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[Working Hard]
8/23/2021
Hey all! This week has been a TON of getting to know my new area and the people in it! It's kind of like I am white-washing this area (which means coming into a new area with no previous knowledge about it). My companion, Elder Eggleston, has only been here a few weeks and it's his first area in Brazil, so he's still working on his Portuguese comprehension. I've already been able to see some miracles, so, hype!
On Monday during the day, a man on a bike rode up to us and asked if we were those "Mormons." Then he started bashing us and saying how he doesn't like that us Americans are here dirtying up the place. We left him our testimonies and he said he'd pass by the church building on Sunday to check it out. That evening was filled with contacts and resolving a couple of things in the Zone. Elder Antonio, my ZL companion, is helping me out with some of my new responsibilities as a Zone Leader.
Tuesday was a great day for doing a bit of organizing of our Area Book because we had weekly planning. We took a good couple hours to contact all the people in our teaching pool and see where we should put our efforts. In the evening, we were asked by Branch President Severiano to fill a request for a priesthood blessing for a member in the Mata Virgem Branch. It was a really spiritual experience.
On Wednesday we started an exchange with the Assistants (APs). It had to be a bit of a three-fold exchange. I went with Elder Erickson to the APs' area, Elder Larson stayed with Elder Antonio in their area, and then Elder Pajaro went with Elder Eggleston back to our area. It was a long, busy day with Elder Erickson. In the evening we gave a blessing to a bit of a crazy member, then went to the gym to work out.. I mean teach a lesson for one of their friends who owns the gym and works out nonstop - haha. But it was a good lesson with him, despite the distraction of the ninjutsu class and the loud music playing in the background.
Thursday we finished our exchange with the APs early in the morning because they were giving a training lesson at the Mission Office. After we all switched back to our companions, we ordered lunch, did contacts, and then headed over to Franklin's house. We talked a lot about the importance of coming to sacrament meeting, so that he can be baptized at the end of the month, because he hasn't been coming. He told us the reason he hasn't been able to come and we were able to talk through it. We hope that he can keep his baptismal date. In the evening we did our weekly area report to with our District Leader.
On Friday we were able to have a really great lesson with Ricardo, in which we talked about the Restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ. It was a really good conversation. Unfortunately he doesn't live in our area, so we will have to give his name and address to the missionaries close to him, and they can deliver a Book of Mormon to him.
On Saturday we went to the house of a member who lives really far away, but the walk (more like a hike lol) to get to his house was really cool! We walked through a pretty jungley section of land, which we took advantage of on the way home for a photo shoot. It also has one of the sweetest vistas I've seen here in Brazil so far, overlooking a lake and some open, green land, very hard to come by here in the city. Then it was another long night of contacts setting up more lessons to get to know people in our ward and branch.
Sunday was our busiest day, going to all four sacrament meetings that we usually attend, two for our areas, and the other two for the other Elders' [who we live with] wards. We were able to pick up lunch from a member of the Mata Virgem branch, and then a couple of our appointments in the afternoon fell through. Then we were going to go to the house of a recent convert, Ana, who was just confirmed last Sunday during sacrament meeting to give her a blessing, but it turned out that President Severiano and another member of the branch had already gone to her house to do it. Then in the afternoon, we were going to go to the house of a referral that we received in our Area Book, but when we asked him for his address, it was somewhere in Utinga, a city in my last district. So we sent his info over to the Elders over there. It seemed like everything we tried fell through, so we ended up doing our studies instead! I love to study here in the mission.
That's about it! We've just been trying to work hard, getting to know as many people as we can in the area and get to teaching! This next week is the last one of the transfer, so it's gonna be interesting to see if anything changes next week. My bet is that nothing will because I just got here last week, but we'll see!
Oh funny story -- my new companion was serving in the Sacramento Mission before coming here to Brazil and was in the city of Stockton where my dad grew up. He was serving in my Uncle David, Uncle Bret, and Aunt Jeanine's ward and knew my cousins! How crazy is that? It can be such a small world sometimes.
Hope y'all have a great week!
Love,
Elder Bird
[New Places, New Faces]
8/16/2021
Hey all! I don't have much time to give all the details (except for the first few days when I had time to write during the day), but here's the latest happenings!
Tuesday was the day the city of São Paulo started to vaccinate our age group, so Elder Boize and I were able to schedule an appointment! We got to use the computers at the church building because Bishop Zanini was there when we were. Unfortunately the scheduling site didn't give us many options for date and location, but we did get an appointment set up, for Monday the 16th (so today). We also had time to do a really deep clean of our apartment on Tuesday, which was great! When we finished, it was probably the cleanest it has ever been in it's history - haha, except for maybe when it was first constructed.
On Wednesday I did a baptismal interview over video call for Felipe! He is a friend of the 2nd Ward Sister missionaries and he wasn't afraid to talk about his testimony! He passed with flying colors and was baptized on Saturday!! In the afternoon Elder Boize and I went to the old-folks home again to talk with Daniel. We talked about the whole Plan of Salvation and he loved it all! After our conversation, one of the workers said that a group of the seniors wanted to hear a message, so we went inside and it was like a living-room full of seniors on every couch. They paused their movie to hear a small scripture and message from us about faith. It was a cool experience.
Thursday was district council meeting and interviews! While talking with Prez Hirschi, I had a bit of an inkling that something might change for me for the transfer, because he asked me if I knew how to use spreadsheets. Like maybe President would put me in the office haha. Which I would be down for, not gonna lie.
Friday morning we had our usual mission-wide training. Then Elder Boize and I got a call from the APs telling us that two new American missionaries just arrived. Things were going to change! One of them would be put with Elder Boize to take my place, and so I would be moving over to Diadema and take the place of that Zone Leader out there. Crazy stuff! A little later, President Hirschi called us to introduce us to the new American, Elder Lewis, who was at the Mission office. They told us that the plan would be for him to arrive here in the afternoon, all three of us to sleep the night here, and then in the afternoon the next day, Saturday, I would head out to my new assignment.
President dropped him off at our place, and while he unpacked his stuff, I finished packing up my suitcases. It was nice to speak in English for a bit and cool to be able to translate from Elder Boize to Elder Lewis. Elder Boize told me, it's going to be a long transfer for them with the language barrier - haha. We had a couple of lessons that night, and were able to stop by Alquilino's house for me to say goodbye, and for him to sign my Tchau Tchau Book (transfer journal).
Saturday afternoon I said my goodbyes to Elder Boize, who has been an amazing friend that I had the opportunity to get to know and work with, got into my Uber, and made the long trip to Diadema (which is on the very west side of the mission). When I arrived, Elder Antônio and Elder Eggleston helped me with my bags, and I saw my new house for the first time. This house actually has two companionships that live here. I then learned that instead of the two Zone Leaders being companions, that they are split up within those two companionships. That's a bit different than normal. So, Elder Antônio is the other ZL, but his companion is Elder Pajaro, and Elder Eggleston is my actual companion! But it's fun to have four of us living in the same house, it reminds me of my time in Rye, Colorado. In the afternoon, I was able to get my first dose of the Covid vaccine, and then Elder Eggleston and I walked around our area a bit that night to have some lessons.
On Sunday I was feeling some side effects from the vaccine, so a bit of a bummer, but we were able to still attend our Sundays meetings. We are over a ward and a branch and I got to know a couple of key people. Then in the evening I was able to finish unpacking and we did some contacting. Elder Antônio and I did some follow-up calls with the district leaders in the Zone. Hopefully, I can do a good job as a Zone Leader.
Today we got some good chores done, like buy some groceries and food for me, and talk to our families. Then on the way home we met a basher [comes from the word "bible basher" which is someone who is against the church and wants to argue with you] on the street. Tonight we will make some visits.
I hope you guys have a great week!!
Love,
Elder Bird
- Me and my new companion, Elder Eggleston!
[Last Minute Miracle]
8/9/2021
Hey! Good to see y'all here again. This week we had a few amazing lessons, and Zone Conference!
On Tuesday we had two great lessons, one with Meire over video call, and the other in the evening with Anderson. With Meire we Explained a lot of the principles of the Church and of the Restoration, and we were able to do a virtual church tour, which was awesome! Then with Anderson, we taught all about Christ's gospel and some of the divine commandments that have been revealed to us through scriptures and prophets. We also talked about baptism, and asked him to go to the Lord himself in prayer and ask if it's right for him to be baptized. Great lesson.
On Wednesday we had the opportunity to go to the old folks home and have a great conversation with Daniel! He has such a strong belief in the scriptures, and he's been liking his reading so far, in the Book of Mormon. We were also able to show him the video of the prophet, President Nelson, reading the Proclamation of the Restoration, which was a cool experience. Wednesday evening, Elder Erikson asked me and the other two district leaders in my zone to help him out with part of his training for Zone Conference, so I spent an hour or so studying about covenants and preparing some remarks.
Thursday was Zone Conference!! This Zone Conference was held in a different church building than usual. It was the Stake building for São Bernardo, which ended up bringing back some memories from my very first moments in the mission field. Turns out this was the building where, all the foreign missionaries, gathered to wait for a bus to the airport, to be sent home because of the Coronavirus. I'll include a couple pictures from that day, and you can see the contrast from then until now, in my mission.
Anyways, Zone Conference was great! Right before it started, Elder Erikson came up to me and told me they ended up going with a different training, so I could get off easy not having to give my portion that I prepared. That was kind of a relief. During the conference, there were trainings on using the Book of Mormon to answer hard questions, the importance of baptism on the covenant path, and using the Restoration Proclamation as a teaching tool. Some amazing insights were shared and I am always inspired by my mission leaders. We had meter-long sandwiches for lunch! (Cut into slices unfortunately haha.) It was just great!
On Friday in the evening we were able to have that family home evening with Juliana and Cleiton. We used our chess/Christlike-attributes lesson that we already had prepared, and it was a hit. It was a great night with them, and I hope we sparked some remembrance of the Spirit for Cleiton. It was the first contact we've had with them since Elder França and I helped them move into their new house.
During the week, I was asked by the Guarará ward secretary to give a talk in church on Sunday. Then as we were picking up lunch on Saturday, Irmão Jefferson, a counselor in the 5th ward asked me to speak too. Unfortunately or fortunately, I had plenty of time to work on my talk because some of our lessons fell through that day.
Sunday was our busiest day of the week! I was able to give my talk, from my notes with relative ease in both of our wards, which was a blessing. After church, we walked to pick up lunch, and then met outside the church building with Diogo, our ward mission leader for Guarará. He had a referral for us, so we took the bus with him and his wife towards the Jardim Cipreste neighborhood and tried to find this guy's house. I guess Diogo met him while walking on the street and just got the name of the street he lived on without the house number. Luckily it was a pretty small street, and after asking a few neighbors, we think we found his house, but he wasn't home. Bummer, but good to spend a bit more time with members!
At the beginning of the week, Elder Boize and I set a goal for how many new people we wanted to meet and start teaching the gospel. Up until Sunday afternoon (for missionary goal setting purposes, the week ends on Sunday), we hadn't been able to hit our goal. But then in the evening we had a lesson planned with a woman we found in our Areabook, who lives way far away in a favela. We showed up to the address, and it turned out that her whole family were there to hear us teach. We taught about faith and used a scripture in the Book of Mormon to talk about it. The husband then asked us to explain what the Book of Mormon is. So then we taught about the Restoration as well, and it was a very Spirit-filled lesson! The husband, whose name is Israel, was especially super into everything that we were teaching, and liked learning about Jesus Christ, prophets, and authority, and Joseph Smith, and the Book of Mormon. The wife and the daughter also asked us to give them priesthood blessings, which was another really cool experience. We set up another time to meet with them, and then headed out after a closing prayer. They were our last minute miracle, on Sunday night, to hit our goal that we had set, so that was awesome!
That's all folks! We've got interviews with the Prez coming up this week, so I'll let you know how it goes! Big tchau!!
Love,
Elder Bird
-Zone Pic
-Me and Elder Boize
-The Boiz sandwich
-São Bernardo parking lot with all the suitcases, is from last February when Covid-19 hit
-São Bernardo building parking lot with this week
-Elder Boize and I visiting Daniel in the old folks home
[No More Water]
8/2/2021
Hey all! Had a great week with lots of lessons!
I said last week I would have some details about our family home evening activity with Cleiton and Juliana last Monday night. Turns out they had to postpone because Juliana was feeling a bit sick and thought it better not to risk passing anything to us. Sooo, no details, oh well.
Tuesday we set up lessons for the week with people like usual, during our weekly planning session. In the evening, Elder Boize and I prepared our training lesson for our district council meeting the next day.
Wednesday morning we had district council meeting, which was great as always. Our training went really well, except that we had to cut it down a bit because we were running low on time. In the evening we had another lesson with Anderson! We marked it for 6pm, but he showed up pretty late. It was no problem because we were at Alquilino's house. We talked with him for a bit while waiting for Anderson to come home. Alquilino mentioned he wanted to get some help with reading the Book of Mormon in English, and suggested for us to come over once a week and help him with pronunciation, so that will be great! Anderson finally got home around 7pm and we taught him the whole Plan of Salvation. It was a great lesson!
Thursday was awesome as well. We got to prepare the baptismal font for Amon's baptism! While the font was filling up with water and heating up, we did personal scripture study and language study. Elder Boize had a meeting with President Hirschi and they talked about him getting his Patriarchal Blessing. Then we noticed that the font was only halfway full, and there wasn't any water coming out of the spigot! Well this wouldn't be a huge problem because Amon is a pretty small kid, but the water level hadn't even reached the point where it was covering the jets, where the warm water comes out. That day was an especially cold day here in São Paulo, especially in Santo André, so we had to figure out how to get the water heated somehow. After conferring with Bishop Zanini, we decided to just close all the doors to the font area and let the water run through the heater to come shooting out the warm water jet, spaying all over the room. We had to keep a pretty close watch on it in order to squeegee the water coming through the rags we shoved into bottom of the door back into the font haha. Crazy! But by the evening, everything turned out great. Luciana showed up with Amon, and then other family members arrived for the baptism. We heard later from his grandpa, who was the one to baptize Amon, that the water was a good warm temperature. What a day!
On Friday we had lessons with a couple online referrals. One of them being a first contact lesson, getting to know her and saying a prayer together over video call. The other one was a lesson with a woman that Elder França and I were teaching previously, who just got a bit busy with life. We sent her another message and she responded. It was a great lesson about the Restoration of the gospel. We set up to bring her a Book of Mormon the next day! Then in the evening we had a video call lesson with a member family, Osmar e Dartemis, whom we see every week at church, but it was great to have a good chat with just their family.
On Saturday we delivered the Book of Mormon to Meire, who was very gracious to receive it. After a couple more lessons falling through, in the evening we went over to Alquilino's house to read the Book of Mormon with him in English and talk about religion and the gospel. Overall a good day.
Sunday during church we had one person join us for Fast Sunday testimony meeting! His name is Otacilio and I think he enjoyed the meeting, although it was a bit different than what he is used to. After picking up lunch we did some studies and then made contacts for the rest of the day. We headed over to the church building to hang out there.
Today for p-day we are going to go bowling. Hope you guys have another great week!
Love,
Elder Bird
-District pics! x3
-Brazil flag at night
-Cleaning the baptismal font
-Preparing our training with chess
-Drawer of a missionary - haha (members like to give us candy)
[Correlation Shmorrelation]
7/26/2021
Hey all! We've been finding a lot of success in working with our members here in our two wards!
Monday night, we went over to Alquilino's house again. We talked with Alquilino, his brother Alexandre, and their friend, Anderson, who happened to be there as well. Alquilino asked us to give him a priesthood blessing, which was a cool experience. Then Alquilino talked to us about starting the missionary lessons with Anderson, who's not a member of the Church. We set up a lesson with him for Wednesday night!
On Tuesday we had another lesson with Amom. We talked about the Plan of Happiness and we felt the spirit strongly guiding our lesson. We also set up lessons with other ward members and our investigators to meet throughout the week.
On Wednesday the mission was doing online leadership meetings for all the new young missionary leaders because of the transfer. So I had a meeting with all the district leaders, and the zone leaders and STLs had one right after. In the evening we went over to Alquilino's house for our conversation with Anderson. It's really cool because Anderson just moved in to the downstairs house at Alquilino's address, and so Alquilino invited us to do it in his house. It was a great conversation with Anderson talking about his religious experiences in the past, and his relationship with God. It was also cool to have both Alquilino and Alexandre there, sharing their experiences as well. Super amazing how everything just lined up the way it did, and I have no doubt that it was the Lord that led us all here to make this moment happen. At the end of the evening, Anderson said he wanted to meet the next night to talk more! Awesome!
Thursday was our district council because of all the leadership meetings the day before. You can imagine my surprise as we walked past President's car in the parking lot, into the church building, and saw President Hirschi and his wife sitting in our district council chair circle! It was a great counsel meeting (as it usually is) so that was a blessing, plus Sister Hirschi always makes treats! This time it was lemon poppy seed muffins!! So good. And I guess President wanted to talk to the ZLs in person, so I think that's why they joined us.
After our district council meeting, Elder Boize and I headed off to another lesson with Valter. We talked about the rest of the commandments with him, with a focus on baptism and confirmation. We now know exactly what his hold-up is, so we can get to work on how to resolve his concern. In the evening, we had another lesson with Anderson, this time it was just him and us, and we talked about the Restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ. He had no qualms or doubts about what we taught, and he's excited to read the Book of Mormon. We stayed a bit after to visit with Alquilino and his wife's mother, Meires. We found out that she actually works at the old-folks home where we've been going to teach Amon, the son of a sister in the ward. She told us that there may be a few people there who might be interested in hearing about the gospel! How exciting!
Friday turned out to be a looong day - haha. We had a mission-wide training in the morning, which will happen every Friday from now on. Then we did part of our studies and grabbed lunch from a member. We finished our studies after lunch and then I did call-ins with the ZLs and STLs. After, we went to the old-folks home and taught the last few principles to young Amon before his baptism next week. After the lesson, we stopped by where Meires was working and she introduced us to Daniel, a resident of the home for a couple years. We didn't have much time for a full lesson, but we were able to get to know him a bit, explained minimally about the Book of Mormon, and gave him a copy to read and annotate. While we were there, two other workers gave us their addresses for us to stop by and talk about the gospel with them too, super exciting! Meires told us, as she led us out, that one of her co-workers even had a dream about two young boys in white shirts and dark slacks coming to the home, which was cool to hear and realize that her dream was about us! To finish out the night, my companion and I had a nice long chat at the church building, waiting for our next lesson, which was a video call with a ward member. This ward member it turns out is a relative to Alquilino! It was a great lesson with some good laughs.
Saturday slowed down a bit, as our planned lessons fell through. So, we set up a last minute lesson with Alquilino and his family. When we got to his house, Maicon, who is a counselor in the Bishopric, and his whole family happened to be there as well! Holy cow! We can't believe how many family connections Alquilino and his wife Jessica have to church members! Our lesson was kind of like a Family Home Evening, which was so great! Then they made a fire in the park across the street. Overall it was a great night!
On Sunday José made it to church! Unfortunately his girlfriend Anailys was working, so she wasn't able to come. But it was great to talk to José after the meeting. We talked about fasting and the blessings that can come from doing that. In the afternoon we had a Stake Report online meeting with Mission President Hirschi, Stake President Predro, and all the missionaries in the Stake, which is my district. It went well. Then later we had a meeting with our new Ward Mission Leader of the Guarará Ward. It's a new calling for him, so we brainstormed and gave him some ideas for some mission based activities we could do to get ward members to share the gospel with their friends.
P-day! Today should be a pretty normal p-day. We were finally able to set up a family home evening with Juliana and Cleiton, which is planned for later tonight! I'll have some details about that next week!
Hope yall have a great week, cheers!
Love, Elder Bird
-All the zones in the mission (pics from last Zone Conference)
-Us with Anderson!
-Me in front of the church!
-This must be some kind of copyright infringement-haha (SpongeBob and Patrick as missionaries)
-Saturday night's fire in the park
-video call with my parents
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