Elder Chandler Hyer

Elder Chandler Hyer
Elder Chandler Hyer

Monday, September 26, 2016

Unaí - Week 13

RAIN!! New Comp, Baptisms!

So this week was really good! As you guys know Elder Chaucoski was transferred last week which was sad but in the end it worked out fine, my new companion is Elder Damasceno. He was actually companions with Elder Archila and just switched to be with me. Elder Archila is training a newbie named Elder Assis, and we got Sister Andrade who works super hard and is way cool, so I'm excited for this transfer.

This week after 3 months of intense heat without rain we finally were blessed with heavy rain and also a lot of lightning. Everyone got soaked and it was just fantastic. The downside was that the volleyball court the next morning was wet and it made it hard to play, but that's life and it was definitely worth it.

Sunday the Sisters had two baptisms, two little girls 11 and 9 years old, super cute and super awesome, their parents are also preparing for baptism here pretty soon.

There isn't much more that happened this week other than we are working hard. We are really focusing our work to find those that are truly interested, not just teaching anyone and everyone that just somewhat listens to our message. I believe that results are showing themselves and that we will have quite a bit of success this transfer.

Love you guys tons have an awesome week tchau!!

Went to see the river with my new comp
It's finally raining!!!
In the elevator
Getting ready to baptize these two sweet sisters who have been receiving lessons from the sister missionaries
Random pics of the church
The Branch Presidency working hard
I am now the most experienced pianist in the branch.  I play the songs for Sacrament Meeting now.  I only slaughtered one of them this week.
Me confessing to the Branch President :)
The baptismal font
RAIN!!!

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Unaí - Week 12

This week has been very busy leading up to transfers. Also sad because I will be losing my companion who is awesome and we have had a blast together. And one of the sisters will be transferred who came out with me and I have served in two areas with. She is a hard worker and great missionary. So tough week, but that’s life.

On the upside we put on a really fun activity for our little branch. Starting with a lesson about the “Plan of Salvation” and then an activity that allowed you to personally judge yourself on how you were doing in different areas. How you judged yourself lead you to one of 3 doors. The best had bowls of candy and soda the second was less enticing and the 3rd. was dark with only a candle and note on the chalk board that said “Good Luck”. Each person, kids and adults, would pick a piece of paper stating something like “fasting” or “scripture study”, things like that. When one little 9 year old girl got “fasting” she showed her mom and apparently she never fasts so her mom said “you know where you need to be for that one” yep, door #3. After seeing that she was the only one for that round in that room one of the leaders came and turned the light on for her and stayed with her those few minutes until the next round, but it was still enough to make an impression. She told her mom after “I will always fast on fast Sunday from now on”. We had several with experiences like that. It was a good time to self-reflect and see where you were doing great and where you needed to improve.

This continues to be the hardest area I have served in and one of the toughest in our mission. We have some new people that we are working with and I’m hopeful this next transfer we will have more success. Right now one other missionary and I are serving in the Branch Presidency. We definitely want to get this area strong enough to be able to provide their own leadership.

I hope you all have an amazing week. And keep Unaí in your prayers. I have never fasted so much as I do in this area. We as missionaries fast almost weekly because the needs here are great.

Love you all,
Elder Hyer

Sunday, September 18, 2016

Unaí - Week 11

Brasilia, Barbecue, Elivan!!

This week was really busy. We took a bus Monday to Brasilia to attend a training from one of the area seventy leaders which was really good, very spiritual. I really got thinking about how much I'm dedicating myself here in the mission and why I'm here. Sometimes in areas with less success you start to wonder if anyone will ever accept you, but I was pretty excited after this training to find those waiting to hear our message.

Wednesday after we got back form Brasilia we had a church barbecue which was a blast! We had a water balloon fight, amazing meat and food, and tons of ice cream afterwards. And we had a good turnout.

Sunday we were a little frustrated because everyone that we confirmed for church ended up not going for one excuse or another but I'm sure there is someone here in Unaí that we just need to find. But what cheered me up was watching our recent convert, Elivan, give his first talk at church that he prepared by himself with just a few tips from us, it was really awesome!!

Anyway, excited to see how this week goes, and next week I promise more and better pictures, have a fabulous week!







Sunday, September 11, 2016

Unaí - Week 10

We worked really hard this week, really gave it our all and ended up seeing a decent number of less active members and the other missionaries' investigator got baptized, his name is Kellinton. But we didn't have any of our investigators come to church, everyone went to the farm, or a huge party/festival that happened here in the city.

What was exciting was that Saturday night a member called us up telling us that she was given a live chicken and that she didn't have the courage to kill it. That is where Elder Hyer, the Chicken Slayer comes in. It was pretty nerve wracking seeing as how I've never killed a chicken before and they're a lot harder to kill than I thought. But in the end, he died and the next day we got to eat it!!

We also randomly were handed a snake in the road by a crazy guy who said that it was "passed out" when it was clearly dead and tried to sell us the dead snake for 5 reais. pretty funny.

So that's that, have an awesome week, love you all so much!!! Bye Bye.

Thursday, September 1, 2016

Unaí - Week 9

Volleyball, Arthur!!!!

So this week has been a blast! We managed to get ourselves into a local sports center to play volleyball in the mornings and that has been great!!

Anyways, we had a good enjoyable week, we had a fun church activity where we played mafia (a game) at the end which was pretty hilarious (I make a pretty good Assassin).

The week ended amazingly with 14 year old Arthur finally coming to church! Before he was always working, but he knew that going to church was important so he spent a lot of time looking for a new job and found one where he is finally not working anymore on Sundays which is awesome!! So we are hoping to get him baptized and a new member here pretty soon. He's pretty funny too, he ended up seeing us Saturday night when we were on our way to clean the church and just spent the night cleaning with us! We like him a lot.

Anyways, life in amazing! This week I'll complete 1 year and 5 months and it continues to pass by quickly. Hope you all have a great week, love you all tons.

Elder Hyer

On the way to play volleyball