1st Full Week in Brazil

Tuesday: 

One of those days where every single one of our lessons fell through, but still a great day nonetheless. It left us with some time to go on a walk, and I was excited to get to know the city a bit better. Plus, I'm teaching Elder Silva English, so when we had nothing left to do we would just read from the Book of Mormon out loud. After the day was over, Elder Silva taught me how to play a Brazilian card game called Pif Paf, and I went to go write in my journal. When I wrote the date, I realized something kinda funny; I've been writing 2020 for the past month and a half instead of 2021 haha. Acontece

Wednesday:

Big News! I finished reading my Portuguese grammar book cover to cover! Now all I have to do it learn it! Our first lesson of the day was with a guy named Gustavo. When we were talking to him, he told me all about the Book of Mormon and how great it is; he really loves Nephi. Elder Silva asked if he had prayed about being baptized, and Gustavo said he'd like to get to know the church better, but he wanted to one day. After the lesson, I said, "Wow, he's elect." Elder Silva turned to me and said, "How is he elect! He said he wouldn't get baptized!" and I just told him he should try a mission in the USA. After that, we met with Luis Henrique, another cool guy. I love getting to know this area, because it has so many great people. At one point, Henrique asked me when and how I realized this church was true. I told him it happened when I was about 17, and it was, because I made the decision to start reading the Book of Mormon and asking questions about it. When I finished, Elder Silva said, "But what he really means to say is the Priesthood; it's the priesthood that makes the difference." I was entertained and not annoyed don't worry, just a funny moment. It's definitely an interesting dynamic. I have a lot to work on with my Portuguese and need to practice my accent, but at the same time I want to help Elder Silva with English. So we don't know if we should be trying to speak in Portugues or English; we'll figure it out though. After our lessons, we went to go find a recent convert whose number we didn't have, but when we got there, we weren't sure whose house it was. Wo we called the president of the congregation. We then got the sad news he had passed away shortly after from addiction problems. The only reason I bring it up is because after his baptism, he lost contact with the church. As he lived alone, he fell back into the same habits. It goes to stress the responsibility of the congregation to fellowship new members, and the responsibility of the missionaries to invite members into lessons. A harsh reminder though. When we got home, I went about making a google sheet where I could put all the information for the people we are teaching. On our way home, I asked Elder Silva how street contacting worked. He just said, "Like this," and walked up to a lady and started talking to her and invited her to church, haha. So that's how my first street contact went. 

Thursday:

We only had one lesson to prepare for today with a really cool guy named Pedro (I know so many Pedros). We spent our entire companion study planning for the lesson. Then at the very end, we realized he was in the other elders' area not ours, haha. So we gave them his contact info and our lesson plan, haha. After that, we went about contacting all our referrals. For the second time, I accidentally called the sisters in São Paulo who sent the referrals over instead of the actual person, which they thought was funny. Then 5 minutes later, I did it a 3rd time! We all had a big laugh. It's funny, because each time they let us talk for a minute or two before letting us know. After that fiasco, I needed a break from calling. So I worked on getting together a mission wide training on how to use the area book app. President asked me to prepare it on Monday in our interviews. We finished the day calling referrals, and I have an interesting note. In my entire previous experience with Brazilians, I have never met a single one without WhatsApp. But almost every single person we tried calling did not have one; it was sooooo weird.  

Friday:

OK. Almost done. Then I have an email to read. Today, we had the longest weekly planning session of my life. Mostly because they don't really weekly plan in this mission, so there wasn't much info to go off of. We opened it around noon, but then had a lesson. After an hour and a half, we continued on, had another lesson, then another, then finally had our last hour in peace. It's hard because in my google spreadsheet, I want to put what they've been taught already, but the other elders don't write anything down, so we have to call Elder Lima constantly to check. "What have they been taught?" "Put the plan of salvation. No wait, never-mind. Oh ya we did. Let me call Lima." We finally closed weekly planning with a prayer at 7:00, 6 hours later. After that, we had a lesson with a new person named Ana Claudia, and we actually asked if she'd like to be baptized when she received an answer to her prayers. She was more than excited, and said she would be baptized today. We told her we had plenty to teach her, and that we were excited to help her and her family make changes. Then we had a lesson at the chapel with Luis-Henrique. Only the second new friend I've ever had a lesson with in person, and my 1st in Brazil. I loved it. He's super smart and loves philosophy. The only problem is that I don't know how to talk about philosophy in Portuguese. At one point, Elder Silva just said, "Dude, he has no idea what you're saying." hahahaha. Then we has a lesson with André, a friend with a date for baptism. It went super well and we taught the Law of Chastity to which he was very open. Then, the saddest thing to happen on my mission. We found a baby chick at the front door of the chapel. We brought it over to the tree we think it fell out of but had no clue what to do. We went inside to ask the other elders. We joked about taking it to the apartment and making it a pet, then Elder Silva said, "It stopped chirping." When we went back, we saw that a hawk or some other bird had gotten it and was eating it on a tree branch. Circle of life, but I'm traumatized.

Saturday: 

My first time ever eating with a member! It was awesome: beans, chicken, and rice with coke and grape juice. I loooooove Brazilian homes, haha. We had to rush back to the chapel to call a member for a lesson. When we called, her grandson was playing minecraft in her tablet and wouldn't give the phone to her so the lesson fell through, haha. I love listening to kids talk in Portuguese; it's so cute. At the end of the day, some members came to clean the chapel. We decided to help them sweep and mop. They bought some coke and pastéis, and we sat and talked for about an hour or so. They immigrated here from Venezuela. The daughter is putting in her mission papers in two weeks. I can't explain why, but it's one of the fondest memories on my mission. Just sitting and chatting with a really sweet family. We talked about English and Portuguese. They complimented my Portuguese a ton, and said that it was really hard for them. I was really sad when we had to leave, but it was getting late.

Sunday: 

Today we got a ride to go to church in Itajubá, just over an hour away. The drive up was beautiful. It made me realize how badly I want to visit Brazil after my mission. Church itself wasn't great. The fans were super loud and the microphone didn't work, so no one heard a thing. But I loved meeting the people, and Ana-Claudia. The ward is made up of mostly women and children, which definitely also makes for a fun time, haha. When we got back, we had lunch with the President of the Pouso Alegre branch (congregation). He showed us how to make sushi and we talked/argued about languages the entire time, haha. I really like him; we see eye to eye on a lot. He talked to me about what kind of American music I liked and talked about a bunch of songs. (All of which are on my playlist back home hah.) His kid was super cute. I showed him magic tricks and a hand slapping game, but it's weird playing with kids on the mission for sure. On the drive back up, he told us how the church's clerk was saying we shouldn't be allowed in the church outside of Sunday, because the clerk's cousin had a stake president who went into his office and saw a missionary chilling with his feet on the desk. President fought for us and only told us to let us know. It's a funny interaction, but also goes to show the importance of being on your best behavior. The poor decision of one elder was effecting a ward miles and miles away. 

Brazil?

Man, where to start, I'll be disorganized again and start on Friday

Friday: 

The big day, am I going to Brazil or not??? Well, it didn't have a great start. See, FedEx left my package in Memphis, so if I wanted to go I had to go 5 hours early to the airport to do a rapid test. I'd figured all that out last night and finally figured out how I could still go by taking a rapid test at the airport. I finally got it scheduled and went to bed waiting for the early start.That's exactly what I did, we made the appointment, and at 7:15 we left the house. Once we got there, I went inside to do the test, and they told me that they didn't offer the specific kind of test I needed rapid (last night they said they did). So Elder Bodily & Bradshaw, and I chilled for a while figuring what to do. They decided to leave me with Elder Feliciano again. I went over to their district counsel and saw the gang! Then borrowed a car and went to take a rapid pcr Covid test. Around an hour later, I got the results PLUS the original FedEx results, haha. Then the church booked me on a 5 pm flight to New York and then Brazil. It was a bug hassle getting there on time and redoing all my travel forms, but I made it! I lost the picture of me on the plane, but imagine me with a beanie, a mask, and the eye covers planes give out, haha. I had the whole row to myself though.

Saturday:

I arrived at 9AM on Saturday. It was great being back at the São Paulo airport. I even recognized the Superman mannequin they always have, only this time it had a mask and sunglasses. Once I got through customs, a senior missionary drove me an hour to the mission. Once I was there, I met our President, and he took me out to a churrasco! It was great, and the first meal I had had in well over a day (I don't count airplane food). After that, we went to pick up another American that would be living with me! Elder Kofford. He got in the day I was supposed to and was waiting for me to get here to go to our area. Then President drove us another two hours to my area in Pouso Alegre Minas Gerais. I got to meet my companion, Elder Silva, and Elder Kofford met his, Elder Lima. President and I built my bed, then he left. And I finally was able to relax, haha. I spent the night unpacking and went to look at the area-book planner app. Apparently, they don't really know how to use it, because I showed them the basics, and they were shocked, haha. They called the assistants and told them I should do a training.

Sunday:

Our ward is awesome! There are two sessions and each one gets plenty of people. In the first session, a member gave a 15 minute talk on how we should all be member missionaries; it's a big difference from my old areas, hah. That night we went for a walk, and I went into a favela for the first time on foot. When we got home, the day was done, Elder Kofford went to resew his tie, and was trying to say the word for fold but he couldn't remember it, and accidentally said a bad word in Portuguese. Oh also, I made rice for the first time, thanks Elder Bodily.

Monday: 

The other elders went to the chapel and talked all day with friends while Elder Silva and I just walked around the city and bought some stuff I needed. I have missed the streets of Brasil so much! Talking to everyone and saying, "Tudo bem," to everyone. Not much else to say other than it was great!

So, some stuff went down

It finally happened, I missed a week. But I'm proud I made it 7 months in the field without missing. Anyways, I'll catch you up with last week, and then in another email later, tell you about this week. 

Tuesday Jan 26th: 

We went off to service at a place called Bread of Life. While we were there, a big snow storm came and traffic built up a ton. That made us super late getting home, but the one positive side is the ability to chuck frozen ice at each others' faces. We would roll down the windows and scrap snow off the car and chuck it at each other, haha. And once we got there, I threw one at Elder Slade; it hit him and slid into his pocket. Then he picked it up and threw it back at me, lol. Another exciting thing, an older guy I was teaching who wasn't doing well and was feeling suicidal off and on then stopped responding, just posted on his story for the first time in months, meaning that he's made it after all! I had been so worried.

Wednesday: 

We had my final zone conference in the mission! It was really good, and I had the chance to give my departing testimony with three other sisters. The others were leaving, and I was just getting reassigned, but it was still fun. We practiced rapping the whole ride home, then did a facebook live where we played a game. Elder Meshke chose a topic and then a book of scripture while Elder Slade and I had a race to find a scripture that talks about it. We called it "Bichos and Biscoitos" just 'cause we were eating Oreos while we played. Elder Meshke isn't too familiar with the Bible, so beforehand, I spent 15 minutes explaining that the Old Testament never directly references certain topics, like baptism, and that if he gets a topic like that, use ANYTHING but the Old Testament. But he really wasn't getting it, so I went and wrote on the flash cards OT, if they would be found in the Old Testament. Anyways, we start the game and are a couple rounds in when he pulls out the card baptism, and I kid you not he looks at me, nods, and says "In the Old Testament!" Kkk. So we cut it there and redid that round, but it made for a funny story, haha, and we teased him a bit for it. 

Thursday:

When I do my weekly plans, I do this thing where you look at each person your teaching and write down your vision for that person, then your goals for what that person will do, and your plans to make that happen. Today, Elder Slade showed me the way he implements it, and not only is it super organized but also really effective. I'm excited to bring his way to my new areas. After that we had a member lesson with a guy named Ellwood. He's a really cool guy, and told us his conversion story and about his DJ career. His Book of Mormon has been signed by hundreds of missionaries which is crazy. He accidentally ratted 2 of them out though by telling us a couple missionaries went to his house the other day to see his DJ equipment, which is kinda not allowed during the quarantine. After the day was over we did a video call with our district, and we all played never have I ever. 

Friday:

My last District Council! It was a fun one. I got everyone to sign my transfer journal which was cool. The office elders called me to let me know that my Covid test had accidentally been shipped to the office, so we decided to meet them half way to pick it up. Naturally, we were waiting for them for an extra hour or so, and it would have been faster to just drive to Boston to get it. When we got back, some of the sisters had gotten me a pizza as a going away present which I thought was sweet. We ended the day by going on exchanges, where Elder Meshke and I went with Elder Moody. 

Saturday: 

We had a ton of English classes today. You really only need one person for English class, but normally I would still participate. Except there's no point introducing myself for one class, so while the other Elders did it, I read from my Portuguese Grammar book. I really wish I had been reading it the entire time I've been here. I already know most everything just from talking, but I would have learned a lot faster, haha. It helps a lot of things make sense. We were making cookies tomorrow, so we ran to the store across the street to get flour. Then we realized we didn't have butter when we got home, haha. Luckily the zone leaders did. 

Sunday:

We went to my final Sacrament meeting here. It feels like everything I'm doing these days is the last time, haha. They asked one of us to give a talk, and we convinced Elder Meshke into doing it. He wanted me to, but I kept saying I had already given one in this ward. When we got home, I made the cookies, and we delivered them with some copies of The Book of Mormon, one of whom was to Nancy. She stopped responding to our messages, so in a last ditch effort I wrote my testimony and a message to her in the book, and Elder Meshke highlighted some passages, and we dropped it off at her house. When we got home, we couldn't find my phone anywhere. Which is especially a problem, because I have the sim card. We looked everywhere with no luck. My hotspot was turned on, but the other elders couldn't connect to it, which made us think we had dropped it when delivering stuff. Even worse, I remembered seeing a crazy guy by our car, and the last time I saw my phone was when it was on the dash next to him. And the other elders who were calling me said that someone was active on facebook on my account. After about 30 minutes we got the elders upstairs involved so they could be calling my phone while we drove around. As soon as we left though, we noticed that the car said calling. So I said, wait a minute, turn audio onto bluetooth. And my music started playing. Turns out it slid into the backseat, and my case was black, so it blended in. It was on mute, so it didn't ring, and after everyone disconnected, the hotspot automatically turned off. Guess what, the day's not over. After that, I had my first real Bible Bash. I don't mean to brag, but I'm pretty proud of my knowledge of the Old Testament. It helps that I've actually read it all the way through, haha. So when this lady opens up about how temples are of the devil, I knew how to respond. But I decided her learning would be better than the satisfaction I would get by roasting her. So instead of that I just worked with her as well as I could. I can't lie, by the end of the lesson I had corrected her once or twice, but I was proud of myself for holding back. Her statements included but were not limited to: Moses was the devil; the law of Moses came from the devil; God and Heavenly Father are two people; there's no such thing as the holy spirit; Jesus and Messiah are two different people; almost all the scriptures are inspired by the devil other than Isaiah and much much more. Afterwards Elder Slade was shook, and said it was the best modern example of apostasy he had seen in his mission. She was misquoting and making up scriptures as back-up; kept telling us we were going to hell if we believed that the law of Moses came from God; and kept taking things out of context. At one point, I just told the entire history of the Jews from the coming of Moses to a testimony of the fulfillment of the law by Christ. Crazy night!

No Brasil for you

Tuesday:

We left early morning to drop off my covid test in a FedEx drop box before the pick up truck came. I would later learn that this would be my downfall. From there, we went to service where we sorted meat product for 3 hours. One cool thing is that Elder Moody and Elder Thomas were there, so we got to hang out a bit. I talked most of the time to Elder Thomas about Wheel of Time, Stormlight Archive, and working out. After that, I sent all my winter stuff home! My first time sending a package, and I hope I didn't mess it up. Especially because I insured none of the stuff in it. After that, we had one final lesson with Nancy! After she got The Book of Mormon, she read all the stuff we highlighted and sent me a message on facebook thanking me for everything. We marked a lesson for that night, and it went great! We talked a lot about the Book of Mormon and explained the Gospel of Jesus Christ to her. I got a screenshot with me and her for old times sake then waved goodbye! 

Wednesday: 

Dang, my last day with Elder Meshke and Elder Slade. I can't lie; it was weird. I've had probably my best start to a transfer so far, and it was sad to be leaving. But I was still more than ready to go to Brasil (ironic).Yesterday, I borrowed the sisters' blow dryer to dry off a sweater I hand washed, plus give them my transfer journal. So in the morning we went to get the stuff, and took one last walk around the park. We even found a really cool snow bear someone made. I got all my stuff together while the other elders signed my book, then wrote in theirs, and we took off to go to Revere! Once we got there, we went and got haircuts together, because everything in Conneticut was closed for the snow storm. It was there I learned something interesting; I speak spanish. Ok ok, not really haha, but I was able to communicate with the barber. After that, we went to a Brazilian bakery Elder Slade used to go to when he worked here. By that time, the other elders were finally home from service. So we made our goodbyes and I made my hellos to Elder Newman, Elder Neeleman, and Elder Feliciano. (Plus Elder Derosia, but he wasn't a part of our original apartment, haha). I called a lady from my old area named Katia and had one final lesson with her, then updated Elder Slade and Elder Meshke on how the lesson went and got to work with Elder Feliciano's phone. I called all the old people I used to teach in Revere, but who they had stopped teaching. I set lessons with 6-7 of my old friends, including Pedro Oliveira and Francis!!! Both people I had invited to be baptized, but they had lost contact with. They were both excited to talk with me, and in Francis's case, he stopped using his old phone, which is why he stopped answering. He only answered this time by a miracle. So he gave me his new number for the other elders to call on Friday. It's really sad when someone you're teaching ghosts you, especially when they were preparing for baptism, so it's really nice to see that not only did it work out, it wasn't because of any negative feelings on his part. Then we went to see Elder Morris to get the key to the chapel. He was stoked to see me, and you already know we took some pics together. From there, I went to the chapel to print out all my flight info. for the next morning. It was then I got an email telling me I needed to register my covid test. I was worried, because the instructions didn't say anything about that when I took the test and sent it in. Then when I made my account, it said the Covid test hadn't been received. I called a bunch of people and everyone told me to sit tight, and that's what I did. We were, however, late back to the apartment, haha. My last thought was that on my last night of my mission in MBM, I'm sleeping on the floor at the foot of the bed, exactly what I did my first day of the mission. Same apartment, same spot, haha. 

Thursday: 

And here's the bad news. I woke up to the information that FedEx lost my Covid test, and because of that, I would no longer be cleared to fly to Brasil. My flight was cancelled, but I wasn't too worried. Revere is MY area!!! And I love it here and have a lot of connections to the ward and people being taught. I had a lesson with Augosto too which was AWESOME!!! He still hasn't been baptized, because he can't go to church. But I had some real talk with him, and he gave me a hard promise to go two times this month. We will see! After that, I went to service with Elder Feliciano and Elder Neeleman. We went to a place where people donate stuff for the homeless and needy. We organized random boxes of stuff that makes no sense for 3 hours then I got a call from the assistants. Here's where things spice up. Rather than having me stay in Revere, in my OG area, that is next to the airport, they are having me go all the way to Rhode Island until my flight next week. I can't complain, because I'll be with Elder Bodily, and I love that guy, but I don't have much interest in working in someone else's area for a week. On top of that, the area book app we use for the mission kicked me out, because it thinks I'm in Brazil and won't let me use it which makes it a lot harder to work. AND, the office elders assumed I would be leaving, so last week when they gave everyone funds for food, they didn't give me any. I decided not to complain, because I had enough left over in my account to make it a week. But now I'm staying another week and at this point it's too late for them to put money in, so I have to beg extra money from home for groceries, etc. Anyways, it was still really good seeing Elder Bodily when he came to get me, and his companion, Elder Bradshaw, is a lot of fun. Once I got down there, I got notified that they found my Covid test, and because my connecting flight to Brazil hadn't left yet, I would have been able to go had I just flown on the plane to Georgia lol. (We fou d out later that they wouldn't have let him take the flight to Georgia since it checks him all the way to Brazil.) Oh well. We had exchanges in Rhode Island. The other elders' internet had been down all day, and I said, "I don't mean to brag, but I set up my own router in college," and turned it on and off again, and it started working, haha. Dumb luck.

Friday:

Sooooo, I accidentally took Elder Feliciano's car keys with me, and we had to drive all the way back to drop them off. Once we were home, we also had a Zone training to get to. It was a great Zone training, and I always love meeting new people. From there we parked and sprinted back to the apartment for lessons and had lessons for two hours straight. Only 2 lessons, but both ran long. We had a normal contacting time after that and went to the chapel for an English class. On our way home, we passed by the apartment basketball courts, and the other elders showed me. There were two drunk girls in there who were trying really hard to get us to play with them. They kept saying 5 minutes just 5 minutes, you guys are soooo lame, what are you scared. They thought we had British accents and were telling us we could drink wine with them and chill etc. I pointed out we were wearing white shirts and ties and they suggested we just take them off. After minute or two of them not taking no for an answer, I got annoyed and just walked away. The other elders couldn't leave me, so they were forced to follow and that solved that problem. They kept asking which floor we lived on and saying they lived on the second, so we made double sure to lock our doors that night in case those crazies followed us or something. 

Saturday: 

The other elders had their interviews with President, but because I already did mine I took the chance to study and annotate my patriarchal blessing. It was a blast! We started our fast for Sunday after lunch, and decided to play some basketball for exercise time. When we got there, some other elders from the apartment were there, and what would have been some casual shooting turned into intense game of knockout. The reason I bring this up is because it worked all our appetites up a ton. And we were super thirsty haha. Makes for a stressful contacting time!

Sunday: 

My first time going to a Portuguese ward on the mission! I really liked it, and a lot of the testimonies were amazing! There are a lot of Cape Verdians here, and their accent is hard to pick up, but I still got a lot out of it. Afterwards, a Cape Verdian man started telling me about his mission to Portugal when he was younger. He told us a ton of stories about the racism he saw there, being chased off the street, a kid throwing mud at him and when he asked why the kid said cause he's an n word, (Actually P word, but that's the English equivalent), and people always yelling at them from vans and stuff. It kinda puts into perspective how much simpler my mission is, and I respect him a lot. 

Monday: 

Pretty great P-day. I got to go to District P-day with Bods District, and it was fun. We went to a trampoline park and messed around for an hour and a half. I finally found a sport I'm good at. The one where you stand on the beam and have a big foam stick and try and knock each other off. I can't quite say I went undefeated, but I am ready to go pro, and was declared champ. From there we headed home, let's see what this week holds. I'm optimistic, especially because my covid test came today (even though FedEx mismailed it).  The only problem is that Elder Bodily can't taste anything he eats 😶. If I get covid now I'm gonna be so annoyed, haha. Ate mais