Wow, so Levi is finally gonna be getting out of there this week, huh?
I find myself with mixed feelings of happiness and sadness. Happiness because he´s going out to his mission...and sadness because I now lose my unique status as the only Elder Heperi on the face of the earth.
Make sure to have him send his e-mails to me so I can keep updated. Oh, and on the blog you can call him “Elder Heperi 2” or “Elder Heperi the Younger” or something like that to denote a difference.
We´re having some pretty good success teaching some really good families. One of them, Ju... and R... are the kind of family that it seems like you serve your whole mission just to find them. They really were prepared to receive the gospel as they already are willing to be baptized and are already married. The only thing we have to help Ju... along with is his love for soccer. For the past few years or so he´s always gone to play soccer every Sunday morning, so now he´s trying to get used to the church schedule. Last week he went to church, but yesterday he went and played soccer. He said that he missed being in church, so I think that he´s coming round.
Another guy we´re teaching, named Ni... is also going really well. His wife, named Sô... has visited just about every church around here in the past 15 years, and says that she really wants to find out which one is the true church. She liked the Book of Mormon a lot, but unfortunately couldn't´t make it to church this week as she had already promised a friend that she´d visit another church in her process of finding. This week though, she should be good to go.
The weather cleared up this week, and we´re back to the brutal heat that I´m oh so fond of. Heh, I guess it´s just going to be another couple of months sweatin´it out here. Luckily the city has a lot of wind, so I shouldn´t suffer too much.
Today should be ok. We´ve got a basketball game planed in the center today, and rumor has it that someone has a football, so maybe we´ll see how the Brazilains fare in a good ól game of two hand touch.
That´s all for me.
Good luck to the other Elder Heperi as of Wednesday.
-Elder =w= Heperi
Monday, August 31, 2009
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Up the hill, down the hill.
Luke and some recent converts
Luke and his companion
Wow. I didn´t even realize that Levi´s departure date was so close. Yeesh. One more week and there will be Elder Heperi 1 and 2 wandering around, huh?
This week was full of lots of rain, and even more cold. I dunno if almost two years of Brazilian heat has made me a wuss to the cold, but I was freezing this past week. Actually, I´ve heard that Apucarana is one of, if not the, coldest cities in our mission. The city sits on top of a big mountainous region, and is really high up. There are a lot of hills here, so we spend a lot of our time going up and down. Just to get to our chapel from our house we have to walk up two hills, cross some railroad tracks, and walk thru a small Gypsy community. (They´re nice, though I´d like to know why they have a nicer washing machine than us when they don´t even have a house.)This next week we get to visit another part of town that is known as the Anthill. Should be fun to walk up that street.
Because of the rain, I had to put my clothes out to dry in our house, and under a little patio that we have out back. The clothes in the house dried ok as we turned on every fan that we had, but my shirts out back didn´t fare as well. We´ve basically got a jungle out back with 20-foot tall plants that have become trees whose weird-looking seeds attached themselves to my shirts. Also, I found out that the local birds like to hang out in that portion of the backyard, and ended up pooping all over two of my shirts. Man, how I miss a good dryer…
On the work side of things, we´re having a lot of success finding some good families. One guy that we taught on Saturday night named Ni... ended up going to church with us yesterday, which was good because I usually find that people take a week or two to get going. He was pretty tired during the meetings and ended up sleeping thru most of sacrament meeting, but he said that he enjoyed it all the same.
Another family that we´re teaching really have been prepared to receive the message. They´re a young family named Ju... and R..., with two daughters ages 6 and 3. They just happen to live on the other side of the street of the Young Men's president, and, Hallelujah, are legally married! Ju... said that a couple of years ago they decided to officially get married, as he said that it seemed like the right thing to do. They went to church for the first time yesterday, and Ju... said that he´d definitely be coming back next week. It´s really been good to see a whole family interested and progressing, and normally we just find more individuals.
Anyway, on a closing note I saw a guy in a restaurant wearing a New Zealand All-Blacks shirt. I went over to go talk to him but unfortunately he got up and left in a hurry. Maybe he was afraid of me as a missionary or something. Who knows?
That´s sáll from me. Till next time.
-Elder =w= Heperi
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Wed's and Med's
So Lauren´s a licensed driver now, eh? I´m sure she´ll do fine, but, just be careful. As they say here in Brazil, “Woman at the steering-wheel, constant danger!” It´s funnier in Portuguese because it rhymes.
Today I´m writing from Londrina. My new visa finally came thru after months of waiting, so now I´m officially legal up until Nov. 7th. Whoo-hoo!
Well, this week I was in bed for a bit with a sinus infection. I stayed in bed all of P-day last week, but found that I still wasn´t better, so I had to stay in the house all of Tuesday and some of Wednesday, which was a pain. I actually wasn´t sure exactly what I had, and since going to the doctor´s office here can sometimes do more harm than good, Sis. Leal had me talk to a medical doctor serving as a church missionary. I was grateful that he was American, as I was looking up words in the dictionary like crazy trying to find medical terms that I didn´t know. Anyway, he gave me a check-up over the phone in English, and I got myself loaded up on a bunch of Brazilian meds. A plus is that over here you don´t need a prescription from the doctor to buy all the medicine from the pharmacy, even when the package has, “To be sold only under doctor´s prescription” written all over it. Good times! Anyway, lots of rest, a blessing and 800 mg of something called “Azitromicina” per day had me up and ready by Thursday.
This week had some interesting highlights. One of the Elders from the Zone, Elder Pi… (who goes home with me funny enough)broke a mission record and had 53 investigators come to sacrament meeting on Sunday! Ha, so the rule on the mission is that anybody who´s not a member can be counted as an investigator, even if you haven´t taught them yet. I guess one of the members is a soccer coach, and the team was traveling or something that day, so he decided to bring the team to church. Their branch there only has an attendance rate of about 50 or so, so you can imagine the look on the members faces when the attendance more than doubled. Definitely one of the funnier things that I´ve seen with the work here.
The only downer of the day was that two of the Relief Society sisters (some of the younger ones, 20´s or so) had a bit of an argument afterwards about something. It ended up in a purse fight and a couple of bloody noses. I´d say about par for the course with the 53 investigators when weighed against the purse fight.
Our Branch is doing well. Currently, there are a lot of youth who are interested and getting baptized, so the branch is pretty excited about missionary work. We had a baptism this last week, and there has been so many recent converts in the past 6 months or so that they´ve had to call 8 ward missionaries just to meet all the demands, which is pretty cool. We´re gonna train the ward missionaries this week on the discussions, and it should be a pretty good process.
The Branch is good still. All the members are nice, and which makes us feel pretty welcome. The only member who´s a little…different is some lady named ???... She´s in her late 20´s, unfortunately, just had her marriage end. Anyway, every time that we have lunch at her family´s house, she always gives us an earful about how ... how marriage is terrible. She´s... told me and my comp. that we should never get married because “There´s not a man on the face of this planet who´s worth anything!” Yeah, it´s a bit intense.
On Sunday there was a special lesson about Eternal Marriage that I´m extremely grateful that no investigator participated in, and she made about 200 comments about how marriage is terrible, and how nobody should get married. Anyway, that would be no good for an investigator to hear, so the branch president had to talk to her a bit...
Welp´, I believe that´s it from me.
Thanks, as always, family and friends.
Here´s a “good luck” shout out to Phil and Stephanie... I believe that they´re getting ´hitched this week (if not just save it for next week). Also, thanks to everyone for this round of mail, (Talisa, Andrea and Kamalei) and as always I´ll try to send a prompt response.
´till next time!
-Elder =w= Heperi
Today I´m writing from Londrina. My new visa finally came thru after months of waiting, so now I´m officially legal up until Nov. 7th. Whoo-hoo!
Well, this week I was in bed for a bit with a sinus infection. I stayed in bed all of P-day last week, but found that I still wasn´t better, so I had to stay in the house all of Tuesday and some of Wednesday, which was a pain. I actually wasn´t sure exactly what I had, and since going to the doctor´s office here can sometimes do more harm than good, Sis. Leal had me talk to a medical doctor serving as a church missionary. I was grateful that he was American, as I was looking up words in the dictionary like crazy trying to find medical terms that I didn´t know. Anyway, he gave me a check-up over the phone in English, and I got myself loaded up on a bunch of Brazilian meds. A plus is that over here you don´t need a prescription from the doctor to buy all the medicine from the pharmacy, even when the package has, “To be sold only under doctor´s prescription” written all over it. Good times! Anyway, lots of rest, a blessing and 800 mg of something called “Azitromicina” per day had me up and ready by Thursday.
This week had some interesting highlights. One of the Elders from the Zone, Elder Pi… (who goes home with me funny enough)broke a mission record and had 53 investigators come to sacrament meeting on Sunday! Ha, so the rule on the mission is that anybody who´s not a member can be counted as an investigator, even if you haven´t taught them yet. I guess one of the members is a soccer coach, and the team was traveling or something that day, so he decided to bring the team to church. Their branch there only has an attendance rate of about 50 or so, so you can imagine the look on the members faces when the attendance more than doubled. Definitely one of the funnier things that I´ve seen with the work here.
The only downer of the day was that two of the Relief Society sisters (some of the younger ones, 20´s or so) had a bit of an argument afterwards about something. It ended up in a purse fight and a couple of bloody noses. I´d say about par for the course with the 53 investigators when weighed against the purse fight.
Our Branch is doing well. Currently, there are a lot of youth who are interested and getting baptized, so the branch is pretty excited about missionary work. We had a baptism this last week, and there has been so many recent converts in the past 6 months or so that they´ve had to call 8 ward missionaries just to meet all the demands, which is pretty cool. We´re gonna train the ward missionaries this week on the discussions, and it should be a pretty good process.
The Branch is good still. All the members are nice, and which makes us feel pretty welcome. The only member who´s a little…different is some lady named ???... She´s in her late 20´s, unfortunately, just had her marriage end. Anyway, every time that we have lunch at her family´s house, she always gives us an earful about how ... how marriage is terrible. She´s... told me and my comp. that we should never get married because “There´s not a man on the face of this planet who´s worth anything!” Yeah, it´s a bit intense.
On Sunday there was a special lesson about Eternal Marriage that I´m extremely grateful that no investigator participated in, and she made about 200 comments about how marriage is terrible, and how nobody should get married. Anyway, that would be no good for an investigator to hear, so the branch president had to talk to her a bit...
Welp´, I believe that´s it from me.
Thanks, as always, family and friends.
Here´s a “good luck” shout out to Phil and Stephanie... I believe that they´re getting ´hitched this week (if not just save it for next week). Also, thanks to everyone for this round of mail, (Talisa, Andrea and Kamalei) and as always I´ll try to send a prompt response.
´till next time!
-Elder =w= Heperi
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Coming to America
Yeah, so I got called to be a Zone Leader, which means it´s yet another episode of “what-the-heck-am-I-doing-here?” in the life of Elder Heperi.
Ha, but seriously I was way surprised, but it´s going well so far. My comp. is Elder Argolo from São Paulo, and actually he´ll be going home with me as we´re from the same group. What´s more, is that he also passed thru Adamantina. The guy´s a trooper, as he started his mission there AND stayed there for 6 months. We´ve had fun trading stories about what when on there, ha. The zone doesn´t have hardly any greenies, and I think about 4 Elders are going home with me.
Also, I got transferred from Londrina. I´m now in the city of Apucarana (Ah-poo-kah-rah-na) about an hour or so to the south of Londrina, so I didn´t go to far away. It´s just a branch here, (the branch is Branch America, funny enough. I´m already back in the states apparently), but, it´s growing pretty quickly. I was actually really surprised that I was transferred, as I had only been in my area for 2 transfers. It was pretty sad, as I had gotten to like the ward and my comp. a lot. Ah well.My area here is really good.
The last Elder here with my comp. was Elder J. Johnson, the only other Elder in the mission from Provo. He finished his mission last week, and should be up at BYU right about now. Anyway it makes it easy for me to introduce myself to the members and investigators. When they ask me where I´m from I just say “I´m from the same city as the last guy that was here.” And then everybody acts like they can remember the name “Provo”. (Somebody asked me if I was from “Povo” which is people in Portuguese.)
Apparently they were baptizing a bunch of people this last transfer, so we´ve got to keep up the pace.
I´ve been a bit sick since Tuesday. It´s just a bit of a head cold, but of course people have the tendency to think that it´s the pig virus. Anyway, I´ll be in bed the rest of this P-day getting better. It´s a good record for me, as I´ve almost been able to go the whole 2 years without getting sick enough to stay in bed.
The medicine that I´ve been taking works pretty well, just that it makes me incredibly sleepy. I actually fell asleep for a little bit in sacrament meeting yesterday, which was pretty embarrassing with it being my first week.
Welp, that´s all from me.
Till next time.-Elder =w= Heperi
P.S.
Give my congrat's to Cassidy on her mission call.
Ha, but seriously I was way surprised, but it´s going well so far. My comp. is Elder Argolo from São Paulo, and actually he´ll be going home with me as we´re from the same group. What´s more, is that he also passed thru Adamantina. The guy´s a trooper, as he started his mission there AND stayed there for 6 months. We´ve had fun trading stories about what when on there, ha. The zone doesn´t have hardly any greenies, and I think about 4 Elders are going home with me.
Also, I got transferred from Londrina. I´m now in the city of Apucarana (Ah-poo-kah-rah-na) about an hour or so to the south of Londrina, so I didn´t go to far away. It´s just a branch here, (the branch is Branch America, funny enough. I´m already back in the states apparently), but, it´s growing pretty quickly. I was actually really surprised that I was transferred, as I had only been in my area for 2 transfers. It was pretty sad, as I had gotten to like the ward and my comp. a lot. Ah well.My area here is really good.
The last Elder here with my comp. was Elder J. Johnson, the only other Elder in the mission from Provo. He finished his mission last week, and should be up at BYU right about now. Anyway it makes it easy for me to introduce myself to the members and investigators. When they ask me where I´m from I just say “I´m from the same city as the last guy that was here.” And then everybody acts like they can remember the name “Provo”. (Somebody asked me if I was from “Povo” which is people in Portuguese.)
Apparently they were baptizing a bunch of people this last transfer, so we´ve got to keep up the pace.
I´ve been a bit sick since Tuesday. It´s just a bit of a head cold, but of course people have the tendency to think that it´s the pig virus. Anyway, I´ll be in bed the rest of this P-day getting better. It´s a good record for me, as I´ve almost been able to go the whole 2 years without getting sick enough to stay in bed.
The medicine that I´ve been taking works pretty well, just that it makes me incredibly sleepy. I actually fell asleep for a little bit in sacrament meeting yesterday, which was pretty embarrassing with it being my first week.
Welp, that´s all from me.
Till next time.-Elder =w= Heperi
P.S.
Give my congrat's to Cassidy on her mission call.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Recent Letter from President Leal
LETTER FROM PRESIDENT LEAL
Dear Family of Elder Heperi,
Sister Leal and I are pleased to inform you that Elder Heperi has been called to be a Zone Leader. Your son has gained our confidence and we have observed his missionary service. We’re certain that he has the necessary qualities to fulfill his calling that is so important. He and his companion, who is also a Zone Leader, will be responsible for eight to eleven companionships of missionaries in their zone. Their greatest responsibilities are:
- Teach and Train
- Manage the zone, including interviews for baptism
- Communicate regularly with the mission president about the zone
- Delegate and guide through his love and example
The most important thing that has helped your son to be successful until now is the support of his family. Thank you so much for your support. We hope that you may continue to pray for him and offer your counsels. The Lord is blessing us here in the Brazil Londrina Mission and we are grateful for the opportunity to serve with Elder Heperi.
With Love,
President and Sister Leal
Missão Brasil LondrinaAv. Higienópolis 1100 sala 61Londrina, PRCEP:86020-911Fone:(43)3324-9346E-Mail: 2013096@ldschurch.org
RESPONSE
President Leal,
Thank you, again, for your most recent update regarding our son. We remain ever grateful for the opportunity he has been given to serve the Lord in Brazil. His service continues to bless both our immediate and extended family.
Our prayers remain constant on behalf of Elder Heperi, all of your missionaries, and more especially you and your dear wife. We are aware of the sacrifices you are all making and extend a special thanks for the leadership you are providing in the Londrina Mission.
The Lord bless you all!!!
With much gratitude for our association through Christ the Lord,
Elaine and Vernon Heperi
Monday, August 3, 2009
More work...
Me and Elder Lima at the baptism 2 weeks ago. The girl is Karina, and her brother baptized her.
Me messin' with a football.
Graffitti downtown.
Me and Elder Stowell in Londrina. Elder Stowell is from my group and this was the first and only time that I saw him in the field, as he went to the other mission soon after.
A Zone activity 2 months ago.
Well we've reached the end of yet another transfer. Today we find out about transfers, but I don´t think it´ll be until tonight. With a big group leaving, a smaller group coming in, and the missionaries from the other mission being moved around, it´s all up in the air as to where everybody is going.
It was a tough week as far as our investigators go. Basically all of them decided that they didn't want to hear the message anymore and told us not to come back. Also, we were encouraged by President to... review our teaching pool. The quest for these next few weeks will be for new investigators... who are willing to learn.
We finally got ourselves involved in the Ward Council meetings. Yesterday was a big meeting about how everybody can help the ward to grow, and more importantly, stop shrinking. Frequency is a little low a lot of the times, and yesterday I think there were less people in the chapel here than I was used to seeing at the branch in Adamantina which was a little scary. A nice thing though is that the ward here seems willing to go out and fix it, which is good.
Sounds like everybody is nice and nervous about the pig virus (swine flu). Elder Han... from my district got sick with some throat sickness this week (not Swine Flu), so Sister Loeal had him just stay at home the whole week, and forbade him to leave the house. As she put it, “The last thing we need is somebody thinking that the Mormons have Swine Flu, then nobody will let us in the houses!” He called me this week and was going a little stir-crazy, poor guy.
So the mission shopping is wrapping up for Levi, huh? That´s funny to think that he´ll be outta there in a month or so.
G´luck with that stuff.
Sa'll from me for now, til next time.
Elder =w= Heperi
It was a tough week as far as our investigators go. Basically all of them decided that they didn't want to hear the message anymore and told us not to come back. Also, we were encouraged by President to... review our teaching pool. The quest for these next few weeks will be for new investigators... who are willing to learn.
We finally got ourselves involved in the Ward Council meetings. Yesterday was a big meeting about how everybody can help the ward to grow, and more importantly, stop shrinking. Frequency is a little low a lot of the times, and yesterday I think there were less people in the chapel here than I was used to seeing at the branch in Adamantina which was a little scary. A nice thing though is that the ward here seems willing to go out and fix it, which is good.
Sounds like everybody is nice and nervous about the pig virus (swine flu). Elder Han... from my district got sick with some throat sickness this week (not Swine Flu), so Sister Loeal had him just stay at home the whole week, and forbade him to leave the house. As she put it, “The last thing we need is somebody thinking that the Mormons have Swine Flu, then nobody will let us in the houses!” He called me this week and was going a little stir-crazy, poor guy.
So the mission shopping is wrapping up for Levi, huh? That´s funny to think that he´ll be outta there in a month or so.
G´luck with that stuff.
Sa'll from me for now, til next time.
Elder =w= Heperi
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Rain and Raincoats
This week was a bit slow. Unfortunately, we spent more time hiding from thunderstorms than teaching. No joke, it rained every single day this week, and not just the little sprinkle kind. Full on Brazilian monsoon kind. (My comp says that they don´t have monsoon's in this part of the country, but I beg to differ.) Wet wet wet.
I´m glad that I have my big raincoat, as I´ve been using it all week. I get lots of compliments when I use it. Adults say I look more American with it on (I guess because of the heat here, nobody has a coat as big as mine) and kids say I look like Neo.
On a happy note, we had a baptism this week. A guy named Mau... who got back from his mission a few months ago had us start teaching his sister. She progressed really quickly, probably due to the fact that she had already been to church a few times and already knew a lot of the doctrine. Anyway, she became the only other active member of the family, so Mau... said he was really grateful.
Ha, today I feel like I dodged a bullet. There´s an all-day meeting with Pres. Leal and all the Zone Leaders. And as of yesterday, all the District Leaders were supposed to go. I was a little sad as that meant that my P-day would be spent in a meeting all day, but at the last minute I guess that President changed his mind. Hooray!
This next week is transfers, so we´ll see if everybody moves around. I´m pretty sure that me and Elder L... are gonna stay together. I guess a huge group is going home this time, with not to many arriving, so the mission will be a little emptier.
Welp, I think that´s all from me.
Sorry it´s so short this week.
´till next time.
-Elder =w= Me
I´m glad that I have my big raincoat, as I´ve been using it all week. I get lots of compliments when I use it. Adults say I look more American with it on (I guess because of the heat here, nobody has a coat as big as mine) and kids say I look like Neo.
On a happy note, we had a baptism this week. A guy named Mau... who got back from his mission a few months ago had us start teaching his sister. She progressed really quickly, probably due to the fact that she had already been to church a few times and already knew a lot of the doctrine. Anyway, she became the only other active member of the family, so Mau... said he was really grateful.
Ha, today I feel like I dodged a bullet. There´s an all-day meeting with Pres. Leal and all the Zone Leaders. And as of yesterday, all the District Leaders were supposed to go. I was a little sad as that meant that my P-day would be spent in a meeting all day, but at the last minute I guess that President changed his mind. Hooray!
This next week is transfers, so we´ll see if everybody moves around. I´m pretty sure that me and Elder L... are gonna stay together. I guess a huge group is going home this time, with not to many arriving, so the mission will be a little emptier.
Welp, I think that´s all from me.
Sorry it´s so short this week.
´till next time.
-Elder =w= Me
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