Planalto - Asa Norte - Brasilia Week 18

Well things are going great! as always!

Let´s start off with Wagner our golden investigator. We have started seeing him all over town during the week and we actually managed to help him resolve several doubts that he had. We had a sit down lesson with him on Saturday (which was followed by a feast!!) We are really excited for Wagner, he ended up coming to church again last Sunday for Stake Conference and it went great!

Speaking of stake conference I got a chance to talk to a whole bunch of missionaries I know but see ever and that was fun! Then this week was also our bishop´s birthday and he also has a new two-week old baby! So this week with a family of members we went over and surprised him which was pretty funny.

Other than that my feelings are a little bitter-sweet as Elder Costa, my companion, will be leaving the mission to serve in the Salt Lake City South mission. This week we had his Visa interview and it's all set for him to go this transfer.

Not much more to say, but I love you all, hope you all have an awesome week!

Surprise birthday cake for our bishop (his name is Vitor, He's the bomb)

Planalto - Asa Norte - Brasilia Week 17

Wagner, Visa.

Hey everyone! This week was full of awesome miracles as always.

First of all, remember last week's email when I talked about the turtle lady and how her son ended up coming to church. Well, he came again and he wants to get baptized! His name is Wagner. We also went by his house and his family basically gave us a feast!! We are super excited and I'll keep you all updated as we teach him more.

My companion's visa came in this week and he is very excited. He will probably end up leaving next Monday to serve his mission in Salt Lake City, Utah. So it looks like I'll be getting a new companion already. I know I'll miss Elder Costa quite a bit, but new companions are always fun.

All of my companions continue to have more talents than me as Elder Costa will be playing violin next week with the church choir, and I will comfortably watch him from the audience :)

Love you all so much, sorry for the lack of information this week, but things are really just going great, I love this area so so much. It's funny how much time you can stay in an area but you only continue to love it more and more.

Have a great week everyone love you all tchau!!

Celebrating my companion getting his Visa to the U.S. to serve in Utah, SLC

Awesome couple in the ward, Ronald and Keytiane

Pretty tree

Tree swing

Planalto - Asa Norte - Brasilia Week 16

Old lady turtle miracle, Exchange, Mother´s day!!!

This week was actually pretty awesome!

Started out with a bang as I got the opportunity to go on an exchange with Elder Lucas which was sweet!! We basically took the day to wreck Asa Norte with our awesomeness and it was a good time. Elder Lucas is one of our Zone Leaders and I also got the chance to learn a lot working with him.

The rest of the week went by pretty normally, until Saturday as we were walking around the entire city visiting those on our schedule. In the midst of most of our appointments falling through we talked with an old lady walking in front of her apartment building with her pet turtle named Estrela. We briefly spoke with her and then invited her to church and left a card with the church's address and meeting hours and our phone number and left. A few hours later we get a phone call from a man that I had never talked to before named Vagner. He asked if he could visit the church on Sunday and that he had received a card with our information on it. We said of course he could and we hung up. Another few hours later the same old lady calls us again telling us that her son will be going to church on Sunday and that she talked to two young men (one of whom had a very complicated name) and that she will probably go to church next week as well. In the end he came to church and really enjoyed it. He promised to come again next week. We are very excited and seeing the miracles in our daily work.

Other than this experience the week ended perfectly with a Skype call to my amazing family giving me the opportunity to wish a happy Mother's Day to the best mom in the world.

Love you all,
Elder Hyer

Mission Conference Group 1

Mission Conference Group 2

Exchange with Elder Lucas, we ate pancakes with this member Irmão Fernando

Elder Lafaiete (ex-companion) taken at the mission conference

Elder Belcher (ex-companion MTC) taken at the mission conference

Planalto - Asa Norte - Brasilia Week 15

Antonio, Zone Activity

Well, this week was mais ou menos.

We had a few awesome things happen, for example, this Sunday the last investigator I ever thought would go to church was this guy named Antonio, and he just showed up, right on time and he is great, the funny thing is that we never know who is going to accept our messages. There have been so many times in my mission where the people who I thought were awesome and ready to follow ended up giving up and those that we sometimes have the least amount of faith in surprise us by showing the faith they have. It doesn't always happen like that but it teaches us the importance of visiting everybody, and not giving up on anyone.

Sadly, Daniel did not show up to church this Sunday and he didn't answer his phone either, so we were left a little frustrated. Later that same day we entered the ônibus and who did we find? You guessed it, Daniel! So we ended up talking to him and made an appointment to talk more Friday, but it´s funny how the Lord puts those people who we need to talk to in our path.

Other than that today we had our zone activity which was pretty fun, card games, food, ping pong, and to top it off we got permission from the mission president to watch Ratatuille which was really fun, I really miss movies haha.

Anyway, other than that life is incredibly busy, but great. I seem to love my mission more and more every day. Hope you guys are all doing well, love you all so so much

Beijo,
Elder Hyer

Planalto - Asa Norte - Brasilia Week 14

Daniel!, Dia de Tira Dentes.

As far as things exciting this week, there's just not a ton. But we did have one awesome thing happen!

Daniel, our sweet investigator, who couldn't go to church last week because of cancellation, came to church for the first time! He actually woke up late and about 9:20 we thought for sure he wasn't coming. We decided to call him and he said that he had woken up late and didn't feel comfortable arriving in the middle of the meeting. We told him to forget that and come to church! (we said it a little softer) So he came to church!!!!!! That was really cool and he said he really liked it. He is excited to keep coming.

Other than that, Thursday was "Dia de Tira Dentes" which directly translates to "take-out-teeth day" but is actually the name of some famous Brazilian who helped liberate Brasil. So that's cool, I guess. What's important is that because of this holiday Brasil took advantage and basically closed up shop for the weekend and so the missionary work slowed down a little. But we had daily miracles as always and I am really enjoying the work in this area.

That's about it for this week, hope you all are doing great! It's always awesome to hear from you guys, love ya tons.

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!