Beira Rio, Brazil Week 5

Hey everyone! This week was quite the week. It was a sad week but also an exciting one. The sad part was that we said goodbye to President and Sister Souza. We had a mission wide conference on Wednesday. It was so awesome to all be together to enjoy one last conference with them. It was a great conference filled with the Spirit and some awesome trainings. Elder Allen and Elder Lopes gave an awesome training on the importance of working with members and how we need to work with them. President and Sister Souza both talked and both gave their last testimonies. It was such an awesome experience. At the end of the conference as we were all singing "God be with You till we Meet Again" (in Portuguese), I was looking up at both of them on the stand and was very sad that they would be leaving but also SO grateful for the opportunity I had to work so closely with them and learn SO much from both of them. They are such a great example to me and I feel to blessed to have had the time I had with them. I love them! They left on Saturday and now our mission president is President and Sister Bonini. I have not met them yet but we will have another mission wide conference this week to get to know them and then we will have the Mission Leadership Council that day too so I am way excited!

This week was a great week for Elder Pedrosa and I. We started teaching a new family. Junior, is a less-active member of the church, and his wife, Elizangela, and their two kids, ages 12 and 10, are not members. We visited them for the first time on Friday and the Spirit was so strong! She told us that she had been praying and looking for something more in her life to help her and her family and she said she feels like this is it. They both came to church on Sunday and loved it! We are having Family Home Evening tonight with them in the house of a family in our ward. I am way excited to continue to visit them and see the change take place in their lives!

We also had Bruno our investigator (age 20) visit church this week and he loved it! He talked about how peaceful it was and is excited to continue to come, although he will be traveling this week. But he is awesome! Graziele (age 13) also visited church. She is a friend of a recent convert and really loved it. It was an awesome Sunday, yesterday, and I am super excited for the progress that some of our investigators are making. This gospel truly does change lives and I feel so blessed to be a part of it!

Thank you all for the love and support. Oh I almost forgot, Brazil keeps winning, and it just keeps getting crazier and crazier here! Brasil will play this week here in Fortaleza so should be nuts! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Helvey

The board to welcome President and Sister Bonini in the Mission Office.

President Souza, Sister Souza, and I as we said goodbye for the last time this week. 

I will miss them both so much!

Elder Goff and I made peanut butter banana milkshakes this week during one of the Brazil soccer games. They were sooo good!

We ate lunch at a member´s house today! It was so much fun to spend time with them 

and get to know them more. I really love this ward!

Beira Rio, Brazil Week 4

Hey everyone! This week was good. Elder Pedrosa and I are working hard and have some awesome investigators. We have been teaching Renaldo since my first week in the area and he loves having us over. He works security for one of the professional soccer teams here so he is HUGE! But he loves having us over and always asks when our next "study session" with him will be. Unfortunately, he worked yesterday during church so he couldn´t come to church but he is excited to visit next week and learn more.

We have also been teaching a man named Marçiano who showed up to English class the first week I was here. The first week he didn´t want a visit from us but the after the second English class he said we could come by. So we have been teaching him for about two weeks and he´s awesome. He is really interested in the church and when we taught the lesson of the Restoration he was really excited and said he would pray to know if it is true. He seems to really have a desire to know the truth. But unfortunately, he, too, was unable to come to church this week.

Last week Elder Pedrosa and I were walking on the street and passed by a shop that had one of the World Cup games playing on the TV. I walked by and said "tudo bem?" to the guy that was standing in there and he gave an excited "tudo bem!" back to me. I asked him how the game was going and we started talking. We asked if we could visit him in his house to share a message with him because he was interested in what we do as missionaries. So we visited him this week and he is awesome! He is 20 years-old and his name is Bruno. He had a lot of questions and wanted to know what it´s like in our church. We explained our basic beliefs and explained the message of the Restoration to him. He seemed to really like it and was asking us how we came to know that the church is true. His Dad also had lots of questions for us. Unfortunately, Bruno was super sick when he passed by his house to walk to church together, but he said for sure he wants to visit next week.

We are teaching a lot of more people including two families that we are excited about. Our major difficulty is getting people to church. The church building is about a 25-30 minute walk from parts of our area so that creates some difficulties. But Elder Pedrosa and I are planning to work a lot with the members that live close to our investigators to help them come to church. That´s something I really want to start doing more is working with the members because we have a great ward and I think many are willing to help.

The World Cup is crazy here and EVERYONE watches it and talks about it but it´s fun to be in the middle of it and use it as a way to start talking to people and visit them. Brasil has a game today so everyone is pumped up about that. And, yes, I heard Kobe Bryant was here in Fortaleza watching one of the games this week. Why didn´t he stop by and say hi to me? haha, too bad!

This week we have a mission conference with President and Sister Souza and it will be hard to say goodbye to them. And then President and Sister Bonini will get here at the end of this week. I am excited to meet them! Should be an exciting week.

Anyway, that´s it for me this week. Thank you all for the love and support! Miss you and love you guys but I am doing great!

Until next week.

Love,

Elder Helvey

(Unfortunately I can´t send any photos this week because the USB slot on the computer I am using isn´t working.)

Beira Rio, Brazil Week 3

Boa tarde! Checking in once again from Fortaleza, Brazil! This week was a good week. Elder Pedrosa and I are working hard and finding a lot of people to teach. The biggest problem this week was getting people to church. Our church building is out of our area and it´s a pretty good walk. We confirmed with a lot of our investigators that they were going to come to church and told them that we would pass by their house and walk with them. Well early Sunday morning we passed by 7 of our investigators to walk to church with them and either they were sleeping and didn´t hear us or they had left, and had one that just didn´t want to come. But we ended up walking to church with a recent-convert. It was dissapointing to not have anyone in church but this week we will work harder and focus on the importance of church more in our visits. We are also planning to visit people with a few of the young men in the ward this week so I am excited for that. We had a meeting with the Bishop and Ward Mission Leader and I am super excited to work with them. They are awesome! I think I am really going to like working here with the members.

This week of course was the start of the World Cup here in Brazil. EVERYONE watches it! It makes it a little difficult to visit peope but most of the time they will turn the volume down and talk with us. But man, that´s all everyone is talking about here! Brazil had one game last week and during and shortly after the game of Brazil all missionaries have to stay in their houses because President Souza doesn´t want any problems. Tomorrow, Brazil will play against Mexico here in Fortaleza so everyone is pretty excited! We are pretty far away from the Stadium so it´s not too crazy here but everyone sure is excited! During the first game, whenever Brazil made a goal we knew it cause everyone in the neighboorhood would scream and tons of people set of fireworks. 

Anyways, it was a good week, and I wish I could write more but I am out of time. I will include more info next week on our investigators and how they are doing.

Thanks so much for all the love and support and congratulations to Elder Riches who has completed his 2 year mission to Chile and will arrive in the San Francisco Airport tomorrow morning! 

Until next week.

Com amor,
Elder Helvey

This week´s english class was great! We had about 17 people there!! Here is a picture of me infront of the sign at the church building.

Tons of the streets in my area are decorated like this in celebration of the World Cup.

I met Elder and Sister Evans this morning. They arrived last week and will be working in the Mission Office for their 18 month mission. They are from Provo, Utah and are awesome!!

Fortelza Brazil Mission with Apostle Elder Andersen

Assistants and Executive Secrtetaries of the Missions with Elder Andersen (Quorum of the Twelve Apostles) and Elder Mazzagardi (Quorum of the Seventy)

And last, but certainly not least, Cam made it onto Google Street View!  It's the intersection of Av. Santos Dumont and Rui Barbosa in Aldeota, Fortaleza, Brazil.  

Beira Rio, Brazil Week 2

Checking in from Vila Velha, Fortaleza! This week was great. I have really loved being able to spend so much time finding people to teach and visiting people. Our area is pretty cool but it´s WAY different then Aldeota. It´s more like my first area of my mission. But Elder Pedrosa and I have been working hard and we were able to start teaching two families. One we contacted on the street when he was watering down the dirt in front of his house. We walked up and started talking with him and after awhile of talking and asking him questions about his life and him asking us questions, he invited us into his house. His wife was super nice to us and gave us some sandwiches and soda to drink. We invited everyone in the house to join us. He and his wife have two kids, a boy, age 13, and a little girl, around 5 or 6. We talked with them a lot about what we do as missionaries and then taught the message of the Restoration of the gospel. They seemed to really enjoy it and it was a great experience. They invited us back this week because they were super busy the rest of the week so I am excited to visit them again. Their names are Euberio and Maria.

We also started teaching a couple who has a little girl, who was a referral from a recent convert. They told us they had been to other churches before but never seemed very good about any of them. They are very excited to learn more and visit the church. We visited with them two times this week, both times with a member. They weren´t able to come to church this week because they were traveling but we are visiting them tonight so it should be good. We were able to visit and teach a lot of different people and I have loved being able to do normal missionary work throughout the entire day.

Elder Pedrosa is super awesome and we are getting along really well. I have already learned a lot from him and excited to continue to learn more. Our Zone has five District Leaders which means we have five companionships where we have to interview their investigators for baptism. This week we had five interviews to do all over our Stake so it was quite busy and hectic especially towards the end of the week but it was great!

This week we also had the Mission Leadership Council in Aldeota. It was a meeting with President and Sister Souza, the Assistants, all Zone Leaders, and Sister Training Leaders. It was awesome!! We received training on how we can use the scriptures more in our teaching and how we can teach more simply so people understand better. I also gave a talk in Sacrament Meeting yesterday which was fun. I really love this ward already and am excited to work with them to share the gospel with their families and friends.

Anyway, that was my week, I hope all is going well with each of you! Keep on working hard and doing your best at whatever you are doing.

Love you all so much and thank you for all the support.

Until next week.

Love,

Elder Helvey

Brazil Fortaleza Mission Leadership Council

The Sisters in our Zone that we share a church building with had a baptism yesterday. 

I interviewed her for baptism and she asked me to baptize her. 

It was a great experience and I am excited for her and her little son to be part of the church.

My new room! My bed and my things are the ones on the left. 

The house is super sweet and I really like it.

Elder Pedrosa and I. He is an awesome companion and a GREAT missionary.

Elder Pedrosa and I with the two other elders we live with, Elder Goff, from Utah, 

and his new companion, Elder Cachay from Peru. 

Elder Cachay just got here from the CTM in São Paulo 

so he is brand new which is fun and exciting!

Beira Rio, Brazil Week 1

Here I am in my new area!! But first, Elder Zwick and I had a great last week. We were able to get a lot of work done in the office and had some awesome visits, too. We also had the ward talent show on Friday night so that was a blast! There were a lot of people there and us four Elders did something. Elder Zwick and I sang while Elder Peressute played the harmonica and Elder Vallo played the guitar. It was such a blast and it was a great activity for everyone. It was great for me to have that during my last week in Aldeota.

Yesterday, Luan was confirmed and it was so awesome. He is doing so great and loving learning more and more every day. We gave him some gifts (Bible, and books of the church) and he loves them. It has been so awesome to see how his life has changed as he has come to learn of the church and more about his Savior, Jesus Christ. He has quickly become one of my best friends and it was hard saying goodbye to him, but I´ll see him again, I know.

It was very hard to say goodbye to so many people in the ward. I served in Aldeota for 7 months so this ward and the members really have become my family. I have so many great friends and I will miss them a ton. But that´s part of the mission, and now I am excited to be in another area and to meet many new people and help them come unto Christ.

This morning Elder Zwick and I dropped two missionaries off at the airport that are going home and then we went back to the house and to the office. We walked to Luan´s house and he gave us a ride with all my bags to the transfer meeting which was about 40 minutes away, so it was so nice of him to do that. Anyway, transfer meeting was awesome today! There were so many missionaries there because so many were transferred and it was so fun seeing so many of them today. I am super excited for this transfer!!

I was called to serve as a Zone Leader in an area called Beira Rio, in the Litoral Zone. My new companion´s name is Elder Pedrosa!! Remember him? Maybe not, but he was a missionary in my first district and I did my first split with him. He has become one of my good friends on the mission and I am super excited to serve with him here. After President announced that I had been called as Zone Leader, the Assistants were reading off where everyone would go and Elder Pedrosa and I kept on looking at each other thinking maybe we would be companions. It was awesome! He is from a city a little outside of Rio de Janeiro. Our zone is the biggest in the mission (24 missionaries) and I am super excited for this opportunity!

I have only been here in the new area for a few hours but I am already loving it. It´s a lot like my first area but not as nice and has a lot more open space. At least that is what I have seen so far. I will give more details next week about how it is.

Anyway, we´ll have mission leadership council this week so I will be going back to Aldeota for the day haha. That´s it from me this week. Thank you all for the support and I hope all is going well with you all.

Until next week.

Love,

Elder Helvey  

I gave the BYU gear to Bruno and his family! they were sooo happy!! 

And it was so fun giving it to them. Thanks, Michael and Annie!! GO COUGARS!!!

My last visit with Jane, Ismael, and Jordy.

We had a great time and I will miss them so much! (p.s. the hat was a gift from them!)

Saying goodbye to Luan right before the transfer meeting today!