So how does the New Year work for missionaries in the
Elizabeth Ward in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil? Let me tell you.
They hang out at the house of some cool members for a bit, eat sandwiches with
goat cheese and ham (which is called "tomando café" which actually
means "drinking coffee" even though that makes no sense at all
literally). The whole eating sandwiches thing is just a normal snack, not a Brazilian
tradition, or anything, but it was good anyway. They then go to sleep and wake
up at midnight when everything blows up. Not really. But we live on one of the
more traveled roads and so there was a lot of fireworking and drinking and
yelling and stuff. Elder 1 says to Elder 2 "Feliz ano novo, Elder"
and they go to sleep again.
I studied a lot about faith this week. I am liking Ether chapter 12. How many times does it say "Faith" in that chapter? It
sure says "Fé" about 100 times in my scriptures! I liked verses 6, 12,
27, and 30 especially. One cool thing about faith is that faith isn't just a
feeling, it's an action. When we act, we have faith. If we have faith that
faith moves mountains but don't try to move the mountain, we don't actually
have faith. Similarly, if we have faith that God answers prayers, but don't
pray, we don't actually have that faith.
After that, I liked Jacob 4:10 which tells us that we are to
follow the Lord, being submissive, and are not to try to teach him. Or, in
other words, we shouldn't try to justify our own will if the Lord's is contrary
Lastly, I found Mosiah 26:1-4 interesting- it shows that
even the parents in the Nephite era had problems with children who didn't believe.
I like how it says that they didn't believe in the traditions of their parents.
In other words, if religion is just a tradition, our children will have a hard
time believing it. Religion and faith have to be more than just a tradition,
they have to be things we live and do and teach.
Anyway, this week went by fairly quickly. We got a new fan,
which is indescribably better than the old fan. You can look at the pictures
and guess which one is new (hint- the old one isn't really cool looking). It
also wasn't super-hot like it was previously, because it rained. On the first
rainy day, I actually wasn't even in Porto Alegre. I was on a division in
Alvorada. There, I worked with Elder Swann, who has 1 month less than me on the
mission. He's American too. I thought it would be hard to work with him, since
I'm still not perfect with Portuguese, but it wasn't that bad. I liked having a
chance to lead and help him with the language and teaching. Anyway, we were
just walking in the street when the sky opened and the entire Atlantic ocean
fell on us (Luckily the ocean was strangely empty of fish). After being
thoroughly drenched, we returned home that night to find that I forgot my towel
in our house in Porto Alegre. The next day I returned home, and for the first
time in history, Elder Jasperson used an umbrella in Porto Alegre. That was
nice. I returned home dry and that was weird. Usually we return home soaked in
rain or in sweat. I guess umbrellas are useful after all!
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| Old Fan |
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| New Fan! |
There in Alvorada, we taught a confused catholic man. For
me, he is a testimony that this world is full of religious confusion. We taught
him about the Gospel of Christ, and he didn't understand why we don't baptize
babies. I asked him if he thought Mary, the mother of Jesus, was perfect and he
said yes. I asked him why Mary didn't baptize Jesus when he was a baby and he
said he didn't know. I then told him it was because babies don't have sin and
don't need to be baptized. He said that babies do have sin- original sin. I
asked him what that was and he said "from our previous lives." I
asked him what previous lives and he told me all about reincarnation- how even
Jesus was reincarnated after three days. I asked him if he was sure he was
Catholic, and he said yes, that he goes to the Catholic Church every Sunday. I
told him that even Catholics don't believe in Reincarnation, that it doesn't
exist, that we will all resurrect. He insisted that reincarnation is real, and
I told him he wasn't catholic. It's kind of funny, but it's also sad to see how
many people are lost in the confusion of doctrine and churches and everything.
It's comforting to know that we have a fullness of the doctrine here on earth.
We taught an older lady this week too. She didn't really
want to listen, but she gave us some wise counsel. "Not all of us can be
beautiful," she said, pointing to Elder Jasperson, "and not all of us
are ugly either," she concluded, pointing to Elder Soares. If she wasn't
being so serious Elder Soares and I would have died of laughter. Instead, we
almost died of holding the laughter in.
If that wasn't enough to give me a big head, I got an even
better compliment yesterday. Elder Soares and I were walking down the road when
a young man ran up to us, shouting. He asked us to stop and asked me if I
remembered him. I didn't. He then told me that I sing like an angel. He also
told me who he was and I remembered him. He told me that my voice is so
beautiful he can't forget it and he asked me to sing for him in the street.
Elder Soares almost passed out from laughter. Keeping a straight face, I wrote
down his address and marked a day to pass by. I'm glad life isn't all about
being super serious all the time.
Here's the backstory, which is actually pretty miraculous.
Last transfer, working with Elder Luz, we made contact in
the street with an inactive woman who told us that for the first time in a long
time, she had prayed that morning, asking for direction. We marked a day to
pass by and did. There, we met her son, who had a friend over. She had asked us
to help her with her son, who is a little rebellious. Anyway, we sat down and
got the son and his friend to sit with us and we prayed. After praying we
talked a little about how God is our father. I felt impressed that we should
sing for them I told Elder Luz, and he asked if I had a hymn book. I didn't. So
instead, I sang "I am a child of God" for them in English and in
German (thanks to dad for having us memorize that in FHE many years ago). Well
the teenage boys thought it was hilarious and left the house laughing. I was a
little embarrassed, but we finished the lesson and left. Anyway, now, about 6
weeks later, the young man in the street is the friend in the story. He said he
can't forget the beauty of the song. So maybe all of that story was just to
prepare this young man. We'll see.
Lastly, here's a fun thought. In Portuguese, there two verbs
that are pretty similar. "Expiar" means "to atone" and
espiar means "to peek." They actually have the same sound. The thing
is, "Expiação" (atonement) and "espiação" (peeking) also
have the same sound. So people who aren't accustomed with our religious vocab
often get confused when members of the church talk about the great peeking of
Christ, or how he peeked for us. :)
Have a great new year!
Elder Jasperson
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| Baptism |
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| Baptism |
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