvaldo Cruz every other week for district meeting with the other two Elders, and us four we’re walking and doing some contacts. One guy, who wasn’t too interested, pointed to a house nearby and told us to go knock there, as “some American dude from Millie-waky lives there” (Turns out he was trying to say Milwaukee). Upon knocking, the lady that answered turned out to be the wife of the guy that lived there, who turned out to be a ... minister. And, despite the presence of a fellow countryman, she was none too happy to here about our message. (Interesting teaching the gospel in English. I haven´t done that yet on my mission) After being told about 20 times to read the Bible, my brief but interesting teaching session in English ended. My comp. commented that he kinda felt how new Americans must feel, as he just stood there with a smile on his face while I talked. I almost laughed out loud while she was trying to burn us in English, because she kept talking to my district leader, (a blond, white guy who everybody mistakes for an American, but who speaks almost no English) and he just kept nodding and saying things like “ah yes” and “uh huh” to look like he was understanding. Heh, not our finest moment.
Zone Conference is this week, so on Friday we´ll be off to the city of Presidente Prudente. My thanks in advance to any and everybody who still writes me, despite my fairly low out-put of mail. (to all those who have sent a letter, please know that I´m trying to respond ASAP. Unfortunately, letter writing makes me quite tired, and very often I fall asleep either due to lack of sleep or sheer boredom of writing about my own life.)
Sáll for now kids.
´till next time.
-Me
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Visiting other cities
Another week. This week the Assistants came to visit our area and the neighboring city to work with my comp, and the others. So I spent the day working in another city, named Osvaldo Cruz. One of the Assistants is Elder J. Johnson, a fellow Provonian. While there are many people here from Utah, I think only me and him are from Provo. He went to Timpview, so I never met him, but he does know Mat6t (Elder Karlsven now) so that was cool to reminisce a bit about good ól Provo.
We’re still struggling to find a good batch of investigators. The ones that we’re teaching are good, but unfortunately everybody is really struggling with church attendance. We call, offer to pass by their house with a ride, and still everybody ends up getting a visit from their grandma that they haven’t seen in the last 10 yrs. Or something like that. (That’s really the most common excuse we hear.)
We’re teaching a lady and her daughter, and the daughter already knows that the message is true. We asked her to read and pray about the Book of Mormon, as always, and the next time that we came back she told us how powerfully she felt that it was true and received an answer. The only problem is that she always has something else to do Sunday morning instead of church, so we’re dealing with the very frustrating situation of a person that got an answer but is not motivated to follow it. Her mom is in a difficult situation as well, as she first has to divorce her ex-husband legally, and then marry the guy that she’s living with legally, a process that might end when Liam gets back from his mission.
Apartment hunting hasn’t gone too well. Every house that we’ve found is either really expensive or really far away, so I think we’re gonna stay put. It’s actually gotten quieter around our apartment, as the college downstairs appear to only be home during the day and gone at night, which works for us as we have exactly the opposite schedule.
Our apartment’s balcony-thingy has kind of a weird set-up, and if you’re not careful, you could fall off and end up in the neighbors area.
No luck finding a keyboard yet either, we’re still looking.
Welp, other than that we’re doing good here.
To be honest, the area’s leaving me a bit, I dunno, stressed as we try to help things move along, so I can see that I’ll be able to do a lot of growing in the area.
Sáll for now.
Till next week.
- Luke
We’re still struggling to find a good batch of investigators. The ones that we’re teaching are good, but unfortunately everybody is really struggling with church attendance. We call, offer to pass by their house with a ride, and still everybody ends up getting a visit from their grandma that they haven’t seen in the last 10 yrs. Or something like that. (That’s really the most common excuse we hear.)
We’re teaching a lady and her daughter, and the daughter already knows that the message is true. We asked her to read and pray about the Book of Mormon, as always, and the next time that we came back she told us how powerfully she felt that it was true and received an answer. The only problem is that she always has something else to do Sunday morning instead of church, so we’re dealing with the very frustrating situation of a person that got an answer but is not motivated to follow it. Her mom is in a difficult situation as well, as she first has to divorce her ex-husband legally, and then marry the guy that she’s living with legally, a process that might end when Liam gets back from his mission.
Apartment hunting hasn’t gone too well. Every house that we’ve found is either really expensive or really far away, so I think we’re gonna stay put. It’s actually gotten quieter around our apartment, as the college downstairs appear to only be home during the day and gone at night, which works for us as we have exactly the opposite schedule.
Our apartment’s balcony-thingy has kind of a weird set-up, and if you’re not careful, you could fall off and end up in the neighbors area.
No luck finding a keyboard yet either, we’re still looking.
Welp, other than that we’re doing good here.
To be honest, the area’s leaving me a bit, I dunno, stressed as we try to help things move along, so I can see that I’ll be able to do a lot of growing in the area.
Sáll for now.
Till next week.
- Luke
Friday, March 6, 2009
Small town and little Branch
Welp, hello from Adamantina.
This week has been pretty hectic. I left Campo Grande on Sunday, but actually didn´t arrive in my area until Tuesday morning due to some bus problems. I arrived in the neighboring city of Tupã Monday night, and we slept there before coming to my area on Tuesday. An interesting trip.
My new comp is Elder Freire, from Recife in the Northern part of Brazil. He used to be comps with my last comp, Elder R., so we´re getting to know each other now. Unfortunately, I would be the pianist in the branch here, but there isn´t a piano, so we´re trying to see if somebody has a keyboard that we can borrow.
Tuesday was interesting, as it was Carnival and everything in the city was closed and there was basically nobody on the roads. (By the way, send my sympathies to Jeff there in Rio. My comp from Rio told me that he´s been robbed various times in his lifetime, and said that it´s fairly normal there.) Much door knocking was done that day.
I can tell that this area is gonna be an interesting one for me. Campo Grande is where the church is the most well established in our whole mission, next to Londrina. The ward there had a frequency of about 150, which is quite high around here. Here, however, there are only branches and a district. Sacrament meeting had a frequency of 57 yesterday, and we meet in a rented building as our chapel. It´s quite interesting for me to see, as I´ve only passed thru wards until now, so I excpect that I´ll learn a lot.
The branch president´s a nice guy. He´s been a member for about three years now, and says that he´s still getting the hang of being Pres. He´s pretty helpful and left with us to go teach some lessons on Tuesday.
I´m thinking that this area will do wonders for my Portuguese, as it´s just me and my comp here in the city, and the closest American elders are an hour and a half away in Tupã, so hopefully I can get rid of my accent a little better.
I heard the usual “You know something Elder, you don´t look American” all yesterday, and actually somebody tried speaking Spanish with me and asked if I was Mexican.
The town´s pretty cool. It´s kinda of got an Ephraim, Utah feel that I like around here. It´s a college town here with a couple of small colleges, so the town about doubled in size with school back in session. We talk with a bunch of college students on the roads as that´s usually who's out and about around here. Our apartment (my first apartment in the mission, as opposed to just a house) is right in the Center of the city, and is definately the kind Spider-man or Daredevil would rent as there are a few tall buildings around here and a balcony. The apartment´s OK, but we´re actually looking to move 'cos when it rains the whole place leaks, and the neighbors downstairs are college kids, so it gets to be a bit noisy on the weekends. (The guy downstairs is a huge Avril Lavigne fan, and we´ve already had to plan while hearing “Sk8r Boi” coming thru the window.) I´d rank the apartment as #2 in terms of the best place that I´ve had to live on the mission, with my last house being #1. We live right across the street from the local Catholic church that is pretty cool looking, and it even has a big clock with a bell tower that rings all thru the day and night.
We actually take care of two cities, Adamantina and the neighborhing city of Lucélia, about a 20 min bus ride from Adamantina. Apparently, there used to be a branch in Lucélia as well, but it closed. The branch here is struggling to grow. The church has been here a little more than 20 yrs. and only grows very slowly. The members here are not very excited about missionary work, except for the Branch President and his councilor, so we´re gonna have to get to work and pray to see what we can do to help the members out.
Please pray for the branch here.
Welp, sáll from me.
Till next week.
-Luke
This week has been pretty hectic. I left Campo Grande on Sunday, but actually didn´t arrive in my area until Tuesday morning due to some bus problems. I arrived in the neighboring city of Tupã Monday night, and we slept there before coming to my area on Tuesday. An interesting trip.
My new comp is Elder Freire, from Recife in the Northern part of Brazil. He used to be comps with my last comp, Elder R., so we´re getting to know each other now. Unfortunately, I would be the pianist in the branch here, but there isn´t a piano, so we´re trying to see if somebody has a keyboard that we can borrow.
Tuesday was interesting, as it was Carnival and everything in the city was closed and there was basically nobody on the roads. (By the way, send my sympathies to Jeff there in Rio. My comp from Rio told me that he´s been robbed various times in his lifetime, and said that it´s fairly normal there.) Much door knocking was done that day.
I can tell that this area is gonna be an interesting one for me. Campo Grande is where the church is the most well established in our whole mission, next to Londrina. The ward there had a frequency of about 150, which is quite high around here. Here, however, there are only branches and a district. Sacrament meeting had a frequency of 57 yesterday, and we meet in a rented building as our chapel. It´s quite interesting for me to see, as I´ve only passed thru wards until now, so I excpect that I´ll learn a lot.
The branch president´s a nice guy. He´s been a member for about three years now, and says that he´s still getting the hang of being Pres. He´s pretty helpful and left with us to go teach some lessons on Tuesday.
I´m thinking that this area will do wonders for my Portuguese, as it´s just me and my comp here in the city, and the closest American elders are an hour and a half away in Tupã, so hopefully I can get rid of my accent a little better.
I heard the usual “You know something Elder, you don´t look American” all yesterday, and actually somebody tried speaking Spanish with me and asked if I was Mexican.
The town´s pretty cool. It´s kinda of got an Ephraim, Utah feel that I like around here. It´s a college town here with a couple of small colleges, so the town about doubled in size with school back in session. We talk with a bunch of college students on the roads as that´s usually who's out and about around here. Our apartment (my first apartment in the mission, as opposed to just a house) is right in the Center of the city, and is definately the kind Spider-man or Daredevil would rent as there are a few tall buildings around here and a balcony. The apartment´s OK, but we´re actually looking to move 'cos when it rains the whole place leaks, and the neighbors downstairs are college kids, so it gets to be a bit noisy on the weekends. (The guy downstairs is a huge Avril Lavigne fan, and we´ve already had to plan while hearing “Sk8r Boi” coming thru the window.) I´d rank the apartment as #2 in terms of the best place that I´ve had to live on the mission, with my last house being #1. We live right across the street from the local Catholic church that is pretty cool looking, and it even has a big clock with a bell tower that rings all thru the day and night.
We actually take care of two cities, Adamantina and the neighborhing city of Lucélia, about a 20 min bus ride from Adamantina. Apparently, there used to be a branch in Lucélia as well, but it closed. The branch here is struggling to grow. The church has been here a little more than 20 yrs. and only grows very slowly. The members here are not very excited about missionary work, except for the Branch President and his councilor, so we´re gonna have to get to work and pray to see what we can do to help the members out.
Please pray for the branch here.
Welp, sáll from me.
Till next week.
-Luke
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