Planalto - Asa Norte - Brasilia Week 13

 District Leader/Trainer, Church Cancelled?, Impeachment

Tuesday was transfer meeting and we got the big news telling us that Elder Machado, my companion, would be leaving the area. He is being sent to Palmas, Tocantins which is in the northern most part of our mission and is incredibly hot! Then I got the news that I would be the new District Leader in the area and that I would also be training a new missionary! So all that day I sat in the chapel waiting for the new missionaries with the other trainers. It was fun to visit but we pretty much did nothing else until the new missionaries arrived, and then I met my new companion, Elder Costa!

So Elder Costa is from Rio Grande do Sul. He is a master violin and piano player (like seriously he's really good). He is waiting on a visa just like I had to in Washington except he is going to be serving in the Salt Lake City South mission which should be cool! He is a great missionary, very enthusiastic, and he also cooks!

So with the trainee in hand, (not that we were literally holding hands), we went to work! and the week was awesome! We met again with Daniel. He is still on track for baptism and we confirmed him to go to church yesterday. We also received a sweet referral last week that we contacted and also confirmed for church. Then the worst happened, church was cancelled!

Yep, so for those of you who don't know, Dilma Rousseff is the president here and she has like a 10% or less approval rating. Everyone just hates her! So there have been lots of protests here in Brasilia and yesterday was the day of voting to impeach the president, and it got passed! So there was so much protesting and demonstrating in the streets that our Mission President told us to stay inside all day and they cancelled church in the area for safety reasons... I can't tell you how awful it is to call your investigators who are all hyped to visit the church and tell them that it is cancelled... but oh well, hopefully things go better next week.

So Sunday, instead of church, we went to a member who lives across the street and stayed pretty much the entire day there eating and talking and sleeping, which was nice but also just annoying and unproductive as a missionary. But overall things are great, I'm gonna get on my companion's case to teach me piano and I'll come home a master! maybe...

Anyways love you all so much, Hope you all have a fairly decent week.

Planalto - Asa Norte - Brasilia Week 12

Ok so this week has had its ups and downs, but I´ll make this quick as I don’t have much time.

First of all our investigators: We had a great lesson with Daniel, but sadly he didn’t go to church this week. But to make up for it Fabio, a less active member that we have been working with for a while, did make it to church which was awesome!!! Also a sweet member brought her friend to church with her so we are going to try to meet with him as well.

This week we also had two other missionaries need to crash at our house for a night, Murdock and Castro. Elder Castro will serve in the U.S. and had to come to Brasilia to do some visa stuff. It was fun to have them visit and we went with them and got some American soda that a store sells here.

While knocking doors we knocked into this house with several interesting dudes. They were playing Settlers of Catan. Their walls which are painted white now have very creative writing and drawings all over them (graffiti). After visiting and attempting to share a short message, they asked if they could take a picture with us. I also got a picture. Later at the store we saw some other guys that looked similar. Well it turns out they are all friends and had texted the picture of us with them to their friends, who recognized us on the street from the picture and also got a picture with us and texted it back to the other friends. It was pretty funny.

Unfortunately this week I got a very painful bump in my armpit that got infected and grew into this ball the size of a grape. That was just awful, finally I went to the hospital and got it checked out and after taking antibiotics it has finally opened up, and is healing, but man what a pain, I´ll spare y’all the photo of that one.

Lastly we were invited to have lunch in the U.S. Embassy today with some members here and that was pretty cool. It´s really nice in there, and I took a pic with the S.C. flag!!

Anyways love you guys tons sorry it’s a little short and scrambled but I´m running low on time, as a last note today we will find out about transfers so I´ll let you know what happens next week!

Planalto - Asa Norte - Brasilia Week 11

General Conference, Daniel, One Year!!!!!

Hey everyone! so this week has been pretty dang awesome. To start off Chiquinhos opened up this week here in Asa Norte which is a sweet milkshake place and I like it :). Ok other than that some other cool stuff happened too.

This week I had the opportunity to do an exchange with Elder Cavalcante which was really neat. He is finishing up his mission of two years this Wednesday. It was really cool to work with him because he was actually my Zone leader in Padre Bernardo, my last area! The opportunity to work with an experienced missionary is always great, I was able to learn a lot.

The day after the exchange with Cavalcante we found an awesome investigator named Daniel. He works at home, is a smart guy and was instantly interested in our message. So we shared the message of the restoration with him and the spirit was very strong. He wasn't able to attend General Conference this week but we are hoping he will be able to attend church next Sunday.

So anyways, probably the most exciting news is that Friday I hit the one-year mark in my mission!!!! Woohoo!!! I am officially halfway done and man it's passing really fast. And I only hear that it goes even faster after one year. To celebrate I opened the coolest present ever from my family (or really my Mom) and we drank root beer that we managed to find in a store here (but it's kind of expensive).

To top off an already awesome week we had the opportunity to watch General Conference once again and what a spiritual experience that was. to have the opportunity to listen to the Lord's modern-day Prophet and his Apostles. I know that they truly receive revelation for our days and I would recommend everyone go watch it.

Well, the mission continues to be awesome after a year and I can't wait to see what this next year has in store. I hope you all have an amazing week, love you all soo much, bye!

Planalto - Asa Norte - Brasilia Week 10

Tererê, Easter, Awesome Box!!

This week was great!

First of all Happy Easter to everybody!!! My Easter included eating some chocolate, working, and rummaging through my box that my Mom sent because my Mom is awesome! She is literally the best, sorry everyone.

This week was pretty cool as far as investigators go, Marcio is progressing a lot and is way cool. Unfortunately he and his wife will be travelling for a few weeks so it might be a few weeks until his baptism, but he is awesome. Other people we are teaching are progressing little by little too.

This week I discovered the delicious drink that is called Tereré! it's really good. It's this herb that you put in a cup with a metal filter/straw and you pour in cold water or juice and drink it. I really like it... I´ll send a picture.

Friday was what they call Sexta-Feira Santa (Holy Friday) and everything was closed, I mean everything. No one was on the roads at all. I was pretty mad about it for a little bit because that was the day we ran out of toilet paper at home and literally every supermarket was closed. I wasn't very happy... Also on the Friday before Easter no one eats red meat in remembrance of Christ which is pretty cool.

Other than that work was a little slower, being the week of Easter, and there was just no one in the road we could talk to the whole weekend. But things are generally awesome and that's it for now. I hope you all have an amazing week.

Love,
Elder Hyer

The sisters in our district had a baptism

Get-together with the district

The apartment building where we live

My companion's favorite little car he says looks like a hamster.

delicious drink that is called Tereré

Easter box!!!

Stuff that came in my Easter box from the family

Planalto - Asa Norte - Brasilia Week 9

Marcio!, Exchange, and I love Brasilia

First about Marcio. Marcio, his wife Claudineia, and their baby son moved into the Ward 3 weeks ago and started coming to church. Claufineia is a member of the church but Marcio is not and had never been to church before he moved here. So we decided to visit. They live in this awesome hotel right by the Plano (central Brasilia) that's super cool. Anyways, we ended up getting in contact with him this week to teach him and he accepted our invite to get baptized depending on the answer he receives, but we are way excited, he has already been to church 3 times and we are hyped.

I went on an exchange with Elder Thomas this week who is a missionary in our District. It was pretty funny as he tried to do contacts and talk with people, the people here are a little harder to talk to. When you have never worked in an area like this you just don't know what to do, it was pretty funny. He told me after working in my area all day that it made him more grateful for his area.

I do want to tell you guys how much I love it here. Asa Norte of Brasilia is hard at times but this week I have just felt a lot of satisfaction in our work here, I have learned a lot and I know that comes from our diligence in the work despite the difficulties. We have had some really neat experiences happen to us here.

My companion is the District leader of this area which means he is "in charge" of 6 missionaries, and then me, his companion. So one day a missionary called us up at night saying that they were a little tired and a little frustrated with the day and they wanted some kind a challenge to get excited about the work. So my companion said a small prayer and told them to knock 6 doors. On the last door they found a family of 9 people and they all came to church this last week. It was a cool testimony builder to see a leader receive revelation for his district.

But anyways that's it this week I hope you guys are all doing great, love you all so much,

Planalto - Asa Norte - Brasilia Week 8

Well this week good, although a little worse than normal. Basically I got sick... or as we say here "eu estava com gripe".

Tuesday we ended up getting called to help an elderly lady move everything out of her apartment and into another. The only problem was that she lived on the 3rd floor, with no elevator, and there were some huge heavy objects (despite us being told that it was "just a few things"). But we did manage to get it all moved out and into her new apartment (which thankfully had an elevator). We were however left with bodies completely broken, but oh well.

The next day I got sick. It was pretty much the normal flu/cold who knows, all I know was that it wasn't fun. But finally, after a few days of groggy work it has all but gone away, but it pretty much dominated my entire week.

As far as investigators go we found a Jewish lady the other day who is eager to learn more, says she won't convert but we are excited to teach her. She is the first Jewish person that I have met here in Brasil (because Christianity is incredibly dominant here) so that was cool.

Rogelina, our recent baptism, is doing great. She is very busy but comes to church and I'm way proud of her.

We still are teaching Samara and Esteven, their kids love us and ask us to come upstairs and pray with them and they are hilarious. Their daughter is so cute when she prays (she's about 5). So far they aren't as committed as we would like, but we'll keep trying.

The work is a little slow but overall we are excited. We know that we will be blessed with success as we are diligent and obedient. "when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated". We are obediently working and we will be blessed.

I love you all so dang much, you guys are just the best. Have an awesome week!

Love,
Elder Hyer

Planalto - Asa Norte - Brasilia Week 7

Well this week was pretty normal to be honest but some fun things happened.

Tuesday after district meeting we went with a few other missionaries to eat at a barbecue place that I had never been to before, and man it was way way good. I'm talking all you can eat amazing barbecue, grilled pineapple with cinnamon, and all you can eat amazing beans and rice, and let's just say I ate "até o pó" (basically meaning I ate a freaking ton). Anyway, afterwards I just felt really full and about an hour afterwards I just felt worse and worse until I ran to the bathroom and threw up everything... I was really sad that I wasted so much food. But I definitely will be going back (It was that good).

The other day we received a bunch a raw meat, but as 19 and 20 year old missionaries we have no idea how to season and cook meat so we asked the help of Irmã (sister) Vilma, a member here, and she is awesome. We basically had a cooking lesson with her and she taught us how to make rice, season and cook meat, and make home-made yogurt. And then we got to take it all home!! So that was fun.

It has been a pretty boring, rainy rest of the week with very few people in the streets and it's been a little difficult to find more people to teach. But Sunday Rogelina was confirmed a member of the church which was awesome!! and during the day we received 2 good references from members which was really cool. We are really excited to meet with them. So along with all of that, I am just fantastic!!

Hope you all have the best week ever!
Com amor,

Elder Hyer