November 26, 2012

Helloooo!! Another week gone by, 2 more rain storms gone through, and quite a bit of good happening here! I'll start with Monday. Last Monday, anyways.

After I got off the computer, we went home, made lunch, and then I laid down to take a nap. As I was trying to sleep, there was a huge BANG and flash of light as lightning struck less than a mile away from our house. And then the rain started. I rushed outside and grabbed all my clothes from outside, and the rain started pouring harder and harder. So I was sitting in our doorway, bewildered with the hard rain and random hail, waiting for a motorcycle on the side of the road to be washed away, when Elder Guerra told me it was raining inside the house. Which makes no sense, considering our house is.... a house, right? Well, I was wrong. Water was coming down from almost all of the light fixtures, in all but one of the rooms in our house. And it started leaking down the walls and through the roof. Our house got SOAKED. Luckily, the rain didn't get my bed wet, but the water falling from the ceiling got Elder Guerra's bed wet. Most of our other stuff was relatively untouched by the rain, but our floors were covered in water. At some point you will all see the video that we made when it was raining. It was a lot of rain. So the first picture is the water coming down our wall, and the second is the rain falling from our ceiling.

Then, on Wednesday we went to the registry office where Elder Guerra and I were witnesses for a marriage that will take place on the 10th, and then we will baptize the husband on the 15th and possibly rebaptize the wife. We'll see! Should be fun!

The other day, Elder Guerra and I were talking about what we wanted in investigators. We wanted an investigator that would say, "I want to know if this church is true. I want to follow Christ and I will do everything I have to in order to get there." Then, the very next day, we went to a new investigators house where she said pretty much exactly that. She had gotten in an argument with her grandmother, who told her that she was already baptized as a baby and didn't need to be baptized again, but the girl told her grandma that it was now her turn to make the decision and that she wanted this for herself. Soooo we were blessed with exactly what we wanted! I don't think there is anything that compares to the feeling that you get when you hear those words come out of the mouth of an investigator. It's pretty fantastic. She'll be baptized here in a couple of weeks.

Well, that's about all that happened this week. This is the last week of the transfer so who knows what will happen next week! 

I love you all! Hope you all have a fantastic week!

-Elder Hopper #1

November 19, 2012

Hello Family!

Happy Thanksgiving in a couple of days! That's definitely a holiday that I miss, if not for the food, just for spending time with the family. But That means that I only have one more on the mission! 

This week was a pretty good week. Not too much exciting happened, but we did mark with Shirley and Jonas to go to the marriage registry place to be the witnesses for their marriage, which will happen on Wednesday this week! So a couple weeks into the future we should have the baptism of Jonas and re-baptism of Shirley! Yaaaay! Also today Sônia and Benedito were going to Leme to talk to their marriage papers dude to get that all figured out. Hopefully they'll get everything sorted out today and they'll get married here in a couple weeks as well! I just fear that they will have to wait until after the transfer (which is on the 3rd of December) to get baptized and maybe I'll leave this area.... I hope that doesn't happen, but it's all the will of the Lord!

I'm getting over my cold, so that's good. But it seems that I've passed it to my companion and another Elder in our zone. But that's alright. At least I'm not sick anymore!

I don't have much news this week, but I hope you're all doing well! I included a couple of pictures; the first one is of a wall of a school here (all the schools look like prisons and are completely enclosed here) where it looks like they're paying someone to do a cool mural. I'll try to take pictures of other parts of the wall as it is really cool. The other two pictures are puzzles. You guys get to figure out what's wrong in them! I'll try to remember next week to tell you guys. Just funny little things in Brasil.

 

 

I hope you all have a fantastic week! Love you all!

-Elder Hopper #1

Oh, and Donald, if you read this, I hope all is well with you and that you stay excited to get back out there! It's totally worth it and you'll be incredibly blessed for your sacrifice and work!

November 12, 2012

Good morning family and everyone else to happens to stumble upon this email and read it!

We had a BAPTISM!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOO!!! Julia was baptized this week! It was really cool. That whole family is getting more excited now. Benedito is getting more responsible and will... run behind? Correr atrás... the marriage papers and him and Sônia will get marrried here pretty soon then be baptized! Yay! So many good things happening! We don't have a baptism marked for this week, but that's alright. It's so good to have a baptism! And I confirmed someone for the first time in my life! Yaaaaay!

I've got a couple of pictures on here, first of the baptism then of me in Benedito's truck. This is his job and his life and his love! Well, besides Sônia, of course. But we all know how boys are with their trucks. And no, I didn't get to drive it... Stupid rules...

We had a lady this week who actually wanted to "discuss" religion with our bishop this week. We knocked on her door out of the blue (we weren't even knocking doors), and she got all offended and asked us who sent us. But nobody, besides God of course, had! So she got a little bit angry with us, but then we just said a prayer at her house, marked a day to come back with the bishop and left. We went back with bishop, and he pretty much shot down everything that she said. It was kind of funny. She really had no knowledge but thought that she did until bishop came in and destroyed every point that she brought up. But her son came to church on Sunday! We're going to go back and teach her son, whose name is Alessandro, with bishop again and it should be good. 

It's kind of scary to hear about those earthquakes in Guatemala! I hope everything's alright with Drew! I'm sure he'll get a lot of service opportunities now. Should be fun!

That's all I got for this week! I love you all! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Hopper #1

November 5, 2012

Bom dia família!

Well, first things first, I got a new companion. Elder Guerra. The brother of Lainey's new friend, Antonio. He's been out here for a little over 1 year and 2 months, so he's got a bit more time than me. He just came from the mission office where he was working as executive secretary for 6 months. So it was a little bit of adapting for him when he got here - it's a bit different working out here in the field! But we're getting along really well. He's a cool guy and it's good to be out here with him. Maybe in the next couple weeks I'll send a picture if I can get a cable for my camera.

So last week I talked a little about Julia and how she went to church for the first time and loved it, right? Well on Friday she went with the youth to the temple. Obviously she couldn't enter, but she helped take care of the garden outside a little bit with them, and then waited outside the temple for them while they were doing the ordinances inside. She came back, and said she absolutely loved it. She's super excited, already doing Personal Progress, she has tons of friends in the Young Womens organization, and is just having a great time. Her baptism is scheduled for this Saturday night! We're all really excited for her. 

Oh, and Sônia has decided that she's going to be baptized. She got a new job where she is out of the house the whole week, and she actually sleeps at the house of a lady that she is taking care of. She has started not even sleeping here in Aracy. So she can be baptized at any point now. We'll see how that goes!

There's a sister in our zone that might be going home this week as well. Her name is Sister José. She's been having some health problems and is not doing well at all. It's really sad to see her going through this as she's a really nice person and a really good missionary. It's been really good to have her here in this zone. Pray for her that she'll get better!

I think that's about all that happened this week. We ended up working a lot in different areas this week, so not much happened here. Next week should be more exciting with a baptism and with more good stuff! And we're gonna eat esfihas this weekend as well! Wooooo!!!!

 

Love you all!

-Elder Hopper #1