No Brasil for you

Tuesday:

We left early morning to drop off my covid test in a FedEx drop box before the pick up truck came. I would later learn that this would be my downfall. From there, we went to service where we sorted meat product for 3 hours. One cool thing is that Elder Moody and Elder Thomas were there, so we got to hang out a bit. I talked most of the time to Elder Thomas about Wheel of Time, Stormlight Archive, and working out. After that, I sent all my winter stuff home! My first time sending a package, and I hope I didn't mess it up. Especially because I insured none of the stuff in it. After that, we had one final lesson with Nancy! After she got The Book of Mormon, she read all the stuff we highlighted and sent me a message on facebook thanking me for everything. We marked a lesson for that night, and it went great! We talked a lot about the Book of Mormon and explained the Gospel of Jesus Christ to her. I got a screenshot with me and her for old times sake then waved goodbye! 

Wednesday: 

Dang, my last day with Elder Meshke and Elder Slade. I can't lie; it was weird. I've had probably my best start to a transfer so far, and it was sad to be leaving. But I was still more than ready to go to Brasil (ironic).Yesterday, I borrowed the sisters' blow dryer to dry off a sweater I hand washed, plus give them my transfer journal. So in the morning we went to get the stuff, and took one last walk around the park. We even found a really cool snow bear someone made. I got all my stuff together while the other elders signed my book, then wrote in theirs, and we took off to go to Revere! Once we got there, we went and got haircuts together, because everything in Conneticut was closed for the snow storm. It was there I learned something interesting; I speak spanish. Ok ok, not really haha, but I was able to communicate with the barber. After that, we went to a Brazilian bakery Elder Slade used to go to when he worked here. By that time, the other elders were finally home from service. So we made our goodbyes and I made my hellos to Elder Newman, Elder Neeleman, and Elder Feliciano. (Plus Elder Derosia, but he wasn't a part of our original apartment, haha). I called a lady from my old area named Katia and had one final lesson with her, then updated Elder Slade and Elder Meshke on how the lesson went and got to work with Elder Feliciano's phone. I called all the old people I used to teach in Revere, but who they had stopped teaching. I set lessons with 6-7 of my old friends, including Pedro Oliveira and Francis!!! Both people I had invited to be baptized, but they had lost contact with. They were both excited to talk with me, and in Francis's case, he stopped using his old phone, which is why he stopped answering. He only answered this time by a miracle. So he gave me his new number for the other elders to call on Friday. It's really sad when someone you're teaching ghosts you, especially when they were preparing for baptism, so it's really nice to see that not only did it work out, it wasn't because of any negative feelings on his part. Then we went to see Elder Morris to get the key to the chapel. He was stoked to see me, and you already know we took some pics together. From there, I went to the chapel to print out all my flight info. for the next morning. It was then I got an email telling me I needed to register my covid test. I was worried, because the instructions didn't say anything about that when I took the test and sent it in. Then when I made my account, it said the Covid test hadn't been received. I called a bunch of people and everyone told me to sit tight, and that's what I did. We were, however, late back to the apartment, haha. My last thought was that on my last night of my mission in MBM, I'm sleeping on the floor at the foot of the bed, exactly what I did my first day of the mission. Same apartment, same spot, haha. 

Thursday: 

And here's the bad news. I woke up to the information that FedEx lost my Covid test, and because of that, I would no longer be cleared to fly to Brasil. My flight was cancelled, but I wasn't too worried. Revere is MY area!!! And I love it here and have a lot of connections to the ward and people being taught. I had a lesson with Augosto too which was AWESOME!!! He still hasn't been baptized, because he can't go to church. But I had some real talk with him, and he gave me a hard promise to go two times this month. We will see! After that, I went to service with Elder Feliciano and Elder Neeleman. We went to a place where people donate stuff for the homeless and needy. We organized random boxes of stuff that makes no sense for 3 hours then I got a call from the assistants. Here's where things spice up. Rather than having me stay in Revere, in my OG area, that is next to the airport, they are having me go all the way to Rhode Island until my flight next week. I can't complain, because I'll be with Elder Bodily, and I love that guy, but I don't have much interest in working in someone else's area for a week. On top of that, the area book app we use for the mission kicked me out, because it thinks I'm in Brazil and won't let me use it which makes it a lot harder to work. AND, the office elders assumed I would be leaving, so last week when they gave everyone funds for food, they didn't give me any. I decided not to complain, because I had enough left over in my account to make it a week. But now I'm staying another week and at this point it's too late for them to put money in, so I have to beg extra money from home for groceries, etc. Anyways, it was still really good seeing Elder Bodily when he came to get me, and his companion, Elder Bradshaw, is a lot of fun. Once I got down there, I got notified that they found my Covid test, and because my connecting flight to Brazil hadn't left yet, I would have been able to go had I just flown on the plane to Georgia lol. (We fou d out later that they wouldn't have let him take the flight to Georgia since it checks him all the way to Brazil.) Oh well. We had exchanges in Rhode Island. The other elders' internet had been down all day, and I said, "I don't mean to brag, but I set up my own router in college," and turned it on and off again, and it started working, haha. Dumb luck.

Friday:

Sooooo, I accidentally took Elder Feliciano's car keys with me, and we had to drive all the way back to drop them off. Once we were home, we also had a Zone training to get to. It was a great Zone training, and I always love meeting new people. From there we parked and sprinted back to the apartment for lessons and had lessons for two hours straight. Only 2 lessons, but both ran long. We had a normal contacting time after that and went to the chapel for an English class. On our way home, we passed by the apartment basketball courts, and the other elders showed me. There were two drunk girls in there who were trying really hard to get us to play with them. They kept saying 5 minutes just 5 minutes, you guys are soooo lame, what are you scared. They thought we had British accents and were telling us we could drink wine with them and chill etc. I pointed out we were wearing white shirts and ties and they suggested we just take them off. After minute or two of them not taking no for an answer, I got annoyed and just walked away. The other elders couldn't leave me, so they were forced to follow and that solved that problem. They kept asking which floor we lived on and saying they lived on the second, so we made double sure to lock our doors that night in case those crazies followed us or something. 

Saturday: 

The other elders had their interviews with President, but because I already did mine I took the chance to study and annotate my patriarchal blessing. It was a blast! We started our fast for Sunday after lunch, and decided to play some basketball for exercise time. When we got there, some other elders from the apartment were there, and what would have been some casual shooting turned into intense game of knockout. The reason I bring this up is because it worked all our appetites up a ton. And we were super thirsty haha. Makes for a stressful contacting time!

Sunday: 

My first time going to a Portuguese ward on the mission! I really liked it, and a lot of the testimonies were amazing! There are a lot of Cape Verdians here, and their accent is hard to pick up, but I still got a lot out of it. Afterwards, a Cape Verdian man started telling me about his mission to Portugal when he was younger. He told us a ton of stories about the racism he saw there, being chased off the street, a kid throwing mud at him and when he asked why the kid said cause he's an n word, (Actually P word, but that's the English equivalent), and people always yelling at them from vans and stuff. It kinda puts into perspective how much simpler my mission is, and I respect him a lot. 

Monday: 

Pretty great P-day. I got to go to District P-day with Bods District, and it was fun. We went to a trampoline park and messed around for an hour and a half. I finally found a sport I'm good at. The one where you stand on the beam and have a big foam stick and try and knock each other off. I can't quite say I went undefeated, but I am ready to go pro, and was declared champ. From there we headed home, let's see what this week holds. I'm optimistic, especially because my covid test came today (even though FedEx mismailed it).  The only problem is that Elder Bodily can't taste anything he eats 😶. If I get covid now I'm gonna be so annoyed, haha. Ate mais 

Elder Bodily Outta Here!

Saying Goodbye to Elder Bodily

Tuesday: Started off by going hard for Elder Bodily's last day. We called all of the people we were teaching to mark with them as well as all of our interested people. Once we had taken care of that, we spent the time packing and cleaning up for Elder Feliciano to get here. It was a pretty quiet but busy day. And we ended it by making hot dogs, because Brother Horta had just given us a pack of like 30 haha. 

Wednesday: Big Day! First things first. I met my grandpa! That is to say, I met Elder Bodily's trainer, and we took a picture together to show 3 generations of missionaries. From there, I found Elder Feliciano. We all said hi to our friends and went home! Elder Feliciano served 8 months in his home in Mozambique, then went to the MTC, and now he's been here. He has 18 months on the mission, and I'm excited to see the new ideas he brings to this area! We had to hurry home, because I had some ribs in the oven. When we got back, he said he wasn't hungry right then. So I may or may not have impulsive eaten all of them. Then when he finished unpacking and asked where I put them, I felt really bad. But we didn't have much time to mope as we went to service after that. We signed the proper forms for him and got busy putting bags of potatoes together. We had English class after that and randomly got called in the middle of it. But when we tried to return the call, whoever it was had blocked us. 

Thursday: We woke up and realized that we didn't have the key to the chapel to meet Augosto. We called the Zone Leaders and Spanish Elders and finally were able to rush down to get the key and got there just in time for our lesson. Only for him to let us know he wouldn't be going to the chapel. Oh well. We still had a great lesson over the phone, and Elder Feliciano was excited to meet, Augosto. Later in the day, we had a member lesson set up with someone in the English group. And it was sooooo nice teaching in English. But it's much easier finding people to teach who are Portuguese speaking. I sometimes wish I could find in Portuguese and teach in English, haha. Anyways, after that we had some more English classes. We also had a lesson with Reginaldo and shared the rest of the restoration with him. It was great, and I loved seeing Elder Feliciano in action. He teaches very straight forward. By watching him, I've realized that because I was born in the church, I skip around the restoration a little bit, because I'm worried it will sound weird. Elder Feliciano is a convert at the age of 17, so he says everything with a confidence that comes from having heard this all as something new before. It was really cool. 

Friday: So I was studying a general conference talk from April 2005 by Thomas S Monson. I was thinking about how God allows us to have consequences for our actions as a part of the gift of agency. If the bad things people did didn't have consequence, our choices wouldn't matter. That's why He doesn't always directly interfere with the world, but He does inspire people through small and simple prompting of the Spirit. A spiritually in tune person acting on a small prompting can achieve great things to help others, but the problem is that a lot of times we don't recognize or act on the promptings. But imagine the good that could come from a world where everyone was worthy to receive and act with spiritual promptings! How would our lives change? We had district counsel today and started off with some get to know you questions. We were supposed to say a trait we admire in our companions. When it came to us, Elder Feliciano spaced on my name, haha. Hard question when you've only known someone for two days, haha. But district counsel went great, and afterwards we met a member and her son, Rosalyne and Ryan. They were really special; it was our first time meeting someone in a park! While we were getting to know Ryan, he pointed at a boy and said, "That's my friend," and so we asked his name. Ryan said, "I'll go ask him," and ran over and came back and told us. A little while later, the mother of the boy came up to us and said gruffly, "Why were you asking for my son's name?" Whoops! We worked it out, but I can only imagine her fear as two 19-year-olds in suits and ties talking to an old lady and a 6-year-old in a park learned her son's name. 

 

Saturday: So, they updated the rules for the mission so that we are finally able to wear floral ties which

The dreaded floral tie

means I finally put on my favorite tie. Every day I would get ready and go to pick a tie and start to grab that one, then stop myself and say quietly "not yet" haha. I've been studying the Old Testament a lot lately, and today I was thinking about why the Jews were so frustrated with the taxes of the Roman's. It seems such a normal thing to us. Well, in Deuteronomy, it makes the Jewish laws clear. They have very specific rules on tithing and helping the poor. It was seen as a duty to God and a sign of devotion. The Romans coming in and demanding taxes almost was a mockery of the Divine, almost like the Roman's were demanding devotion to them instead to God. It was an interesting study session. Elder Feliciano has been talking about how we need to start calling all the people that the missionaries stopped teaching in the past. I wasn't excited about it, but out of his first 4 calls, he had 3 responses and was able to set a lesson! It made me think about how important it is to be implementing a variety of strategies in sharing the gospel. On Saturdays, we have Walk in the Light devotionals with various people from around the world. This week was with Ty Detmer, a BYU quarterback and Heisman trophy winner. When he was sharing his conversion story, something struck me. He made the comment that if your testimony isn't growing, then it's regressing. That's why slothfulness is a sin, because God wants us to keep moving forward, and if we are not doing the simple things to grow our testimony then our progress will not only stop, but will begin to go backwards. After the devotional, I was talking with a guy we are teaching named Kleber, and he said he was planning on going to our church tomorrow. I had to explain to him that they were limiting the amount of people who could go, and he wouldn't be able to unless he attended with us next week. But we are also only allowed to bring one person per week which means we can't bring him and Francis or Augosto. It's definitely very frustrating that I have to tell more people on my mission that they can't go to church than I have invited to church. But we have to have patience with these things and trust that the Lord is providing the means for these people to receive the gospel. 

Sunday: We went to the chapel for a lesson with Artur only for him to have already gone home. So we ended up calling him and doing that instead. He is still doing great and asked about Francis which is an awesome sign that Francis will be accepted into the ward well after we leave. I've been studying a lot in Preach my Gospel, and I was thinking about someone we are teaching who wants to feel the Spirit that other people talk about, but doesn't really care about reading the Book of Mormon. I was directed to Moroni's promise, that if anyone reads and studies the Book of Mormon and prays about it with the intention that they will act on the answer they receive, they can receive an answer that it is true. I was thinking about why God would inspire that promise; what's in it for Him? Well, He's our Father and loves us for one. So this scripture is providing an incentive to pray, (receiving an answer), and that means He will be able to hear from us and have a personal relationship. But why does it take time? Why does it take continual study? Well, the whole reason He wants us to read the Book of Mormon is because it will show us how to live our lives in a way that will bring the most joy. That means studying and abiding by its precepts. He wants us to be able to learn the Book of Mormon's teachings so we can be happier and return to Him. It's a win win for Him. We are happier, and talk to Him more. One funny thing that happened this week is that I made pasta twice. The Portuguese word for pasta is macarrão; the word for monkey is macaco, and the word for car jack is also macaco depending on how you use it. Anyways, over the last couple days, I have repeatedly talked about cooking monkeys and car jacks. 

 

Monday: Today a girl Elder Feliciano was talking to was sharing things a Jehovah's Witness was telling her about our church, none of which are true: we don't believe in the Bible, talking about how we don't believe in the second coming, we don't worship Christ, to which Elder Feliciano responded with a picture of our name tag showing that it was The Church of Jesus Christ. It was a funny experience, but we are glad because she wasn't taking him seriously. It's weird how people actually say all this, when if you wanted to know the truth you could just ask literally any member.

Elder Feliciano didn't know how to use chopsticks, so I was showing him how using butterknives.

I went to get a haircut and the guy just started buzzing it off with no warning. It will grow back, right?

Our last district picture before transfers in a couple of days.

Tuesday: 

I had an umbrella for the first part of the conversation,
but at some point, I realized it wasn't doing any good.
We were soaked through our clothes!

So the big thing that happened today was that Elder Bodily and I went to run to the store across the street and ran into a drunk guy named Dan. We talked to him for well over an hour in the pouring rain, haha. He had interesting stories mostly about poor choices he'd made in his life and the consequences. At the end, he was talking about how grateful he was for us and that we were doing God's work even though we didn't really do anything for him. It made me think about the General Conference talk about how there's so many people in the world talking, and a lot of their problems would be helped by someone listening. We finally said goodbye, and he said he was gonna go to sleep under his porch. 

After that, we had a lesson with a guy named Willie; it was probably my most personal lesson ever. I talked about my personal conversion story, and we really connected over his desire to feel what everyone else talks about feeling. 

Wednesday: 

Started off by dropping the car off to the sisters. I only keep mentioning it, because I like starting the day off with a walk. We had a normal day and ended by dropping off a Book of Mormon and cookies for Willie. He lives in the same apartment as the Haitian Creole Elders, so they let us in and then he talked for a bit. They are really great missionaries and are basically single handedly building a Haitian creole branch here.

I love these missionaries! The Haitian Creole Elders are doing amazing things.

Thursday:

Today was a GREAT day. We had a chapel tour with Augosto which was amazing for a few reasons. First off, this was our first time ever actually seeing him, because we only do voice calls. Second off, it was my first time ever having an in-person lesson. Lastly, because at the end, we set a goal for his baptismal date. His testimony is growing so much, and he always talks about how he knows he's on the right path! We celebrated by getting Popeye's, which I only point out 'cause it was my second time ever! It killed our grocery budget, but it was worth it. 

We were doing some calls to people who had lost contact with the missionaries and found a guy named Campos. We had talked with him about 2 months ago. He had wanted to meet us again, but we forgot to mark him as interested, and so we never got back in contact! I'm super embarrassed about that. 

That night, we had a lesson with Francis and met his daughter Ana. She's great; I can't wait to get to know the whole family. 

Friday:

There was a training planned before district council, but it got cancelled, so we got to just sit and talk for an hour about our areas and what's going well. We planned our district p-day until our meeting started. 

It was a slow day with no lessons, so we delivered cookies to a bunch of people we were teaching and feijoada to the missionaries in our district. When we got home, Keke called us out of no where and we had a fun lesson with him. We will see where that leads. I'm hopeful.

Yup. I'll miss him.

Saturday:

We went to go get Elder Bodily's mask from the Spanish Elders, and when we got home Marillia, another woman we are talking to, asked if we could talk. We had a lesson with her, and it was a lot of fun. At the end of the day, we got transfer texts aaaaaand Elder Bodily is out of here! My next companion will be Elder Feliciano from Mozambique! We were high energy, so we walked to the store and bought some magnum bars and KitKats and called it a day! 

Sunday:

We got to go to church in person, and they bumped the number of people allowed in a room up to 50! So we were able to meet more people in the ward a little bit and say Hi to the Hortas. When we got home, we had a lesson with a lady named Mary. Right as it started, a member in the ward texted, "I'll be at your house in 15 minutes to bring you dinner!" But because the call was on Elder Bodily's phone we couldn't answer haha. So he had to wait a little bit, but we were so grateful!

Monday: 

District P day!!!! It was great, we planned to go on a hike at 9. Elder Bodily and I got to the trailhead and there were no other cars, so we called the group to see how close everyone was. The Salem Elders were at the store buying a pumpkin; the sisters were just leaving; the Haitian Creole Elders were still in the shower, haha. Anyways, after the hike, we skipped rocks, went to a park, and carved pumpkins. We ended the day with a basketball game where a random guy who was getting off work asked to join in and smoked us all, haha. At least he was on my team. 

We headed home and had a lesson with Campos. It went really well. He's a great guy! We had a random text from some unsaved number who somehow knew our names and like cussed us out for being missionaries. That was weird and not fun, but I'm kinda sad that for some reason he has had such a negative experience with religion that he takes time out of his day to seek us out and send that. 

3 Nephi 12:11 And blessed are ye when men shall ^arevile you and persecute, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake;

12 For ^aye shall have great joy and be exceedingly glad, for great shall be your ^breward in heaven; for so ^cpersecuted they the prophets who were before you.

13 Verily, verily, I say unto you, I give unto you to be the ^asalt of the earth; but if the salt shall lose its savor wherewith shall the earth be salted? The salt shall be thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and to be trodden under foot of men.

14 Verily, verily, I say unto you, I give unto you to be the light of this people. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.

15 Behold, do men light a ^acandle and put it under a bushel? Nay, but on a candlestick, and it giveth light to all that are in the house;

16 Therefore let your ^alight so shine before this people, that they may see your good works and ^bglorify your Father who is in heaven.

Have a great week. Here are some more silly pictures for your enjoyment.

Tuesday:

So, an exciting thing today, Devanir is an older guy we are teaching. We are on a timeline to teach him fast, because he's in ill health. Unfortunately, he's almost impossible to contact. He's really elect but is constantly in the hospital. We've called him over a dozen times and sent texts and no response. So we decided to mark him as stopped teaching. But as we were doing it, I got a bad feeling, and Elder Bodily said he felt it too. So we decided to call one more time. And guess what! He lives with his brother in law, and he said his brother in law didn't want us coming over and "mixing things up" as he put it. His brother in law is a very prominent religious leader in Boston, but Devanir said he didn't see a reason why we couldn't drop off a Book of Mormon. He gave us the name of his street, but his accent was so thick that we couldn't understand him, and he didn't know how to spell it! So we wrote down a couple versions of the name before he had to go. Bodimer, Bolderler, Boldier, etc. Then Bodily and I zoomed in on the map and went street by street through east Boston until I found a street that seemed close. Elder Bodily said it out loud but saying the name in a Brazilian accent. We decided that was the one! Then we didn't have a house number, just the description that it was a green house. We were praying there was a green house on that street. And guess what? There was. So we dropped off the Book of Mormon and are praying he got it. We haven't been able to reach him since, but that is the way it goes with him. 

Elder Bodily was Facebook finding later and talking to a guy who asked him how he could know his purpose... which is an amazing question! I made the comment, "I wish I could get questions like that, all I get are pro-debaters trying to tear into me about why my beliefs are wrong!" We cracked up about that, then moments later I had the opportunity to respond to a similar question haha! From there we had another amazing lesson with Francis, and it ended with him asking if we could meet again on Friday. I love him so much. 

Wednesday:

Today Elder Bodily and I got ready and dressed for an interview with president. We were waiting for the zoom link for about ten minutes of silence before we realized our meeting was tomorrow, haha. Anyways, after that we had some service to do. We were working on giving out food baskets. The way it works is the people go to the counter, say how many people in their family, then get a ticket for the appropriate amount of food, and finally Elder Bodily and I get it for them. The largest food package is for 7 people. Along with the other volunteers were cracking up a bit at... how big the families were today. We had about 50 people come through in a row all with 7 people in the family, which was weird because all of them were elderly and alone! No harm no foul though, haha. It mainly is funny, because the food pantry is open all week and never has a long wait, so if you are running low on food you can just come back. Oh well. Maybe they don't like going out. We stayed a little longer than normal, because there were some shortages, and they needed our help. Then rushed home for a lesson, and an English Class. Brother Horta called and said he has some stuff to give us. You see we, had mentioned we were going to give gift bags with invitations to to some families in our ward for our new family home evening idea. He had some stuff for us to put in the bags. 

Thursday:

We went over to get the stuff from Brother Horta. We were thinking it would be some candy or mints, but we should have known better, haha. This is Brother Horta. Instead, he gave us a giant duffel bag of water bottles, about 100 pens, a bunch of mints, and some pill counter containers. We needed bigger bags after that! Elder Bodily and I turned to go to the store to get some but on our way out he asked us if we wanted some more apples. When we went back, he asked if we drank milk. When we said ya, he brought a gallon of milk and asked if we liked ribs. Then he brought us three things of pork ribs and told us how to slow cook them properly!!! He is just the best, no other word appropriate. 

After that we had a lesson with Augosto and marked a day to meet him at the chapel next week, which will be my first in person lesson! Actually my first time seeing a person we are teaching, haha. After that spiritual high, we had weekly planning and interviews with president. From there we started the Pork Ribs and had a lesson with a guy I met named Roni. It was an ok lesson, but there was a party or something in the background 'cause it was SOOOOO loud. Elder Bodily and I were basically yelling for the entire hour it lasted. But he's a great guy and has a beautiful family. After that lesson we were exhausted, so we made some hot chocolate and took the ribs out of the oven. Thank you sooooo much brother Horta cause they were BOMB. 

Friday:

Started off with district counsel. The meeting went a little over and the Zone leaders came to talk to us and told us we shouldn't be talking to people any longer than district counsel because of corona. That was disappointing, but it's also life. We went home and made some mac and cheese for lunch. I wanted to grate some sharp cheese they gave us at service, but I may have grated too much, because it made the macaroni sooooo gross. While we were sick from that, I made cookies for the gift bags and Elder Bodily wrote the FHE invitations. 

Saturday:

Started off interesting. I got poked by a bodybuilder on Facebook. I was excited to talk to someone who shared my interested, so I responded and asked him how he was. He said ok just a little sore. I asked how his quarantine was going and he blocked me. 😅 Interesting to say the least. Elder Bodily and I dropped off the gift bags after that. At one of the houses, we walked by the kid who lived there. He's around 6. He said hi to us, and we said hi back and asked how he was. He was really cute, but we thought it was the next house over that was the member's house! So we walked over, then Elder Bodily said, wait, I think that was him😅. So we hurried back and gave him the gift bag and waved at them through the door. When we got home, I was talking to Roni about our love for Churrasco, and he invited me to come over and have one. He said he'd do the meat if I'd bring the pão de açucar. It broke my heart to politely decline, but I promised as soon as I was allowed to I'd let him know.  

Sunday: 

Sunday started off with Elder Bodily and I making a video for the zone page, which I would then post on my Facebook. Elder Bodily had a disappointing start. He made a plate of bacon and eggs and was walking to the table when he remembered it was fast Sunday. Heartbreaking, but it happens to the best of us. When the time finally came for us to break our fast, we were starving! As we were getting ready to eat, the phone rang, and the member on the line asked where we were and said she was at the park waiting. We were very panicked, especially because she was speaking in Portugese, and we are the only Portuguese Elders in the area. But as it turns out she was meeting with the Zone Leaders, not us. So crisis averted. From there we went to the park to grab the keys to the church from the Zone Leaders and that member was the member from earlier! She said when we were leaving she was waving at us and telling us to stop but we couldn't hear. She said she had a pizza she wanted to give us. Needless to say we were broken hearted, haha. After that, she went calling a bunch of missionaries trying to figure out who gave her the gift bag. (Didn't see that we left our number in the bag) How funny that when she finally did call us it was by accident, haha. Anyways, once we got the keys, we went to the church to use the computer to look up games to play over zoom for our FHE. We worked with the Sisters to plan the rest of our FHE which happened Monday. 

Monday: 

Not much to talk about other than the FHE. There were only two other member families other than us and the sisters, but it was a blast! We hope it grows and turns into something they can invite friends. We all got to know each other, played two truths and a lie with the kids, then had a spiritual thought about General Conference. It was incredibly spiritual. One of the members shared about her son's medical problems and the stress of knowing he could die any day. She talked about the peace she felt throughout as she listened to general conference and bore her testimony that she knew it would be ok. It was so powerful!

October 2020 General Conference

 Tuesday:

Started off the day by getting a ride to the Firestone to pick up our car. The guy there said that he called us, and we didn't answer. We asked him what number he called, and he read off our number but changed the 3 to a 4. It felt good to get the car back, until we had to give it to the Haitian Creole Elders two hours later. We got to work inviting people to general conference. Over the course of the week, we sent messages or wrote letters to 91 people about general conference. And 5 people responded. 

Wednesday: 

The sisters asked us if they could borrow our car at 8:15 AM. Because sisters and elders aren't allowed to drive together, we meet half way in between, so that the person without the car doesn't have to walk as far. But first we had to wake up early and have the Haitian Creole elders bring our car back, then we dropped them back off, only for the sisters to cancel and say they didn't need it anymore, haha. We had service to do after that. I don't think I need to say anything more than it was as fun as always seeing real life people other then quick drive-bys. After the food bank, we got a call from Brother Horta; we talked about getting him in contact with some people we were teaching to help fellowship them. He was really willing and went on to say he had been thinking about what we could do to help get in touch with other members here and introduce them to our friends we are teaching. We suggested that on Mondays we have a family night where the sisters and we can invite the members and their families along with anyone we're teaching, to have some time to study the scriptures together, play some games, and maybe play some get-to-know-you games. He then let us know he would be there to help us for anything. It's so awesome to have such a great guy in our corner, and we are really excited to implement his ideas. 

Thursday:

We had our weekly lesson Augosto and extended the invitation to be baptized. He was really excited, and expressed that it was his intention but, he was just waiting for God to issue a personal calling to him to be baptized. We took that opportunity to remind him about General Conference, and invite him again. After that, we had a call with Francis. He answered and each time just said "oi, oi, oi, oi, oi, oi," until we hung up. Maybe it's just a bad connection? We hope he doesn't start dodging us, but if he does, he does. It's not our job to control peoples actions just try to give them the chance to listen. After that ,we worked on delivering letters for a bit aaaaaand the unthinkable happened. A big truck parked in front of our parking space, and while I was trying to squeeze in I scraped the side of our car. It's not too bad, just the paint, but I took a hit to my pride as I can no longer say that I've got a clean record. After that we had an English class. Our Thursday classes are extremely advanced, so we mainly just practiced talking in Portugese, and one of them asked our favorite movies. Elder Bodily was explaining his, The Count of Monte Cristo, and encouraging them to watch it. I searched it on facebook to see if I could find a picture of the cover to send to the group and the first result was the entire movie just uploaded onto Facebook hahaha. Poor Elder Bodily, so close yet so far. (As missionaries, we don't watch movies for the 2 years we are serving.)

Friday:

We had my second ever zone conference which is so awesome. It's pretty much my only opportunity to talk to missionaries outside of my district, so it was super refreshing. I loved hearing from President Mavromatis. Elder Bodily brought a guitar brother Horta gave to us and preformed a musical number. From there we all got a group picture and went home. I had one interesting experience with the gift of tongues, and it's not what you think. A lot of missionaries have stories of when they were talking and all the sudden they spoke words they didn't even remember and gave the perfect message. I'm going the other way. We were having a lesson, and Elder Bodily did something that annoyed me, and because it was late and I was tired, I spent the rest of the lesson getting angry about it. I fixated it in my mind and the Spirit immediately left. Even though I dropped it, I felt the Spirit's absence. I couldn't understand as well; I could barely respond; and my communication was horrible. In time, I repented and humbled myself, and like putting on a pair of glasses, everything became clearer. It didn't get easier, I just had what I needed to communicate in the lesson. God's blessings are real, and so present that often times we don't even recognize them or take them for granted. But we need to be worthy of the Spirit in order to be blessed. 

Saturday: 

So, first session of General Conference... wow... it was awesome. If anyone reading this hasn't watched it, I'd encourage you to do so TODAY. I made some pumpkin chocolate chip cookies my mom sent me, and they were great. We went in between sessions and gave some away. In the second session, I was taking notes on Elder Utchdorf's talk in a journal my grandma gave me. On the bottom of each page, it has a scripture. Right as Elder Utchdorf was talking about patience through our burdens, and how we will be uplifted through our challenges in the quarantine, I got to the edge of the page where Mosiah 24:15 is shown. "The Lord did strengthen them, that they could bear their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord." God isn't going to take away our problems every time, but He will strengthen us, and uplift us. 

Sunday: 

After the first session of General Conference, which let me say was another awesome one, we went to drop some cookies off at the Salem Portuguese Elders' apartment. We got about 20 minutes in and Elder Bodily asked, "Did you grab any cookies?" So we had to drive all the way back to get them. By that time traffic picked up, and we got caught driving for an hour and half so we ended up watching conference at their apartment. I can't lie, it was nice to have an excuse to be around other people. During conference in the Sunday afternoon session, several speakers spoke on covenants made in the temple to prepare for missions and life. These covenants are referred to as an endowment. Because I left while the temples were still closed, I never received my temple endowment (something missionaries do in preparation to serve missions). I'm one of about 10 missionaries in our mission who hasn't gone yet. This conference, there was a big theme of unity and faith during hardship. And, Elder (Jeffrey) Holland did not disappoint. A thought occurred to me during his talk that helped me to think about why God allows us to have trials, and doesn't immediately answer our prayers every time. I love going to the gym, I like training, practicing, and most importantly, getting stronger. THE most frustrating experience you can have at the gym, is an overzealous spotter. Your spotter is intended to watch you press or lift a weight. And if you fail, help you track it rather than crush yourself. When you are in the middle of a set, and a spotter takes the weight before you are done, it is extremely annoying. Not only do they deny you the satisfaction of finishing strong, they deny you the growth and increase of strength that comes with activating your muscles. No one wants an overzealous spotter in the gym; it would take away the whole point of going to the gym. So why would we want an overzealous spotter everywhere else. If God always did all of the heavy lifting, we would never get the chance to get spiritually ripped. It was a great talk. Unfortunately, right in the middle of it the, Salem Elders got a phone call. The lady on the other end was not very technologically savvy. So we spent the rest of conference trying to tell her how to flip her camera back around and click the link. Then as soon as we finished helping her, Elder Bodily and I had to rush home for a lesson with a member. We didn't finished the last couple talks, or get to see the new temple assignments.But we have that to look forward to this week! One exciting thing happened after that. After months of hard work... I finished first place in diamond league for duolingo, haha. Funny how having an hour of language study a day can help you learn a language. 

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. 

Why Are We Afraid of the Dark?

I made it to Brazil! wink 

 Tuesday:

Tuesday was a monotonous day. Elder Bodily had a long list of people to contact on Facebook. Normally out of 50 or so people we contact, each on of us can find 2-3 interested people at least. Today however, I went through about 70 people and didn't find a single person interested in hearing a message. That was unusual and disappointing. Sadly, it was foreshadowing the pace for the week to a degree. But without a slow week here and there, we can't have a good week where we find more success; success is relative to the negative and positive experiences we have had in the past. We did however have lesson with the Vandanburg family which was awesome! They are a lot of fun to work with, and they wanted to know ways they could share the gospel with friends. We shared Ether 3-4 with them, and talked about the ways that the Lord helped the Brother of Jared overcome his trials and answer his prayers. 

Wednesday: 

We got to do service which is always good. There are a lot of great people, and I love getting to know them. Elder Bodily noticed one guy had a tattoo of the Earth Nation from Avatar the Last Airbender, so we talked to him about that; it was fun. When we were done after about 3 hours, they had a bunch of roll starters (froze raw dough) that they were going to throw away, so we took them and they were AMAZING. Such good rolls, nice and crunchy on the outside, but soft and moist in the inside. As well as that, they gave us some shirts that we could wear when we were working. They were perfect, because the name of the food kitchen is Bread of Life, which also happens to be a name for Christ whose message we are sharing, haha. Now we can rep. the gospel even when we aren't proselytizing. 

Thursday:

We had a lesson with Augosto, and it went really well! We talked about why he wasn't able to attend church, and he said he wanted to go next time. The calls with him are over audio, so we can't actually see each other while we're talking. I like to jump around when I'm teaching. Today we were in Alma, and I was reading random verses ahead and behind as they popped into my head. As I would go to a new verse, I could hear him flipping through to read along. I can't even describe how awesome that is; usually people just prefer that we read verses to them and don't even open their books unless we ask. But he is always willing to read when we ask him. With that, I of course made some celebratory cookies. Then I got a message from a guy named JR who is actually way outside of our area. But he has been researching religions and had been in contact with a friend of mine, Elder Minnick. He started off by asking me an interesting question, "Why are we afraid of the Dark?" He wanted me to answer, but he also wanted me to find scriptures and talks from modern prophets and apostles that answered this question. I was able search "afraid of the dark" in the gospel library app and find dozens of resources to share. When I shared the situation with the missionaries in my district, every single one of them sent me some talk or scripture to help. He doesn't know how many people care that he gets the answers to his questions, and neither do we. But there are legions of angels in heaven cheering for us behind the scenes, and I think that's awesome. He ended up grilling me for 2 1/2 hours about what I believed, and why I believe it, and whether or not I've ever had doubts. It ended with him downloading gospel library to learn for himself. So exciting! He asked if we could close with us saying a prayer, so we quickly called and said one together. I'm still in contact with him, and he's making progress answering his questions about life. From there, the big event of the day were exchanges with the Zone Leaders (we switch companions for the day to learn from someone new). It was a lot of fun, and very productive. I was with Elder Foster. It turns out he likes to read, so at the end, he and I got to nerd out a bit about Wheel of Time, Stormlight Archive, and Jack Reacher. 

Friday:

We started off with District counsel, then jumped straight into a technology training still at the church. Afterwards, we went home and worked on contacting interested people. It was a pretty discouraging contact session, but we got a message from a lady in our ward. She was going to bring us food, but didn't have time so she was gonna give us some money for food. When she got here she gave us $20 dollars! $40 is half of what we budget for every two weeks of groceries, haha. Looks like we are going to be able to eat out one of these days, and we are excited. 

Saturday:

We woke up to go to a park and do some pull ups, and on our way back we got a text from some sisters in our area. They had asked to borrow the car the day before, and we completely spaced it. So we hurried and met them at a high school parking lot to give them the car, then walked home. When we got back, we had some more Facebook time, and you guessed it, not a lot of success... Until I got a message from a lady named Gleisiane. She asked questions about a video I had posted about the plan of salvation, then asked if I had any other videos like that to send her. I showed her the area facebook page and talked to her about our message. It was a great pick me up. I always say that online missionary effort is better for the work, more challenging for the missionary. You are able to reach out to a lot more people, and finding/teaching is much easier, but at the same time it's less gratifying than sharing messages face to face. I do videos on Facebook but am never sure if anyone actually watches or cares about them, so it was so amazing to see that this woman appreciated them so much. It goes to show that you never know the effect you will have on people. Here I was wondering if anyone even wanted to see the videos I was sharing, and they brightened her day. By the same token, she was absently commenting about what she appreciated about them, and it helped to uplift me. If you're not sure whether doing something nice will have a good effect on someone, do it anyways. Better you do something nice that goes unnoticed than miss the opportunity to care for someone in need. After that session, we jogged about a mile back to the high school to pick up our car, came home and called some members of our congregation. We were finally able to get into contact with one guy; the only problem is that he's moved to California, haha. Oh well, we helped him get in contact with the missionaries down there, so it's a victory in my book. 

Sunday:

We had ward council with the Bishop and his clerks. It went really long, but we got some good coordination done. We had a message from the Zone Leaders in the Zone Chat asking every companionship to write and send a poem summarizing the week. I decided to take some initiative and start everyone off with this masterpiece of a haiku,

We had a good week,

We got ignored by people,

But we made cookies. 

Needless to say it was a hit. We got a call from the Sisters asking if we could help them figure out something on zoom for a primary lesson they were teaching, which reminded us that we had a primary lesson to teach in 5 minutes. So we rushed to figure out what the topic for this week was and gave it our best. All things considered, it went really well. We also made a video for some other sisters to post on the mission Facebook page. We then had some more work with members. Needless to say, I was pretty worn out and discouraged. I just said a prayer and talked about how tired and discouraged I was, and asked for help finding the energy and the desire to just do the things that day that I needed to do. I immediately felt refreshed; like I had jumped in a pool of cool water. Out of the people we called, 3/4's of them responded. Though we didn't set up times to talk, we had great conversations and got to know them a little bit. One of them was another guy who had moved without sending his information over, so we helped him with that. He let us know that next time he worked with someone who lived in Everett, he would send them our way, haha. We'll be waiting!

This is what I've been reduced to if I want to workout my chest.

Not letting go of the fact that my mom repeatedly said I'd only be eating taquitos all day every day.