 |
| Elder Henry with his District in Rio Pardo |
 |
| Elder Henry and Elder Black out teaching, finding, and testifying! |
 |
| View of Rio Pardo from my bedroom window early in the morning |
 |
| The Sign Says "Don't Put Trash Here" |
It was really cold last week, but fortunately you sent me prepared :). The new long sleeve plaid shirt you sent me for Christmas is doing me wonders, and my new sweater is keeping me nice and warm. If I conjugate any of my verbs wrong or spell any words incorrectly, please forgive me. The spell check here is in Portuguese.
I can understand June-uary :P. It's been cold here the last week or so, but not very rainy. Fortunately we have lots of stuff here to keep us warm during the cold. Well except the really usful things like, heaters and insulation to keep your house warm... It's like camping everyday out here, and I'm even sleeping in a sleeping bag. At least we have warm showers and flushing toilets :P. Oh and a washing machine!
Everyone has doors here, but the reason you clap is because people have gates and fences, so you usually can't reach the door. You also don't enter without permission because A) its rude, and B) Everyone and their Dog has a dog. So about 98% of the time you clap to enter.
The town itself is very heavily German influenced. It was founded in 1809 by german settlers, and there is a large German population. Although Santa Cruz has more German/Brasilians than Rio Pardo. I haven't run into anyone who actually speaks German though, so I guess its pretty much like it is in the United States.
We actually didn't have church this past sunday so we could hop on a bus and head over to Santa Cruz to watch the temple dedication. It was pretty neat, although I have no idea what it looks like, because they didn't show any of the outside of the temple :P. I only kind of know what the inside looks like. President Uchtdorf gave a very inspiring talk about the early saints of Brasil, especially Manaus. Its incredible how fast the church has grown in Brasil in the last 40ish years.
From what I remember from the Holland Conference, Elder Holland had with him the Mission Presidents and their Wives from Porto Alegre North and South, and then a couple of people from Brasil. I don't remember if they were area authorities or just from the Missionary Department from São Paulo.
It was fun to read about the other missionaries :). I mostly skimmed through them because they charge by the Hour down here for our computers, but they were fun :). If you have time I would love to continue to get some from my missionary buddies (really sherry's missionary buddies XD).
I can understand June-uary :P. It's been cold here the last week or so, but not very rainy. Fortunately we have lots of stuff here to keep us warm during the cold. Well except the really usful things like, heaters and insulation to keep your house warm... It's like camping everyday out here, and I'm even sleeping in a sleeping bag. At least we have warm showers and flushing toilets :P. Oh and a washing machine!
Everyone has doors here, but the reason you clap is because people have gates and fences, so you usually can't reach the door. You also don't enter without permission because A) its rude, and B) Everyone and their Dog has a dog. So about 98% of the time you clap to enter.
The town itself is very heavily German influenced. It was founded in 1809 by german settlers, and there is a large German population. Although Santa Cruz has more German/Brasilians than Rio Pardo. I haven't run into anyone who actually speaks German though, so I guess its pretty much like it is in the United States.
We actually didn't have church this past sunday so we could hop on a bus and head over to Santa Cruz to watch the temple dedication. It was pretty neat, although I have no idea what it looks like, because they didn't show any of the outside of the temple :P. I only kind of know what the inside looks like. President Uchtdorf gave a very inspiring talk about the early saints of Brasil, especially Manaus. Its incredible how fast the church has grown in Brasil in the last 40ish years.
From what I remember from the Holland Conference, Elder Holland had with him the Mission Presidents and their Wives from Porto Alegre North and South, and then a couple of people from Brasil. I don't remember if they were area authorities or just from the Missionary Department from São Paulo.
It was fun to read about the other missionaries :). I mostly skimmed through them because they charge by the Hour down here for our computers, but they were fun :). If you have time I would love to continue to get some from my missionary buddies (really sherry's missionary buddies XD).
This week we were super busy! We set a goal as a district to teach 100 lessons in total, which works out to 25 lessons per companionship. We worked hard and had a bunch of lessons pop up out of no where! I know that the Lord was helping us to reach our goal (Which we did, our district taught 101 lessons last week and we taught 25).
We have a ton of investigators right now, so I'll give you a brief summary of the ones who are really progressing:
First off Adriana (45ish). We made a stop smoking plan with Adriana and she's sticking to it! It appears that the blessing we gave her last monday really is helping here. As of Sunday she had gone from 10 cigs per day to 5, and if she continues to follow the plan she'll quit by this Friday :). I have absolute faith that she can meet this goal.
We are also teaching a Part Member Family, Daisy and Juliano. We went on splits last Tuesday and Friday (which I survived!) and I taught Daisy and Juliano with Ernesto (a member of the ward) While Elder Black was off with our Branch President teaching elsewhere. Juliano is a really nice sincere guy and wants to know more about the church. He accepted a baptismal date of July 7th, but they are really hard to meet with because Daisy works, and Juliano works two jobs. They have a daughter who's 1 and a few months. They aren't married legally so we will have to marry them before Juliano can be baptized. Daisy has been less active in the church for many years but wants to come back :).
We are also teaching a family, but because of the splits I haven't been able to actually meet with them, but they have a lot of friends in the Church, and are progressing rapidly. The son William accepted a date for baptism, but they parents, Gilmar and Maria want to go to church first before they set a date.
We are also teaching a lot of Children/Young Men/Women aged people. Gabriel (14 Male) loves the church and wants to be baptized. He can't read which is hard, but we are going to help him start.
Talison (14 Male) found the church through our weekly activity at the church. He loves to play futebol with all the other young men and has a baptismal date for this Saturday. He's been a bit of a stinker the last couple of days though and didn't meet with us at all last week.
There's also Camila (13 female) who's the friend of an awesome member family. She was almost baptized before, but wasn't, because her Mom didn't want to join the church. Finally we have two young kids that are children of a less active Mom. The Mom's name is Alini. Her Kids, Laura (10 Female) and Claudio (9 Male), have been to church a few times already and also love the saturday Branch activities. We had our first lesson with them yesterday.
First off Adriana (45ish). We made a stop smoking plan with Adriana and she's sticking to it! It appears that the blessing we gave her last monday really is helping here. As of Sunday she had gone from 10 cigs per day to 5, and if she continues to follow the plan she'll quit by this Friday :). I have absolute faith that she can meet this goal.
We are also teaching a Part Member Family, Daisy and Juliano. We went on splits last Tuesday and Friday (which I survived!) and I taught Daisy and Juliano with Ernesto (a member of the ward) While Elder Black was off with our Branch President teaching elsewhere. Juliano is a really nice sincere guy and wants to know more about the church. He accepted a baptismal date of July 7th, but they are really hard to meet with because Daisy works, and Juliano works two jobs. They have a daughter who's 1 and a few months. They aren't married legally so we will have to marry them before Juliano can be baptized. Daisy has been less active in the church for many years but wants to come back :).
We are also teaching a family, but because of the splits I haven't been able to actually meet with them, but they have a lot of friends in the Church, and are progressing rapidly. The son William accepted a date for baptism, but they parents, Gilmar and Maria want to go to church first before they set a date.
We are also teaching a lot of Children/Young Men/Women aged people. Gabriel (14 Male) loves the church and wants to be baptized. He can't read which is hard, but we are going to help him start.
Talison (14 Male) found the church through our weekly activity at the church. He loves to play futebol with all the other young men and has a baptismal date for this Saturday. He's been a bit of a stinker the last couple of days though and didn't meet with us at all last week.
There's also Camila (13 female) who's the friend of an awesome member family. She was almost baptized before, but wasn't, because her Mom didn't want to join the church. Finally we have two young kids that are children of a less active Mom. The Mom's name is Alini. Her Kids, Laura (10 Female) and Claudio (9 Male), have been to church a few times already and also love the saturday Branch activities. We had our first lesson with them yesterday.
Sorry if this e-mail was scatter-brained, I'm all out of brain juice XP.
Love,
Elder Henry
I'm glad to hear Elder Henry is enjoying Rio Pardo. It's just too bad he won't be in Porto Alegre for my baptism, which is set for the 23rd of June.
ReplyDeleteToday I cooked lunch for Elder Persinger and Elder Carter and we did talk a lot about Elder Henry, Elder Caridade, Elder Oba... We all miss them a lot, but we know they are needed where they are.
Keep up the good work, Elder Henry!
I will pass this along to him in next week's email Natalia. And hooray for your baptism--one of the best decisions I made in my life, too (I was in college at the time).
DeleteThank you so much, Mrs. Henry. I'm really happy with my decision. I had some doubts at first, but at the stake conference last Sunday I felt I was ready for it. My first step into a new life! Can't wait!
ReplyDeleteI went through so many trials last year, but now I understand that Heavenly Father was just preparing me to receive the restored gospel. I feel blessed. And you can be sure that Elder Henry was a part of it, of this change in my life. The spirit worked through him to teach me so much. I'll be forever grateful.
Thank you for making my week! And for opening your home to my son. You're in our prayers, Natalia, and great things are truly in store!
Delete