June 25, 2012

This week will be 6 months on the mission! Time has gone by so fast already! It's amazing how fast time flies and how much we learn here on the mission so fast. I feel pretty much fluent in the language, and it's only hard to understand the drunk people in Portuguese now. 

This week was a bit interesting... A few things happened and me and my companion weren't able to work on Tuesday or Wednesday, so we lost two days of work. But on Thursday we went right back to work and everything was good! We have been visiting a lady name Conceição for the past couple of weeks on and off. She's a bit hard to find at home, but she's really accepting of the gospel and loves the missionaries. We talked to her on Friday afternoon, and she said she would go to church on Sunday and everything was good. Then Sunday rolls around and she didn't show! When someone doesn't come to church, it's really hard for us in our area because our chapel isn't in our area. So we didn't have the chance to go look for her. But after church we went to her house with a priest in our ward and ended up teaching her and her son a little bit. Turns out that she didn't go to church because she was a bit embarrassed about clothes and the fact that she didn't know anyone in the ward. So we're going to try and visit her with some members this week so that she gets to know them and gets more comfortable with the ward. We've already taught her almost all the lessons, but she still hasn't gone to church a single time, so she has to wait at least three more weeks to be baptized!

We were also able to talk to Herison's dad this week. Herison is the kid that was told by his dad that he can't talk to the missionaries for a month and all that jazz. So we talked to his dad, Diego, and he told us that we could start visiting Herison again! That made us really happy, and so now we just have to go and talk to Herison some more and he could be baptized this week! He's still strong in the testimony that he had and really wants to be baptized. We just have to make sure that his dad doesn't get drunk again and decide to change his mind!

I was looking on lds.org today and I saw a talk that I really like by Elder Cook. He talks about being in tune with the things that really matter and magnifying our callings in the church. It was really good and I think you all should go read it, too! 

Here's the URL: http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/04/in-tune-with-the-music-of-faith?media=video&lang=eng

Well, I hope you all have a fantastic week! Recover well, Mom! And I forgot to say this last week, so Happy Father's day, Dad! I love you so much and I'm so grateful for the instruction that you've given me throughout my life!

I love you all!

Elder Hopper #1

June 18, 2012

We had two more baptisms this week! One was a girl that had been frequenting a different ward (her aunt's ward), and the other was a girl that is the neighbor of a member. It was a bit difficult with the second girl... We got to her house on Saturday to bring her to the baptism, and she told us that she wasn't going to get baptized. So we started talking to her, and turns out she was just really nervous and a little bit scared to be baptized because her family wouldn't be there to watch. Her mom actually decided not to go because she was drunk. Yaaaay alcohol! But we talked to her and talked to her neighbors and she calmed down a bit and everything was good. Then on Sunday the two girls and our baptism from last week were confirmed. 

In this email (and the next) I'll include a few pictures of what's been going on here. Mostly I'll put pictures of the people we baptized. It's a total of 14 people now - I think I got pictures of all of them here.

This week has been a little bit difficult; I'm having problem with my foot still. It's not hurting at the ankle anymore, but now my left shin has started to swell a bit and hurts pretty bad. But I'm sure it'll pass!

We have been working a lot this week with Gleon, the dad of the Barbosa family. It's been pretty hard with him, but he's progressing little by little. On Tuesday we went over to his house with Paulo, a member who had a drinking problem, and they combined to go to AA and another group together every night. But wait, there's more. On Wednesday everything was good and they went together. On Thursday, Gleon got home from work late and ended up not being able to go. On Friday, Paulo passed by Gleon's house and waited for 30 minutes, but then left because Gleon didn't come out. Soooo... We still have a lot of work with Gleon. It's becoming really difficult for his family, too. His wife and youngest daughter haven't been to church for 2 weeks now, and their testimonies are struggling. As soon as we can get Gleon to stop drinking and attend church regularly I'm sure the problems will all disappear.

Here are a few pictures of our city from up in a grain storage tower that we went to last week. I'll have to do that video thing and send it to you guys sometime soon.

Anyways, that's pretty much all the news for this week... We had transfers this week, but everyone in our zone stayed except one elder. So I'm still in Ipiranga with Elder Henrique. A lot of the same working and walking and preaching and baptizing and all that good stuff!

Oh, I have something to ask, too. I need a flash drive! All the elders here carry around flash drives with church music on it and they have what they call a "little box of sound" that you just plug a flash drive into and it plays the music that's on it. I would buy one here, but they're crazy expensive. It's like R$30 for a 4GB flash drive. Que louco!

I love you all! It's good to see that things are going well at home and the downstairs bedroom is looking really good!

Good luck with your surgery, mom!

Love,

Elder Hopper #1

June 11, 2012

Another crazy week at home, it looks like! But I'm sure it'll all calm down now that school's out and all that is done. Just in time for surgeries and more vacation time! Dad's got his sabbatical so you guys are going to Disneyland, right? Wasn't that the plan a few years back? 

This week was kinda crazy. On Wednesday we had a training from President Prieto, but the building that we were going to use was being cleaned, so everyone left. About 4 blocks down the road, President called everyone back so that we could walk to another chapel to have the meeting there! So we all went there, had the meeting, which was supposed to end around 11:30, but we got out at almost 2:00. So we all walked together to a buffet type place and ate, when it started pouring down rain. So 4 of us missionaries that live together huddled under one umbrella and walked back to the chapel where the bishop of Ala 1 gave us a ride home. Boy, were we happy for that ride! 

On Saturday, we helped put a roof on a house. But here all the houses are made of bricks and cement. So we poured cement for the roof for about 5 or 6 hours in the morning. And by poured cement, I mean that we mixed the cement in the driveway, and then hauled it bucket by bucket up to the top of the house where a member poured it on the top. It was a bit tedious, but I can now say that I helped construct a house in Brasil. 

Later that night we had a baptism of a man named Getulho. He is the neighbor of one of the members here, so we met him that way. His family wants nothing to do with the church, but we'll see if that changes or not. He's having some marital issues right now, so we're trying to keep everything sane within his house before we start preaching the gospel to the rest of the family. 

Even later than the baptism we went to watch the Cultural Show before the dedication of the Temple in Manaus. It was pretty cool and all, it was pretty neat to see all the different dances and stuff that they did. 

Then on Sunday we got to watch the dedication of the Temple in Manaus. That was pretty awesome. It was a lot more simple than I thought it would be, but it was still good. They had the dedicatory prayer given by Elder Uchtdorf, and a few more talks. I am so grateful for temples and the opportunity that we have to make covenants with God here on the other, but not only for ourselves. We have the grand opportunity to help those who have already passed through the veil to the next life make those same covenants. I'm so grateful for this gospel and the happiness it brings! I wish more people would understand what we have and the awesome chance we have to become like our Heavenly Father one day. Every day I think about the people back home that I never took the chance to share this gospel with and it makes me a bit sad to think about that, but I know that I'll have the chance again when I get back home to talk with most of them. Never lose a chance to share the gospel with those you love! This gospel is for everyone! 

I wanted to send home some pictures this week, but I forgot the cable for my camera in our house today, so you'll have to wait another week before you get pictures!

I love you all! I hope you all have a fantastic week! And I'm praying for you, mom! I hope your surgery goes well!

Love,

Elder Hopper #1

June 3, 2012

Wow! Looks like you guys are doing fantastic! Makes me miss home a bit... But I'm here for 18 more months and then I can join you all again! Things will just keep getting better from here on out! Oh, and speaking of Chipotle, I still have $7 that I am saving so that the day I get back I can buy a burrito. Definitely one type of food that I miss from home.

Tell Carter that I'm way excited for him! I was thinking about him the other day and that he should be getting his call soon. That's awesome that he's going to Guam!


My foot's doing well. We rested a lot this week so that it could get better, so I'm not feeling anymore pain. This week we'll get back to working and baptizing and preaching the good word! On Sunday we had a Stake conference which was actually more like Brazil conference. There were 99 stakes participating in Brazil, and the Prophet and Elder Anderson spoke. It was really good. They spoke about love in the home and being educated. It seems like that's a big problem here, but things should only get better! It's amazing whenever we get to hear the words of a prophet. Even if they are translated into Portuguese.


So, that kid that I told you about with the dad that wouldn't let him do anything at the church anymore... Herisom is his name. We talked to him a couple days ago for about 5 minutes. He's still doing well and he's happy and everything. We went to actually talk to his dad, but his dad decided that he wasn't going to be there for our appointment at 7. So we didn't talk to him. We're hope to find his dad, Diego is his name by the way, at home this week sometime. The one month should actually be up on the 16th, so we'll see what happens there! We just need to pray and fast and do our best and leave the rest to God!


Anyways, that's about all that happened this week. I sent Maren a letter, so she should be getting it in a couple of weeks! I got a letter from Bishop Stott, but that's still all I've gotten since I've been here.


Oh, and about that trombone... I found one for R$800. That's about $400... And I already have almost R$300 and then a little bit more in my bank account. I just need a little bit of help with it!


Well, I love you all! I hope all is well!

Elder Hopper #1

May 28, 2012

Hello Family!

Looks like you guys had a fun week, with injuries and all! I've actually been thinking a lot about Grandma and Grandpa (on both sides), and it would be really nice to hear from them. Could you give me their email addresses so I can send them an email next week? 

This week was pretty good. We had two baptisms out of the originally planned 3. The third decided to drink and smoke a ton this week, and when we went to his house to do the baptismal interview, he was drunk. Sooooo he will have to wait a bit longer. But with time he will come around to his senses.

Not much really happened this week... More lessons and things like that, and more of the usual missionary working. But, along with a lot of walking comes some things that aren't so good sometimes. I've been having a lot of pain in my left foot this week, and it feels like the tendon is not happy. But I've been taking ibuprofen and I have icy-hot patch type things, so it's all good. 

Annie - One thing that helps a lot of the people here that I've been talking to that smoke or something like that, is reading the book of Mormon. Just one chapter a day, or even one verse a day will help a lot. I can assure you that you will be more happy and more able to quit that smoking thing. We have a member here who almost died because of how much he was drinking, and it wasn't until he almost saw his dad die from the same thing that he finally decided to stop. But the one thing that helped him most was the Book of Mormon. He testified the other day to an investigator of the power of the Book of Mormon in helping with addictions, and I know that there is no other thing on this Earth that can help more. It would be even better if you started reading it as a family every day like we always tried to do!

Well, I hope you all have a good week! I really enjoyed the pictures! I love you all!

-Elder Hopper #1

May 21, 2012

So this week has been a bit interesting. Reeeaaallly up and down. We ended up having 3 baptisms out of the original 6 that we had planned. One that fell through was the dad of the Barbosa family, and he ended up getting home from work on Saturday and going straight to the bar and drank and smoked for quite some time. We visited him last night and he's dedicated to fixing what he did and to being baptized this week. We took his cigarettes from him, and he's working with a member of the ward right now so that should help a lot. 

Another one was a 13 year old boy who is the president of the student body at his school, and he has a really strong testimony of the things that we have taught, but after his baptismal interview on Thursday he was talking with his dad (who was drunk at the time), and his dad said that he couldn't go to church anymore, couldn't meet with the missionaries, and couldn't have a Book of Mormon in the house for at least one month, maybe more. We went and talked to him, his name is Herisom by the way, and he started crying because his dad won't let him do any of this even though he knows it's true. It was really sad to see this all happening, but Herisom promised that after his dad forgets about all this, he'll search out the missionaries and say that he wants to be baptized. So there's still hope for him!

The last one that fell through didn't actually fall through. His name is Lucas, and he's the brother of a kid that we already baptized. He was going to get baptized this week, but his family couldn't be there for the baptism, so they decided to reschedule it for this week. He should be baptized along with his little sister, Julia. With them three baptized; Rodrigo, Lucas, and Julia; there's only the Mom, older sister, and the older sister's boyfriend left. Only Rodrigo, Lucas, and Julia have gone to church already, but the others said that they will this week. They want to watch the confirmation of Lucas and Julia, so they should be there for sure. 

So we have at least 3 more baptisms planned for this week! We'll see how things go!

So I found a trombone on the internet to buy, and it's only R$800. I can have it sent to the Mission Office, and they'll get it to me from there. I'm really excited to have a trombone again! Hopefully it all works out!

Looks like you all are having fun with Disneyland and all that! How is Annie handling the trip? Is she still holding strong?

I love you all and I hope you have a safe trip back home!

Love,

Elder Hopper #1

May 15, 2012

It looks like your Mother's day was pretty fantastic! I'm glad you were able to relax a bit and had a good time.

Oh, I've got some good news... Turns out I can talk on Google+ for as long as my heart desires on Christmas and Mother's Day. It's just if you call on the phone that you can only be on for 1 hour because it generally costs a ton. But since Google+ and Skype are free, we can be on for as long as we want. So on Christmas Eve we can talk for longer! Good thing I found this out after I was done talking to you guys...

Yes, I did take money out of my account. That sounds about right to the amount. We're trying to find me a trombone today, and then we'll go barter and try to buy it at some point later. I might actually buy one online, since they have a website here called merkadolivre that you can buy stuff for really cheap. It's kind of like eBay, but without the bidding part. But just let me know if there are any more changes in the amount.

So far we've only had 6 baptisms, but we have 5 more (possibly 6) planned for this weekend. I'll let you know next Monday how things went!

So this week... I was transferred to the area Jardin Jandaia on Monday, and stayed there until Friday morning. I got a call Thursday afternoon from the mission president, and he said, "We're going to have a re-transfer!" so I went back to Ipiranga. My companion here is the same one, Elder Henrique. He was having some health issues the week that I was in Jandaia, and the elder that was with him was just making everything a ton worse for him, so President had me come back here to help out Elder Henrique. Looks like I'll be here in this area for at least 2 more transfers, at least one with Elder Henrique, but we'll see how everything turns out in the end. I might become the senior companion at the end of the one or two transfers that I'm here with Elder Henrique, also. 

Well, I think that's everything. I love you all! 

Love,

Elder Hopper #1