“We Will Always Keep Learning,” Liahona, Dec. 2022.
Blessings of Self-Reliance
“We Will Always Keep Learning”
Education has made a great difference for the Carvalho family, who see learning as an anchor in their lives.
When Raimundo Carvalho was 18, his father died. His father had earned a living washing clothes for other families. Now that meager income was gone.
“I was the oldest child, the only son, with four younger sisters. So, I needed to help my mother provide for the family,” he remembers. “We faced a lot of challenges and we were really poor.”
Raimundo learned to make shoes. Soon, however, it became apparent that he couldn’t keep up on his studies and work enough to provide the help his mother needed. “Taking care of the family came first,” he says. “I was able to finish my classes that year and that was it.”
In his heart, he knew he would come back to school again. But when and how?
He continued to work, and the family survived.
“Then I met and married this beautiful woman,” he says, smiling at his wife, Eréroythe. “And we built a family of our own. Today we have three children and three grandchildren.”
Eró, as his wife is known, encouraged Raimundo to go back to school. “But because of my responsibilities as a husband and a father,” Raimundo says, “I knew I couldn’t pursue the education I wanted at that time. I didn’t abandon my dream—I just put it on pause. It became something I would do in the future.”
What he could do, he found, was to encourage his wife and children in their education.
“The scriptures teach us that the glory of God is intelligence,1” he says. “They also say we should bring up our children in light and truth2 and that we should seek learning by study and faith.3 These principles became standards for our family.”
Pursuing Education Today
Today, Raimundo is 62. And that dream he put on pause? It’s finally coming true. He recently graduated from high school. What’s more, he’s preparing to enter college. “I have to take a challenging test to get in,” he says. “But I want people, old and young, to see that they can set a goal and achieve it.”
Raimundo’s wife and children are also pursuing education.
“When I started college a few years ago,” says Eró, who is 57, “no one in the family had done any type of superior education. But I believed that when this wall was broken, education would fill our home. It would make things better going forward. I am a cook by profession, and I cook because I love to cook. But I thought I could learn more, and my daughter Dielle wanted to learn more too.”
They joined a Church self-reliance group, and the facilitator suggested that they apply for Perpetual Education Fund loans. “The loans were approved,” Eró says. “So, we enrolled at the university to study gastronomy. We did the same major, and we were daughter and mother in school together at the same time. We would work all day cooking food, then go to college at night.” Some days Eró started work at 5:00 a.m., worked all day, then had classes starting at 8:00 in the evening.
She admits to falling asleep sometimes. “Sure, it’s tough,” she says. “But you just trust that the Lord will help you, and you keep on going.”
Raimundo and Eró Carvalho on the day she received her degree in gastronomy.
Photographs courtesy of the Carvalho family
Now both mother and daughter have graduated. Eró no longer works at a restaurant. She is self-employed and works from home. “We’re both still cooking, but we’re more qualified and have more opportunities to advance. We’re earning enough to pay back our loans, and Dielle is working on a master’s degree in event management!”
Dielle is now working on a master’s degree.
Eró also explains, “Our son Odirlei, although incarcerated, is completing an online degree in accounting and has been accepted in a competitive federal university agronomy program. He is awaiting a judge’s decision that may allow him to attend classes in person. We encourage him to use his time to study, to become qualified, so that when he gets out permanently, he will be able to have a better life. He has learned that education gives you the opportunity to create a new reality, and he knows that God knows what he can become.”
Eró declares, “Education has made a great difference for our family. It’s not only knowledge; it’s an anchor in our lives.” And Raimundo notes that his mother, who was illiterate most of her life, as an elderly woman learned to read and write.
“Study and faith became standards for our family,” Raimundo says.
Another Type of Knowledge
Raimundo and Eró also know about another type of education—spiritual knowledge.
“About 30 years ago,” Raimundo says, “we weren’t active in the Church. But our bishop asked Eró and me for an interview. He invited us to take a class about eternal marriage, and because of that class, we came back to the Church and together we studied and learned and built our testimonies. A year later, we were sealed to our family in the São Paulo Brazil Temple.”
Now they have given decades of service in their ward and stake, “and we’re still studying the gospel, still learning more truth,” Raimundo says.
“Even if we’re older,” Eró says, “we need to keep learning. We especially need to keep gaining spiritual knowledge. It’s all part of an eternal plan.”
Raimundo says he loves this quote from Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles:
“As a people, we rightfully place high priority on secular learning and vocational development. We want and we must excel in scholarship and craftsmanship. I commend you for striving diligently to gain an education and become an expert in your field. I invite you to also become experts in the doctrines of the gospel.”4
And Raimundo also loves this scripture:
“Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection.
“And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come.”5
“That scripture motivates me,” he says. “It brings me happiness to know that there is more to come. I wake up early in the morning and I study the scriptures. Then I go to work satisfied because I was able to learn something early in the morning.”
Sharing What You’ve Learned
Not long ago, Raimundo and Eró were called to advise their region’s young single adults.
“It’s wonderful!” Eró says. “We receive their positive energy, and we give them back wisdom. It is like a perfect connection. Age doesn’t separate us. The desire to improve brings us together. We have found that they can teach us skills we haven’t learned yet. And in exchange, we can give them life experience and help them understand how education can further their ability to be self-reliant. We’re here to support each other and learn from each other.”
“What a marvelous opportunity we have now,” Raimundo says, “to help young people see how education can help them to become self-reliant. But I hope we can also help them to understand that the glory of God is intelligence. I think we all have a desire to learn. I believe we will always keep learning.”