Last Week as a Trio

Tuesday:

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

Wednesday:

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

Thursday:

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

Friday:

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

Saturday: 

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

Sunday: 

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

Monday:

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

Trio!!

 Tuesday:

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

Wednesday:

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

Thursday: 

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

Friday:

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

Saturday:

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

Sunday:

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

Monday: 

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

Christmas!!!

Thursday:

It's weird starting on a Thursday, but here we go. Big thing of the day... there's this candy I REALLY like called Reeses Fastbreaks. Every single time I go to a new store, I check all the candy areas for them. I have checked dozens of stores in Massachusetts and Conneticut and never found them. But we had a pre-Christmas miracle. Elder Bilar was out of shampoo, so we went across the street to the dollar tree, and as we were checking out, I saw them! I made Elder Bilar buy 4 of them and they are just as great as I remember. That night we had exchanges. I was with our district leader, Elder Parish. He's a super cool guy, and we actually met in the beginning of my mission. We didn't have a busy night, so we just talked for a couple of hours. The Christmas season is pretty weird for missionaries, so it was nice to relax a bit. 

Friday:

Christmas!!!! It was a really fun day, but here's one funny thing. Last Thursday, it snowed, and again on Sunday. About 18 inches in all. We have been trudging through snow all week. Then, we wake up and all of the snow is gone! Disappeared! Apparently, last night it got really warm and rained and melted all the snow. So every other day, except Christmas, was white- haha! Anyways, it was a great day. We woke up and got ready, then opened all of our presents, taking turns. The other elders went first, because they got 2 giant stockings from their ward plus some big FedEx boxes, haha. It was great, and I got everything I needed! We wanted to play spikeball with the other elders, but we had to go to a Christmas zoom call with our district. And when we finished 2 hours later, the other elders had theirs! So it was dark by the time we finished, haha. So we just called all of our families, and I finally got to see all my nieces and nephews. When I called Taylor, Liam was there and when he saw me he said "Jeffee! Jeffee! Jeffee's coming! Jeffee's coming!" It was so cute. It was so crazy to see how all the kids are all so big! Brooke doesn't crawl but she army crawls and is crazy fast, so it's hilarious to watch, haha. 

Saturday:

Saturday was the most productive day we have had in a while. We had more exchanges! But this time I was with Elder Moody. It was a lot of fun and we actually had 4 lessons planned. The first one was with a member in the Ward, but we also talked to Bryce and Lucca. It's so much fun talking about the Gospel with my friends. Now that I've gotten over my social fear it's really chill, and I love it. We talked about the story of Enos with Bryce. And gave the message of the restoration to Lucca. He was pretty receptive and said he would pray about it which was awesome. Our last lesson didnt go through but all in all a good day. 

Sunday:

Normally we exercise in the mornings, but not on Sunday for obvious reasons. So we have a lot of extra prep time. A guy in our ward is writing a book about his conversion story, so I spent the time reading a little bit. It's an awesome story. From there we got ready and went to church. Elder Bilar and I usually sit in the back, and he translates into a mic. I like to talk to myself and just translate as well just to practice. I was going strong when Elder Bilar needed to get his Book of Mormon, so he handed me the mic and said translate. I was pretty confident, after all I, I had been doing it the entire time. The next words out of Bishop's mouth were, "Now I'm going to let my inner English Teacher out for a moment." Then he said something along the lines of "The background of this verse helps to shed an interesting light on what his motivations may have been in this case." Then he continued to assault my head with words I didn't even know in English let alone Portuguese. Elder Bilar was back within 15 seconds, but it felt like an eternity. And I'll tell you right now that was 15 seconds of silence, because I did not say a word, haha. The English elders are moving out of our apartment so we needed to go all the way to Boston to bring them to their new car. So we spent the rest of the day on a road trip; that was a lot of fun. I had a fight with the car's bluetooth, we talked a bit with the sisters who had the car, then we headed back home. 

Monday: 

Today is our last full day with the other elders. They are really excited to leave, because they are an hour away from their area right now, but it's still sad. We decided to make our last p-day a good one by going out to a restaurant my parents recommended called The Place 2 Be. It looked really nice, so we were excited as well as nervous about the prices. We had good news and bad news when we got there. The good news is that the prices were much lower than we thought, not cheap but not too expensive. The bad news is that the food reflected that, haha. It still looked really pretty though, and it filled our stomachs. From there we went to the mall and spent a long time looking for a barber shop that wasn't there. And I bought a new sweater from banana republic. Elder Hoopes and I went to get hair cuts, and we got home and had a spikeball tourney with the boys. Finished the P-day with boneless wings and watching clips from the Chosen, a tv series about the New Testament. Not bad.