overall pretty cool week.

May 1st 2023

  well this week was pretty interesting for sure, i told you guys last week it would be a busy week, and its been super long last sunday feels like a month ago but at the same time this week went by super fast, last monday night i told my comp this week could be the busiest week of our lives if we arent lazy!

it was busy..

I told you guys to pray for people, and i'm pretty sure you guys did thanks! we were praying for them too and god answered our prayers everything that needed to happen worked out the people were available to be taught they accepted it, we were able to get the interviews done, the parents permission, fill out the baptism forms and everything worked out perfectly ill tell you guys about it soon,

Shout out to Aunt Amber and Sherri Birdsall for the awesome guac recipes, i was so stoked to eat guac i went to the store on Wednesday and bought the stuff, unfortunately this day there was not one ripe avocado i was pretty bummed but thought its fine i can just wait for them to ripe, anyways i went to a different city came back brought em with me in the suitcase, left them outside in the sun tried leaving them in the fridge because i couldn't figure out how to make them ripe, i've been super bummed out and going hungry this whole week because lunches have been falling through and my avocados just are incapable of ripening i'm obviously doing something wrong, i got hungry enough one day i convinced myself a green avocado was capable of being ripe and cut it open.. i think its obvious it wasn't ripe, 

yeah basically this is how the week went after pday on monday we taught Karen the rest of what she needed for lessons to be baptized, she is super awesome and super ready, shes been going to church for about a year now going to seminary each week, and all the activities, 

tuesday, we just worked all day, at lunch the member really wanted the help of an american to help her know what maple syrup to buy thinking i would know, (its super expensive in brazil btw) i assured her i have no idea what's real or whats not but i told her that hungry jack tastes good, but probably isn't real maple syrup she bought it anyways, she found it online for a pretty low price anyways at least i hope she is happy, we had our first lesson with Akemi we taught her about the restoration and the commandments, and she wanted us to teach her all the commandments so we taught her all of them over the phone, shes been going to seminary with Karen for at least a year though so she already knew and understood them really well, and wants to live them so that was awesome, that night Karen was able to have the baptism interview and she passed!

Wednesday the day i bought the green avocados, lunch was really good, it was with the bishop who just got out of surgery the doctors told him not to, but nothing can stop the bishop from drinking his favorite cocacola brazillians love it, they had a "salad?" of a vegetable called Chuchu its terrible ive never liked this squash like vegetable but somehow they made it delicious that night we taught Akemi and Karen together online in a video call with all the other youth of the ward, we taught about the plan of salvation, and the gospel of jesus christ asking the youth of the ward questions like "what's the first part of the plan of salvation?" "alright what happens after we die where do we go?" going part by part with cool visuals provided by Elder Garces, and the youth were not helping out, or they didn't know the answers, but you know who did know the answer, and answered all of them correct? it was Karen, she answered all but one, and Akemi answered the other, overall great lesson," 

thursday our lunch didn't respond and ive been almost completely out of money for a week now, and i didnt have any food in the house except for my stupid green avocados, i spent my lunch time sleeping that night we taught akemi the rest of what she needed to get baptized, are you guys seeing how perfectly everything worked out this week? They were all available everyday of the week to be able to be taught, most of the time investigators struggle to be available for ten minutes once every two weeks. That night the parents gave Akemi permission to be baptized, akemi's parents are inactive which makes it even more awesome!

Friday we ate lunch with a recent convert and mom who had just gotten out of the hospital from a heart attack. They have a dog that doesn't leave you alone and likes to bite you. That night Akemi had her baptism interview and passed! we also had an activity in the ward where we had to pull out a random name of a movie from a hat and then draw it on the chalkboard and hope your team guesses it on time, i drew thor so that was really easy, i started drawing a hammer and they guessed it before i was done, that night right at the end of the activity Vando had a baptism interview and passed!

Saturday lunch fell through this time it was my fault, and it's still causing problems in the ward, the member asked me for our address so he could order food to our house, because he was in Campinas, i unfortunately gave him the address of the church instead of our house on accident by about 12:30 we decided to let the member know that the food never showed up at our house, and the restaurant said they delivered it to a person already, i then realized i sent the wrong address, and we went to the church to see if maybe our lunch was there and it wasn't I apologized probably 5 times and said it was my fault, but the furious member did not view it as my fault somehow (i'd be pretty mad if i spent 100 reais and it didn't show up because the person sent me the wrong address) he was extremely mad but not at me he's mad at whoever accepted the food at the church knowing it wasn't theirs, he thinks its a member of the ward which is really unfortunate i tried to assure him that it was probably just a random person in the street but hes not so sure, hes sent probably every person in the ward a message about it, and its causing a lot of drama, Elder Garces decided to fast that day, I decided to cut open one of my avocados, it wasnt ripe, that day we had to go to amparo so we packed our suitcases and headed to the church to drop something off really fast then head to the bus station, luckily some members were there, and had a lot of questions about what happened with lunch, because the member had sent her 17 messages, those members also decided to try and blame the member who sent us food by delivery saying he should have drove it, which was also not cool, because it was me who messed up, every member in the ward has basically asked me what happened with lunch of saturday and which member it was, its causing a lot of contention that simply should not be between members, for some reason no one will blame the missionaries and let it be done, but the nice members at the church took us by car to amparo so that was super nice, 

unfortunately there is no food in the house in amparo, and i didnt find any ripe avocados to buy that day in amparo either, and we had no money, so we just went a little hungry

sunday morning we went to church, got the parents permission formally and filled out the baptism forms with them, and Akemi and karen both got baptized, Akemi's grandpa baptized her, and Another young man in the ward baptized Karen, it was super cool and special, the members also hooked us up with some food, for lunch, with bomb juice, idk what the juice laranja com mamao is but its my favorite juice ive had her in brazil, brazil has fire juice and food lol 

after lunch we took a bus back to jaguariuna, i had a cool study of Helaman five in relation to missionary work on the bus, and then we had the baptism of Vando at 5:30 it also went really well and awesome, he got baptized by Elder Garces, and got confirmed by the bishop that night, 

i dont really got any giant miracles to share in regards to teaching them, because the real miracle was that all three of them were ready and everything went perfect, because god already prepared the way, it was busy for sure but everything worked out in the exact way it needed to every single day,

we ate some bomb food, today for pday, the ward had an activity a BBQ, and imma be honest, i know i said Churrasco or BBQ here is worse than in the united states, but im not so sure anymore, because Rice Beans, Farofa, and the meat all go together so perfectly its my favorite food, here in brazil at the moment BBQ, its so so so good, my parents prepared me made me eat gross foods, saying id eat gross food on the mission, but here i am still waiting for a meal to be even mediocre, food is so so good here, i feel bad for you guys, with every BBQ here they also eat potatoe salad, and i never liked potato salad before the mission, but here in brazil they do something different that puts it in top 6 foods for me and they eat it at every BBQ its so so good, im still not sure how i lost weight here, the brazillians call us fat but you guys have to see how much soda they packed in the fridge the night before, there was 19 two liters in the fridge, and they brought 11 more on top of that this morning they had 60 liters of soda for the 30 or 40 who came to the activity it was super fun though, i killed it in ping pong, it was really rough warming up, i went up to play, and they have this interesting conception that americans are extremely good at Ping-Pong, and idk where they got that from, my extremely rough warm up removed that fear though but after the warming up i ended up beating them all, i was the first to beat the current champion and then i stayed the champion for a long long time, who knows maybe Americans are good at Ping-Pong? i know my moms side of the family is way better at Ping-Pong than me though

well that was this week thanks for reading i know it was a lot here's the photos, i took a photo of the fridge full of soda but remember they brought 11 more two liters than what's in the photo the next morning