Padre Bernardo Week 18

New companion

Well, this week was all over the place as far as emotions go. The week overall was just great, but some of the saddest things in my mission also aconteceu (happened).

First of all about my new companion, he is just the best, he works so hard, we get a ton of work done and he is a way cool guy in general. He is from Curitiba, he only joined the church 2 years ago, and he's been on a mission for a year. He is also a rubiks cube master (seriously he has like 6 different types of rubiks cubes) all and all I'm really enjoying him.

So we set out to work this week with high hopes, getting him introduced to the area, and teaching tons of people. Overall we had some great success. Uiterson is progressing well, he just left for several days this week though.

This week Ester (the mother of our recent converts Juliana, Aline, and Estefany) did something awful. We arrived at their house and the mother simply told us that she will not take her kids to church anymore, she will not let them go alone, and she will not allow us to return to visit the kids either. Nothing that we said was changing anything. We ended up sharing a final message with the girls about studying the scriptures and praying, and we had to leave. That was easily the saddest moment of my mission. It's really hard how sometimes the people that want to go to church most, have something that won't let them go, and those that live nearby and have nothing stopping them, don't want to go. It is incredibly frustrating. But we know that God helps those that seek for it and he always opens up a way for his children to obey his commandments, so things will change here in the future, we just have to wait.

But after that detrimental experience I'm pretty sure that God tried to cheer me up by sending two hilarious drunk guys our way who were just way way gone. One of them was a really big and really sweaty guy who grabbed me and gave me a strong hug talking about how I was a man of God and just rambling, and in the meantime my companion was openly laughing his head off because he just thought my predicament was hilarious. The best part was that a family was watching us from their house and laughing as well, so we ended up walking up to them afterwards and one thing led to another and they are letting us come back to teach them! So God works in mysterious ways sometimes.

Anyways, that's it for this week. It looks like we have a good district here and I promise to get a picture of the new district next week, sorry about having two weeks in a row without pictures. In any case, Merry Christmas! and Merry Star Wars watching to everyone!! (I'm way jealous)

Love,
Elder Hyer

Padre Bernardo Week 17

Transfers! Baptism!

Well, I´m actually writing this on Tuesday because yesterday was transfer meeting and Elder Lafaiete ended up getting transferred to a new area along with Sister Gimenez who was also in our district. So yesterday I went in to Brasilia to pick up my new companion Elder Valerio who seems way cool, but I haven´t even had 24 hours with him yet, so I´ll let you guys know more next week.

As far as everything else this week it was all really great, normal busy week, preparing for Lafaiete to leave, teaching lessons, etc, etc.. We actually went to Brasilia on Wednesday as well for a training from the mission Assistants which was way good and inspiring, I really enjoyed it.

But going to Brasilia twice in one week also means I have almost no money until reimbursements come in, so that´ll be interesting this week.

Yesterday I ended up spending all day in Brasilia and we didn't get back until pretty late which is why this email is going out Tuesday instead of Monday. It also means I have almost no time.

But something that did happen on Saturday that was amazing was the baptism of Larielly. She is an amazing 16 year old girl, who had some of the most profound questions and deepest interest of anyone we've taught. A lot of people have questions about the Bible and Jesus but when it comes down to showing their faith they don't want to wake up for church, or stop their bad habits. Larielly was different in the sense that she did everything she needed to do, everything we asked of her and more to prepare for baptism, and that really was rather amazing.

Anyways that's it for this week, I love you guys tons, Merry Christmas!!

Elder Hyer

The pics are of our new custom made Padre Bernardo shirts, and at the baptism of Larielly.