1st Full Week in Brazil

Tuesday: 

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

Wednesday:

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

Thursday:

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

Friday:

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

Saturday: 

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

Sunday: 

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

"Clever Caption"

Tuesday 

Today had kind of a rough start, as it was announced that missionaries weren't allowed to go to the chapel anymore for P-days (preparation day), which was unfortunate because thats the one thing Elder Bodily and I could still do on our P days. In addition, it was also announced that we can't go to baptisms anymore. This was especially frustrating for the Haitian Creole Elders, as they had two scheduled for Saturday. But it's time like this we have to learn to trust in the Lord, and learning obedience now can only help us in the future. After that, we had a normal day, including English classes. They were a lot of fun, but at the very end they said, "Bye Jeffrey." It was kind of weird hearing my first name instead of Elder Bassett, haha. That's the result of everyone who we meet online seeing our Facebook profiles first! 

Wednesday 

We had a technology devotional where we went over some of the things we can do online. It was pretty fun. I definitely want to have a stronger online presence in the future because of it. From there, we had an exchange with the Elders in charge of technology for the mission and went over our methods and success. From there it was back to basics; lessons and cookies. 

Thursday

Thursday started off with weekly planning, which is always a good time to refocus our efforts. We decided we are going to try to do more work with the members. I'm really excited to work with them, as well as meet new people. I was talking to a lady on Facebook who had expressed interest in talking to us named Hilda; out of nowhere, she called us and asked us to give a lesson. We sat on the couch and got to know her and shared the gospel of Jesus Christ with her. She was so sweet; she can't go to church anymore, because she's on oxygen, but she loves talking about the scriptures. Around dinner time, I made some pork chops, got all set up to eat them and then spilled coke all over. I was a little upset, but hey, they still tasted great. We had an English lesson with a guy named Mateus who's a ton of fun. We were just talking to him in English, getting to know him, and I asked what his favorite movie was. He responded Lord of the Rings, and I immediately got excited until he said, "Wait, no. It's the other one. The Hobbit." I grabbed Elder Bodily's leg to keep from growling, and Elder Bodily fought to hide his laughter. The night before I had been ranting about how much of a let down The Hobbit was next to the Lord of the Rings. It's ok, Mateus, we still love you, haha! After that, Pedro M randomly called us, and we had another unplanned lesson. This went well also. Pedro is such a fun guy and loves talking with us. I don't need people to be absolutely converted to our faith as long as I can bring them a little bit closer to Christ in our conversations. 

Friday

As always, we had district counsel, and, as always, it was great. People were a little sad about the new restrictions, but we'll get through it. We need to keep people safe! We had an exchange planned with the Salem Portuguese Elders, buuuut there were some complications. We thought I was going into their area with Elder Torrez with Elder Bodily staying here with Elder Aguilera, and they thought the opposite. So instead I ended up teaching in our area. We had a lesson immediately, and I hadn't really prepped for it because I wasn't planning on being there. But wait, there's more! Elder Bodily's phone had the sim card to call them, so we had to go switch phones. Then Elder Torrez did the same thing! In the end, it turned out ok. I was actually happy; the two lessons I would have missed were with Junior and William, which are two of my favorite people to talk to. 

Saturday

So, today Elder Bodily and I decided to do some service at a food kitchen. He had found one that was open, and so we went for it. We drove there and couldn't find it. Elder Bodily checked the website to see when they were open. He read out loud, "Open Monday through Friday 8-6," and said, "Ya they're open, but I don't know where they are?" I looked at him a couple seconds and pointed out that it was Saturday. Oh ya. We chuckled got back in the car and went home. "Mission failed, we'll get em next time." From there we had a Facebook live with a guy named Dennis Schleicer, an openly gay member of our church who writes about his experience and does motivational talks. I was PUMPED! We sat down for the live, and he started talking aaaaaand no sound. It was a Facebook Live not a zoom meeting so we couldn't say anything. He went on for 15 minutes before they realized! They spent several minutes trying to fix it, and he started again only for it to be muted. At 7:30 we got it to work; only a little late haha. But it was worth the wait. He's such a cool guy, and so smart, I wish he was in our area so we could get to know him. His book is called "Is He Nuts? Why Would a Gay Man Join the Mormon Church?" I'm planning on giving it a read. It's so cool to see how someone who was organizing protests against the church can find comfort in it only a few months later. It truly is amazing to see how expressing love can change people's lives. 

Sunday

We had a lesson with a member named Artur; he's a powerhouse over here and is so active in the ward. You can bet we are gonna work with him in the future. From there, we had another exchange with the Haitian Creole Elders. I was with Elder Morris in his area, and we got to know each other a lot better because their lesson fell through. So it was essentially a 4 hour phone call, but we are tight now, so it's all ok. Elder Bodily had more to do in our area with 4 lessons planned during the exchange. One of which was with a member we've been trying to schedule with. I was sad to miss it, because I want to get to know the members so bad. Every time we schedule with a member, it's always been when I'm away on an exchange, haha. Oh well, patience and faith!

A pasta recipe from my Aunt Jen!

A random two dollars we got in the mail?

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.

What are the odds

 Tuesday:

So we started off the day as normal, with planning, then we decided to make some phone calls. While it was dialing, I picked up 5 die and rolled them and then got psyched put of my mind when I saw the results. I rolled 5 1's. Which, according to my math, has a .012655 percent chance of occurring. So in other words, this week was gonna be a special one. And boy oh boy, it was. To start off, we took the car in at 11 to get the tires switched out. We got there at 12 and were told it was gonna be about 5 hours before they finished... So, we had a lesson with Augosto on a picnic bench and did a lot of calling and online work. The lesson with Augosto went great! We already teach him with just audio calls, so it wasn't a big deal that we were outside. He's also great at keeping commitments and is always really engaged in the conversation. We prayed and decided the best way we could help Deborah F, but that lesson ended up being canceled. We got our car about 5:30 and were home by 6:30. That's when Elder Bodily and I had a real lesson in patience. We teach English classes. Last week, the class started late at 7:30; so we then decided to leave all the other classes until that time since that's when people show up. But no one showed up at the class, and at 8:15 the mother of the family said that our lesson was at 8:15, and without getting into too much detail was super condescending and rude to people who were trying to help her speak English. At that point, I just got on my knees and said a prayer to have patience and feel Christ's love for this woman. And after that it was like a switch in my brain; I couldn't feel any anger. We need to learn to rely on Christ for our problems. If we aren't rooting our actions in Him, we will never be able to become the people we strive to be. Anyways, after that we had a call with the Sisters. Elder Bodily is district leader, and they had asked that we call them now and then to check up on them. This particular day, we just complained and moaned about how we were stuck in the middle of no where all day and then a lady was rude to us... essentially we undid all the good work we had done learning patience throughout the day. Oh well, sorry for taking over the phone call sisters. 

Wednesday:

I woke up 6:30 sharp and had an analogy on my mind, I went and wrote a 2-3 page talk on it. I might link it later on or share it on my facebook profile so I won't get into it too much right now other than to say weightlifting is involved. After that, the sisters brought us muffins cause of how much we complained about our day yesterday. First off, the sisters are awesome. Secondly, we had a great day. We just found it easier at the end when we were tired to focus on all the negatives. Our minds are weird like that; we always bring the negatives up before the positives. Doing otherwise takes training, but if we can do it, we will be able to find so much more joy in our days and in our lives. We had exchanges with our zone leaders after that, which is essentially a 3 hour phone call, but it's a lot more fun than it sounds. You just gotta try it one day to find out haha. 

Thursday: 

We had our daily planning. As a part of it, I made a graph for us to examine. On one axis it was Fubeca and robot. A fubeca is someone who doesn't care about the rules and is disobedient, a robot is someone who is perfect, always doing what they are supposed to be doing, and always on topic. On the y axis we had trunky and eye of the tiger. If you are trunky, you are unmotivated, thinking about home; if you have the eye of the tiger you are driven, focused, and energetic. We use this to mark how we are feeling with our work the last day, and graph how we can improve, as well as talk about why we felt the way we did. After that, we went to a member, Brother H, to pick up a guitar for a music video Elder Bodily is doing. We ended up talking to him and his family for almost an hour and a half on the front porch. I can't even explain to you how needed that was for me. We got to know their amazing family. While we were talking, I bore my testimony on prayer and asked the kids what something they wanted to pray for was. 13 year old Camilla said she wanted to find ways to serve her friends and family. 10 year old Bela said she wanted to pray to have more patience. And 8 year old Jacob said he wanted help expressing his emotions better and controlling himself.... do I even need to comment? What amazing kids!!! If we could all have motives as simple and pure as that, think about how much closer we would be to our friends and families. Brother H started crying, and talked about how he had been having a hard time communicating with his son, and had been praying for weeks that he could know why. He bore testimony that we were an answer to his prayers, and that missionaries are sent from God to bless the lives of the people they serve. It was such a pure moment and the Spirit was so powerful. After that, we had a lesson with Pedro M that went well, and invited him to go to church on August 30. He said yes and that he would bring a friend with him. This day was simple and by far the best day on my mission so far. We had 4 nonstop hours of lessons and discussions before it ended, and every second of it was wonderful. 

Friday:

Today was my birthday. I loved reading all the messages from my friends and family. I'm so grateful for all the wonderful people I've come into contact in my life. We had district counsel, too, which was a great birthday activity, because I got to see our district in person and talk face to face. After that, I spent the next 3 hours making a video about the plan of salvation using eggs, haha. The day ended simply: blowing out a candle in some beans and rice. 

Saturday: 

So, my parents sent me a giant black happy birthday banner for yesterday. Which first off is awesome!!! Secondly, our bedroom blinds don't work, and the room gets bright SUPER early in MA. So we put it over the window Friday night and Saturday Morning was the first day I have woken up truly well rested while I've been here. Next up, I put some cookies in the oven and while I ate them, Elder Bodily and I read from the Missionary handbook. It just so happens that the section we read today was nutrition and safety... no comment. It was a slow day. I spent about 2 hours studying Preach My Gospel and fell asleep while taking a short break. I woke up with Elder Bodily shaking me and then starting to pray. Very confused I folded my arms and then looked up while Elder Bodily started teaching. Apparently, someone had called and asked if we could have a lesson early. I was very groggy and confused at first, but the lesson went great. I studied Preach My Gospel the rest of the day more or less and that was that. 

Sunday:

We had church, which today was taught by the sisters. Sister Freire is the brand new sister to the mission, and she taught the lesson fresh out of the MTC and killed it which was cool to see. After that, we had 3 lessons; all 3 which got cancelled. The sisters brought us some muffins for my birthday for the second time that week; once again, awesome. And we had 2 more lessons fall through, making a grand total of 5. I would like to say that that is not typical, but the days where that does happen is unfortunate. Anyways, after that I did some work on Facebook, got hit on by a 30 year old man and 13 year old girl, and wrapped up. One man we talked to was named Marcelo. We asked him if he was interested in hearing about Jesus Christ, and he responded he already knew of Christ. We asked if he had heard about his ministry in the Americas, and he said yes. We then asked him if he had heard of the Book of Mormon which testified of His ministry in the Americas. This time he said no, and when we explained it, he asked how much it would cost to get one. We explained it was free, and offered to bring one to his house on Monday. 

Monday:

Today was district P day, which is a day where our district can meet-up in person and hang out. We went to the beach where we just talked, caught crabs, and baked in the sun. Then we went to get some Italian pizza and some ice cream. The missionaries in my district are all so awesome; any chance we have to hang out in person is a blessing. After that, we had 2 more lessons fall through, making an unprecedented 7 in a row. But we got to drop off a copy of the Book of Mormon at Marcelo's house. We hope to have the chance to talk with him more and have a call planned on Wednesday. 

Not as steep as it looks. I promise.

Catching Crabs

Me & Elder Bodily (The Bod Squad)

The District

The Graph

Elder Terry's Last District Counsel

Like my second week or something?

Ok another pretty standard week, but I've come to the conclusion I'm gonna either be a master chef or a mad scientist after this, because Elder Bodily and I are fiends in the kitchen. Anyways...

Tuesday 

Tuesday was a day of random lessons. Deborah N loves learning but has a hard schedule so she kind of just calls us whenever haha. Then after that we had a random lesson with a guy named Campos. Both lessons went really well, I definitely enjoy improving and searching the scriptures to ask questions than I do teaching a lesson with specific points to cover. After that, we had a great lesson with Pedro M talking about the commandments, and he really understood. Finally, we got a call from our ministers asking if we wanted one of their extra pans. Elder Bodily asked if they have any pans with like "really high walls to keep oil and stuff in" to which I commented "that's called a pot."  

Wednesday 

Wednesday we finally had zone conference, and it was so cool seeing everyone in person. It was a big success, and I enjoyed myself. It was weird seeing President Mavromatis in person though, haha. After that, we had our beginners English class, to which no one showed up, and I may or may not have lost my patience haha. Just because we had 3 people kind of say they were desperate to learn English, and we spent a week deciding on a time, sent like 7 confirmation texts and everything then when the time finally came the guy who wanted the classes the most said, "I'm working right now I can't go," and his wife says, "He works on Wednesdays; can we switch to Tuesdays?"  Oh well, she actually ended up joining later on and we talked to her for 15 minutes and she's really nice. We have another lesson on Tuesday. After that Elder Bodily and I made a little video to send to the EFY in Brazil to show them what missionaries do during the quarantine. 

Thursday

We had weekly planning on Thursday, still a lot to do to prepare this area for the the next missionaries and progress is slow because of the virus, but at least there's plenty to do. Pedro O hasn't been able to meet with us to prepare for baptism, so we talked to him about changing his date, and he still has yet to get back to us. 

Friday

We started the day with a long voice call lesson with Augost that went GREAT. Elder Bodily ended up talking for most of the time this particular lesson, and Augost kept saying "Oh I agree, Jeffrey," and "Thanks Jeffrey" etc. That cracked me up a bit haha. It's weird having someone refer to me by my first name, but he met us through Facebook so that's why. Next, we invited Deborah N to church to which she was excited. She's awesome, does all the work and wants to get an answer. From there, we had another in person district council, for which Elder Bodily and I made some banging cookies. Next Elder Bodily finally had our first argument, I'm surprised it took 3 weeks haha. It was on whether or not reading out loud in Portuguese helps your accent. Finally we had one more lesson, we called and he declined. His message explaining why said (translated) "I'm in the bathroom, call me in an hour." Which made Elder Bodily and I question what he ate that put him out of commission for the next hour haha. 

Saturday 

We had another 4 hour trip to find a place to do our car's state inspection, but each place once we got there said, "we don't do it here, but they do it at..." we came home empty handed. I've seen the worst driving in the past week of my entire life, which is saying something consider I see myself every time I drive. Anyways, from there we came home and got our master chef on making fried rice and had some lessons.

Sunday Funday

The day of the Lord! We did the normal stuff, taught sunday school, had some lessons aaaaaaaaaand after only 3 weeks in the field, I finally had a member meeting go through! We met someone named Sister Vilme, who was so sweet and such a blast to talk to. It makes me excited for the end of the quarantine where I can hopefully meet the members and get to know them a lot better. 

1. A meme me and Elder Bod squad made, that you wont understand fully unless you have been in meme culture for the past 3 or so years. 

3. The fried rice me and Bod Squad made  

2. The mess afterwards