Elder John Hiatt's Mission Blog

Hello family and friends, In the first two transfers here in Osasco, four investigators came to church. One came on her own because at the moment she didn't have a job, and stopped when she got one again. One we brought after a few lessons, and she really liked it, then disappeared for several weeks, and more weeks, and we don't really know what's going on right now. One started coming around the time that his daughter was baptised (I mentioned the baptism on week 9. For whatever reason he isn't a member yet.), and has been coming with his family just about every week. One doesn't speak Portuguese and didn't really understand anything, and has been busy looking for a job so we haven't been able to teach him more since then. And yesterday an entire family came, on their own. We invited them, they agreed to it, and they did it. Before they left, they even said they would come back next week. And next week they probably won't get lost and arrive half an hou...

Hello family and friends, As of today, I have completed my training as a missionary, both in the CTM and in the field. Two days ago marked the last non-Sunday day of my training, my half-birthday, and four months in the mission field. (No, I didn't get pizza.) During this time of training, I learned a lot. This includes languages: a lot of Portuguese, a bit of Spanish, a bit of Japanese, and some Haitian Creole. I've been reading The Book of Mormon in all four languages, since they have them here, and have collected three pages worth of synonyms in at least four languages. (It's a lot harder to find specific words in Japanese, so I only have 45 of the 63 words/phrases in Japanese.) I've also learned to like the food here. As some of you know, I was a fairly picky eater before the mission. Here is a list of things I didn't like back then: * Mustard * Onions * Peppers * Olives * Tomatoes * Whipped Cream * Ham * . . . And more that I don't remember right now. After...

Hello family and friends, This week we killed one of the elders in our district. We had a funeral service and everything. (He isn't actually dead yet; he goes home at the end of his mission tomorrow.) Also, a bit more than a month ago, I bought a notebook of drawing paper to make the Nativity scene I mentioned. I have some pictures of what I had back then: This week on a division I traded places with one of the zone leaders for a day, so I got to spend the day with these other missionaries: and came back to find this in my notebook: This was drawn by the companion of the elder in front in the picture above, who stayed in my are while I was in his. The Japanese on the side of this picture is a quote from モルモン書, which is The Book of Mormon in Japanese. He actually just opened the book and copied out a line, which would generally result in getting half a word on each side, but by chance this is actually not only a complete sentence, but one that is reasonably appropriate. I ...

Hello family and friends, So, here in Brazil, most people speak Portuguese. There are also people from Bolivia or other countries that speak Spanish, lots of people from Japanese families that may or may not still speak Japanese, and a few people from Haiti that speak French and Creole. This last week, we met and started teaching one of these Haitians. He doesn't quite speak Portuguese yet, but he learned English in Haiti, so we taught him in English and he translated into French/Creole for his cousin's wife. It was kind of weird to have two languages being spoken in the same lesson, neither of which is Portuguese, but also really cool. His birthday was Saturday, and for his birthday we gave him O Livro De Mórmon, which he might be able to understand, and will help him learn Portuguese. Also the new year started this week. We went home early, ate pizza, and figured out how to make a camel out of a peice of paper. (Actually, that last bit was just me.) And our scripture: 2 Nefi ...

These pictures were posted on Facebook by the mission president's wife. They were taken at a zone conference in Osasco last week: The elder John is facing here is his companion, Elder Bulkley.