Tuesday
We didn't end up doing weekly planning for last week so we had a mini session in the morning. This area is really established in Portuguese, and the president has a vision of preparing this area for the establishment of a Portuguese speaking ward. Elder Bodily and I made plans for how to contact all the Brazilian members in this area, reach out to people who may be interested, and bring Brazilians from other areas to our Portuguese Sunday School. There's a lot of unique challenges. I won't get into it, but there's a lot of work. I'm so grateful for that, because I'm not sure I would survive being a missionary with nothing clear cut to do during the quarantine haha.
After that, we went to a mission wide family home afternoon meeting where people from the mission share lessons and play games to keep spirits up. It was cool and fun, but Elder Bodily and I were talking to each other when through the camera we heard, "from Elder Bassett, then going to sister.... and Elder...." I was like wait, what did she say we are doing? Elder Bodily kinda shrugs and says "I don't know" and before I can say anything else, it unmutes us. I'd like to remind you 200 people are watching this! I sit there like a deer in headlights for at least 30 seconds with my mouth open looking between Elder Bodily and the camera not being able to ask him anything cause he unmuted, haha. Then I kinda just go "What are we supposed to be doing???" They just kinda say moving on and go to the next lesson which was drawing pictures on top of your heads haha. Apparently, they decided I was gonna teach a lesson to the mission, and then forgot to tell me. Whoops. The funniest part was that I was supposed to give the opening prayer the Sunday before with the entire mission on zoom, but I was in a ward Sunday School lesson (which is supposed to be our first priority) that ran 20 minutes long and showed up late. So they called on me to say the prayer and there was like 5 minutes of silence while they waited for me. Basically, I'd been on the mission for a grand total of 7 days and had already embarrassed myself in front of the entire mission twice. And then of course, an hour later I got a message asking me to say the closing prayer on Sunday. Seriously guys; there's 200 missionaries here, why are you so set on me? 😂 I had my first Interview with President Mavromatis, and he wanted to know why I didn't day the prayer. I kinda didn't know what to say.
Anyways, after that we taught the message of the restoration to our friend named Deborah. My Portuguese was awful, but luckily she's awesome and engaged so the lesson didn't go badly. Then we taught a lesson about the plan of salvation to Pedro Martin, and it went GREAT. Both of them are so awesome and attentive and into it.
For the last 7 days I had been saying nearly every prayer asking for very specific things and more importantly using very specific wording that wasn't what I would normally say. Tuesday morning after my personal study, I decided to read my Patriarchal blessing. I was amazed that in the exact same wording I had been using, I found the promised blessings and attributes I had been praying for every day. When I first got my blessing, I was getting ready to move to Brazil. It was a big event for me, and my blessing was a source of comfort and inspiration. But it didn't really say anything about that experience, or let me know what I could to to prepare for it, yet it perfectly told me what I would need to do and become for my mission 4 years later, which would be a more challenging experience by far. This is an example of how God knows what's best for us, and He is willing to help us. But the way we think we need to be helped isn't the way we always need it. He knew I would be able to handle moving fine, but also knew that on my mission I would find myself challenged in ways I had never experienced before, so He spent His time reassuring me for something I hadn't even begun to think about.
Wednesday
We started the day with the normal stuff, personal and companion study. We were reading out of the general handbook for adjusting to missionary life and Elder Bodily reads the words "try not to stay for too long in your apartment" haha. Believe me if we didn't have to, we wouldn't! The big thing that happened today was our first companion exchange, which is where you and another companionship switch companions and go on lessons with each other. Because of Corona, it's less of a switch and more of a 3 hour phone call, but I still had a great time with my district leader, Elder Despain. Bonus, I finally got to meet one of the members in the area; she was American, too, so it was refreshing to talk for a bit in English.
Thursday
We did weekly planning officially for my first time. It took just over 2 hours, but we got a lot established, and it helped to organize my thoughts and our plans. We made plans to extend the invitation for baptism to Pedro M. and check in with Pedro O. and officially set a date which is exciting. I was excited about Pedro O's baptism, and I ran in going ahhhhhh yeahhhhhhhh on Elder Bailey while he was saying a prayer and just kind of slowly backed out, haha.
One particular guy I talked to on Facebook kept trying to bait me into making a political statement and just in general wanted to argue. He tried being condescending and smug about it. It reminded me of high school when I loved debate club and talking about politics and anything, and overall it just struck me as very childish. When you're operating from the perspective of a missionary, you realize that politics are so unimportant to your living Heavenly Father. If everything you do is based on charity, then you will find more joy in your life and find you have more in common with those around you than you think.
To celebrate the busy day, we made a big chicken dinner and some cookies. Also, apparently the last 3 years I've thought my favorite church song was, Be Still My Soul. But whenever I listen to it, I'm like, "Man, I'm not feeling this song right now." Turns out, that's because I HAD THE WRONG SONG. I've been thinking of I Love the Lord haha. Well, now I know. I made an awesome church playlist and listened to it once before the ipod I brought on my mission broke. Oh well haha.
Friday
Friday we went on a walk and dropped a Book of Mormon off at Pedro Martin's house. He was real excited about it when we talked to him later; we love teaching him because of all the energy he brings to the lessons. We had Deborah send us a message, because we told her we would tell her what scriptures to read for our lesson and then forgot. She is so excited to learn, and she asks the perfect questions. We can tell she really wants to understand. After that, we taught Pedro M. and invited him to be baptized. He understood the entire lesson and what we said about how important authority is, but he didn't quite make the connection between authority and baptism, so he didn't get why he would need to be baptized again. That will be something we will work with him in going forward. I came into contact with a guy from Angola and thought it was cool, so I said to Elder Bodily "Guess where this guys from" and he just looks up and thinks for 3 seconds and says Angola, haha. Just an educated guess but still funny.
Saturday
This was a pretty slow day. We had three lessons planned, but all three didn't happen. Even Pedro O didn't answer our messages which was strange, because he wanted us to meet with him every day until his baptism. While we were trying to get ahold of him, I forgot about the cookies I put in the oven, and they got crunchy haha. We just made some sweet potato wedges and called it a night after that.
Sunday
Today we went to a church ceremony for another church over Facebook live. It was definitely interesting and a good change of pace. The Bible they were reading from was modernized and completely different from the traditional King James edition I'm used to. We had another 3 lessons fall through at the end of the day, including Pedro again which was slightly worrying. We went on a walk around the park which was fun because of how many people were there, and how many cultures are represented in this community. There are some people who are born and bred Americans, but there's also a ton of people from Brazil, Salvador, Angol, Cape Verde, etc.
And there we go; that's everything that's happened. It's been kind of an up and down week. Something that President said to me in our interview was that every day is a battle. If that's the case, then we can't take days where we relax or take a break, because then we are losing that day to the enemy. That enemy may be a lot of things, but usually it's ourselves and our self doubt. I know that we have hard times so we need to learn to rely on the Savior and on those around us. By doing this, I've already seen massive differences in my life. Until next week!
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| I feel like my mom taking pictures of my food |
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| We went downtown for pday |
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| We rode our bikes all over. A good workout and great way to see the city. |
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