minha história Missionária: March 3, 2015

Doctrine and Covenants 98:2 - the Lord promised that he will always, always answer our prayers :)

This week flew by! It all started on Monday with Churrasco (BBQ) at Flávio's house.

our churrasco last monday

Tuesday we went out in search of new investigators and we had little success. It was a long day.

Then, on Wednesday, I went to Porto Alegre to work. I was on division with Elder Burgos and we worked in the "Elizabeth" area, where I served in Nov 2013 - Feb 2014. I had some cool experiences there, when I met up with Thiago, Gabriel, and Diego, three of the boys I taught and baptized last year. Wednesday night, after tracting all day (and a lot of success!) we passed by the chapel to get my bag of clothes and stuff (since I stayed the night there) and seminary was going on. Thiago was there and he saw & recognized me before I could remember who he was! He's grown a bunch and his hair is longer (see the picture). Luckily, I had some ties with me in my bag and I gave him one.

Me and Thiago and the tie I gave him

On Thursday, I was still in Porto Alegre (I stayed there two days on division) and while in the street that afternoon, two boys came running over- Diego and Gabriel! They both are still going to church too and were really excited to see me! They kept asking if Elder Soares was back too (my companion when I taught them). The rest of the division was good too. Thursday, around dinner time, a man was killed in the Burro we were in, São Borja. Everyone got scared and hid in their houses so there wasn't much for us to do there. We saw the guy, lying in the gravel on the side of the road as we were walking to a different Burro. Thursday night, the Missionaries there give a Piano class, so I participated (and taught) with Elder Burgos.

Since I was in Porto Alegre, I stopped by in the mission office to talk with President Wright, pick up materials, and stuff, and I ended up fixing-up some of the computers there. Sister Wright called me over later to help her with her computer. Ha-ha maybe it was a bad idea to tell them that I know computers!

Friday morning, I returned to Novo Hamburgo with Elder dos Anjos, but not to our Burro of Canudos. As soon as we arrived in the train station, I went on division with Elder J. Silva in Campo Bom. He's Elder Hortêncio's companion. (I trained Elder Hortêncio in Rio Pardo and now he's training Elder J. Silva). Elder J. Silva has 3 weeks on the mission. Our division also went well, but we got really, really soaked that afternoon. We stopped under a bus stop to escape the rain a bit and a woman passing on a bike also stopped. So we taught her while it rained and invited her to the church and to be baptized and she accepted! So we took down her address. She lives with her son so now the missionaries have a family to teach! Elder J. Silva is new so he still has all that "Greenie energy" and he walks so fast he's almost running in the road! I could feel my 'age' a bit trying to keep up with him! Ha-ha it was first time on the mission that somebody had more energy than me!

Elder J.Silva and I on the bus to Novo Hamburgo

I finally got back to good old Jardim Alcântara on Saturday morning. Since I'd been on division for three days, I didn't have any clean clothes. I actually had run out of clean shirts on the division and I had to put on a dirty one that morning. I washed a shirt to use for that day, but I didn't have any clean socks except for my pair of white socks that I use with my tennis shoes to do service. So I had to use the so-called "old man style" of white socks with black shoes! How embarrassing! (Don't worry, I have clean clothes now)

Rocking the old guy style

Sunday was a decent day, but sadly, none of our investigators came to church. That was annoying. We even left church to go and pick them up in their houses, but nobody woke up (and some weren't even home 'cause they went traveling Saturday and didn't tell us). We're hoping that this week will be better. We worked yesterday (Monday) 'cause we're going to the temple today. So yesterday we went out with João to teach (he's a young man in the ward) and we taught a bunch of lessons.

This week I'm going to do a three-day division in Ivoti so I'm hoping to have some fun adventures (they say that Ivoti is the city of Germans).

Love y'all!

Elder Jasperson