Aldeota, Brazil Week 19

Hey guys!

I had another great week here in Aldeota, Fortaleza, Brasil! The week started with 9 new missionaries arriving in our mission which is always a fun day. After the airport, we all had lunch at the Mission Home (Sister Souza´s famous tacos!!) and then all headed to the Mission Office for interviews and trainings. It was so fun to have Elder Allen back doing all this again. I gave my training about mail, materials, health insurance, passports, and visas, etc. It´s always fun to interact with the new missionaries and there is such a great feeling and excitement in the Mission Office that first day of the transfer. We had a little time between the training and when they meet their new companions and I was just sitting there with all the new missionaries. I asked them if they wanted to sing hymns, they all said yes so I went and got hymn books and then one of the Sisters jumped up to direct the music. We sang many hymns, and man, there were only 9 new missionaries but it sounded like there were hundreds. There was such a strong spirit and exciting energy in the room. It was a such a great experience. That night two new missionaries stayed in our apartment because they were assigned to areas that are far away from Fortaleza. It was great interacting more with them and getting to know them better. Overall, it was a great day to start the week!

Elder Vallo and I had a great week. Elder Vallo is my new companion from Argentina. He has already been here in the Mission Office and living in the same house as me for 3 months so I already know him well. We get a long great and like to joke around and laugh a lot. We also have some goals for this transfer that I am excited for and we had a great week. We visited a man named Taçiano, who Elder Allen and I visited when I first got here in November. He was happy to see us and we had a good lesson with him teaching him more about the Book of Mormon and how it can be a guide in our lives. He has a wife and 2 daughters so we are hopeful we will be able to teach them too.

Friday, Elder Vallo and I spent quite a bit of time outside the Mission Office getting some stuff done for the mission. I had to authenticate a lot of documents (passports and visas) for a lot of foreign missionaries so that took forever and then Elder Vallo had to visit a person pretty far away to sign a contract for one of the new missionary apartments. It´s kinda nice though because when we have to do stuff like that we can use taxis so I got a sweet taxi ride this week, compared to the hot and crowded buses. We returned to the Mission Office just in time for a recently returned missionary to arrive there and for me to administrate the English Test to him, which is something I have to do here which I don´t think I´ve ever said.

Elder Vallo and I had a cool experience this week with one of my past investigators. His name in Fabinho and Elder Muniz and I taught him but his work schedule is complicated and it´s super hard for him to set up a time for us to visit. I have continued to pray for him but we haven´t been able to set up a time with him for awhile. Well on Thursday night Elder Vallo and I had to leave our area and travel to another area for Elder Vallo to do an emergency baptismal interview for an investigator of some Sisters in our Zone. Everything went well but by the time we took the bus back to our area it was around 8 so we didn´t have much time left to work. We decided to swing by the church building and talk with the non members who play soccer there every Thursday and then we decided to go to a little square near the church and do some contacts. There weren´t many people there but we talked to some people and then around 8:45 decided to leave to walk back to our apartment. As we were leaving the square we hear someone call "Elders!", we look over and it´s Fabinho sitting on a bench!! I was so excited and introduced him to Elder Vallo. We started talking and he said that he has been working a lot but has been reading the Book of Mormon and has some questions. We had a great lesson with him about the Book of Mormon and also talked a lot about baptism. It was so great to be able to teach him and we invited him to write down his questions he has as he reads the Book of Mormon and we will help him understand them. It was a great experience and really proved to me that the Lord is so aware of us and knows where we need to be and when we need to be there and will help us encounter those that are ready to hear the Gospel.

Sunday was great also. Bruno gave a talk in Sacrament Meeting! He did a great job and talked how being a member of the church has helped so much and how happy he is and what a great feeling he feels when he comes to church. To help him prepare for his talk we visited him on Saturday night and read the talk from President Uchtdorf "Come Join With Us!". Bruno quoted from that talk and went on to explain why being a member of the church is so important to him. His Mom came to see him talk which was also great. Overall, it was a great Sunday!

Anyways, that´s it from this week. Thank you all for the love and support. I hope all is going well for everyone back home. I miss you and love you all.

Until next week.

Love,

Elder Helvey

This is me on one of the big streets in our area right near the Mission Office 

with the beach and ocean in the background.

Me and Elder Vallo in the taxi on our way to a meeting with a landlord for a new apartment 

that the mission is renting. It just so happened that I took this picture 

at the exact moment we were passing a little monument in a park.

After we cleaned the church building on Saturday morning we had a ward activity, a BBQ!

 It was a lot of fun to have a BBQ (Brazilian style) with some of the members 

and recent converts in our ward and to spend more time with them and get to know them better.