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. 

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.