Today we’re in Osvaldo Cruz, my DL´s area. We got kinda sick of just sitting around in our house writing letters and napping every P-day, (There is really nothing to do in Adamantina. Not that we’re allowed to anyway. The movie theatre never looked so good…) so today we’re here to play a little soccer with the members. I’m usually more inclined to play goalie, as the stereotype that Americans don’t know how to play soccer is only reinforced by my efforts to kick the ball. (I think that I’ve perfected a version of the slide tackle though. I just kinda fall over in front of the person with the ball, the person trips over me, and then I get up and the ball’s mine. Neat, eh?)
Yesterday was pretty cool. We had to travel, as there was a district conference in the city of Tupã, about an hour or so away. The branch rented a van for everybody, and we had to leave a bit early, about 7:30. Apparently it was a bit too early for the great majority of the Branch, as only about 7 people were in the van. (Just to give you guys an idea, even some of the Branch leadership forgot to wake up on time, and didn’t go.)
The two branches in Tupã are really strong, and the chapel was filled to capacity. I thought that it was going to be a normal meeting, but it turned out to be a special transmission from Salt Lake. Elder Christofferson, President Uchtdorf, and two others spoke. What was cool was that it was a conference especially for the small branches and districts in this part of Brazil, so all the talks were really centered on things to help the little branches. Elder Christofferson speaks Portuguese really well. I didn’t know that he spoke Portuguese (Spanish, yes). Even President Uchtdorf gave the language a try with a couple of phrases. I liked it a lot. We only had 1 investigator there because of the distance, and he enjoyed it.
In other news, me and my comp. our the part-time teachers for the young men, as the young men’s President can’t always be at church because of work. They’re really great. There are only two teachers and one deacon, but they participate pretty well. They kinda remind me of my deacon’s quorum with some of their comments. Last week, the lesson was on missionary work, and when my comp. asked how long we serve missions for, one of them responded “Two years for guys, 1 yr. ½ for girls.” One of them asked “Why do girls only serve for 1 Yr. ½?” and the other responded “Because they can’t take it! We can because we’re men!” All three burst out laughing at this point. Kids...
I got called a spy by some guy. That’s the first time that’s happened, so I made a point to remember. I stopped him on the road and started to talk to him, and he said “No no no, I don’t want to hear anything. You guys are spies!” and then left in a hurry. An interesting response. We were with a member at the time, and he said to me “What the heck would you spy on here in Adamantina?
”Happy Mother’s day in advance, in case I forget in the coming weeks.
Whelp, sáll from me.
Till next time!
-007: Agent Heperi
Monday, April 27, 2009
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Chugging along
Good to hear that Dad’s devotional at Utah State University went well. The fireside was at Utah State right, not Utah Valley? If you ask me, they need to move the name of one of them. They’re way too close.
The branch has some challenges. One of our main focuses has actually been to see if we can help the branch have more unity and feel more integrated in the work, because unfortunately we’ve basically been chugging along alone. I’ve learned a lot better why the help of the branch is so important, as we can do all our part (talk to people, teach lessons and knock some doors), but if we don’t have the members behind us to help us with the other things (references, lessons with members, their homes to do stuff like FHE´s to help with integration) we can only go so far. This week we’ll have to come up with some ideas of how to improve this situation.
We’ve got a couple of good investigators going. There’s a guy named L. we found as a result of looking through the “former investigator” part in our Area Book. (Thank goodness the last Elders wrote good notes!) His wife had been taught and had gone a couple of times to church last year, so we showed up to see if she was still interested. She wasn’t, but L., her husband, was quite receptive to the message. He said that he’s been looking for a church, as he just goes to the Catholic Church with his wife, but doesn’t really agree with the doctrine. He accepted a baptismal date for May 9th, so please pray for him that he’ll progress well.
Welp, sáll from me I think.
This transfer will be a bit rushed as it’s only a 5 week one (as opposed to 6 weeks). Everybody ready for Mother’s day coming up? I know I am. I’m thinking on asking Pres. Leal if he’ll let me have one more phone call after this one, as my group missed the opportunity as a result of being in the MTC. You think it’ll work?
´till next time.
-Ancião Heperi (Elder)
The branch has some challenges. One of our main focuses has actually been to see if we can help the branch have more unity and feel more integrated in the work, because unfortunately we’ve basically been chugging along alone. I’ve learned a lot better why the help of the branch is so important, as we can do all our part (talk to people, teach lessons and knock some doors), but if we don’t have the members behind us to help us with the other things (references, lessons with members, their homes to do stuff like FHE´s to help with integration) we can only go so far. This week we’ll have to come up with some ideas of how to improve this situation.
We’ve got a couple of good investigators going. There’s a guy named L. we found as a result of looking through the “former investigator” part in our Area Book. (Thank goodness the last Elders wrote good notes!) His wife had been taught and had gone a couple of times to church last year, so we showed up to see if she was still interested. She wasn’t, but L., her husband, was quite receptive to the message. He said that he’s been looking for a church, as he just goes to the Catholic Church with his wife, but doesn’t really agree with the doctrine. He accepted a baptismal date for May 9th, so please pray for him that he’ll progress well.
Welp, sáll from me I think.
This transfer will be a bit rushed as it’s only a 5 week one (as opposed to 6 weeks). Everybody ready for Mother’s day coming up? I know I am. I’m thinking on asking Pres. Leal if he’ll let me have one more phone call after this one, as my group missed the opportunity as a result of being in the MTC. You think it’ll work?
´till next time.
-Ancião Heperi (Elder)
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Sacrament Meeting Unplugged
The first week of a new transfer.
Ups and downs as usual. We had a good number of people who said that they’d definately come to church, but whose phones were mysteriously turned off on Sat. night when we arranged to call them. Being Easter Sunday, the local Catholic church was the fullest that I saw, and it even had a Pastor from a local Evangelical church going to visit.
Our recent converts really enjoyed the temple, and said they can’t wait to go back in August when the whole district goes. I’m grateful that they had the opportunity to visit.
In other news in the branch, unfortunately we’re without a keyboard again. Apparently, the guy in the branch who owns the keyboard got in a bit of a fight with the Branch President, and now refuses to go to church here anymore, so he’s taken his family to the other branch about a half-hour away. So now I’m on the search for somebody else who has a keyboard. I hope that I find one soon, because those CD´s that we use in the church are dang annoying. Ha, and because the keyboard alone doesn’t go loud enough for the congregation to hear we’ve been having to take the microphone from the make-shift podium and mic the keyboard so that it comes out the PA system in the chapel, making it seem a bit like Sacrament Meeting Unplugged.
So Levi’s papers are almost done, eh? Wow, it seems weird that he’s already ready to turn ém in. I hope that all goes well with the wisdom teeth part.
Another interesting fact that I’ve noticed for a while here in Brazil but always forget to mention, that the most popular item of clothing to own (at least for teenagers) is a hat of the New York Yankees. Every store that sells hats usually only has ones from the Yankees, and tons of people wear them. I’ve asked a bunch of people if they actually like the team, but 9 outta 10 people have no idea what it is.
We’re still chugging along here. The branch is still moving along, and we’re trying to help it. Please pray for our progress here, and I’ll pray for your progress there (Levi with his papers, Lauren with driving, Liam with school, and Mom and Dad with work.)
Thanks again, and ´till next week!
- Me
Ups and downs as usual. We had a good number of people who said that they’d definately come to church, but whose phones were mysteriously turned off on Sat. night when we arranged to call them. Being Easter Sunday, the local Catholic church was the fullest that I saw, and it even had a Pastor from a local Evangelical church going to visit.
Our recent converts really enjoyed the temple, and said they can’t wait to go back in August when the whole district goes. I’m grateful that they had the opportunity to visit.
In other news in the branch, unfortunately we’re without a keyboard again. Apparently, the guy in the branch who owns the keyboard got in a bit of a fight with the Branch President, and now refuses to go to church here anymore, so he’s taken his family to the other branch about a half-hour away. So now I’m on the search for somebody else who has a keyboard. I hope that I find one soon, because those CD´s that we use in the church are dang annoying. Ha, and because the keyboard alone doesn’t go loud enough for the congregation to hear we’ve been having to take the microphone from the make-shift podium and mic the keyboard so that it comes out the PA system in the chapel, making it seem a bit like Sacrament Meeting Unplugged.
So Levi’s papers are almost done, eh? Wow, it seems weird that he’s already ready to turn ém in. I hope that all goes well with the wisdom teeth part.
Another interesting fact that I’ve noticed for a while here in Brazil but always forget to mention, that the most popular item of clothing to own (at least for teenagers) is a hat of the New York Yankees. Every store that sells hats usually only has ones from the Yankees, and tons of people wear them. I’ve asked a bunch of people if they actually like the team, but 9 outta 10 people have no idea what it is.
We’re still chugging along here. The branch is still moving along, and we’re trying to help it. Please pray for our progress here, and I’ll pray for your progress there (Levi with his papers, Lauren with driving, Liam with school, and Mom and Dad with work.)
Thanks again, and ´till next week!
- Me
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Bus Rides!
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)
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 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=
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