Elder Chandler Hyer

Elder Chandler Hyer
Elder Chandler Hyer

Monday, August 31, 2015

Padre Bernardo Week 3

Oi! Tudo Bem?

So First of all Padre Bernardo has one new member! Elder Nascimento and Elder Deleray baptized Maria this week (everyone is named Maria) she is close to 80 years old but really great, she was also baptized in a river which was pretty cool.



We had 40 people attend church this week! A new record! The church is truly growing here and it´s amazing. I was asked to give a 10 minute talk in Portuguese this Sunday and I´m fairly positive nobody understood a thing, well maybe not that bad but it was certainly a struggle.

I can´t go through them all because we have a lot of investigators, but we have this one family we have been working very closely with, Analiz is the mother's name and her daughter Carina, she has two other daughters who are not showing much interest at this point but Analiz and Carina have been attending church which is great. The problem is, this family is very broken. Without going into details there are a lot of problems that need fixing with this family. But they want to be baptized and are working towards that goal which is just awesome. Yesterday they fed us this huge huge dinner, like I´m talking a mountain of food on my and my companion´s plates. And because we are in Brazil we have to finish this food or this lady is getting offended, so we get to work, long story short we were both dying afterwards, especially my companion it was hilarious. After dinner we had an excellent lesson and committed them to baptism.

We have some amazing members here. Besides Silo and his family there is an awesome family Carina, Maria, Paulo, Meme, and Juliana. We also have Divina and her husband who are so great and she is a fantastic cook.

Juice here, (I think I've mentioned this before) is amazing, I can´t stress it enough, goiaba is probably my favorite juice.

Today we had fried fish, but when I say fried fish, I mean they took a fish and fried it, only chopping off the heads (apparently last time they had this the heads were still on) the crazy part is you just eat the whole thing bones and all, leaving only the spine left afterwards.



My Portuguese is steadily improving which is great. I´m doing much better at actually following the gist of conversations when I'm listening. And when I´m talking one on one, I've gotten really good at pretending like I understand and responding to what I think they said, and then they start laughing because what I said made no sense.... Portuguese is hard. Overall though I´m noticing minor slow improvement, it´s going to take a while but I´m pretty excited.

The other elders are still awesome, I found out the other day that my companion listens to Air Supply, it was way funny when he started singing "Without You" with a Brazilian accent.

I think that's about it, love you guys tons, be grateful for English, Ate Mais!

Elder Hyer





Monday, August 24, 2015

Padre Bernardo Week 2

From Elder Chandler Hyer​

Soooo. There is so much to talk about here In Padre Bernardo, I hope I remember everything.

First of all My companion´s name is Elder Lafiete he is an awesome missionary, been out about a year and is learning English which is really helpful for trying to talk to him. We also live with a second companionship Elder Nascimento (a really tall Brazilian who is just awesome) and Elder Deleray who is from Florida and has been here in Brazil two weeks longer than I have, and has been on his mission one transfer less than me. He served one transfer in the Farmington, New Mexico mission. He´s way cool and a huge nerd so we talk about Star Wars and, well, nerdy things all the time. I´m trying not to take advantage of the fact that I can speak English with him and speak Portuguese as often as possible.

Padre Bernardo is a small town with wild dogs all over the place, amazing people, and a really really hot sun. We walk everywhere which is fun, but sweaty is probably the best way to describe it.

Everyday we wake up at 5:40 get dressed and walk to the gym and work out until a little after 7:00. and my companions all work out hard. I've never been this sore my entire life, but it´s good. Afterwards we eat breakfast and shower (the showers have these weird electric shower heads to heat up the water but it works pretty well and I love having hot showers.) Then we basically have our studies (1 hour of personal study, 1 hour of companionship study, 1 hour of training in Portuguese, and 1 hour of studying the language.) After that it´s lunch at Silo´s house everyday with his wife and kids (Eva, Isaac, and Rebecca.) They are the best family ever, Silo is amazing and they are all so nice, the kids are just great.

The food is amazing here, that is the last thing you need to worry about. The only food we ever buy are eggs for breakfast which are dirt cheap. Other than that we are fed large lunches every day at Silo´s house, and we are fed constantly by every random investigator/recent convert that we come in contact with.

After lunch we head out and walk all over Padre Bernardo teaching everybody. Lessons are kind of hard because I can hardly understand anybody, and some people I literally can´t understand a single word. But we have had some really cool experiences. We were sitting on the curb for a minute one day making a phone call when this Brazilian asked us what church we were with. We told him and he just started asking question after question and gave us juice (everybody has fresh juice) and Ice-cream. Something about Brazilians is it doesn't matter who you are they just feed you and give you everything. But we are going back to teach him this week.

Knocking is incredibly different than in Washington. Here every single house has a wall with a gate surrounding the house and you simply stand outside the gate and clap, and so far I haven't gone two houses clapping without being let in, fed, and teach a lesson. It´s amazing!.

Every Saturday we also host an English class for anybody that wants to come, and the Americans teach it. Elder Deleray teaches the kids and I teach the adults. It´s way fun.

Then after teaching English we spend the entire Saturday inviting our investigators and recent members to attend church the next day. We invited roughly 15-20 people to attend church and we had 4 show up which is very normal. Between both companionships on Sunday we had 10 investigators attend and a total attendance of 28 people which is pretty decent.

Church is really small but awesome, we only do 2 hours, sacrament meeting and gospel principles and we do it at the local elementary school outside under a pavilion. We bless the sacrament and Isaac (Silo´s son) passes it, and then usually some of us missionaries will give talks every week and sometimes a member, then we split up the adult and kids for the second hour and once again we teach the adults, or really my companion teaches.

We email from a local internet place with way slow internet and the keyboard I´m using is awful, I keep on misspelling words but I've stopped caring.

This has been one of the hardest things I've ever done physically (Because of the workouts and walking) and mentally (because I´m just mentally exhausted trying to understand Portuguese). By the end of the day I collapse on my bed and fall asleep every night around 10-10:30. But spiritually this has been amazing.

We had a great experience with an investigator who came to church yesterday. She wasn't feeling very good that morning and kind of didn't want to go, in fact she almost didn't but we decided to go wake them up that morning before church. She decided to come with one of her daughters and she loved church. Afterwards we went to her house and talked with her and she said while she was at church her cough was gone and it was just really neat. She will definitely be baptized.

Today was insane and we ended up doing service all day and had no p-day. This resulted in me not being able to get my cords for sending pictures or downloading recordings. So one of 2 things could happen.   1- I download the recordings and send the recordings at Silo's house tomorrow.   Or 2- I wait one more week and send everything then. Sorry about the frustration but it´s really not a big deal. I love you guys a ton and just know that things are great.

I have to go but I love you all, until next week, bye.

Elder Hyer

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Brasilia - Padre Bernardo Week 1

Wow guys its way awesome here!!

First of all my area here in Brazil is Padre Bernardo. The church is just starting here, its not even a branch yet and currently about 30 people attend every week. Elder Lafiete is my companion, he is from Sao Paulo and is awesome. There is also another set of missionaries living with us covering this area. Their names are Elder Nascimento and Elder Deleray. Nascimento is also from Brazil but Deleray just got here 2 weeks ago and in mission age he is one transfer behind me, so we are both struggling with the language. I don´t have pictures of here yet but I will send the ones of the CTM. 




Other than that just know that I am alive and that I´m already loving it. I´m learning the language, and I already love the missionaries I´m with. That's it for today, I love you guys






Friday, August 14, 2015

BRAZIL !!!

Hey everyone!! It´s your favorite Brazilian from the Sao Paulo CTM. Things have been really great here.

Let's see, the plane ride here first of all was one of the longest days of my entire life, like it was long long long. I´m pretty sure it was roughly 14 hours total of flying, and I didn't sleep the entire time which made the first day here at the CTM pretty... well lets just say I was tired :) By the time I got to sleep it was over 35 hours that I hadn't slept. I was exhausted. But now I am all recovered and loving it.


I am once again in a trio (as a side note, because of all the trios I've been in if you include MTC time, I have now had 8 companions which is a lot). Anyways their names are Elder Young who was actually in my district at the Provo MTC and Elder Remund who just got back on his mission after going home for 3 months because he broke his hand. They´re both good guys.

As far as which MTC is better It's a hard choice, on one hand I really loved the Provo MTC because I just had a blast. But here the food is better. We have rice and beans literally every day and fresh juice of all different kinds every day and just really good food.

The people here are amazing, especially the Brazilians. We have some in our room and in our hallway and we just talk with them all the time, and I laugh so hard, they are some of the funniest people I've ever met, and you know what? Now that I've been here for a while I´m understanding so much better and I can actually talk with them, it´s epic. Every day we play volleyball with the Brazilians and it´s way fun, although half of them use their feet instead of their hands :)

Not a whole lot more to say other than that we have been studying Portuguese literally all day every day here and it´s great. That's the good thing about this MTC is you probably learn the language twice as fast which is amazing. We have 3 teachers for the morning afternoon and evening. Irma Silva, Orfilla, and Fouco. They are all great.

Another great thing about this MTC is you get to take the Onibus to some busy place in Sao Paulo and try to teach people and give them a Book of Mormon. It´s really fun. And every time we go out (we got to go 3 times total) we get better and better at it.

There is graffiti all over Sao Paulo but some of it is actually quite amazing, that really was neat to see. And there are just stray dogs walking around the city, it´s crazy!

By the way the Onibus is insane, because the traffic here is just so crazy. I mean people are weaving in and out all over the place, motorcycles everywhere and the buses are just as crazy, and half the people are standing up, like us, and getting thrown around all over the place, it´s pretty funny. For you Harry Potter fans basically imagine the Knight bus from harry potter, the way it drives and you understand the Onibus:).

Anyways that's it for now. Now I get to go walk around outside and shop because on P-days here you can do that! I´m way excited. I love you all so much.

Elder Chandler Hyer

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

MTC Sao Paulo Week 1

Hey so basically I'm alive and made it here safely.

You won`t hear from me again until Wednesday or Friday when I have my P-day again. Things are going well.  I am so so so tired.  I didn't sleep very well on the flight here.  Oddly enough I am in another trio, and one of my companions was in my district at the MTC in Provo.  Not much else to say as this has to be pretty quick but I'm safe.

Brazil is awesome and I love you!!


Dear Parents,

Sister Swensen and I are very happy to let you know that your missionary has arrived safely at the Brazil Missionary Training Center. What a great joy and privilege it is to greet each missionary as they begin their missionary experiences with us. We will surely take good care of your missionary.

The missionaries now have companions and are settled into their rooms. They are assigned to a district with capable and caring instructors for language and lesson study. Their branch presidents and wives, will meet them this Sunday. These wonderful couples are richly blessed as they work with, motivate, and interview the missionaries assigned to their branch.

The MTC has a full-time live-in physician to care for their health needs. He is assisted by his able wife who is a nurse. We are also happy to report that the cafeteria food is plentiful, healthy and very good.

Your missionary will be able to e-mail home on Preparation Day after a morning at the Temple. This will be either Wednesday or Friday, depending on individual assignments.

Your missionary is about to make an eternal difference in the lives of many others. President Lorenzo Snow said: “There is no mortal man that is as interested in the success of an elder when he is preaching the Gospel as is the Lord who sent him to preach to the people who are the Lord's children". We love these missionaries as if they were our own. We will watch over them carefully to ensure they are ready for a wonderful missionary experience after the rewarding time they will have in the MTC.

We thank you for preparing such a wonderful representative of the Lord.

President Robert Swensen and Sister Julie Swensen

Monday, August 3, 2015

Wa-Tac Week 10




Good Bye Washington

Well This is it, It's weird to think about, but I'm flying to Brazil tomorrow. I had mixed feelings about leaving but things really worked out perfectly this week before I left.

First of all and most exciting is we had two baptisms this week!!

On Thursday Candice got baptized which was really special. She was first married to her husband Justin by Bishop Erickson and afterward she was able to be baptized which was just amazing.

Then two days later Kurt was able to be baptized as well, he is such a great guy. He told us this week that when missionaries first talked to him he had a few problems but as we kept coming by he slowly changed his habits to the point where he doesn't drink or smoke anymore. He's an amazing guy and I was so lucky to be able to see him baptized.


Natasha had a bit of a set back this week but she is working on things and will most likely get baptized very soon. Repentance is an amazing thing and I am excited for her to get baptized even if I won't see it.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend a really neat fireside. Marvin Goldstein and Vannessa Joy came to our stake and played the piano and sang beautifully. It was actually quite amazing. Marvin is a jewish man who converted to the church and Vanessa is also a member. They are both very talented.

I have unfortunately ran out of time this week but I love you all and I'm exited to fly to Brazil tomorrow!! I guess the next post will be from Sao Paulo!!
Love you all,

Elder Hyer