Well it's raining again. It started yesterday (of course, we
were without umbrellas). Last night the lightning storm started. It still
hasn't ended, but it's weaker now. The black sky was flashing white and little
rivers of light were running all around. That was sweet. Luckily it wasn't
raining a ton because we were about 40 minutes away from home, without
umbrellas. Then overnight it started pouring so now we're having fun with a ton
of wet!
Last night we got a call from our leaders of the zone,
telling us who would be transferred. I'm being transferred, but I don't know
where because they don't tell us until we arrive in Porto Alegre tomorrow. The
only thing we find out (thorough email today) is if we are going to be a Zone
Leader or if we are going to train (neither of these apply to me).
I'm excited to get to know a new area, but I'm sad to leave
Osório. It is really nice here. And I really like Elder Angus. He and I work
together really well. I'm also sad to leave because we just started to remodel
the apartment so I won't get to finish (just kidding) and we have a bunch of
awesome investigators that I won't get to teach anymore. (Attached is a picture of our beginning to remodel the apartment).
Anyway, I studied a lot of cool things this week. I kept up
with a study of faith - and found Alma 13:3 that talks about how we had faith
before this life - or in other words, faith that Christ really would live a
perfect life and pay for our sins. Because if he had failed, we would all be
stuck outside of heaven forever. (It says something like this - "Therefore,
having chosen good and exercising a lot of faith" in reference to the
people who kept their first estate (choosing to come to earth and follow God's
plan)
I also read a bunch from Job this week. I thought Job1:20-22 was interesting, because Job didn't even get upset or mad or anything
even though he had just lost everything.
Lastly, I thought 1 Cor 12:12-27 was interesting. I really
like the analogies of all of us being part of one body, or in other words, one
church. We all have different roles, different capacities, and different
abilities. We shouldn't get jealous or upset that someone is an eye when we are
a foot. Because everything is necessary.
(Sorry this is a random tangent)
One thing different about the culture here is that you call everyone something different if you don't know their name. And it's not rude. You just call them what they are. For example, you can say "Ola moça" or "Ola moço" which mean "Hello young woman" (or young man). You call people Negro, (if they're African American) Alemão (if they're German) Velho(a) (if they're old). This applies to family relations too. You call your mother in law, mother in law (sougra). You call your cousin, cousin (primo). It's kind of weird but cool. (Side note- I also get called Tiozinho which means little uncle)
(to continue)
Here's a few things that happened this week-
- I got a haircut- all of them cut, to be specific.
- I played soccer for the first time here. (On P-day) That was really cool. We went to a public field and played there. There was a ton of guys there who played pretty good. When they saw that I could catch the ball (thanks, football), they wanted me to play goalie, and I did really well. I even survived the penalty kick round! They all called me Alemão (which means German). And it was all really fun.
We had a few people be a little rude this week. We walked
past a house that had a little sign in front that said (Sorvete- R$2) which
means we could buy ice cream for two reals. What luck! (It's usually
expensive).
Anyway, when we clapped by the gate (that's how you knock here
because all the houses have fences around them) the man that came out wouldn't
even talk to us. He said "Não, obrigado" (no, thank you) and walked
to the other side of his yard. We didn't want to teach him just buy some ice cream
so we waited a little bit and then I said, "Vende sorvete aqui?" (Do
you sell ice cream here) and he said "Não, obrigado" I then said
"Não tem mais?" (Are you out?) And he said "Não, obrigado."
So no ice cream for us. (By the way, saying no thank you is rude here).
At the
next house we stopped to teach, something even funnier happened- while Elder
Angus was giving an opening prayer, the girl and her brother ran away- leaving
only her boyfriend there with us- he didn't even live there!
We had a lot of blessings this week finding people to teach.
We are working with João, who is a 13 year old boy. He's super fun, but he uses
a lot of slang and it's hard to understand him. Especially when he's with his
friend Lucas (a member). I took my Priesthood line of authority to show him,
and realized that it wasn't in Portuguese! So I'll be working to translate
that.
I had a sad experience this week - one of our recent
converts - Amanda told me that I'd abandoned them. They've gone inactive (for a
lot of reasons, one major reason being that they moved to the very back of Primavera, which is about 55 minutes away from the chapel on foot - if you walk
like a missionary. They don't have a car, and no money to pay for a bus. We
don't have enough members with cars to have someone pass by to pick them up)
It's sad because we kind of did abandon them. We have so many people to teach
and visit that it is really hard to find any time to visit our converts. It's
largely the job of the ward to keep up with them. Sadly, the ward can't do much
to visit people like them that live so far away, because not very many people
have cars. We'll just have to keep working with them.
This Sunday was the Sacrament meeting of the primary. It was
really nice to see. I love kids. They don't sing very well here (about everyone
here is tune deaf) but they sing with spirit. So listening to the kids sing the
primary songs was cool. Greice's kids took part in the program so that was
awesome.
Along the lines of Greice, I have a great story about the
baptism of Paola, her daughter, from this week. Because Greice's not a member,
we take care of the baptisms of all of her kids. (We already baptized Luis and
Marcio).
We are also hoping to baptize her mom (Rosa).
So Rosa has this hope to be baptized in a river. Our goal
with her was to be baptized yesterday with Paola in a river. But Rosa never
went to church. The thing is, Paola still wanted to be baptized in a river. So
we got everything taken care of, hopped in the car of our branch president and
branch mission leader, and drove off to a river. And now, here's a few tips
about how to baptize in a river-
- Make sure that the candidate for a river baptism doesn't have any sort of fear of water
- Don’t let the branch president's wife think that a river might be dangerous
- Especially don't let the branch president's wife talk about the dangers of a river
- Don’t let a worried branch president's wife drive the car that has the candidate of river baptism, especially if you aren't also in the car.
- When you find the river, don't let the branch president's wife start to talk about how deep the water probably is
- When you finally calm down the candidate and sing and pray before the baptism, don't let the branch mission leader pray that the water won't be too deep.
- It's probably best to have everyone be quiet and let the candidate feel the spirit instead of letting their brothers try to convince them to enter the water.
Sadly, we didn't follow these steps. I love our branch
president's wife. But I also think that sometimes we can worry too much.
So
what happened.....
We finally got Paola to enter the water. (See the picture in my other post) but
only after a lot of talking and assuring. But she still was scared. She covered
her face and wouldn't talk. I wasn't going to baptize someone who was scared to
death! So I bent down and asked her what she wanted to do. I told her we could
leave the water if she wanted. I think she really wanted to be baptized there
but was too scared - she couldn't decide. She couldn't even move. So I lifted
her out of the water to the shore. We drove all the way back into town to the
chapel and baptized her there in the baptismal font (with icy water). Paola was
shaking so bad because of the cold, but she wanted to be baptized, so we did
it! What a journey!
So anyway, I'm really excited to be transferred- I’ve got to
pack my bags and stuff today so I can leave tomorrow! Next week I'll let y'all
know where I am.
Love
Elder Jasperson
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