Tuesday:
Transfers are always a blast, and my transfer predictions were right! I'm staying in the district and replacing our old district leader who went home. I'm really happy about it, especially about being in a 4-elder apartment. But the area got opened last transfer which means basically starting from scratch again, ha-ha… right when things in Cosmopolis were coming together, but it’s all good. My companion is Elder Targino; he is the funniest person I've ever met without trying. Elder Mons explained it the best; it’s like every single word he says and decision he makes, he thinks, what is the most hilarious thing I could possibly say in this moment? Also, I'm back with Elder Lima from Pouso Alegre, and he is the new Zone Leader. When we got back from transfers, we didn't have a very productive day. I was trying to get Elder Targino to daily plan with me for a solid 3 hours, but every time we started, something would happen or we would get a text, or he would get distracted. I finally got us to say a prayer and open daily planning when the Zone Leaders walked in laughing and started talking again. No sweat though, transfer days are normally a little less stressful on the calendar. One of the main thing I'm excited for in a 4 Elder... card games. I taught the Zone Leaders hearts on one of our divisions, and they played every day. When 9 o´clock rolled around I said, "All right, let’s play," and Elder Mons said, "Ooooh, actually I'm doing a 40 fast from cards," and Elder Targino as well, ha-ha. So there goes that dream. I appreciate the consecration.
The new area is awesome! We have 3 wards and get lunch AND dinner every day from members which is cool. I'm a bit worried about the Cosmopolis area, because Noemi sent me an audio message where she sounded like she was on the verge of tears and asked if we could email on P-Days. She had a lesson with the other elders, but Elder Silva didn't talk. When she asked questions about the Book of Mormon, they didn't know the answer. But I have faith it'll work out. I already talked to her a bit, and she was just panicking in the moment. We invited the Cosmopolis elders to the Zone Family night, and they gave a lot of sass. The new elder over there is a friend of Elder Soares and therefore not my biggest fan, ha-ha.
Wednesday:
So, I brought a recorder to the mission and apparently, it’s a very distinguished instrument; the other elders are obsessed with it. I was messing around in the morning and Elder Lima walked in and was just staring at me. I stopped playing, and he just said in his broken English "Don't kill the beautiful sound of the Flouta," and walked out ha-ha. It killed me. I had some great preparation for the first district council of the transfer. I prepared a training about obedience, then when we were in council got a strong impression to throw it out. Instead, I just had everyone read a couple scriptures and asked questions about the atonement of Christ; how we feel about His suffering; and how we can show gratitude to Him. It was much better than what I had planned. After that, I had my first ever lesson in Spanish. I did ok, but wow is it hard, ha-ha. It made me really want to learn Spanish though! But first up, I need to learn Portuguese. After that lesson, I got to meet the Bishop of one of our wards! He was a really awesome guy! He has a huge family, and all the kids were eager to participate in the lesson. It didn't stick with all the members, but the Bishop is the most important relationship to build.
Thursday/Friday (got mixed up on the days):
Our daily schedule got messed up, because there was a fair in the morning that we went to. It was cool to try sugarcane juice again, but it was the 5th day in a row my personal study got cut short, so I was a bit grumpy about that. When we got to the chapel, I had another episode of trying to get Elder Targino to focus on daily planning for around 2 hours. At least we shaved off an hour this time, ha-ha. We had a member coming to drop off dinner at 6, but she didn't end up getting there until about 8:30, so I spent the time teaching Elder Targino English. It was hilarious, because in the North of Brasil they pronounce R's as H. So, the 3 of us were trying to get him to make the R sound for an hour with no progress and all dying. After that I had another District Leader training, and guess what they asked about the entire time? What movies we can watch on P-day. Apparently, it’s the same elder, and he’s asked for clarification about the movies the past 3 District Leader Conferences. He's really holding out for something.
Later we had a ward council. I asked the Elder's Quorum president for a list of families that were part member, and he immediately started flaming me. He said he passed it to us two weeks ago; I explained that all the mission phones had been erased. Then he said, "Well I passed this list to the other elders last transfer, and they were 'too busy to call it,’ so explain to me why I should go around collecting this list, if you elders are just going to 'be too busy' to call any of the members?" I tried to explain that in the quarantine, finding new people who would progress was proving to be a significant challenge. The best and most meaningful work missionaries can do is through members. I explained that I had only been here for 3 days and was a hard working missionary. Without promising anything, I mentioned that we had seen a lot of success working with members in my old area and that caught his attention. Turns out, he served his mission in Artur Nogueira, so that definitely won me some points. The end story is that I was not excited for our next ward council. It didn't end up even happening though. We called and the ward mission leader asked for 15 minutes to get ready, then after 15 minutes the president of the Elder's Quorum wasn't ready, then after 15 more minutes it was the ward mission leader again, and eventually we threw in the towel. But the day ended on a plus, Noemi sent a nutella strawberry crepe out of nowhere with a note that says, “I hope you can remember today as a happy day.” I didn't talk to her or mention any of the other stuff to her, so that definitely made it a happy day!
Saturday:
So today is the day of Denis's baptism. I sent him a text message asking when it would be, and he sent a message saying the other elders hadn't given him a time or a location. Then he was upset I couldn't go, because he wanted me to come baptize him. I went to ask permission from the Assistants and long story short it made it to President's desk. President wanted to know why Denis had never met the other elders. I explained that Denis moved to Campinas 2 weeks back, and the other elders canceled the pass off lesson on Monday, because they wanted to pack for transfers. That brought the other elders into hot water, so I explained that Denis was a really hard guy to arrange stuff with. When all was said and done, we had a new baptismal date for next Friday, and president gave me permission to come down. We were also able to schedule a new lesson for him to meet the other elders. So ya, 6 days in a row with no full personal study... Rough. But after that we had another lesson with the Bishop’s family, and his kids were an absolute blast. They are the same age as some of our investigators' kids, so they offered to have a family night with them!! Another fun thing of the day, I found this guy on Facebook named Paulo, and he is MASSIVE. Tree trunk neck big. And he calls me 'Irmãozinho' which is literally 'little/small' brother; it makes my day every time, ha-ha. Around lunchtime, we had a member bring us a massive amount of food. A full on feast, I'll send a picture, but I won't be able to get everything.... chicken, rice, pasta, cake, juice, and salad. We finished the day with a zone family night that was really good. To prepare, we all read "Let God Prevail," and we all spent the first 15 minutes getting to know each other, then bore our testimonies and talked about the talk. The district is pretty great; we have 4 Elders in Campinas, 2 in Cosmopolis, plus Sisters in Mogi Mirim and Paulinha. When we finally got home, Elder Mons started having some calf cramps and was begging me to massage his calf. I did but made him promise he would return the favor. Then when we switched, he just couldn't force himself to do it; he was too weirded out ha-ha. He offered the other Elders 10 reals, 20, 30, 50 to do it for him, but I yelled, "NO!!! It has to be you!" We were all dying of laughter, and I learned for sure that I can never be put into a position of power in the mission. My poor district.
Sunday:
Sooooo, I finally got to go to church again!!! 1st time in more than 2 months (no in person or online church). There was a family with like 6 little kids, and I sat with them beforehand and played a game where they tried to clap your hand and I tried to dodge it. They were all giggling and taking turns, and it made me miss playing with little kids so much. But I had to cut it short to prepare the sacrament. There were a ton of people, so I wanted to put more than two trays out. Elder Targino was insisting that we wouldn't need more. Every time I tried to get more; he wouldn't let me. I'm telling you it was the parable of the fish/loaves, there was not enough to go around, and a blind man could have seen it. Eventually, we had to start. When the time for sacrament came around, Elder Targino looked at the Sacrament, then counted the people, and slowly turned to me with a super wide-eyed expression. I asked him if he thought we needed more cups, and he just said, "Definitely," So while people were singing the hymn, we rushed to get more trays set up. Following the sacrament, we had another Ward Council, and in it I talked about how it’s not just our job to find new people to teach, but to support the ward and the members. I said we were available to help them in whatever aspect they needed, and if they ever knew of a member who was struggling, inactive, or just needed support, they could send their numbers over, and we would give it a shot. Boy oh boy was that the wrong thing to say. The president of the relief society then proceeded to unmute and do that thing where someone talks in a fairly normal voice, but you feel like they are yelling at you. She talked about how we had to Thank the members for lunch. She said "I don't care what it is! Whether it's money or food you are to send a video thanking them." I completely agree. The thing is we always send a text message thanking them and asking if we can call to thank them over the phone and share a scripture. When I said that, she said she didn't care, "We don't want to talk to the missionaries, we have other things to do. If you send a video, we can watch it at our own convenience throughout the day. The 15 times I've given missionaries lunch only 1 time I was sent a video." I agree with her so much about the fact that missionaries need to show more gratitude, but the other wards asked specifically that we not send videos and instead call, because videos are impersonal, and nobody watches them. Plus, let me remind you this is my 6th day in the area. How much stuff am I going to get yelled at for that wasn't me, ha-ha? The other elders sure loved teasing us about it though. We are going to do videos and hope, but we also know that we can't make everyone happy. After that mess... members came to bring us food, ha-ha. (from the other Elders’ ward.) They brought crates of milk, bread, etc. Enough food for 2 weeks! I'm super grateful, but also feel like we don't deserve all this support and kindness. But beggars can't be choosers.
Oh, and I forgot about the ghost story. This was yesterday. So normally we keep the gate to the chapel locked and shut, as well as the door of the church. Because it was Sunday; however, both were wide open the entire day. We left early and the other Elders stayed. It was around 9:00, and Elder Lima decided to go to the backyard. While he was walking, he thought he saw a guy pressed against the door trying to hide, but he didn't know what to do, so he kept walking like he didn't see anything. He went to the other side of the chapel. Elder Mons was walking down the hall looking at his phone, and he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He said something like a shadow on the other side of one of the doors like someone had just snuck past. Neither of them knew what to do, so they met up at the front, turned on the alarm and started to leave. While they were at the gate, the church's motion detector went off. They unlocked the church and did a quick look through, and then set the alarm and left again. When they got home, they both said, "I had the weirdest thing happen," and told each other the stories. We were deciding whether or not to go to the chapel and check it out. But after I got dressed, they said they didn't want to anymore. We called president and don’t know what happened next. What we think happened is that someone snuck in and was in the chapel watching us and waiting for us to leave, so they could rob it. Then when the alarm went off, they panicked, waited for the other elders to unlock the door, and look around, then sprinted down the street. Either that or their investigator who says he's possessed by demons decided to stick around after church and follow through on his threat to destroy Israel... but that's another story.
