June 6th / Navigating in São João Clímaco

Héliópolis*

Dear family!

The transfer went well without any problems and I’m in my new area—São João Clímaco—in the Ipiranga Zone.

My area is in the city of São Paulo. It’s the first time that I’ve been in the capital to work in an area. There are lots of buildings and streets that confuse us and such. Our area has Heliópolis in it, which is the largest favela in São Paulo. Woot! Navigating those streets is a difficult thing since we only have a map to use to try to figure things out ha ha. My comp is Elder Meireles from Recife, Pernambuco in the northeast of Brasil. He’s on the downhill slope of his mission. He has about 7 months left of the mission. We live with Elder Machado who goes home in 5 weeks and Elder D Silva who has a year and 8.

There are 16 missionaries here in the Zone including all the office elders and sisters, so Elder Martins and Elder Hirst are in the Zone! It’s awesome! I know almost everyone—just two missionaries I haven’t met yet—but we’re having a Zone training on Tuesday, so I’ll meet them then.

The first Sunday here was good. We were able to meet many members, and had a meeting with the Ward Mission Leader and the Bishop which has helped us with getting going. There’s a ward here called Monumento, because there’s an important monument commemorating the spot where Brasil declared independence from Portugal! Elder Holland visited Stake Conference here 2 weeks ago ... bummer ... just missed it!

One awesome miracle that happened this week was that a member, Wanderson, brought his cousin Mateus to church and Mateus asked to be baptised! Righteous!  He’s come with his cousin several times before missionaries were in the area, and we’ve been able to teach him this week and help him learn and prepare for baptism! It will be the first baptism in the ward in a long time, so everyone is very excited for him!

I’ve really liked reading and thinking about Mosiah 3:19 this week—about becoming better and becoming a saint through the Atonement of Christ, and becoming more like Him through learning and developing patience, humility and love.

Elder Meireles and I are going to help with a "working with the missionaries" training with President Silcox this Sunday evening for the Ward Mission Leaders and Bishops in the stake; will be awesome! And this Saturday, an Area Seventy, Elder Pinto, is coming to talk to our mission and it should be pretty cool. The entire mission will be together in one chapel for the meeting so should be pretty great I think. Looking forward to learning a good deal of things and seeing mission people!

That’s pretty much it. Oh, and there is indeed pizza here, and its tasty. I think Brazilian pizza is generally better than American pizza. Don’t’ know why, but it’s rull good.

I think that’s it! It’s been a good week! Love you all and hope you are doing well!

Elder Hughes

Elder Meireles and me

Before transfer, Zona Mogi

* Favela image, courtesy the internet