Week 68, 69, and 70!

 Mon, Jan 15

I know no one asked for it but this email about this week last week and the week before is more for me than anyone else I'm just journaling essentially about the weeks

You also may be wondering why I wrote no email, but for all those who sent me a personal email I'm pretty dang sure I responded each one of yawl each week, so a personal email is basically a guarantee I'll 

And despite what one may think I actually have a lot I can talk about, but haven't had like a real pday of rest until today, the emails gonna be pretty long and crappy because it's just a 3 week old recap, so like some good lessons from weeks ago are spoiler alert have stopped progressing, 

so starting on Monday December 25 witch is Christmas 

Monday 
wow that was Christmas it was a good day we ate lunch with lurdes and maria de socorro, and it was great time it was also pday so yeah, after pday ended we ended up teaching sirlei but it didnt go the way we wanted to because her 4 year old grandchild she takes care of was being really crazy that day, 

Tuesday 

for some reason it was a rougher day mentally just harder to be in the streets and stuff and working, me and my comp talked a lot about how to help me out that day because it was just kinda rough,  i was pushing through it but probably not putting in 100 percent, we had a lot of lessons but not very successful ones, at one point the spirit told me to stop being lazy and go to work when a guy was in front of us in the street, but i turned and knocked a door and my comp looks at me and says i think you need to just let the spirit do its think just let it flow, and personally that was the spirit burning me for deciding to take the easy route and not talk to the dude, but god was nice and the same dude came walking down the street again but from the other direction and so we talked with him and ended up teaching him, he wasn't really interested but it was a lesson learned,

Wednesday

it was like unto Tuesday lots of walking in the hot sun, but despite not working out anymore to let my legs recover i still felt incredibly sore and in lots of  pain, 

it was also still somewhat difficult mentally 

we taught marcio and invited him once again to pray about the restauration and he seemed determined to do so, we had multiple other lessons after but the people weren't super interested, we taught katia, and shared a message and it seems she is interested but only after new years is over and such 

probably this night i don't remember, after having taught maria do socorro how to pray  for 2 whole weeks straight she prayed and she asked god if she needed to get baptised on her own without us there, and she said that god told her over and over in her heart and mind "yes" yes" and now she is preparing for the 20th of January it was a a very special night, because the same day that sucked the most god gave me this awesome blessing after nearly 9 months without helping someone to get baptized and lots and lots of baptism dates falling, it was Ext ordinarily special to hear that she received her answer, after 2 straight weeks of learning to pray, she just needed our and the spirits help when she asked us what "yes" means 

what was cool about that night was that we visited paulo who is going through a rough spot right now with depression, and we had actually street contacted him one day and later learned about this difficulty he was passing through from a member who lives on his street, who asked us to pray for him, well that night we were able to teach him and help him out a lot, and giving that ive gone through it i was able to help right out with the necessity 

Thursday

started off good with a nice district counsel that the traveling aps gave for me about planning i learned a lot,

however after leaving the church building it became like unto Tuesday and Wednesday just rough, we had to walk to the other end of our area from the church to get money for lunch, and we had an appointment with cause but he marked right during lunch time and we had already planned that day to get food with him so we figured that's what would happen, but there was no food just hunger, and the lesson was a flop too, where misunderstanding the restoration led to some backstepping in the progress being made, and I'm disappointed with how it went specifically with the things in our control, he told us he evangelical beliefs about how there are lots of paths that all lead to god and heaven, and how god speaks to his children everywhere, and there is truth in there, but its misunderstood, he also talked about his belief of how its wrong the idea that god would choose only one church, and that ones actually 100 percent correct he just doesn't fully understand why, he also told us a crazy story about a pastor who called him out at a church and somehow knew of his whole life situation in the moment and it was specific and could not be coincidence, and that the pastor promised some very very very specific blessings would come to him and they indeed came, so that in the words of the pastor he would know that god speaks at that pulpit, it was an interesting story,

we afterwards left bummed out overall and hungry so we went and got some food, 

fun fact spicy Japanese peanuts are delicious

we also taught Marcio once again and gave the same invite

that day honestly just got rougher and rougher and my legs despite still no exercise to try and recover were in more pain than ever, my knees and ankles dying

but that night god really helped us out, 

we had an amazing visit with sirlei and a member ivan and was an overall great success, but what brought me the most joy was that after in another visit we taught maria de socorro who we had been teaching how to pray everyday for the last two weeks and she told us she prayed if she should get baptized and got a response that she needs too, she's preparing for the 20th of January now our lows our low sometimes but god makes the highs higher

note the kids on that street are still asking us for cookies and we are basically famous there

Friday 

we had an exchange with the aps it was really good, we had a lot of success and i got to learn several ways that i can be better, one experience that was pretty cool was giving a book of Mormon to mirian who was a self referal on the internet, and she told us that she was passing through some stuff and that she remembered having visited our church years ago and wanted a book of Mormon to learn more because she wants to become better as a person, and likes that our church is very regradinho or many strict and specific rules, that's not something ive heard much from people especially not as a good quality but i like it,

and elder stone and elder blanchard found a family of Muslims from Afghanistan, they don't speak Portuguese, and one of them speaks English, but more on them later

Saturday

it was a really good day overall, it had plenty of difficulty but we had several good lessons, or at least they were good for me and how i can be better and noticing were I'm not being the best i can be yet 

Sunday 31/12/23

it was a really productive morning with good plans that didn't really work out to get people to church but they were great plans though, people just all have agency to choose their will which is awesome!

that night we taught guilhuerme and it was a really great first visit, we taught him all about how the gospel can transform his life and that we wanna help him to do so, he just doesn't fully believe it yet but we are helping him to do so

i also gave a talk in church, about the true message of the restauration, that its not that god looked at all the churches on earth and chose one, nor is it that he has many paths that lead to the same place coming back to him, but that truly he has one path that is perfect for everyone, and that he established one gospel and one church and the others strayed from it long before the catholic church or any other existed,

it was very in detail even so that i passed probably 25 minutes.... whoops, what was cool was what i rather learned from studying and preparing for the talk was much greater than what i transmitted, the best part was the preparation, i thoroughly enjoyed it 

Monday! 

it was honestly kind of trash, it was pday and exhausting we made our own grill to make churrasco as a zone and play soccar as a zone because president liberated it, just it was like 6 hours of cooking bbq and 6 minutes of soccer, i wouldn't do it again at least not that way, it was exhausting and not a day of rest, h

that night we tried some lessons but it didn't work out, we just taught maria do socorro, like we do every single day of the week,

Tuesday 

well after a strait week of teaching the plan of salvation to maria do socorro, we then continued to do like wise today as well ive never had to try so hard to teach in my life, its like give her 5 minutes and she's probably potentially forgotten 60% of what we said, but we taught her again in the morning like everyday, and i can say that i do indeed feel the spirit every time that we teach her and each visit is good, she's just old and tells us the same stories every time we actually know how to finish her sentences, when we teach with the members sometimes the members get confused about something she is saying or about to do but when you see it every single day for the past month and a half you can make the members think you can predict the future telling them what is going to be said or happen! haha she loves talking about the path of the olive trees which we supposedly walk on, among many other funny stories about how she watches Koreans on youtube just like my comp! or how she was taken from the mouth of the serpent, she's so funny,

we also taught sirlei that morning it was good 

in the afternoon we taught daniel about the gospel of Jesus Christ because he wants to be baptized because he heard it was pretty important, and it is! it was a pretty great lesson, 

that night i had my check up calls with the other elders and they were pretty good and some random cute street cat became my friend and jumped on my lap for it, with a year and 4 months I've become a street animal whisperer, they obey me and are all my friends, all the dogs and cats become best friends with me, after all there are a lot of em

Wednesday

it started off with zone counsel that was pretty different we learned about accountability how in the judgment we will certainly have to be accountable for our actions here on earth, and elder hansen said something i thought was pretty interesting he said he doesn't think god is gonna tell us a list of our sins, but rather is gonna ask us "how was it ?" and we will rather have to account for all that we did, alma said asking if we think we can lie to our god in that day and say that our works have been good? no certainly not, but that we will wish the mountains would fall upon us to hide us from our judgement if our works be bad, it was a more interesting idea to me 

after zone counsel we had exchanges i was with elder burt in his area, and it was really a great time, it rained a lot, i had a really funny check up call my district only had 3 pairs of elders, me the district leader, the zone leaders, and the elders of colonia, so i had elder burt the senior companion next to me while the zls asked me about how colonia is doing, and it was funny, when they asked about the companionships in the district and how they were doing, i just said that they were all here in the call in the moment, 

it was a great exchange though but we kinda got rained under shelter for a good couple hours, were me and burt talked a lot ,

we also got pizza after which was fun

Thursday

it started with probably the weirdest district counsel ive ever had, it was supposed to be online, but colonia and us would be at our house to end the exchange so first we had to get to my house, and we missed the bus, so the first 15 minutes was me just walking in the street to my house and stalling, then when we got to my house it started, and i was basically giving a district counsel to one companionship in my house because half way through the zls said they had to go and participate ini the other districts counsel, it was a very different experience, i talked about working according to our purpose and the power that comes from it, because if our goal is to hit our goals, we may very well hit them number wise, but id bet that the next week you'll feel 100% unmotivated to hit them again and thus you probably wont, and even if you did id bet none of those people will progress because truly to you they have become simply a number and not a person that you are helping come unto Christ, but when we work to help people come unto Christ we find that the people we teach progress, and even better we grow in the process of helping them, 

that day we had another lesson with caue about the restoration and it was better than the last actually way better, but spoiler it didn't make a huge difference 

that night we had a lesson with luis for the first time after he came back from his travels and moved his baptism date for January 20th,

we also taught maria do socorro again about the plan of salvation, 

oh yeah we also taught a Muslim who doesn't speak Portuguese and kind of speaks english, shes from afganistan, and is polygamist, but her husband is in another country, its weird enough speaking and teaching in english, it was hard teaching someone for the first time in my mission who doesnt have a christian backround shes super cool though definetly one of a kinda lesson 

friday, 

a good day, frankly each and every day has been getting better than the last, and way busier, the work is moving!,

we taught daniel about the restauration, and it was pretty good! he started reading the book of mormon too! 

later that day we had a really amazing lesson with someone named danilo, we taught him about the restuaration and he told he thinks the message is really interesting and the verse in moroni 10 about pondering the message in your heart really interesting, and i asked him do you wanna know if its true or not? he said yes, and so i challenged him to pray about it so god can show him, it was a great lesson,

that night we taught maria do socorro about the word of wisdom, and she like almost every brazilian drinks coffee every single day if not more, and she's had a long story of being prepared by god and how she's already gotten over smoking and alcohol, and when we taught her about coffee, she said its gonna be hard because whenever she doesn't drink it she gets pounding headaches, but when we told her with the power fo the spirit that satins plan with each thing from the word of wisdom is to take away our agency and our body from us using the substances, she decided shed never drink it again, 

Saturday,

we decided we gotta help socorro be ready for all the baptism interview questions, so we decided the next step would be to help her understand the restauration and the book of Mormon and gain a testimony about them, and that was surely gonna be a long process because like I've already taught her it 4 times, and it didn't really stick, and so here began the process, she told us also that she had a bad headache but hasn't drank any coffee 

this day we had severy lessons that were really good with the spirit super powerful, but the people used their agency to choose other things, 

but that night we taught maria do socorro again about the restauration with a member, the last time the member had been there in the lesson, she was singing and when he asked her if she was singing she said no just inventing, and it was realy funny, so this time the member thought to give a really sweet gift of a hymn book, and when he gave her the hymn book she began to cry a lot like a lot from joy, she was so happy, 

every time im at her house something super funny happens, like how she said she didn't have wings to fly to recife like her family did, or when she completely interrupted me to ask me a completely serious question of why do we fly in our dreams? when she doesn't have her glasses she cant see anything, we are just white blobs, and sometimes when we are in a shadow she just looks at us completely confused, and is like excuse me a second some things not right, and goes to poke our face to see if its ok, when she saw the member with us she didn't recognize him because she didn't have her glasses but also just didn't remember him because of her memory, and when she saw us she had a huge smile, but saw him and looked at him like he was a rat having a seizure we had dragged in, she even told her animals to go inside, speaking of her animals I'm best friends with her two dogs max and preto, and her two cats bino and nina, Brazil made me the animal whisperer, 

we tried to teach her the restauration, but she's always distracted when there is a member, because she always wants to tell her stories and pressing questions like completely interrupting and turning 90% super quick right at marcos the member and asking him very interrogatingly "why do you walk?!?!" and me and blanchard already know the answer but marcos felt he had to like show some document to tell why hes with us but she told him "because you walk on the path of the olives trees!!" like duhh, she's so funny, 

at one point it was hard to have her remember what she was gonna ask god in prayer and marcos said why dont we write it down for her? wouldn't that be easier? and blanchard whispered to him that she cant read, and i was wondering what he was thinking after having given the hymn book and then hearing oh yeah she cant read, super funny but she was so happy so i think hes happy, 

1/7/23 we made it to this week!

Sunday was good!

 luis and maria do socorro went to church,

we went down a ginormous staircase, and at the bottom was an old lady who wanted to go up, so we helped her up, she was super grateful, and impressed with how "strong i was" i barely did anything, i was impressed with her knees that they didnt break, they looked pretty bad, she also kissed our hands so much in gratitude i think she basically made out with my hand, pretty sure there was tounge, 

we taught maria do socorro about the restauration

Monday

it was not pday,, we switched our pday to Tuesday, and honestly switching your pday is exhausting its rough, but we had a great day

we taught maria do socorro about the restauration,

and had several other lessons that were good even great, they just chose other things

we also found a cool family that night with eric and luan and bruna

Tuesday 

it was pday and we went to the temple, so i dropped like 50 reais in busses and we went, it was a lot of travel but we got there it had been like 7 or 8 months since ive been so it was super awesome to see the temple again and do a session it took forever though like 2 hours and 40 minutes, there was a couple getting married and also getting their own endowment for the first time so that was pretty cool, bro was sobbing from joy, i asked god what lack i yet and it was a lot lol, i also bought a book of Mormon in Spanish French and Italian, don't ask me why, i also got a scripture case, and Jesus the Christ in Portuguese, i saw a lot of people i knew and it was a good day, lots of travel though... which means its been like 3 weeks since we cleaned our house,

we taught maria do socorro about the restauration that night and again invited her to pray about it

Wednesday,

in the morning we walked to go to bruna and erics house but there was a house i felt i should knock, and when we knocked it we ended up finding and teaching andre, and he seems really cool, he asked if we sold books or Mormons for him to buy, so we gave him one, 

we went to a park and ended up running into our Muslim friend and we talked for a while, then some random Brazilian started talking to us and we marked to talk with her again, 

then soon after we went to the store to get some water, and we ran into an old investigator pedro, then soon after in the store ran into andre 

we taught maria do socorro about the restauration, and again invited her to pray about it

and then that night we returned and taught her about the restauration and again invited her to pray about it, 

we also taught luis about the restauration and did likewise it was a good lesson, 

Thursday

it was a good day, we taught carmen that afternoon, and she said asked if we were from joseph smiths church, and said she has joseph smiths book, and then asked why joseph smith had lots of wives and asked why someone said at a church you have to get married to go to heaven, and that was a lot of questions that were good but based in a sort of confused not so correct context but luckily god has every answer to all questions, 

that day we also taught daniel again,

and it came to pass that we taught maria do socorro about the restauration and invited her to pray about it

Friday

this was a great day! 

we had zone conference and we learned about goals and plans, and how if you fail in planning you planed to fail, because a good plan will have 100% of your control and is not depended on the actions of others, and will hopefully lead to your goal, like imagine you wake up at 5:30 am and walk an hour to the church for president to tell you about goals and planning from 8:00 am until 3:00 pm let me tell you it will be insanely good, and also melt your brain with so much information you cant handle it, 

president told us some really good stories about how he one got married to sister harker, and asked for her in marriage 2 weeks after getting back, and two how he bought a porche 911, both stories were funny and he had a good lesson to be taught, but they were pretty crazy stories, 

and it came to pass in the night of Friday maria do socorro said she had received an answer and knows that the book of Mormon and the restauration is true, 

that meant it was time to help her gain a testimony for her self of the living prophet russel m nelson, 

we left her the talk to watch think celestial

and lurdes and aparecido the members bore their testimonies in the lessons, 

that night we also taught luis again, he was pretty awesome herminio the member bore his testimony too in the lesson, it was good we read about enos's example in prayer and how god always responds to our prayers,

Saturday!

we taught caue again, and this time he went all logic on us, but he doesn't know that i am crazier about logic than he is, basically logically to him the first church is the catholic church, so thus its likely more true than our church, because how could salvation only come to those after the year 1820, so basically he needs the doctrinal foundation like our mission president does before teaching us anything, really i fully understand everything he said, from a logical stance it makes sence, but when your missing certain doctrinal truths you cant really figure it out, he also told us he admires us that we are always out working in the sun or the rain, in a new country in a new language not doing the things we would likely want to do, he told us he couldn't do it just because and "elder or bishop or pastor or joseph smith or prophet said he has to" i told him i agree i certainly couldn't i do it because i Know that god told me to, and thats the difference, he said that faith can fail, like he can say he received a revelation that we all have to wear only sandles, but that doesnt mean its nessesarily true even though he thinks it is, and hes right, and thats why we need true doctrine and an actually personal spiritual testimony, and the spirit of revelation with us, he also said he read on the internet that joseph smith had many wives, whitch to him and what the bible says, after christ that would be incorrect, and he asked us do you think you can be following god if you follow a person who doesnt follow his teachings, and i told him absolutly not, because if the person you follow doesnt follow gods commandments clearly he isnt being guided by god as a prophet for example, but that we have the answer for him at the next visit, he seemed pretty confused, 

then we got some açai

wave made it to the time to practice and see if we truly learned how to plan and do some weekly planning and create our week spiritually first like how god first created all things spiritually first before he created them physically, 

lets just say it took a fat minute, but i think we did a really great job, weve been so productive since that point, did you know the hebrew word for create actually just means to organize and not to create out of nothing?, im pretty sure this is gonna be useful skill for my life if i apply it, 

goals and planning better is already making an insane difference in the work, satans literally got zero chance for the baptism week, 

we also saw a broken car in the street, so we offered to help, and the dude said he fan belt broke, so we could push his car up the hill for him, cars are heavy btw, after that we got their info, and marked to go back the next day, they are really cool people, and from the 2 first seconds we spoke with them they already were telling us about them and their neighbors that wanted our visits

that night we had a 2 whole hour visit with luis, and we basically just talked about why the day of the lord is not on Saturday but on Sunday, and about the word of wisdom, it was really funny and rough, he said its gonnna be harder for him to drop coffee than beer, we asked him if he's open to stopping with coffee, and he responded with what am i gonna drink in my milk in the morning? we joked a lot with him, and had a good time, but luis is pretty nervous about coffee, and says its gonna be really hard to stop, but also says he's not addicted so idrk, but we decided to move his bap date for now, 

Sunday!

luis and maria do socorro went to church, and it was great, i gave a talk inspired from our visit with caue, about the profound effect of pure doctrine in our lives and how it truly governs everything we do, our church programs only function not because the idea is good but because everyone behind them comprehend and follow the same eternal doctrines, i read a really cool talk called "the roots of Mormonism" on gospel library its pretty old, but they had a cool quote that basally for a man to lay down all that he has for Jesus, he cannot and will not do it out of the mere belief that what he is doing is gods will but actually out of the genuine knowledge, which is basically why the churches missionaries are so effective, because like caue said he couldn't just do it because someone said so, and neither could i, its because of the eternal doctrine and the actual real knowledge that its gods will, that or me and 80,000 other missionaries are just mentally ill, and that's what's so special about the power of pure doctrine, alma said 

And now, as the preaching of the word had a great tendency to lead the people to do that which was just—yea, it had … more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else, which had happened unto them—therefore Alma thought it was expedient that they should try the virtue of the word of God” (Alma 31:5).

pretty cool huh

that night we taught the family we helped push their car, and their neighbors all together they told us they had wanted to go to church that morning but didn't remember what time it was at so i guess it'll have to be next week, great visit pretty crazy what the spirit of god does,

this week was pretty crazy pretty good, i didn't write anything because weve been crazy busy with the work the work is moving so far forward I'm barely keeping up,