THANKSGIVING and Cow Tail...
Well hello everyone once again, welcome to the telling of an amazing week with Elder Hyer!
The week started off strong with some of the coolest investigators in the world.
First of all we have Kevin,
We started teaching Kevin this week and man talk about a perfect investigator. The cool thing about the Church of Jesus Christ is that we have answers to a lot of questions. Where did we come from? Why are we here on the earth? Where will we go after this life? And just about any other question one has about the Gospel. Well Kevin had all of the questions and is just an honest seeker of the truth. He is reading the Book of Mormon, accepting our invites to read, pray, and he is loving it! I´ll keep you updated on him as we teach him a bit more.
I´ve talked a lot about Elias, we have had him as an on and off investigator since I arrived here. He has struggled a lot. But, where we are right now in his progress is better than I've ever seen. He told us the other day after we shared with him the plan of salvation, that the lessons just get better and better every time we teach. So he is great, preparing for baptism.
We also have Larielly who is just the coolest. She has been reading the Book of Mormon, believes this church to be true, and just wants to be baptized and essentially start over. Teaching her made me realize that we literally do nothing as missionaries, we give people the opportunity to find the truth on their own, and the spirit testifies, and this is just so incredibly evident in Larielly. The work that we have a chance to be a part of as missionaries is wonderful.
Anyways as you all know (but no one in Brazil cares about) this week was Thanksgiving!! Sooo HAPPY THANKSGIVING!! Unfortunately we were unable to eat a turkey this year as it is fairly expensive, but we were able to eat cow tail which is actually really really good. The quality of the regular food here in Brazil continues to amaze me.
Well thats about it, it rained a little more, and I got an amazing Christmas package from home (thanks mom and dad, mostly mom) so that was way cool.
Love you guys, until next week!!
Elder Hyer
Monkey!!
So this week, I got to hold an adorable monkey, yes I am starting off with that because it is one of the cutest creatures that I have ever seen walk this planet, but in other news some actual missionary work happened this week.
The week started off really wet, my companion and I are always in the worst places when it starts raining (and I hadn't fixed my broken umbrella from the last rain storm) so we got really wet. But we ended up making it to someone´s house and had a great lesson with João-Viter who is this 17 year old kid who is way cool, we've been working with him this week and I'm excited.
Wednesday we switched companions for the day and I got to work with Elder Deleray, so basically two Americans who struggle with Portuguese were walking around Brasil all day but it ended up being really fun. We taught some lessons and towards the end of the day it started raining like crazy again, and when that happens, the roads in certain areas of the city get really flooded, and Deleray and I were on one side of a road trying to figure out how the heck to cross to the other side without trekking through the deep water. Right then a pickup truck stopped and told us to hop into the bed of the truck, so we did and he took us to where we needed to go, it was way cool; a little miracle to keep us from getting wet.
Other exciting things that happened,
- I sat on Elder Deleray´s bed and broke it completely.
- I saw a really huge grasshopper that looks fake but is real.
- I saw an ostrich.
Oh and Elias, who we have been teaching on and off for quite a while, has now accepted our invitation to be baptized!!! He has a few problems to work on but he is finally ready to change. That is by far the most exciting thing that has happened this week. Truly a great miracle.
Anyways I think that's about it, I love you all a ton. until next week.
Elder Hyer
Another great week of amazing investigators, and the city water pump exploded...
Yeah, so Tuesday morning we wake up only to realize that the power was out, but that is fairly normal so we carried on, but it wasn't long before we realized that the water was out as well! After asking around we found out that the water pump to the entire city of padre Bernardo had popped (or better to say exploded) and because of this the power and water went out. So in the end we had to go two days without water!! We took showers by filling up 2-liter bottles with mineral water that we bought and dumping it on ourselves (worse shower I've taken yet on my mission). We thought maybe the town would go all apocalyptic but the water just ended up coming back and everyone lived happily ever after. But the excitement didn't stop there...
Thursday, we finally received stuff for our church. I´m talking 8 nice chapel benches, tables, chairs, cleaning supplies, bathroom supplies, chalkboards, it was amazing. Our church is now just a little more true.
Now for investigators,
This week we taught Uiterson. He is just the coolest. We went over there taught him about the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ and he just sort of understands things, he is reading the book of Mormon and he believes in it, and he is on date to be baptized December 5th. The cool thing about him is just how smart he is, he´s 17 is educated and has a good understanding of what we are teaching, and in Padre Bernardo that is just a rare occurrence. So we are pretty excited.
Ester has been dropping off a little lately, she's not really willing to make the necessary changes in her life for baptism and, well, she simply doesn't have the desire which is a little sad. But with time desires can change and hopefully she will one day listen to those promptings of the spirit that she has felt.
We also moved another house this week, or I should say we moved the exact same family from the house that we moved them into, into another house... but it was actually really good and you´ll never guess what they're reason is for moving; because they want to be closer to the church. This family literally moved their house because they know how important it is to go to church and partake of the sacrament every Sunday.
Our youth group activity was a success this week, as always, we ended up having another water balloon fight, taught the kids how to make Pão de Queijo, (cheese-bread) and had a good time!
Anyways that’s it for this week, love you all, and stay safe,
Elder Hyer
Obra Missionario
This week was a normal week of missionary work, where the only things exciting happening are with your investigators... fortunately we had some really exciting things happen with our investigators this week.
First of all, we have a new set of investigators named Leda and her husband, Valter. They are an older couple, been living together for 25 years and they have been listening to our lessons! They are a very sweet couple and Leda specifically has already been very proactive in helping us out, she has referred us to her friend, passed out a Book of Mormon and hasn’t even been to our church yet, and the best part is they want to be baptized!! We taught them about the law of Chasity and Leda just comes right out and says we need to get married don’t we. So after 25 years we will be helping to get them officially married…they are golden and we are really excited.
Larielly is our other really amazing investigator. She is a friend of Meme and Maria-Paula who are some recent converts here, and she just rocks. She knows a few things about the church from Meme and Maria-Paula and was at their house one night during a family night we were having there. After we gave a short spiritual message she volunteered to give the closing prayer and said in her prayer that she knew this church was the only true church, and then finished her prayer, afterwards we were a little in shock... This is the first time we have taught this girl!! The Spirit is so strong! And the power of members is so strong in converting people. Now we are teaching her the lessons and preparing her for baptism. She is great!
We have a few other potential investigators who I will update you all on as things progress, but at this point there really isn´t much else to say.
Our district has been a blast; Elder Peralta continues to be awesome along with Deleray and my sweet comp, Lafaiete. And the new sisters are also way cool.
Until next week,
Elder Hyer
Holy Cow! What a week. This week was full of rain, freaky animals, and ended in a little disappointment. Let´s get started.
So Tuesday morning things kick off rather swell as we come home and find the most terrifying spider I've ever seen (a tarantula), fortunately it was dead, but just knowing that these exist right here was way scary to all of us, and then we all took pictures. That same day we encountered another very strange spider outside our back door, and let's just say that I'm not the biggest fan of spiders.
This was also my first week with the Elder Peralta from Bolivia and he is a way cool guy and a great missionary. He is getting to know the area and, being a very experienced Elder, he has a lot of experience to pull from in helping this area grow. He also taught me how to do a Rubik's Cube so I like him.
The sisters are great as well, we have Sister Gimenez from Argentina and Sister Heperi from New Zealand who has only been in Brasil for a month and a half and speaks worse Portuguese than me. But they are great and are going to be a great help here.
This week also happened to be the week of crazy rain, like it rained so hard that my umbrella broke because of the wind, and then it continued to rain everyday after that as well. So it was a bit dreary. But we really needed it, Sometimes you forget that rain is possible in Padre Bernardo because of how dang hot it is.
Our investigators this week were just great, we have an older couple who fed us dinner in the midst of the rain, and they are just very nice, they even said they would come to Stake Conference this week along with several other investigators so that was neat. We plan on working more with them.
For Stake Conference we rented a bus to take us to Brasilia which ended up being awesome, everyone that went, loved it. The only problem is that every single one of our investigators that said they would go, ended up bailing on us at the last second... so that was sad but this next week we have hope for miracles!
Anyways I love you all, and I hope you all have a perfect week and that Halloween was amazing,
Elder Hyer
New house, New church, New missionaries,
So this week was one of the busiest of my entire life, I´m going to go quickly day-by-day.
Tuesday was just about the only normal day we had, but it was also the day that we decided we were going to move houses... the start of it all.
Wednesday we were planning the move when we got an unexpected phone call from a recent convert of ours who needed help cleaning a place she has, where she is starting a new store. So we spent a few hours cleaning there. There were tons of Spiders and webs everywhere. We finally had to leave in order to do the move (which took forever).
Cut to Thursday and we are in our new house, everything moved in, but we have no gas for the stove, a broken shower-head with no hot water, no utensils, and we are questioning ourselves on the decision to move. But we persevered (and at this point there was no turning back) and we headed out and bought everything we needed for our new house, which was really expensive...at least to us.
Friday comes around and we are now feeling quite at home in our new house and things are great, we found a few new investigators who have a lot of potential and I´ll update you on them as things happen.
The new church (that we got last week) is now located right in front of where we live. It's much more convenient for most of the member because the old location was on the other end of town, further away from where most the members live, and they had to walk up to 30 minutes to get there. Now it's only about a 10 minute walk for most.
Finally the day we've all been waiting for... Saturday morning we Baptized Uelton, Juliana, Estefany, and Aline!!!! That was really cool, and the other companionship baptized Pabline and Fabiano. That makes six baptisms here in Padre Bernardo, all of which were youth which is really cool to see the growth there. It was a great baptismal service and Padre Bernardo is growing!
Afterwards we had a Youth activity that Saturday, like we do every week, and it's amazing to see the difference. Our first youth activity consisted of 4 youth that came, a very humble group, and Saturday evening we had nearly 20 people there and it was a great activity. Love the power of the youth!!!
All was well and we were just waiting and preparing for Sunday to come around... and then the "fire nation" attacked! Or actually my companion's leg was in lot of pain. It had been feeling progressively worse all week. We ended up calling the mission nurse about his leg and she (thinking it could be a blood clot) said it would be a good idea to go to the hospital, that night, which is 2 hours away because we live here in Padre Bernardo.
So Elder Deleray and my companion left to go to the hospital, and since it was so late and so far away, they spent the night with the missionaries near the hospital. (turns out that my companion is fine, of course, he´s now taking some pain medication). The two of us who stayed behind handled all the Sunday services this week.
Anyways so now today Monday, we had to say sad goodbyes to Elder Nascimento who has been here in Padre Bernardo for 7 months, and we got Elder Peralta a Hispanic elder who has been on his mission for a year and a half and he seems like a great guy. We also get two new sisters tonight (who will be living in our old place) which will be interesting, and I´ll talk about them next week.
Anyways I've got to go this was a lot longer than I had planned, I love you all and have a good week!
Elder Hyer
Sol, Sol, Sol,
Sol means sun for those of you that don´t know, and it has just been so incredibly hot all week. The first thing I want to say is that summer is coming and I´m feeling it.
Other than the sun things have been going really really well. We have an awesome group of progressing investigators right now.
Our top investigator right now is Uelton. He is on date to be baptized this Saturday the 24th. He is a way good kid who has given up everything we have asked of him without hesitation, and I haven't seen anyone so excited for baptism. I´m pretty excited as well.
Next Saturday we also have the baptism of Ester´s kids Juliana, Stephanie, and Adeline and they are amazing. Ester is really great, loves us a lot but just doesn't have quite as much desire as the kids do. But a cool experience that we had was Saturday when we were talking to Ester about coming to church, and she told us that she had to go buy something, find a new something (I didn't completely understand) and then her 12 year old daughter starts to try to talk her mom into going to church but without success. Then Juliana boldy tells her mom "well I´m going to go" And all of the daughters came, led along by the youngest of them all. It´s neat to see the dedication some people naturally have.
Elias is steadily improving, he told us in our last visit that the Book of Mormon is amazing and that there is no other book like it, he knows it´s true. The work that we do, converting people to the gospel would be so much harder without the Book of Mormon, It is an amazing book with a promise that if you will read it and pray you will know its true. And so far I've always seen that promise work.
In other news we changed our location for church, we are now renting a small place to meet in. Not to mention our awesome new sign for our church that we had made. Church this week was great. We had 2 recent converts give talks this week, both of whom did a excellent job.
Coconut is great! Yesterday a family gave me the inner husk part of the coconut, its hard and you break off pieces of it to eat, but it tastes so good, and I didn't even like coconut in the States! I don´t know why but fresh coconut is just so much better than I ever thought it would be.
Well that´s about it this week, transfers are coming up this Monday so I´ll let you guys know what happens there. I´m expecting some big changes. Also this next week is really hot, our coolest day is supposed to be around 100, and our hottest is supposed to come in at 108 degrees..... pray for me!
Anyways, love you all, have a great week!
Love,
Elder Hyer
