Divison in Itupeva São Paulo

So this exchange was pretty uneventful to be honest. I was with Elder Me.. and Elder Ma... Elder Me.. is a zone leader with about the same time in the mission as me. And Elder Ma.. is a greenie. It was an interesting division; we had some good moments, but the entire week we only taught two planned lessons and everything else was in the street. Elder Ma.. was really excited to work. He said it’s the first time he's really worked hard in this area. Elder Me.. is a great elder but he's having a pretty rough time (his father passed away recently). He's been a great missionary for a lot of his mission, but has hit a wall. It’s sad to me for two reasons: Elder Ma.. and the area. Elder Me.. has had his experiences, but Elder Ma.. is new in the mission field and still has a lot to learn. This time that could be preparing Elder Ma.. to live an obedient, happy, and spiritual mission/life; instead, is teaching him that the gospel is kind of gray; whatever you do matters, as long as you’re on the mission. I can't really put it into words. But it’s like Elder Me.. went to the gym and got ripped, but now he's comfortable with where he's at, tired and wants to settle down. But Elder Ma.. is just a young buck; he doesn't know how to work yet, and without an example it’s going to be significantly harder for him to build the muscle, do the workouts right, have the right diet, etc. 

Then there's the area. The missionaries have an AMAZING area. The members are SUPER excited for missionary work, the street contacts are super strong, and 6 of every 10 door approaches let you in. But at the same time they are opening the area, which is a huge responsibility. And it’s hard seeing the positive side when you're trying to start over again. 

I don't blame Elder Me.. though, he's had a really hard time recently, and during the exchange we were able to set some meaningful goals on how to improve. We talked about Abraham sacrificing his son, and how he did that not to prove anything to the Lord, but to prove to himself that he had what it took to be obedient to the Lord; that because he trusted the Lord when it was hard, he was able to live the rest of his life having a much higher degree of inner peace. Then I compared it to the mission, and how we are not really here on the mission because God needs a bunch of 20 year old’s to do His work; He could easily do it Himself. But He wants us to learn what it’s like to be obedient, to trust in Him, to understand the principles of His gospel and how they can change lives. He wants us to willingly sacrifice everything so that when we get home we can live the rest of our lives knowing that during those 2 short years we gave it all, and when we were called we answered, we were strong enough. The missionaries who just go on the mission to go on a mission sacrificed 2 years, too. But when they get home, are they going to feel the same joy? Will they have the same depth of conversion? The short answer is no. Same thing with the guys in the middle, who go and work a little, keep the big rules, but then blow off the small ones. They are going to have some joy when they get home, but it’s not going to be the same joy. It may be harder to remain faithful and endure to the end. Then we compare it to this life. In this life we pass through a lot of hardships, and we have a lot of responsibilities. But at the end of the day, it’s not about how much we did, it’s about how much we gave to God, how much we loved Him and put Him first in our lives. If we tried our best in this life, even though we had a lot of hardships, we can live for all eternity in peace. But the people who went down to earth, but made no effort to keep the commandments, to give their heart to God. Well, they will receive happiness, but when they reflect on their life, what they learned from it, and what they became, are they going to feel the same joy as the people who loved God with all their heart, who gave everything for their families and friends? No, they aren't. And the people who coasted by life, and kept the big commandments but ignored the little ones, or gave 60%, they will have a lot of happiness, but will they have the same comfort and joy looking back on their accomplishments? No. God loves us, and He wants to us to be happy, but He can't/won’t make us happy. He can only teach us how to be happy. He can only put us in the circumstances where we have the opportunity to prove to ourselves that we're strong, resilient, and that we love God more than ourselves. 

I know this is a lot, but I will finish up with this example. I asked Elder Me.. if he's ever run a race, a really long one, and asked him how it felt taking his socks off at the end. He said it felt good, and I asked him if it felt the same when he put socks on, walked to the other side of the room and came back to take them off, and he said no. It's a grimy example, but it’s pretty effective, ha-ha. It all comes down to whether or not you believe God in D&C 121:

7 My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment;

8 And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes.

I've always disliked sharing that scripture, because it’s overshared, ha-ha. But there's a reason for that. I went through and read it after this conversation and found a lot of cool stuff I'd never noticed before. It’s definitely worth the read if you have free time, assuming anyone other than my mom reads this essay. This was like a two-hour-long talk, and at the end of it we found an agreement, and I hope he's going to apply it a little bit and that it helps.

Everyone at the office has covid, so we went straight to our next division which is too bad. I love sleeping in my own bed. Air mattresses aren’t my favorite. But it’s all good. We played spike ball this morning and hearts during lunch ha-ha. I miss playing games. But I'll take my socks off two years from now, for now it’s just put on your shoes, and get out the door. 

Talk to you next week, love you guys

Diego's baptism

Crazy week. So let's see how much I remember; probably a lot, so sorry for the long email. (I say this every week) 

Tuesday:

Pretty normal day. We had a surprise devotional; it was long. That's because it wasn't really one devotional, but a string of devotionals from half the mission. It was one of those ones where everyone wants a turn to talk. We were talking about the conference talk of Elder Bednar. After that, we finally broke the no lesson curse! (Or so we thought) We finally got in contact with 3 of our best investigators, Denis, Ana, and Odair. We had lessons with all three, and they were so much fun. Our new strategy for when people aren't progressing is to switch to 15 minute lessons that happen every other day, and read the Book of Mormon with them. So far it's been working really well, especially with Ana.

Wednesday: 

Speaking of random unplanned events, the Zone leaders called us and let us know we would be doing an exchange starting today. This was a good surprise, 'cause it would be my first exchange and everyone says they are SUUUUUPER fun. Plus, I love my Zone Leaders right now. Elder Pompeu is this super energetic, super obedient Brazilian who loves everyone! And Elder Mons is the cousin of a missionary I knew in the MBM. Elder Mons and I hit it off just talking about the mission. We really bonded a lot over working hard in a difficult mission. He said the mission was getting "baptized" which is what happens when really suddenly a mission goes from having a low obedience standard to being super diligent. He was telling me in his old mission the Zone Leaders woke up at 6:00 am every day and stopped working at 10:15 pm, and that in one week they found 42 people... That's double what we found this month! And we are in Brazil! Elder Morrison and I ended up sticking together for our lesson, because the Zone Leaders had another meeting, but we read the Book of Mormon with Ana, then helped Diego prepare for his baptism. While we were in our lesson, the other elders bought us hot dogs. For those of you who don't know, Brazilian Hot Dogs are not my favorite thing in the world, haha. They have a brand of bread that's really soggy, plus they put on mashed potatoes, corn, this crunchy potato stuff called batata-palha. I tried to force it down, but ended up throwing it out the second they weren't looking. 

Thursday: Elder Mons and I opened our day on daily planning at 8:30, and before we knew it, it was 10 o'clock!  CRAZY! We had a day full of lessons planned but every single one fell through, so Elder Mons and I never actually ended up getting to teach together. But hey, at least I got to have the joy of a four elder companionship for a day. We played cards during our lunch hour, went and got subway together, and I finally had a little mental break which was nice, haha. More importantly, I filled out my first Baptismal form on the mission! 

Friday:

So no lunch for today 'cause when we tried to confirm with the member he blocked us haha, but that's fine 'cause I like cooking for myself anyways. After lunch, we had a devotional with Elder Bednar. I have to say, it was one of the highlights of my mission so far. It'd be impossible for me to say everything, but I learned soooo much, especially about how to seek personal revelation and teach by the Spirit. In the beginning, I got a shout out from Sister Bednar. She asked if I was Elder and Sister Bassett's son and talked about when they visited us when we lived in Brazil. They said it was so nice to see me all grown up, haha. Looks like my disguise is up. I have to say, I was kinda in shock when she said my name and asked if I was their son. I wasn't sure if I should unmute and say something or just give a thumbs up. I wasn't aware of what the zoom etiquette would be. But it worked out and I remembered why Elder Bednar is my favorite apostle. Of all the ones I've met, he seems the most real and the easiest to talk to. I love them so much. He encouraged us to never take notes on anything he says, whether in a devotional or general conference. Only to take notes on the words that aren't being said, the things the Spirit tells you. It was the most personal revelation I've ever gotten from a meeting. I had written down two questions from the heart that I wanted an answer to, and even though he never even remotely touched either topic, I had two amazing answers. Normally, I prefer to stay quiet during devotionals, but it's not every day you talk to an apostle, so that was the most engaged I've ever been in a devotional. Plus the new General Authority (Elder and Sister J. Costa) for Brazil was there, and I recognized that they were at our old apartment and sitting in my room, haha. 

When the devotional was over, the Bednar's said goodbye and no one left. We were all wishing it would keep on going. I felt like the Nephites in 3 Nephi 17:5 (I think, read around and see which one) One of the answers I got though referred to our missionary purpose. I wanted to know how to find more joy in the mission, even when things weren't going very well. The answer I got was that if you want to find the joy, you need to find the why. If you just go on your mission to go on your mission, or because it's what everyone does, you are going to hate it. You are leaving your family for two years, sacrificing your life, your hobbies, your interests everything, for no reason. If you go just to go, then you might as well stay home. But if you're here, be here for the right reason. Because you love the Lord, because you want to improve. Don't baptize just to baptize, baptize to bring souls unto Christ and help people find more joy in their life. People aren't numbers. There were a lot of really good tips he gave us on how to teach and speak with power. Sadly, after that every single one of our lessons fell through again. hahah. So no application time. At least, not yet.

Saturday: 

I'm really out here breaking all sorts of records. 3 Days in a row of every lesson falling through. I really can't complain, because there are a ton of missions where you scrape by to get one or two lessons. But the funny thing of the day is that today was supposed to be Diego's baptism. The Bishop asked that we move it, because there was a meeting with Elder Bednar later, and he wanted time to spiritually prepare. Ok no problem, but we forgot to tell the Elders quorum president, and so he went to the chapel and was waiting for everyone to get there. We had a really great zone family night. Everyone bore their testimonies, and it was really spiritual. 

Sunday: 

This day is gonna be the longest, so hang in there, Grandma, almost done. To start off, I'm gonna tell you about my personal study, because it was another home run. I was studying 2 Nephi 25, which is the chapter after he's been quoting Isaiah nonstop for like 12 chapters. And as he was talking about the plainness in Isaiah's words, it clicked to me what it teaches. I've been studying looking to understand prophecies and words. But Isaiah shows something much more importante. It teaches us about the nature of God. It just hammers in nonstop the law of Justice in connection with the Law of Mercy. It shows the personality and desires of God in a pure, raw and unrefined way all in one. I can't put everything into words, but it was really cool. After that, it made me realize something else that testified to the validity of the Book of Mormon for me. The Book of Mormon is very clearly written by multiple authors. It's something super subtle, but you can clearly see it if you're paying attention. Plus the very way each book is written changes. Nephi, for example, is written as a narrative; Moroni is written as a commentary; Alma is written as a historical depiction of events. And the different authors have different personalities. Where it most came across to me was in Nephi. Nephi has a very consistent personality. He is a person who bases everything on patience waiting upon the Lord, trusting in him, yet at the same time is very impatient with his brothers. You might consider that a character flaw, but I think it's more like he understood so clearly and is super exasperated with everyone else for not understanding. With his brothers for never having an eternal perspective, with his people for not understanding Isaiah... He understands the gospel more clearly than everyone else, but it wasn't always like this. In 1st Nephi Chapter 2, we see him diverge from his brothers and ask for help understanding. Because of this, his heart is softened by the Lord. From this moment on, we see him begin to express these character traits. He understands better than everyone else, not because he's smarter, but because he made the decision early on in life to trust the Lord and was blessed by it. That's why moving on he always talks plainly, he doesn't enjoy using parables or comparison like his father, Lehi, or like Alma. He just tells it how it is, and I have a lot of respect for him for that reason. It also gave me an interesting thought about the Book of Mormon. In this chapter, he's talking about how Isaiah was written in the language of the Jews, for that reason he understands it, but his people don't. It wasn't written for them. He kind of praises the Jews for their ability to literally understand prophecy. It's the same thing with the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon was written by a people with a very different speech pattern than us. Nephi was able to understand Isaiah's words plainly, because he grew up with it. But you see later in life he kind of regrets not teaching more from the Bible, cause his people did not grow up with that advantage. So start while you're young folks! Just do it, study even when it doesn't make sense and the more you study the more you'll understand. As for me, I plan to read Isaiah 10 times or as many as it takes for it to be just as clear to me as it was to Nephi. BTW this entire time I was studying 8 verses haha. 8 Verses for an hour, just keep reading. Ok, now that that's done... Baptism. It was great but also a mess. It was set for 11, but we wanted to be plenty early, so we asked the Office Elders to order an Uber at 10. But when 10 rolled around they didn't order it. They also wouldn't respond to our texts. We finally got the uber at 10:20.  The Uber dropped us off at 11:06, but it was clearly not the chapel. The Uber made us get out anyways. We called the bishop in that ward, but he had no idea where we were and doesn't know how to use technology to send his location. Plus our location wasn't working right. Eventually we got there at 11:40 walking down the street until we found it. (Google maps said the closest church was in Campinas a couple hours away.) Once we got there, we had another problem. It turns out Diego is really tall, and the clothes the ward leaders had for him didn't fit. When we finally did find something we went to start the zoom, but zoom wasn't working! So I had to create another zoom account, create a meeting, send it to all the people, then start the service. But it doesn't end there, turns out no one in this ward knows the song, "When I am Baptized," which is like the one song everyone knows! So it was just Elder Morrison and I singing. But he had zoomed in a ton and didn't know where we were so we only found our spot when the song was over and sang like the last two lines. But after that it was smooth sailing. It was a really great baptism. He didn't have a preference for who baptized him, so we had Elder Morrison do it. Then we had the confirmation. And Fabio received the priesthood, then Diego. After that, we showed them how to bless the sacrament and took the sacrament, just the 8 of us. It was an extremely intimate and special moment. I'm so happy for them! Luckily, we were able to get a ride back home! But on our way back home a member called us upset that we weren't home. She was going to drop off lunch, and we weren't there. We tried to explain to her that we were supposed to have been home an hour ago, and that we texted her husband telling him we would be late, but she was still very unhappy with us.  

Elder Morrison, Diego, & Yours Truly

Elder Koford & Elder Lima, Me & Elder Morrison, Sisters Freitas & Lemes, Elder Silva and the other Elder Lima

Fábio joined the church recently and is a great support in the Jaguariuna ward.

Me, Diego (who got baptized), Bishop Salvador, Elder Morrison, Fábio

Diego, Alice and their daughter

Now, a sad note. When we got home, we received word that our bishop in our Cosmópolis ward passed away from Covid. (This is the ward we live in.) It's really crazy, because we were talking to him just a week and a half earlier. It's hard to know how to handle that. We had a slow quiet rest of the day, with all of our lessons falling through. 

But then Ana rescheduled to talk at 9:15. And I'm glad we did! It wasn't really a lesson, more of a conversation. We talked to her about the baptism, and she was super interested. She asked about temples and sealings. We asked her if she wanted to be sealed to her son. She said yes, but that she knows first there's a ton she has to do like being baptized. So we said, "Well, let's talk about baptism." And we set a goal with her to be baptized May 22! Afterwards, Elder Morrison was still pretty mad at me for making us doing a lesson so late in the day, but I have no regrets! When we finally finished it was way too late, like 9:45. So I journaled about the day and FINALLY went to eat dinner before bed. Before I could take a bite, the phone rang one more time. It was Anderson, he asked me if I had already eaten dinner. I said no, and he said ok I just wanted to see if you guys had eaten yet, we'll talk more tomorrow. After THAT, I finally got to eat. 

The Bottom Line

Tuesday:

Started the day off by talking to Bishop at his MarmiTex. What did we talk about? Honey of course; how it was the only food in existence that provides all the essential nutrients for life. He actually decided to grab some honey out of the back and get three cups. He drank his with lime which is something I really want to try. We found out the next day that he actually has Covid. Luckily, we were wearing masks pretty much the entire time and no symptoms yet. All of our lessons fell through except one (see if you notice a pattern this week). But the one lesson we did have was with someone named Geovana. It was a really simple lesson but really good. We talked all about the plan of salvation and why we are here, and I realized it truly is the lesson that brings me the most joy. Understanding who we are and what we are here for is essential to happiness through challenges. 

Wednesday: 

The start to the day was just peachy. I put my contacts in and accidentally ripped the left one. It took me 20 minutes to find the little piece that had rolled above my eye. But hey, alls well that ends well. Which reminds me, out of our 9 lessons, 8 of them fell through. Now that I think of it, that's not a great example, but that one lesson we had was fun, and that's all that matters. No rest for the righteous though. After that we had our first ward council of the day. The elder's quorum president talks in parables. Which can be a challenge to understand in English let along Portuguese. He was telling us all about how we were clam fishers in a wide ocean, gardeners in a sungarden, timekeepers etc. (I went to google translate after.)  It was the most emotionally taxing thirty minutes of my mission, haha. But after that we had another ward council. Although I was fearful, I found it was for nought. For it was there I met my hero, Helenice. It was the first coordination with this ward, so there was a lot to work out. Which naturally means an information overload. I was thinking to myself "Oh boy, how am I gonna keep track of all these groupchats," when Helenice spoke up and said, "The Elders have 4 wards that they are taking care of. They are probably overwhelmed with all the groupchats. How about after this meeting, we organize a summary for them and send it through bishop rather than adding them to more chats?" It was the best moment of my mission. 

OK Anderson's baptism was a little better. From there we had a lesson with Diego. Our minds were so scrambled, it should have been a horrible lesson. Four different times we knocked something off the table, neither one of us could remember Portuguese, and we didn't have time to review the plan first, so we started teaching a lesson we had prepared for Fábio! Luckily, his wife is a member, and she translated everything we tried to say, but said wrong. And he's a super cool guy. So instead of being awful, we were all just laughing. It was the best bad lesson of my mission. From there I met João Agusto from last week. He went to the chapel to pick up the Book of Mormon, and we talked a bit, marked with him, and suggested a good place to start. 

Thursday:

12 lessons planned for today, 2 happened... Just to be clear, that's over 6 hours of lessons falling through. But lessons normally take 45 minutes so closer to 9. But hey, Dennis is really cool and one of the lessons was with him! He is sooo ready to get baptized; he just has a really busy schedule. But we got to know him and coordinated the plan to prepare for his baptism. We decided to do 15 minute calls every day... and we haven't gotten in touch with him since, kkk. Twice during the lesson, a member called us who has a habit of calling us daily until we pick up called. I sent a quick message saying that normally if we decline it's, because we are in a lesson, but he called us after and said, "I'm so sorry for calling you so much, but I have SUPER important news to tell you guys." So we said no we get it; it's no problem and asked him how we could help him. He replied, "Ok so did you know that Bishop has Covid." We told him we did, but you can see it is really impacting the people here. But here's the big news of the day, we officially called every person in our areabook. Hundreds of names! The last name was written in asian characters, and we had no idea what to expect, but we saw the name Vinicius on his email and guessed. We were right, and luckily he spoke Portuguese, haha. We had a little on the spot lesson and helped him out. His brother passed away from Covid, and now his mom has it. It's so sad to see how negatively people are being impacted here. After this, I had a super special spiritual existence where I was laying on my bed listening to a talk. After the talk was over I listened in silence and a little bit of self pity after such a long day. I said out loud something along the lines of, "Why do you let others hear your voice and not me?" and one other question that I don't remember. The second I finished, one of our group chats went off and the phone glitched, then the phone immediately started playing the next talk titled, "Put your trust in the Lord" this talk responded perfectly to the concerns I was having and is probably the coolest miracle I've seen in my life. 

Friday: 

We have marked morning lessons with Ana the past three days, and every day she says she can't and moves it to the next day. So we decided to try again next week and see if her schedule clears up a bit. One funny story we have is that our bedroom door is SUUUPER loud and creeky. And the wind is always blowing it. Over the course of 5 to 10 minutes it was slowly closing and being super distracting during our personal study. Finally, Elder Morrison had enough and stands up and stomps over to go slam it and right as he gets there, the wind blows it shut for him, haha. I had yet another cool spiritual experience. I've been studying my patriarchal blessing for the past 2 months now. Analyzing every blessing, and how it prepares me for my responsibilities in life. And analyzing all the things the Lord expects of me. Today, I got to my last paragraph and read an interesting blessing that basically promised me repeatedly I would be able to find joy in my existence and work. The thought suddenly popped into my head, "The bottom line, was always joy." I think that's the number one thing I've learned in my mission. Life is work; there is a lot to do; we have to overcome a lot of challenges, and at times it feels like there's nothing good left out there. But eventually, all of us come to realize the same thing. The bottom line was always joy. Every single action the Lord does is to push forward this cause. Our responsibilities aren't here to stress us out, they are here to make us self reliant. Men are that they might have joy. It says in 2 Nephi that it was necessary for men to know sorrow and sin for them to be righteous and joyful. What an important distinction between knowing and being. We aren't here to be unhappy, we are here to know it; know what it's like and how it makes us feel as well as how it's brought about so that one day when we live in an existence without pain or iniquity we can have an eternal satisfaction, the likes of which won't truly be able to be comprehended until we do arrive at our inheritance. With that bottom line in mind, today was the first day in Brasil I think where every lesson we had fell through. 6 out of 6. That's hard, but what's the bottom line? Joy. We had an interesting experience while on a walk. We met an old guy whose nephews were members of the church. We asked him if he wanted to hear a message and he responded, "Once you get as old as me, you grow out of faith and religion stuff. I've read the Book of Mormon and stuff, but I just can't make myself have faith. " I wanted to point out that there were older and smarter people than him who did not in fact grow out of faith, but who grew in faith. But instead, I gave him the parable Alma gave to the poor in Alma 32 and encouraged him to read. But at the end of the day, something else I've learned is that it's a choice. Some people decide to give it a chance, other people decide from the start that they are above faith. Imagine choosing to believe that existence is meaningless. The impossibility of atheism. An interesting idea I saw is there are not very many true atheists out there, because the conclusion of atheism is that life has no meaning, and yet they live as though their lives do have meaning. Abiding by moral codes, taking care of themselves and family. The atheism part is a self deception designed to take away personal responsibility. 

Saturday: 

1st two lessons of the day were people who we called, laughed with, scheduled, then the second we hung up blocked us. I don't understand it. What kind of a person sees an ad, clicks on it, decides to learn more, puts in their private information for contacting them, clicks on a box that says they understand they will be contacted by missionaries. Then a few minutes later when they are called, panic and blocks us? It's something that happens on the regular, and I do not understand, haha. Anyways, funny story of the day: every Sunday we have an onslaught of meetings and Sunday school classes. It's so hard to know which is which especially in order to invite our investigators. So we went to all the group chats and got the times for Sunday school, relief society, and elders quorum, for all 4 wards. FINALLY! ORGANIZED! Then I kid you not, 15 minutes later every one of our wards gets their meetings shut down by new covid restrictions. The meetings are online, but if you don't have a sacrament meeting you can't organize a second hour... bruhhhh. Anyways, I had a cool thought while preparing for a lesson that didn't happen. Who do you think had more joy? Lived happier? You, or Christ? I imagine it was Christ. Who had a harder life? You, or Christ? Sorry, but there's no buts here; it was Christ. Now look at the degree of success Christ had at finding joy in his life. How can we emulate His success in our own lives? Welcome to the gospel, the font is already filled up just for you. It's weird to say, but two days in a row all our lessons fell through. After 2 months without a single day like that, haha. There was one lady who when we called she said she couldn't talk, because she had something to do, but then she talked nonstop for 15 minutes about her life and her house. We didn't complain, we were just happy to hear another living person, but it was definitely funny, because she was clearly free to talk haha. It's ok though, because that meant we were able to watch our zone FHE. We were in charge of the game; it was a big mess; you don't need to know the details. 

Sunday:

Ok, one more day, I can do this. No sacrament meeting in our area, so we watched a sacrament in Rio. After that, we had the 2nd worst lesson of my mission. It was a lady who says yes and agrees with everything over text but doesn't actually listen. She talked to me for like an hour and a half about her problems and how she wants to know how to solve them and fix her relationship with God.

Then I sent her the talk on faith by President Nelson. 3 minutes later, she texted me and said ok done...... I asked her what she thought, and she said it was very good, and asked what the steps were to increase her faith. I said it literally said that in the talk, haha. During the lesson, she was clearly on instagram or something, and every time we asked a question there would be 30 seconds of silence before she realized we had addressed her, and she would just say "I didn't understand." Then when we asked again she would do the same thing. We kept asking her if she had interest and she said ya and that she needed it. Eventually, we just closed and said goodbye. After days of no lessons, to have that be our first one was frustrating to say the least. But after that, we caught a break. We met a really nice guy that was a member of another church but had questions that couldn't be answered. He knew some members and went to the church website where he found a page offering Book of Mormon studies. He is a super cool guy, and we are excited to teach him. He's gonna watch the live we do of the Book of Mormon every day and keep up with us. I'm so happy we started at the beginning now, haha. 

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