July 28, 2014

Sorry, this week is without time.

I'm 20! Along with that, a bunch of other things changed this week- the temperature, for example, it's freezing!

Elder Jasperson

baptism from last week (Adriana and Marlise)

my birthday party- rice, macaroni and cheese and chimarrão :)

celebrating my birthday with Elder H

July 21, 2014

Alma 30, especially vs 19-21 teach us that we need to expel bad things from among us. This chapter shows us how the Nephites decided to be faithful by not letting temptation enter among them. We should do the same thing with our lives. The minute that a tempting urge enters, we need to chase it out!

This week was really different and fun for me. It started with the leaving of elder R. Santos. I helped him pack his bags and now he's in his house! That same day that I went with him to Porto Alegre, I picked up a new missionary to train. Elder Hortêncio is from Paraíba (Brazil). His city is pretty cool (beach and stuff) way up on the north part of the country. So he's dying from the cold.

Anyway, we had a nice meeting with all of the new missionaries that came in (11 sisters and 5 elders) and then everyone went to the bus station to go to their new areas. Well the other 8 elders easily managed to get to the bus station with their suitcases and caught their busses. Elder Hortêncio and I were doing great too, until we realized that there were 22 sister missionaries behind us struggling with their suitcases. So we passed our afternoon walking back and forth helping the sisters with the suitcases. Not that they wouldn't have managed on their own, but it was the right thing to do. Anyway, we finally managed to get a bit of rest on our 2 hour ride to Rio Pardo and then we had dinner with Brother Wilson. (Which I had arranged the day before, knowing that we'd be hungry)

I was starving and ate about 8 servings of rice and beans. Elder Hortêncio, however, doesn't eat very much. Brother Wilson kept telling him to eat more, but he didn't even manage to eat one serving! That was funny. I think he was amazed by how much I eat!

Along the lines of food, I found out this week that rice and maple aren't that bad together. We had some leftover rice, and there wasn't anything else in our house to eat with the rice. So I poured some maple syrup on top and it was pretty good. Then to help the flavor a bit, I put chocolate chips on top :)

rice, maple syrup, and chocolate chips!

This week we were blessed with the baptism of Adriana and Marlise. Adriana is Marlise's mother. They are relatives of the Branch President. Marlise is a great convert. She wants to serve a mission because she really felt a change when she prayed to know if the Book of Mormon is true. Her mom is happy to be baptized as well. Along with a wonderful baptism, we had some great meetings on Sunday! We even managed to have 10 investigators at church! That was a miracle! But the branch working together made it happen!

One of the people who came to church was Gerlei. He came with his girlfriend, Lilian on his moto. They were really interested in the classes and he really paid attention in sacrament meeting. I noticed at one point that Lilian was trying to hold his hand, but he was paying so much attention to the words of the speaker that he didn't even notice! That was pretty funny! Anyway, I'm glad that the spirit works like that inside of people. We'd had a really super powerful lesson with them this week. After the lesson, Elder Hortêncio's eyes were about to fly out of the sockets. I said "what's the problem? Did you forget that the church is true?" I was joking, of course, but he sure didn't know what hit him! Being a missionary is awesome!

Anyway, it was a great week. Today, we went out exploring a little bit. We found the Rio (river) of Rio Pardo. By the side, we found this cool lighthouse thing and since we didn't see any “No Trespassing” signs, decided to check out the view. It was pretty cool. But the most fun part was when we found a random couch by the riverbank. We had some fun taking pictures there. I almost fell into the water when we were being "fishers of men." Then Elder Hortêncio would've been a real fisherman! It's a good thing that he's about as crazy as I am because it means we can have fun in the simple things!

Elder H on the light house stairs

me enjoying the view from the light house

an old couch by the river

elder H fishing for me

me fishing for elder H

Have a great week and pioneer day and all that good stuff :)

Elder Jasperson

here is how my shoes are holding out
... I polished them after the picture so they look better now!

July 14, 2014

I read the stories of the missions of Ammon and his brothers this week (Alma 17 - 27). And I stopped and thought a bit about Alma 20:29. Ammon goes to rescue his brothers. Their missions, until that point, had been really hard- they were rejected and thrown into prison. They probably asked Ammon how his mission had been, and maybe were surprised to hear that he'd already baptized thousands. This made me think about how all of us have different missions. Sometimes we're in a prison of problems and someone else is baptizing thousands (or, in other words, having lots of success). But, like Ammon's brothers, we don't need to complain that they're succeeding when we're not. But we should rejoice in their happiness and continue to search for ours.

Anyway, this week started off with a Brazil game in the World Cup, so Elder R. Santos and had to stay at home. So I taught him to make cookies and we invented some checker games. He's going home tomorrow because he's finished his two years of service. So it was good to have a bit of fun. 

haircut time

cookies with Elder R. Santos

inventing different versions of checkers

Anyway, I went to wash my clothes that day and the machine wasn't filling up with water! Instead of trying to fix the problem, I decided to fill up the machine myself. So, since we don't have a pitcher or anything, I grabbed our blender and started filling it up at the sink and dumping it in the washer. After wasting around 5 minutes, I finally decided that it was going to take forever and that maybe it'd be better to try to fix the machine. Well I found that the hose was bent and water couldn't pass. So in about 3 seconds I fixed the problem. Once again, I am reminded of a talk by Elder Uchtdorf when he told us we need to focus on the big picture. Sometimes we get caught up trying to fix a problem with our own actions when the problem can fix itself if we look around.

So on the 10th, I had my one year birthday on the mission. We didn't have any flour to make cake, so I settled with a happy birthday chimarrão! We sang the birthday song and I blew out the candle. But blowing on the chimarrão made it go flying! (remember, it's like chopped up grass) So we had to fix up the quia before we could enjoy it.

my happy birthday chimarrão

my happy birthday chimarrão

This week, Patrick was baptized. He's the cousin of Alberson and Carlos, who were baptized in past weeks. They've been visiting him with us and he accepted to be baptized too. The other day, Alberson's mom asked us to help her be baptized. Yay! The gospel is blessing their family! Elder R Santos and I donated a shirt and tie for both Carlos and Alberson and it was fun to have everyone in shirt and tie on Sunday.

Well, that was my week, it was a great one! Elder R. Santos will go to Porto Alegre tomorrow, him to catch his plane to São Paulo, and me to pick up my new greenie :) I'm excited for another great transfer!

Elder Jasperson

I made this new wall decoration. Hung one way, it says Brasil...turn it upside down, it says Texas!

July 7, 2014

This week passed by really fast. Elder R. Santos is in his last transfer, and so he'll return to São Paulo on the 15th. Which is making everything pass by really fast. But this week had some highlights-

First off, we made potato soup. Elder R. Santos thought that I was crazy for putting milk into soup, but in the end, he liked it too. We bought a bunch of potatoes and we've been eating soup all week!

We had some new adventures this week because we found some shortcuts marked on an old map in our house. So we kept our eyes peeled because these trails connected some of the roads that we walk a lot. And then we started to find them. I sent some of the cool things that we saw.

o novo atalho :)
"the new shortcut"

This week we were privileged with the baptism of Taís and Graziele. Taís is 10 and Graziele is 13. Their mom is called Lisiani. She wants to be baptized, but she'll have to get married first. And her husband doesn't want to do that. Anyway, Taís is really smart and witty. Graziele is shy, but pretty funny. They were really excited to be baptized. The rest of their family liked the baptism a lot and said they'll start coming to church too.

I had a great lesson on Saturday with a young woman we're teaching. She'd already received a response to her prayer, but had lots of doubts. But after praying about the Book of Mormon, she told us that she's certain. We marked baptismal dates with her and her mom for the 19th! It was a great lesson. She used to go to the Universal Church (one of the popular churches here) but she decided that she wants to follow the Church of Jesus Christ

This morning we had a cool experience. We taught class in a high school. We were asked to present our religion to a philosophy class. And so we did. They had lots of cool questions and it was fun to be in a school environment again.

Anyway, we've got a soccer game today, so I've got only a little time. Happy 4th of July! This week I'll make one year in Brazil!

Elder J

Pictures for the Week

minha nova bola. Tô praticando futebol quase todo dia para que possa jogar melhor. Também é um jeito divertido de fazer exercícios :)  

[Google Translate edited by Dad of the above] -- my new ball. I'm practicing football almost every day so I can play better. It is also a fun way to exercise :)

us in the rain

June 30, 2014

So last week, if you recall, I started off the week with a contact with a Jehovah's Witness. Well. Believe it or not, this week, my first contact was with... two Jehovah's Witnesses. Oops. But maybe this will be like my good luck charm because this week was great too :)

So the week started for me with a trip to the temple. My companion, Elder R. Santos is going home on the 15th, we passed through the temple one more time. Which was nice. I invested in the Book of Mormon Stories children’s book thing (that I grew up reading) which I've been loaning to some recent converts so that they can get to know the stories of the Book of Mormon quicker (because nobody wants to be the guy who has to ask "who is Hagoth anyway?")

The week got even better when I received a box from home, which to my delight had not only Reeses candy, but also duct tape and hot chocolate mix! What a steal!

 And then the week ended with wonderful baptism ceremony when Brother Feijão (which means "bean", it's his nickname. If you don't know why, look at the picture) baptized Carlos. Carlos is Alberson's Cousin. He came to church with Alberson and then asked to receive our visits.

Here's a few fun bits of the week that helped it be even greater:

I made Orange Muffins. Except we don't have a muffin tin and so it was more like bread. And the orange was really sour so it was more like a lemon. And then the bread was sour so I put cinnamon sugar on top. So we ended up with a lemon-cake-bread. That was then enjoyed in a variety of ways, such as grilled and soaked topped with margarine. I love missionary food.

We were walking in the mud one day from one village to another and a taxi stopped and asked if we wanted a ride. Well, we sure wanted a ride but we sure didn't want to pay for a taxi. So we just kind of stared at the guy. And then he said "do you know what a ´ride´ is? It's free." So we hopped in and he saved us a 40 minute walk.

At a recent convert's house, I saw the daughters playing cat's cradle. I remembered that I'd played it with my mom (like 12 years ago). Somehow I still remembered a few moves! That was fun. They were pretty surprised that this Texan knew how to do cat's cradle!

Last Saturday, we had two lunches. One Sister arranged with Elder and the other one arranged with me. Well when we found out, we decided that we'd eat with one and cancel with the other. So we called the first sister to confirm our lunch. But we didn't manage to get ahold of the second. So we called the first one again and asked her if we could just eat lunch an hour early. She complied. So we ate at her house then went to the other's house to eat lunch too! Believe me, this is one of the best things that has ever happened to me!

On Thursday, we lunched with part member couple. After lunch, the husband went and got an accordion. And he played some crazy cool songs for us. And then he let me play it. I managed to squeak out some wonderful shrieks. But I think the subsequent headache was worth it because at least I can say that I got to play an accordion!

Have an awesome 4th of July!

Elder Jasperson