Elder Chandler Hyer

Elder Chandler Hyer
Elder Chandler Hyer

Monday, September 28, 2015

Padre Bernardo Week 7



Show de Talentos!!

Holy Cow! this week was so busy.

Tuesday we had interviews with the mission president which meant we traveled on bus just about all day to Ceilandia, but President is way cool so that was great.
Wednesday we had a service project at the house of a lady we are teaching (Jacqueline) where we basically raked her dirt yard of leaves and sticks and put it all into trash sacks (that was some heavy lifting). Then we had a delicious lunch with juice (always juice).

Thursday was our only normal day this week. We worked way hard, we focused a lot on the importance of church attendance with our investigators this week. It paid off because we had 5 investigators at church yesterday which was great.
Friday was kind of crazy. We had the zone leaders come down to our area and we had to do some exchanges, so I ended up with Elder Felix, leading him around Padre Bernardo and to our investigators which was difficult because, well, I don´t quite speak Portuguese yet. But things went surprisingly good and it ended up being really fun. It´s funny how I´ll get with a family and understand literally everything that is being said, and then we´ll be talking with someone else, and understanding is difficult all over again. But mostly it´s going well.
Saturday was great! Flavia and Roni got baptized which was really awesome. (they are the ones that we buy Din-Din from which are like perfect popsicles/creamsicles and they are just so good). Then to end a great day we hosted a talent show here in Padre Bernardo which was just nuts! We set up the whole thing (you can see the pictures). We bought shower curtains for the stage curtains, paid someone to make a cool poster with Michael Jackson, we blew up balloons, and then randomly out of nowhere most of the congregation from Brazlandia showed up (a neighboring town) and so we had tons of people which made it a blast.

As missionaries we did a ton of the talents:
-I juggled raw eggs and for the finale let one drop and splatter (The kids loved it, I got several compliments after from 10 yr old kids)
- Elder Lafiete and I did the cup song together on stage.
- We sang with some investigators of ours the song (the name of the song is "Barquinho" I think).
- Then we did a little comedy act that is really not worth explaining, and then a bunch of talents in between.

So that was a blast, and then Sunday was just generally a good day, we had investigators at church, had some really good lessons with our investigators, and just generally things are going really well.

Love you guys a lot, miss you all, until next week!

Elder Hyer

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Padre Bernardo Week 6

This week everyone, was rather great. First of all we have some fantastic investigators.

Elias and Marina continue to be really great, they have their struggles as everyone does, but I've never had an investigator with as many questions as Elias, its amazing He loves the Book of Mormon and really it's just a matter of time as far as baptism goes. It was really cool, the other day we stopped by his house and he was just about to leave with his two sets of twin daughters (its crazy) and he casually told us that he received his answer about the Book of Mormon and he was really excited to talk to us, that was really cool.

Jacqueline is another great investigator. She is the referral of a recent convert we have and she just loved our message. She is an outgoing lady with no kids and is really excited about our message. She reads every time we visit her and is just fantastic. She also really likes to make fun of me because during one of our visits I fell asleep on her couch (I´m pretty much always tired).

We also have Esther who is a single parent with a bunch of daughters. One of them, I think she's 12, well she just loves me because 1- I´m American and 2- I played dolls with her the first time I went over and she was just dying with laughter. They are a really fun family.

Elder Lafaiete and I know the cup song (If you don´t know what that is it's not important) so yesterday at a members house I was teaching it to Maria-Paula (the 11 year old daughter) and Elder Lafaiete taught her friend, and then after about 20 minutes of practice we competed to see who could go the longest without a mistake (Maria-Paula won of course because I am a perfect teacher).

Speaking of teaching, English class went great this week. I taught all of the parts of the body and then a few related phrases.

We had another youth activity which was really fun. We taught all about the Holy Ghost and how he guides us in our lives and then we did a blindfold activity where one of us was the Holy Ghost and one of us was the Devil trying to lead people different ways. Depending on which they chose we either soaked them with a water balloon or they got treats. And then afterwards we had another all out water balloon fight again.


Other than that things are just generally way fun here. This week I got to try two new types of juices which is always exciting (Kale and one other that I can´t remember.)

In any case the work here in Brazil is amazing. It´s funny to see how much fun people have without anything that we would consider to be fun (Although everyone has a motorcycle and I don´t have one of those... I think those are pretty fun.). Also everyone has a bicycle, and really what else do you need? I guess people have more than I thought.

Anyways missionary work is such a blast, even if I don´t know what I´m saying or doing half of the time, but I love you all a freaking ton hope you have a fantastic week!

Elder Hyer
This is where we live

Monday, September 14, 2015

Padre Bernardo Week 5



Oi! Bom Dia! This week has been, well, pretty normal. I apologize in advance for the lack of interesting information but a few really neat things happened.

First of all we have some really strong investigators named Elias and Marina. They are really great. They have this crazy family with two sets of twins all under the age of 4. Elias is really interested, he asks really great questions while we teach him and he is just progressing really well, theyhave a few struggles but it´s exciting to see the changes. Marina is a stressed mother who is open to something more in her life, and we know that the church is exactly what she is looking for.

Other than that things have been a little frustrating. One of our investigators, Jordana, was ready to be baptized yesterday, but her dad had doubts about it at the last minute and she ended up backing out for now. But we´ll continue to work with them, they really are a great family.

Something really great about Padre Bernardo is that people just ride horses around as a normal source of transportation, and the best part is that they wear cowboy hats and even bigger belt buckles while they do it. It makes me so happy because there are literally cowboys that just ride around Padre Bernardo.

Bugs are annoying. We all know this, the bugs here are not as bad as South Carolina in the sense that gnats are not a problem, what we do have is bigger bugs that leave huge red itchy bug bites and it´s way frustrating, but no big deal.

The sun here in Padre Bernardo is insanely hot, I have never sweat this much in my entire life, not much to say there just wanted to complain. But on the bright side, it did rain this week for the first time, or I should say it lightly sprinkled for 15 minutes, but rain nonetheless.

If you can´t tell by the things I´m writing this week was fairly uneventful. What was amazing however was seeing Mazinho and Raimundo receive the priesthood this week. They are one of the few recent converts we have here and it is a huge step for Padre Bernardo. The members here in only a few short months have become some of the strongest members I know who only want to see the church grow here. It is amazing to see and we are working as hard as we can to make that happen. It is truly a great and marvelous work that we are doing here in Brazil and I am learning so much.

That´s it for this week but I love you guys a lot, and I miss you all, Falou!

Elder Hyer

Monday, September 7, 2015

Padre Bernardo Week 4

Hey everyone!

This week has been great!! full of excitement!!! and you know just good stuff..

Last week we were knocking doors (or actually clapping our hands outside of the gate, you can´t knock doors because there are no doors to knock on.) and Elder Lafaiete knocks once... no answer, he knocks again... no answer, at this point I´m ready to leave but Lafaiete uses his Brazilian spidey senses and decides to knock again, this time looking in the crack of the gate. We see a little kid looking at us. He tries to hide but at this point we know that there are people inside, so my companion says something along the lines of "can we talk to you guys for a little bit". They tell us to leave. Elder Lafaiete says "let us in we are really cool people" at this point it´s just ridiculous but they let us in and we start talking to them. (It turns out they thought we were Jehovah’s Witnesses and didn't want to talk to us). Anyways long story short two of the daughters, Graziella and Jordana are reading the Book of Mormon, praying and making changes and they are excited to get baptized this weekend.

Something cool about Brazil is the delivery system. Last Monday we went and bought a bunch of stuff (this was the first time I´d been grocery shopping) and it turns out that you just buy all your stuff and then they have a guy that delivers it to your house, so that’s really cool. They also have this American hamburger place that delivers to our house just like a pizza place, it´s way awesome.

The other day I saw monkeys. It was so exciting!! We had just crossed this kind of scary little bridge thing (a 10” wide cement beam that looks like it had fallen across a ravine) and in the trees next to us were like 5 or 6 little monkeys swinging all over the place, it was so cool!!


















This week we started mutual activities for the youth here, the first activity was great!! We started out with a spiritual message about making good choices and it went well, and then afterwards we changed into normal clothes and played tons of games with water balloons. We played volleyball where we throw water balloons at the other team with two people and towels, we had relays, and then to end we had an all-out war with two teams and about 150 water balloons, it was so much fun, we were all soaked by the end.

Church this week was great, we only had 31 people attend but overall we are definitely growing which is cool.

Something that I was warned about but wasn't exactly expecting were snakes here in Brazil, and I don´t mean the animal. There are lots of girls here that see a tall American and immediately switch to flirtatious, I want to live in America mode, it´s led to some interesting situations. I was asked last week if I could take this girl back to America with me, that was a shocker, I politely declined, and my companion was no help in the situation, anyways snakes are interesting.

My Portuguese is getting better. It´s an amazing feeling when someone can understand you and you are able to bring the spirit into a lesson in a different language. I love this place a lot. Transfers are next week so some things here could change I´ll let you guys know.

I think that’s it for this week, love you guys, até mais!!

Elder Hyer