Week 41

 Mon, Jun 26 

yall are super freaking lucky i'm writing this email, because i just spent the last 7 hours of my pday waiting for the guy to come and fix our shower, so writing this is not really what i would like to be doing rn, but here i go, gotta have good records like nephi right?

i think each week is getting longer now i'm with elder larsen, its been consistently getting more stressful as a district leader, and really idk, this week felt like it was two weeks long, having a crappy pday today isnt gonna help for next week, 

tuesday, i gave a district counsel, i think it went well, but then that same day a missionary in my district went home, so i guess it probably wasn't that good lol, i was pretty bummed to see him leave i was gonna have an exchange with him that day, i'm so exhausted, so much work, i think we worked in the street this day, we found a bunch of new people , we found 9 new people in total this week so that was dope, we were able to have 19 lessons, which was a nice break from having numbers go down each week, we got to see lots of progress in our people this week,

wednesday, we had an activity in the ward, with soup, potato soup was good, but somehow the pumpkin soup was way way danker (better ;) ) we did some balloon cup game thing, that was fun, me and vando versus, grazi and miguel ( the kid i always beat) me and vando won lol, i watched a video in english, but they interviewed brazilians so the brazilians spoke in portuguese, and in the video they had english captions, all im saying is it was super cool to watch a video and then they spoke in portuguese, and i could understand them, it even took a second for me to realize they moved from english to portuguese, 

Thursday, no lunch with members, but i went to the store, and bought stuff to make pao de queijo, with a recipe grazi sent me that only needs two ingredients!!!! i didn't have any measuring cups, and unfortunately brazil despite using the metric system, and being smarter, they use cups, but can't agree only how much a cup it, and personally idk the difference between a brazilian cup and an american, and a xicara (cup), and i can go on about how many different measurements they have here called cups, so i guessed, and apparently i guessed too high and used too much of the flour i used, and it tasted horrible, like its two ingredients, the recipe says salt is optional, whatever flour thing they use, called polvilho azedo?, and cream cheese, and maybe salt, when i made it on thursday it was horrible, too much flour, so my lunch sucked on thursday, 

thursday night grazi and vando came over and gave us real pao de queijo so that was cool, they also gave us some little chocolates in the shape of a turtle, they are super nice, 

friday, we went to the juice place for lunch, that was good, free juice and salgados, nothing is better, its also super good, really the work here this week was just grinding it out to reach our goals, and we reached them this week, oh yeah and one of the days this week, the prophet announced preach my gospel edition 2 guide for sharing the gospel, for all members not just missionaries, im loving reading it so far, it made our weekly planning way way better, they also updated the area book app and renamed it Preach my gospel app, im enjoying it, really its very inspired and perfect timing, as a mission right now we were really trying to help the misisonaries to read and use preach my gospel, and apply the principles, so like i gave my district counsel and it was completely based off of PMG to try and help us use it more, and then the prophet drops PMG 2 so it couldnt have been better timing, its super inspired, im seeing that everysingle time i read a part, i read stuff that come from my patriarticle blessing, its really amazing to receive such a relevation from the prophet, the prophet recomended youth start reading it, so jacob needs to start reading it now lolololol, 

saturday, we had lunch with irma laura, it was pretty good, the members have been stepping it up recently though, like i cant get away with not eating a ton anymore, like the members are going off, they are making double the amount of food now, and telling us to eat more, and they are relentless as of recent, me telling them im full is not enough, me telling them i'm satisfied is not enough, they want us to eat, me and larsen have been eating to the limit, every single meal, like ive prayed quite a few times as of recent that i won't throw up, the elders from elder larsen's old area, say he's gained weight, and i'm pretty sure i've gained weight too, i think my stomach gets smaller each month im here, after one plate im usually good, but the members want at least three, i'm really certain, that i'm gonna be transfered out of here at the end of the transfer, either i'm gonna be elder bryans final comp, or i'm going to the mission office, that's my guess, you can write that down remember that, 

on saturday, we helped the youth they are planning a festa dos continentes, party of the continents, its a steak event where each ward has to represent a continent, and our ward got north america, so they wanted to know whats up in north america, they really wanted to represent mexico the us and canada, but my memory was failing me, and all i could come up with for canada, was deer, jerky, and syrup, all things that brazillians either cant get or its super insane expensive, they have to dance to three songs, and also bring food, so they decided on michael jackson thriller, because larsen danced to it and said he would teach them how to dance to it, and brazilians love michael jackson, and happy, and la bomba, one of the sister missionaries from the jaguariuna ward got sent home to be a service missionnary because of a knee problem, and she and the young women began to ask us why american brownies are so much better, because she got to try them up in her mission, and honestly i dont really know what to tell them, because i dont know how they can make brownies and cakes and cookies so wrong, they just dont make em right, they taste bad here, here is one thing i think is funny, corn bread translated to portuguses is corn cake, banana bread translated to portuguese is banana cake, i think their standards are just lower for cakes, anyways now they want me to make them brownies, or scotch bars, they even said they would buy the ingredients, but honestly i know it worked out last time, but i dont have any measuring cups at all, if i screw it up, i will have just wasted not my own money and ingredients, but their ingredients, so imma just hope they forget about it, maybe i should just go and buy myself some measuring cups, that way i can just spread some real dessert love to the brazillians in the wards i serve, imma need recipes thou

sunday we had one person who came to church so that was super exciting because it's been almost 3 months since i've had a person at church, me and larsen have been quizing each other with the dictionary for language study, so that's been pretty humbling, we ask each other a hundred words and know maybe 20 usually 8, there are just so many words that aren't a necessity to live, like if a word comes up im always capable of describing it well enough despite not knowing the word in order for the brazilians to understand, like coming here into brazil, was basically just learning how to think differently so i could learn to communicate, so i gotta study more vocabulary, 

on saturday i bought myself a tub of ice cream, i just wanted to eat a tub of ice cream, it brought me much joy, it had three flavors in it, 4 dollars, i ate it as i dealt with all the trashy problems i have now as a district leader, most of it was eaten as i had my check ups with the zone leaders, 

today we will say goodbye to our mission president and wife, and who knows when we get a new one, im sure he will be here by at least next transfer, but they didn't tell us anything, i'm gonna go now and spend my last hour of pday moping about having to stay in our house waiting for the guy to show up to fix out shower, 

nvm i was about to past the photo album link, and then i remembered something else that happened in this insanely long week, i think it was tuesday night, we were walking the street, (some context, i want a jdub bible, me and garces wanted to get one for me, garces even though he is in a different area, wants to help me get one, i told himi the next time i see a jdub im asking for one, elder larsen doesn't really know any of this stuff) we were walking in the street, and i saw a jdub church, they were having a meeting and they had a guy outside, we were pretty far off, but i said oooh, to elder larsen, "i need to go talk to them and get a bible" "ok" im a very sarcastic person he thought i was joking until i crossed the street, "oh wait really?" ''yeah" we arrive in front of their church, and i ask the man " do you guys have a bible i can have?" they were super nice, they said yeah let me just see if we have one over here, then like 8 dudes come out, one of them tells me hey sorry we don't have one, but we have an app, and starts showing me everything about their app, (im kinda just thinking about how i'm gonna tell them that our phone wont download their app) and then another guy comes out with a bible and says "found one!" and hand it to me! i asked them if its free, and they said yes, its literally beautiful, leather on the outside two bookmarks silver, it was still wrapped in plastic when he handed it to me, then the other dude finished talking to me about their app, another guy gave us six of their cards, and then we said thanks and then went our way, i was so stoked, they also complimented us on our work, so that was nice, it was super super cool to meet some nice people from their church, given that ive had so many many bad experiences as a missionary, im sure most of them are nice, its probably only a few bad apples, a couple weeks before, i had shown their book they gave me called you can understand the bible to larsen, i had read all 116 pages or whatever, and i marked all the truths and false truths in the book, it was really cool, i probably shouldnt have shown it to larsen though because he seems to get really distressed by the differences in beleif, and i think it made this encounter especially stressful for him, for me it was a party though, i got a fricken beautiful bible out of it, its so beautiful that i want to read it, i wanna walk with it, but unfortunately they use the new world translation of the bible rather than the king james version that im rather used too, it was actually rather eye opening, because as a member of the church i really dont worry that much about the search for knowing what is true in regards to god, because we have the book of mormon, whitch is one more testement to know the truth, we have living prophets they reveal the truth, we have the knowledge of the restaured church, we know what the truths are through the restauration, and the book of mormon, and through them everyperson can know, i realized how hard it would be without these things, jdubs dont beleive that jesus is jehova the god of the old testement like we do, in the king james version, there is a verse where jesus says before abraham was, i am, through modern revelation, we know that this verse is him referring to himself as the great i am, as jehova said to moses i am that i am, were as in the new world version of the bible, that they use, it says, (i read it in portuguese so this is partly a bremner translation to english) before abraham existed,i already existed, this is already implies a very different truth about god and jesus, it gave me a new perspective towards how impossible it would be to know truth if it wasn't for the knowledge we have from the restauration, how could i possibly assume i know the truth about said verse or principle, when the versions of the bible are so diverse, that it can be interpreted differently, many versions are made by churches to persuade you to believe in the same truths about principles they believe in, it would be nearly impossible, but because i have the knowledge of the Book of mormon and the restauration, i have modern prophets to guide me, i really have very little for me to question, and every person can come to this same place where i'm at knowing the truth, your all invited!