November 18, 2013

Well everyone, I got transferred, and now I'm finding myself somewhere in Porto Alegre. I'm not sure what part - the city is huge, I know- but we're in a ward called Elizabeth. [Editor Note: The ward is called Ala Elizabete. I provided the link from the LDS Meetinghouse website.]

Elder Luz and Me

I'm liking it here, but it sure is a lot hotter than it was in Osório. My new companion is Elder Luz. (Luz means light in Portuguese). The ward is nice, and they have chapel (it's pink!). [Editor Note: Here is the street view from Google Maps!]

But before I get carried away, here's some scriptures-

Mosiah 18:7-10 talks about the requirements for baptism. Basically, what every person needs to do or be before a baptism. It's a lot simpler than we think, sometimes

Isaiah 41:13 is a nice comfort scripture. I saw it in graffiti on a wall and thought it was cool.

Isaiah 49:15 is also about comfort. But it's good to know that God will never forget us. We had a cool experience this week when we found an inactive member. She had prayed (for the first time in a long time) that morning for help, and right after leaving her house, she bumped into us! We made contact with her, found out that she was a member, and visited her house later that week. God really doesn't ever forget us.

James 1:5 and Moroni 10:5. We can pray and God will answer. It's really true. Everyone can get an answer. It doesn't matter how many years you have been in the church or out of it. You can get an answer to your prayer when you pray with faith.

So here's one thing really important: the mission is using a new address. So from now on send stuff to this address below. Don't worry, the old one still works, but they ask that we use this one now:

Elder Jasperson

Caixa Postal 13008

CEP 91010-971

Porto Alegre-RS

BRASIL

So here's a cool story from this week. We were teaching Luka, a really cool 14 year old who is looking for answers. He was talking about a doubt he had, and the only thing I could think about was Kung Fu Panda. I was getting frustrated with myself because I wanted to concentrate on him, but I couldn't. He asked me what I thought, and I confessed that I was thinking about Kung Fu Panda. I was then guided by the spirit to draw a powerful analogy between him and Po. It turned out to be really good, and the Spirit was super strong. So sometimes we are guided to do things that we don't understand, and it all works out anyway.

The day before I got here, there was a big flood. It rained a ton and filled up some of the lower and poorer areas. It all dried up, but then on Thursday or Friday the Chuvão (HUGE RAIN) came. It poured like crazy. And of course, like always, we were without umbrellas. It was like a lake was falling on top of us.

We made two really (different) great contacts this week.

The first was with an old man who started telling us a crazy story about how he used to raise people from the dead. Then he started talking a little louder and told us to look in our hands for a letter. He told us we both had the letter m on our hand. He then gave us a scripture reference and told us that everything would make sense if we read the scripture. Sadly, the scripture reference he gave didn't exist. The chapter didn't have the verse number that he gave. So I'm still clueless as to what he was talking about. But we got a good laugh...

The other was a contact in Spanish. I tried to make contact with a guy, but he said "I don't speak your language." I thought he was talking about English, so I kept trying, but he didn't listen. Finally I said "Habla Español?" which is Spanish (I think) for "do you speak Spanish?" He said yes, and then we had a fun time (Elder Luz and I) trying to speak Spanish with him. Spanish is super close to Portuguese, so it was possible, just difficult.

Another funny thing that happened this week is I talked in my sleep. Elder Luz woke up and said I was talking in Portuguese about baptisms and the coming transfer. He decided to mess with me and he said, "Eu sei que batismo é verdadeiro" (I know that baptism is true- it doesn't make sense, but it's kind of funny) I replied, he said, after a pause, by saying "eu também sei que batismo é verdadeiro" (I also know that baptism is true). How funny!

Well, have a great week! The Christmas decorations are coming out here, since they don't celebrate thanksgiving, Christmas is the next holiday. They use evergreen trees, even though that type of tree doesn't exist here, and they put fake snow on them. How funny. But what else will they do?

Love you all!

Elder Jasperson

my new apartment

I got my Call Reunion shirt in the mail (FINALLY!)