minha história Missionária: August 26, 2013

My theme for this week is WATER. Because water is important.

Water stands for several things. First- I finally made it to Porto Alegre to serve! Porto Alegre means "Happy port" and ports involve water.

Second, I got my companion and trainer, Elder de Olivera. He's super spunky and fun, but he only speaks Portuguese, so I have to learn quickly. I realized this week that I know way less Portuguese than I thought I did, but I'm improving.

Second, water is involved in Baptism, which is the focus of our mission. We have standards of excellence for each week. They are as follows:

1 baptism
3 investigators with baptismal dates
3 investigators at church
12 lessons with members
25 other lessons
10 new investigators
10 contacts per day

Here, about 80 percent of all baptisms are contacts that we make. And here's the crazy part for me: In the CTM, we were surprised that we are expected to invite people to be baptized after the first lesson. Isn't that a little soon? But here, we are instructed to do more- we invited people to be baptized at first contact.

When we tract or make street contacts, we say something of the following:

"somos representatives de Jesus Cristo. Somos aqui para ajudar pessoas seguir o exemplo de Cristo para sendo batizado de modo de Cristo. Você tem desejo a seguir o exemplo de Cristo? Podemos entrar sua casa e deixamos uma mensagem sobre Jesus Cristo e o batismo?"

This means: "we are representatives of Jesus Christ. We are here to help people follow the example of Christ by being baptized like he was. Do you have desire to follow Christ: Can we enter your house and teach about Christ and baptism?"

The coolest thing is, it works! People here have such a desire to follow Christ and they let us in and let us teach and we baptize.

Let me back up a bit before I continue: We're in a town called Osorio. Elder de Olivera and I are in the same apartment as Elder Eliason and Elder Souza. They are awesome. Elder Eliason knows Jamie, my sister, from BYU.

Anyway, the other elders baptized 5 people yesterday.

I didn't mention this yet, but it's freezing here. And always raining. And the buildings don't have heat or cooling. So everyone watching the baptism is wearing heavy coats except these five people who were being baptized and the good brother who was doing the baptism. We don't have a font, we use an above ground swimming pool type thing. So the water was freezing. And these faithful people climb into the freezing water and are baptized. It's so cold that they naturally resist going under the water and therefore three of them had to redo the baptism. The faith of these people is empowering. They have such a desire to be baptized that they'll do it however they can.

We are planning on baptizing two investigators next week, Tina and Elibet. (I think I misspelled the second name)

So it's pouring rain here every day. I am so grateful for every single piece of clothing I brought. Especially my shoes. And my coats.

Lastly- here's what I did this week

My first day, we did service, helping a family lay a foundation for a house. This area is what they call cowboy country. It's where lots of farmers are, I guess. There's lots of cows. Plus they talk different.

There's a drink called herbe that everyone here drinks. Translated, it means weed. Like marijuana. But it's not. It’s a drink. You drink it from a special cup with a special straw called a bombe. Directly translated, that means bomb. [DAD EDIT: see yerba mate to learn more]

It's a really bitter drink. You fill the cup with herbe, then pour in hot water and stuff the bombe in. You drink until the water is gone, then fill the cup up again with hot water. It's like passing the pipe because after one person finishes, the cup is filled and passed to the next person. They have these cool thermals they keep the hot water in. And everyone has it. When we teach, people pass us the cup. When we shop, the cashier is drinking it, people in the street, people in church.... it's everywhere.

And, if you can tell from the pictures, it looks like weed. Like we're smoking. But I promise it's not.

Nevertheless, when I return, I'll probably bring several pounds of it home as well as some bombes and the thermal and cup and it all... so when airport security asks what's in the bag, I can truthfully say, "20 pounds of weed and some bombs"

I also drank coffee this week. Not really. But there's a drink here that looks like coffee, smells like coffee, and as far as I know, tastes like coffee. But it isn't, so we can drink it. It was terrible. But I managed to get a cup down.

So now I've smoked and drank coffee... kinda

In addition to being cold everywhere else, our shower is broken so we only get cold water. Like basically ice. Every morning, we have to force ourselves into the shower.

We´ve been working a lot! Lots of walking around and lots of teaching. Our investigators are great people. We helped two sets of investigators get married this week! For this, we had to get birth certificates. Here in Brazil, I guess that's easy, because Elder de Olivera and I just walked to the records office and bought one. We didn't even have the people with us.

Rita, an investigator, has a son named Pedro. I think he's 2 or 3. It's embarrassing because he speaks better Portuguese than me! D:

But I'll learn.

Lastly, read 3 Nephi 5:13 I think this will be my new mission scripture.

Love you all!

Elder Jasperson