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.