Week 7: Entrar no Campo
Hello family and friends,
This week, I left the CTM and entered the real world of missionary work. Terça-feira (or Tuesday for those of you who don't speak Portuguese), the three missionaries from my district who were assigned to the São Paulo Oeste mission (me, Elder Phipps, and Elder Selvage), along with a few Brazilians who are also in this mission, got in a van to the mission president's house. There, we all had a brief interview with President Horsley, ate some crepes, and filled out a few forms about who we are, basic information about our family, and what we think about being missionaries. We also met about eight more missionaries from the Provo MTC. Once all of the interviews were finished, we had a few presentations about health, safety, expectations of the mission, and similar things. Then, we got back in the vans and headed over to the São Paulo temple.
The São Paulo temple has a large chapel right next to it, so we met there. There, we found out who our first companions in the field would be (they found out at the same time). A few pictures were taken, which I think were sent to my parents and could be added to the blog version of this. We got a bit more information about how to be a missionary, headed over to the office, which is a few blocks away from the temple, got as bit more stuff done, did some minor surgery on my companion, and left to the various areas.
My companion is Elder Bulkley. He is from Payson, Utah, which is close to Provo. He has been on his mission for a year and four months. From what I've heard from the mission president, his assistants, and some of the other missionaries, he is a really good missionary. He has trained two other missionaries, but I am his first American companion in Brazil. He is also the district leader, so he gets to call the other missionaries in our district every night and report to the zone leaders, who are in charge of the two districts in Osasco.
We are serving in the Osasco ward of the Osasco stake, in the city of Osasco, which is a bit northwest of São Paulo. ("ward" and "stake" are geographical divisions in the Church, similar to wards and cities, if you didn't know that.) This area is about two quilometres by three quilometres (Portuguese doesn't use the letter "k", only "c" before "a", "o", or "u", and "qu" before "i" and "e"). We are opening this area, which means during the last transfer (six weeks), there weren't any missionaries in this area because there weren't enough missionaries in the mission for every area. (Also, apparently the last missionaries who served here were kind of terrible. I learned that just now from listening to my companion's conversation with his family, because I did not understand that during our conversation with the ward mission leader who told us that.)
Português é muito bom. Eu gosto isso mais que inglês. I can speak portuguese well enough to teach half a lesson, with my companion filling in anything I missed and teaching the other half of the lesson. I can also understand about half of what people say to me. This half is somewhat similar to attempting to catch grated cheese where half of the shreds cease to exist when they touch your hands and reassemble the block with what you have while more cheese is being grated, but I can usually get a sense of what is being said. This is a great area to learn, since people generally don't speak super fast, don't have any weird accent, and are really nice to people who stop them in the streets or interrupt their day by clapping outside their gates and yelling at them. (Doors are almost always protected by gates or otherwise not directly accessible from the street, so this is how we knock.)
Since we are opening this area, and the last missionaries were terrible, we started out with almost nothing to work with. The Area Book, which contains teaching records of all the interested people and weekly reports of their progress, has no weekly reports since March, and most of the teaching records have no lessons for the last year. We started by visiting all of the people who have teaching records, to see if any of them still remember the missionaries and are interested in learning more. Amazingly, two of them exist and are interested in learning. The others either don't exist, wouldn't answer the door, which is unusual in Brazil, or weren't there when we tried. Every time.
We have met a few people who are good. Johnny (Jhonny in the records, but I think that is wrong) is cool. He was one of the previous people that was taught, and we managed to find him and teach him about A Restauração do Evangelho de Jesus Cristo. We haven't seen him since then, but he was very interested. Hugo is another person from the records, who had to leave for work when we found him, but he also sounds pretty cool. We also met three guys on one of the streets who like to talk about something like how they don't need to study because they have the Holy Ghost to guide them, and when they come to the United States they want to live in my house, and it's honestly probably better that I couldn't actually understand most of what they said, either time we ran into them.
As was asked, people here do celebrate Halloween. There were a few people in costumes or face paint on October 31 and November 1, and there was a party or something at our apartment complex November 1.
This week's scripture:
Helamã 5:18
E aconteceu que Néfi e Leí pregaram aos lamanitas com grande poder e autoridade, porque haviam recebido poder e autoridade para falar, sendo-lhes também indicado o que deveriam dizer -
Helaman 5:18
And it came to pass that Nephi and Lehi did preach unto the Lamanites with such great power and authority, for they had power and authority given unto them that they might speak, and they also had what they should speak given unto them -
A lema da missão São Paulo Oeste é "Receber revelação e pregar com poder e autoridade";
The motto of the São Paulo West mission is (translated) "Receive revelation and preach with power and authority".
Néfi e Leí foram muito bons missionários, porque eles terem poder e autoridade para pregar.
Nephi and Lehi were great missionaries, because they had power and authority to preach.
Como eles, nós temos o mesmo poder e a mesma autoridade para compartilhar o Evangelho com todo mundo.
Like them, we have the same power and authority to share the gospel with all the world.
Como missionários, temos sidos chamados pelo profeta de Deus a servi-Lo e pregar Seu Evangelho. Com esse chamado é o poder e a autoridade a cumprir isso.
As missionaries, we have been called by a prophet of God to serve Him and preach His Gospel. With this calling comes the power and authority necessary to complete it.
Podemos usar esse poder e essa autoridade para ser guiados pelo Espírito Santo a fazer todo que devemos nessa obra.
We can use this power and authority to be guided by the Holy Ghost to do everything we that is required for this work.
Essa é a obra do Senhor. Se cumprimos isso fielmente, teremos poder e autoridade que nada pode impedir.
This is the work of the Lord, and if we complete it faithfully, we will have power and authority that nothing can stop.
Thank you for your continued support,
Elder Hiatt.
PS. Yes, I did finish reading O Livro de Mórmon in the CTM. It was actually on Monday morning, the morning before I sent the last letter, and I forgot to mention it. Sorry.
This week, I left the CTM and entered the real world of missionary work. Terça-feira (or Tuesday for those of you who don't speak Portuguese), the three missionaries from my district who were assigned to the São Paulo Oeste mission (me, Elder Phipps, and Elder Selvage), along with a few Brazilians who are also in this mission, got in a van to the mission president's house. There, we all had a brief interview with President Horsley, ate some crepes, and filled out a few forms about who we are, basic information about our family, and what we think about being missionaries. We also met about eight more missionaries from the Provo MTC. Once all of the interviews were finished, we had a few presentations about health, safety, expectations of the mission, and similar things. Then, we got back in the vans and headed over to the São Paulo temple.
The São Paulo temple has a large chapel right next to it, so we met there. There, we found out who our first companions in the field would be (they found out at the same time). A few pictures were taken, which I think were sent to my parents and could be added to the blog version of this. We got a bit more information about how to be a missionary, headed over to the office, which is a few blocks away from the temple, got as bit more stuff done, did some minor surgery on my companion, and left to the various areas.
My companion is Elder Bulkley. He is from Payson, Utah, which is close to Provo. He has been on his mission for a year and four months. From what I've heard from the mission president, his assistants, and some of the other missionaries, he is a really good missionary. He has trained two other missionaries, but I am his first American companion in Brazil. He is also the district leader, so he gets to call the other missionaries in our district every night and report to the zone leaders, who are in charge of the two districts in Osasco.
We are serving in the Osasco ward of the Osasco stake, in the city of Osasco, which is a bit northwest of São Paulo. ("ward" and "stake" are geographical divisions in the Church, similar to wards and cities, if you didn't know that.) This area is about two quilometres by three quilometres (Portuguese doesn't use the letter "k", only "c" before "a", "o", or "u", and "qu" before "i" and "e"). We are opening this area, which means during the last transfer (six weeks), there weren't any missionaries in this area because there weren't enough missionaries in the mission for every area. (Also, apparently the last missionaries who served here were kind of terrible. I learned that just now from listening to my companion's conversation with his family, because I did not understand that during our conversation with the ward mission leader who told us that.)
Português é muito bom. Eu gosto isso mais que inglês. I can speak portuguese well enough to teach half a lesson, with my companion filling in anything I missed and teaching the other half of the lesson. I can also understand about half of what people say to me. This half is somewhat similar to attempting to catch grated cheese where half of the shreds cease to exist when they touch your hands and reassemble the block with what you have while more cheese is being grated, but I can usually get a sense of what is being said. This is a great area to learn, since people generally don't speak super fast, don't have any weird accent, and are really nice to people who stop them in the streets or interrupt their day by clapping outside their gates and yelling at them. (Doors are almost always protected by gates or otherwise not directly accessible from the street, so this is how we knock.)
Since we are opening this area, and the last missionaries were terrible, we started out with almost nothing to work with. The Area Book, which contains teaching records of all the interested people and weekly reports of their progress, has no weekly reports since March, and most of the teaching records have no lessons for the last year. We started by visiting all of the people who have teaching records, to see if any of them still remember the missionaries and are interested in learning more. Amazingly, two of them exist and are interested in learning. The others either don't exist, wouldn't answer the door, which is unusual in Brazil, or weren't there when we tried. Every time.
We have met a few people who are good. Johnny (Jhonny in the records, but I think that is wrong) is cool. He was one of the previous people that was taught, and we managed to find him and teach him about A Restauração do Evangelho de Jesus Cristo. We haven't seen him since then, but he was very interested. Hugo is another person from the records, who had to leave for work when we found him, but he also sounds pretty cool. We also met three guys on one of the streets who like to talk about something like how they don't need to study because they have the Holy Ghost to guide them, and when they come to the United States they want to live in my house, and it's honestly probably better that I couldn't actually understand most of what they said, either time we ran into them.
As was asked, people here do celebrate Halloween. There were a few people in costumes or face paint on October 31 and November 1, and there was a party or something at our apartment complex November 1.
This week's scripture:
Helamã 5:18
E aconteceu que Néfi e Leí pregaram aos lamanitas com grande poder e autoridade, porque haviam recebido poder e autoridade para falar, sendo-lhes também indicado o que deveriam dizer -
Helaman 5:18
And it came to pass that Nephi and Lehi did preach unto the Lamanites with such great power and authority, for they had power and authority given unto them that they might speak, and they also had what they should speak given unto them -
A lema da missão São Paulo Oeste é "Receber revelação e pregar com poder e autoridade";
The motto of the São Paulo West mission is (translated) "Receive revelation and preach with power and authority".
Néfi e Leí foram muito bons missionários, porque eles terem poder e autoridade para pregar.
Nephi and Lehi were great missionaries, because they had power and authority to preach.
Como eles, nós temos o mesmo poder e a mesma autoridade para compartilhar o Evangelho com todo mundo.
Like them, we have the same power and authority to share the gospel with all the world.
Como missionários, temos sidos chamados pelo profeta de Deus a servi-Lo e pregar Seu Evangelho. Com esse chamado é o poder e a autoridade a cumprir isso.
As missionaries, we have been called by a prophet of God to serve Him and preach His Gospel. With this calling comes the power and authority necessary to complete it.
Podemos usar esse poder e essa autoridade para ser guiados pelo Espírito Santo a fazer todo que devemos nessa obra.
We can use this power and authority to be guided by the Holy Ghost to do everything we that is required for this work.
Essa é a obra do Senhor. Se cumprimos isso fielmente, teremos poder e autoridade que nada pode impedir.
This is the work of the Lord, and if we complete it faithfully, we will have power and authority that nothing can stop.
Thank you for your continued support,
Elder Hiatt.
PS. Yes, I did finish reading O Livro de Mórmon in the CTM. It was actually on Monday morning, the morning before I sent the last letter, and I forgot to mention it. Sorry.
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