Day 364

Tomorrow is exactly a year in Brasil! It's interesting to actually be at this point, sometimes it feels like the halfway point will never arrive and yet it still feels like I just got here a few months ago. Time is different on the mission.

We had a baptism this Saturday (Feb 9) morning with Ledí. Also pictured is Elenice, who's the bishop's wife and also a family history consultant, and most importantly Ledi's friend.

Almost every time we've visited, Elenice has gone with us. That is, recently. The first time we talked to Ledí was 4 and a half months ago. I remember that we visited a few times but basically gave up after a few weeks because we never showed up at the right time.

We started teaching again this transfer, 4 weeks ago. And everything that needed to go right went well. More than anything, thanks to working with members. At lunch with another sister from the ward, she commented that the first time she went to church, she was relieved to see it wasn't a giant church of Elders with name tags. And in general, I'm sure it can't be normal for 2 people showing up from nowhere with such a focused message without extensive explanation (because we try to start teaching right on first contact). So having a "normal" person is always great. There's a really strong Catholic influence here and I get the feeling that lots of people think of us as "pastors".

It's not rare to hand someone a pass-along card (for example, one with a painting of Jesus Christ leaving the tomb) on the street and be thanked for a "saint" (as in the catholic saint images). Also, some mistake us for Jehovah's Witness, which has a strong presence here. In every city I've been to they have a "Salão do Reino" ("Kingdom's Hall"?). Members of that church, for whatever reason, are also some of the least likely to open up to a missionary message.

Ideally, everything that missionaries do would be together with a church member. Before the mission, my impression was that returned missionaries would be the ones who help the most, but in practice it just depends. Personally, the group that we've worked most with are mothers: women who have husbands, children, or friends that they want the missionaries to meet. Which in retrospect makes sense. Sometimes the youth are very helpful, and sometimes returned missionaries too, but for those groups there's a more definite, temporary commitment in place. After all, I think a lot of missionaries after 1.5 or 2 years feel like the commitments already fulfilled, and I guess I can see why that's justified (just that sometimes that sort of apathy seems weird to current missionaries).

But the mothers have a permanent, self-willed commitment to the people they love most. Everywhere, they're the key. We were talking to a young woman and her father about her baptism (the father is a member, mother is also a steady investigator) and she said "well, now everything just depends on my mom". And the father just nodded.

And it goes the other way around too. Imagine how many baptisms here were cancelled because *the mom* (dad doesn't seem to have much of a complaint as often) didn't allow it!

I'm excited to keep working here; President Louza hinted that I'd be staying in T. Neves for one more transfer, but it's better to not have any expectations and just go on like normal.

Yesterday, we had stake conference in downtown Santa Maria, packed to the brim and an area seventy, Pres. and Sis. Louza, and a former mission president here and his wife (the Graus) all spoke. A returned missionary who went home a few months ago also showed up! A reminder of how fast the time passes. So much history in so little time. It's great to be a part of it.

Love,

Elder Hopkinson