I am losing my mind (9/28/20)

I literally forget so many things, like, what day is it today, what food we have in the fridge, if we have a dinner, if I ate lunch, or when the last time I ate was, where my phone is, the last time I drank water, and where our rice is. We do not have rice. We did not buy rice. So why I thought we did have rice is a mystery to me. Goodness. 

But I did eat my fair share of ice cream. We bought eggnog ice cream because I saw it and was like my goodness I need it. I then got made fun of for it because I guess you can't have eggnog any other time than December??? Okay, riddle me this? Why did stores start putting out Halloween things 2 weeks ago?? Isn't Halloween closer to Thanksgiving than it is to the start of the school year? Let me eat my eggnog ice cream in peace!

But all in all, this week was kinda slow, kinda busy though. We took our car to the shop and whoop dee do, they tell me that everything is wrong and I need to replace everything. No I don't. Just give me oil and put brake fluid in because there isn't any... oops. So what do they do? change the oil, tires, battery, do an alignment, and don't put brake fluid in. almost $1,000 later. Can I take you somewhere you get your hearing checked? Because I didn't ask. haha. I was annoyed for like 7 minutes. 

A member texted us randomly and was like, 

I worked the morning shift. 
Sweet
Y'all want lunch?
Sure
Okay what do you want?

We ended up getting Thai food, and it was good. This member is way cool. He just moved into the YSA, and he's helping us out every week. Nice. We moved a sink and a few other things at a member's house too. 

Thursday was hilarious. We got back from a dinner and the Spanish elders were like, there were a bunch of gunshots next door like 30 minutes ago. Okay, kinda sketchy but kinda normal at this point. Then I'm folding my laundry, and all of a sudden all the elders are in my house, hunched down by the back window. They said somebody walked past the back window. Okay, kinda even more sketchy. Then the arguing began. You get that sometimes. I started asking a few questions, and we found out one of the elders went behind the house to pee because all the bathrooms were being used... butttt they weren't. And that was the person they saw walking by the window. They were so mad hahaha. They started breaking Styrofoam because our walls are concrete, so they can't punch them. Well they could, but they know better. 

We had a race building baker's racks, and we lost because we had built it wrong twice. The instructions were comparable to Ikea instructions. We called a few people today, and nobody answered. There was a YSA movie tonight, and we went but left because we remembered we didn't have permission to watch the movie. oops. 

We helped some more people do some stuff with their family trees. My companion is amazing at Family Search and stuff. Like he knows the names of his great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents, and he knows which part of his family tree is from which countries and when they came to America and how they came to America. So cool. That's a blessing to have him as my companion. I am learning lots from him. 

Sundays are always nice. We were kinda falling asleep in church but got to the YSA and it was a party as usual. I love the YSA. I know why people want to serve in the YSA wards because they are way more fun than normal wards haha. No offence to the family wards... We got dinner at 3, lunch-ish dinner-ish. And my comp was looking up his chances of getting into BYU based solely on his grades and ACT score. It was like 60 or 70 something %. Then he looked up mine and from just my grades I had a 18 or 20% chance of getting in. Nice. oops. I learned about the astrology things like Libra, Capricorn, Virgo, Pisces, Stegosaurus?? I have no idea. Also learned that from my companion. 

I hope everyone is ready for General Conference. Invite a friend to watch! And go read "The Greatest Among You." It is really good.

Also I guess this is the only picture I took this week. This is a piece to a puzzle that my first companion had. Remember that round rainbow puzzle?? Yep. This is the one missing piece... nice.

The puzzle from July.

And here is a lovely video by puzzle-maker Eric Dowdle about "missing pieces."

Days Drag and Years Fly (9/21/20)

I have learned the truthfulness of this from my dad: days drag and years fly. High school was different; that was just all around long and whatever. But here, it has been a year. I arrived in Brazil on September 18, 2019, feelin' like a 12 year old kid. But here I am, after many many many long days and nights. It has felt like it lasted for about a month or so. People will ask, how long have you been on a mission? Well, a year now... huh. Weird. I also found out here that at 6 months you burn a tie. I do not have any ties that I would like to burn. At 1 year you burn a shirt. I also have no shirts that I would like to burn--I have like 4, maybe 5. Then at the end of your mission you burn a suit. I have 1, and I plan on keeping it for a while because, well, I don't really want to buy another one, heh. 

But anyhoo, Tuesday was an interesting day. We had a nice lesson, and then somebody from the YSA called us and was like, 

Hey Elders, I want some pizza...
Uh, ok? 
How about I bring some to the institute and we eat it, sound good?
Sure. 
Sweet, are you there?
Yeah.

Ok, bye.

Aight whut? That was rather interesting haha. He showed up a few minutes later with a box of pizza, and we talked to him for like 45 minutes. He is so cool. The YSA is literally so fun. I dunno why I was that one kid who didn't want to go. Like what is the worst that could happen? You meet some new friends and see some cute girls (or guys) your age. iS iT thE eNd Of ThE wOrLd!? No. It is not. It is legit fun. GO there. Maybe not the adults, heh. hahaha. But seriously. It is fun.

We found some mold in our house on the wall while cleaning and we were like nope, that's gross. (Come to find out, it was mildew. My comp was like trying to barricade the door closed because he thought we were going to get black lung or some disease.) A member brought us some food, and we got a new elder next door. Good fun. The other elders made sure to label everything in their house, like the mirror was labeled "you boi," the fridge was labeled "chilly boi" etc. We also took a mattress over to the YSA sisters. My comp went into their house to put it in a room, and I was like "NO NO NOOOO YOU CAN'T GO INSIDE!!!! AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH NNNOOOOOOOO!" Kinda forgot to tell him he can't go into the sisters' houses haha. oops.

I got abnormally hungry today, and we went to Wendy's so I could get a burger and so my companion could get chicken. He says that chicken is the best meat. I can see why because there are so many pros: it's cheap (or cheep haha), it has lots of variety, it is healthier apparently, and chicken nuggets. But you don't see Longhorn Steakhouse selling chicken. And burgers are a classic. Anyhoo, got our food, ate it up, and my Frosty tasted like sour cream and cottage cheese. It was disgusting. It was saddening. I wanted that. So what did we do instead (this is Monday)? We bought a gallon of ice cream. Take that, Wendy's.

Friday September 18, 2020: I have hit a year in the mission, and my companion got an email talking about visas!!!!! So crazy!!!! It just said that Brazil isn't accepting new visa applications but to make sure to have all the paperwork and stuff ready. hhmmm. Interesting. My wonderful mom (and family) sent me donuts, and they were really good. I just naturally had to try them all and ended up eating 4 of the 12. heh. They were so good.

We had a baptism today! It is for the YSA ward, and it was so fun. There were a few complications, like the jumpsuit was a large and she's like 5 feet tall, so they rolled up the pants like a foot haha, and her foot came up when she was baptized, and we had to turn off the Zoom video and audio so the people who wanted to see the baptism weren't able to. But we made cookies and had them there. Later in the day we did some more service--we poured some concrete for a little brick patio, and we were mixing some and somebody put a ton of water in, so we were trying to take water out of concrete... it doesn't work, and watery concrete isn't super good, but she didn't care and was like yeah put it all right here. Eh, whatever works, right? She literally also gave me a 6-pound can of corn because I said I love corn. Sooo send any recipes that involve corn or can go with corn please please please.

Sundays are always nice. The YSA is super fun. The 1st ward is interesting--little kids walking in with sunglasses, tutus, and more sass than little kid beauty pageants. Hahaha, I wish I had a picture of a little girl who walked in exactly like that. But there is no cap on how many people can be at sacrament meeting now which is nice. We had a nice Bible study today, too. I ate some dark chocolate and got made fun of for it because apparently when God created light and darkness on the earth in the Bible, it was referring to chocolate, milk chocolate and dark chocolate. The more you know, right? Thus furthering the point of why we need the Book of Mormon. It clarifies that chocolate is chocolate. (Not really but like, with so many translations of the Bible and only 1 of the Book of Mormon it definitely helps.)

Today we went to Walmart 3 times: once, then my comp forgot his wallet, drove back home and then went back, bought some stuff, went back home, did some service, and then went to the institute to play spikeball and then we didn't even play, then we went back to Walmart (well, Boot Barn because it is next door), and I looked at boots, satisfying my western desires. Now we are here. 

Happy Sad, Bittersweet, goodbye hello? (9/14/20)

This last week has been rather interesting. I kinda sorta bought a film camera and a lens for a camera I do not have with me hehe. Lots of trips to the institute building; lots of visits to Google translate because, well, Portuguese; quite a few oven uses; a trip to an actual restaurant; negative Covid tests; lots of trips to the other elders' car during service; 2 baptisms in 1 day; and about 5 or 6 hours at the church. This was a good week. 

Tuesday was a good one. We went to district council, and after I made some quesadilla things that didn't turn out at all. We went on trade offs; the Spanish elders came home with a big box, and they said some of it was for me. There was a lens for my camera back home (cool coinkidink) and a film camera. He wanted 10 bucks, so I gave him 10 bucks. Completely unnecessary, but we are pretty bored over here. We had an awesome institute call today. 

We were at the institute for like 6 hours today. Between helping the sisters with their video, then the elders, then other elders, we were there for a while. So to pass the time I friended a bunch of people from my first area in Brazil and had a conversation with a few of them. The Portuguese is slipping, hence the multiple trips to Google translate. Somebody knocked on the door, and I almost answered in Portuguese. My mind was switching again, haha. 

We were supposed to do weekly planning today, but we didn't. What did we do instead? I forgot, but the person we are teaching tested negative for Covid, so that's awesome. But we got to go to dinner at an actual restaurant with some members, and we went to Longhorn Steakhouse, and it was so good. I got a ribeye steak, and they told me to get the other ribeye steak that was 20 ounces. Goodness. The one I had was 12, and I barely didn't finish it. I also just about died a little when I saw the price on the menu. heh. We are indebted to them. 

We finally did weekly planning, and we zoomed through it. We actually did some EDapp, and it was 9/11 today. 19 years is a long time. We answered a few questions about baptism, and invited our friend to the zone leaders' baptism. We also reached out to a bunch of YSA kiddos to be friends with our friend we are teaching. We texted like 12 people. All around, not super eventful today.

The district

Here we are on a chaotic day, Saturday. We got up and went to do soervie for a member at 7 am. We got there, cleaned out a water heater and the room, then my comp and I went to the car and had a zoom meeting with our mission president for new missionaries, then we went back in after an hour, then worked for about an hour again, and then went back to the car to watch a baptism. We were there for a while, and the car didn't start. ooooooopppppppssssss. What happened? We don't know, but after I kept pushing the start button and then holding it down and clicking literally everything clickable, it started very slowly for some reason. Good stuff. God is watching out for us. He didn't want us to cook like bagels in the toaster. So we watched that, and we had to wait a little while because their family was way late, then our friend didn't show up, so we called her. Quick tip: next to nobody you teach about the gospel of Jesus Christ will respond to a text; you gotta call them. Maybe twice in a row and then leave them a voicemail and then say a few prayers, then they might respond. So we called and yeah. Long story short our phone call answered a lot of their questions. Then we went back to do service for like an hour and then had lunch and then left and got on a lesson. After that, we had a zone conference part 2, kinda a snoozer but whatever. Then some other missionaries went to a balloon festival that got rained out, and we got on another institute call and had transfer calls to see if we are staying or leaving. We had dinner, and I also explained hard water and soft water, and my companion lost his mind. He has never heard of soft water before. And we also had another baptism for somebody I taught back in Brazil. Just about everything happened today. It be like that sometimes. It really do.

Our new homie who is going to Brazil

So here we are on Sunday, another chaotic day. Got to church at 9, stayed until noonish, went home, ate, prepared for another lesson, went to YSA church at like 1, had a good time there; our friend made new friends and talked for like 30 minutes. We met somebody going to my companion's mission (Juiz de Fora) and another going to Russia. We then had our lesson for like an hour, and a member joined us. He is about to go on a mission to LA in 3 weeks!!!! So cool! Then we had a Bible study after, and we were there for another hour or so--talked about the Mount of Transfiguration and then related it to 3 Nephi 11 when God says this is my Beloved Son, Hear [ye] Him, so that was cool. Then we got home at like 5 and watched a Face to Face with Elder Rasband, and that was way good. We also have a pie that I am going to go eat and figure out what flavor it is now. But today we went to the institute and signed transfer journals, and there's a few of the people I like that are leaving :/ Bummer, but oh well. We then went to Target and Ross, and I bought some long-sleeves in hopes that they will protect me from future poison ivy/oak, wasps, gross sweat that you can see (the shirts are darker colored, so it's harder to see sweat, I think?). So any other recommendations are appreciated. But tchau for now. Read your scriptures, say your prayers, and drink lots of water and get lots of sleep.

The last bit of steak I ate after.

Yee. Haw. (9/7/20)

This has been a very long week but a very short week. Tuesday felt like Friday and then Thursday felt like Tuesday and then when it was Saturday we were running around trying to do everything because out of nowhere it was Saturday. It's like it snuck up on us the whole week and then BAM! Saturday. I thought it was Wednesday. Goodness. Let me know when surgeons can do a brain transplant and then sync all my contacts and memories. But, let's get into the meat and putatas of this week. Because it was a juicy one. But, another side note, it wasn't too juicy actually, just like, yeah I have no idea, but being on a mission is literally so so so so so so so fun! It was hard to wait to go to Brazil; it was hard to wait to come to Florida, but I am so glad I did. "Good things come to those who wait" -The Scriptures (probably)

Anyhoo, We didn't have district council today because we have zone conference tomorra. I had all these things I wanted to do, like shine my shoes, wash the car (we need to do that one because they inspect the cars), reread 3 Nephi 11 and chapter 1 of Preach my Gospel, etc. And we managed to wash half of our car, then some members came over and gave an elder a cake for his birthday last week, and we all talked for a while and then we had to leave and have a nice little lesson with a different member about the insights of the Atonement of Jesus Christ in the Book of Mormon. It was a wonderful lesson, and we had my companion take the lead on it. I will admit, I did doubt him a little bit when he first came in. I expected him to know about as much as I did when I came into the mission field, but oh how I was wrong. He is literally so smart; he knows so much Portuguese for being fresh outta the online MTC, and he has amazing teaching skills. Give him a few more weeks, and he will be training me! But we got outside and it was dark, so we wiped the rest of the dirt around on the car and then went to bed. 

Wednesday was good fun. It was Bug's birthday!!! And I didn't get to call home because I was at Zone Conference from 8:15ish am - 6 ish pm. heh. We did get lunch though. And had interviews with President, and heard a ton of great things that were happy to the soul. Learnin bout da Gospel n stuff. I would recommend to anybody. One thing that I learned quite a bit is that if you want somebody to do something you need to be doing it first. It really makes a difference. After we got home we got on a little institute call, and it was nice. There were a few people there, and it was just an all-around good time. 

It is amazing how much something helps and makes a difference when you either organize it or re arrange it. We did that with our whiteboard in weekly planning today, and my goodness it helps a ton. We have lines and words and numbers now. It was originally our people just thrown up there, and we were like yeah they live in Tallahassee. But today we drew lines and put people in categories and made goals for how to help them, and it was like 200 times better. Super useful. Ever confused about something? Write it down and make goals for it, either to learn more about it or to think about it and think it through, then write what you will do in the up-coming days. Helps a lot. 

We are having my companion take the lead as often as possible, and he asked somebody we are teaching to be baptized!! They said YES! Yee. Haw. or Haw Yee. Whichever you prefer. But it was so so cool. 

We had a great day today. I was rather worn out because we went and helped out our bishop by mowing his lawn. He is unable right now, and it was a great time. My impulse-decision part of my brain is still developing; soon I will create intelligent impulse ideas, but for now they aren't so good. I was like yeah we can mow your lawn at 1; it's only literally the hottest part of the day. My thought process before we started was "It's not too bad right now, just standing in the shade of these big trees." Heh. Wait until you start pushing a mower that the wheels don't want to move, up a hill, without shade, while wearing a mask. HA. That's when the sweat really starts jumping off your face. Heh. Good times, though, because we got key lime pie and ice cream after. mmmm. Then they gave us the rest of the pie! So, moral of the story: when you go to help somebody out (especially as missionaries), you might get something you didn't even know you'd get, like pie, and ice cream, and then the rest of the pie! Haha. Go serve somebody, but do it cuz you love 'em. After that we went to another person's house to do service, and it is looking great there. Yet again, you'll get something you never thought. I got a text from one of my companions in Brazil saying that somebody we taught is getting baptized TODAY! IN LIKE 4 HOURS! OH! WOW! At service, I said we would have to leave a little early to Zoom into the baptism, but she was like why? Just use my laptop connected to this big computer screen in the air-conditioned house, and here's some ice water, and oh, here's some food too. Enjoy the baptism! My goodness the Lord looks out for His own, I tell you what. The baptism was amazing, and my comp understood a little bit. It is rather difficult to understand another language through Zoom hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away while they have meh internet connection and they are talking at about 2,000 words per second. But we managed, and I got to talk to one of my bishops back in Brazil and a few of the missionaries that were there too! It was so so so fun! We got home, ate some more food, then realized it's fast Sunday tomorrow...heh. oops.

Today has been a wonderful day. We got to go to church and have a few communication confusions. Those are always fun. We get to church nice and early at 8:45, and there is not a single soul there. Strange. Then 1 car shows up! And we call the other 1st ward elders and ask where they are. There's no church today. So when somebody says church is every other week, they actually mean that it is every 2nd & 4th Sunday, and the 5th Sunday months mess stuff up. That other car that showed up was somebody we were bringing to church. Thaaat's awkward. oops. We hope he shows up next week though! Part of life, I guess. We go home and then go back to church for the YSA. We didn't have our friend (who's getting baptized) there because one of her roommates tested positive for the 'Rona. DuN dUn DUN! We finished church, and we are some hungry hungry hippos and some of the sisters call to ask if they can use the institute. We have to be there, and so we got some other elders there too, had our ward coordination there, we were cookin' there because the A/C doesn't work sometimes for some reason. Strange. Then we went home, ate the absolute worst meal to break a fast with, I had a burnt cookie, like 4 of them, 2 1/2 water bottles, a little bit of cake, and about 20-30 baby carrots. Eh? you see! I made it sorta healthy! We were watching a Sacred Grove thing that the sister missionaries there were doing over Zoom. I have never been there, and it was pretty cool to see all that stuff. Then we went back to the institute for the sisters, kinda helped them edit a video, and my goodness I tell you what, some video editing softwares are some of the most confusing things ever. Just let it be easy to put a few words on the screen! How hard can it be? you may ask. Extremely, apparently. But we went home and had more of the key lime pie, so that's okay. The YSA is actually a ton of fun. Never thought those few words would EVER come out of my mouth. But here I am. 

Today has been a good one. We went to the store and bought some ice cream. We eat healthy, I promise. We bought bananas and grapes, and we still have carrots, lettuce, and cucumbers. Do we eat them? Sometimes. But we also went to this place called La Tiendita, and there's a Brazilian store next door. I spent like 30 bucks haha. It's also Brazil's 4th of July today, so they were making all sorts of Brazilian stuff. My comp got a nice feijuada, and I got some little salgado things with molten lava cheese in them, goodness. Go to take a bite of these little guys, and 800 degree cheese attacks my face and mouth as I violently look for a napkin to wipe it off. ABORT MISSION, I REPEAT, ABORT. MISSION. But of all the things I bought, I didn't buy a Guarana. dang. I love that stuff. 

Anyhoo, if anyone has any recommendations for getting rid of poison ivy or oak from the skin, that would be much appreciated. Butt if not, read an inspiring scripture or something because my brain cannot compute at the moment. We will try again later. 

Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord. Psalm 27:14

Craziness (8/31/20)

It is week 3 ish/week 4 ish of the transfer right now, and here I am with a new companion! Haha, I am a dad now! My companion just finished the online MTC and was supposed to go to a place called Juiz de Fora in the oh so wonderful Brazil. It is above Rio and a little west, I believe. It was pretty crazy. Here's how it all went:

On Monday we had finished up having pday, mini golfing etc., and went to do some service. After we finished, we were eating a little bit of food, and our mission president called. Strange. We went outside and answered, and he was like yeah so there's an opening in San Jose (a Spanish ward in Jacksonville), and he wanted my companion to go because he was in Paraguay before and he speaks Spanish. And then he wanted me to train a missionary out of the online MTC here in Tallahassee. Nice. "When is this to happen?" you may ask. Tomorrow. Heh. So we go home and text a few people, say bye to a few other people, and then we go to bed. It was quite the evening and quite the 3 hours haha.

So here we are on Tuesday. We went to district council and then got some food with the district, and had a nice little district lunch with them. We then went and got some tape because he needed to tape one of his suitcases closed because the zipper broke. Bummer. But we got the tape, and he started packing at 3 when we needed to leave at 6. It was a little stressful for me when he took a break at 5 to scroll through Facebook. GO PACK! He got packed and I cleaned the house pretty good, then we left for Lake City. We got there at about 8 pm, met with the APs, and then did a quick little trade off and turned back around and went home. We got back home at 10:15. Nice. Got to bed and tried to sleep, but it took a while because the other elders wanted to meet my new child, the newest member of The Compound.

Wednesday. Ah yes. I actually have no idea what we did. But with the aid of my journal, now I have remembered from my paper brain that we, as a matter of fact, did very little. But we did have a lesson with somebody and taught about the purpose of life, nice! He said he also wanted a Book of Mormon after we told him about it. Nice. The elders next door also made a cake, mmmm, we love cake. Had a good ganache, and then we ended up making cookies and putting the ganache on them. We raised our blood sugar by about 300%. It was well worth it.

You sometimes forget you need to teach people some things, like, weekly planning. We do weekly planning on Thursdays and, well, it's Thursday, so we had weekly planning and it took quite a bit of time. Hehe oops. We went through it, and it'll be better next week. We had some people drop us, and we also had some other lessons today, and all in all it was a good day.

Friday was kinda weird. Had a pretty slow day until like 8 pm. Bummer. But we called some people in the 1st Ward to try to get to know them, and the first person we called was like hey, I haven't heard from the elders in months. When are you guys having church? I'll come by some time! It was so cool! I was so so so tired today for some reason. 

Saturday was super nice, but not, but it was. We were going to go to service at 1 pm and ended up not going because the member was like it's raining; come by next week. And then we sat around for a while. I tried to edit a video we made, and I wanted to sleep. Then we got food! This member was like I'll buy y'all some food because you were willing to come do service. Well, I guess the Lord will bless you if you are just willing to do some service. Good lesson. Always take a chance to serve somebody, and you'll get some good blessings. It works. It really does. Try it this week! Do something good for somebody, if you know them or not. It makes a big difference in your day. But we went and did service for a less active, helped in their yard, and it was a good time. I was abnormally fatigued, and it didn't help that I had the heavier of the 2 pick axes but whatever. Still tried and still got to do some good stuff. 

But here we are on Sunday, oh the beloved Sunday. And we get to go to church too, so that's super nice. But we got to bring our friend to church that we have been teaching for a bit, and they said they felt good there. We explained a few questions to them, and they said they would come back next week!!! It was so so fun. Later in the day we had our ward meetings and bla bla bla and then we had a nice little devotional. It was for somebody's ward back home, and they had a casual guest speaker: D. Todd Christofferson. Heh. We ran back into our house and turned off our video and put on our suits so fast hahaha. Ran and grabbed our scriptures and sat down out of breath and thirsty and so so parched trying to listen to him talk about whatever he was talking about, trying to receive revelation from an apostle. It was so good stuff. 

And here we are today. It's raining right now, and we went and sweated out about half a gallon of water playing frisbee golf. We also went to the store and bought healthy foods because I haven't had those in a long time. Like carrots--no idea the last time I had those; cucumbers--same, no idea the last time I had those. But this week will be a healthy week. And today will hopefully be a healthy day. 

Anyway, the Lord loves you, I love you. If you read to here, impressive; I applaud you.