June 2, 2015

This week will be my last week of service as a missionary. So I guess that I can start off saying that the past two years were great and everything ... anyway, this week is going to be great. Elder Tavares and I decided to the craziest thing ever - a crazy power week of teaching. We want to EXPLODE our area so our goal this week is 100 lessons and 1000 street contacts. We worked our ties off yesterday and it was a great start to the week. Today we're going to the temple, but as soon as we can get back to our area we'll be back to work! If the last two years didn't tire me out, this week will!

So the highlight from last week was the baptism of Luciano and Crislaine. They are great. I think they are the converts most converted that I've had on my mission. They have taken our lessons for a while and have progressed a ton! Luciano is really happy with the Plan of Salvation because he wants to do baptisms for his two brothers and his dad who passed away two years ago in an assault. He also wants to link his whole family together to get everyone sealed, which includes, as he puts it "convincing my (his) mom that this is real." They were baptized on Sunday and it was great. Since I'm going home, I'm going to give him one of my suits.

baptism of Luciano and Chrislaine

What else was good this week? Well I learned how to make "galinhada" which is chicken with rice. That stuff is GREAT. I'd heard it was easy and so I decided to try it and now I know how I'm going to survive college! I made a panful every night this week. :)

I got a FRISBEE :) And we played Frisbee in the central park. That was really fun! There was a bunch of guys playing soccer, and they kept staring and commenting on the "crazy people playing with a 'Flying Saucer'" One guy came to play but felt ashamed because everyone was watching (all of the people in the park) so he left us 4 missionaries to play. But it was great. It was pretty cold- 50 degrees, I think, and running around was awesome! Today it's even colder and I can barely bend my fingers to type cause they're frozen!

Frisbee at the park

I'll see y'all soon! Love y'all tons!

Elder Jasperson

May 25, 2015

Mark 12:27 - many people are mistaken, thinking that God is the God of only the dead, that we only need to worry about him after death, that God doesn't have purpose for us, the living. But this is false. I know that God is the God of the living. He reins over us now. Not just after our death but now. We have to always remember that the living God is our God NOW and not just in the future. This means we must follow him NOW and not just in the future.

This week I had a special treat- Eliane, Jean and Lurdes, from Rio Pardo, called me! I got to talk with them and everything. They are all doing well and are still really active in the church. They confirmed that the other converts there in Rio Pardo are still active too! What happiness!!

This week we finally managed to get Luciano to go to church! He didn't wake up, and wasn't going to go, but when he didn't show up, we ditched Sunday School and walked to his house. He woke right up and showered (and his wife, Crislânia too) and they gave us a ride back to church! Yay! They loved the meeting and accepted baptism!

Guess what else happened on Sunday? The Incident of the Ghost Faucet! Here's the story- Sunday night, we met up with the other missionaries in the central park to do some contacts. We then returned to the chapel to pick up our suit jackets before going home for the night. (We leave our suit jackets in the chapel after church on Sunday so that we don't have to haul them around with us all day in the hot sun). Anyway, we got to the chapel and E. Collett went to the bathroom while we got the jackets. And he called us over- there was a weird sound in the bathroom! It was the sound of water. The sound was coming from the baptismal font! It sounded like somebody was swimming in the font. Well that was funny because the font was locked up. It should have been empty. We put our ears to the door to the font and yep- the sound was coming from the other side!

Well we don't have the key to open the font- we tried to get the doors to open or to look under the door to see something, but we couldn't. So I ran around to the outside of the chapel and found that there was a window above the font. The light wasn't on and I couldn't see anything, but there are open slits in the window. So Elder Pradera came running around with his camera and I gave him a lift and he stuck his camera (with flash on) in the window to take a picture of what was happening. The picture revealed that the faucet was running! The font was filling up - almost overflowing!!

picture from the window

We called the bishop and his counselors and everyone was in other cities. The ward mission leader who also has the key wasn't answering. We needed to do something!

Then I remembered that Elder Nielson had taught me to pick simple locks. We searched the chapel and we found a fork and a piece of wire. I spent 15 minutes trying to pick the lock on the door, with the Elders cheering me on. I kept almost managing it and losing control at the last minute! And the font was almost overflowing! Then E. Pradera had a great idea- "Is it possible to take the pins out of the door hinges?" He asked.

We ran around to find something to help and we only found a pair of scissors. So with the scissors I managed to pry the pins out of the hinges (sorry, primary, I destroyed your scissors) and we managed to pry the door open! This was the door that opens on the side to watch the baptism, but I jumped from there to the stairs and managed to turn off the water- just in time! Whew!

saving the day!

we did it!

Well we managed to get the pins back in the hinges okay (with a bit of difficulty) and we went home. Well after an hour or so the bishop called wanting to know if we'd managed to get the key with the mission leader. "Don't worry," we told him "we managed to work it out" J

The moral of the story? Don't mess with Texas J

Love,

Elder Jasperson

May 18, 2015

This week was a cool week. We're teaching several awesome investigators. Here's a cool story about finding Carla:

Last transfer, I'd made contact with Carla and her daughter in the street. They'd given the address in the road called "Almirante Tramandaí." Well, that's at least what I'd written. But that road wasn't on the map. Almirante means something like "General" So I figured that maybe it'd be the road Tramandaí, which was on the map. But we never had time to go there 'cause that road's far away. Anyway, I always remembered that contact and felt like I should go there. Well last week I made contact with a guy who gave me the address "Almirante Tamandaré." I immediately remembered Carla and realized that was probably the name of her road too! So we went to find her. And we knocked on her door. Carla opened the door and said: I've been waiting for you, Texan! I didn't even remember that I'd mentioned I was Texan, but she did! She has been searching for the true gospel for a long time- her first question for us: Where is the prophet in our days? What a great lesson that was!

We've been blessed these weeks with some other great investigators like Carla. This week we found the best burgers I've eaten in Brazil. At a place called "Good Hamburgeres" (yeah, cheesy name) we decided to buy a burger to see how it was and Wow that thing was AMAZING! I love good burgers :) It even came with real french fries!!

Another cool food story? We bought peanuts and we made peanut butter in our blender! I'm wasn't a fan of PBJ's, but I'm learning. Peanut butter is really great too! I guess the sandwiches aren't that great because we could only find diet jelly at the store.

homemade peanut butter

Last Pday we played soccer- and guess what? They said that I can play as good as a Brazilian now! Yes!!! My mission is now complete!!

Love Y'all!

Elder Jasperson

heavenly father smiles over Alvarada!

we traveled to Rio! (NOT)

May 11, 2015

This week passed by quite quickly. The transfer passed by and all 4 of us stayed here in Alvorada. We went to the Cuia Park in the city center and made Chimarrão.

at the Central Park

The most exciting part of the week was when a bird got into our house! Well we don't know how he managed to get it, because all the windows were shut, but the fact that the windows were shut made it pretty hard for him to get back out!

bird in our house!

I called home this week on mother's day and it was great to talk with the family!

Another miracle happened this week- we were walking in the street without anything to do at night because the people we'd marked visits with weren't home. So as we walked, Sister Ungria passed by and called us "Elders- do y'all want Pizza?" Well of course we wanted pizza! So she instructed us to walk to the pizza place farther down the road and we did and then she paid two huge pizzas for us! I love it when people give us food! J

I had an experience that made me feel like Dora this week (Dora from Finding Nemo). Our shower head was broken. So I got my tape and tools and stuff and took it off the wall and fixed it all up! As I was fixing it I was thinking "I don't know how to fix a shower head" Just like Dora who didn't know how to speak whale. So somewhere I learned how to fix electric showerheads and I didn't know it (Thanks Dad) J

May 4, 2015

This week started off with an awesome lunch- I sliced some potatoes and fried some potato chips and then I grilled a chicken leg in our sandwich maker!

That wasn't the end of the good food of the week- because Brother Heleno made us Texas Burgers and Fries :) It was almost the same thing! We ate so much that E. Tavares called out "Estou Gravido" (I'm pregnant!)

Kauã (that kid from last week) found us in the road this week and asked me if I had shoe polish. He'd got some black shoes to use to go to church and wanted to polish them. I told him to take them to church with him and that I'd polish them for him there. So he took them. And I spent a few minutes sitting on the floor in the chapel polishing his shoes. That was a nice moment of service. I could feel the power of service. I know that sometimes we have to be humble and serve someone. Even a kid that can be annoying.

This week our ward was blessed with 4 baptisms. Dênis and Maria Eduarada were baptized by Elder Collett and Elder Pradera, and we baptized Mário and Clarice. Dênis is a great guy! I did his baptismal interview and it was cool because he's my dad's age. He kind of looks like dad too --maybe because he's kind of bald... ;) Anyway he's really happy to start his life anew. A large part of his family already are members of the church, living in the nearby city of Viamão. So a bunch of his relatives came to see the baptism and the chapel was really full of people!! We sang a musical number.

Clarice is Vanderson's mom, who felt touched after her son decided to be baptized and decided to be baptized too. Mário is 16. He was a reference from another young man we were teaching, Edson, who ended up getting a job and he stopped investigating. Mário's mom is interested now in the church and we're teaching the whole family!

Today is transfers, and we're all going to stay here in Alvorada!

I've only got 5 more weeks to serve the Lord. I don't feel ready to finish my mission, but I can't avoid it. I'm hoping to give my all to finish the mission awesomely!

Elder Jasperson

Mario and his mom

Vanderson's mom

chicken leg in our sandwich maker

corn ice cream

Vanderson learned to the new tie knot!

Our party pancakes to finish the transfer!

April 27, 2015

So this week the weather finally cooled down! It's been really nice to work, but there's one really terrible consequence- our shower head is broken! Here in Brazil, houses don't have hot water heaters. The shower head has an electric resistance that heats the water. But ours is broken so it doesn't heat the water. And colder temperatures at night = ??? Colder showers!! That's a great way to wake up in the morning!

We had our district meeting this week- and it turned out to be the funniest district meeting I've ever held! So I was just starting the training, when suddenly the door opened and in walked... Kauã! He's a 10-year-old who lives close to the chapel. He comes to church with his brother, Vande (Vande goes to teach with us frequently). Anyway, he'd seen that the church was open and decided to enter! We told him to go home and he just wouldn't leave. So we tried ignoring him, but Kauã wanted our attention! He started playing the piano during our meeting. We shooed him out and returned to the meeting when suddenly - the door opened again and in walked...Brother Osmar! He's a recent convert and was walking by when he saw the chapel was opened and stopped by to talk with us. Well I guess he didn't realize that we were having a district meeting, because he started talking with all of us and sat down and everything! Well about 15 minutes later he finally left. But during the time that he was there, Kauã snuck back in to the chapel and when we started the meeting back up, he started making noises and pulling from chair to chair. So once again, we shooed him out of the chapel. But Kauã couldn't be stopped! He snuck around the chapel and started banging on the windows of the room we were in. In the end, we just put up with it and finished the meeting.

Close to the chapel is an ice-cream store. We'd talked with the owner a while back so we stopped by there to buy ice cream pops. The owner said that his business is really, really low now that it's getting colder, and was surprised that we wanted to buy ice cream (for missionaries, no weather is too cold to eat ice cream*). I bought a corn-flavored ice cream pop. And it was surprisingly really good! If you even find corn ice cream, you've got to try it!

This week Ismar and Vanderson were baptized. Ismar is Israel's brother (Israel who was baptized last week) and Vanderson is their friend who they brought to church with them. Beatriz, their mom, is really happy now 'cause her sons go to church with her! We've passed a lot in their house these last few days. And their family is really fun! Beatriz has another daughter named Cassandra who wants to be baptized, but she works on Sundays. L Anyway, their family is really cool- loving and happy and stuff. After we teach our message, we always spend a little extra time at their house playing Old Maid or Go Fish (these games don't exist in Brazil, they only know how to play betting games (like poker) with cards, so everyone loves playing “Go Fish” and “Old Maid” after I teach them!), telling jokes or any other fun activity. Beatriz told us that she's so happy to have cool role-models for her sons! We hope that they serve missions!

Tonight we're planning on doing something awesome- here's a hint- it includes chairs, the central park of Alvorada and chimarrão!

Love Y'all!

Elder Jasperson 

*Speaking of being too cold to eat ice cream, one time in Jardim Alcântara, a member called us in to his house (we were walking by) to eat ice cream with him. But when we sat down his wife came in and said "No Honey! It's far too cold right now to give ice cream to the missionaries! They'll catch a cold!" It was like 80 degrees and E. Dos Anjos and I were like "Noooooo!!!" But she put the ice cream back into the fridge and gave us bread and butter instead. L

20 April 2015

http://itsalmo.st/#myarrival

This week we met some fun people- here's some of the funny things we heard in the street this week: 

• "se eu be batizar eu não posso" (If I get baptized, I can't)
• "vim de Porto Alegre me chamaram de louco" (I came from Porto Alegre they called me crazy)
• "Não largo minha católica" (I don't let my Catholic go)

These were some of the things that people yelled repeatedly in our faces this week.

Here's my favorite quote from the week -- a woman who said: 

• "sou católica apostólica relaxada" (I'm relaxed Catholic (instead of Roman Catholic))

Anyway this week was good. Israel was baptized. His mom was baptized a few months ago, and then forgotten by the ward (and missionaries) well, we found them and he was baptized. His mom, Beatriz, is blessed with a great family - they're all cheerful and happy. It's cool to meet with a family like that. Sadly, her other two kids, Ismar and Cassandra, don't want to be baptized yet. Israel's inviting all of his friends to church now and two of them should be baptized this week!

What else...

• A little girl - like three years old - tried to pickpocket me on the bus.
• I broke my nametag.
• We got soaked in freezing rain on Saturday - and we ran back home, pausing now and then under store signs and bus stops.
• Our shower broke and we've taken freezing showers ever since Wednesday (I've actually gotten used to it)

and ... 

• Elder Collett taught me to juggle (he did like clown school or something like that!) 

Elder Jasperson