9/28/2020
Today for our district Pday activity we went on a hike to independence rock. Turns out it's called "independence rock" because of the large singular rock formation at the end that is independent from the surrounding mountains the same way that a 16 y/o might claim to be "independent" from their parents. I got a lot of really great photos for drawing from that hike, though. It was a very good way to start off the day, so even though there wasn't much interaction between our district because of COVID rules, I was still grateful we did it. I practiced the piano for a while, got to talk to my family, and that was our preparation day. We went to dinner with a very nice family tonight who gave me a lot of fresh basil. That was an easy way to win my heart. The kids also had incredibly good manners, I felt very out of place. I don't have bad manners or anything, but I also don't say stuff like, "Mother, does this salad have walnuts in it? (yes) Well, that's okay, mother, I think this just isn't my favorite type of salad". I guess that wasn't particularly well mannered or formal, maybe it's just the word "walnuts" in that sentence that makes it sound so formal. Walnuts feels like a very formal word. We shared a spiritual thought about being drawn to the Savior. I told people that I like to draw and that word to me (drawn) means to create in the likeness of something I see, and so to be drawn to the Savior is to be recreated in His likeness.
9/29/2020
Today we got a lot done. Morse and I showed up to the church today only to find out that our all mission meeting had been cancelled which we were pretty disappointed about, but it gave us time to study so it worked out. We went to the library and I got to study for another couple of hours. Morse and I had a lot of fun driving around to our numerous locations and screaming lyrics to Disney songs, especially Mulan's "Be a Man". We got to teach a couple of lessons today. I was nervous that talking for an hour would be difficult, but I should've known that I overprepare for everything, and the stories that Morse and I told ate up a lot of time in a fun way. I think the boys enjoyed it a lot. They also got to ask us a lot of deep, soul-searching questions, which was also really cool. It was a good opportunity for us to testify that those boys were on the right track and doing a great job in their lives. We also got to teach a family tonight, and it went really well because the daughter had a friend over when we were there. She had to go before we actually shared the lesson, which was sad, but when we were getting to know the member family we got to know the daughter's friend a little bit too. It was really cool to see that her friend got to have some contact with the missionaries just from being in the right place at the right time, and if we can encourage that relationship, maybe it'll even be the means of bringing the Gospel to another family. It was really fun to meet that family tonight because they didn't put on a show for us as missionaries, they acted completely normal, and so we got to laugh and joke with them in a normal way that we don't get to do a lot as missionaries.
9/30/2020
Today was a lot of fun. This morning at 10:30 Elders Hatch and Collins came over to our house to start exchanges with us, this time, I was staying in Monument with Elder Hatch. Elder Hatch and I had a blast, we got a lot of work done. I put him through a lot of crazy schemes, doing everything I could to move this area as far forward in one day as we could. We definitely made some big leaps: We got a list of ministering assignments for our ward which is HUGE, and we got in contact with a huge range of families. Some families we were even able to send short, personalized, pre-recorded messages to, to try to make our visits even more accessible to our ward members. We also had the long-feared conversation about splitting our ward. Elder Morse and I haven't wanted to split our ward, we have so few people to work with already that splitting would have felt like a bigger handicap than we could deal with. I can count the number of active families we have on the fingers of a single hand, and so dividing posed numerous problems with our ability to branch out and connect with the other members of the ward. For a long time we deemed that it was necessary to work this way, because even if the families were getting double teamed by the two sets of missionaries in the course of a couple of weeks with new ideas and different messages. We've both switched from trying to share the messages we want to share to the ones the mission wants us to be sharing, but since we're now sharing the same message, we can't repeat the same people. Our area has some geographical difficulties to splitting it, like the fact that 90% of our members live on the same street, but we'll figure it all out.
10/1/2020
Today Hatch and I woke up and hit the books. Well, I hit the books, Hatch hit the couch and was out for a long time until the sun inconveniently moved right into his face. I was glad he got some sleep though, missionary work can be pretty hard, and his house is freezing so I don't think he sleeps too well. Speaking of which, because Morse was gone I turned off the AC which makes our house like, 40 degrees at night, and so last night was the first night I slept well in a long time. I'm going to be very sad when Morse leaves, but I am excited that next transfer I'll get to sleep in a normal temperature house. Today was zone conference. It was pretty fun because that was when Hatch and I switched back to our usual comps, and our comps were the last people to arrive, so everyone was questioning why I was sitting alone and what I had done to my companion. The conference was pretty great. Afterwards we had a service project, we went to finish digging up tumbleweed's with three y/o Matthew's dad. A neighbor also showed up to help with the project, no one had asked him to help or anything, he just saw some people working next door and went to help them. After about 30 seconds of conversing with this dude, I could see that Morse was freaking out on the inside, apparently this guy was one of the close friends of the star of a documentary called "Free Solo" about mountain climbers. This guy was also really into mountain climbing, which was right up Morse's alley. Morse came over to me multiple times and in hushed excited tones tried to help me understand that I was in the presence of a celebrity. We finished all of the tumbleweeds which was pretty great, although, sadly enough, Matthew wasn't there to help us out this time. We also had a lesson with a super cool family. They shared some tacos with us, which is a sure way to my heart. I saw that their daughter was starting to learn to play the piano, she had been playing for about a year and was getting pretty good, so as part of our message to them, I shared my story about learning the piano: I practiced the piano as a kid for a couple of years. My incredibly intelligent mother warned me that I was going to need that skill on my mission, and so I needed to practice and get good at playing. I told her there was no chance my playing would be needed, since every other future missionary's mother was going to tell them the same thing. Because of how little I enjoyed it, eventually my mom let me stop. Fast forward to Brazil, everyone hoped that I knew how to play the piano, and every time I saw their disappointed faces, I knew just how foolish I was to have not listened to my mom. When I came back out the second time, I resolved to learn the piano from Elder Collins, and so ever since that three week period, I've been practicing the piano on my breaks. I told this girl that in the year or two I had practiced as a kid I never got very good, I could barely play with my right hand and reading notes was very difficult for me, and when I came back out I couldn't even remember how to do that, I was learning from scratch. In a matter of months, though, I went from not having touched the piano in years to being able to play hymns. I never would have imagined I could play hymns, maybe after years of practice, and how could I possibly have learned so quickly? Because any practice in which you have the Spirit, you will learn tenfold what you could have learned otherwise. As I practiced the piano, I played hymns and children's hymns. I have a friend on the mission who had some classical music books sent to him to play. Classical music isn't bad, but it doesn't invite the Spirit the same way hymns do. The effects of me practicing hymns, and my friend practicing classics has been huge. Though he's practiced for over a year, I've quickly surpassed his ability to play. Any time we can include the Spirit in any way as we learn, the Spirit will accelerate that learning process.
10/2/2020
Today was a good day, it was very uplifting although probably one of the dullest to describe. We had basically everything fall through today, so we ended up studying for like, 12 hours. One thing that I saw today that was really cool was about our prophet. There's a promise in D&C 84:33 that those who are faithful unto the obtaining and magnifying of the Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthood will have their bodies renewed. That's a pretty powerful promise, and one that we see in the prophet. He's now 96, and is characterized by the quote from his wife, "I'm constantly having to ask to see his birth certificate for proof of his age", as he acts with seemingly infinite patience and boundless energy. This is a man who's body has been renewed to allow for the continuation of the service he so loves. How wonderful it is to know that these lofty promises aren't just grand aims, they're achievable by men, and that we can look to our prophet as a living example of what perfect Priesthood service looks like. I'm very excited to see him in conference tomorrow.
10/3/2020
Today was very busy, but a lot of fun. We woke up and went to a service project as soon as we got up today. It was our reoccurring service project with the Case family, and today they let us dig up their yard. The goal was that we would smooth things out, take dirt from the higher areas and deposit it in the lower ones. Brother Case was impressed that I just kept going, by the end my arms felt like lead and they weren't going very fast, but I definitely dug for the longest time. It was actually kind of fun to feel that my muscles were exhausted since we can't get out that often, at least when we do have a service project it gives us the needed opportunity to not die of atrophied muscles. They made us waffles for breakfast which was super nice, but made for a very eventful breakfast. Brother Case put apple cider on his waffle, mistaking it for syrup, and I'm pretty sure that I ate the tip of my plastic fork. I had been cutting waffles with my fork since there weren't any knives and the tip of one of the tines broke off, and I set it on the side of my plate, but I realized with horror that it had disappeared when I was done eating, which meant that it was probably inside of me. I didn't even realize it until we got home, but somehow I forgot to put on my tag this morning, so when we gave a spiritual thought after working and I pointed at where my tag should have been, telling everyone it's not the tag that makes you a missionary, apparently my companion and Brother Case shared a confused look as I gave everyone my pep talk about how you couldn't be a missionary anytime. I didn't know I was living that counsel when I said those words, usually I like to a missionary when I'm labelled as one. We also watched six hours of conference today, which was pretty awesome, but between conference, service, and meals, our whole day was gone, I didn't even get to study today. I guess it's a pretty good thing I got to study so much yesterday. Conference didn't disappoint in the slightest, I was taking notes even from the opening prayer, everything that everyone said was inspired, and it was incredible to learn so much. It's hard to pick a favorite talk, but Bednar's was really good, so was Rasbands, and President Nelson gave an incredible talk to the women tonight.
10/4/2020
Today I had a lot of mixed emotions. Conference was absolutely amazing, but the end came all too soon. Morse and I had an amazing day, we got to do personal study in the morning, and then listen to conference for the rest of the day until we had dinner. When dinner came around the other Elders that we share a car with had a mix up with their dinner (they didn't know they were eating with anyone and got one of those, "so are you almost here yet?" calls) so due to bad planning we spent the remainder of our night walking to the church. It took us a bit to get there, but it was very relaxing to watch the sun go down as we hiked back to the church the same way I got around everywhere in Brazil. We didn't run into anyone on the way, I would have been more than happy to talk to strangers on the street, but Morse said that was, "not advisable". Our dinner was with the Gibson's, and it was a very bittersweet reunion, they were very sad to see Morse go. I'm pretty sure this is the second time ever that my comp is leaving the area and I'm staying behind, my trainer left Grande Circular and said goodbye to the members in Brazil, and other than that, I've never gotten to be the one to keep an area alive. Conference was incredible today, it's impossible to pick a favorite talk, but I picked some that were my favorites. Nelson's talk was amazing, I especially loved the Hebrew reference. Soares's talk was also incredible, I'm going to reference that talk every time anyone asks me why I love Brazilians so much. Anderson's talk was also amazing, besides having an awesome last name, his thoughts were very powerful.
As a spiritual thought I wanted to share a line from a talk that I really liked from conference on Sunday. Elder Holland is a poet, so it should come as no surprise when he shares beautiful messages accompanied by beautiful language. I especially loved the way he described our trials saying, 'too many of us want to float on our cloud of comfortable Christianity'. We believe that our beliefs should liberate us from the need to grow, when in reality the blessings that come from trials and difficulties is often the requirement to grow. This knowledge makes "Christianity comforting", as Holland said, continuing his alliteration, but doesn't negate the need for growth on our part. The reason that this news is so joyful, is because recognition of the difficulties that are sure to come allows us to prepare! By fortifying our faith and looking to the Lord, we can be protected from losing faith, rather than hoping that inevitable trials will pass us by leaving us unscathed and unchanged, better described as unlearned and unrepentant.
I'm praying for you!
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