minha história Missionária: September 2, 2013

So I made some mistakes in my last email.

The weird drink is called ERVA. The drink like coffee is called cevada (barley) and the awesome buffets here are called churrasco.

OLA!

My theme for this week is food…….Because I love food.

Firstly, I've eaten (and drank) some different things here. Last week I talked about erve and cevada, but I forgot to mention that I ate some hearts. Chicken hearts. They were baked into a pie-like thing. It was delicious. And pretty cheap. There were probably 8-10 hearts in there.

On the lines of eating, churrasco is a huge thing here. That’s what we call the giant buffet lines of meat. It's awesome. We ate it twice this week because sometimes members give us money for lunch instead of feeding us in their houses.

One weird thing about Brazil is people here eat cough drops as candy. Serious. They even make cough drops with chocolate inside. And everyone eats them. I find it gross. Our investigators will offer us candies- and then (surprise surprise) it's actually medicine.

But yeah I love eating. One of the churrascos we ate at this week had mashed potatoes! (Which I hadn't seen here yet, and love a lot) Usually, we just eat rice and beans like y'all would eat potatoes and gravy.

I also want to write a bit about feasting. Because we certainly feast on churrasco (btw, it's pronounced chi-has-ko), but also, we feast on the words of Christ (2 Nephi 32:3 I think)

I wish that all of our investigators would also feast upon the scriptures, because they are the best things we can use to develop our faith.

Our investigators Tina and Elizete (who we were planning on baptizing this week) decided that they didn't want to receive our lessons anymore. This is sad, but I'm fairly certain this is because they chose not to read the scriptures that we left for them.

So whatever you believe, FEAST ON THE WORDS OF CHRIST. Read, Ponder, Pray. Do all that.

Here's some cool scriptures I pondered this week:

Ether 12:28 (Fé -> batismo)
Moroni 9:6, Mosiah 28:3 (Trabalhar duro -> sem culpa)
3 Nephi 5:13 (Meu chamado missionário)
Alma 42:31 (Ir e pregar)
2 Nephi 8:16 (Deus está criando seu Sion)

One awesome thing that we did this week was wash a dog. We taught the first lesson for Karen, one of our new investigators (we tracted into her home), and her 3 children (Gabriel, Vanessa and Manuela). Afterwards, we asked if we could do anything to help her or her family. She said no. Then Elder de Olivera (jokingly) suggested that we could wash her dog (a big lab).

And then we did. Right there, in our ties and white shirts, washed the dog. Sadly, I didn't get any pictures. In fact, I didn't take pictures this week :(

But, while I'm talking about pictures, I'd love to see y'all! Feel free to email me (tanner.jasperson@myldsmail.net). We get 90 minutes to write so I have plenty of time to read and respond.

We tracted in a more dangerous part of town this week because someone we contacted on the street lived there. The streets there are a type of cobblestone, called paralelipípedo (pronounce it like it's spelled). I'll send a picture of it next week. It's really uneven and bumpy, and not many cars drive on it.

Anyway, we were walking down the paralelipípedo, and we met Nõe. He called us over, and asked us to come into his house and teach him. So we did. After that, he took us over to his son's house where we taught his son, his son's wife, and his child. Hopefully we'll be able to continue teaching them. They're about a 40 minute walk away though, so we don't pass by there often. If they're receptive, however, we will.

This week the weather was a lot nicer. It warmed up, and only rained once. Yay!

Our investigator Rita (who is going to be married in October - we set that up last week) has a son named Pedro. I attached a picture of him. We pass by their house almost every night because they usually have bolo (cake) and Elder de Olivera loves it. We'll baptize her the week after her marriage.

Marcius and Marcus are getting married the same day as Rita, and we'll baptize Marcius then too!

In Brazil, not very many people get married legally. It's inconvenient, mostly. They don't get benefits for being married, and it's easier not to. So most couples just marry informally. On the other hand, people can't get married in the temple, because marriages can only be done through the legal system. So they get married legally, and afterwards go to the temple.

A final thing- We were returning to our apartment one night, and walked past a house with a cactus growing near the fence. Elder de Olivera told me to pick one of the prickly fruits from it. Not questioning my trainer, I did. He then told me to squeeze it really hard. So I did. Nothing happened. I didn't get it. But he was laughing like crazy. Then I dropped the fruit and realized that my hand was full (FULL) of spikes. Oops.

So the lesson of the week is never grab a cactus.

We taught a recent convert this week who had become angry with our branch president. She has a thick accent and I understood basically nothing that she said, so I can't really relate the story, but here is my part-

Elder Eliason and Souza (who I forgot to mention had 4 more baptisms this week!) had visited with her and she had told them that she was upset and that she would never attend church again. She said that we were welcome to pass by and that she would still read the scriptures, but she would never attend church. They told her she needs to forgive and repent, but she wouldn't listen.

So Elder de Olivera and I passed by this week. She spent 40+ minutes telling her story. I understood basically nothing. And it was right after a big lunch. And really warm. And the sofa was comfy... So yeah, I fell asleep (oops).

When I was awoken, I covered by saying I could understand better with my eyes closed. Elder de Olivera didn't buy it, but Lucile did.

Anyway, she finally finished talking and Elder de Olivera (who, of course, understood what she had talked about), began teaching her about the importance of keeping all the commandments, including going to church.

She really wasn't buying any of it. Then Elder de Olivera looked to me to testify. I can understand most of what he says, so I knew I'd be safe if I just repeated the things he had said. And that's what I did. I re-emphasized his message in my own (bad Portuguese grammar) words.

And she listened. After I finished talking, she told me I'd touched her heart and she'd go to church. So the spirit works in marvelous ways. I think Elder de Olivera was a little jealous :P

The spirit is super strong. There were two other times this week when I testified and felt my words being guided. I didn't speak without errors, and my grammar was probably awful, but my message was the message that God wanted me to share.

Amo-vos!

Elder Jasperson