Best Week

So before I start. Really eventful week, one of the best of my mission. I had so many spiritual experiences, and the Spirit was present in so many of our lessons. It was a lesson to me that if we can do our part, the Lord will take care of us.  

Tuesday:

So today started off really well. We had a lesson with a guy named Willian. I can't recall if I had met him last week or this week, so this might be a recap. But he's awesome, a really special guy just going through some rough times. I was so glad to get to know him, and we were able to drop him off a Book of Mormon. I went through and highlighted and annotated a bunch of up lifting scriptures for him. Those scriptures proved useful again later in the week. He said he went through and read them, and they helped him out which is really awesome. After that, the Haitian elders asked us for a ride to the church, and to chaperone a chapel tour with them and one of their friends. When we got there, the zone leaders told us that in a meeting with a member of the opposite sex, the meeting has to include another member of your own sex. So instead, they stood out in the sun and had a lesson. I got to watch them invite her to be baptized, and it was so awesome to see. After that, they had some lessons, so we couldn't take them home. We waited for them at the chapel... we ended up being there 11:00 to 6:30 haha. After they finished all their stuff, we were able to go home and eat lunch/dinner after a quick lesson. From there we just had English class with a member named Deborah. 

Wednesday:

Started off by going to a chapel to pick up an English connect book. (The book we use for English class.) Transfers were going on, so there were a ton of missionaries which was awesome. Always nice to see real life people haha. After that I shared a post on my story, with a picture of Jesus and a scripture. And someone messaged me and in said (roughly translated), "Do you really think Jesus was white? And that he was blonde? He was from the middle east." Which was even more confusing because in the picture Jesus had brown hair haha. Anyways, I just said, "Well, I don't know exactly what He looked like, but we know He was Jewish, and this artist's interpretation is more focused on depicting the care of Jesus towards his children." Then I asked him what his relationship with Christ was, and how it had affected his life. We talked about that a little. I introduced the Book of Mormon and promised him that if he read it and prayed, he could know it's true. He was curious, but we'll see how that goes. Then, we had a lesson with a woman named Adrianna. This was an interesting experience. We shared the message of the restoration; it was a super interactive lesson. I have NEVER felt the Spirit stronger during a lesson than there, and yet it ended with her saying, "Church isn't a place; it's in us," and we could tell she wasn't interested. It showed me, that no matter how much testament we receive that something is true, if we aren't receptive, then the Spirit can't help us. Later, we had a lesson with Debora F., and we invited her to be baptized. She said she wanted to think about it and told us she was gonna give us her answer next time we talked. One little miracle; the connection in that lesson was awful. We could barely hear her and vise versa; three times we had to hang up and call again. We knew this was an important lesson and needed to call her. The last time, I said a prayer and simply asked that God would strengthen the signal, so that we could communicate with her. As soon as we called back, like flipping a switch, the connection was perfect; the rest of the time it never even so much as flickered. This may seem small, but it was the most instant prayer I have ever seen on my life, and more importantly, goes to show that by small things, do great things come to pass. Anyways, after that we studied for a bit, and suddenly, I remembered I had put cookies in the oven, and they were gonna burn. That made me remember that we were late for a lesson with Jorge. And so once again cookies save the day. 

Thursday:

You know the deal, weekly planning. A lot less to talk about these days. My Portuguese is getting a lot better, but I need to work on the formal version you use in a prayer. I was asking for help for Willian and said... "Você pode ajudar...... Você pode ajudas..... Tu pode ajudas..... Tu podes ajudar" well, at least I notice when I use the wrong form now, and I got there eventually. Afterwords, we spent 3-4 hours writing a lot of letters to members with unlisted phone numbers. 

Friday:

This was a crazy day. It started off with district counsel, where we had a lesson and roleplay from the Haitian Elders on the importance of bearing our testimony during lessons, making invitations, and promising blessings. This was by far the best roleplay I've had while on my mission. Later in the day, it would completely change my experience in 2 lessons. From there I got home and made some cheesy eggs.... (well, I got the proportions very wrong so more like eggy cheese), and we made some calls. One guy we talk to keeps saying he's interested but when we call, every single time he puts his phone in his pocket. We finally realized it's, so we don't call back. We got the message after the third day this happened and decided to stop talking to him. (This does raise the question of, instead of ignoring us and telling us to call again... why not just say no when we ask if you want to hear a message??? Oh well.) We made some decisions to stop teaching some people, one of whom was a man named Devanir. We had tried calling him repeatedly but he was always busy. About twenty minutes after we made this decision, he called us for the first time and said he wanted to talk to us. We had a lesson later, and he shared that from the moment we opened our meeting with a prayer, the Spirit confirmed to him that we were sent from God. The roleplay we had earlier was fresh on my mind, and I shared my testimony throughout the discussion, and he shared his. He is an old man who is having medical problems. Because of this, we can't visit him as he's in the hospital. But he's such a special sweet man, and I know he is loved dearly by a Heavenly Father. In that lesson, I felt that love as we got to know him. Immediately after that, we had a lesson with a man named Junior. We shared the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ with him. He was an awesome guy, close to our age so it was a lot easy to connect with him and become friends. I ended up inviting him to make the covenant of baptism. He responded positively, and said he'd like to learn more about our faith before making that decision. He then asked "What's the name of your church exactly?" I may have jumped the gun on that invitation. Oh well haha. He then asked if we were the people who had a little blue book and we said yes. Then out of no where he held up a Book of Mormon and said, "Like this?" It was really funny at the time, and all three of us laughed about it. He said he had been given it years ago, and that he wanted to read it and meet with us again. We set up a time next week to talk to him and gave him some stuff to read. It was a great discussion, and we look forward to talking to him in the future. 

Saturday:

So Saturday I did as I do... and made more cookie dough. This time I used some gluten free flour for Sister Lawlor, and they turned out super dry. I was upset with this, because we had had a conversation with Sister Freire where she said chocolate chip cookies weren't that good, and I did NOT want dry cookies to represent why I know that she's wrong. haha Oh well. After that we had another lesson with Willian and got to know him. The more we talk with him, the more I love him. There are so many people on this world who feel alone. It makes me realize how much I've taken granted going to church in my life. Most people don't have a community they can enter into and be cared for. I hope we can create a feeling like that for Willian and everyone else we come into contact with. More and more each day, I realize how much this church has blessed me, and I just want to help other people get that as well. At the end of the lesson, I turned to Elder Bodily and said, "Man, the Spirit takes care of us." As we sacrifice to make God a priority in our lives, He will make us see how we as individuals are a priority to Him.

Sunday:

Started off with Elder Bodily and I sleeping through our alarms and waking up at 8:00. Then we did our personal studies. The night before, Elder Bodily had told me a story in which a priest of another unnamed religion had come up to him and said, "You know where you people got it wrong? Laying on of hands. At no point in the entire Bible does that occur." Now I know the Bible well enough to know that does occur, and so does Elder Bodily. But at that point in his life, he didn't know the Bible well enough to find that. And the guy dismissed him condescendingly. I was thinking about that during my personal study, but decided to put it off my mind and continue reading where I had left off in the New Testament. I opened up and started reading, and almost immediately came across Acts 6:5-6, and you can guess to what happens there. It helped to alleviate my concern and strengthened my testimony that we can find the answers to any questions we need if we look to divinely appointed sources. God has given us so much to testify of the truth. Too many people these days focus on what they don't know, and they lose out the opportunity to learn from what they do know. From there we went to church. There were 9 people in total because it was the 1:00 session. It was a great experience, and it's so nice seeing members in person. Speaking of members, let's talk about Brother Horta. He is AWESOME! No other word for it. It's such a blessing to have him work so much with us when we've had so much trouble getting in touch with other members in the area. He wants to have a barbecue with us and the Sisters so bad. We've tried to explain the situation to him (at this point we aren't allowed to eat with members in order to respect health and safety regulations), but he wants to meet with us. It's so hard for us, because we feel like we are rejecting his love, (especially when juicy steaks are involved) but rules are rules. He asked at one point, if he could call our mission president and explain the situation to him. We explained that it comes from the area seventy, and it's outside of President Mavromatis's control. One day I hope, sadly not today. From there we had 4 lessons, each one with 30 minutes of wait time until the next time. That's the worst kind of day, because when there are cancellations, it leaves you with an unplanned hour and nothing to do. In this case, 3 of them were canceled. Leaving us unscheduled for 3 hours. Oh well. 

All in all, an amazing week. This week especially I've seen the benefits of trusting in the Lord. I would encourage anyone reading this to get on their knees tonight, and pray in humility, and ask to feel God's love in their life. And I promise that with patience and faith you will receive this confirmation. 

This is David; we taught him twice. So awesome, and we loved teaching him. He lives far away so we introduced him to some Portuguese elders in his area. He posted on Facebook about his experience with them, and went on to send someone in the comments a link to the Book of Mormon. It's awesome to see how he's progressed, and what a valiant man he is, but I still wish I could have gotten the chance to teach him more haha. He's such a special person, and I would have loved to interact with him more. 

I'm a chef now, btw, but I guess I still need my mom to make my shopping lists for me; too much meat.

Still a chef in case you forgot. Creating new recipes all the time.

What are the odds

 Tuesday:

So we started off the day as normal, with planning, then we decided to make some phone calls. While it was dialing, I picked up 5 die and rolled them and then got psyched put of my mind when I saw the results. I rolled 5 1's. Which, according to my math, has a .012655 percent chance of occurring. So in other words, this week was gonna be a special one. And boy oh boy, it was. To start off, we took the car in at 11 to get the tires switched out. We got there at 12 and were told it was gonna be about 5 hours before they finished... So, we had a lesson with Augosto on a picnic bench and did a lot of calling and online work. The lesson with Augosto went great! We already teach him with just audio calls, so it wasn't a big deal that we were outside. He's also great at keeping commitments and is always really engaged in the conversation. We prayed and decided the best way we could help Deborah F, but that lesson ended up being canceled. We got our car about 5:30 and were home by 6:30. That's when Elder Bodily and I had a real lesson in patience. We teach English classes. Last week, the class started late at 7:30; so we then decided to leave all the other classes until that time since that's when people show up. But no one showed up at the class, and at 8:15 the mother of the family said that our lesson was at 8:15, and without getting into too much detail was super condescending and rude to people who were trying to help her speak English. At that point, I just got on my knees and said a prayer to have patience and feel Christ's love for this woman. And after that it was like a switch in my brain; I couldn't feel any anger. We need to learn to rely on Christ for our problems. If we aren't rooting our actions in Him, we will never be able to become the people we strive to be. Anyways, after that we had a call with the Sisters. Elder Bodily is district leader, and they had asked that we call them now and then to check up on them. This particular day, we just complained and moaned about how we were stuck in the middle of no where all day and then a lady was rude to us... essentially we undid all the good work we had done learning patience throughout the day. Oh well, sorry for taking over the phone call sisters. 

Wednesday:

I woke up 6:30 sharp and had an analogy on my mind, I went and wrote a 2-3 page talk on it. I might link it later on or share it on my facebook profile so I won't get into it too much right now other than to say weightlifting is involved. After that, the sisters brought us muffins cause of how much we complained about our day yesterday. First off, the sisters are awesome. Secondly, we had a great day. We just found it easier at the end when we were tired to focus on all the negatives. Our minds are weird like that; we always bring the negatives up before the positives. Doing otherwise takes training, but if we can do it, we will be able to find so much more joy in our days and in our lives. We had exchanges with our zone leaders after that, which is essentially a 3 hour phone call, but it's a lot more fun than it sounds. You just gotta try it one day to find out haha. 

Thursday: 

We had our daily planning. As a part of it, I made a graph for us to examine. On one axis it was Fubeca and robot. A fubeca is someone who doesn't care about the rules and is disobedient, a robot is someone who is perfect, always doing what they are supposed to be doing, and always on topic. On the y axis we had trunky and eye of the tiger. If you are trunky, you are unmotivated, thinking about home; if you have the eye of the tiger you are driven, focused, and energetic. We use this to mark how we are feeling with our work the last day, and graph how we can improve, as well as talk about why we felt the way we did. After that, we went to a member, Brother H, to pick up a guitar for a music video Elder Bodily is doing. We ended up talking to him and his family for almost an hour and a half on the front porch. I can't even explain to you how needed that was for me. We got to know their amazing family. While we were talking, I bore my testimony on prayer and asked the kids what something they wanted to pray for was. 13 year old Camilla said she wanted to find ways to serve her friends and family. 10 year old Bela said she wanted to pray to have more patience. And 8 year old Jacob said he wanted help expressing his emotions better and controlling himself.... do I even need to comment? What amazing kids!!! If we could all have motives as simple and pure as that, think about how much closer we would be to our friends and families. Brother H started crying, and talked about how he had been having a hard time communicating with his son, and had been praying for weeks that he could know why. He bore testimony that we were an answer to his prayers, and that missionaries are sent from God to bless the lives of the people they serve. It was such a pure moment and the Spirit was so powerful. After that, we had a lesson with Pedro M that went well, and invited him to go to church on August 30. He said yes and that he would bring a friend with him. This day was simple and by far the best day on my mission so far. We had 4 nonstop hours of lessons and discussions before it ended, and every second of it was wonderful. 

Friday:

Today was my birthday. I loved reading all the messages from my friends and family. I'm so grateful for all the wonderful people I've come into contact in my life. We had district counsel, too, which was a great birthday activity, because I got to see our district in person and talk face to face. After that, I spent the next 3 hours making a video about the plan of salvation using eggs, haha. The day ended simply: blowing out a candle in some beans and rice. 

Saturday: 

So, my parents sent me a giant black happy birthday banner for yesterday. Which first off is awesome!!! Secondly, our bedroom blinds don't work, and the room gets bright SUPER early in MA. So we put it over the window Friday night and Saturday Morning was the first day I have woken up truly well rested while I've been here. Next up, I put some cookies in the oven and while I ate them, Elder Bodily and I read from the Missionary handbook. It just so happens that the section we read today was nutrition and safety... no comment. It was a slow day. I spent about 2 hours studying Preach My Gospel and fell asleep while taking a short break. I woke up with Elder Bodily shaking me and then starting to pray. Very confused I folded my arms and then looked up while Elder Bodily started teaching. Apparently, someone had called and asked if we could have a lesson early. I was very groggy and confused at first, but the lesson went great. I studied Preach My Gospel the rest of the day more or less and that was that. 

Sunday:

We had church, which today was taught by the sisters. Sister Freire is the brand new sister to the mission, and she taught the lesson fresh out of the MTC and killed it which was cool to see. After that, we had 3 lessons; all 3 which got cancelled. The sisters brought us some muffins for my birthday for the second time that week; once again, awesome. And we had 2 more lessons fall through, making a grand total of 5. I would like to say that that is not typical, but the days where that does happen is unfortunate. Anyways, after that I did some work on Facebook, got hit on by a 30 year old man and 13 year old girl, and wrapped up. One man we talked to was named Marcelo. We asked him if he was interested in hearing about Jesus Christ, and he responded he already knew of Christ. We asked if he had heard about his ministry in the Americas, and he said yes. We then asked him if he had heard of the Book of Mormon which testified of His ministry in the Americas. This time he said no, and when we explained it, he asked how much it would cost to get one. We explained it was free, and offered to bring one to his house on Monday. 

Monday:

Today was district P day, which is a day where our district can meet-up in person and hang out. We went to the beach where we just talked, caught crabs, and baked in the sun. Then we went to get some Italian pizza and some ice cream. The missionaries in my district are all so awesome; any chance we have to hang out in person is a blessing. After that, we had 2 more lessons fall through, making an unprecedented 7 in a row. But we got to drop off a copy of the Book of Mormon at Marcelo's house. We hope to have the chance to talk with him more and have a call planned on Wednesday. 

Not as steep as it looks. I promise.

Catching Crabs

Me & Elder Bodily (The Bod Squad)

The District

The Graph

Elder Terry's Last District Counsel

Tuesday 

That's right, no intro. Tuesday started off with another 3 hour trip to get our cars safety check. Finally, we found a place that did them!!! Then they only took two hours to tell us we had to replace three of our tires, and we have to come back again to get that done. Great. Anyways after that we took care of English lessons, and Elder Bodily cut my hair for me. 

Wednesday

Woke up and took a shower only to then promptly have our water shut off; good start to the day! Buuuut, the sisters came to deliver a whiteboard we ordered a couple weeks ago which was awesome. Plus we got to meet the new sister in our area, and wait for it, she's brand new out of training!!! Which means I finally know someone on the mission whose newer than me. Anyways, Elder Bodily and I got straight to using the whiteboard to organize our thoughts and set some goals. 

Thursday 

Daily planning day! The whiteboard actually made a big difference, and we were able to set goals for ourselves and people, create plans for service, and figure out the best ways to help our area. I had to find my notebook to copy some names down and asked Elder Bodily, "Where is my 'livrinho(little book)" to which he responded, "It's 'my', not meu." We got a crack out of the fact that in his head he ignored that everything else was in English and corrected specifically that little two letter word "my." After that he made feijoada for us, which is a Brazilian food made of beans rice, and pork. It was definitely a success, but he accidentally made enough for the next two weeks. So we aren't worried about starving any time soon. 

Friday

This is the day we had to clean of the mess in the kitchen however, which was no easy task. He was in the kitchen when I asked him if he wanted to clean with me before we did our daily planning. He responded by saying he already did, too which I pointed behind him to the mountain of dishes in the sink black from the massive amount of beans. "Oh that." Once we did that, we got set to writing letters to the members in our area we were unable to contact and spent the day delivering them and making contacts in our area. 

Saturday 

TODAYS THE DAY WE FINALLY FINISH THE CAR!!!!! Just kidding... we got there after a mere hour of driving and asked if he could take care of the tires. This upset him. He responded, "It's 3:00; we close on two hours. Leave your car here, and you can come back tomorrow." I was too intimidated to point at that it was actually 2:13, and we didn't have plans on sleeping outside, so I guess it's a problem for another day.... still. We've spent more time trying to get our car figured out since we got moved to this area than we have in lessons with members, haha. Anyways, after that we had a Facebook live event called 'Walk in the Light' with artist Brother Sweat. This was awesome. It was so nice to see how personal his relationship with the Savior is, and how he reflected that in his art. I'd challenge everyone reading this to evaluate their relationship with the Savior, and ask how they can use their talents to share that relationship. 

Sunday

A lot of church meetings and coordination for the next week. Then we set about calling members to see if we could help them. We were able to contact one sister who has been inactive for quite some time. She was excited to mark a date to talk to us and wanted to know if church was starting again. I'm so excited to be able to get to know the people in this area better. It's hard because of the virus, but it's our job to do the best we can and let God fill the gap between what we are able to do and what we need to accomplish. 

Monday

Normally, I don't talk about Mondays, but today has been fun. We did our normal stuff, cleaning and shopping, and then I decided to make a beef Wellington. It's in the oven now cooking, and we are EXCITED. We started this at 6, but along the way realized we didn't have enough ham, so we quickly went to the store to buy some more before we let it sit too long. A lot of sets back later, and at 9:00 we are ready to take it out of the oven. But when I go to get it, it's still doughy and uncooked... why? Is our oven broken? That's when I realized, and I turned to Elder Bodily. He asked why it was still raw. I just said, "There's something the USA does, that no other country does. This recipe comes from Gordan Ramsey..." he sat there for a second, then when he realized just said, dang. So I asked him what 200 degrees celcius was in Fahrenheit, and turned the oven up from 200 to 425. Oops. 

1-4: your boy is a chef 

5 we brought 100 dollars of grocers up with only one bag in one trip. 

6 haircut without a barber

7 Elder Bodilys "clean kitchen" 

Like my second week or something?

Ok another pretty standard week, but I've come to the conclusion I'm gonna either be a master chef or a mad scientist after this, because Elder Bodily and I are fiends in the kitchen. Anyways...

Tuesday 

Tuesday was a day of random lessons. Deborah N loves learning but has a hard schedule so she kind of just calls us whenever haha. Then after that we had a random lesson with a guy named Campos. Both lessons went really well, I definitely enjoy improving and searching the scriptures to ask questions than I do teaching a lesson with specific points to cover. After that, we had a great lesson with Pedro M talking about the commandments, and he really understood. Finally, we got a call from our ministers asking if we wanted one of their extra pans. Elder Bodily asked if they have any pans with like "really high walls to keep oil and stuff in" to which I commented "that's called a pot."  

Wednesday 

Wednesday we finally had zone conference, and it was so cool seeing everyone in person. It was a big success, and I enjoyed myself. It was weird seeing President Mavromatis in person though, haha. After that, we had our beginners English class, to which no one showed up, and I may or may not have lost my patience haha. Just because we had 3 people kind of say they were desperate to learn English, and we spent a week deciding on a time, sent like 7 confirmation texts and everything then when the time finally came the guy who wanted the classes the most said, "I'm working right now I can't go," and his wife says, "He works on Wednesdays; can we switch to Tuesdays?"  Oh well, she actually ended up joining later on and we talked to her for 15 minutes and she's really nice. We have another lesson on Tuesday. After that Elder Bodily and I made a little video to send to the EFY in Brazil to show them what missionaries do during the quarantine. 

Thursday

We had weekly planning on Thursday, still a lot to do to prepare this area for the the next missionaries and progress is slow because of the virus, but at least there's plenty to do. Pedro O hasn't been able to meet with us to prepare for baptism, so we talked to him about changing his date, and he still has yet to get back to us. 

Friday

We started the day with a long voice call lesson with Augost that went GREAT. Elder Bodily ended up talking for most of the time this particular lesson, and Augost kept saying "Oh I agree, Jeffrey," and "Thanks Jeffrey" etc. That cracked me up a bit haha. It's weird having someone refer to me by my first name, but he met us through Facebook so that's why. Next, we invited Deborah N to church to which she was excited. She's awesome, does all the work and wants to get an answer. From there, we had another in person district council, for which Elder Bodily and I made some banging cookies. Next Elder Bodily finally had our first argument, I'm surprised it took 3 weeks haha. It was on whether or not reading out loud in Portuguese helps your accent. Finally we had one more lesson, we called and he declined. His message explaining why said (translated) "I'm in the bathroom, call me in an hour." Which made Elder Bodily and I question what he ate that put him out of commission for the next hour haha. 

Saturday 

We had another 4 hour trip to find a place to do our car's state inspection, but each place once we got there said, "we don't do it here, but they do it at..." we came home empty handed. I've seen the worst driving in the past week of my entire life, which is saying something consider I see myself every time I drive. Anyways, from there we came home and got our master chef on making fried rice and had some lessons.

Sunday Funday

The day of the Lord! We did the normal stuff, taught sunday school, had some lessons aaaaaaaaaand after only 3 weeks in the field, I finally had a member meeting go through! We met someone named Sister Vilme, who was so sweet and such a blast to talk to. It makes me excited for the end of the quarantine where I can hopefully meet the members and get to know them a lot better. 

1. A meme me and Elder Bod squad made, that you wont understand fully unless you have been in meme culture for the past 3 or so years. 

3. The fried rice me and Bod Squad made  

2. The mess afterwards

 

2 months in, which is basically like saying there's only 22 months left, which is almost 20 months, which is almost a year and a half, which means I only have a sister mission left

It's crazy how fast time has been flying. It's funny because the days go by super slow, but the weeks go by super fast. I'm sure part of that is do to the mundanity of quarantine living, but hopefully that'll calm down in the future. 

Tuesday

So starting off we had a mission wide meeting talking about the possibility of integrating select instagram profiles into our missionary network. This is in the beginning stages. It's promising, but I'm not too excited considering that one of the main things I was looking forward to on my mission was taking a break from social media, haha. But then again, I'm already on facebook. Next, we did our daily stuff and ended with a lesson with a different woman named Deborah F. She is really sweet and awesome, but she's having a really hard time right now. It feels lame, because I want to help her situation out, but there's nothing I can do. Luckily, the gospel of Jesus Christ benefits and blesses individuals and families, and I know she would benefit from being friends with people in the ward, so that's our focus right now. 

Wednesday

So nothing too crazy here except when Elder Bodily and I were Facebook Finding on Monday, we came across an ad for a free Book of Mormon, haha. When we clicked on it in the same grouping was a guy on facebook selling pictures of his feet as a joke. This is all well and done, except now I have a bunch of ads on facebook either asking if I want to "buy" a Book of Mormon and then I keep getting a bunch of feet picture ads, haha. Oh well. They got that I wasn't interested after Wednesday. After that, we had an AWESOME lesson with David, the guy I talked to last week from Angola. Sadly, we found out during the lesson he lives pretty far outside of our area, so we are going to introduce him to some other elders in his area. 

Thursday

Thursday was a big day, because so far all the people I had found on Facebook had either been uninterested or outside of our area, haha. But there was this guy named Augosto who kept scheduling with us and not picking up, which is something pretty common when people aren't interested but don't want to say no. So after three times of this happening, we decided that if he didn't answer again we would tell him we would call back in a couple of months where hopefully he could be a little less busy. But FINALLY, he picked up! And what followed was the best lesson about the restoration we've had on my mission. After that, we went downstairs and dug up some dirt from a pothole for Elder Bodily's potato plant which stressed him out a lot, because he was worried about getting in trouble. Then we taught an English class. About 4 minutes after the English lesson, got a very insistent call from a return missionary who knew the people we were teaching from his Mission. He called and explained to us exactly what we were to do, and how to do it in order to invite them to come into Christ, haha. It was an interesting call. 

Picture to the left: If I had to sum up the quarantine mission experience in 1 picture this would be it. 

Friday

Friday we finally had district council in person which was AWESOME. It was so cool meeting everyone. Two sisters in our district, Sister Lawler and Sister Howard, made everyone muffins. They're really great, kept giving us treats and stuff. We're gonna have to make cookies or something to return the favor. Next, we made some phone calls to members in our area. Elder Bodily and I have a game we play while the phone's ringing. We roll five dice, a 1 is worth 100 and a 5 is worth 50, plus a bunch of other weird combinations for points. It's first to 10,000 points, but if you roll and don't get a 1 or a 5 you lose all the points you would have earned that turn. For some reason I seem to be luckier than him and kept rolling really good combos. I offered to go for him, and he was like no. So I asked one more time, and he said no again. I responded ok, so just to be clear you don't want this roll to be for you. Then rolled the dice and lo and behold got 12345, which is the highest point combination for 2500 points. But then I wouldn't let him take it, because he insisted on my roll not counting haha. 

Saturday 

We started the day by dropping a Book of Mormon off at Augosto's house and came home to clean up our facebook finding records. Then we had a facebook live event with Alex Boyé, and simply put IT WAS AWESOME!!! He is so cool and so much fun to be around. He talked about his conversion story and some lessons he learned growing up homeless, as well as his experiences on American Idol. It was an amazing event. We finished the day off with some phone calls, which also means dice rolling. I made it to 9950 points and Elder Bodily was rolling with 3000 points. He rolled 3 5s which is a decent roll with 500 and was like "oh ya! Boom got it!" And I was like "niiiiice 500, to put that into perspective though, you need to get 7000 this turn in order to win." And we both just died of laughter. Typing it now doesn't seem so funny, but I think we both get a little hysterical at the end of the day haha. 

Sunday

Nothing too much to talk about here other than that we finally went to church in person; met the Bishop; met some people in our ward; and I was able to bear my Testimony. It was great! I'm looking forward to the days where I can go to a new ward and meet everyone and shake their hands, without saying hello through a mask at the very least. 

One of the best

So before I start. Really eventful week, one of the best of my mission. I had so many spiritual experiences, and the Spirit was present in so many of our lessons. It was a lesson to me that if we can do our part, the Lord will take care of us  

Tuesday:

So today started off really well. We had a lesson with a guy named Willian. I can't recall if I had met him last week or this week, so I'm not sure if this is a recap. But he's awesome, a really special guy; just going through some rough times. I was so glad to get to know him, and we were able to drop him off a Book of Mormon. I went through and highlighted and annotated a bunch of up lifting scriptures for him. Those scriptures proved useful again later in the week, and he said he went through and read them, and they helped him out which is really awesome. After that, the Haitian elders asked us for a ride to the church, and to chaperone a chapel tour with them and one of their friends. When we got there, the zone leaders told us that in a meeting with a member of the opposite sex the meeting has to include a member of your own sex. So instead, they stood out in the sun and had a lesson. I got to watch them invite her to be baptized, and it was so awesome to see. After that, they had some lessons, so we couldn't take them home. We had to wait for them at the chapel... we ended up being there 11:00 to 6:30, haha. But after they finished all their stuff, we were able to go home and eat lunch/dinner after a quick lesson. From there we just had English class with a member named Deborah. 

Wednesday:

Started off by going to a chapel to pick up an english connect book. (The book we use for English class.) Transfers were going on, so there were a ton of missionaries which was awesome. Always nice to see real life people, haha. Then I shared a post on my story, with a picture of Jesus and a scripture. And someone messaged me and said (roughly translated), "Do you really think Jesus was white? And that he was blonde? He was from the middle east." Which was even more confusing because in the picture Jesus had brown hair. Anyways I just said, "Well, I don't know exactly what He looked like, but we know He was Jewish, and this artist's interpretation is more focused on depicting the care of Jesus towards His children." Then I asked him what his relationship was with Christ and how it had affected his life. We talked about that a little, and I introduced the Book of Mormon and promised him that if he read it and prayed, he could know it's true. He was curious, but we'll see how that goes. Later, we had a lesson with a woman named Adrianna. This was an interesting experience. We shared the message of the restoration, and it was a super interactive lesson. I have NEVER felt the Spirit stronger during a lesson than there, and yet it ended with her saying, "Church isn't a place; it's in us." We could tell she wasn't interested. It kind of showed me, that no matter how much testament we receive that something is true, if we aren't receptive, then the Spirit can't help us. After that, we had a lesson with Debora F. We invited her to be baptized; she said she wanted to think about it and told us she was gonna give us her answer next time we talked. One little miracle; the connection in that lesson was awful; we could barely hear her and vise versa. Three times we had to hang up and call again. We knew this was an important lesson, and needed to call her. The last time I said a prayer, and simply asked that God would strengthen the signal, so that we could communicate with her. As soon as we called back, like flipping a switch, the connection was perfect, and the rest of the time it never even so much as flickered. This may seem small, but it was the most instant prayer I have ever seen in my life, and more importantly, goes to show that 'by little things, do great things come to pass'. Anyways, after that we studied for a bit. Suddenly, I remembered I had put cookies in the oven, and they were gonna burn. That made me remember that we were late for a lesson with Jorge. And so once again, cookies save the day! 

Thursday:

You know the deal, weekly planning. A lot less to talk about these days. My Portuguese is getting a lot better, but I need to work on the formal version you use in a prayer. I was asking for help for Willian and said... "Você pode ajudar...... Você pode ajudas..... Tu pode ajudas..... Tu podes ajudar" well, at least I notice when I use the wrong form now, and I got there eventually. After that we spent 3-4 hours writing a lot of letters to members with unlisted phone numbers. 

Friday:

This was a crazy day. It started off with district counsel, where we had a lesson and role play from the Haitian elders on the importance of bearing our testimony during lessons, making invitations, and promising blessings. This was by far the best role play I've had while on my mission. Later in the day, it would completely change my experience in 2 lessons. After I got home and made some cheesy eggs.... (well I got the proportions very wrong so more like eggy cheese), we made some calls. One guy we talk to keeps saying he's interested, but when we call, every single time he puts his phone in his pocket. We finally realized, it's so we don't call back. We got the message after the third day this happened and decided to stop talking to him. This does raise the question of, instead of ignoring us and telling us to call again... why not just say no when we ask if you want to hear a message??? Oh well. After that we made some decisions to stop teaching some people, one of whom was a man named Devanir. We had tried calling him repeatedly, but he was always busy. About twenty minutes after we made this decision, he called us for the first time and said he wanted to talk to us. We had a lesson later, and he shared that from the moment we opened our meeting with a prayer, the Spirit confirmed to him that we were sent from God. The role play we had earlier was fresh on my mind, and I shared my testimony throughout the discussion, and he shared his. He is an old man who is having medical problems. Because of this, we can't visit him as he's in the hospital. But he's such a special sweet man, and I know he is loved dearly by Heavenly Father. In that lesson, I felt that love as we got to know him. Immediately after that, we had a lesson with a man named Junior. We shared the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ with him. He was an awesome guy, close to our age, so it was easier to connect with him and become friends. I ended up inviting him to make the covenant of Baptism. He responded positively, and said he'd like to learn more about our faith before making that decision. He then asked "What's the name of your church exactly?" I may have jumped the gun on that invitation. Oh well, haha. He then asked if we were the people who had a little blue book, and we said yes. Then out of nowhere, he held up a Book of Mormon and said, "Like this?" It was really funny at the time, and all three of us laughed about it. He said he had been given it years ago, and that he wanted to read it and meet with us again. We set up a time next week to talk to him and gave him some stuff to read. It was a great discussion, and we look forward to talking to him in the future. 

Saturday:

So Saturday. I did as I do... and made more cookie dough. This time I used some gluten free flour for Sister Lawlor, and they turned out super dry. I was upset with this, because we had had a conversation with Sister Freire where she said chocolate chip cookies weren't that good, and I did NOT want dry cookies to represent why I know that she's wrong. Oh well. After that we had another lesson with Willian, and got to know him. The more we talk with him, the more I love him. There are so many people in this world who feel alone; it makes me realize how much I've taken granted going to church in my life. Most people don't have a community they can enter into and be cared for. I hope we can create a feeling like that for Willian and everyone else we come into contact with. More and more each day, I realize how much this church has blessed me, and I just want to help other people get that as well. At the end of the lesson, I turned to Elder Bodily and said, "Man, the Spirit takes care of us dude." As we sacrifice to make God a priority in our lives, He will make us see how we as individuals are a priority to Him."

Sunday:

Started off with Elder Bodily and I sleeping through our alarms and waking up at 8:00. Then we did our personal studies. The night before, Elder Bodily had told me a story in which a priest of another unnamed religion had come up to him and said "you know where you people got it wrong? Laying on of hands. At no point in the entire Bible does that occur." Now I know the bible well enough to know that does occur, and so does Elder Bodily. But at that point in his life he didn't know the bible well enough to find that. And the guy dismissed him condescendingly. I was thinking about that during my personal study, but decided to put it off my mind and continue reading where I had left off in the New Testament. I opened up and started reading, and almost immediately came across Acts 6:5-6, and you can guess to what happens there. It helped to alleviate my concern, and strengthened my testimony that we can find the answers to any questions we need if we look to divinely appointed sources. God has given us so much to testify of the truth, too many people these days focus on what they dont know, and they lose out the opportunity to learn from what they do know. From there we went to church, there were 9 people in total because it was the 1:00 session. It was a great experience, and it's so nice seeing members in person. Speaking of Members, let's talk about Brother Horta. He is AWESOME! No other word for it. It's such a blessing to have him work so much with us, when we've had so much trouble getting in touch with other members in the area. He wants to have a barbecue with us and the Sisters so bad. We've tried to explain the situation to him, but he wants to meet with us. It's so hard for us because we feel like we are rejecting his love, (especially when juicy steaks are involved) but rules are rules. He asked at one point, if he could call our mission president and explain the situation to him. We explained that it comes from the area seventy, and its outside of President Mavromatis's control. One day I hope, sadly not today. From there we had 4 lessons, each one with 30 minutes of wait time until the next time. That's the worst kind of day, because when there's cancellations, it leaves you with an unplanned hour and nothing to do. In this case 3 of them were canceled. Leaving us bored for 3 hours. Oh well. 

All in all am amazing week. This week especially I've seen the benefits of trusting in the lord. I would encourage anyone reading this to get on their knees tonight, and pray in humility, and ask to feel Gods love in our life. And I promise that with Patience and Faith you will receive this confirmation.