August 25, 2014

Mosiah 26:21-25 - Christ calls everyone unto Him and His church.

This week we planned a Branch Activity. The leaders didn't have time to plan it, so Elder Hortêncio and I sacrificed a bit of time to plan it. We made missionary name tags for everyone and divided the branch into companionships. Our goal was to visit all of the inactive members and invited them to our sacrament meeting the next day. We wanted to have an attendance of 100 people. Usually we have around 60.

name tags for the branch activity

preparing for the branch activity

The activity went well and everything and we, in the end, managed 94 people in the meeting! There were 100, but 6 had to leave early, before sacrament meeting.

This week, we had the baptism of Lurdes, Eliane, and Jean. They are grandma, mom, and son. They are a really special family and it was fun to see them all together being baptized.

the baptism

Lastly, Álberson, one of my recent converts here gave a talk on Sunday. That was really cool too see how much he's progressed!

Today was the transfer, but I'll be staying here in Rio Pardo with Elder Hortêncio!

Elder Jasperson

our new zone t-shirts!

August 18, 2014

Well this week started on a great foot- we taught Eliane and her family. They will be baptized on Sunday! We taught the restauration with some wood blocks that we found, using them as a sweet object lesson. The family really understood and it was cool! Afterward, Gean, her son, went to teach the neighbor what he learned. He took the pamphlet with him and even taught her how to pray. We found out about this because he, crying, related that he taught the neighbor. He was crying because he realized that he didn't have authority to do that (we'd taught about how many people preached the gospel without authority from God (the Priesthood). That was funny. Their neighbor listened to our next discussion about the Book of Mormon and really liked it. She felt the spirit when a twelve-year-old boy, who isn't even a member, taught her about the restoration of the gospel.

We had another Churrasco this week, this time with Brother Ernesto. He invited his home teaching family and we had a great meat roast! He dressed up Gaúcho for the occasion. But the clothes he's using aren't just for show. There are men who even go to church dressed like that!

One funny story from the week- we were walking down the street one night when a young woman jumped in front of us telling us to stop. So we stopped. And when she calmed down, she said "Marry me!" Well that was sure a shocker! I just kind of stared at her thinking, “What is she thinking?” I looked at my companion for help, but he didn't really do anything but try not to laugh. She asked me to marry her again. And then she explained that she'd seen me walking in a different street and that she'd come running to be able to talk to me and ask me to marry her. Well I didn't want to marry her and so I said, as if she hadn't said anything, "our church is over there. You can visit it on Sunday mornings." Elder Hortêncio and I managed to escape and after walking a few blocks and around the corner, we fell down laughing! That was funny! They say that what goes around comes around, but I hope that saying "no" to her won't affect the outcome one day when I propose to my future wife!

Anyway, we found out this week that we could create our own chimarrão buddies. It's kind of a thing the gaúchos do- put little clay figures on top of their chimarrão. Well we found some plastic figures and we jammed staples into them. They make great companions with our morning cuia!

Lastly, we had the baptism of Carla this week. She is Carlos' sister. Ever since he was baptized, she's been wanting to be baptized. I loaned her my copy of the illustrated version of the Book of Mormon and she read the whole thing in two weeks! She was even asking questions about King Benjamin and stuff! So she learns really quickly and we helped her be baptized! What a great thing :)

Have a wonderful week and remember to pray!

Elder Jasperson

August 11, 2014

Alma 38:6 is a great example of humility. Alma was humble enough to admit that his testimony didn't come from anything that he had done or studied or heard. That his testimony was because of the spirit. I like that. We need to be grateful for having testimonies.

This week we had a mission conference with Elder Leal, an area seventy. He gave us a good training and it was nice to see a lot of the missionaries again. I got to catch up with Elder Moreiera. I heard from the elders in São Chico and was happy to hear that Luis Henrique is firm in the church and even going to seminary!

Anyway, this week started well because we went to play soccer with Alberson, Carlos, Patrick and some of their friends. Even though it was raining, Elder Hortêncio and I walked 40 minutes to their village to play with them. It was really fun, especially because it stopped raining and the sky opened up! After a lot of soccer, I taught them to play a bit of Football which turned out pretty funny too.

So Monday night, after teaching, we were running home because we were a bit late. And Elder Hortêncio's nametag fell off. We didn't notice until we were arriving at our apartment. Well, we'd run about 4 km and so it was going to be pretty hard to find his nametag. But we called and got permission and then set out walking back the distance that we had run. And just when we were about to give up, there it was on the ground! It was funny because I was saying "elder, we should go home" and he was saying "let's go back" and then we saw something gleaming on the ground. What a blessing!

We also had a good churrasco this week

Elder Jasperson

August 4, 2014

Alma 37:38-46 has a great message. I really like this analogy that Alma makes. We often stop doing the little things just because they are so easy that it seems like we're fine without them. But we shouldn't stop enduring to the end just because it's easy. We can't be negligent. We have to continue doing the easy stuff so that the hard stuff is easy

Anyway, this week passed pretty quickly. But it ended well with the baptism of Cassiano. He's Alberson's Cousin. We'd passed by at Alberson's and we asked him if he knew anybody else that he'd like to have at church with him, and he pointed us to his cousin. Cassiano is a lot like Alberson. He's more serious and he likes to learn. He reads everything that we give him!

On Wednesday, we did a division with Carlos and Alberson. They are only members for 1 month, but they already are happy to be able to help in the wonderful work of the Lord. I went with Alberson to one side of the city and Elder Hortêncio went with Carlos to the other. We had a great day and lots of success. At the end of the day, Alberson kept saying "just one more visit, just one more!"

We were searching for the house of one of our street contacts one night when we found a house full of young men. They were all in their 20s and we thought it was pretty sketch. They invited us to enter and so we did, but we had our guard up. Anyway, turns out that they were a music group called Nova Era. They were recording a new rap that night. I told them that I'd never heard Rap in Portuguese so they did a bit for us. Then I attempted rapping in English, which was kind of cool, but I didn't exactly have Jason there to give me a beat. (Wish you were here dude). Anyway it was cool and we marked a different day to teach one of the guys there who had interest.

On Sunday, we gave a training to the Branch about how to be good member missionaries. We talked about how the purpose of a member missionary isn't to teach, but just to invite. Morôni 7:13 teaches us that we can be inspired to make invites. Anyway, we gave some ideas to everyone and made a goal for everyone to receive a "no." Why? Because lots of time we feel unsuccessful and desist when we receive "no"s. But we told them that the success of the missionary isn't when he receives a "yes." It's when he invites. So everyone has to go out and try to get a "no." Because that's easy. And then when you get a "yes" you'll be super happy! Anyway, in our rush to put together a training and stuff, we forgot to fill up the baptismal font. So we got to the baptismal meeting and everyone was like "Wait... the font is empty!"

A lot of the members wanted to go home and just do the baptism on a different day, because it takes lots of time to fill up the font (about 4 hours because of bad water pressure), but I asked them to stay and I promised everyone that if we all worked together we'd fill up the font in 15 minutes. So we made lines of buckets and water pitchers and even a blender to pass water from the kitchen and the bathrooms to the font. We got a hose too, and with everyone working together, (even Cassiano was helping, already in the baptismal suit) we managed to fill the font in 15 minutes! And then Cassiano was baptized after a beautiful service. I played the organ! (Who knew that I could do that?!)

Have a great week!

Elder Jasperson