The Goodness Of God

Whattup Fellowsaints,

This week was awesome. I almost entirely recovered from my bout of sicknesses, and we started to see miracles at literally every turn. That's... basically it.

The After-Sacrament Meeting

We have this one guy who literally has been in the chapel 12 times but he hasn't been baptized yet. Why? Well, his wife is on the verge of bringing forth a child, his nephew is possessed by the devil, and also he doesn't live in our area of teaching. Not literally possessed by the devil by the way, though considering my experience thus far in Brasil I wouldn't put it past him. No, he just does really dumb stuff like beat and steal from his mom, which gives our friend a headache and lo-key makes him want to kill the nephew- which is lo-key fair. I would be ticked if somebody beat my mom. But anywho, he's in this pretty goopy situation all things considered, and well we can easily resolve the whole "living outside of our area" problem with a little area book tomfoolery (he has a second house he's building in our area >:), the other problems are not so easily solved by the Missionaries. I'm not about to involve myself in helping a pregnant woman give birth, and the best I can offer on the nephew is an exorcism- which, once again, is most likely unnecessary.

Our only recourse? Priesthood blessing time.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this in my last email, but Elder Medeiros loved priesthood blessings. He said they were basically just a guaranteed way to make people feel the Spirit testify, which is basically our whole job as Missionaries. So I got to spend a lot of time listening to baller blessings with him, and picked up the strategy of using the Priesthood basically as your first resort in everything. And, let's just be clear: my priesthood blessings are not in the least part eloquent or smooth. I still have distinct memories of stammering through english blessings before my mission, and literally like 2 days ago I said the phrase "a fé sem obras é morta em si mesma" (faith without works is dead in itself) about 5 times over, each repetition accompanied by a fun variety of word salad like "sme fem obras" or "fem sem fobras" because I just couldn't speak right and was trying to exort a sick catholic lady (spoilers- nothing happened).

But hooooly you guys I have no idea what happened this time. It was like a bunch of bundles of cords were looped together in my brain, and all I had to do was hold on to the spirit long enough to pick out the end of one cord from another and then the whole bundle unraveled into entire phrases which just flowed from my mouth, with barely any conscious intervention. Also there was a bunch of crazy stuff I never would have imagined saying, about the temple and angels and ancestors and fun things like that for this guy who I have literally met in person two times and know practically nothing about his family (save for the demon possessed nephew). Also also portuguese??? I said a whole bunch of words I didn't even think I knew. Crazy.

If all goes as planned and prophesied, his wife should give birth soon, he should resolve the nephew situation this week, and he'll go on break this Friday. Which means baptism Saturday >:)

Not actually lol. Well maybe. We'll see.

Halo ODST again

Why is it still raining I love the rain but I cannot get any dry clothes because we don't have a dryer and there is no space in our house please I need clothes

The Milagrão

All right so the work has been going quite well this week on all fronts- which is as much of a miracle as anything else- but I have to share this other story with you guys it's literally crazy.

So as missionaries, we get a bunch of things called 'media referrals', which are basically people on the internet who saw propaganda from our Church and clicked on a little thingy to ask for the missionaries to visit them. You would think that's awesome, right? Free people to teach! Or so you would think. If I had a nickel for every media referral I had taught in person, I would have one nickel. If I had a nickel for every media referral who had responded to our call or text message, I would have like, maybe a couple of nickels. Basically, media referrals are garbage. Nevertheless, I have heard a couple of good stories about people who have legitimately been helped and even baptized by media referrals, so we do our diligence and keep all our lines in the water. Plus, I obsessively hate seeing the little red number in the area book that tells me I have unreported events or uncontacted referrals.

"But what about the one nickel, Elder Ebbert?" I hear your voices whisper as I sit alone in the church secretary office. "What did your lines in the water catch you this week?"

August 28, 2023 

6:23 PM

Voice memo is sent to one "Vanessa". Probably said something along the lines of "hey we're the Missionaries please respond if you would like us to visit you and teach you about Jesus Christ."

6:46 PM

Vanessa responds. "Boa noite missionário! Yes, your visit would be very appreciated. Can it be on wednesday in the afternoon? This is my address: (address here)"

Wow. A media referral who not only responded, but was eager to receive a visit and already wanted to mark a day. Surely this can't get better-

BOOM. PHOTO OF THE BOOK OF MORMON.

7:46 PM (we had a lesson)

"Wow that's awesome! How did you get to know the Book of Mormon?"

7:47 PM

"Oh I've had it for years. I went to your church a while ago, and I was super good friends with the Elders and Sisters."

BOOM. ALREADY WENT TO CHURCH AND IS FRIENDS WITH THE MISSIONARIES.

7:55 PM

"Awesome. Until wednesday!"

7:56 PM

"Great. This time I want to be baptized in the name of Jesus!"

You guys I literally thought she was an online troll who somehow knew the missionaries and just wanted to mess with us lol. But nope; we showed up at her house and opened a Book of Mormon to start reading and she literally started crying. WE DIDN'T EVEN READ ANYTHING WE JUST OPENED THE BOOK YOU GUYS

So yeah. Her baptism was marked for this week but Satan is clever and literally everything that could have gone wrong for her to show up in the chapel this week went wrong. So it might have to wait a week or two. But that's our super-miracle of the week!

Ferb. Where's the spiritual thought segment?

Wow what a perfectly normal spiritual thought segment! Surely nothing quirky or unusual will occur this week.

I've been absolutely devouring Saints this week. The book series, not like members of the Church. Cannibalism is for Shia LaBeouf, not missionaries. Anyways, it's really really good, and I highly recommend it to all you guys, especially anybody who has a question about Church History (plural marriage, seer stones, any of the various armed conflicts which occured, etc) because it's one of the clearest, most truthful portrayals of historical events I've ever read. It also builds a ton of faith- if the early Saints could move across the entire world and suffer even unto death for their beliefs, the least I can do is wake up at 6:30 in the morning. Their stories are truly incredible and inspiring.

So, what's the spiritual insight to share with you today? This general conference talk: Following the Pioneers by Dallin H. Oaks. You would be highly encouraged to read or listen to it. Or, if you kept reading, you would be COMMITTED HAHAHAHAHA you have once again fallen for my Dr. Doofenshmirtz-style trap and become victim to the COMMITMENTINATOR! Read or listen to the talk and then write down one thing that you will apply this next week, fools.

But anyways, the example of the early Saints and Pioneers is incredible, and I'm certain that all of you could benefit to learn something from it!

Curse You Perry the Platypus!

So yeah that was our awesome week. I hope you all have a great week, and until the next!

God is Good,

Elder Ebbert