I Guess I'm Old

I don't remember if I mentioned this in the last mail, but I'm no longer DL; I'm training. I think President was worried I'd be overwhelmed training and a district leader. My new companion is Elder Silva (Another one I know), and he is just the best. He's from Recife, Brazil. I love him so much I can't even put it into words. He's so sweet and happy and not at all arrogant or anything I was worried about, haha. He knows the doctrine well and teaches well, but also listens to and follows advice. He follows my example in terms of obedience and there isn't really too much conflict there. One quick thing, on the off chance that there's a future missionary reading this. BE OBEDIENT! The only real scuffle we've gotten in this week was today on P-day. I was reminding him to wear a white shirt and a tie unless we are going to go do something where we'll sweat, and he's like "Oh I believe you that it's a rule, but here in Brazil the missionaries don't do that one." This is a really small example, but it's something that carries over into a lot of other stuff. Maybe in Brazil the members grow up watching missionaries not care about the rules and do whatever they want, and then when they make it to their mission, it's a lot easier to fall in those habits. Someone is always watching you. That is the lesson I am most grateful to Dad for teaching me when I was younger. Ok are you ready? Are you sure? Really? Ok, let's do this. 

Tuesday: 

So first off, transfers!!!! That's right, I get to see real life missionaries! I got to see Elder Lima real quick. (The one that was companions with the Elder Silva after me.) There are 4 missionaries in our mission training right now. 2 Sisters and 2 Elders, and I'm the oldest. That's right; I guess I'm old now. The new missionaries kind of just chilled for a while. Elder Morrison went to the bathroom, and I never saw him again, haha. We just joked around trading tongue twisters in Portuguese and English. Looking back now, there's really not much to talk about, but it was soooo nice just being able to sit back, relax and talk to other people face to face. Not thinking, "Oh, when's my next appointment? or How long should this phone call be? or When should we call it and hang up? We were waiting for at least an hour, probably closer to 2, and then the office Elder decided to go out and get ice cream for the new missionary dinner, so he took me with him. After all that time waiting, as soon as we left, the assistants called us and were like, "Elder Bassett, where are you??? We are ready to introduce the greenies, and we are just waiting for you." Haha. So I gave myself the shin splints speed walking back, haha. This is where we all met our new companions, then had a little lunch together. Apparently, we have KFC here??? I gotta be honest, it wasn't very good. But I was starving, so I pounded down two sandwiches. The ice cream, on the other hand, was amazing. It was the Blue Bell of Brazil. Sooo good. When we got home, pretty much all of our lessons fell through, and Elder Silva was really disappointed. I didn't want to crush his dreams by pointing out he should get ready for a lot of that. Things were pretty awkward. The mission has changed me; I don't need to talk anymore. I'm more than happy sitting in silence for an entire day if I really have to. But because he was there, I was hyper aware, haha. "How is he feeling? Is he happy? Is he disappointed?" I found myself wishing we lived in a four elder apartment, so he could have a more entertaining first day. But that's ok, because our last lesson of the day went through. It was with a member I've been helping to reactivate, and she is the HAPPIEST person I've met in my life. I can't even put it into words. The second we called she was yelled, "HIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!" and started talking our ears off. It was great. We barely got a word in, but it was a warm welcome for Elder Silva's first lesson. 

Wednesday: 

To start off, I ripped my best long sleeve white shirt. This is my second time doing this! I was just stretching during a trainer training and the back ripped. Oh well, at least now I know which shirt to burn when I hit a year. Ok now get ready for the first, but not the last time I talk about my personal study this week. It was bomb. I was reading in 2 Nephi 25, and it was just amazing. Basically, this is the perfect chapter to answer challenges somebody makes about the Book of Mormon verses the Bible. Nephi kinda just goes through and sums up the purpose of the scriptures, and it's really good. Our personal study got interrupted by a lady who I thought was a member of one of our wards, because she called me Elder. But then she started talking all about a present she had for me, and I still thought it was a member until she said that the present was that my first month of online English classes would be FREE. You know I can't resist a bargain, but with all this missionary work, I really just couldn't see myself having the time. SO I said thank you very much, but I'm actually from the US, and English is my mother language. I hate rejecting gifts. Anyways, today I taught Elder Silva how to call referrals which was exciting (for a missionary at least). He even set up his first lesson. When she said she was interested, he said, "Great! Tonight at 6." And she accepted. After he hung up, I asked him if he checked our schedule first to make sure we don't already have a lesson at 6, and he froze for a second. Good learning moment. ALWAYS CHECK THE SCHEDULE! One cool thing is that he's really excited for me to teach him English. We will see if that lasts though, because so was the other Elder Silva in the beginning. His first lesson with an investigator ended up being the one that he set earlier. Her name was Maria, and we read Jeremiah 1 and talked about how God would support us when we are doing His will, and we introduced the concept of the premortal life. It went pretty good, but I wish his first lesson would have been with someone more enthusiastic about talking to missionaries. But that's ok, because afterwards we had a lesson with my favorite person we are teaching, Ana. She is soooooo sweet, and the lessons with her are really spiritual. She is working on preparing for baptism right now, but it's definitely a challenge, because she needs to reschedule 66% of the time. We plan on meeting with her every night at 8:30. She confirms every morning but frequently sends a message at 8 canceling. But at least she actually gives us a heads up! 

Thursday: 

Funny thing that happened this morning, Elder Silva kept telling me my scale was wrong, because it said he was 200 kilos, haha. He forgot that Americans use pounds. My studies this morning were really good. I was studying about prayer in 1 Nephi 2. We like to focus on verse 16, and how he prayed with faith and immediately got an answer. But let's look at the answer he got. Was it a voice? A vision? A manifestation? No, the Lord softened his heart so he could believe. Think about that, really think about that. The answer he got to his prayer was so unbelievably imperceptible. It's my belief that he probably didn't even notice at fist, but rather as he was writing this record in retrospect he had the perspective to see how the Lord had responded to him. It wasn't until later in verse 19 that he had a super strong manifestation. And it wasn't at the time he was asking for help for himself, rather he was crying out to the Lord on behalf of his brothers. I'm not gonna comment too much; I just want to put that out there to let anyone reading this to consider it. But I will say this, Nephi prayed fervently, got a small answer, decided to trust in the Lord with a soft heart, and only then did he get the big one. I don't know, I've just been really happy this week. And today especially I noticed it. One of my goals lately has been to spend more time thanking the Lord. You hear that all the time. People say, "Try saying an entire prayer just thanking the Lord." I never even tried, because I have wayyyyy too much I need help on, haha. But I kinda realized there's no cap on how many prayers you're allowed to say, haha. So, what I've been doing is just praying, closing my prayer, then praying again and only thanking the Lord. It's made a big difference, and I highly recommend it. This is a really sappy email; sorry, Taylor. We had a lesson with Jeferson today. He's a really good guy, but his comprehension is low which makes it hard to teach him. We repeat ourselves a lot. I think it's the type of thing that would normally annoy me, but I can't explain it; it just made me love him more. Seeing how earnest he was to understand. And more importantly, seeing that he doesn't just say ya and move on; when he has a question, he asks. We were planning on reading the first chapter of Nephi with him, but we ended up just reading the summary at the beginning of the book for 30 minutes straight. At the end, we mentioned something about Joseph Smith, and he had no idea who we were talking about. So I think we need to teach the restoration a 4th time. After we hung up, he sent an audio message like a half an hour later and said, "I did it! I read the entire thing! All of Nephi! After you guys hung up I just Read and Read and Read until the very End!!!" It made me so happy, I love him so much. I didn't want to point out that he read the first chapter not the entire book, though. He's so pure. After that, we had a lesson with Diego, and it went really well. Our first lesson since his baptism. At the very end, I asked him to pray, and he immediately said ya sure and did it. It just struck me how much of a difference that was. We couldn't even get him to pray for the first couple of lessons and now look at him. It's so gratifying to see the differences! After that, I taught Elder Silva how to weekly plan... he wasn't a fan. Oh well, not everyone can be I guess. Something funny about Elder Silva is that he REFUSES anything I make. I offered him some off my curry, and he started gagging at the thought of mixing vegetables and sauce with rice. But at the same time he went through two loaves of bread in three days. For breakfast, he just butters up 6 pieces of soggy bread and thinks it's the most gourmet meal in the world, haha. That and CusCus, a food really popular in Recife he's obsessed with. He says he eats it normally for breakfast lunch and dinner which is astounding to me. It reminds me of what the Pioneers ate on their trek to Utah... Flour and water, haha. Just kidding; it's not that bad, just also not that good. I got kind of annoyed at Elder Silva for the first time today. He was talking to me about how we need to call our interested person list more. I said sure and let's do it, but he kept saying, "When I'm done, we will have called all of them; we need to just go through and call each and every one." It's hard to come across over text, but he was saying it in a way of like, "Now that I'm here, we are going to pull it together." And I don't need to remind you of the days where I spent 3 hours a day every day for a week calling that list. Then he was saying, "Also we need to do lessons with members, family nights, include them in the work. We can't just keep doing stuff without them" And we had at least 8  member lessons planned over the weekend which he had forgotten about, haha. Man I sound really negative here, don't I? I got kinda fed up and ended up saying something along the lines of, "This is only your second day here; that is literally all I have been doing for 6 weeks non stop." Then immediately afterwards felt really bad. The thought popped into my head, "When I'm a husband, is this how I'm gonna treat my wife? and when I'm a father, is this how I'm gonna treat my kids?" and I felt like an idiot. So I gave him a hug, and said I was sorry, and that it was a good idea. Then we went, and we scheduled family nights with all of the wards for Sunday.  

Friday: 

More personal study talk!! 2 Nephi 26:8. Everything points to Christ. Literally everything: every scripture, every prayer, every talk, points to Him. The whole point of the scriptures is to convince us of His healing power. This was a really sad scripture to study. Seeing Nephi lament the destruction of his people. Read verse 10 and imagine that instead of Nephi talking, it's our Heavenly Father.  10 And when these things have passed away a speedy ^adestruction cometh unto my people; for, notwithstanding the pains of my soul, I have seen it; wherefore, I know that it shall come to pass; and they sell themselves for naught; for, for the reward of their pride and their ^bfoolishness they shall reap destruction; for because they yield unto the devil and ^cchoose works of ^ddarkness rather than light, therefore they must go down to ^ehell.  It is a super sad verse. When I was reading this, the scripture from Jacob popped into my head of the Lord crying and saying, "What more could I have done for my vineyard?" In my head, I could see a beautiful painting of the Hill  Cummorah, with bodies of Nephites and Lamanites all around the top of the hill. On the top of the hill, Heavenly Father crying into the shoulder of Jesus Christ and crying this out. "What more could I have done for my vineyard?" I wish I had the artistic skills to bring this into form, but sadly that's not a gift I've been given. After this experience during Companion study, I received a strong spiritual impression to do the Preach my Gospel study activities for the Chapter about how to recognize the Spirit. I decided starting next week, I'll  start setting my alarm for 5:30 and doing that before I exercise. Let's see how it goes, haha. Our lunch cancelled for the day, so Elder Silva decided he was going to cook something up. Then after a half an hour when he was ready to eat, they called us and told us they ordered food for us. But it was at their work a 30 minute walk away. So an hour later we started eating, only a half an hour after our lunch ended, haha. Can't complain though! Last night a girl sent me a message and flirted it up reeeeeaaaal hard. She was like ohhhh what church I wanna know more! Then after we set a lesson she asked me if I had a girlfriend and if I was seeing anyone. I told her that it wasn't something I was focusing on right now, and this morning when I went to confirm she had blocked us on whatsapp and facebook. I guess she wasn't interested after all, haha. We had a lesson with a lady I really like, but in the middle of it, the call cut out. I was worried that she blocked us, but we were able to call the next day; the reason was just cause the phone died. But I remember being really sad; anyways, she's really hard to mark a time with. After that, we had a lesson with a member. It was my first time talking to someone under 18 about the gospel since Ryan, haha. She's a 14-year-old convert with a 16 year-old-sister, and it was a fun lesson. Especially when I dropped my pen cap, and Elder Silva bent over to get it and the chair toppled over, and he fell, hahah. All four of us laughed sooo hard. It was right as we were able to get them to focus, too, haha. When we finally got home, there was no rest, because I've gotten used to Elder Morrison being super clean. Elder Silva is... less so. I spent all night putting away all the food he left out. Plus sweeping up the spaghetti and mopping up the sauce that he poured into our wire trash can, haha. Elder Silva walked in when I was done wearing normal clothes, and I hated to be the one to break it to him that we had to stay in proselyting clothes until 9:00 (It was only 8). 

Saturday: 

Well, in two days, he ate all of my food. So on Thursday, I went to the store to buy some more bread and stuff. Then this morning when I went to make a sandwich... no bread. In the future, I'll hide it. So with no eggs, no bread, and no milk, my normal fast breakfast options were up, and we had daily planning in 5 so no food for me, haha. One cool thing happened, he grabbed a broom and started sweeping. I got really excited, then watched in shock and confusion as he went outside, and swept all the dirt from the patio... into the house. We're working on it, hahaha. We had a lesson with Jeferson to teach the restoration suuuuper simply, so this time something sticks. I started off simply by saying God is our loving Heavenly Father, and He gives us the Gospel to bless us. Then I looked as Elder Silva, and he launched into the passing of authority down to President Nelson and how today we have a modern living prophet who received revelation from the Lord. But I still love Jeferson. Afterwards, I sent a couple texts and gave probably the simplest restoration I've given in my life. I´ll send it later, and you can post it, mom. After that, I linked the movie about the Restoration and an hour later after our lesson, he sent us a text and let us know that he had watched the entire thing!!! I love him so much. My two favorite people to teach are Jeferson and Ana; what a blessing that we had both today!! Afterwards, I remember just thinking I love Ana, and I love my companion, haha. After that we had a fun family night with the zone. It's always good to be able to see other missionaries and relax. We all just answered some get to know you questions, and it was great. Something I've started doing is reading Taylor's emails from his mission blog while I'm contacting. I sent one part of it to Elder Koford, because I thought it could be a good training for district council. We had a fun conversation afterwards; I'll link the screenshot, haha. There's another funny part where he's talking about how everyone has the flu, and he says, "Everyone's dying. And no one can go to church," You have noooo idea. Gift of prophecy? Final thing of the day. Fabio sent me a tie. A REALLY nice silk one, too. I'm super grateful, but I'm also afraid to put it on, because just the oils from my hands leave grease stains, haha. 

Sunday: 

Something really weird happened today. We called someone for an early morning lesson, and they didn't answer. A wave of anger came over me out of no where. In my head I was like, "How dare she! Why does she think her time is more important than us? How is she so self obsessed that she doesn't care about our time enough to tell us she's not interested, and instead just tells us to call, then declines us. " It was super weird, because I wasn't actually really angry. It was like a cold anger that was injected into my brain. I think it was just frustration, but it was still really weird, and I didn't like it. Just guys, be nice to the missionaries. They have it hard right now. Anyways, personal study got me over that. I was studying 2 Nephi 26:30 and for some reason today the phrase that "if ye have not charity ye have nothing" really stuck out to me. Why do we waste our times setting other goals? Why do we even make new year's resolutions that don't help with this? Why do we work on patience, humility, knowledge when we have yet to master the most base of commandments? Love one another as I have loved you. That's what I need to do. Just a thought. One exciting thing, Sister Saucedo announced that we get to open our emergency kits and eat everything inside. OHHHHHHH BOY. I am gonna gain a ton of weight. I've been losing a ton lately which has been frustrating, but let me tell you this is not gonna be muscle. I FINALLY was able to stop drinking sugary drinks. But now we have like 12 liters of milk, chocolate powder, liters of juice mix, jellos mixes, and on top of all of that as we were doing an inventory of our haul, a member came by and gave us two Liters of coke... Let's do this! Man, I need to write less in my emails. Sorry folks, I just really use these emails as my journal, haha. Anyways, it ended up working out because like I said Elder Silva ate all our bread, but now we had crackers for the sacrament.  After that, we had 5 hours straight of meetings! We had set up family nights with all of our wards. First was Jaguariúna, and only a couple people showed up, but it was a good lesson, and we talked about my favorite story in the Book of Mormon (Anti Nephi Lehies). Specifically looking at the Nephites answer when they asked for help while considering the fact that these two peoples have been in bloody conflict for hundreds of years. Afterwards, we had the Conchal ward, and it was awesome!! It kinda felt like going to church again. We had like 15 people in the call with at least some people's families. At the end, because it was fast Sunday, we invited people to bear their testimonies if they wanted to, and it was soo cool. Too bad that is the one area we don't have any investigators. Next was the Artur Nogheira ward, and only one family showed up which was disappointing, because that's the area where all the people we teach live. But Michelle went, so at the very least she met a member and got to know the Book of Mormon better. The Cosmópolis ward we sent a reminder an hour before, but still only Anderson and one other lady went. That was a bit disappointing, but all in all we were happy with the day. 

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?

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.

What are the odds

 Tuesday:

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

Wednesday:

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

Thursday: 

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

Friday:

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

Saturday: 

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

Sunday:

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

Monday:

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

Not as steep as it looks. I promise.

Catching Crabs

Me & Elder Bodily (The Bod Squad)

The District

The Graph

Elder Terry's Last District Counsel