First baptism date, kind of

This is what a typical
day looks like

Monday:

Monday we had a lesson with a lady named Andrine. She had said her goal with meeting with us was to learn how she could draw closer to God. We decided to share James 1 and 2 with her. We talked about how faith without works is dead and about the ways we show our faith. It was an AMAZING first lesson, and a great way to start the week. The next fun thing included a guy named Jay-Ar. He wanted to hear a message, but because he's in the Philippines, we wanted to refer him to missionaries over there. So I used a Facebbok group I'm in whose purpose is to find missionaries all over the world and shared the situation. Within seconds, I had a ton of missionaries helping me. Someone responded and said that was their old mission, then he tagged some other missionaries and said some stuff in Taglog, tagging the appropriate missionaries. All I could think of was the scene in Lord of the Rings where they light the beacons and you see a bunch of lights go on through the skies and Eragorn yells, "The beacons are lit! Gondor calls for aid." 

Tuesday:

We forgot to take the car in to get the oil changed, so we made plans to do it next week. Skip to Monday to see what went down with that cause it's interesting. We went to the Horta's to borrow something. There was no-one home, so we got to eat the cookies we made them which is a plus. We have plenty of work to get ready for General Conference. (This week had a lot of work under the scenes that I won't talk about.) We drove to the Zone Leaders' apartment so they could borrow the car. A sister in our ward gave us money last week to go out to dinner, and we went to a churrasco called Oliveiras. It was so good! We also had great member lessons with brother Wright and Sister Barros. A guy we were talking to asked if we could have a lesson at 9:30. We weren't excited about having one as we had been getting ready for bed, but decided that we needed to meet the schedule of the people whom we are teaching, not the other way around. And I'm glad we did. He started off by asking about 3 Nephi 11. He asked about baptism and how when Christ arrived He gave authority to the apostles. We shared the importance of authority to him and extended the invitation to be baptized, and he accepted. I'm very excited to get to know Francis more in the future and love seeing his relationship with God growing. He's already been baptized two times; first when he was 3, then when he was 18, he wanted to be baptized again because it didn't make sense that he had been baptized before he knew what right and wrong was, not to mention the fact that it wasn't by immersion. So when we explained the importance for authority, he was excited. 

Wednesday:

I talked a little with Jay-Ar, and he had questions about why missionaries can't hold lessons after 10:30. I explained that it was to make sure we were getting enough sleep and talked about the importance of obedience. He responded "Ok, I'll go to bed now to be obedient." Haha. I told him that was a rule for missionaries and not a commandment, and it was all ok. That day we went to pick up our car from the Zone Leaders; while we were there; they gave us a slice of pie, some cookies, and some biscuits. All in all, a fair trade. We also went to do service at our food kitchen. As always, it was great. We have good relationships with all the people there, and it's nice being outside. Once people pick up their food bags, there's an area where they bring out trays of extra fruit they have. 

Thursday:

Nothing much to say here. We had a weekly planning session where we coordinated our efforts and talked about how we would get ready for general conference. We had am amazing lesson with Augosto, and he said he couldn't wait to go to church with us. 

Friday: 

I made good use of the steak from
the members!

We went to district counsel. While we were at the chapel, we got some meat from the fridge. A sister in the ward had accidentally ordered a ton in excess and gave it to the missionaries to share. Man, I didn't mind that at all haha! I made a nice thick steak cooked in mustard and garlic. While we were making the steak however, another member came by and gave us a pizza. No complaints here. We dropped off some cookies to our friend Carlos and went home just in time for a lesson with Pedro M. It was a great lesson, and we helped him download the book of Mormon app on his phones, and showed him how to listen to it. Plus we invited him to general conference, and he was really excited to see what it was all about. 

Saturday:

So funny story from today: we went on a walk to get out of the house, and were waiting at this big intersection. Across the street, there was this old lady with a walker. She decided not to wait for the go sign for pedestrians. She just went for it. As you can imagine, cars had to slam on their breaks, the intersection got clogged up, people started yelling at each other, and slowly but surely, she crossed the street. Finally, the second she made it to the other side, the pedestrian light turned on. Patience isn't for everyone, haha. We have been talking about Augosto and how awesome he is. I went back to look at what our first messages were like. He was the first person I ever talked to on Facebook, so as you can imagine I was pretty new to missionary work. The conversation was as follows (translated) 

"Hi, is everything good?"

"Everything is good" 

"I'm good too, and how are you?"

"Very good also"

"Awesome, so I'm a missionary for the church of Jesus Christ of later day saints, and I'm sharing a message...."

Elder Bodily and I laughed about my lack of tact; he made the comment that I basically just said hi then slapped him in the face with a Book of Mormon. But it seems to be working, haha. We also had a lesson with Willian, but he canceled. We think he might be avoiding us. It's always sad when that happens; you build relationships with people then all the sudden they ghost you out of nowhere. It's definitely going to take getting used to. This week was a very busy week. We did everything we needed to do and worked hard, but we didn't have very much success finding people to teach. Other weeks maybe we do less work and find more people. Sometimes things aren't going to go exactly the way you would hope, circumstances change, and we live in a dynamic world. But as you press forward with faith and trust in God, He will bless you. 

Sunday: 

Big day, we finally got to go to church in person with Augosto, except for the fact that he never showed up. We were on the phone with him before, and he said he was waiting on a call from his boss before leaving. Turns out his boss called him and told him they were understaffed, and he had to come in. He was super apologetic, and we understood, but it was still disappointing. Especially because church was so awesome. One of the people who gave a talk was an old guy whose been a member here for a long time. He shared that it may be his last talk before he dies; he shared his life story and experience with the church. It was so powerful, and I'm so grateful I could be there to listen. At home, I attempted to make Brigadeiro which is a Brazilian dessert that is essentially chocolate balls. The only problem is that they never solidified, so instead I was left with brigadeiro soup. Oh well. We finished the day with a lesson with the Vandanburgs and talked about the upcoming conference with them. They shared that sometimes it could be hard to focus on listening to the talks with so many kids around, but they did their best. We were reading in Jacob, and I remembered that there was a scripture that talks about our intentions and actions being reflected in our work. I decided to read that on the next page. I thought it talked about how we are blessed for bringing forth good fruit, and I wanted to talk about how God just wants us to do our best. BUT, the one I was thinking of was about how if we bring forth evil fruit we are cursed. So essentially they said they were having a hard time focusing in conference, and I told them they would be dammed. Luckily Elder Bodily saved it, and I corrected my mistake, but still pretty funny. 

Monday: 

So, the car. We took it in to get the oil changed, thinking it would be about 30 minutes. The guy in the Firestone was rude, and we could tell why for some reason he didn't like us. We assume it's because we are missionaries. He asked when we need our car by, and we said however long they needed. He responded, "OK. Come back here at 7..." It was 11 in the morning. We didn't need our car; however, so we weren't too worried about it and asked another pair of elders to bring us home. Here's the kicker. At 6:30, we checked and found at their hours are from 8-5; this guy was just trying to get us to come back when they were closed to be a nuisance. I don't know why. We haven't done anything to him, but it's the way of the world, haha. Before my mission, I would have gotten real angry, and probably tried to get him in trouble. As it is right now, I'm trying to remember that I'm a representative of Christ. The people who tortured and killed him showed no mercy, no love, and no kindness. Yet He forgave them anyways. Who would I be, if I took my anger out over something as petty as needing to come a day later to pick up my car. If I go in there and get mad and talk to the manager, all I'm doing is affirming whatever he thinks he knows about me, but maybe if I act with civility and kindness, I can give him a different impression. Then maybe next time he won't act the same way. 

Why Are We Afraid of the Dark?

I made it to Brazil! wink 

 Tuesday:

Tuesday was a monotonous day. Elder Bodily had a long list of people to contact on Facebook. Normally out of 50 or so people we contact, each on of us can find 2-3 interested people at least. Today however, I went through about 70 people and didn't find a single person interested in hearing a message. That was unusual and disappointing. Sadly, it was foreshadowing the pace for the week to a degree. But without a slow week here and there, we can't have a good week where we find more success; success is relative to the negative and positive experiences we have had in the past. We did however have lesson with the Vandanburg family which was awesome! They are a lot of fun to work with, and they wanted to know ways they could share the gospel with friends. We shared Ether 3-4 with them, and talked about the ways that the Lord helped the Brother of Jared overcome his trials and answer his prayers. 

Wednesday: 

We got to do service which is always good. There are a lot of great people, and I love getting to know them. Elder Bodily noticed one guy had a tattoo of the Earth Nation from Avatar the Last Airbender, so we talked to him about that; it was fun. When we were done after about 3 hours, they had a bunch of roll starters (froze raw dough) that they were going to throw away, so we took them and they were AMAZING. Such good rolls, nice and crunchy on the outside, but soft and moist in the inside. As well as that, they gave us some shirts that we could wear when we were working. They were perfect, because the name of the food kitchen is Bread of Life, which also happens to be a name for Christ whose message we are sharing, haha. Now we can rep. the gospel even when we aren't proselytizing. 

Thursday:

We had a lesson with Augosto, and it went really well! We talked about why he wasn't able to attend church, and he said he wanted to go next time. The calls with him are over audio, so we can't actually see each other while we're talking. I like to jump around when I'm teaching. Today we were in Alma, and I was reading random verses ahead and behind as they popped into my head. As I would go to a new verse, I could hear him flipping through to read along. I can't even describe how awesome that is; usually people just prefer that we read verses to them and don't even open their books unless we ask. But he is always willing to read when we ask him. With that, I of course made some celebratory cookies. Then I got a message from a guy named JR who is actually way outside of our area. But he has been researching religions and had been in contact with a friend of mine, Elder Minnick. He started off by asking me an interesting question, "Why are we afraid of the Dark?" He wanted me to answer, but he also wanted me to find scriptures and talks from modern prophets and apostles that answered this question. I was able search "afraid of the dark" in the gospel library app and find dozens of resources to share. When I shared the situation with the missionaries in my district, every single one of them sent me some talk or scripture to help. He doesn't know how many people care that he gets the answers to his questions, and neither do we. But there are legions of angels in heaven cheering for us behind the scenes, and I think that's awesome. He ended up grilling me for 2 1/2 hours about what I believed, and why I believe it, and whether or not I've ever had doubts. It ended with him downloading gospel library to learn for himself. So exciting! He asked if we could close with us saying a prayer, so we quickly called and said one together. I'm still in contact with him, and he's making progress answering his questions about life. From there, the big event of the day were exchanges with the Zone Leaders (we switch companions for the day to learn from someone new). It was a lot of fun, and very productive. I was with Elder Foster. It turns out he likes to read, so at the end, he and I got to nerd out a bit about Wheel of Time, Stormlight Archive, and Jack Reacher. 

Friday:

We started off with District counsel, then jumped straight into a technology training still at the church. Afterwards, we went home and worked on contacting interested people. It was a pretty discouraging contact session, but we got a message from a lady in our ward. She was going to bring us food, but didn't have time so she was gonna give us some money for food. When she got here she gave us $20 dollars! $40 is half of what we budget for every two weeks of groceries, haha. Looks like we are going to be able to eat out one of these days, and we are excited. 

Saturday:

We woke up to go to a park and do some pull ups, and on our way back we got a text from some sisters in our area. They had asked to borrow the car the day before, and we completely spaced it. So we hurried and met them at a high school parking lot to give them the car, then walked home. When we got back, we had some more Facebook time, and you guessed it, not a lot of success... Until I got a message from a lady named Gleisiane. She asked questions about a video I had posted about the plan of salvation, then asked if I had any other videos like that to send her. I showed her the area facebook page and talked to her about our message. It was a great pick me up. I always say that online missionary effort is better for the work, more challenging for the missionary. You are able to reach out to a lot more people, and finding/teaching is much easier, but at the same time it's less gratifying than sharing messages face to face. I do videos on Facebook but am never sure if anyone actually watches or cares about them, so it was so amazing to see that this woman appreciated them so much. It goes to show that you never know the effect you will have on people. Here I was wondering if anyone even wanted to see the videos I was sharing, and they brightened her day. By the same token, she was absently commenting about what she appreciated about them, and it helped to uplift me. If you're not sure whether doing something nice will have a good effect on someone, do it anyways. Better you do something nice that goes unnoticed than miss the opportunity to care for someone in need. After that session, we jogged about a mile back to the high school to pick up our car, came home and called some members of our congregation. We were finally able to get into contact with one guy; the only problem is that he's moved to California, haha. Oh well, we helped him get in contact with the missionaries down there, so it's a victory in my book. 

Sunday:

We had ward council with the Bishop and his clerks. It went really long, but we got some good coordination done. We had a message from the Zone Leaders in the Zone Chat asking every companionship to write and send a poem summarizing the week. I decided to take some initiative and start everyone off with this masterpiece of a haiku,

We had a good week,

We got ignored by people,

But we made cookies. 

Needless to say it was a hit. We got a call from the Sisters asking if we could help them figure out something on zoom for a primary lesson they were teaching, which reminded us that we had a primary lesson to teach in 5 minutes. So we rushed to figure out what the topic for this week was and gave it our best. All things considered, it went really well. We also made a video for some other sisters to post on the mission Facebook page. We then had some more work with members. Needless to say, I was pretty worn out and discouraged. I just said a prayer and talked about how tired and discouraged I was, and asked for help finding the energy and the desire to just do the things that day that I needed to do. I immediately felt refreshed; like I had jumped in a pool of cool water. Out of the people we called, 3/4's of them responded. Though we didn't set up times to talk, we had great conversations and got to know them a little bit. One of them was another guy who had moved without sending his information over, so we helped him with that. He let us know that next time he worked with someone who lived in Everett, he would send them our way, haha. We'll be waiting!

This is what I've been reduced to if I want to workout my chest.

Not letting go of the fact that my mom repeatedly said I'd only be eating taquitos all day every day.

Let's Eat Pasta

 All right! *cracks knuckles* Let's do this. 

The District!

Tuesday:

We had a lesson with a new guy, Algace, and it went AMAZING. It might have been the best lesson we ever taught. He was asking questions and engaging. It ended with him agreeing to read the Book of Mormon and pray about whether it's true. Then, immediately after, we had a lesson with Devanir. The lesson was another great one. It lasted about an hour. We covered the plan of salvation, the restoration, and the gospel of Jesus Christ. He was so interested, and said he wanted to come to our church. He pointed out that our church was different from others; it has actual doctrine to learn. We asked when he gets out of the hospital and... he got out two days earlier!!! Which means we can drop off a Book of Mormon. We are so excited to talk to him more. He loved the lesson, and said he believes there is more that God has prepared us to learn. We spoke about baptism and covenants as well. From there, we went straight to get flu shots, and that was the day. 

Wednesday:

When we got back, we had a lesson with Augosto, and it also went great. We asked him about his experience reading and praying about the Book of Mormon. He told us that his faith was growing, that he felt better spiritually, and that he found himself drawing closer to God in his desires. It was an awesome experience, and we invited him to attend church. He wasn't able this week but wanted to next week. After that lesson, we went to the Hortas to get back a plate we had given them and drop off more cookies. We left with a bag of apples, peaches, two cases of wet wipes, two slices of cake, a guitar, and our plate. They are just the best; there is no other way to put it. We have a hard time getting in contact with the members over here, but when we do, it's such a fulfilling experience. From there we went to a food kitchen to offer service for a couple hours. It was there that I got Bible bashed for the first time haha. An older guy was talking to me while I filled bags. He asked why I was there, and I responded I was on a mission for my church. He was impressed and asked what church. I responded "The Church of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints"... "some people call us mormons." He wasn't that happy anymore, and he wanted us to go with

Cookie Grease stains on my journal.
Whoops!

him to his church. I asked for his number so I could get the address, and he said he would just show me. He gave us the most Bostonian directions you've ever heard of. *in Boston accent, "All right, so what you're gonna want to do is take this street right here; this is called main street. And you're gonna drive it that way until you get to a stoplight and turn right. From there you'll follow the road until you see an old building with a sign called the foundry. If you get to the train station you've gone too far." After that, he left us alone to go back to doing service. All in all an interesting experience. When we got home around 3 hours later, we ate some of the peaches the Hortas gave to us. They were AMAZING. I walked around the apartment with a peach in each hand, cause ya, I'm living the high life. After that we had some time to exercise, so I asked Elder Bodily I'd he wanted to do it with me. He responded "Naw, I'm just gonna go eat pasta." We both started laughing just cause he said it completely unironically. And that was our day. 

Thursday: 

I know what you're thinking, weekly planning. Actually, no. Not at all this week in fact. We never ended up having time. What we did do is give the Haitian Creole elders our car. They share one with the Zone Leaders but can't always use it. So they always need us to drive down, pick them up, drive home, then give them the keys. We finally got home and were gonna call Devanir when the fire alarm went off! It was nothing, but 20 minutes later we got back and the unthinkable happened, it didn't ring. Just went straight to unavailable. This is what happens when you're blocked, so we were kinda sad. During our last lesson I had a STRONG prompting to ask for his address to write it down, but ignored it because I didn't want to interrupt Elder Bodily. He has a brother-in-law who is a preacher for another church. We are afraid he made Devanir block us, as that's something that happens. We found out later when we tried to call on a different phone that it did the same thing, which means that actually his phone is probably just dead. We hope we can get back in touch with him. 

Friday:

100 days as a missionary! 

Started off with District Leader council, which is where the District leaders in our zone meet with the zone leaders to coordinate the efforts in our areas. From there, we went to district council to relay the information back to our district.  After that we had a call with Deborah. When we called and said it was the missionaries, she immediately hung up. That stung a lot; I can't lie. We spend so much time preparing and talking about how we can help each person, praying about it as well. And we've been building a relationship with her for months. Then out of nowhere, she starts ignoring us the past couple weeks. It's a part of the missionary experience though, patience and faith. 

Saturday:

Naturally, I woke up and made cookie dough, because why wouldn't I. We then had a lesson with a member named Ana Maria, which I'm only bringing up, because it's so hard to get in touch with members; so it's always exciting. From there we had a normal day, until our devotional on facebook with Brad Wilcox. It was AWESOME! I learned a lot about my own life, and how I can be a better missionary. Anyone who wants to watch it is welcome to, it's on my Facebook profile. From there, we had an interested woman that we called to see if she wanted to meet. She said she was busy, as her mother was having an operation on Monday, and she had to take care of her at home. That's when we thought of a good idea for that cookie dough, haha. So we brought a plate of 15ish cookies to her house and apparently they liked them cause they asked for the recipe. The only problem is that I do not know how to convert recipes from English to Portuguese, haha. It's a lot harder than you'd think. 

Sunday: 

Woke up with two referrals for interested people! However one of them spoke English, and the other one lived in New Hampshire so we sent their information to the appropriate missionaries. To this day, out of the dozen or so referrals I have received, they've all been for other areas, haha. Sunday we had normal church services, and ended with a devotional by Elder and Sister Rasband. After that we got a text from the Assistant Missionaries that our Districts Pday, the day once a transfer that we are allowed to hang out in person other than district council, was gonna be Monday. We were pumped, but had to figure out what to do. Planning transportation and activities was a bit of a chore, but we figured it out.

Monday: 

And here we are, district p day. We went to the park, ate, and walked around. From there we went to a bowling alley for a bit and just talked and got to know each other. It was great, and a much needed chance to get some fresh air haha. 

I'm a chef but I'm not a baker. Left them in the oven for 2 hours. It's not chocolate. 

Elder Bodily and I out for a walk at night. Not a bad view!

"Clever Caption"

Tuesday 

Today had kind of a rough start, as it was announced that missionaries weren't allowed to go to the chapel anymore for P-days (preparation day), which was unfortunate because thats the one thing Elder Bodily and I could still do on our P days. In addition, it was also announced that we can't go to baptisms anymore. This was especially frustrating for the Haitian Creole Elders, as they had two scheduled for Saturday. But it's time like this we have to learn to trust in the Lord, and learning obedience now can only help us in the future. After that, we had a normal day, including English classes. They were a lot of fun, but at the very end they said, "Bye Jeffrey." It was kind of weird hearing my first name instead of Elder Bassett, haha. That's the result of everyone who we meet online seeing our Facebook profiles first! 

Wednesday 

We had a technology devotional where we went over some of the things we can do online. It was pretty fun. I definitely want to have a stronger online presence in the future because of it. From there, we had an exchange with the Elders in charge of technology for the mission and went over our methods and success. From there it was back to basics; lessons and cookies. 

Thursday

Thursday started off with weekly planning, which is always a good time to refocus our efforts. We decided we are going to try to do more work with the members. I'm really excited to work with them, as well as meet new people. I was talking to a lady on Facebook who had expressed interest in talking to us named Hilda; out of nowhere, she called us and asked us to give a lesson. We sat on the couch and got to know her and shared the gospel of Jesus Christ with her. She was so sweet; she can't go to church anymore, because she's on oxygen, but she loves talking about the scriptures. Around dinner time, I made some pork chops, got all set up to eat them and then spilled coke all over. I was a little upset, but hey, they still tasted great. We had an English lesson with a guy named Mateus who's a ton of fun. We were just talking to him in English, getting to know him, and I asked what his favorite movie was. He responded Lord of the Rings, and I immediately got excited until he said, "Wait, no. It's the other one. The Hobbit." I grabbed Elder Bodily's leg to keep from growling, and Elder Bodily fought to hide his laughter. The night before I had been ranting about how much of a let down The Hobbit was next to the Lord of the Rings. It's ok, Mateus, we still love you, haha! After that, Pedro M randomly called us, and we had another unplanned lesson. This went well also. Pedro is such a fun guy and loves talking with us. I don't need people to be absolutely converted to our faith as long as I can bring them a little bit closer to Christ in our conversations. 

Friday

As always, we had district counsel, and, as always, it was great. People were a little sad about the new restrictions, but we'll get through it. We need to keep people safe! We had an exchange planned with the Salem Portuguese Elders, buuuut there were some complications. We thought I was going into their area with Elder Torrez with Elder Bodily staying here with Elder Aguilera, and they thought the opposite. So instead I ended up teaching in our area. We had a lesson immediately, and I hadn't really prepped for it because I wasn't planning on being there. But wait, there's more! Elder Bodily's phone had the sim card to call them, so we had to go switch phones. Then Elder Torrez did the same thing! In the end, it turned out ok. I was actually happy; the two lessons I would have missed were with Junior and William, which are two of my favorite people to talk to. 

Saturday

So, today Elder Bodily and I decided to do some service at a food kitchen. He had found one that was open, and so we went for it. We drove there and couldn't find it. Elder Bodily checked the website to see when they were open. He read out loud, "Open Monday through Friday 8-6," and said, "Ya they're open, but I don't know where they are?" I looked at him a couple seconds and pointed out that it was Saturday. Oh ya. We chuckled got back in the car and went home. "Mission failed, we'll get em next time." From there we had a Facebook live with a guy named Dennis Schleicer, an openly gay member of our church who writes about his experience and does motivational talks. I was PUMPED! We sat down for the live, and he started talking aaaaaand no sound. It was a Facebook Live not a zoom meeting so we couldn't say anything. He went on for 15 minutes before they realized! They spent several minutes trying to fix it, and he started again only for it to be muted. At 7:30 we got it to work; only a little late haha. But it was worth the wait. He's such a cool guy, and so smart, I wish he was in our area so we could get to know him. His book is called "Is He Nuts? Why Would a Gay Man Join the Mormon Church?" I'm planning on giving it a read. It's so cool to see how someone who was organizing protests against the church can find comfort in it only a few months later. It truly is amazing to see how expressing love can change people's lives. 

Sunday

We had a lesson with a member named Artur; he's a powerhouse over here and is so active in the ward. You can bet we are gonna work with him in the future. From there, we had another exchange with the Haitian Creole Elders. I was with Elder Morris in his area, and we got to know each other a lot better because their lesson fell through. So it was essentially a 4 hour phone call, but we are tight now, so it's all ok. Elder Bodily had more to do in our area with 4 lessons planned during the exchange. One of which was with a member we've been trying to schedule with. I was sad to miss it, because I want to get to know the members so bad. Every time we schedule with a member, it's always been when I'm away on an exchange, haha. Oh well, patience and faith!

A pasta recipe from my Aunt Jen!

A random two dollars we got in the mail?