Brazil!!!!

Tuesday:

Interviews with President were today. He had a bunch of questions about the area, and so I gave him a rundown of how things were going and our progressing friends. Then he gave me some great news; I'm going to Brazil February 4th! Super exciting. The funny thing was that yesterday we went to Costco and for the first time ever bought food for the entire transfer, but now I won't be able to enjoy any of it, haha. Elder Meshke bet me that I couldn't go through all 77 servings of protein powder before leaving. I'm always up to a challenge, so I have to drink 5 scoops a day until I leave! After that whole fiasco, we had a lesson with Micael and Lidia, two new members. They were baptized at the beginning of the quarantine, and despite having almost no member support, and not speaking English in an English ward, they are still active! Now we are helping them on preparing for the temple!!! After that lesson, I got a call from the office elders, and that's when I officially got my info for leaving. 

Wednesday:

So we had to go to the church building to use their computers to sign up for service hours. Unfortunately, we didn't have a key, so we had to drive to the English elders apartment to get their key. Once we had that, we had to go to the church building and find the clerk's office. We were told there would be a key in a drawer that would unlock the drawer that had the rack of keys to the family history center which had the computers. Only problem is that there were multiple drawers of keys. So we had to try every key in every drawer till we got that right one. Obviously, it was the second to last key we found. Then we had to try all those keys until we found the right one for the family history center. The most exciting part of all this is getting home. For some reason, our sim cards cellular data was shut off, so if we aren't on wifi we can't use google maps which led to a confusing ride home. I had been fasting all day for a lesson with Bryce to go well; the lesson was at 9:00 PM. I was nervous, because we were introducing him to the other elders, and I was hoping it would go well. So before the lesson, I put an apple pie in the oven and broke my fast with an entire half of the pie and half a thing of dryers ice cream. It, was, amazing! 

Thursday: 

P-day is ending, so imma speed through this. Went on a walk, got home and had 4 member lessons then a lesson with Marjorie. While I was on Facebook finding, I was talking to a guy who said he was pretty busy and didn't know if he would have time to meet. We were talking a couple days later, and he was telling me about how he had to quarantine, because someone from work got corona. So I took this opportunity to catch him and say, "Now that your quarantining, do you have time for a message," and I got the lesson! Lol. 

Friday: 

We went to district counsel and while we were there we had a lesson. Then after we had a lesson with the guy from yesterday, Everton. He was a really great guy and accepted a commitment to read The Book of Mormon! Later that night, we had a call with a really sweet older lady. She had a stroke and is learning how to talk again, but she's such a tender soul, and I loved her instantly. Finally, we had a lady I had a lesson with once send me 12 minutes of audio recordings including her singing hymns, haha! 

Saturday:

We got back in touch with Mary! I lost contact when I went to Goshan, but she was so happy to talk to us again, and there was a complete change of her countenance. I think she realized how much she missed having the gospel's influence in her life. Now she's much more open to work with us going forward. After that, we finished with a lesson with Bryce. My favorite times of the week! 

Sunday:

Went to church and tried to make Elder Meshke translate, but he respectably declined, haha. After that, I went to Elder's Quorum for the first time in this area. It was so cool to see Michael there. He's so determined to learn English and be a part of the ward. It's so inspiring to see!!!

New Trio in Town

Tuesday:

Today was my last full day with the Goshen Elders. That should have made it a bit sad, but I think it just made us appreciate the day a little more. We had service early morning at the kids' place; we did our normal chores and played some connect 4. On our way home, we tried out a restaurant in their area everyone always talked about called AJ's. IT. WAS. GOOD. I blew a lot of my food money but it was worth it. A steak, a pizzookie, and a lava cake. After that, we made the long drive back to the apartment in Hartford so we could spend the night up there before transfers. Right as we arrived, I realized I left the keys in the other place. Luckily, the zone leaders had a spare. If not it would have meant driving for another 2 hours! It's tricky managing two areas. When we got in, I had to rush to do a lesson with a member named Maria. In the middle of the lesson, our reception office called us to tell me I left one of my suitcases in the middle of the road! So I had to run and go get it in the middle of the lesson, but wait, there's more! I forgot I didn't have they key and got locked out again, so I had to go back to get the spare for the second time that night. After that, I had a lesson with one of my favorite people, Nancy. As always it was fun, and I shared a spiritual thought and invited her to read a scripture from the Bible.

Wednesday:

Today was the day I went to pick up my first new companion, Elder Meshke. He was started in my first district in Revere where we served together for about a transfer. It was great seeing people at transfers, and after 3 months I finally was able to get Elder Bodily to sign my transfer journal. It was an interesting drive up. Elder Meshke is a big talker, and normally so am I, but for some reason I just felt really quiet. It was weird, because I felt so much like Elder Bodily, and Elder Meshke reminded me a lot of myself when I got to the mission. But one thing that did stay the same with me was my ability to lose things. When we got back, we spent 20 minutes trying to find my phone! When we finally did get it, it was in the car where I always put it, in a place I checked 4 times. Since then, Elder Meshke has become really good at instantly finding stuff other elders leave around. We decided to christen our first day together by making some curry. Every single time I make curry, I have to go ask the other elders for their can opener, and I always forget to bring it back. So this time, I thought ahead and brought the can to them. You can imagine my frustration, when I got back and realized I had another can I needed opening. 2 others actually. I decided to avoid the shame, and cried death before dishonor as I used a knife to pry open holes in the other 2 cans. There was blood and sweat, literally, but I got it open. 

Thursday:

We only had one day alone together, but it was a good today. I frequently caught myself remembering my time with Elder Bodily, but switching the roles and being him instead of me. After our 1st contacting session, I laid on the couch for a break. It struck me I was laying down with my feet crossed, hand on my head in the exact same position Elder Feliciano would always rest. I was even wearing the same jacket he did. It cracked me up to think of how my old companions rub off on me. Our first call of the day went through and we got a lesson set from it, which was an encouraging launch to the rest of the day. 

Friday:

Friday we had an early 9:00 lesson with Marjorie on obedience. We shared the story of the Lamanites who threw away their weapons of war and talked about how they were favored of the Lord. Marjorie really connected to the story and was very open to our invitation to read every day from the Book of Mormon. We had a very long drive to pick up Elder Slade, but we had to go early in order to have a lesson in the car with the Relief Society president, Debra Jones. It was a great lesson. In our last ward council, I had received a spiritual prompting to invite her to our lessons with Nancy; today I saw why. As she shared her conversion story, I realized that she had many of the same concerns and background that Nancy does. God really does look after His children, and He is an active part of this work. On our way home, we just talked to each other and all got to know one another, which is one of the reasons I missed our Exit 3 times in a row, and added 40 minutes onto our travel time.

Saturday:

We had district council with our new district. Sorry, no pictures, but every companionship except for 1 changed! After that, we started to make our phone calls. Elder Slade is a fantastic missionary! I would say one of the best in the mission. And I am excited beyond description so see what he can teach me. One of our calls was for a woman named Seana, and apparently Elder Slade sounds like her cousin, because when we answered she started cussing at us and yelling inside jokes and greetings, haha. When she realized, she was full of apologies. That night we had our Walk in the Light program, and it was one of my favorites so far. One story he shared that teared me up, was when he was talking of a bishop who had helped a young boy prepare to enter the temple. He whispered in the boy's ear once he made it, "I knew you'd make it. I knew you could do it." He then went on to say that one day the Lord would say that to each of us. I am excited for that day. There was one awkward episode with Walk in the Light. This entire time I've been here, I've been tagging the wrong Walk in the Light page for Portuguese! I've been tagging some knitting page! haha. Oh well, now I know. After that we had the lesson with Nancy and Sister Jones. My first member lesson, and it was amazing. Sister Jones was such a great help, and Nancy really connected and enjoyed it.

Sunday:

Sadly, Nancy wasn't able to get into the Zoom link. But one exciting thing was that I got my first ever chance to do translation for church today. It was really hard, haha. We only had 2 speakers and one of them spoke in Portuguese, so I even had it easy. After that, we had a lesson with someone I found on Facebook named Katia. She didn't understand very much, but all she knew was that a year ago she went to one of our churches, and she felt something Good and Different. She wanted to know what that thing was! Hold onto that Katia! Our District was 1 away from their finding goal at the beginning of Prime Proselyting (time set aside to look for people interested in hearing our message), so Elder Slade said the next person to find someone to teach would get free Popeyes. You can imagine all of our surprise when we checked again an hour and a half later to see that the Spanish Sisters had found 5 people! Have fun with the Popeyes!!! Later, I was talking to the other elders, and said I wanted to beat my personal record for wide grip pull-ups and get 17. Elder Meshke then said "What?? You can only do 17 pull-ups???" He then told us about how he could do much more than that. When we challenged him to prove it, he explained that because of joint problems, he couldn't straighten his arm all the way, in fact, he could only go a little less than half way down, lol. We cracked up and teased him about that, but it was a really funny moment. 

Last Week as a Trio

Tuesday:

Here's the funny story of the day: my entire mission I've never actually had anyone go to church with me. That sounds crazy, but it's just the way it's gone with Covid restrictions. This week, I finally found someone interested and a slot available at the same time! She even sent me her address, so that we could organize a ride for her! We called to confirm for our lesson, and she let us know that she got Covid and wouldn't be able to anymore. Next week! We actually had 5 lessons planned this afternoon which is a pretty busy day. In total this week, we found 6 new people to teach! That's exciting. We also had to go pick up Elder Hoopes' passport from some elders in Massachusetts; we decided to meet them half way. We were waiting for about 3 hours before the other elders got there! They said they were a little late out the door, lol. At least we can get work done from our phone.

Wednesday:

Another great day. We missed our dinner time because of lessons and had a super busy night. So we made a big feast at 9:00 with smashed potatoes, rice, chicken, and pop tarts. Then that night in our ward coordination, we were feasting throughout. Today I also had some of my favorite lessons so far. We met a girl named Joseydi and talked to her about the plan of salvation. She's 25 and studying in university right now, so it was super cool for us to talk to someone close to our age we can relate to a little better. 

Thursday:

Pretty straightforward, I did my weekly planning mostly by myself, because the other elders and I cover different areas, but it was still a ton of fun. I'm just excited to get back home, so I can use our whiteboard. It makes planning so much easier.

Friday:

I went to district council with the other elders' district today. We got caught recording a video afterwards, so we were pretty late. It was ok though, because our lesson got cancelled. We got wings on the way home. We were about 40 minutes down the road when we decided to stop for gas and got a phone call from the wing place asking if "a Jacob" had left his credit card. The only reason they even had our number was because Elder Kelly called them to ask, "if their wings were good." 

Saturday: 

Today we had district council for my district. I gave a talk on how to bear bold and personal testimonies. We also played a game where you have to ask questions going back and forth; if you ask a yes or no question or repeat a question, you're out. We finished with a harmonica recital from Elder Parrish and went home. We are feeling spendy this week, because we went to another restaurant. I ended the day by having a lesson with one of my favorite people, Nancy. We talked about family history and Bible stories, then at the end shared a message about the importance of families. 

Sunday: 

My last time at the other elders' ward (congregation). I love this ward so much, and it's a shame to leave. I especially like that there are kids to play with and have dance parties. I scheduled 3 lessons and the other elders had 1. All of mine fell through, but at least we got to talk to the guy they just recently baptized. 

Monday:

P-dayyyyy! We went to a diner for breakfast, another diner for lunch, went bowling with our district, went to target to get speakers and shirts, then ordered wings when we got home. 

Trio!!

 Tuesday:

This was the day the Goshen elders moved out of our apartment. It was a sad moment, but they also live an hour away from their area, so they were excited to go. We helped move all their stuff out; the highlight was definitely riding the mattresses down the stairs. After they were gone, Elder Bilar and I completely cleaned and rearranged the apartment. We vacuumed all the floors where the bed and couches used to be and moved in a dinner table- finally. It looked nice! We made some more curry and then had a normal prime proselyting time. 

Wednesday:

Elder Bilar and my first and last day together as a two elder companionship. It was a great day! Started it off by being surprised by a centipede in the shower, then we finished cleaning and rearranging the house to start off. I think having a clean house just helps you have a clean mind, because it was so much easier to focus after that. We had a great rest of the day. No lessons, but we just contacted a lot of people and went hard. I taught Elder Bilar a little bit about how to use area book, including how to stop teaching someone. We stopped teaching a guy named Celestino, because we couldn't get ahold of him. Afterwards, Elder Bilar commented that it was kind of sad. Immediately, Celestino called us, and we marked a lesson with him! Little miracles! Elder Parrish, our district leader, had to do a baptismal interview for a Portuguese speaking guy named Luca, so we went over to help with translation then stayed for ward coordination. When we finally got home, we sorted through all the stuff the other elders left behind which included about 150 packets of hot chocolate from varying brands and companies. We won't be needing new ones for a while! 

Thursday: 

We got a sad call from President at 6:30 am; he let us know Elder Bilar was going to return home for a little while for medical reasons. So we spent the morning packing, and figuring out what I was going to do for the rest of the transfer. The Zone leaders  went with us to the airport. By 1:00, he was on the plane. On our way home, we stopped by Five Guys where I got some food in me finally. I made Elder Bilar one final breakfast that morning but other than that hadn't eaten. On our way home, we got another sad call from President telling us to stop talking to one of our closest member friends, so that was another super hard thing. But the Goshen elders came back to pick me up and now we are in a trio together! I'm excited because we all get along really well. I get in on all their lessons, and they help me in mine when they can. 

Friday:

My first day in the new area went great. We started off by going to a ward football activity where I rolled my ankle in football. So I decided to play it safe and sit out, and I just walked/limped the track with a really cool guy named Mario. The entire ward was fun. I talked to a guy who served a mission in Mozambique, so we called Elder Feliciano, and they chatted in Portuguese for a bit. 

Saturday:

Started Saturday off with an early 9:00 lesson. We started teaching a new lady named Kedishia, by sharing the story of Lazarus with her. We also had district council and on the way stopped by my old apartment. I told the other elders to grab any food they wanted, except by Reeces. I told them about how I had been searching for fastbreaks my entire mission, and as I opened the freezer to get them, they were all gone! I told the Zone Leaders they could get any stuff that was going bad, and apparently they helped themselves to a ton of other stuff! I called them immediately and luckily they hadn't eaten it yet, but now they are holding all MY christmas food hostage 😂 After that fiasco, we went to district counsel, and I went to the other elders district for a change. It was an interesting one. I helped record a game show obstacle course video for the sisters. 

Sunday:

I went to the new ward, and it was awesome! Every other ward I've been to, people can only go once a month (due to covid size restrictions). But here the congregation is small enough that everyone goes every week. They have two sessions in order to get everyone in. The ward is almost made up entirely of converts which is also really cool. We stayed late and had a dance party/played Simon says with a bunch of the kids. It was a ton of fun. Afterwards, we went to a member's house so they could pick up Christmas presents a member had gotten for them. They also lent me a Christmas jacket, so we could take a picture. Then we went to pick up food from another member. They made some of the BEST enchiladas I've ever had. Finally, I got the chance to have a lesson with Bryce on 2 Nephi 2. One of my favorite scriptures, because I love getting philosophical and deep in my lessons. And Bryce is the perfect person to do it with because he's sharp and catches a lot. 

Monday: 

One of my best P-days on the mission. We went to Panera Bread to start off. We decided not to shop, because we don't have any money. We had to buy plates and stuff for the new apartment and now we can't afford food that's not coming by way of a gift card, haha. We then went to a gym, and I taught the other elders how to play Racketball! I overestimated my abilities a lot though, and the games were not one sided like I thought they would be. On our way home we stopped by another gym to get smoothies, and then called the day!