So being transferred is always fun. I got to find the three
Elders who were with me in the MTC, Elders Lemes, Floriani and Avinte. This is
the first time that I've seen them since the MTC, so it was really cool to be
able to talk with them and actually understand what they were saying.
Due to the transfer, I ended up in a nice city called São
Leopoldo. My companion is Elder Wilker, and we are opening up a new area here
in the city. We work on one side of a river (called the River of Signs) and on
the other side work Elder Blair and Elder Rech. They too, are opening up a new
area and live with us. So we all had a nice time figuring out where everything
was together.
We arrived in São Leopaldo Tuesday afternoon, and found our
house and the church. We left out suitcases in the house and went to find a
store. There, we bought food and ate lunch. Afterwards, we put everything up in
the house and went to work. We have some maps and that's it so we just went out
making contacts and knocking on doors. The people that live here are pretty receptive,
though.
We knocked on millions of doors this week, but Elder Wilker
and I have managed to find some good investigators. We even managed to take a
family to church on Sunday!
We spent so much time running around this week that I didn't
even have time to write in my journal. But I love being busy and working a lot,
so it was a great week!
While we knocked on doors one day, the people at one house
said "Sorry, we can't attend y'all, but you should try that house
(pointing to a house nearby), they're members of your church." That
happened two times, actually, and it was cool because we were able to find some
members. But I have to give it to the members for being good neighbors and
stuff. I don't know if all my neighbors knew that I was a member of the church.
They ward here is the best ward I have ever been in in my
entire life. Everyone is focused and does their part. The ward focus is to
divide by the end of the year, which means they will need about 100 more
members. And everyone is focused on missionary work. The men have a schedule to
do divisions with us and everyone is happy to give references. But this ward
isn't just good with missionary work. It is good with everything, because the
people are happy to fulfill their callings every day of the week. It's
interesting to see the energy that comes from a ward that functions so well.
Elder Blair and I were asked to be the ward pianists, which
was something I thought I had escaped when I left Elizabeth (just kidding, I
like playing the hymns).
Elder Wilker is from Receife. He and is younger brother were
baptized when they were 13 and 10 years old. Since then, they went to church
every Sunday alone, did seminary and mutual, and are now serving missions. He's
pretty cool. Sadly, since this week was so full of stuff, we never stopped to
take a picture. Next week I'll be sure to send one home.
My thoughts this week were focused on member missionary
work. In Preach My Gospel, pages 9 and 10 (in the Portuguese version, pages 9
and 10, I don't know which pages it is in English) there are several quotes
from the prophets about our role in missionary work. As Christians, we have the
duty to share the gospel with our friends. Because we have faith in Christ, we
need to help other people learn about him.
Lastly, a funny thought- we knocked on the door of a
theologist. She said "do you know who I am? I am a theologist. I study
religion." I think she was expecting us to be intimidated or something.
But we persisted and taught her a lesson. She tried to prove us wrong, using
the bible, but since our message is true, it's impossible to do that. But we
had a good discussion. After defending our message with the Bible, for about 10
minutes, she was stumped. She said "I never met someone who could prove
their religion to be true. Why don't you go study and get a degree?" We
told her where the church was, and left.
Anyway, I heard that the groundhog saw his shadow, so good
luck with more winter! Brazilians see the whole groundhog thing on TV and they
think it is the stupidest tradition ever. I had a lot of people ask about the
science behind it. :)
Valeu!
Elder Jasperson
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