Week 42 Im a zone leader!!! mostly lol, following the spirit

 Mon, Jul 3

I have never had weeks be so long as it was this week, but this transfer has gone by super super fast and i have transfers this friday so lets see if i'm transferred or not next week,

Monday after pday we had a final zoom meeting with president and sister saucedo, we said goodbye to them, 

tuesday sister and president harker arrived in the mission and sister saucedo and president saucedo left, pretty cool stuff, Tuesday morning i gave a district counsel for our whole zone which is only one district right now, because on tuesday another elder in our zone the other district leader went home a week early this transfer from his mission, so that means we have one district of 9 elders in our zone now, it would have been 10 but another elder in our district got transferred to another zone probably on monday but i found out tuesday morning, so this transfer i had one of my elders go home early, one elder get transferred to another zone, and another elder in my zone finished his mission, making for 3 "emergency" transfers this transfer, witch is somehow the smaller of my problems, being a district leader is "real fun" right now

Speaking of being a district leader, my zone has one district only now, so I guess that makes me an off-brand zone leader now, so that's cool. our zone is half the mission in land mass so everyone is making jokes now that i take care of half the mission now, as my zone/district is getting ripped apart

tuesday night elder larsen helped the youth learn how to dance like michael jackson in the song thriller, because he knows how, and while he did that i talked to grazi and vando, it was pretty fun

Wednesday pretty normal day of work, at the end of the night grazi and vando came to give us some cake from her birthday party the members through her on monday night, it was pretty good, but very fun to talk with them, Grazi wanted to know why we have a papaya tree that we just let the fruit sit and rot on, i explained its because i don't know what to do with papaya, so i grabbed a chair and picked them for her to have, then she talked to elder larsen and i talked to vando, me and vando talked about a lot of things, from god, to anti mormonism, to taxes to house prices, really a whole giant variety of things, good conversation i got to practice the new words i'm learning in portuguese, because me and larsen are reading the dictionary quizzing each other, we suck but i'm learning a lot, 

thursday was interesting, the members wanted to give us lunch in their home for the first time rather than giving us money or marmitas, but it didnt work out, so instead they decided to drop us off at an all you can eat restaurant way up north, and i really did eat all i could, i could barely walk afterwards whitch made for an awkward walk for street contacting and door knocking, however our door knocking was quickly cut short by trashy brazil sidewalks, well what could that possibly mean, it means they are all build at weird angles with random bumps, so while while walking on it, i rolled my ankle triped and fell downhill, scraping my knee real bad, and my elbow too, it happened so fast and i fell so hard, i got up though, and a woman near by asked me if i was hurt, i said just a little bit then started on a honestly grueling 45 minute walk home, my knee really got screwed up, my mom packed me a pharmacy and a hospital in my suitcase though, so i opened the ziplock bag labeled for larger wounds that i thought i would never use, idk if this is a good thing that it was useful after all or not, despite some instructions for how to apply said cotten compress, on the packaging and extra instructions my mom wrote i ended up using two, but it wouldnt stay on my knee anyway, i decided to try my luck with the bandaids, because i really wanted something to cover it so my pants would stop rubbing it when i walked, and well i couldnt figure out how to apply bandaids to my knee scrapes without them falling off when i bent it, i ended up putting on the bandaids in a weird way that kinda worked but kinda not, and then i covered both it and me in scotch tape hoping it would stay on, and it didnt really work, so i just kinda laid down while me and my comp did online work so i wouldnt have to bend my knee, 

thursday night however we had some success online, but also we had a visit marked to visit a reference from a member so that was exciting, we walked the 30 minutes to their house, and remarkable my scotch tape kept my band aids mostly on, but by the time we started walking back it already fell off, it was a great visit though, we taught a young family about the restauration, it went really really well, Célio was very accepting and so was his wife, it was pretty spiritual overall super good to end off the day well, we had one more lesson online afterwards that went well as well, i believe i baked myself some jesus bread for dinner, it's always tasty, 

ah yeah and many many months ago i exposed elder bryan my first comp for not being 6 foot and actually being 5'11'' and 7/8ths right i've written about that, every elder in the mission gives him crap about it, its hilarious, well thursday night on the walk to the references house, larsen looks at me and goes how tall are you? i say 6 4 and notice he looked particularly short that moment, and asked how tall he is asking if he was 5' 8'' as a joke, he said no im 5 11 and a half (something id already heard him say my first day with him, ) but anyways we measured when i got home, and he has been exposed he is actually 5' 9" and a half, so i immediately told elder bryan that he wasn't the only one who has been exposed now, at least elder bryan only is an 8th of an inch shorter than he thought, larsen is two whole inches shorter, rip

Friday!!! pretty cool day, we had a special zone conference to meet our new mission president and family!! so we woke up early and caught the bus at 7:30 to campinas, god gave us the miricle i was praying for that the traffic wouldnt be bad so we could make it to campinas on time, i think we caught all green lights the whole ride, that literally never happens, we arrived in campinas at 8:25 starting our walk to the mission office, luckily i spent my first months in campinas (unlike elder larsen) so i already know it really well allowing us to take some faster routes that google maps didnt know allowing us to arrive on time for the first time in a zone conference in 4 zone conferences, there was breakfast we all talked ate ham and cheese sanduiches and fruit and juice, talked to president harkers sons, people joked about me being a district/zone leader taking care of half the mission, then we had zone conference and met pres and sis harker, they are amazing, it was an amazing conference very special, then we had to catch a bus home, it was pretty miraculous too, one we had to walk a 17 minute walk in 3 minutes, i can tell you i cant move fast but not that fast, but every single crosswalk sign turned green exactly when we needed it, allowing us to not have to wait for terrible campinas traffic, an actual miricle that i saw was that, and also the bus showed up 10 minutes late allowing us to catch it home, it showed up right when we arrived at the stop, Miricles, otherwise we would have had to wait another hour for the next bus

Friday night we were in the street and knocked on only 4 doors and all four answered and were taught, and gave us their phone numbers! The door knocking was guided by the spirit, allowing us to find these people to teach to prepare them for the gospel! 

speaking of preparing for the gospel we received several references from members early in the week which is already a miracle by it self, but there is a pizza place that we pass in front of almost everyday, and i remember many many days that i passed by and there were people in front and i had the thought to say "good morning" and smile with the thought telling me it would prepare them for the gospel somehow, and low and behold one of the member references happened to be one of these people, after we texted her, she told us that she always sees us pass by the pizza place she works at and we always say hello and good morning, saying we are very sympathetic, so that was a really awesome miracle to see too.. 

saturday!! the members we ate lunch with made a really really really really really fire lasagna, dessert was pineapple ice cream with peaches which sounds weird but is a great combo, they also have an adorable puppy that i enjoyed playing with, they also gave us a reference of an inactive member who wants to come back to church! they also invited other members to participate in the lunch with us so that was fun, and the other members gave us a ride home, and in the car they were playing country music, and it's been a very very long time since i've heard country music, texas roadhouse vibes, very good stuff, 

Saturday night we taught Felipe he went to church last week but not yesterday, however we got him on date!! we had a video call with him saturday night with the bishop too!, it was a very interesting spiritually guided experience, why? because it's supposed to be! also because we couldn't hear almost anything felipe said to us in response to our questions because of his internet or microphone or something, id get about half a word from each sentence he said, and bishop said he didn't understand anything he said, and bishop is a native speaker, so look at that, the gift of tongues works and tells you what to say even when you can't hear the other person!, we taught him about the gospel of jesus christ and baptism and how it's necessary for us to return to the presence of god, but when it came to invite him to prepare to be baptized we couldn't hear his responses, we just had to listen to the spirit for what to say, it was a real battle to help him go on date, he told us he has a lot of doubts still, and he wants to have more surety that he's doing the right thing before he's baptized, (how do i know that if i couldn't hear him? the spirit told me, and we confirmed his doubts over text after the call) and some how i knew what to say even without really hearing that frase other than the word surety but i only heard "su" we told him that we put the dates as a way to be accountable for our goals, and if we reach that date and we have to move it because of work or something else we can, he told us he still wasnt sure, (i just didnt hear it) we then told him that he has his full free agency to choose what to do, that if he gets to the date and doesnt want to be baptised he doesn't need to, that if he gets to the date, and isnt prepared yet we can move the date, and that we aren't going to and don't want to baptise him against his agency or before hes prepared, and we told him that we and all the members are here to help him with everysingle one of his doubts, and we are hear to help him become prepared for that time, and then we asked for the 5th time if we could put him on date after explaining this, and we heard one word "yes!" and then 10 seconds later his internet died, but it was still a great lesson, and afterwards we confirmed everything through text with him, it was cool to see how we were guided by the spirit to know what to say, because bishop was completely lost and didnt hear anything felipe said

also saturday i made myself some pudding, i totally burned it i think but it turned out pretty good in the end, saturday night, Elder Larsen made chocolate chip cookies, so that's cool!, actually it was friday night whoops, o well, they were really good, 

Sunday was good, at lunch I played with another cute puppy, then I had some really stressful check ups with the zone leaders, because our zone is rather interesting and stressful at the moment. Sunday night I made myself a cake because cake is good! After I made cake Larsen made some chocolate cookies! baking night!! very good stuff, 

today i made some patty melts but my dad prefers the word sloppy melts for what i made, 

first i carmelized the onions, but really i think i just burned them because i don't know how to caramelize them, then i cooked a pound of ground beef, then i toasted some buns, then i put the 4 bottom buns in a pan, then i put american cheese on them, then i put my meat on top, then the onions, then more american cheese, and then 4 more buns on top, and put it in the oven for 10 minutes, they came out amazing, two for me two for larsen, they really were amazing,