Homecoming!

 

Listen to Benny's Homecoming Talk

A Blur of a Week (8/2/21)

We had a nice week over here in Trindade. We had a zone conference, did some more of My Plan, had a nice fast Sunday, a few soccer games may have been watched, we bought and ate a lot of chocolate, went to a youth activity, and I am attempting to learn the piano again. 

Our zone conference was a good one--my last one in the mission--and I am grateful. I have always enjoyed zone conferences, but I dunno. I'm kinda in the get-me-outta-here and I-don't-want-to-leave limbo tug of war. This has been my life for 2 years now, and I don't really know how to do much else. Being a missionary is seriously great. You have to worry about like 3 things, and that's it. You get to go to a new place that you may or may not have ever heard about and meet new people and bring a special light to the lives of others. It is a fun life, a rewarding life, yet a difficult one at times. 

In My Plan, I thought I had bamboozled the First Presidency and the Quorum of the 12 Apostles. It was about Institute, and I was like yeah yeah I'll do that after my mission, clicked on the link, and then promptly went back to the program and clicked next only to find out they bamboozled me. I had to put in a specific Institute class, what the address was, when it started, etc. So I went back and actually looked at the classes and such. It turned out well because I remembered the Institute classes I took in Tallahassee as a missionary, and they were super fun. Long story short: the Brethren are serious about you taking Institute and continuing your learning after your mission. They don't want your mission to be the peak of your life. 

This too is my last fast Sunday in the mission, and I got up there and said like 3 things about love, not related to each other, probably really confusing, then sat down and did the classic, what did I say and did anyone understand me? Oh well. At least I have the excuse that this isn't my mother tongue.

There's a store here called Lojas Americanas. It's basically American stores. I'm serious when I say Brazil has everything America has but just a little different. I bought an obscene amount of chocolate that I do not plan on eating. I thought it would be nice to give some to my comps also; then we got home, and they opened up bags of chocolate too. So much for that idea haha. It's fun though--so far my favorite is a dark chocolate with little bits of orange and another with cranberry. Some good choices. I'm basically a chocolate connoisseur. 

The youth activity was actually awesome. I haven't been to a youth activity for a while, and we definitely stood out like a sore thumb--3 people wearing white shirts and ties in a really big park--but that's kinda the point of being a missionary, right? That's kinda the reason why we wear what we wear. We built a tower for King Benjamin out of spaghetti noodles and gummy things. My team ended up winning, and I was pretty proud of that. I started to enter a stage that prophets have warned us about, which is being lifted up in the pride of my heart. You ever heard of the Lamanites, or the Nephites at the end and kinda in the middle? Yeah, that was me (not really). I was then promptly humbled when we did our 2nd activity of taking pictures of plants and insects. It's a little hard to do that when you don't have a phone hahaha. But we managed to take 5 pictures: 3 trees, a moth, and an ant. Come to find out, other people took like 30 something pictures so I definitely lost that one. God was just helping out my pride and humbling me (I hope the sarcasm is coming through on this).

I have picked up trying to learn the piano again. I think this is the 3rd or 4th time on my mission I have tried this. I just love the sound of the piano. My comps in Florida thought I was weird because I wanted to listen to Rachmaninov or Chopin. It is a little weird, but I like it, I like other music, too; don't worry. But with this song I have managed to choose one of the absolute hardest songs ever for me to try to learn. I think this song is hard for people who actually know the piano haha. I manage to do that a lot. I see something and I want it and it turns out to be $76,000 or impossible for me to learn haha. But, where there is a will there's a way. I was having a really hard time reading the notes and so I said a nice lil prayer and then I managed to make it through the first page and a little bit into the 2nd page. We have a merciful God, people; I love Him, and you should too. 

But in short, I have learned that God will never stop teaching us and loving us. I dunno why I thought He would stop teaching me things at the end of my mission, but I believe we'll be learning from Him until we are long gone from this earth. Spirit world, 100% sure He will keep teaching us. The millennium, 100% He's going to be teaching us. Jesus too. That'll be fun. Imagine teaching an Institute class with Him there, or having Him physically present in a missionary lesson. I'm rambling, but I hope you can see and learn the lessons God is trying to teach you this week. I'll see y'all soon. Stay safe and have fun!

What A Week (7/26/21)

It has been an eventful week. We picked up another elder, so we are in a trio now. I gave a talk, and just in general it has been interesting. 

I think it was Thursday, and out of nowhere the office elders called and asked if we were busy. We said no, and they said, "Well, we are buying an Uber for you right now. Send your address because you're picking up a missionary." Well, alright. We showed up, got his bags and stuff, then left about 5 minutes later. The Uber driver going home was seriously cookin' on the freeway. I don't think he was too happy about having to drive us 30 minutes. I think he just saw the price and accepted it. Oops. 

I gave a talk on Sunday, and thankfully I had more than a one-day notice. It's a missionary classic to show up to church and have the bishop say, "Elders, can y'all give talks in like, 15 minutes?" Sure, Bishop. Anything for you :,) hahaha. But I had some time to prepare and was getting a little worried because absolutely nothing was coming to mind. I gave a talk on President Eyring's talk "Bless in His Name." It's a great talk from this last April priesthood session. I talked a lot about how before all the things he did, he prayed that the other people would feel of God's love for them through his loving service. It was really nice. I know when we give of our time and our talents willingly and lovingly, the recipient will feel of our love and the Savior's love. It's good to help a friend and not be greedy.

A cute experience before my talk: there's this lil guy in our ward here who is maybe 2 or 3 years old. He really likes his toy dinos. :) He's a precious lil one. He was on the ramp leading up to the pulpit, and I waved at him and he said oi (hi) so I said oi back. It was a great start to my talk. Probably the best part of my talk, as a matter of fact haha. 

I really love how God knows what He's doing. These last few weeks I haven't been making my desired progress in the scriptures, but in God's wisdom, it turned out for the best because while preparing for my talk I read Alma 13 (only one of the best chapters in the Book of Mormon). And whaddya know, I'm giving a talk about how "the purpose for our receiving the priesthood is to allow us to bless people for the Lord, doing so in His name." And Alma 13 is all about the priesthood. I really like verse 10. "Now, as I said concerning the holy order, or this high priesthood, there were many who were ordained and became high priests of God; and it was on account of their exceeding faith and repentance, and their righteousness before God, they choosing to repent and work righteousness rather than to perish;" I also related this to callings in the church, with that quote you can switch the word "priesthood" with the word "callings." We are set apart by the priesthood for callings, male and female, adults and youth. We are to help and bless others. And in turn, we will be blessed. 

There's no such thing as coinkidinks. Hope y'all have a great week!

What A Week(s) (7/19/21)

This has been quite the week for sure. It has been like those chocolate chips I mentioned last week--bittersweet. Well, not really. It's been a good week. Trindade is trinity in English, and there are statues all over this little town of Mary, Jesus, God, and other people that are important to (I am assuming) the Catholic church. We walked around a lot today and took pictures with them. In a few of the statues there were places to put little white candles. I was really wondering why we have those little white candles in our house. We ended up walking to this big church that has a gold roof. It has intrigued me the whole week because I didn't know what it was, so we went exploring around our little town and found out it is a huge church. We then bought some churros, and they are a little different here. I got mine with doce de leite hehe. We also bought some ham pie things? The word pie really has a sweet flavor in my mind, but here they make everything sweet and also savory. It's a nice option to have. Today was a good day. Lots of walking and exploring, but now I feel a little more comfortable and acquainted with our fun little town.

Because we whitewashed the area, we had some fun with the lunch calendar. We texted the sister who had lunch for the next day, and she said she had already given us food or money. We then informed her that we are not the sisters and we are new elders. No dice. It turned out all good, though. After 5 days, the confusion is at a minimum now, and all is basically well. If everything was perfect, I would be concerned. The world would not be in balance, and maybe I somehow missed the Second Coming. But all is well because it's not perfect, and that's how I like it. A perfect church with imperfect people. We all love Jesus, and at the end of the day that's what's important (among other things).

At the end of a mission, missionaries will do a thing called My Plan. It's basically making goals and then making goals for how to reach those goals. It really makes you think. My homework given me on My Plan was to study my Patriarchal Blessing with some ideas they gave me. It was great. Then they said, your Patriarchal blessing is your whole life, where you can go and what you can be, where and what do you want to be just one year from now? It got me thinking hard. I have a concept for my whole life--an extremely vague general idea. But I had never thought about the first year after my mission. I guess I've always thought about what I'll be like when I die and who I will be then, but, how will I get there? Great question. 

This is a confusing 2 weeks in one, but this last week was a good one too. A little better than the first week here because now I feel like a professional in my area (not really), but I feel better in my area now. We are getting acquainted with the pizza places that are good and also the burger places that are good. We have learned by sad experience where not to go to get pizza. We were sorely disappointed after we bought 3 pizzas... that one was painful. But no need to fear because we made up for it by buying a really good pizza. 

We got haircuts today, and it was fun. I have reached the point where I am a little excited to meet new people because I'm not really great at talking about a lot of stuff, but they then ask where I'm from because of my accent, and then we start talking about that for a while. Sometimes haircuts are really awkward because you've got nothing to say and you're just sittin' there staring at a random person cut your hair. Weird concept sometimes. But we were talking the whole time. It was great. Then I bought some sunglasses just cus. They are absolutely useless for me because I wear glasses and can't see anything without them, but no matter because I will find opportunities to wear them. Not while I am driving of course. Maybe while I'm in a car with a crazy driver. You never know. 

I know I have already talked about this before, but the concept of small and simple things bringing to pass great things is so great. It works for good things and for bad things. If you do a lot of little dumb things, eventually those little dumb things will become big dumb things (if you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes). If you do a lot of little good things, eventually those little good things will be big good things. I would recommend doing good things because of a scripture in Doctrine and Covenants section 1, verse 3, "The rebellious shall be pierced with much sorrow; for their iniquities shall be spoken upon the housetops, and their secret acts shall be revealed." That's pretty scary :O I am just fine not having my iniquities spoken upon the housetops. I don't particularly want to hear your iniquities spoken upon the housetops either. :) "Nevertheless, he that repents and does the commandments of the Lord shall be forgiven." In the doctrine of Elder Locey, he thinks that those who have been forgiven won't have their sins preached to everyone. This scripture is talking about the rebellious, and the rebellious are not the righteous. So, long story short, there is peace in not being rebellious, and repentance is actually great--its change. Let's change. Anywho, that's all for today. 

Have a good week! Utah doesn't have any water, but you can use lotion so your skin can have water. We don't like painful dry skin. Good luck.

Here to Stay (7/5/21)

So that little sickness that I was greeted with about a week ago that I thought was just a pesky thing for a few days? Well, I still have it. It has turned into like 4 different illnesses. First it started with my throat being almost closed and my almost/basically not being able to swallow. Then it turned into my being deaf. I couldn't even hear my comp in the kitchen, and our apartment is rather echo-y. Then my head turned into a drum, pounding every few seconds. Then it all mellowed out, and my throat just stayed the same coarse harshness. And here I am today, with a gnarly cough. I don't think it's Covid but who knows. Imagine, I got Covid in the United States, then 5 or so months later I get it again in Brazil. We will see. 

Something contrary to the heading of this email is me--I am not here to stay. I am going to an area called Trindade. I have no idea where it is, but it'll be good. I've been told that my new companion is a good one, but I have forgotten his name and who he is. I will be going tomorrow. It'll be a little bittersweet, like the chocolate chips. In all reality, it won't be bittersweet because those chocolate chips are amazing. I have really enjoyed this area and the people here, but I think it'll be hard to not like an area. 

Our mission president and his wife challenged us last week to do something to grow closer to the Savior. I had some ideas of what I would do, but I ended up praying a lot. This last week was a prayer-filled week. For no specific reason, but that's just kinda what happened and I liked it so I went with it. In the beginning it was a little hard for me to not daydream during the prayers. For some reason, during prayers is such a good time to daydream. But with some Inception prayers--prayers inside prayers--everything turned out good, and I feel closer to my Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ. Interesting how that is. Something as simple as prayer. I felt like I was seriously talking to Him and conversing with Him. It was mainly feelings but I understood everything that was being said. Amazing how the Spirit works too. Alma the Younger talks a lot about the spirit in Alma 5-9, and probably in 9-14ish also (that's next in my reading--I haven't gotten there just yet).

But in short, I know that our Father in Heaven listens to our prayers, even when we are just saying a prayer just to say one because we know that's what we should do. He listens to those too, but if we really want to talk to Him, get to know Him, and hold Him close to us here on earth, we need to legitimately pray, try, and work. Good prayers often take a lot of work on our part. I encourage all of you to switch up your prayers a little bit this next week. Spend a little more time talking to your Father in Heaven, spend a little more time listening after, and hold Him close. I can promise only good feelings coming from this. It really is worth it. 

Have a great week, y'all. Stay safe and stay in good places!

Craziness and Food Repentance (6/28/21)

This has been a wild week. Feels like transfers but those aren't for another week or 2 or something. I've been on a week-long trade off with my zone leaders. Their ward is kinda annoyed at them because they have gone through 4 missionaries in 4 weeks, I think, with transfers, then an emergency transfer, then a week-long trade off. The members just ask who are you and how long you will be there. Heh. But it's been good. I was trying to do many interesting things on that tradeoff. I was permitted to play basketball for a bit one day during lunch. I'm awful at basketball, but it was so nice to play just to be able to do something else. I tried to measure the humidity in the computer room and tried to hypothesize why the computer room is so blasted hot and the room next door is actually a normal temperature. Also why the fan only kinda works and makes a bunch of disconcerting noises while all the other fans work just fine. That week was the fastest I have ever done anything in my entire life. My comp for the week was a machine. He turned on at 6:30 and turned off at 10:30. It was actually really impressive. 

When I finally got home I was greeted by a nice little Brazilian flu. It is different from the American flu. For me, I am used to flu season where I feel kinda yucky for a few days and my nose runs like a water hose during school and it is painfully awkward. But here, I now know how the American Indians felt when they all died when the Spaniards showed up with the Spanish flu. I legit was like ok, now I'm seriously going to die. My comp said it's just the flu. The flu on steroids. I'm doing better now, almost 100%. 

It was my comp's and my mom's birthday on the 23rd, and that was really fun. We had lunch at a restaurant where some members work, and they made him a really big cake. It was really fun to see all that and eat it all. It was so good. 

I ate at McDonald's two or so weeks ago, and it was definitely the great value version. Not really the best. Then I ate at Burger King, and goodness it was amazing for some reason. I'm not a super big fast food guy, but we ate there again today and it didn't really live up to the expectations I had but it was still better than McDonald's here. But we had a McFlurry thing, and it was crazy good. I got some fancy chocolate in it, and I was really impressed. I would recommend this from McDonald's.

After our trade off, I came home to the dirtiest apartment I have ever seen in my life. I was a little annoyed in the beginning, then I was rather impressed. Impressed as to how two people in 7 days could make a house that dirty. The worst part was our fridge. There was some food in there that had already gone bad, but they refused to clean it. Our fridge and microwave use the same plug, and sometimes we forget to plug the fridge back in. That happened last week. So I also was greeted by the worst smell known to man when I went to clean the fridge. We put 3 masks on and then cologne on the masks and then put a shirt over the masks. Through all that I could still smell the food a little bit. It was awful. We even put a fan in the kitchen to blow some fresh air in. Quite the experience. So I'm going to compare this to repentance. If we would have just cleaned the food when it went bad, it would have had a bad smell; if you repent quickly you'll have a little process of pain. But if you prolong or procrastinate your repentance like we prolonged and procrastinated our cleaning, it will be a long, gross, and painful process. The two different ways bring the same result: a clean kitchen and clean body. One way is much more desirable. I urge you to choose this easier path. Don't procrastinate the day of your repentance. Because of this, we can now breathe easy in our house and not have fear of opening our fridge and dying haha. 

While I'm here I might as well say this, too: I really liked what I studied today; it was what Alma the Younger said after he woke up from his wild ride with an angel. It is Mosiah 27:24-26. I really like how he is talking about being born again. He wasn't baptized while he was in a coma, but he became a new creature. Have we done this? Are we doing this? Am I doing this? This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Faith, repentance, baptism, the Holy Ghost, and enduring/progressing to the end. This is how we can become new creatures. I love this. Becoming new. Becoming better.

Anywho, I hope y'all have a great week and a safe one too. I don't want an inception pandemic. A pandemic inside of a pandemic. Covid 19.2.0 Soon it'll sound like Apple ios systemos. ios 10.1.3.5.7.43.56.45.7.4.2.653.67.456.7.256 1/2. But don't worry, it's the newest one and absolutely nothing changed except the numbers. Anywho. Enjoy your week for me. Have some fun.

Last Three Weeks (6/21/21)

Well hello again, everybody. Upon a lot of reflection and thinking, I haven't said a whole lot of much of any experiences I have had these last few weeks. To start out, we accidentally walked into a protest against the Brazilian president. I was rather scared, and the spirit was like yeah get outta there. But we kept going, and there was a ton of people yelling and screaming and had mega horns and cars were honking and people yelling, then, here's where it got real good (bad), people are filming and then somebody yells, "Leave president, and get out of here Mormons also!" (This translation is pretty bad, but that's the gist of it.) So we just about started running to the bank. Super sketch. But I was thinking about what my people in my country were doing last year for those protests and what was happening and I thought, if those things were happening in America, imagine what would happen to me in a different country with people who don't like their president. It was pretty sketch. I wouldn't recommend it. But a good story to tell haha. 

We had açaí for like 5 days in a row also. It got to the point where I was like ok no I don't want açaí anymore, but we ended up just getting açaí again. And again. And again. It was so good, but my stomach ended up being very sad because too much sugar makes my stomach not super happy. But it's so good. 

We had a nice testimony meeting last week, and I talked about Jesus being our medic. It was really nice the experiences I had that week because it always blows my mind how many times God will forgive me because I am always doing stupid stuff haha. Like Nephi in 2 Nephi 4 when he's like dude why, I hate this, I'm always messing up and doin all this dumb stuff, but I trust God and I love Jesus. We just gotta love and trust God and Jesus. Some great stuff happens because of this. 

I have started to discover the extent of my companion's love for cheese. He seriously loves cheese so much haha. We got to the store, and he's like ok we are going to make lasagna. We buy a normal amount of things and then like twice as much cheese as a normal person would need. It is fun to see the individual personalities of people and what they like, don't like, what they love, and what they need. Everybody is different, and it's fun to learn about those differences. Sometimes I'm like ok dude we seriously don't need this much cheese, but we buy it because I think it's kinda funny. It turns out being kinda expensive but still, this brotha loves cheese so much haha. Fun to see it. 

I was reading in Jacob this last week, and I always forget how good the book of Jacob is. I'm always like dang, Nephi dies, so sad, then Jacob just tells a story about an olive tree that is a representation of the gathering of Israel and the scattering of it too. But like the other chapters of Jacob are great too. It was nice to have the Spirit say, hey, remember this? Look at this. And this. Remember this? So fun. I love the scriptures. I hope you do too. 

We got really bored after our trade off with the assistants, and so we calculated how many hours I have left in my mission. It's like 1,600 or something. We didn't use a calculator--just a pen and paper. I seriously forgot how to divide. I was putting the square root thing instead of the divide sign thing, and then we checked our work with a calculator and we were close enough I think, maybe. But I seriously forgot how to divide. When I'm a dad, my kids are going to be like, "Dad, help me with my homework," and I'll look at them and say, "They aren't letting you use a calculator?" It'll be like 8 x 4 or something, and I'll either start counting on my fingers or pull out my phone. I never really learned my 8 times tables either. heh. oops. 

But basically it has been fun here in Brazil. There are good things everywhere, and we just need to look for them. I hope that all of you can feel God's love this week. One of the top 3 feelings ever. Next to forgiveness, feelings of the spirit, and taking off your tight shoes after a long day. Or washing your face. That's nice, too. You get all sweaty and gross and then you go wash your face, so nice. Anywho, have a great week. Take your vitamins also. The prophet is right.