Merry Christmas from Brazil

Luke's District, 45-B.

Brazilian Sister's at the MTC

Other missionaries from Brazil.

T-shirts on Christmas Day.

So last week, I completely forgot that it was Christmas! It came up really fast. Things get so busy that I really do lose track of the date sometimes.

Anyway, it was great to hear about the BYU game. The doctor here at the MTC is a big BYU fan, so he posted the article about them winning. There are many BYU fans and students here as well, so most of the MTC was pretty happy. Man, I wish I could’ve been there to see that block. Planet Hollywood sounds like a blast as well. I only have to miss one more Utah vs. BYU game though, so there is hope. Ha!

Christmas was a blast here. We got to sleep in until 7:30, which is only an extra hour, but man, was it heaven! Then we got to play sports and do games all day. It was way fun. Also, the talent show went very well. I practiced pretty hard, and I think that was actually the best that I have ever played the piano and sang. I got a lot of compliments from people, so I was pretty stoked about that. One of the Elders from the district that we flew over with got a tape recording that was very good quality, so I got to hear how I did. I was actually pretty happy with it, cuz normally I hate listening to myself. Unfortunately, I can’t think of any way to get it over too you guys, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

I got compliments from Brazilian’s as well. One of the Brazilian Sisters that I know told me “Voce tocar piano e cantar muito bem” which I actually understood when she told me. It means "You play piano and sing very well." I was grateful for the compliment, and happy that I understood what she said. Another Brazilian called me something I didn’t understand, so I asked for the translation. She speaks very little English, but she was able to relate that I am A Beast On The Piano. I thought that was very kind and hilarious. Then the third Brazilian Sister called me Elton John, which may or may not be a good thing depending on if she’s talking about my piano playing or not. Ha, I was grateful for the sincere compliments from people of both languages though.

One of the other highlights was Elder H. and Elder F. (both Tongans) leading a Haka for the talent show. Some of the Brazilian’s found it more amusing than intimidating. Man, I wish that I had learned to do so that I could join. The only Maori in the whole Brazilian MTC, and I couldn’t help out with the Haka. Ah well, that’s OK.

We got to wear out street clothes around all day until the talent show that night, which was way fun. I forgot how much I miss t-shirts. We also got to watch The Other-side of Heaven, which was good times. You guys should watch that. That opening scene where they’re at BYU having a dance party with some good Rockabilly music playing... man that made me miss not specifically home, but just having some good times with friends. Also it made me want to listen to some Stray Cats. It was a good time to watch that.

So it was a good time to be here. I was very grateful for the break, and I think that I’ll be better prepared to work. A big thank you to the Falconers for that Christmas package! One of the Elders in my district is a big Edward Gorey fan, so he’s jealous of the card I received. Thank you!´

Till next week


Elder =w= Heperi

Tractin' and Tanactin'

Ha, so grandma thinks that I’m getting’ married as soon as I get back? Nah, besides, I already got a promise from Andy Magleby that we’d move in together... before either of us gets married.
So I’ll address the questions in the e-mail first. I don’t think that my message got cut off, it said it sent. And I sent about three, the first was the letter, the second was a backup, and the third just had pic’s with it. Maybe you didn’t get all of them?

Oh, by the way, I found out from a Dearelder that Andrea sent me that those get here in about a week. My departure date for the field is Jan. 8th. Scary! As of Friday, we will be the co-oldest district in the MTC. (co with the other elders that we flew over here with). I think that we fly over there [Londrina], which will be good. I love flying. Sao Paulo is incredibly huge from the air, it freaks me out. I dunno how far it [Londrina] is in terms of hours or distance. It doesn’t look very far on the map here in the MTC, but it could be…

I’ll try to get some pic’s this week for you guys. I forgot to take some this week, so any new pic’s will probably be a few weeks old.

In other news, my comp, Elder H… became the new district leader this week. Elder T…, who was the DL, became the AP. So I am officially the Assistant District Leader. (Assistant TO the District Leader, as I make Elder H... say.) He’s seen The Office, so it’s a good running joke between us. The bad side is that now I have to sit in an extra meeting on Sunday, so there goes part of my naptime. Ah well.

… thanks to Tota, Uncle Nate, Auntie Sue, Tiana, Elijah, and Ari for the packages. I appreciated them very much and would send them a letter to thank them, but of course I accidentally threw out the address that came with it. Please apologize for me and thank them a bunch!

So tracting was OK this week. We got dropped in the middle of downtown Sao Paulo. So many people! Spider-man could easily get around in that neighborhood. People weren’t as willing to listen to us here, and we got turned down and some people just walked away. It was kinda discouraging. I hope that we can do better next week.

So nothing new to report, Levi or Lauren? Ha, that’s funny, cuz sometimes I feel the same way. So I’ve got a Hendrix-Ninja Turtle coming in the mail, Levi? Very sweet. One of the guys in my district is a big Weezer fan like me. In fact, Rivers Cuomo´s solo album came out on Tues., as I recall. You wanna get it and tell me how it is in the next letter? Me and Elder B... would greatly appreciate it.

Sorry for that pic of Patchy coming thru. I was just testing [yeah, right!] to see if it worked. I know that you don’t need the pic’s of the cats cuz you have the real things. Man, I miss those animals. I really hope that they don’t die before I get home.

In other news, you know that Christmas is gonna be like a day off. We get to watch The Other-side of Heaven, which will probably make me a little homesick as it reminds me of home. (Just because there are Polynesians and such and the last time I watched it was at home.)

Also, there is a talent show that day, and I tried out for it. The MTC Pres. gave the OK to play pop songs and stuff, so I tried out by playing (Glycerine) by Bush on the Piano. I thought that it was a nice rendition, and I think that I played pretty well. I won’t know until Friday if I’m in, so pray that I make it. It’s in front of the whole MTC so I really hope that I make it in.

I think that me and only two other Elders are Polynesian. Elder F… from Mesa, Arizona who is Tongan, and Elder H… (Hay-Mu-Lee) who from Hawaii and is also Tongan. He is a very big guy, must be about 6-4 and over 300lbs. It’s funny to see him hang out with the Brazilian’s, because Brazilian’s are generally not huge people, as I’ve found out. I’m bigger than probably 98 percent of the Brazilian Elders here. And one Brazilian sister is seriously probably about as tall as my stomach.

Anyway, I’m doing well here. I actually like the schedule, and am able to do it. I feel that I am getting closer to the Lord, though obviously I need to keep improving. Sorry, this week I can’t really think of things to write as much as other weeks.

Thanks again for everyone who prays and writes.

I appreciate all of it. Stay classy, Provo!

-El-dah Heperi

Pic's from The Brazil MTC

Fellow missionaries in the MTC.

More...

More...

Luke and Elder M... from Orem, Utah.

("Hook 'em Horns' from Texas. What?

I thought these guys were Cougar Fans.)

MTC...

Weezer in Brazil?... hmmmmmmmm.

Area surrounding Brazil MTC.

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas...

First missionary photo sent by Luke from Brazil.

A picture of our cat "Patchy" just before Luke left Utah.

(Dad thinks it's quite hilarious... Mom is NOT amused!!!)

Luke and his MTC companion, Elder H...

... an impossible dream though. I’m sweating profusely as I type this, and there is a steady rain coming down outside. I miss snow. (hey oh)

Thanks Dad for sending me the blogs from the Magleby’s. It was great to hear what is goin’ on with those guys. I hope that Rob’s mission continues to do well, and that it doesn’t get too hard for the church to continue to do missionary work there. Although long train rides sound real nice.

So Berkeley is back on Friday, huh? Somebody tell her for me that if she’s willing to wait about 1 year and 11 months, I think we can have a great future together. There’s a temple altar with our name on it, Berkeley! I’ve seen quite a few German things around here (people speaking, signs, etc.) so maybe I’ll get to try some German on them. Was Kost du, madchen?

You can send pic’s, just make sure that they are at a low resolution, otherwise it can take a lot of time to download. Oh, and all three packages came, one from you guys, one from Auntie Sue & Nate, and one from Tota. Thank you very much everyone that sent me stuff.

American Candy is a big hit over here. I gave some to my teacher, Brother Silva, and he loved it so much he wanted to marry his Kit-Kat I think.

I’ll try to send pic’s this time, now that I have the card reader. Some of them are from about a month ago. We’re only allowed to take pic’s on p-day, and then only inside the MTC, so I don’t have any cool neighborhood pic’s, which is unfortunate. There is a pretty sweet mural of Ash, Misty, and Brock from Pokemon on the front of a store just two doors down from where I sit. I want a picture of that, but oh well.

There may be a tiny ray of hope for the phone call [Getting Mom's hopes up, again!]. It’s rumored that when you get to the mission home, they let you call home if you missed the Christmas call. I don’t know if that’s true, or just a well-intentioned Mormon Myth/False Doctrine (which as I read Elder Wells Magleby say, are one and the same), but there may be some hope come early January. What’s funny is, the districts that are one week ahead of us are the most peeved about not getting a phone call. Just one week ahead and they would get a phone call. Oh well.

Thankfully, the email came through... but no Christmas call this year.

Brazil Campinas Temple (Left) and Brazil Sao Paulo Temple (Right).

In case the first email didn’t go thru... so BYU is undefeated two years running in conference play? Nice! Ha, that’s funny that they have to play UCLA again, but way cool that you guys get to go again. Planet Hollywood? That sounds awesome. Way better than the Golden Nugget. My comp. Elder H... is from Vegas, so I’ll share with him the news. He went to UNLV, but he hated it down there, so I think he’ll cheer for BYU.

Oh, as for card reader and moleskins [small notebooks], I haven’t received them as of yet. Mail hasn’t come today yet, but as of this moment, about 12:20 pm, I haven’t gotten them. Thank you for shipping them though!... Oh, and you don’t have to wait by the phone on Christmas. We poor souls here at the MTC don’t get to call home on Christmas, cuz there would be too many of us to accommodate [ouch!!!]. Besides, I will have only been out a month at that point. Kinda lame that I only get 3 phone calls in my mission, but my Portuguese should be a lot better come Mother’s Day, so look forward to that.

So ol’ Christiansen [former Provo H.S. Football Coach] resigned, eh? Wow, that’s funny. He was good at the football side, but a little overbearing sometimes. Sad that he never got a win against Timpview, but who ever did? Maybe the next dude will be good.

Oh yeah, I heard that for packages, if you put a picture of Jesus on it, it’s less likely to get stolen.

Busy like always this week. Proselyting on Friday was cool/scary. I blanked on some of my Portuguese when I went up to people, but did OK in general. Elder H... and I passed out 3 Books of Mormon, and a few pass along cards. It was pretty good, although I’m still a little afraid to walk up and approach anyone and everyone. I got better as it went on. One guy that Elder H... talked too who got a BOM was reading it when we passed by 15 min later, and still reading after another 15 min! But then after another 15 min, we saw that he had put the BOM away and had pulled out his pack of cigarettes. Very nice... We proselyte again next Friday. They dropped us off in downtown Sao Paulo, main street. Looked kinda like Times Square, but Brazilian style. Man there were a lot of people. We talked to one guy who looked like Bob Marley, and he played “Oh Susanna” on his flute for us. He already had a BOM though, so that was okay. I wanted him to play some reggae for us, but I didn’t know how to ask. I’ll remember for next week.I wrote stuff down to say, but sometimes I forget it.

I always feel quite rushed, and I never remember to say all that I am trying too.

Oh, the most common name down here is Silva. No joke, if you picked out 10 Brazilians (missionaries or non), at least one of them would have the last name of Silva. It’s pretty crazy. It’s so common that you can’t have more than one Elder Silva, the nametags have to say Elder P. Silva or Elder C. Silva. It’s pretty funny.

We got a taste (or sound) of how crazy people are for soccer down here. I guess on Sunday there was a big game between two teams. I don’t remember one of them, but the other team was called the Corinthians. I only remember their name because one of my teachers (named S. Silva-- Silva’s everywhere!) has them as his favorite team. Well, it was on Sunday, and all during the day while the game was going on, we could here fireworks, singing, and yelling going on throughout the neighborhoods whenever something happened. And when the game ended, (I guess the Corinthians lost) fireworks went off for like 10 minutes straight, and some dude played a trumpet as loud as he could for about a half-hour. Seriously, I’ve watched football games where everyone in the house is loud, but not games where everyone in the NEIGHBORHOOD is loud. I love it, I wish that the World Cup was happening now. I’m definitely gonna try to come back when it comes here in 2014. My teacher claims that I don’t know insane till I see Brazil at World Cup time, ESPECIALLY when Brazil is hosting.

... I played Piano in the fireside a week ago, and did well. I love playing the piano a lot more since I got out here. I’m trying to learn to play the Brazilian National Anthem, cuz we sing it every Sunday as an MTC before the fireside, and the person who usually plays the accompaniment left for the field, so we’ve just been using a CD. It’s pretty difficult I think... way upbeat and catchy... Again, sorry that we won’t get to chat on Christmas, but you’ll hear from me in May [another ouch!!!]... I realized how many prayers are said for me and other missionaries when we were at the Temple today (today was Sao Paulo, we’ve been to Campinas as well), and I find it very encouraging.

Thank Grandma and Grandpa for me again for the letter I received, and I’ll keep my eyes out for that package.

.

Bye!´till next week

Elder Heperi =w=

Initial email, this morning... ugh!!!

I hope that my long e-mail got to you, there were some problems with the computer lab internet here, so I hope it didn’t get lost. If it did, sorry, and I’m doing well. [That's it for this week? Mom ain't gonna be happy!]

Cougar Win Spreads Quickly in Brazil MTC

Ha ha, I was so happy when I heard that the Cougars won. I actually heard about it a little bit after it happened. The Doctor here at the MTC watched the game on a TV, I guess, so word spread quickly. I’m so happy about that. Two things have become increasingly apparent to me as I’ve been here: The Church is very true, and the Ute’s are very terrible. Ha ha!

While it’s on my mind, I did think of two things that I would like. Sorry to start off an e-mail with demands, but I’ll forget it if I don’t do it now. I borrowed some kind of adapter that lets you plug camera memory cards into a type of jump drive thing, which in turn lets you plug it into a computer. I forgot to use it this week (again) to get pic’s to you guys. But I was wondering if you could find one of those and send it to me? I could send pictures home then. I haven’t found a computer lab that just accepts memory cards. The second thing was a couple of those Moleskin notebooks. They have them in the basement of the BYU Bookstore. The lined ones like a regular notebook. I think they’d be helpful for writing down my Portuguese words. I know you guys already sent those two packages already, so it’s fine if you can’t.

Thanks for that advice from Bro. Todeschini [Home Teacher in Provo]. Actually, that goes right along with some advice that we got our first day. They told us no one speaks Portuguese without making 500,000 mistakes first. So we are encouraged to speak all the time, even if it’s wrong. More mistakes equal more practice, so that helps.

My district is good. I get along with everyone. Ha, Levi telling me about the Office reminded me that one of the Elders in my district, named Elder W…, is a big Office fan. We’ve had some good quote wars about that show.

It’s great to hear about College football. Man, I miss that game. Once a week, the top 25 polls get posted outside the cafeteria, and all the Elders get way excited. Missouri is number 1? What the heck?! That is crazy. BCS is terrible, hopefully when I get back it’ll be fixed. I only have to miss one more Utah/BYU game...

So on Friday, we go proselyting. I’m a little nervous. Not so much about talking to the people, but the fact that I don’t think I’ll be able to remember what I need to say. We all memorized a short street contact, then we give them a pass along card. I know mine, but I can’t rattle it off as quickly as I need too. I’m practicing, and I hope that I can have it down come Friday. Ha, my companion is very nervous about talking to people, but I’m not as much. Yeah, it’ll be awkward, but I just hope that I can have the people understand me. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to answer any questions they have, as any Brazilian speaking to me sounds like he is moving 1,000 mph. Anyway, it should be ok.

Our Brazilian roommates are cool. They help us read passages from the Book of Mormon, and we help them to say cool English phrases like “what’s up, fool?” or, “holla” (like hollaback girl). I actually asked one Brazilian in Portuguese how he was doing, and he replied with “fo shizzle my nizzle”. Ha ha, language is a great thing!

They teach us stuff as well... My favorite thing to say is: Aus Meninassuperpoderosous. (Ow-s Meh-nih-nahs-super-poe-der-oh-sohs) It’s probably spelled wrong. It means: The Powerpuff Girls. I learned it my 2nd day here from my teacher. Now it’s my favorite word.

The schedule is still brutal, but I’m pretty used to it. I like being a missionary more now than I did in the beginning. Hopefully I can continue to improve.

Oh, and thanks to Gretchen and Talisa for writing me! Remember, you send me one, and I’ll be sure to write back... Thanks you guys for sending me those letters. I also got one from Grandma and Grandpa earlier in the week. Please be sure to thank them for me. It was very good. Elder Heperi, out.

Elder Heperi =w=