Elder Gong visits Brazil following floods, new projects in the works

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil — Elder Gerrit W. Gong, an apostle with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, met with Brazillian officials on Thursday.

Following floods from earlier this year, people in Porto Alegre have been using meetinghouses of The Church as shelters.

Elder Gong met with some of those displaced and people who volunteered to help the community.

“It’s been very tender to be in this area, which has been so devastated by floods,” Elder Gong said. “We’ve been greeted by senior government officials who have been very appreciative for the wonderful cooperation as neighbors and friends and community members, as brothers and sisters with our Church members and our Church leaders. It’s just tender and sacred to be reminded that in the hardest of times, we’re never alone. In the hardest of times, the Lord is with us, and He helps us, and He blesses us — and we do it together. It’s part of covenant belonging.”

Earlier this week, Elder Gong also met with officials from Operation Smile, a humanitarian cooperation organization that performs free surgeries for children with cleft lip and cleft palate.

This year alone, Operation Smile has performed approximately 800 surgeries in Brazil.

“We know that it comes from the donations of all the people around the world,” Cristina Marachco, director of Operation Smile in Brazil, said. “This is very important and helps us achieve everything that we want to offer to the cleft patients around the country.”

Elder Gong presented Marachco and her colleagues with a plaque of appreciation.

“This really touched my heart to receive this recognition from the Church as an organization,” Marachco said. “It shows us that we are in a good way, in a good direction, that we are working well together.”

In Brazil, Elder Gong met with Marcos da Costa, who oversees the rights of the disabled in São Paulo.

Gong said they discussed possible projects for people with wheelchairs and other mobility devices to see if they “might help bring freedom to somebody who can have a mobility device, maybe for the first time.”

The Church reported it distributed approximately 26,000 wheelchairs around the world. Da Costa said São Paulo has 3.3 million people with disabilities, including 1 million with motor disabilities.

“There is a lot of synergy of work that we can and will do together,” Da Costa said. “I left the meeting very happy, certain that we can build a lot in favor of all people, especially people with disabilities.”

Sister Gong went to Brazil with her husband and said she was grateful to see so many people in the world doing good.

“It makes me happy that we’re friends with so many of them,” she said. “I’m grateful that we were able to share who we are more broadly with them here, and to have them understand that this is not just a Salt Lake operation. This is a global church, and it’s strong and vibrant here in Brazil.”