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

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

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

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

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

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

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