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. 

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. 

Let's Eat Pasta

 All right! *cracks knuckles* Let's do this. 

The District!

Tuesday:

We had a lesson with a new guy, Algace, and it went AMAZING. It might have been the best lesson we ever taught. He was asking questions and engaging. It ended with him agreeing to read the Book of Mormon and pray about whether it's true. Then, immediately after, we had a lesson with Devanir. The lesson was another great one. It lasted about an hour. We covered the plan of salvation, the restoration, and the gospel of Jesus Christ. He was so interested, and said he wanted to come to our church. He pointed out that our church was different from others; it has actual doctrine to learn. We asked when he gets out of the hospital and... he got out two days earlier!!! Which means we can drop off a Book of Mormon. We are so excited to talk to him more. He loved the lesson, and said he believes there is more that God has prepared us to learn. We spoke about baptism and covenants as well. From there, we went straight to get flu shots, and that was the day. 

Wednesday:

When we got back, we had a lesson with Augosto, and it also went great. We asked him about his experience reading and praying about the Book of Mormon. He told us that his faith was growing, that he felt better spiritually, and that he found himself drawing closer to God in his desires. It was an awesome experience, and we invited him to attend church. He wasn't able this week but wanted to next week. After that lesson, we went to the Hortas to get back a plate we had given them and drop off more cookies. We left with a bag of apples, peaches, two cases of wet wipes, two slices of cake, a guitar, and our plate. They are just the best; there is no other way to put it. We have a hard time getting in contact with the members over here, but when we do, it's such a fulfilling experience. From there we went to a food kitchen to offer service for a couple hours. It was there that I got Bible bashed for the first time haha. An older guy was talking to me while I filled bags. He asked why I was there, and I responded I was on a mission for my church. He was impressed and asked what church. I responded "The Church of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints"... "some people call us mormons." He wasn't that happy anymore, and he wanted us to go with

Cookie Grease stains on my journal.
Whoops!

him to his church. I asked for his number so I could get the address, and he said he would just show me. He gave us the most Bostonian directions you've ever heard of. *in Boston accent, "All right, so what you're gonna want to do is take this street right here; this is called main street. And you're gonna drive it that way until you get to a stoplight and turn right. From there you'll follow the road until you see an old building with a sign called the foundry. If you get to the train station you've gone too far." After that, he left us alone to go back to doing service. All in all an interesting experience. When we got home around 3 hours later, we ate some of the peaches the Hortas gave to us. They were AMAZING. I walked around the apartment with a peach in each hand, cause ya, I'm living the high life. After that we had some time to exercise, so I asked Elder Bodily I'd he wanted to do it with me. He responded "Naw, I'm just gonna go eat pasta." We both started laughing just cause he said it completely unironically. And that was our day. 

Thursday: 

I know what you're thinking, weekly planning. Actually, no. Not at all this week in fact. We never ended up having time. What we did do is give the Haitian Creole elders our car. They share one with the Zone Leaders but can't always use it. So they always need us to drive down, pick them up, drive home, then give them the keys. We finally got home and were gonna call Devanir when the fire alarm went off! It was nothing, but 20 minutes later we got back and the unthinkable happened, it didn't ring. Just went straight to unavailable. This is what happens when you're blocked, so we were kinda sad. During our last lesson I had a STRONG prompting to ask for his address to write it down, but ignored it because I didn't want to interrupt Elder Bodily. He has a brother-in-law who is a preacher for another church. We are afraid he made Devanir block us, as that's something that happens. We found out later when we tried to call on a different phone that it did the same thing, which means that actually his phone is probably just dead. We hope we can get back in touch with him. 

Friday:

100 days as a missionary! 

Started off with District Leader council, which is where the District leaders in our zone meet with the zone leaders to coordinate the efforts in our areas. From there, we went to district council to relay the information back to our district.  After that we had a call with Deborah. When we called and said it was the missionaries, she immediately hung up. That stung a lot; I can't lie. We spend so much time preparing and talking about how we can help each person, praying about it as well. And we've been building a relationship with her for months. Then out of nowhere, she starts ignoring us the past couple weeks. It's a part of the missionary experience though, patience and faith. 

Saturday:

Naturally, I woke up and made cookie dough, because why wouldn't I. We then had a lesson with a member named Ana Maria, which I'm only bringing up, because it's so hard to get in touch with members; so it's always exciting. From there we had a normal day, until our devotional on facebook with Brad Wilcox. It was AWESOME! I learned a lot about my own life, and how I can be a better missionary. Anyone who wants to watch it is welcome to, it's on my Facebook profile. From there, we had an interested woman that we called to see if she wanted to meet. She said she was busy, as her mother was having an operation on Monday, and she had to take care of her at home. That's when we thought of a good idea for that cookie dough, haha. So we brought a plate of 15ish cookies to her house and apparently they liked them cause they asked for the recipe. The only problem is that I do not know how to convert recipes from English to Portuguese, haha. It's a lot harder than you'd think. 

Sunday: 

Woke up with two referrals for interested people! However one of them spoke English, and the other one lived in New Hampshire so we sent their information to the appropriate missionaries. To this day, out of the dozen or so referrals I have received, they've all been for other areas, haha. Sunday we had normal church services, and ended with a devotional by Elder and Sister Rasband. After that we got a text from the Assistant Missionaries that our Districts Pday, the day once a transfer that we are allowed to hang out in person other than district council, was gonna be Monday. We were pumped, but had to figure out what to do. Planning transportation and activities was a bit of a chore, but we figured it out.

Monday: 

And here we are, district p day. We went to the park, ate, and walked around. From there we went to a bowling alley for a bit and just talked and got to know each other. It was great, and a much needed chance to get some fresh air haha. 

I'm a chef but I'm not a baker. Left them in the oven for 2 hours. It's not chocolate. 

Elder Bodily and I out for a walk at night. Not a bad view!

Big Plans

Man this was an interesting week. There's a lot to do in this area, but I'm still getting used to the quarantine, so I'll have to figure out how to do it all in a way different than what I expected, haha. For now though let me just review my week real "quick".  

Tuesday 

We didn't end up doing weekly planning for last week so we had a mini session in the morning. This area is really established in Portuguese, and the president has a vision of preparing this area for the establishment of a Portuguese speaking ward. Elder Bodily and I made plans for how to contact all the Brazilian members in this area, reach out to people who may be interested, and bring Brazilians from other areas to our Portuguese Sunday School. There's a lot of unique challenges. I won't get into it, but there's a lot of work. I'm so grateful for that, because I'm not sure I would survive being a missionary with nothing clear cut to do during the quarantine haha. 

After that, we went to a mission wide family home afternoon meeting where people from the mission share lessons and play games to keep spirits up. It was cool and fun, but Elder Bodily and I were talking to each other when through the camera we heard, "from Elder Bassett, then going to sister.... and Elder...." I was like wait, what did she say we are doing? Elder Bodily kinda shrugs and says "I don't know" and before I can say anything else, it unmutes us. I'd like to remind you 200 people are watching this! I sit there like a deer in headlights for at least 30 seconds with my mouth open looking between Elder Bodily and the camera not being able to ask him anything cause he unmuted, haha. Then I kinda just go "What are we supposed to be doing???" They just kinda say moving on and go to the next lesson which was drawing pictures on top of your heads haha. Apparently, they decided I was gonna teach a lesson to the mission, and then forgot to tell me. Whoops. The funniest part was that I was supposed to give the opening prayer the Sunday before with the entire mission on zoom, but I was in a ward Sunday School lesson (which is supposed to be our first priority)  that ran 20 minutes long and showed up late. So they called on me to say the prayer and there was like 5 minutes of silence while they waited for me. Basically, I'd been on the mission for a grand total of 7 days and had already embarrassed myself in front of the entire mission twice. And then of course, an hour later I got a message asking me to say the closing prayer on Sunday. Seriously guys; there's 200 missionaries here, why are you so set on me? 😂  I had my first Interview with President Mavromatis, and he wanted to know why I didn't day the prayer. I kinda didn't know what to say. 

Anyways, after that we taught the message of the restoration to our friend named Deborah. My Portuguese was awful, but luckily she's awesome and engaged so the lesson didn't go badly. Then we taught a lesson about the plan of salvation to Pedro Martin, and it went GREAT. Both of them are so awesome and attentive and into it. 

For the last 7 days I had been saying nearly every prayer asking for very specific things and more importantly using very specific wording that wasn't what I would normally say. Tuesday morning after my personal study, I decided to read my Patriarchal blessing. I was amazed that in the exact same wording I had been using, I found the promised blessings and attributes I had been praying for every day. When I first got my blessing, I was getting ready to move to Brazil. It was a big event for me, and my blessing was a source of comfort and inspiration. But it didn't really say anything about that experience, or let me know what I could to to prepare for it, yet it perfectly told me what I would need to do and become for my mission 4 years later, which would be a more challenging experience by far. This is an example of how God knows what's best for us, and He is willing to help us. But the way we think we need to be helped isn't the way we always need it. He knew I would be able to handle moving fine, but also knew that on my mission I would find myself challenged in ways I had never experienced before, so He spent His time reassuring me for something I hadn't even begun to think about. 

Wednesday 

We started the day with the normal stuff, personal and companion study. We were reading out of the general handbook for adjusting to missionary life and Elder Bodily reads the words "try not to stay for too long in your apartment" haha. Believe me if we didn't have to, we wouldn't! The big thing that happened today was our first companion exchange, which is where you and another companionship switch companions and go on lessons with each other. Because of Corona, it's less of a switch and more of a 3 hour phone call, but I still had a great time with my district leader, Elder Despain. Bonus, I finally got to meet one of the members in the area; she was American, too, so it was refreshing to talk for a bit in English.