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2/15/2021
Tudo bem! It's good to be back in Brazil, and it's been really good so far!
Friday was the big day, although in the morning I wasn't even sure if I would make my flight. I had taken a Covid test a few days before (Tuesday) and sent in the sample as instructed. However, the results hadn't come back as expected. Luckily, there was someone in the church travel department who was on the case, and the results finally came, with only an hour and a half before my flight. It was a bit nerve racking waiting for those results, but I said a prayer for peace to come to my heart. I knew that if I was supposed to be on that flight, they would come, and then they did! Just in time! I had everything packed and ready to go. We stopped at the mission office, I said my goodbyes, and then the Elders who shared my apartment in Rye, took me to the Colorado Springs airport.
Then began my 20(ish) hour journey to Sao Paulo, Brazil. The only hiccup was that on my first flight to Dallas, the plane had to be de-iced, and that took almost an hour, making us an hour late. Also, there was a lady on the flight who refused to wear her mask, claiming that "she was eating." The flight attendants asked her repeatedly to put one on, reminding her that it's a federal law to wear a mask on the plane. Finally, they just taxied back to the terminal and forced her off the plane. Luckily, my layover in Dallas was for 2+ hours, so I was able to make it to my connecting flight just in time for boarding. The flight to Sao Paulo went off without a hitch. I was with a few of the missionaries that I was with before, so it was fun to be reunited with them. I was able to get bit of sleep on the plane, but I was still tired by the time we landed.
Landing, getting my suitcases, and heading to the mission van waiting outside, was just like the first time I landed in Brazil, a year ago. The van took us to the mission office where all the arriving missionaries met together with President Hirschi. He is a different Mission President from the one I met previously [mission presidents are assigned for a period of 3 years and then they switch, usually in the month of July]. We also met the office missionaries and they each told us about their jobs in the office and then the APs [assistants to the President] gave a spiritual thought. After that, President took us to the mission home where we met his wife and had lunch together so they could get to know us more. Afterwards we went back to the office to get our suitcases and then headed out to our new areas and new assignments with our new companions.
It's been kind of crazy so far just getting into the groove of the language. Luckily, I already know how to be a missionary, so that part is taken care of. I just need to learn how to express those idea and insights into Portuguese - haha.
Love you all and hope you have a great week!
-Elder Bird
The last photo taken with President Eccles
2/8/2021
Hey everyone!! Wow, we just love longs drives here in these small-town areas - haha. Being so far away we end up in the car a lot. Nothing as long as our trip to Denver last week, but enough time in the car to nod off a few times. We drove to Westcliffe (about an hour northwest of Rye) last week on p-day to play some pickleball on their courts. And we took many trips to and from Pueblo throughout the week. Also, today we did a bit of a drive through the mountains, to a hike by Lake Isabel, for my last p-day activity here in the Colorado Springs area. I will probably not be able to see any mountain majesty for a bit and so I am soaking it up, before I leave to live in the dense city of Sao Paulo.
Speaking of Sao Paulo, I got my flight plans and and am finishing up preparations for my loooong transfer to my next area - haha. I packed up a few boxes of things I don't need anymore and I was able to hand them off to my parents. Elder Gray and I drove up to the Colorado Springs mission office on Saturday to meet up with them and my sister, who were traveling across country. It was super exciting and kind of weird to see my family for just a bit, but it was all approved by President Eccles of course. There was quite a bit I had to get rid of (a ton of English materials and a lot of heavy/winter clothes) that I won't need for the next chapter of my mission, and then they gave me a few items to take with me.
I'm still so shocked that I'm going back to Brazil so soon. But, I'm soooo excited to be able to spend about one year in each of my missions. I have come to love Colorado dearly and am sad to leave. The connections I have made here have helped me see that it was good for my journey, and I know the same will be true for the people I will meet in Brazil. I have already learned and grown so much and know I will have similar experiences there. If everything goes to plan (banking on a negative Covid test), I will leave and fly down on Friday. I ask that you pray that everything will work out as planned, for me to have a safe journey, and also that my suitcases will be under 50 pounds each - haha.
Love you all and I can't wait to give an update next week.
-Elder Bird
2/1/2021
Hey everyone!
This week there was a lot of driving for us. I received a notification that I needed to get my yellow fever vaccine before leaving for Brazil. I made an appointment for Tuesday up in Denver, but because of the bad snow we got that day, it was pushed back to Thursday. Denver is about a 150 mile drive which turned out to be about 2 and a half hours, but we were properly prepared. When we got to Denver, I got the vaccine plus a tetanus shot, and then we drove by the Denver temple. After a quick picture, we went to Costa Vida for lunch and then started the drive back. On the way down we stopped by the mission office in Colorado Springs to grab my visa card and a couple other items for the apartment. We made it home just in time to pick up dinner from a ward member.
On Saturday, we drove down to Trinidad which is about an hour south, to do an exchange with the Elders there. It was a beautiful drive. Trinidad is actually really big compared to Rye and Colorado City. We had a good exchange and got some good pictures.
We've been focusing a lot on Sarah this week, and she is making some really good progress. She has a lot of really good questions, and I'm glad I get to be here to help her work through those, along with the help of some awesome members of the Rye ward!
Hope you guys have a great week!!
-Elder Bird
1/25/2021
This week has been very emotional with lots of ups and downs, but I'm excited for the future.
Monday 1/18/21
-First P-day here in Rye!
-We got our shopping done in the morning and then the Elders from Trinidad came over. We headed up into the mountains to check out "Bishop's Castle." It is a crazy medieval style building, that apparently is not finished yet, located in the mountains above Rye. It was a cool building and it was fun to scale the various towers and platforms that are part of the structure. I took a lot of pictures, so hopefully you can get a feel for what it was like to be at the top looking down at the ground. Not gonna lie, it was pretty sketchy haha. Some of the stairs going up the tower had holes in them and there's a shaky dome made solely of iron bars at one of the top levels of the main building. Definitely made me feel alive haha!
-Elder Corless is big into coding, so we were talking about all the projects he has done. He also showed me a few HTML programs he wrote in a note-taking app that could be run in the browser - a basic text editor and stuff like that, which was really interesting. One of his pages shows how many milliseconds he has left in his mission. Maybe the coolest thing about Elder Corless is that he's all self-taught. He wants to be a computer programming teacher, and he's well on his way.
Tuesday 1/19/21
-Pretty much the whole day today we did our monthly service opportunity, which was helping out with packing boxes of food and handing them out as people drive through. That was pretty fun, and it feels great to get back to a scheduled service project like I had in Rustic Hills. Of course, we did service in Calhan, but it wasn't anything scheduled.
Wednesday 1/20/21
-Today we did an exchange with the Zone Leaders for this area. I was paired with Elder Odum. We talked about my new district here in Rye, and apparently the Zone Leaders, the APs, and President Eccles all have pretty high expectations for me as a district leader down here. Elder Odum told me the reason President sent me here is because he knows I can turn this district around in terms of motivation and morale. That was very humbling to hear and it makes me want to be the best I can be, so I can set a good example for the missionaries in this district.
Thursday 1/21/21
-Today we had two really great lessons with Bruce and Sarah, respectively. I could feel the spirit in both lessons and with them, which was great.
-Tonight after our correlation meeting, my companion, Elder Gray, got a call from his family with some bad news from home. He was talking to his family for a long time. President Eccles then called me to explain what had happened - one of his friends from home had passed away, which was really hard to hear. Then in the same phone call President Eccles gave me the shocking news that I would be returning to Brazil, my original assignment, on February 12th. Wow!! That was a lot sooner than I had imagined. It was all a bit much to take in! Everyone in the apartment had a lot to think about. We stayed up a bit late crying with and consoling Elder Gray. I was able to give him a priesthood blessing of comfort and peace.
Friday 1/22/21
-Elder Gray and all of us were feeling better this morning, which was very good. We were able to go about our day like usual.
-A lady named Corrine, who is a neighbor of some recent new members, had some questions for us and wanted to read the Book of Mormon too. So, we went over there and brought her a copy of the book and talked a bit about it with her. She seems pretty interested in hearing what we had to say, which was awesome!
-Elder Gray and I did a livestream tonight, which was pretty fun.
Saturday 1/23/21
-Today we helped a German lady we've been teaching. We unloaded some things for her friend, who is moving into a different apartment. She is pretty funny!
Sunday 1/24/21
-Sarah came to church today. We had a lesson with her right after church, with the Taylors and it went really well!
I am excited about the thought of returning to Brazil. It will be an adventure, but it will be hard to leave the Colorado Springs Mission too. I have grown to love it here. I will go where the Lord and the church leaders want me to go though. I have an appointment this week to get my Yellow Fever shot and hopefully all goes well.
I hope you all have a great week!
-Elder Bird
1/19/2021
Monday 1/11/21
-Today we made the necessary preparations for our day tomorrow, mainly getting me all packed up, deep cleaning the cabin, signing the rest of transfer journals, and saying my last goodbyes to some of the members of the district who I won't see again.
-In the evening, we picked up dinner from the Haynies, then headed over to the Fisks' house to say goodbye to them. They have been amazing members, and they are always close with the missionaries because they are pretty recent converts (of a few years). I will miss them and the Calhan ward very much.
Tuesday 1/12/21
-TRANSFERS!!!
-I put my last few things in my suitcase, said goodbye to the Lewises, and headed over to the other Elders' house to pick up Elder Manwaring. He was being transferred too and came with us in the truck to the transfers building. I took one final picture with Elder Ellsworth and then he headed inside the building to "Train the Trainer". I found Elder Vail, who I would be traveling down with and we packed our stuff into the new truck. We made our way down to Pueblo and stopped to grab some lunch and a couple of things from Walmart. Then we continued our drive through Colorado City, and finally made it to Rye! We pulled up to our new apartment, which apparently is in a church building, but not one of ours, very interesting! Then we met up with Elder Gray (my new companion) and Elder Franco (Elder Vail's new companion) and unpacked our stuff.
-The Rye ward has two companionships of Elders, and we all live in the same apartment, which is fun. It will be interesting to share an apartment; I haven't done that before. New experiences!
-Later we had a great lesson with a lady named Dawn over FB Messenger, and it was really spiritual! We talked about the Plan of Salvation and about how Jesus Christ and His atonement are the central event and focal point of the gospel.
-In the evening we had a Zone leadership call to get to know each other and to set some goals for the rest of the month. Then all the other missionaries joined in on the call and we talked about those goals, and everyone in the Pueblo zone introduced themselves.
Wednesday 1/13/21
-Today we helped out a woman named Haley at her house, moving some stone to cover up places where the snow runoff melts and makes standing water. She runs a pitbull rescue, so it was fun to see all the dogs running around! She also has a couple of pigs that we helped feed, very cute.
-We went to the church's youth [Young Men's] activity tonight. We played some ultimate frisbee which was pretty fun, and a good opportunity to fellowship with the ward, especially for Elder Vail and I to meet the members here.
-When we got back to the apartment Elder Gray and I got a call from the Mission President asking us to be the Facebook admins for the FB pages down in this areas. It looks like we'll have some extra responsibilities this transfer.
Thursday 1/14/21
-The main things we did today was our Weekly Planning session and went to our ward missionary correlation meeting.
-Our Ward Mission leader (WML) is SO BOMB!! His name is Brother Taylor (ironically the same name as the WML in Calhan) and he is super involved with the missionary work here in the ward. He has been coordinating with all of the ward leaders and asking each of them to think of ways they could help us in our efforts to find, teach, and baptize.
Friday 1/15/21
-In the morning I led my first District Council meeting here in Rye. I think it went well - I tried to make it as efficient as possible, so we could all get back to our work. Unfortunately it still ended up being over an hour, but it was a good meeting for me to continue to get to know all the other missionaries in my district.
-For lunch we went to Subway with the Trinidad/Raton Elders, Elders Armstrong and Elder Corless. They are pretty funny dudes! I'm getting along well I think.
-In the afternoon, we had a member lesson with Brother Lohse, who has a pretty interesting backstory. I won't won't go into detail, but he reminds me a lot of Andrew back in Calhan. Maybe we'll have to set up a lesson with Andrew and Brother Lohse in the same call - I think he might have some interesting insights for him. Anyway, Brother Lohse is also an avid guitarist, and when Elder Gray and I mentioned that we were trying to learn how to play here on the mission, he said he wanted to give us one of his guitars that he wasn't using! So nice!! He also gave us a DVD of guitar tutorials haha, so we'll have to find some time to check that out. But it's really nice, because Elder Gray has a good guitar already, and now I will have a good guitar too. I have one that Elder Whitted gave me a while back, but that one is pretty roughed up and tough to play!
Saturday 1/16/21
-Elder Gray and I looked through our Facebook page schedule for the zone and did a bit of housekeeping items in relation to that. Then we had a call with the Social Media Specialists who gave us some pretty interesting news! I can't share it though, because some other missionaries in this mission read these emails, and it's a secret for now.
-We had a New-Member lesson tonight with the Edwards Family, who are recent converts to the church. Brother Reeder came with us and he was great at leading the lesson back on topic when it veered off.
Sunday 1/17/21
-First Sunday in Rye! Elder Gray and I have two church services [Sacrament meetings] that we go to every week, one at 9:30am and one at 11:00am. Because of Covid the ward meets in two halves, so we have the privilege of attending both sessions. It was great for me because I got to meet a lot of people in the ward.
-After church we had a messenger video lesson with Sarah, who is looking into the Church, and the Garners (from the ward) joined us on the call as well! Sarah has had some difficult experiences with some other churches and is hesitant to accept some of the concepts of the Restored Gospel, but we know that as she continues to read the Book of Mormon, she'll be able to feel the spirit and receive answers to her questions.
-The Garners are amazing! We talked to them about some service opportunities in the area and they said they would love to introduce us to one of their friends who needed some help. So we met at a café in town and then walked to her house, which is right across the street from it. Marty invited us all in, and the Garners visited with her for a bit and then told her about who we are and what we do. It was really good to meet her. She said that she and her neighbor might need some assistance with a couple of things, so we are excited to help both of them out.
HEY!!! So I got my new address for out here in Rye. It's actually a PO Box, so if you want to send me anything, you can send it here:
Elder Nathan A. Bird
PO Box 205
Rye, CO 81069
Because I'm so far away from the mission office, this will be a better option. The Zone Leaders only bring stuff to us, out here like once a month, so the PO Box would be preferable. Thanks!
Hope you all have a good week,
-Elder Bird
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