January 26, 2015

Mateus 11: 6 Jesus testified of himself, referring to the physical proof. But even seeing him, they didn't believe. In our days, we don't have the privilege of physical proof. But we have something that works just as well, if we have faith- spiritual proof. We can receive spiritual confirmation for spiritual things. What a blessing!

Well this week was pretty uneventful- except a few cool things. We're still in the same pattern of rain/sun, and I guess I'm getting accustomed to it. If everything follows the cycle, we'll have a crazy storm tomorrow.

We went to the temple this week, on Tuesday. That was nice. But the rain caught us when we were coming home and we got all soaked. It was worse because we'd stopped by the mission office in Porto Alegre to pick up the materials... So we had to use our bodies as umbrellas!

So first off- we found Pâmela and Poliana this week. They are two sisters who really liked our message and we think they have good potential. Anyway, we've been teaching Maria Helena for a while, and on the patch where she lives there are 3 houses. We'd never bothered to talk with the other residents, cause we didn't want to bug them, but on Wednesday when we went to talk with Maria Helena, she wasn't there. Pâmela and her sister were sitting in front of their house, so we decided to talk to them. They told us that they couldn't hear us then, but that on Saturday we could pass by. So we decided that they didn't have much potential, and we didn't even mark to pass by on Saturday. But Saturday night, it turned out that we had some spare time and we remembered them. So we went over, and it turned out that they were waiting for us! How cool is that!

I went with Elder do Nascimento (on division) to the city of Sapiranga to do some baptismal interviews. Well, the sisters there told us to get off the bus at the police station in Sapiranga. So we asked the driver to let us know when we were close to the police station. Well, we were having a nice journey (aka sleeping) when he called us to get off. So we hurried off the bus and found ourselves in the middle of nowhere! He'd let us off at the police outpost in the city of Campo Bom! Well, without anything else to do, we set off walking. And we walked and walked along the highway (we didn't actually know where we were at this point) and after about 15 minutes we saw one of those cool statue things that said "Sapiranga" (marking the city limit). About 10 minutes afterwards, we got to another sign that said "welcome to Sapiranga." And after walking for a bunch more, we finally got to the city! On the ride back to Novo Hamburgo, we made sure to get off at the right stop!

Valmor is progressing really well! We are making goals with him to stop smoking and he's doing well. On Saturday, when we went to visit him, he had some family members over and everyone was smoking. And guess what he was doing- reading the Gospel Principles book we gave him, studying Sunday's class! YES! What a great guy :)

Sunday afternoon, we went to teach Israel, who was a member reference. At his house, we found his nephew who is a pretty fanatic believer in his church, "The Church of God! Well the lesson was pretty bad because he kept interrupting, so we decided to leave and come back a different day. We asked if we could pray to leave, and Israel's nephew asked if he could pray. We said he could do the prayer, so he stood up and started the whole prayer thing- swaying, calling the lord loudly... pretty funny. Israel asked us to come back next week because he wants to change a lot. He uses lots of drugs and is having a hard time.

Well that was my week! Love Y'all

Elder Jasperson

January 19, 2015

This week I the finished Book of Mormon. It is always good to finish it because it helps me remember when I first prayed to know if it was true and received an answer. Since then I have continued in prayer, asking and receiving answers that it is true. The Book of Mormon is a testament that our church is true and that our faith is true. I love it.

We've been teaching a young woman called Katiele. She received a response to her prayer this week and bore her testimony to us (and to her grandma who is also receiving our lessons) that she knows that our church is true. That was pretty cool. Sadly, her Grandma frequents a different church, and doesn't really want to change, leaving Katiele all alone. She wasn't able to visit church this week, but we're hoping that she can have the confidence to take the first few steps alone. I know that she will never repent for being her family's pioneer.

Along with her, we're currently blessed with several progressing investigators. Valmor, who even came to church this week is a man who loves to read. He's been reading the Book of Mormon a lot and believes that it is true. He smokes, but is stopping and feels the peace of the scriptures helping him.

Maria Helena is also reading a lot! Her problem is that her husband doesn't support her progress in the gospel. Meeting people like her show me how important it is that we choose our spouse well- sadly, many people are blocked from progressing eternally because of their spouse.

This week we received a huge blessing- a recent convert in Campo Bom (a city close by) gave a bus passage card with 500 royals to the missionaries there. But the card only works on Novo Hamburgo busses, so they gave us the card. So that means the bus is basically free now! We still have to walk a lot because the bus doesn't go everywhere, but in just this week, this little blessing has saved us about 30 royals each!

On Friday, we put up a ward activity, which we called the Night of Laughter. The turn-out wasn't as high as we wanted, but the reason we did the activity is because we're trying to animate the members here. We'll continue with Friday night activities until we do that! We did a bunch of fun jokes and games and it was pretty fun. Ângela and her family went and liked it so much that they decided to come to church on Sunday!

Ângela has 11 kids, but only 5 live with her now. We are teaching the family and preparing her sons for baptism next week. Ângela and her daughter are preparing to be baptized two weeks from now. They love the gospel. We found them because her youngest son (Lucas, age 11) was biking in the street and called us to go to his house. A week later, we went!

This week it rained about every day. The worst day was Wednesday. We think that the storm was brought up by the enemy to keep us from contacting a woman named Nicamara. We've been trying to contact her for the past two weeks and we never find her. Anyway, we'd planned to go there that day. We arrived in her street, and a huge storm blew up out of nowhere- it even hailed! We had to seek cover under a building. When it stopped being dangerous to go out, we went to search her house again. But before we'd gone 50 feet, another huge tempest blew in! Well we waited that one out too, and then went to find her house. We searched the whole road and couldn't find her house number. We walked up and down about 4 times, and didn't find it. So we decided to leave. Leaving, we realized that we'd been drawn into the wrong road by the storm. So we went to the correct road and searched out her house, and guess what- she had left just before we got there. Oh well, maybe we'll finally find her this week!

Love Y'all!

Elder Jasperson

January 12, 2015

The highlights of my week were: passing by the airport, a day at 41°C, a huge rainstorm, and a few naps with our fan. We figured out that sleeping with a fan like that is really comfortable!

the heat 41°C

the rain

sleeping with the fan!

We ended up at the airport when we were trying to get to the train station after a meeting in Porto Alegre. The bus took us to the airport and we stopped. We ended up getting a bit lost inside the airport (oops) and finally managed to find the train portal that is linked with it. In just about 5 months I'll be there again!

I'm not sure how much 41° is in Fahrenheit, but believe me, it's got to be a lot because that was a hot day. (Editor’s Note: 41° C = 105.8° F) And then came the rain. The storm blew in really, really fast. We were teaching this lady, sitting in front of her house, when the wind picked up and these big black clouds rolled in. The sky turned black in about a minute. So she got all scared, grabbed her chair, and ran into her house, shutting the door and leaving us alone in her front yard. So we tried to find a bit of shelter and got soaked. The next day it was still raining so at least we had our raincoats with us to face the storm. The best part about the rain is that it's not hot when it's raining. The worst part about the rain is that nobody wants to let us in when we're wet.

I did a division in the Burro "Liberdade" (liberty) of Novo Hamburgo with Elder Varela. He's from Cabo Verde (I think it is Cape Verde in English) in Africa. That was pretty cool. He doesn't have much time on the mission yet so it was fun to work with someone newish :) We had a bunch of success and actually didn't get too wet because he was smart enough to carry an umbrella! We found a really good family while knocking on doors. I felt like knocking on a house and this great guy responded. He let us in and told us he really wants to get to know the church! Elder Varela told me that they'd passed that house every day and never thought to knock on it. That's because the spirit knows the right time for everyone.

When we asked the man to pray with us, he asked us what he'd have to do to pray. I (joking around) told him that to pray, we have to raise our hands above our head, (raising my hands above my head) and lift one foot off the ground (lifting my foot off the ground which was pretty funny because we were sitting). He believed it for about a second and then we all busted out laughing! It was a really good ice breaker. Then we got serious again and made a real prayer and taught a great lesson. He went to church this Sunday with his wife and son. J

So way back in the first week of June, I wrote about finding a woman called Rosinha. It was a miracle when we found her, and it was the result of us being diligent. Anyway, I found out this week that she was sealed in the Temple to her husband last month! That made me really happy! J

Here's to another great week!

Elder Jasperson

January 5, 2015 (New Year's Party Photos)

Our cool New Year's party. We put up balloons, a banner, had noise-makers, roasted some ribs and made rice... we even bought a sparking juice without alcohol. Well, the thing was, to keep the juice cold, we put it in the freezer, and it ended up freezing solid - so it was pretty hard to get that thing to open!

Ha ha

January 5, 2015

Mormon 8:19 - if you judge quickly, you will be quickly judged.

Well the transfer didn't take me far - I'm in Novo Hamburgo. I've passed through this city before. It's a city pretty similar to Sapucaia and São Leopoldo, but a lot hotter. Our house is small and luckily it's only me and my companion, Elder dos Anjos, who live there, cause there's not much room for anyone else.

We got to the area on the 31st, and since we're opening the area, we didn't have a place to go for New Years. So we bought some meat and made a New-Years roast! We did a whole party and it turned out pretty fun. We even managed to find some noise makers in a closet in the chapel and we borrowed them!

That's about the only cool thing that happened this week. We cleaned our house a ton - it was really dirty and it's completely infested with termites. Every morning we wake up we have to sweep up all the eaten wood and dead termites. It is also really hot inside our house because it's made out of concrete and it isn't in the shade. But we don't stay in the house much anyway.

Well one funny thing is that our downstairs neighbor has a lot of stress. And maybe anger-management problems. Because her life consists of banging on her ceiling (our floor). The owner had told us that our neighbor complained a lot about noise. So we put pads under the chairs and we walk on tip-toes. But just let a coin fall on the ground and she starts banging on the ceiling. The banging doesn't really bother us that much, but we hope she stops for her sake cause she's going to get blisters from the broom she uses to bang the ceiling and that can't be good for someone of her age. (Ha ha.)

On Saturday, after our study, we went to try to talk to her. During study, we'd made some sounds - I stumbled getting into my chair, Elder dos Anjos dropped his pencil, I accidently kicked my desk, etc... And she'd got so annoyed that she started dragging a metal pole along the ceiling. We wanted to tell her that we were trying to be quiet, but to be completely silent would be impossible. Anyway, I guess she is shy or maybe ashamed to face us because she wouldn't answer her door. And on Sunday, she didn't bang on the ceiling that much. But that didn't last long cause when we knelt down this morning to pray she starting banging again...

Elder Jasperson

I'm in the same zone as Elder Hortêncio now, and he's training a new elder :)

December 29, 2014 (Photos)

eating a pastel

some cool graffiti

a fun church we found
Jesus is the Lord. He is the Lord.

our Christmas meat!

leaning tree next to the church in Montenegro

Ishael and me

the family of Vanessa and Leandro

cute children

December 22, 2014 (Photos)

December 29, 2014

I'm being transferred again! Yay! I'm gonna miss Sapucaia, but I'm pretty much used to getting transferred now.

This week, well, it was Christmas, so I called the family. That was fun. For Christmas, we had 4 churrascos. Christmas Eve, at night, and two on christmas day. And one on the next day. Everyone wanted to feed us so we marked two lunches for Christmas. And we got crazy stuffed.

The rest of the week was pretty normal. We worked like normal but lots of people are traveling and stuff, so it's hard to mark return visits.

We had a guy try to teach us this week that Paul came to Brazil before dying in Italy. That was funny. I drew him a world map in my planner (he said that he'd never seen one). The poor guy just didn't really understand his church's doctrine.

I'm gonna get my suitcases ready for the transfer, but I'll tell y'all all about it next week!

Merry Christmas!
Elder Jasperson