May 26, 2014

This week it kept getting colder, even though they say we haven't even started winter yet, I'm pretty ready for it to be spring! All the leaves have fallen from the trees (which is something that only happens here in this part of Brazil)

outside our apartment

inside our apartment
because we do not have insulated walls
the inside is usually about the same temperature as outside!

Alma Chapter 1 teaches a lot about how the people of the church were firm in the difficulties of people persecuting them. But look at 1:25. They were blessed for suffering long. Even though people will mock us, we can be blessed for perseverance.

We visited Nitiele this week and she showed us the awesome garden that they have behind their house. They have pigs and chickens, and lots of orange and lemon trees. Nitiele ate a lemon whole, like an orange! I tried and it was crazy sour! But then I surprised her and Elder Baldassarini because I ate one of the red peppers. It was pretty spicy and I loved it and they all thought I was crazy! (Because spice isn't used here, I don't even know why she had the peppers in her garden) Nitiele gave me some since she said they rarely use them.

peppers from Nitiele's garden

I invented a new recipe this week. We're a bit short on money (like always) because of having to pay for bus tickets and stuff, so I couldn't buy milk or eggs. I combined what we had in the house and came up with poorcakes! They actually turned out okay, but they all burned because they're really hard to cook-

1/2 cup flour

1/4 cup cornmeal

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 tbs baking powder

dash salt

4 Tbs margarine (slightly melted)

Mix it all together, add 1/4 cup water, mix again, and fry it like pancakes!

I don't recommend it unless you're just curious. I'm grateful that my mom taught me how to cook!

So we had a fiasco trying to heat up the water in the baptismal font this week. It was icy so we tried to use some resistances from some old machines we found to heat it up, but the power in the chapel kept cutting out. We also found a machine to filter the water, but it was kind of broken. Luckily, with the help of some plastic bags, we managed to fix it up a bit. In the end, the baptisms were in slightly less than icy water. We missionaries loaned our coats to those who were baptized so they wouldn't be so cold. It was a pretty good Sunday.

our baptismal font

make shift heaters for the font water

Enjoy summer and the whole school's out thing!

Elder Jasperson

May 19, 2014

This week was great and awesome! I learned in the scriptures about how to receive divine help.

Mosiah 29:20 (how to be helped by the Lord)

Also, I learned a bit about being a member missionary. We learn from the sons of Mosiah's example. They all served missions in their home lands (in other words were member missionaries) before they served missions in other lands (full-time mission). One thing that I would change is I would have done more missionary work before I left on the mission. (See Mosiah 27:32-37; 28:1-2)

It rained a lot this week. Since we're on top of the mountains, the clouds like to hang out in our city. That's why we have such heavy fogs. And it's getting pretty cold too! I bought a new sweater and that helped out! It's nice and thick and it has cool stripes, which probably don't add to the warmth but I like them anyway.

One night it started raining. We were without umbrellas or anything, and we didn’t want to wet our sweaters, so we took them off and walked around in our white shirts in the freezing rain. It started to rain really, really hard, so we decided to take shelter in a grocery store. The lady there felt bad for us and loaned us her umbrella and gave us some rolls :) There are always wonderful people who helps us out :)

Also, I continued teaching English to Vanda. She's taken a liking to the Book of Mormon and she's read all the way through Mosiah. That's pretty good for two weeks! She has lots of specific questions about the book and stuff, and it's pretty cool because she's smart and understands what she's reading. She just faults a testimony that the book is true. But I am confident that anyone who reads the entire book of Mormon will gain a testimony that it really is a true book.

I did something else new this week- I did that father's blessing thing when you give a child a name and blessing in sacrament meeting. Because we need lots of member records, we invite all of our recent converts to let us present their children before the congregation and create a record for them. So this week we presented Nitiele's children (they're with her in the picture I sent of her baptism) I named and blessed her son, Kaiqué. I'm getting lots of new opportunities to serve in this branch!

Lastly, we had the baptism of Milena this week. She's the second child of 6. The rest of her family, after the service, also expressed desire to be baptized, so we'll focus on helping them prepare this week!

Smile and be happy!

Elder Jasperson

May 12, 2014 (More Photos)

Nitiele's baptism

Nitiele's baptism

in Tainhas in front of some cows

the weather here is wonderful

I can barely see Elder Baldassarini
on the other side of the street

enjoying the good weather with my comp

drinking the giant Chimarrão

drinking the giant Chimarrão

May 12, 2015

So I started this week well with a solid buy. I've been saving money for months to buy ice cream. Because it's expensive. And so now that I finally had enough money to buy it, I didn't think twice about how it's winter now and how cold it is outside. And I bought that ice cream. And enjoyed it. I'm still enjoying it, seeing that it's so cold that I can only manage a few spoonsful every day.

So yeah, it's cold here.

I liked a verse that I came across this week, which made me think a little about my actions -

Mosiah 27:9. Compare it with Haggai 2:12-13. I think I've already commented on those verses in Haggai. But the point is that sometimes we bring other people to sin. My actions will affect others.

I started off the week with a minor surgery. But this time I was the surgeon. I cut open a fat tie and gave him a liposuction. And now he's a nice regular tie :) I have to thank my mom for all the great things she taught me about sewing. And my dad for teaching me how to just go ahead and do stuff sometimes even if I'm not certain how to do it.

Now I've also repaired Elder Duate's pants and Elder Sánchez's bag. I think I've taken on the role of house seamstress.

So speaking of just doing stuff without really knowing what you're doing, I had an interesting run in with a milk shortage in our house. So I substituted some stuff around like water and butter and ice cream, and ended up with some pretty solid pancakes. For which I've also become famous. Since then I've been asked to make a lot more food. I think I've taken on the role of house cook.

And along the lines of food, we're entering the season of Pinhão, which is pine nut, or something like that. I had already tried it out in Bento, but here in São Francisco de Paula it's a food staple. Because it just falls off the trees, you don't even have to buy it (but they sell it pre-shelled and pre-cooked and even pre-ground if you want it). You can just go outside and pick it up. There are some big pines behind the chapel (it’s a special type of pine that yields pinhão) and so we always have cooked pinhão here. But we ate it with meat two times this week. And it was good. Basically, the people just use pine nuts in the place of rice. I'm a fan.

One of the trees from which we collect pine nuts

We were asked to do a service project this week. We put in wood ceiling in a house (like the ceiling that would be the floor of an attic). Unfortunately, nobody had a camera, but it was pretty sweet. I did a bunch of awesome spider-man moves on the upper beams of the house and the other guys put nails in the boards below. I got super sore. The space got really cramped because the house had a pointed roof and we started in the middle. So when we got to the sides, there was barely any room for me!

We ran around like crazy this week to find some new people and we set up the baptism of Kelly and Lucimar. But sadly, they didn't show up on Sunday for church (and the baptismal service). So that was a major bummer. But Sunday was still good because I got to call home for Mother's Day :)

Until next week!

Elder Jasperson

May 12, 2015 -- Tie Surgery (Photos)

I have this tie that was too wide. But I really like this the color and patterns on this particular tie. So, I did what any logical missionary would do.......I cut it open and rebuilt it!

reducing side one

marking side two for reduction

putting it back together

pressing the tie into its new form

left over tie pieces

Just like new!

May 5, 2014

So the computer here isn't working with my camera so sadly I won't be able to send y'all the pictures from this week.

But my new companion is named Elder Baldassarini. Ignore the unfortunate name. I laughed when I saw his name on the transfer page because they cut off the end part since there wasn't room... He's from São Paulo and is pretty cool, actually. He, before being a member of this church, frequented some others and he talks and teaches a lot like a preacher. Which is pretty cool.

We ended up in São Chico, which is what they call the tiny city of São Francisco de Paula. Elder Baldassarini and I also take care of an even smaller city called Tainhas. Tainhas has about 500 inhabitants and São Chico has like 15 thousand. [Editor's Note: Tainhas is about 35 km from São Francisco de Paula.] The Branch here is really new - it was opened up in December. So everyone in the branch is a recent convert. That's pretty cool, actually, and the work is really exploding here.

We left Bento really early in the morning, André helped us out with a car ride to the bus station. His car is normal sized, but it was pretty crazy getting 4 missionaries, 7 suitcases, three backpacks, and a guitar into it! But everything worked out all right. We got to Porto Alegre and picked up the transfer sheets to see where we'd be going. And I wasn't on it. I asked around and it turned out that I'd be opening up a new area with Elder B and they forgot to put it down. We rode a really, really old bus for 5 hours, and ended up in São Chico! It felt like being in a blender, being on that bus!

So this week lots of new stuff happened. For example, I gave the lesson the Relief Society. I never thought I would ever do that! But here the missionaries give almost all the classes- Elder Duarte (in the other companionship) is the ward secretary, his companion taught the Elders Quorum and Elder B taught the Sunday School class (everyone takes the Gospel Principles class because they're all recent converts)

The week ended up great with us baptizing Nitiele in a really pretty lake. The best thing about São Chico is that it's got some great scenery.

I'll send pictures next week!

D&C 88:14-20 - there really is life after death. It's possible because of Christ.

Love from the south! It's starting to get pretty cold here, I'm using my sweater about every day!

Elder Jasperson