Diego's baptism

Crazy week. So let's see how much I remember; probably a lot, so sorry for the long email. (I say this every week) 

Tuesday:

Pretty normal day. We had a surprise devotional; it was long. That's because it wasn't really one devotional, but a string of devotionals from half the mission. It was one of those ones where everyone wants a turn to talk. We were talking about the conference talk of Elder Bednar. After that, we finally broke the no lesson curse! (Or so we thought) We finally got in contact with 3 of our best investigators, Denis, Ana, and Odair. We had lessons with all three, and they were so much fun. Our new strategy for when people aren't progressing is to switch to 15 minute lessons that happen every other day, and read the Book of Mormon with them. So far it's been working really well, especially with Ana.

Wednesday: 

Speaking of random unplanned events, the Zone leaders called us and let us know we would be doing an exchange starting today. This was a good surprise, 'cause it would be my first exchange and everyone says they are SUUUUUPER fun. Plus, I love my Zone Leaders right now. Elder Pompeu is this super energetic, super obedient Brazilian who loves everyone! And Elder Mons is the cousin of a missionary I knew in the MBM. Elder Mons and I hit it off just talking about the mission. We really bonded a lot over working hard in a difficult mission. He said the mission was getting "baptized" which is what happens when really suddenly a mission goes from having a low obedience standard to being super diligent. He was telling me in his old mission the Zone Leaders woke up at 6:00 am every day and stopped working at 10:15 pm, and that in one week they found 42 people... That's double what we found this month! And we are in Brazil! Elder Morrison and I ended up sticking together for our lesson, because the Zone Leaders had another meeting, but we read the Book of Mormon with Ana, then helped Diego prepare for his baptism. While we were in our lesson, the other elders bought us hot dogs. For those of you who don't know, Brazilian Hot Dogs are not my favorite thing in the world, haha. They have a brand of bread that's really soggy, plus they put on mashed potatoes, corn, this crunchy potato stuff called batata-palha. I tried to force it down, but ended up throwing it out the second they weren't looking. 

Thursday: Elder Mons and I opened our day on daily planning at 8:30, and before we knew it, it was 10 o'clock!  CRAZY! We had a day full of lessons planned but every single one fell through, so Elder Mons and I never actually ended up getting to teach together. But hey, at least I got to have the joy of a four elder companionship for a day. We played cards during our lunch hour, went and got subway together, and I finally had a little mental break which was nice, haha. More importantly, I filled out my first Baptismal form on the mission! 

Friday:

So no lunch for today 'cause when we tried to confirm with the member he blocked us haha, but that's fine 'cause I like cooking for myself anyways. After lunch, we had a devotional with Elder Bednar. I have to say, it was one of the highlights of my mission so far. It'd be impossible for me to say everything, but I learned soooo much, especially about how to seek personal revelation and teach by the Spirit. In the beginning, I got a shout out from Sister Bednar. She asked if I was Elder and Sister Bassett's son and talked about when they visited us when we lived in Brazil. They said it was so nice to see me all grown up, haha. Looks like my disguise is up. I have to say, I was kinda in shock when she said my name and asked if I was their son. I wasn't sure if I should unmute and say something or just give a thumbs up. I wasn't aware of what the zoom etiquette would be. But it worked out and I remembered why Elder Bednar is my favorite apostle. Of all the ones I've met, he seems the most real and the easiest to talk to. I love them so much. He encouraged us to never take notes on anything he says, whether in a devotional or general conference. Only to take notes on the words that aren't being said, the things the Spirit tells you. It was the most personal revelation I've ever gotten from a meeting. I had written down two questions from the heart that I wanted an answer to, and even though he never even remotely touched either topic, I had two amazing answers. Normally, I prefer to stay quiet during devotionals, but it's not every day you talk to an apostle, so that was the most engaged I've ever been in a devotional. Plus the new General Authority (Elder and Sister J. Costa) for Brazil was there, and I recognized that they were at our old apartment and sitting in my room, haha. 

When the devotional was over, the Bednar's said goodbye and no one left. We were all wishing it would keep on going. I felt like the Nephites in 3 Nephi 17:5 (I think, read around and see which one) One of the answers I got though referred to our missionary purpose. I wanted to know how to find more joy in the mission, even when things weren't going very well. The answer I got was that if you want to find the joy, you need to find the why. If you just go on your mission to go on your mission, or because it's what everyone does, you are going to hate it. You are leaving your family for two years, sacrificing your life, your hobbies, your interests everything, for no reason. If you go just to go, then you might as well stay home. But if you're here, be here for the right reason. Because you love the Lord, because you want to improve. Don't baptize just to baptize, baptize to bring souls unto Christ and help people find more joy in their life. People aren't numbers. There were a lot of really good tips he gave us on how to teach and speak with power. Sadly, after that every single one of our lessons fell through again. hahah. So no application time. At least, not yet.

Saturday: 

I'm really out here breaking all sorts of records. 3 Days in a row of every lesson falling through. I really can't complain, because there are a ton of missions where you scrape by to get one or two lessons. But the funny thing of the day is that today was supposed to be Diego's baptism. The Bishop asked that we move it, because there was a meeting with Elder Bednar later, and he wanted time to spiritually prepare. Ok no problem, but we forgot to tell the Elders quorum president, and so he went to the chapel and was waiting for everyone to get there. We had a really great zone family night. Everyone bore their testimonies, and it was really spiritual. 

Sunday: 

This day is gonna be the longest, so hang in there, Grandma, almost done. To start off, I'm gonna tell you about my personal study, because it was another home run. I was studying 2 Nephi 25, which is the chapter after he's been quoting Isaiah nonstop for like 12 chapters. And as he was talking about the plainness in Isaiah's words, it clicked to me what it teaches. I've been studying looking to understand prophecies and words. But Isaiah shows something much more importante. It teaches us about the nature of God. It just hammers in nonstop the law of Justice in connection with the Law of Mercy. It shows the personality and desires of God in a pure, raw and unrefined way all in one. I can't put everything into words, but it was really cool. After that, it made me realize something else that testified to the validity of the Book of Mormon for me. The Book of Mormon is very clearly written by multiple authors. It's something super subtle, but you can clearly see it if you're paying attention. Plus the very way each book is written changes. Nephi, for example, is written as a narrative; Moroni is written as a commentary; Alma is written as a historical depiction of events. And the different authors have different personalities. Where it most came across to me was in Nephi. Nephi has a very consistent personality. He is a person who bases everything on patience waiting upon the Lord, trusting in him, yet at the same time is very impatient with his brothers. You might consider that a character flaw, but I think it's more like he understood so clearly and is super exasperated with everyone else for not understanding. With his brothers for never having an eternal perspective, with his people for not understanding Isaiah... He understands the gospel more clearly than everyone else, but it wasn't always like this. In 1st Nephi Chapter 2, we see him diverge from his brothers and ask for help understanding. Because of this, his heart is softened by the Lord. From this moment on, we see him begin to express these character traits. He understands better than everyone else, not because he's smarter, but because he made the decision early on in life to trust the Lord and was blessed by it. That's why moving on he always talks plainly, he doesn't enjoy using parables or comparison like his father, Lehi, or like Alma. He just tells it how it is, and I have a lot of respect for him for that reason. It also gave me an interesting thought about the Book of Mormon. In this chapter, he's talking about how Isaiah was written in the language of the Jews, for that reason he understands it, but his people don't. It wasn't written for them. He kind of praises the Jews for their ability to literally understand prophecy. It's the same thing with the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon was written by a people with a very different speech pattern than us. Nephi was able to understand Isaiah's words plainly, because he grew up with it. But you see later in life he kind of regrets not teaching more from the Bible, cause his people did not grow up with that advantage. So start while you're young folks! Just do it, study even when it doesn't make sense and the more you study the more you'll understand. As for me, I plan to read Isaiah 10 times or as many as it takes for it to be just as clear to me as it was to Nephi. BTW this entire time I was studying 8 verses haha. 8 Verses for an hour, just keep reading. Ok, now that that's done... Baptism. It was great but also a mess. It was set for 11, but we wanted to be plenty early, so we asked the Office Elders to order an Uber at 10. But when 10 rolled around they didn't order it. They also wouldn't respond to our texts. We finally got the uber at 10:20.  The Uber dropped us off at 11:06, but it was clearly not the chapel. The Uber made us get out anyways. We called the bishop in that ward, but he had no idea where we were and doesn't know how to use technology to send his location. Plus our location wasn't working right. Eventually we got there at 11:40 walking down the street until we found it. (Google maps said the closest church was in Campinas a couple hours away.) Once we got there, we had another problem. It turns out Diego is really tall, and the clothes the ward leaders had for him didn't fit. When we finally did find something we went to start the zoom, but zoom wasn't working! So I had to create another zoom account, create a meeting, send it to all the people, then start the service. But it doesn't end there, turns out no one in this ward knows the song, "When I am Baptized," which is like the one song everyone knows! So it was just Elder Morrison and I singing. But he had zoomed in a ton and didn't know where we were so we only found our spot when the song was over and sang like the last two lines. But after that it was smooth sailing. It was a really great baptism. He didn't have a preference for who baptized him, so we had Elder Morrison do it. Then we had the confirmation. And Fabio received the priesthood, then Diego. After that, we showed them how to bless the sacrament and took the sacrament, just the 8 of us. It was an extremely intimate and special moment. I'm so happy for them! Luckily, we were able to get a ride back home! But on our way back home a member called us upset that we weren't home. She was going to drop off lunch, and we weren't there. We tried to explain to her that we were supposed to have been home an hour ago, and that we texted her husband telling him we would be late, but she was still very unhappy with us.  

Elder Morrison, Diego, & Yours Truly

Elder Koford & Elder Lima, Me & Elder Morrison, Sisters Freitas & Lemes, Elder Silva and the other Elder Lima

Fábio joined the church recently and is a great support in the Jaguariuna ward.

Me, Diego (who got baptized), Bishop Salvador, Elder Morrison, Fábio

Diego, Alice and their daughter

Now, a sad note. When we got home, we received word that our bishop in our Cosmópolis ward passed away from Covid. (This is the ward we live in.) It's really crazy, because we were talking to him just a week and a half earlier. It's hard to know how to handle that. We had a slow quiet rest of the day, with all of our lessons falling through. 

But then Ana rescheduled to talk at 9:15. And I'm glad we did! It wasn't really a lesson, more of a conversation. We talked to her about the baptism, and she was super interested. She asked about temples and sealings. We asked her if she wanted to be sealed to her son. She said yes, but that she knows first there's a ton she has to do like being baptized. So we said, "Well, let's talk about baptism." And we set a goal with her to be baptized May 22! Afterwards, Elder Morrison was still pretty mad at me for making us doing a lesson so late in the day, but I have no regrets! When we finally finished it was way too late, like 9:45. So I journaled about the day and FINALLY went to eat dinner before bed. Before I could take a bite, the phone rang one more time. It was Anderson, he asked me if I had already eaten dinner. I said no, and he said ok I just wanted to see if you guys had eaten yet, we'll talk more tomorrow. After THAT, I finally got to eat. 

The Bottom Line

Tuesday:

Started the day off by talking to Bishop at his MarmiTex. What did we talk about? Honey of course; how it was the only food in existence that provides all the essential nutrients for life. He actually decided to grab some honey out of the back and get three cups. He drank his with lime which is something I really want to try. We found out the next day that he actually has Covid. Luckily, we were wearing masks pretty much the entire time and no symptoms yet. All of our lessons fell through except one (see if you notice a pattern this week). But the one lesson we did have was with someone named Geovana. It was a really simple lesson but really good. We talked all about the plan of salvation and why we are here, and I realized it truly is the lesson that brings me the most joy. Understanding who we are and what we are here for is essential to happiness through challenges. 

Wednesday: 

The start to the day was just peachy. I put my contacts in and accidentally ripped the left one. It took me 20 minutes to find the little piece that had rolled above my eye. But hey, alls well that ends well. Which reminds me, out of our 9 lessons, 8 of them fell through. Now that I think of it, that's not a great example, but that one lesson we had was fun, and that's all that matters. No rest for the righteous though. After that we had our first ward council of the day. The elder's quorum president talks in parables. Which can be a challenge to understand in English let along Portuguese. He was telling us all about how we were clam fishers in a wide ocean, gardeners in a sungarden, timekeepers etc. (I went to google translate after.)  It was the most emotionally taxing thirty minutes of my mission, haha. But after that we had another ward council. Although I was fearful, I found it was for nought. For it was there I met my hero, Helenice. It was the first coordination with this ward, so there was a lot to work out. Which naturally means an information overload. I was thinking to myself "Oh boy, how am I gonna keep track of all these groupchats," when Helenice spoke up and said, "The Elders have 4 wards that they are taking care of. They are probably overwhelmed with all the groupchats. How about after this meeting, we organize a summary for them and send it through bishop rather than adding them to more chats?" It was the best moment of my mission. 

OK Anderson's baptism was a little better. From there we had a lesson with Diego. Our minds were so scrambled, it should have been a horrible lesson. Four different times we knocked something off the table, neither one of us could remember Portuguese, and we didn't have time to review the plan first, so we started teaching a lesson we had prepared for Fábio! Luckily, his wife is a member, and she translated everything we tried to say, but said wrong. And he's a super cool guy. So instead of being awful, we were all just laughing. It was the best bad lesson of my mission. From there I met João Agusto from last week. He went to the chapel to pick up the Book of Mormon, and we talked a bit, marked with him, and suggested a good place to start. 

Thursday:

12 lessons planned for today, 2 happened... Just to be clear, that's over 6 hours of lessons falling through. But lessons normally take 45 minutes so closer to 9. But hey, Dennis is really cool and one of the lessons was with him! He is sooo ready to get baptized; he just has a really busy schedule. But we got to know him and coordinated the plan to prepare for his baptism. We decided to do 15 minute calls every day... and we haven't gotten in touch with him since, kkk. Twice during the lesson, a member called us who has a habit of calling us daily until we pick up called. I sent a quick message saying that normally if we decline it's, because we are in a lesson, but he called us after and said, "I'm so sorry for calling you so much, but I have SUPER important news to tell you guys." So we said no we get it; it's no problem and asked him how we could help him. He replied, "Ok so did you know that Bishop has Covid." We told him we did, but you can see it is really impacting the people here. But here's the big news of the day, we officially called every person in our areabook. Hundreds of names! The last name was written in asian characters, and we had no idea what to expect, but we saw the name Vinicius on his email and guessed. We were right, and luckily he spoke Portuguese, haha. We had a little on the spot lesson and helped him out. His brother passed away from Covid, and now his mom has it. It's so sad to see how negatively people are being impacted here. After this, I had a super special spiritual existence where I was laying on my bed listening to a talk. After the talk was over I listened in silence and a little bit of self pity after such a long day. I said out loud something along the lines of, "Why do you let others hear your voice and not me?" and one other question that I don't remember. The second I finished, one of our group chats went off and the phone glitched, then the phone immediately started playing the next talk titled, "Put your trust in the Lord" this talk responded perfectly to the concerns I was having and is probably the coolest miracle I've seen in my life. 

Friday: 

We have marked morning lessons with Ana the past three days, and every day she says she can't and moves it to the next day. So we decided to try again next week and see if her schedule clears up a bit. One funny story we have is that our bedroom door is SUUUPER loud and creeky. And the wind is always blowing it. Over the course of 5 to 10 minutes it was slowly closing and being super distracting during our personal study. Finally, Elder Morrison had enough and stands up and stomps over to go slam it and right as he gets there, the wind blows it shut for him, haha. I had yet another cool spiritual experience. I've been studying my patriarchal blessing for the past 2 months now. Analyzing every blessing, and how it prepares me for my responsibilities in life. And analyzing all the things the Lord expects of me. Today, I got to my last paragraph and read an interesting blessing that basically promised me repeatedly I would be able to find joy in my existence and work. The thought suddenly popped into my head, "The bottom line, was always joy." I think that's the number one thing I've learned in my mission. Life is work; there is a lot to do; we have to overcome a lot of challenges, and at times it feels like there's nothing good left out there. But eventually, all of us come to realize the same thing. The bottom line was always joy. Every single action the Lord does is to push forward this cause. Our responsibilities aren't here to stress us out, they are here to make us self reliant. Men are that they might have joy. It says in 2 Nephi that it was necessary for men to know sorrow and sin for them to be righteous and joyful. What an important distinction between knowing and being. We aren't here to be unhappy, we are here to know it; know what it's like and how it makes us feel as well as how it's brought about so that one day when we live in an existence without pain or iniquity we can have an eternal satisfaction, the likes of which won't truly be able to be comprehended until we do arrive at our inheritance. With that bottom line in mind, today was the first day in Brasil I think where every lesson we had fell through. 6 out of 6. That's hard, but what's the bottom line? Joy. We had an interesting experience while on a walk. We met an old guy whose nephews were members of the church. We asked him if he wanted to hear a message and he responded, "Once you get as old as me, you grow out of faith and religion stuff. I've read the Book of Mormon and stuff, but I just can't make myself have faith. " I wanted to point out that there were older and smarter people than him who did not in fact grow out of faith, but who grew in faith. But instead, I gave him the parable Alma gave to the poor in Alma 32 and encouraged him to read. But at the end of the day, something else I've learned is that it's a choice. Some people decide to give it a chance, other people decide from the start that they are above faith. Imagine choosing to believe that existence is meaningless. The impossibility of atheism. An interesting idea I saw is there are not very many true atheists out there, because the conclusion of atheism is that life has no meaning, and yet they live as though their lives do have meaning. Abiding by moral codes, taking care of themselves and family. The atheism part is a self deception designed to take away personal responsibility. 

Saturday: 

1st two lessons of the day were people who we called, laughed with, scheduled, then the second we hung up blocked us. I don't understand it. What kind of a person sees an ad, clicks on it, decides to learn more, puts in their private information for contacting them, clicks on a box that says they understand they will be contacted by missionaries. Then a few minutes later when they are called, panic and blocks us? It's something that happens on the regular, and I do not understand, haha. Anyways, funny story of the day: every Sunday we have an onslaught of meetings and Sunday school classes. It's so hard to know which is which especially in order to invite our investigators. So we went to all the group chats and got the times for Sunday school, relief society, and elders quorum, for all 4 wards. FINALLY! ORGANIZED! Then I kid you not, 15 minutes later every one of our wards gets their meetings shut down by new covid restrictions. The meetings are online, but if you don't have a sacrament meeting you can't organize a second hour... bruhhhh. Anyways, I had a cool thought while preparing for a lesson that didn't happen. Who do you think had more joy? Lived happier? You, or Christ? I imagine it was Christ. Who had a harder life? You, or Christ? Sorry, but there's no buts here; it was Christ. Now look at the degree of success Christ had at finding joy in his life. How can we emulate His success in our own lives? Welcome to the gospel, the font is already filled up just for you. It's weird to say, but two days in a row all our lessons fell through. After 2 months without a single day like that, haha. There was one lady who when we called she said she couldn't talk, because she had something to do, but then she talked nonstop for 15 minutes about her life and her house. We didn't complain, we were just happy to hear another living person, but it was definitely funny, because she was clearly free to talk haha. It's ok though, because that meant we were able to watch our zone FHE. We were in charge of the game; it was a big mess; you don't need to know the details. 

Sunday:

Ok, one more day, I can do this. No sacrament meeting in our area, so we watched a sacrament in Rio. After that, we had the 2nd worst lesson of my mission. It was a lady who says yes and agrees with everything over text but doesn't actually listen. She talked to me for like an hour and a half about her problems and how she wants to know how to solve them and fix her relationship with God.

Then I sent her the talk on faith by President Nelson. 3 minutes later, she texted me and said ok done...... I asked her what she thought, and she said it was very good, and asked what the steps were to increase her faith. I said it literally said that in the talk, haha. During the lesson, she was clearly on instagram or something, and every time we asked a question there would be 30 seconds of silence before she realized we had addressed her, and she would just say "I didn't understand." Then when we asked again she would do the same thing. We kept asking her if she had interest and she said ya and that she needed it. Eventually, we just closed and said goodbye. After days of no lessons, to have that be our first one was frustrating to say the least. But after that, we caught a break. We met a really nice guy that was a member of another church but had questions that couldn't be answered. He knew some members and went to the church website where he found a page offering Book of Mormon studies. He is a super cool guy, and we are excited to teach him. He's gonna watch the live we do of the Book of Mormon every day and keep up with us. I'm so happy we started at the beginning now, haha.