April 28, 2014

Mosiah 24:13-15 is for those hard days when you just need the scriptures to pick you up.

Mosiah 23:21-24 sometimes the lord chastises us to prove our faith and afterwards we can be happier

Anyway to start of this week, I'm being transferred again. Which is pretty nice because I'm going to escape these steep roads but it also is kind of sad because this is my first area where I've developed an actual strong link with the leadership of the ward and the members. So it's sad to be leaving.

Anyway this week we had another baptism fall through! Everything was set up for Michel to be baptized. The font was full, the people were there, and everything was ready. Then he got scared of the water. It probably didn't help that it was like freezing cold and the water was really cold and stuff. But that was frustrating. Maybe when things warm up he'll be happier to be baptized. He wants to be baptized a lot, but he doesn't know how to swim, never has swum before, he's never even seen a baptism. So we'll have to help him out with his fear.

There was a cool miracle that happened this week. On Saturday, I decided that I would use my glasses because it’s been so long that I didn't use them. Anyway, I stopped in the road to put on another sweater because it was cold, so I took off my glasses and hung them on a metal fence. After I got the sweater on, a woman passed in front of me and I made a contact with her. Then I made like 4 more contacts and forgot about the glasses. So, about 5 hours later, after the baptism fell through, I remembered that I was wearing glasses at the start of the day and that I’d lost them. Somehow I remembered that I'd hung them on that fence and I remembered about where I was so we went back and guess what – the glasses were still hanging there! What a blessing that nobody picked them up! I don't really ever use them, but it shows that god cares about me.

I'll let y’all know next week where I ended up.

Elder Jasperson

an Easter egg I bought
(it was on sale now that Easter has passed)

April 21, 2014 (Photos)

Happy Easter!

If you find a random train track,
quick do a handstand before the train comes

the tourist train that travels down the track where I did a handstand

a cool plant we saw

doing ballet for Addison

me as a feda!

Elder Nielson and I found a really neat Catholic Church while on splits

April 21, 2014

Let’s start the week with a spiritual thought - Mosiah 20:14 teaches us that before we get mad we should always look at stuff from the other person's point of view. I've almost finished the book of Mosiah and I've really liked it. We learn a lot about our savior in that book.

So I started off the week with a banana and avocado milkshake. They say it's really good. I didn't think it was that great. But maybe it'd be better with bananas a little bit riper and more sugar.

Anyway, we didn't have too much new stuff happen. Our baptism fell through again, for the third week in a row, this time because bishop asked that we didn't baptize on Easter Sunday. So we'll have the baptismal service next week.

We met a really cool kid named Anderson this week. He does rodeos. (Yeah, we're in the SOUTH and there are RODEOs and stuff). He showed us a bunch of pictures. He started riding broncos when he was 10 and he also does show roping. That was pretty cool. He was pretty interested in our message, but he always travels on Sunday to go to rodeos, so I don't think he'll ever be able to visit the church. But it was still pretty cool. He thought it was cool that I'm Texan (or at least from Texas) because they learn a lot of stuff about Texan rodeo people.

We continued teaching mostly the same people this week, but there all a bit closer to baptism now. It was hard this week since it was Easter, to have people at church. Because here in Brazil, Easter is a huge holiday- It's a four day weekend- so everyone travels and goes to the beach and has huge family gatherings. It's not really the traditional go-to-church-on-Easter culture.

We were invited to an awesome Easter dinner this week where we ate pine seeds- or maybe they're called pine nuts. Anyway, its stuff that comes out of pine cones.

Outside of that, I'm eternally grateful for the Easter season and for our savior Jesus Christ. He died so that we can live again.

I had some cool sight-seeing this week because we walked through some new areas.

Elder Jasperson

April 14, 2014 (Photos)

The sign says:
Be patient in traffic not in the hospital

4 cheese and alphabet noodles
(turns out the alphabet noodles do not taste any better with good sauce!)

the following three pictures are me hanging out at my castle!

taking a break on top of the world

I made this nice wall hanger for my bomba

I just learned avocados grow on trees

avocados with milk and sugar (it was not too bad!)

William (a pro boxer) getting ready for a mission
(I traded ties with him)

April 14, 2014

So I have a new favorite hymn. I haven't stopped singing it all week. Until today, I thought it was a Hymn exclusive to Portuguese, but then I found out that it exists in Portuguese. It's called Scatter Sunshine. In Portuguese it's Luz Espalhai and I think it's awesome.

Anyway, I read a bunch of Mosiah this week and really liked chapters 14 and 15. 14 talks about the atonement, and in 15:11-12, 14 there’s a list of what we need to do to take part of "those who will receive remission of sins"

Also, in Mosiah 18 it says the word "Mormon" a ton of times. I think Mormon really likes his name because he puts a lot of emphasis on the whole "Waters of Mormon" thing (see verse 30, I think)

Well we were preparing a family to be baptized this week and everything was all ready- we'd even filled the font- but it fell through. The extended family of Wellington, Gustavo, and Lianisi started making fun of them for deciding to be baptized and they desisted. Sad. We're hoping to be able to get them ready to be baptized in one of the coming weeks.

As a result of the baptism falling through, Saturday was crazy. We were running around trying to get everything ready and we forgot to send some baptismal clothing to Farroupilha (the elders there needed some). So they had to come and pick them up. But they missed the stop on the bus and ended up on a random highway in the middle of nowhere. So Elder Moreira and I had to find them and stuff. We got everything worked out, but they ended up missing the bus to return to Farroupilha. What a crazy day!

Nelson and his family (those who used to be part of the Jehovah´s Witness church) decided to stop receiving our lessons. We went for a teaching appointment and he answered the door with the book of Mormon in his hand. He wanted to return it. I asked him why and he showed me that they'd written two scriptures inside the cover of the book that "proved our religion false" so I got out my bible right there and explained those scriptures to him. Turns out it wasn't even him, but his wife, who'd decided not to receive us anymore so he asked that we pass by on Sunday to explain stuff to his wife. And explain we did. I'm grateful for the time that I spent studying in the Bible because sometimes people have real doubts and it's good to be able to clarify things. After our lesson on Sunday, as we left, Nelson said "well I already sent y'all off, but now that you're back, be welcome to return"

Lastly, I made a contact in the street with a woman. She rejected the contact. As we were walking down the street, her husband called us over. He'd overheard the contact and asked that we pass by their house to teach them. So we did. His wife was too ashamed to listen and went to a different room, but he sat and listened to the whole lesson. It's cool to see the spirit work in people like that!

Luz espalhai em todo seu caminho!

(Editor's Translation: scatter sunshine, all along your way)

Elder Jasperson

April 7, 2014

This week was fast and a ton of stuff happened. But once again, I don't have time :(

I loved General Conference, especially Dallin H Oaks' talk and David A Bednar's too. One of the Seventies that spoke (Aidukaitis is his last name or something like that) was a mission president here in Brazil. So instead of listening to a translator, they ran a recording of him giving his talk in Portuguese. That was cool. I wonder if that do something like that for Elder Uchtdorf in Germany?

Here is the rest of the story for last week’s headlines!

TWO MISSIONARIES TRAPPED IN A GARAGE WITHOUT LIGHT

So we were returning home one night. And it's always a pain to enter in our apartment building because there are two gates and a door you have to enter and the locks don't work very well so it's a pain to use the keys. And we saw that the garage (that is under the building) was open because someone was leaving. So we decided to enter through the open garage door because we'd be able to skip the annoying gates. Anyway we entered and soon after the garage door shut behind us (it's automatic).

Well we didn't think about how that would affect the whole light situation, but we found out. The garage was really dark, but luckily, I always carry a flashlight in my bag. So we had a flashlight and we're trying to find a door to the stairs when we find a gate. Well it's the same sort of gate that is outside of the building so we felt pretty bummed that we hadn't skipped the gates after all. But then things got worse- this gate needed a different key. And we didn't have it. Well the only way to open up that garage door is with a remote, which we also don't have. So we were trapped.

We spent some time looking at the cars and stuff and Elder Moreira ate the xis that I had bought him just before returning home (because we had a race and he won). We were down there for quite a time and learned some cool things about how various types of shouts and voices echo in different ways. Finally, someone returned home and opened up the garage again. I won't be trying that again anytime soon!

WOMAN ASKS MISSIONARIES TO BLESS HER SON'S MOTORCYCLE

So we taught an elderly woman (who was a reference of a member). The member asked that we give her (the investigator) a blessing. So we did. On the next visit, the woman said that she felt so good after the blessing that she knows it helped her be safe and healthy. And then she asked us to give her son's moto a blessing because she was worried that he'd crash. I think it was a miracle that I didn't laugh after seeing the look on Elder Moreira's face.

Until next week, 

Elder Jasperson

April 7, 2014 (Photos)

This is a persimmon. In Portuguese it's called a caqui. It looks like a slightly orange tomato, but it's really good! I think we're in the persimmon season because these guys are everywhere! So they're becoming a major part of my diet.

This is us on Pday when we bought popcorn and watched "The District" training DVDs and the Joseph Smith film. We covered the windows and tried to capture the whole "cinema" thing.

This is tapioca. Which I always thought was like a sweet fruit thing. But no. It's this white powder (like flour) that you throw in a hot pan. When it heats up, it sticks together and makes a pancake. It tastes like a tortilla. We found some here (nobody eats it in south Brazil, only in the north parts) and decided to try it out.