A Little Bit of Home (2/24/20)

I say a little bit of home because I started a lady's motorcycle for her, and it was great. Basically the whole day I was thinking about the lil motorcycle. It's such a blessing my companion knows absolutely nothing about cars and motorcycles because I got to start it, not him hehe. And I don't get distracted thinking or talking about cars or motorcycles. Mas vamos la.

Terca: I discovered I don't much like district council, but that's okay. Our numbers aren't very good, and our district leader was like what can we do differently. I have no idea, honestly. I still think it's September of 2019. Lunch was crazy. This family made some food for us and then they just left. And we were alone in the house. Kinda weird. Then they came back and were like elders make some more food for us and they left. We were so confused. Found out after they came back that the other elders before us were super close and they would go over and make food and that was something that was a little confusing for me. Just walk into a member's house, nobody home, make some food, leave a little note with a scripture, leave. Weird.

Facebook photos from their area conference last week.

Quarta: my comp wanted me to make 25 contacts today. That's not a lot of people, but our goal for every day is 12. I forget why we wanted to make 25, but we didn't talk to many people today. That's actually a lie because I talked to or made 15 effective contacts. We taught 5 lessons today, had some rain; nothing super eventful happened today.
Quinta: we had lunch with Bishop today. This was the first time I have been in his house. Every other time we go to a little restaurant by his house. I kinda think I'm allergic to olives because before my mission I had an allergic reaction to olive oil, and there were olives in the spaghetti. I thought hmmm, this has happened before. I've eaten them here before, but I dunno if I wanna try it again. So what do I do? I eat them, kinda. heh. We had a ward temple trip this week, and one person from our ward went, nice. It turned into a stake temple trip.

Sexta: we had a ton of rain the whole day today. We were walking, and I said hi to some people. They were about 16 years old and this is how it went: tudo bem? tudo! (the third) NAO tudo bem, hmph. Which is everything good? Everything! Nothing is good, hmph. The third clearly does not like rain. I tried using a pencil today, and I don't much like them but presidente told us to use one when we plan our day. Okay. I often forget that not everybody reads as slowly as I do in Portuguese and in English. My comp can study 3 or 4 or 5 chapters in the Book of Mormon every morning and remember quite a bit. I read half a chapter in English then in Portuguese, and I have to look and read again because I forgot. heh. oops.

Sabado: we were also super sick this week, so that's not too fun. I woke up this morning wanting to barf and just couldn't really function. I got maybe 3 hours of sleep and tried to lug my way through today. I ate a little dough thing at lunch. It's called rapadura. I have no idea what it was, but it was pretty good. Not so good with my stomach condition right now. Oh well. We got home and I had the thought, look at the little medical thing we packed. I've got some dayquil and nyquil. Those are some big pills, but with a few prayers and a ton of water they went down and that was some good sleep I got. If I could, I'd do that every night. But that's bad; do not do it.

Facebook photos from their
area conference last week.

Domingo: church was good. I gave my first talk, and it was a Benny classic. Less than 2 minutes. It was about missionary work. I think I said something like everyone is a missionary through their examples. After, the stake presidente talked about something then was very direct with everything he said. It was very good. He basically said a few things were of the devil and we need to stop doing them. I wasn't 100% sure what they were because I'm not exactly fluent. We walked around our area because a ton of members aren't here because of Carnival and a youth trip thing in Goiânia. Two crazy drunk people stopped us and wanted a message in the Bible. We tried to pull a sneaky one on them and pulled out the blue Bible, the Book of Mormon. They didn't much like that, so we got an actual Bible and then they tried to recite a memorized verse, but it was just drunken mumbo jumbo. Then they wanted a prayer and grabbed our hands. I don't much like prayers when you hold hands in the middle of a sidewalk. It's a little weird, if you ask me. But we survived and basically ran after that. They were so drunk.

Segunda: today was a little difficult. I wanted to sleep, but our store close to our house is closed. So we walked 30 minutes for another store, that was closed, another 10 minutes for another store that was closed, so we walked back another 20 ish minutes, found a little tiny mercado thing, and I bought some bread because that's about all they had. We went home, and then I went to bed because I felt real gross. Dayquil helps, but I'm not 100% now. I kinda rested, and then we went to the lan house, closed, went to the other lan house, closed. Called our district leader. He said these words, "Oh sorry, Elders. I forgot to tell you. You can go to a member's house and use their computer. Tchau!" We're about an hour and 10 minutes from our house, and it's 4 pm. We are at the bishop's house right now. We have done lots and lots of walking. I would like a shower, but on the plus side, I think the usb port works here, so a few pictures for y'alls.

Welp, Bishop's computer's usb port is broken too. Use whatever words you want to describe this one.

Mais Açúcar, Elder! (2/17/20)

This week was pretty good. We had zone conference and interviews with presidente, and one of our amigos didn't drink this week!

Monday: learned today in the email from presidente that we should work on inviting people to do things. I thought I was doing pretty good but then remembered I don't have any baptisms, and people don't much come to church. Never thought about the invite part. President Nelson also said we should think about how our lives would be different without the message of the restoration of the gospel. Thought about that today and I was like, my life would probably suck. Glad I've got the knowledge of Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, the whole 9 yards. It's great to have.

Tuesday: we had splits today. I was with Elder Bairros? Barritos? I really don't remember. He's from Fortaleza, and he speaks faster than anyone I've ever heard. It's rather impressive and kinda difficult. I learned the phrase Fala mais devagar, which is speak slower. I also learned that just because my comp is Brazilian doesn't mean he always has a lesson, so I need to have a lesson planned with every house we enter because we went in a few houses and were rather confused because we didn't have a lesson. It was rather awkward and a little difficult.

Wednesday: I got a little annoyed this morning when we ended splits before lunch. We walked to the center when it is much closer to walk to the bank, closer for both sets of elders. Whatever. My comp gave me a talk in Portuguese, and while I was reading it I was like this is rather familiar. I remembered I read it in English last transfer because my wonderful neighbor sent it to me! Haha, nice lil coinquidink [how we sometimes say "coincidence"], not really, but it was nice to have that in English and Portuguese. Learned that cenoura is carrot, and most cakes are made out of carrots here. There's another excuse to eat cake because it's healthy. You don't taste the carrots though. hehe.

Thursday: I really lucked out today. So my comp doesn't much like cleaning the house. He will always find something else to do rather than clean. Our house is a mess, I'll be the first to admit. I kinda try during the week with things like putting trash in the trash can, cleaning my plate, putting the plates in the sink, putting clothes in 1 area, just simple things, flushing the toilet, really simple things. Our house is rather gross right now. Here's where I lucked out: after lunch we taught somebody real quick, were about 1 hour from our house, and presidente calls us. Elders, where are you? I'd like to inspect your house right now. I'm outside your door. You should be in planejamento seminal right now. hehehe. No. We raced home and tried to clean a bit, but he found something else to do--planejamento seminal. After, we met with somebody in the ward and we talked about our investigators. Then went home and made lime juice. Here's where it gets good. Neither of us knows how much juice 1 lime makes, so we put 4 limes in the blender with maybe half a liter of water, so 1 water bottle. Yeah that was a fail. We put a ton of sugar in and a ton of water. After doing that 6 more times, we had made and drank around 3 liters of water, gave up when we were about to barf because we had so much lime juice, and tomorrow is zone conference. One lime makes about 1 liter of juice. Just a little reference. Also realized I didn't explain the title of the email: this is what my comp said every time he drank my lime juice we tried making. He said it with a very sour look on his face because it was extremely tart. heh.

Friday: Happy Birthday, DAD! Also zone conference and interviews with presidente were pretty good. It was really quick because he had to interview around 30 missionaries in around 2 hours. We didn't really go in-depth on anything, and he asked if I was obedient. I said yes, and he was like nice go get these other elders. That was my whole interview. haha. After, we tried visiting people. I also got 2 packages, but if these computers had usb ports that worked I'd show y'alls what I gots. I'll tell instead. It was a bunch of chocolate and candies and 2 missionary figures from my dad's friend Francisco, and meu mãe gave me a lil Book of Mormon and a hymn book. Much needed things. It was rather nice to read a hymn in English again. Lots of people say se Deus quiser, that's if God wants. They say that when we ask them to read or pray or go to church. God does want you to go to church, He wants you to read, He wants you to pray.

Saturday: we walked a lot today and it really rained when we were in a house teaching a lesson, and my comp didn't even realize it. Later that day somebody asked how the rain was, and he didn't even know it rained. Weird. I tried using a pencil today because that was another thing presidente told us to do and use yesterday. I don't like it. Pencils are great for school, but if you're trying to read something, it's rather faint. So I wrote everything in pen again, and it was 10 times better. Also during lunch, Irmao Carlos glued my shoes together. They were a little broken, so he was like I'll help you out. 100 times better now. Also literally every car has an exhaust leak. You think you maybe hear a nice car, but it's just a really old car without an exhaust. Or you think a car has a big cam. No, it's a really bad idle haha. Took me a lil bit of time to figure that out. It's kinda normal now. I tried thinking about my house and then got weirded out that I didn't have a wall in front of my house.

Sunday: nobody came to church, then 2 people did, or investigators, the members came, then they didn't like it because they were very confused. It wasn't super spiritual today. They also had a bunch of questions about the Book of Mormon but didn't ask them questions. Bummer. We'll get those questions out of them. I tried using this in a lesson but then didn't know how many times the Bible was translated. Because the Book of Mormon was translated once, by Joseph Smith. But the Bible has like 100 different versions. I don't much like the Jehovah's Witnesses' version of the Bible. It's EXTREMELY different. There is a ton of confusion in the world. Just about everyone is confused about something. Usually about religion. Kinda sad. We're trying to make people un-confused. They literally have to do 2 things. Read a blue book, and pray about that blue book and ask the Being who created them, their Father, if that book is true. Two things.

Today: today was rather interesting. everything happened, I need to buy shoes, a watch, get a haircut, go to the bank, the store, the lan house, and clean my house. We succeeded in going to the bank and the market and the lan house. And getting a haircut. That guy was really funny and just said a bunch, they don't do this in America, eh? Or do they? We also tried buying 5 different watches for me today. The first broke, the 2nd broke, the 3-5th broke also. I'm thinking it's a good ole sign from God, hey Elder Locey, don't buy these watches. Same with the shoes. My card was declined 3 times for shoes. Bummer. But also on Sunday Irmao Carlos gave me shoes. They have fallen apart, but I can't complain because they are more together than my other shoes haha.

Maybe next week I'll find a computer that has a working usb port. Yeesh cara, 4 computers, and none of them work. I also don't have many pictures. My comp says I don't need my camera. Enjoy this week, y'alls. I also bought a piece of some banana cake stuff and that was really really good, so eat some cake too this week. And ice cream because it's hot here. :)

Assaltos (2/10/20)

This week was rather interesting. We had an abnormal amount of rain for an abnormal amount of time, like Tuesday-Friday. Wednesday and Thursday was so much rain that the roads were flooded about up to my mid shin, so that was cool. And a dude got mad at us with a gun haha. I'll tell more about that.

Monday: I learned some words, like boi is cow, and my companion said I'm the only American he's met who still likes rice and beans. He said I am addicted to food, heh. I do love a big plate of rice and beans for some reason. That's a definite gift from God. We tried buying an umbrella for my comp because he misplaced his, but the store we went to had zebra and cheetah print only. I was trying my hardest to not laugh because my comp really really likes having his own umbrella and he was really about to buy it. That was really difficult for me not to laugh. I also was like, Elder, look, another place selling acai! Let's check it out. And I dart across the road and go buy some acai for a lot cheaper than last time, and I actually got stuff in it. Nice. But the rest of the day was pretty uneventful. We usually forget the phone every day. It's kinda broken, and I asked why we don't get calls. He said he may have accidentally dropped the phone the first 5 minutes he had it. Well, that's why it doesn't work. heh.

Tuesday: we had lunch at what I thought was 45 minutes from our house, but with my companion's speedy little legs we made it in 30. I never thought anyone would walk faster than a rushed Elder Zoroaster, but Elder Lampert walks fast in the house and out of the house. We had district council after, and he wanted to buy a bus pass. I don't know how to do that. So we tried to get an Uber, but at the last minute we were like nah and didn't ask people to call one. We walked from, you guys don't know these cities, sooo, we walked from a while away from our house to a while away from our house in the other direction. Our new district leader is pretty cool. I now know who he is. Don't remember his name. We have another elder from the north of Brazil, and he talks faster than I have ever heard anyone talk. He tried teaching me the first lesson from practices, and I felt like it was my first week again. I picked up a few words. The other Brazilians don't really understand him either, nice. That night we bumped into our bishop and he taught me something that he would always teach the American missionaries he trained on his mission: Elder, voce quer uma tapa na cara? It means Elder, do you want a slap in the face? And because Americans during training don't understand anything, they are like uuuuhhhhhhhhhhhh sim? heh.

Wednesday: we had rain from this morning until tomorrow. I kinda gave up and asked my companion to hold my umbrella for a minute, and I ran and he was like ELDER NOOOOO COME BACK YOU WILL GET SICK!! I was already wet and you can't get more wet, so I decided to have some fun. I was jumping in puddles, the whole 9 yards, and the whole time my comp was like, no Elder come back to the umbrella, please, nobody will accept us in their house. While he is correct on that last part, nobody will come out of their house to accept us in haha. But today was the first day of my mission when I was almost cold. I was chilled! It was also 9 pm in the pouring rain, with water in the streets up to my mid shin. That was a fun day.

Thursday: we had more rain today. It stopped raining just long enough for me to try out some shoes I found in my house. I have blisters on my heels now, so that's pretty lame. We had lunch at the restaurant I got sick at, and I'm 100% serious I have PTSD from that place. The rice and beans are the only safe thing to eat. I am always reminded why that place is still in business. People eat there when they are drunk out of their minds. 50% of the time we go there or walk past, there's people in there so drunk they can barely look side to side. Rather interesting seeing that at 11 am, 8 pm, and all hours in between. I heeded my companion's advice and tried to say under my breaking umbrella. Then I was annoyed at him for who knows what reason. It was like 4 days ago. Then he was like, Elder you're going to pray and bowed his head, so I prayed in front of a bar, people drunk out of their minds, and then I was like well that house has a light on, so we knocked and he gave us the same excuses of oh I don't have a lot of time right now, but where are you from? When he found out I was American, he had all the time in the world. His girlfriend is from America or lives in America, and he wants to move to America. He had most things correct, but not everyone has 4 meals a day. We don't have juice like here. I also made some juice. It was pretty good. They gave us tamarindo juice too. That was so good. I basically told him a bunch to pray, and he was like okay, God knows more than me and I wanna do his will. So that was pretty awesome.

Friday: we had another day where literally every single person we scheduled cancelled. I had probably the best marmita of my mission today too. Marmita is like a pre-made lunch for 10 reais. My comp absolutely hates marmita and wants to cry when he has to eat marmita. Nice. It was rather good. We had pumpkin in it, and I guess I like pumpkin.

Saturday; Saturday was good. We were going to try to go to basically every single place in our area, from area 2000 to Sao Jose back to Costa Teles, and I convinced my comp to not go to 2000 when we had lunch at 1:30. Bishop called us and asked why we didn't have any baptisms. We told him we have two people with baptism dates, but if they will actually go to church Bishop can meet them haha. We taught a few lessons today and visited quite a few houses. It was a good day. My planajemento is still wet from Wednesday, and I found out if you put paper in the microwave, it just steams and smells awful, and oh yeah plastic melts haha. Oops.

Sunday: okay so today was rather eventful. Church was with a family from England. I tried speaking English, but I forgot how to speak English. The dad didn't speak a lick of Portuguese. I think the son served a mission here and met a Brazilian or another missionary and after the missions did the classic get married. But 2nd hour was rather eventful. I tried translating but realized that the things he was saying were kinda weird, like he said that we get more power from reading the Pearl of Great Price than we do from reading 1 and 2nd Nephi. Interesting. Then the people in my ward didn't really understand an English man speaking Portuguese haha. I didn't much understand him either. But later in the day we made contacts, had an amazing chossoco, and then at around 7:30 we were in front of a random house, called our numbers into the district leader, and a guy came outside and was like who are you? So I walked over and asked if he wanted us to leave, and he was in his pajamas and holding a pistol. He said lots of assaults happen here. Interesting. He has like 8 cameras on his house and these huge flood lights. I just looked at him and was like okay, then told him we will leave. Then when he closed his door, I just started laughing. Built my testimony even more that this really is the Lord's work. I didn't even have an ounce of fear in my body because I'm a missionary. I'm doing the Lord's work, and He will take care of me and protect me. We went and visited a member after, told him the story, and he busted up laughing. It was pretty great.

I have the broken computer again so I can't send pictures, but I took a picture with a pineapple, have a picture of my companion, and we bought like 4 liters of ice cream today.

Mosquitoes (2/3/20)

I think I can say this for everyone, but I hate mosquitoes, geez. I killed one in my daily planner. It was green. I didn't know mosquitoes were different colors until I got here. The mosquitoes with white rings have dengue and you just spray a ton of bug spray on. They are only out to kill in the mornings and afternoons; the evenings have little tiny tiny mosquitoes you don't see or feel, and the bite lasts for about 6-8 hours and goes away. My comp killed a blue and yellow one too, I think. Also they don't have a word for a house fly, so they call them mosquitoes too. Kinda everything that flies is a mosquito. I would like to light them on fire. All of them. But on a more Christ-like note, we marked somebody for baptism last Monday! That was pretty cool. We're supposed to make 12 contacts a day. It's a mission rule. I made 1. oops

This is also the Elder Zoroaster and Locey food creation

Tuesday: we had lunch in our house. I discovered my comp will not eat the same thing 2 days in a row. He says he's sick of it. We ate the Elder Zoroaster and Locey custom burger: hamburger, chicken, and cheese in a roll on Monday. He has never had that. I think he liked it and was hungry because he ate 2 of those so fast. Today we had an Elder Lampert invention: noodles, calabresa, sauce, and cream. An abnormal amount of cream. I dunno why I thought that was so weird to put cream in the meat, sauce, and noodles, but it was pretty good, really good. We made way too much haha. We went to district council after and met the new district leader. Kinda stupid of me, but I still have no idea who the district leader is. oops. I discovered I am 66 kilos [145.5 pounds]. I was 59 or 60 when I got in the CTM. Something even crazier--my comp is 56 kilos. When he started his mission a year and 8 months ago, he was like 48 or 50. He said he gained 10 kilos in his first 2 transfers because he ate a sleeve of cookies every morning and every night. Then he said he ate a 5 kilo bag of sugar in 1 transfer. He has almost completely stopped eating sugar. I think he should take it up again.

Wednesday: we had lunch in our house again. It was quite the task getting the money for lunch actually. We called the sister, then we went and knocked on her door, then she called us and asked why we were at her house, then she told us to go to her mom's house. So we went to her mom's house. Her mom is the new Relief Society presidente. We went back to the store and bought some more food. No idea what we bought. I think it was another burger thing. We taught a few lessons today. My comp tried to teach me about how a few people here think Joseph Smith was a different whack crazy conspiracy religion with a ton of weirdly outrageous things about him, and how he called some other lady and she actually restored the true church and she was the prophet and that was about all I understood. There is a lot of confusion in the world.

We also made maracuja because the guy who lives in the house
in front of use was like elders! do you want these? uh, yeah
we want them haha

Thursday: for lunch today we decided to go to a restaurant, ooooooooo fancy! I've been to 1 restaurant and I got sick there, but this restaurant had all you can drink juice and all you can eat for 16 reais--the cheapest in our area--but we got the make-your-own prato feito for 12 reais. It was really good. After, with a few reais left over, we went and bought cake, hehehe, and ate it during planejamento. We visited a 15 year old. I thought about what my zone leader said: if you want more young men in your ward, go and baptize some. So we went and taught a 15-, 16-, and 17-year-old. Geez, they were turds. Adults at least have the respect to pay attention to a random 19-year-old and 22-year-old, but they were talking to each other. I even started speaking in English, and they didn't even notice. At least we tried. They'll come around eventually.

Friday: killed that mosquito in my daily planner today. Have a big ole blood stain in it now. Today was rather interesting. We called the irma for lunch. She didn't answer. Called her husband, nothing. Knocked on their door, nothing. Nice. We waited for around for 10 minutes and finally their son came and was like oh, I'll ask if you can eat here. haha. Then an hour later we got lunch, and the rest of the day baffled my companion. Every single person canceled. Every. Single. Person. The members we called were busy. All the people we're teaching were busy. All the new people we're teaching were busy. All the contacts we made didn't give us an address or a phone number. My comp was dumbstruck. He has never had more than 5 people cancel in a day. But today was pretty awesome. We did an abnormal amount of walking. heh.

Saturday: we visited a less-active member family, and my comp got risky but for a good reason. The guy was starting to get testy with us and was asking why we were here, then my comp asked why he even got baptized. He was rather annoyed and tried to answer us, but I knew without a doubt the Spirit was putting in some serious work on him right then. He then told us the truth. He read that blue book and felt something he had never felt in his life. Then he was at a loss for words, and then we were able to speak to him. That was a very good lesson and conversation. It's a bummer I didn't understand much. My comp was kinda sick and I tried to fast, but he said I should fast a different day because it's hard to fast without your companion. I was confused and tried to continue my fast. Then we visited another person, and she gave me a roll and juice. There goes my fast. oops. The rain today was abnormal. The whole road had water and was up to my mid shin. It was kinda fun to walk through. I stopped caring, and my comp tried jumping over the water, hehe. He didn't make it too far. We had some fun today, at least I did. I felt like a li'l kid splashing in puddles. heh.

Sunday: whelp, we had approximately 0 people show up to church. The adversary works extremely hard to get people to not show up. I think he knew today was going to be a very spiritual day. Fast and testimony meeting was very powerful. The spirit was very, very present. Very present. I wish the whole world was there to feel that because they wouldn't be able to deny anything. Baptism baptism baptism, oh you felt the Spirit too, baptism! We had a chorrosko today, and the beans were a hot commodity. They went way faster than I thought, but they were really really good. A member asked us a question about the scriptures and about English. My comp answered both questions. Nice. He understands English and all the rules, I think, but doesn't speak much. I've never heard him speak English. What if he's fluent? I also made 42 contacts today. I really always put everything off until the last day. I think I'll learn to be better here.