I Guess I'm Old

I don't remember if I mentioned this in the last mail, but I'm no longer DL; I'm training. I think President was worried I'd be overwhelmed training and a district leader. My new companion is Elder Silva (Another one I know), and he is just the best. He's from Recife, Brazil. I love him so much I can't even put it into words. He's so sweet and happy and not at all arrogant or anything I was worried about, haha. He knows the doctrine well and teaches well, but also listens to and follows advice. He follows my example in terms of obedience and there isn't really too much conflict there. One quick thing, on the off chance that there's a future missionary reading this. BE OBEDIENT! The only real scuffle we've gotten in this week was today on P-day. I was reminding him to wear a white shirt and a tie unless we are going to go do something where we'll sweat, and he's like "Oh I believe you that it's a rule, but here in Brazil the missionaries don't do that one." This is a really small example, but it's something that carries over into a lot of other stuff. Maybe in Brazil the members grow up watching missionaries not care about the rules and do whatever they want, and then when they make it to their mission, it's a lot easier to fall in those habits. Someone is always watching you. That is the lesson I am most grateful to Dad for teaching me when I was younger. Ok are you ready? Are you sure? Really? Ok, let's do this. 

Tuesday: 

So first off, transfers!!!! That's right, I get to see real life missionaries! I got to see Elder Lima real quick. (The one that was companions with the Elder Silva after me.) There are 4 missionaries in our mission training right now. 2 Sisters and 2 Elders, and I'm the oldest. That's right; I guess I'm old now. The new missionaries kind of just chilled for a while. Elder Morrison went to the bathroom, and I never saw him again, haha. We just joked around trading tongue twisters in Portuguese and English. Looking back now, there's really not much to talk about, but it was soooo nice just being able to sit back, relax and talk to other people face to face. Not thinking, "Oh, when's my next appointment? or How long should this phone call be? or When should we call it and hang up? We were waiting for at least an hour, probably closer to 2, and then the office Elder decided to go out and get ice cream for the new missionary dinner, so he took me with him. After all that time waiting, as soon as we left, the assistants called us and were like, "Elder Bassett, where are you??? We are ready to introduce the greenies, and we are just waiting for you." Haha. So I gave myself the shin splints speed walking back, haha. This is where we all met our new companions, then had a little lunch together. Apparently, we have KFC here??? I gotta be honest, it wasn't very good. But I was starving, so I pounded down two sandwiches. The ice cream, on the other hand, was amazing. It was the Blue Bell of Brazil. Sooo good. When we got home, pretty much all of our lessons fell through, and Elder Silva was really disappointed. I didn't want to crush his dreams by pointing out he should get ready for a lot of that. Things were pretty awkward. The mission has changed me; I don't need to talk anymore. I'm more than happy sitting in silence for an entire day if I really have to. But because he was there, I was hyper aware, haha. "How is he feeling? Is he happy? Is he disappointed?" I found myself wishing we lived in a four elder apartment, so he could have a more entertaining first day. But that's ok, because our last lesson of the day went through. It was with a member I've been helping to reactivate, and she is the HAPPIEST person I've met in my life. I can't even put it into words. The second we called she was yelled, "HIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!" and started talking our ears off. It was great. We barely got a word in, but it was a warm welcome for Elder Silva's first lesson. 

Wednesday: 

To start off, I ripped my best long sleeve white shirt. This is my second time doing this! I was just stretching during a trainer training and the back ripped. Oh well, at least now I know which shirt to burn when I hit a year. Ok now get ready for the first, but not the last time I talk about my personal study this week. It was bomb. I was reading in 2 Nephi 25, and it was just amazing. Basically, this is the perfect chapter to answer challenges somebody makes about the Book of Mormon verses the Bible. Nephi kinda just goes through and sums up the purpose of the scriptures, and it's really good. Our personal study got interrupted by a lady who I thought was a member of one of our wards, because she called me Elder. But then she started talking all about a present she had for me, and I still thought it was a member until she said that the present was that my first month of online English classes would be FREE. You know I can't resist a bargain, but with all this missionary work, I really just couldn't see myself having the time. SO I said thank you very much, but I'm actually from the US, and English is my mother language. I hate rejecting gifts. Anyways, today I taught Elder Silva how to call referrals which was exciting (for a missionary at least). He even set up his first lesson. When she said she was interested, he said, "Great! Tonight at 6." And she accepted. After he hung up, I asked him if he checked our schedule first to make sure we don't already have a lesson at 6, and he froze for a second. Good learning moment. ALWAYS CHECK THE SCHEDULE! One cool thing is that he's really excited for me to teach him English. We will see if that lasts though, because so was the other Elder Silva in the beginning. His first lesson with an investigator ended up being the one that he set earlier. Her name was Maria, and we read Jeremiah 1 and talked about how God would support us when we are doing His will, and we introduced the concept of the premortal life. It went pretty good, but I wish his first lesson would have been with someone more enthusiastic about talking to missionaries. But that's ok, because afterwards we had a lesson with my favorite person we are teaching, Ana. She is soooooo sweet, and the lessons with her are really spiritual. She is working on preparing for baptism right now, but it's definitely a challenge, because she needs to reschedule 66% of the time. We plan on meeting with her every night at 8:30. She confirms every morning but frequently sends a message at 8 canceling. But at least she actually gives us a heads up! 

Thursday: 

Funny thing that happened this morning, Elder Silva kept telling me my scale was wrong, because it said he was 200 kilos, haha. He forgot that Americans use pounds. My studies this morning were really good. I was studying about prayer in 1 Nephi 2. We like to focus on verse 16, and how he prayed with faith and immediately got an answer. But let's look at the answer he got. Was it a voice? A vision? A manifestation? No, the Lord softened his heart so he could believe. Think about that, really think about that. The answer he got to his prayer was so unbelievably imperceptible. It's my belief that he probably didn't even notice at fist, but rather as he was writing this record in retrospect he had the perspective to see how the Lord had responded to him. It wasn't until later in verse 19 that he had a super strong manifestation. And it wasn't at the time he was asking for help for himself, rather he was crying out to the Lord on behalf of his brothers. I'm not gonna comment too much; I just want to put that out there to let anyone reading this to consider it. But I will say this, Nephi prayed fervently, got a small answer, decided to trust in the Lord with a soft heart, and only then did he get the big one. I don't know, I've just been really happy this week. And today especially I noticed it. One of my goals lately has been to spend more time thanking the Lord. You hear that all the time. People say, "Try saying an entire prayer just thanking the Lord." I never even tried, because I have wayyyyy too much I need help on, haha. But I kinda realized there's no cap on how many prayers you're allowed to say, haha. So, what I've been doing is just praying, closing my prayer, then praying again and only thanking the Lord. It's made a big difference, and I highly recommend it. This is a really sappy email; sorry, Taylor. We had a lesson with Jeferson today. He's a really good guy, but his comprehension is low which makes it hard to teach him. We repeat ourselves a lot. I think it's the type of thing that would normally annoy me, but I can't explain it; it just made me love him more. Seeing how earnest he was to understand. And more importantly, seeing that he doesn't just say ya and move on; when he has a question, he asks. We were planning on reading the first chapter of Nephi with him, but we ended up just reading the summary at the beginning of the book for 30 minutes straight. At the end, we mentioned something about Joseph Smith, and he had no idea who we were talking about. So I think we need to teach the restoration a 4th time. After we hung up, he sent an audio message like a half an hour later and said, "I did it! I read the entire thing! All of Nephi! After you guys hung up I just Read and Read and Read until the very End!!!" It made me so happy, I love him so much. I didn't want to point out that he read the first chapter not the entire book, though. He's so pure. After that, we had a lesson with Diego, and it went really well. Our first lesson since his baptism. At the very end, I asked him to pray, and he immediately said ya sure and did it. It just struck me how much of a difference that was. We couldn't even get him to pray for the first couple of lessons and now look at him. It's so gratifying to see the differences! After that, I taught Elder Silva how to weekly plan... he wasn't a fan. Oh well, not everyone can be I guess. Something funny about Elder Silva is that he REFUSES anything I make. I offered him some off my curry, and he started gagging at the thought of mixing vegetables and sauce with rice. But at the same time he went through two loaves of bread in three days. For breakfast, he just butters up 6 pieces of soggy bread and thinks it's the most gourmet meal in the world, haha. That and CusCus, a food really popular in Recife he's obsessed with. He says he eats it normally for breakfast lunch and dinner which is astounding to me. It reminds me of what the Pioneers ate on their trek to Utah... Flour and water, haha. Just kidding; it's not that bad, just also not that good. I got kind of annoyed at Elder Silva for the first time today. He was talking to me about how we need to call our interested person list more. I said sure and let's do it, but he kept saying, "When I'm done, we will have called all of them; we need to just go through and call each and every one." It's hard to come across over text, but he was saying it in a way of like, "Now that I'm here, we are going to pull it together." And I don't need to remind you of the days where I spent 3 hours a day every day for a week calling that list. Then he was saying, "Also we need to do lessons with members, family nights, include them in the work. We can't just keep doing stuff without them" And we had at least 8  member lessons planned over the weekend which he had forgotten about, haha. Man I sound really negative here, don't I? I got kinda fed up and ended up saying something along the lines of, "This is only your second day here; that is literally all I have been doing for 6 weeks non stop." Then immediately afterwards felt really bad. The thought popped into my head, "When I'm a husband, is this how I'm gonna treat my wife? and when I'm a father, is this how I'm gonna treat my kids?" and I felt like an idiot. So I gave him a hug, and said I was sorry, and that it was a good idea. Then we went, and we scheduled family nights with all of the wards for Sunday.  

Friday: 

More personal study talk!! 2 Nephi 26:8. Everything points to Christ. Literally everything: every scripture, every prayer, every talk, points to Him. The whole point of the scriptures is to convince us of His healing power. This was a really sad scripture to study. Seeing Nephi lament the destruction of his people. Read verse 10 and imagine that instead of Nephi talking, it's our Heavenly Father.  10 And when these things have passed away a speedy ^adestruction cometh unto my people; for, notwithstanding the pains of my soul, I have seen it; wherefore, I know that it shall come to pass; and they sell themselves for naught; for, for the reward of their pride and their ^bfoolishness they shall reap destruction; for because they yield unto the devil and ^cchoose works of ^ddarkness rather than light, therefore they must go down to ^ehell.  It is a super sad verse. When I was reading this, the scripture from Jacob popped into my head of the Lord crying and saying, "What more could I have done for my vineyard?" In my head, I could see a beautiful painting of the Hill  Cummorah, with bodies of Nephites and Lamanites all around the top of the hill. On the top of the hill, Heavenly Father crying into the shoulder of Jesus Christ and crying this out. "What more could I have done for my vineyard?" I wish I had the artistic skills to bring this into form, but sadly that's not a gift I've been given. After this experience during Companion study, I received a strong spiritual impression to do the Preach my Gospel study activities for the Chapter about how to recognize the Spirit. I decided starting next week, I'll  start setting my alarm for 5:30 and doing that before I exercise. Let's see how it goes, haha. Our lunch cancelled for the day, so Elder Silva decided he was going to cook something up. Then after a half an hour when he was ready to eat, they called us and told us they ordered food for us. But it was at their work a 30 minute walk away. So an hour later we started eating, only a half an hour after our lunch ended, haha. Can't complain though! Last night a girl sent me a message and flirted it up reeeeeaaaal hard. She was like ohhhh what church I wanna know more! Then after we set a lesson she asked me if I had a girlfriend and if I was seeing anyone. I told her that it wasn't something I was focusing on right now, and this morning when I went to confirm she had blocked us on whatsapp and facebook. I guess she wasn't interested after all, haha. We had a lesson with a lady I really like, but in the middle of it, the call cut out. I was worried that she blocked us, but we were able to call the next day; the reason was just cause the phone died. But I remember being really sad; anyways, she's really hard to mark a time with. After that, we had a lesson with a member. It was my first time talking to someone under 18 about the gospel since Ryan, haha. She's a 14-year-old convert with a 16 year-old-sister, and it was a fun lesson. Especially when I dropped my pen cap, and Elder Silva bent over to get it and the chair toppled over, and he fell, hahah. All four of us laughed sooo hard. It was right as we were able to get them to focus, too, haha. When we finally got home, there was no rest, because I've gotten used to Elder Morrison being super clean. Elder Silva is... less so. I spent all night putting away all the food he left out. Plus sweeping up the spaghetti and mopping up the sauce that he poured into our wire trash can, haha. Elder Silva walked in when I was done wearing normal clothes, and I hated to be the one to break it to him that we had to stay in proselyting clothes until 9:00 (It was only 8). 

Saturday: 

Well, in two days, he ate all of my food. So on Thursday, I went to the store to buy some more bread and stuff. Then this morning when I went to make a sandwich... no bread. In the future, I'll hide it. So with no eggs, no bread, and no milk, my normal fast breakfast options were up, and we had daily planning in 5 so no food for me, haha. One cool thing happened, he grabbed a broom and started sweeping. I got really excited, then watched in shock and confusion as he went outside, and swept all the dirt from the patio... into the house. We're working on it, hahaha. We had a lesson with Jeferson to teach the restoration suuuuper simply, so this time something sticks. I started off simply by saying God is our loving Heavenly Father, and He gives us the Gospel to bless us. Then I looked as Elder Silva, and he launched into the passing of authority down to President Nelson and how today we have a modern living prophet who received revelation from the Lord. But I still love Jeferson. Afterwards, I sent a couple texts and gave probably the simplest restoration I've given in my life. I´ll send it later, and you can post it, mom. After that, I linked the movie about the Restoration and an hour later after our lesson, he sent us a text and let us know that he had watched the entire thing!!! I love him so much. My two favorite people to teach are Jeferson and Ana; what a blessing that we had both today!! Afterwards, I remember just thinking I love Ana, and I love my companion, haha. After that we had a fun family night with the zone. It's always good to be able to see other missionaries and relax. We all just answered some get to know you questions, and it was great. Something I've started doing is reading Taylor's emails from his mission blog while I'm contacting. I sent one part of it to Elder Koford, because I thought it could be a good training for district council. We had a fun conversation afterwards; I'll link the screenshot, haha. There's another funny part where he's talking about how everyone has the flu, and he says, "Everyone's dying. And no one can go to church," You have noooo idea. Gift of prophecy? Final thing of the day. Fabio sent me a tie. A REALLY nice silk one, too. I'm super grateful, but I'm also afraid to put it on, because just the oils from my hands leave grease stains, haha. 

Sunday: 

Something really weird happened today. We called someone for an early morning lesson, and they didn't answer. A wave of anger came over me out of no where. In my head I was like, "How dare she! Why does she think her time is more important than us? How is she so self obsessed that she doesn't care about our time enough to tell us she's not interested, and instead just tells us to call, then declines us. " It was super weird, because I wasn't actually really angry. It was like a cold anger that was injected into my brain. I think it was just frustration, but it was still really weird, and I didn't like it. Just guys, be nice to the missionaries. They have it hard right now. Anyways, personal study got me over that. I was studying 2 Nephi 26:30 and for some reason today the phrase that "if ye have not charity ye have nothing" really stuck out to me. Why do we waste our times setting other goals? Why do we even make new year's resolutions that don't help with this? Why do we work on patience, humility, knowledge when we have yet to master the most base of commandments? Love one another as I have loved you. That's what I need to do. Just a thought. One exciting thing, Sister Saucedo announced that we get to open our emergency kits and eat everything inside. OHHHHHHH BOY. I am gonna gain a ton of weight. I've been losing a ton lately which has been frustrating, but let me tell you this is not gonna be muscle. I FINALLY was able to stop drinking sugary drinks. But now we have like 12 liters of milk, chocolate powder, liters of juice mix, jellos mixes, and on top of all of that as we were doing an inventory of our haul, a member came by and gave us two Liters of coke... Let's do this! Man, I need to write less in my emails. Sorry folks, I just really use these emails as my journal, haha. Anyways, it ended up working out because like I said Elder Silva ate all our bread, but now we had crackers for the sacrament.  After that, we had 5 hours straight of meetings! We had set up family nights with all of our wards. First was Jaguariúna, and only a couple people showed up, but it was a good lesson, and we talked about my favorite story in the Book of Mormon (Anti Nephi Lehies). Specifically looking at the Nephites answer when they asked for help while considering the fact that these two peoples have been in bloody conflict for hundreds of years. Afterwards, we had the Conchal ward, and it was awesome!! It kinda felt like going to church again. We had like 15 people in the call with at least some people's families. At the end, because it was fast Sunday, we invited people to bear their testimonies if they wanted to, and it was soo cool. Too bad that is the one area we don't have any investigators. Next was the Artur Nogheira ward, and only one family showed up which was disappointing, because that's the area where all the people we teach live. But Michelle went, so at the very least she met a member and got to know the Book of Mormon better. The Cosmópolis ward we sent a reminder an hour before, but still only Anderson and one other lady went. That was a bit disappointing, but all in all we were happy with the day. 

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. 

Best Week

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

Tuesday:

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

Wednesday:

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

Thursday:

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

Friday:

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

Saturday:

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

Sunday:

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

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

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

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

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