DOUBLE FEATURE: TRANSFERS EDITION

WHATTUP EVERY ! 

Alright enough caps-yelling. This week's gonna be a very special email namely because last week's email... wasn't. In my laziness I decided to just not write an email and then send two emails the next week. Then I was like "wait a minute? Why don't I just send one super-email combining the two weeks and break the writing trance into smaller increments every day to produce something that's both superbly long and impressively unreadable?" Then the second voice in my internal monologue responded something along the lines of, "Well, uh, yeah that's uh, a pretty good idea. I think that could work." So with my editor's permission, we're here to deliver you a very extra special Halloween-transfers-procrastinated edition of the Elder Ebbert Biweekly Brazil Bananza. 

Buckle up. 

Jeremiah Blues

So Elder Medeiros's district came here two weeks ago for like 30 minutes on p day. They went bowling without us :( but then we played ninja in the chapel. Also, we played D&D again. But I was dead so nothing important happened. 

...except for that the twin sister of space-pirate-captain-moroni (my old character who perished in battle), was able to teleport in from the astral plane to save our struggling pirate crew from their desperate plight. It's kind of funny being a cleric now because my principal actions thus far have been:

-walking on water to get to the crew of 12 who was stranded in the stormy sea

-calming a storm

-multiplying our dwindling food supply

-curing diseases and illnesses

-raising the dead

-ressurecting after dying

And people used to think D&D was satanic. 

Shadows in the Rain

So Tuesday two weeks ago was kind of a crazy day cuz we had a baptismal interview to do in the morning but also had to meet with someone in the ward to get lunch and also start a division and also it started raining like a crap ton so we got super wet. Also I got a little frustrated with having to organize so many things so I kind of just gave up and it all worked out. The baptismal interview worked out and we organized the baptism for saturday!

Afterwards I started my division with elder hughes, foreshadowed in the last email >:) I had to jockey our DL into letting me do a division with him cuz I wanted to buy pizza here in my area lol. We spent language study talking english because I'm the first american he's talked to in like a month and a half. We had some excellent quotes from that language study such as:

"All I know how to say in Portuguese is teach lessons and insult people" 

"Come unto Christ? My missionary purpose is to eat pizza!" 

"A poor woman just lost possession of her house because she paid tithing and couldn't afford rent, and I'm using her tithing funds to buy a chocolate border pizza in Brazil" 

"Pollygamy, the gold plates, the sword of Laban... Our church is sick bro!" 

Yeah, we bought pizza by the way. We worked a bunch and nobody we tried to find was home, but we found a bunch of new people through those efforts. So that was kind of fun. At night I don't remember how it got brought up but we got on the subject of evil spirits and I was like "elder medeiros time" and I freaked Elder Hughes out it was pretty funny. 

Mad About You

The following Wednesday had another killer personal study with the Hugh Nibley pearl of great price lectures. Very good highly reccomend. 

Besides that also had a killer personal studyzinho waiting for lunch and reading Heleman 13 and let me tell you guys, this chapter hits mad different while listening to "The Plagues" from Prince of Egypt. I've got a tag in my gospel library app called "Blackflame" where I add any scripture which talks about destruction, fire, justice, etc, and this chapter made some very fine additions. Just read this:

"O ye wicked and ye perverse generation; ye hardened and ye stiffnecked people, how long will ye suppose that the Lord will suffer you? Yea, how long will ye suffer yourselves to be led by foolish and blind guides? Yea, how long will ye choose darkness rather than light? Yea, behold, the anger of the Lord is already kindled against you; behold, he hath cursed the land because of your iniquity. And in the days of your poverty ye shall cry unto the Lord; and in vain shall ye cry, for your desolation is already come upon you, and your destruction is made sure; and then shall ye weep and howl in that day, saith the Lord of Hosts. 'Behold, we are surrounded by demons, yea, we are encircled about by the angels of him who hath sought to destroy our souls. Behold, our iniquities are great. O Lord, canst thou not turn away thine anger from us?' And this shall be your language in those days. But behold, your days of probation are past; ye have procrastinated the day of your salvation until it is everlastingly too late, and your destruction is made sure; yea, for ye have sought all the days of your lives for that which ye could not obtain; and ye have sought for happiness in doing iniquity."

Wicked. I'm 100% there for happy-covenant-relationship-best-friend Jesus, but I'm not gonna lie and say I'm not 100% there for 3 Nephi 9 "I did send down fire and destroy them, that their wickedness and abominations might be hid from before my face" Jesus too. 

Also I stuffed Elder Hughes with all the Portuguese conjugations (including subjunctive) in like 30 minutes because this dude is learning Portuguese wicked fast. Afterwards we had district council which was excellent aaaand the rest of the day was the other elders in our district fubecando in our area cuz they had to travel to the mission home and I also like passed out in the middle of the day. Seriously some of the guys were out here with major fubecagem on their phones. Made me kind of sad. 

Why Should I Cry For You

I think we're at Thursday now? From two weeks ago? 

Anyways that day they had English connect which is the class for missionaries learning English so I had a dandy time reading my favorite language study resource book, O Senhor dos Anéis. During the day we visited a couple people, including the guys who stopped us on the road and showed up to church, and when we got there he was like "yeah me and my wife resolved our problems and now I want to get everybody going to church and also I want to get baptized" and we were like.. Cool

Also at night we had a family home evening with some members and one of the guys we play D&D with shared his testimony about an experience he had on his mission and it was crazy strong everyone was crying. Then immediately afterward we had this disgusting cake that somebody bought and I made a secret combination with the guy who shared his testimony to use chapter 14 to bring this goth girl from his work who is into him to church and baptize her. We'll see how that goes. 

The Wild Wild Sea

Something went awry in my notes because I had this day and the previous both marked as Thursday from two weeks ago. I have no explanation for that. 

An unspecified day two weeks ago we had another language study with Elder Hughes via phone. We also got everything ready for Ana Maria's baptism by finishing off the lessons. But the killer event for this day was this insane storm which killed power in like half of São Paulo. We got stuck in Maria's house for like 2 hours waiting for it to abide. 

And, unfortunately, I left like all of my laundry out to dry this day, including literally 100% of my whites. And missionaries have like, a lot of white laundry. So we got back and it was tossed everywhere and dirty and wet and I had to wash it all again. I miss having a dryer. 

Saint Agnes and the Burning Train

This day was Saturday, so clearly the day before was Friday, idk why it was marked as Thursday. But starting off the day was English class, featuring a highly competitive game of team-hangman trying to guess English phrases. At lunch we went to this one member's house who has like 6 kids and everybody was sitting in awkward silence so I asked them about the D&D campaign they play with Victor (the returned missionary who plays with us on P-day) and they lit up, they loved talking about the campaign and we all shared stories from our various games. So basically we have the coolest ward in Brazil and also at least D&D makes me cool among 11-14 year olds.

After lunch we had Ana's baptism! Basically nothing to share because the baptism went smoothly and it was just great and spiritual from start to finish. No clue what we're doing but the Lord be blessing us with many miracles. After the baptism we organized the baptism for Marcelo the following day, and everything was fine and dandy with no possible chance for anything to go wrong. 

At night, we found out that our house had lost water because of the aforementioned storm which raged through São Paulo. But that's alright cuz the chapel still had water so we just stole theirs. 

The Soul Cages

In the morning we turn on the thing to fill up the baptismal font... and nothing happened. 

And the sinks in the chapel don't have water. 

And there is no water. 

And no way to fill up the baptismal font. 

You guys I literally tried everything humanly and inhumanly possible but God was like "or you could have patience for another week" and so unfortunately we had to cancel Marcelo's baptism :( That kind of was frustrating, but I although we did have a great miracle with Ana though because sacrament meeting had started and she still hadn't come but she showed up right before sacrament was served and we were able to do her confirmation, so at least that worked out. After church was also frustrating cuz we had to wait like an hour in the heat because Google maps lied, so I was getting a little ticked off at life for having so many problems. But when we finally got on the bus, we noticed something interesting: the bus driver was pretty clearly new and inexperienced on his route. So we got to a turn and he turned back and was like "hey guys it's a right turn here right?" and everybody ignored him. So we were like "yeah it is" and then we helped him out with some other turns and what not and that was actually a great tender mercy for me because I realized that actually, maybe God has reasons for letting us have such a frustrating experience. And so my heart grew a couple sizes and I stopped being such an angry grinch. 

After lunch we visited a bunch of people with the youth in our ward and at one point we reached this massive hill and I was like "yo first one to make it up this hill wins a dollar" and one of the youth who was with us literally sprints up this enormous hill and I tried to chase after him but it nearly killed me haha. So then I owed him a dollar. 

Shape of My Heart

On Monday literally all of our p day planning fell through so basically nothing happened. We still didn't have water haha so we went to a member's house to take showers. Then I watched The Chosen. 

Actually at one point our DL and Elder Hughes did show up because they didn't have electricity where they were so they needed to charge their phones. We did got to the mall to get lunch and I bought a nice subway sub, funded by the gnomes who pay me for my Cradle promotional services. We also played cards. 

And, of course, the D&D saga continues with an epic confrontation against the mind flayers who I definitely did not accidentally free from imprisonment as well as resolving interace prejudice from psychic aliens. Very cool. 

Mercury Falling

Most of Tuesday was weekly planning! We also had a super long lesson with Maria's mom explaining about the priesthood. She has a passport which she's really proud of so I was like "being baptized is just like this passport. Imagine that I copied everything in this passport except the signature of the Brazil government and then tried to get to another country. What do you think would happen?" and she was like "they wouldn't let you in." and then I was like "great, now what happens when we try to get into heaven but our baptism doesn't have the signature of God?" and she was like "lemme think about that one". Teaching old people is fun. Second favorite priesthood teaching technique is "who authorized [the person who baptized you] to baptize you?" and then they answer and I'm like "great, and I received the Priesthood at the hands of my father, who received it at the hands of his father, and so on until we reach the hands of Joseph Smith, who received from Simon Peter, who received it at the hands of Jesus Christ. Thus, in an unbroken lineage, I am authorized to baptize by Jesus Christ himself". That one's a banger. I couldn't actually confirm to you that my dad got it from his dad but it always makes me feel like a dwarf listing his ancestry so we're chilling. 

Summoner's Tales

Wednesday was district council day so I baked a cake for our district. It was slightly under baked and I'm pretty sure the milk I used was spoiled, but nobody from my district is on my email list so my victims shall never discover the truth, and I alone shall be master of this great secret. It's like the Master Mahan principle but applied to baking; you convert lifespan into delicious food instead of property. Maybe you could call that the Master Chef principle.

#PearlOfGreatPriceFansRiseUp

Anywho, the sisters ambushed me in the kitchen (thankfully not before I had covered up any evidence of the secret combinations) and then we all waited. And waited. And then we got a call from the DL who was like "yeah so we're gonna get here super late Elder Ebbert start the council OK bye" I had almost broken out the card deck because they were taking so long but then unfortunately we had to start the council. The sisters gave a great training on chapter 4 of PMG, which is a fantastic chapter; easily in my list of top 14 PMG chapters. Then everybody ate lunch together in a restaurant. 

I don't remember what else we did that day and I have no notes about, so I'm going to assume we had a highly productive and fulfilling day of missionary work. At night though, we did have the transfers announcement and... everything stayed exactly the same. Amazing.

When The Angels Fall

Thursday, I ate 4 chicken burgers for breakfast. Then we went to the temple with Ana. And that's it. 

OK actually a bunch of funny stuff happened at the temple. My comp tried to baptise me two times but couldn't submerge me all the way, so I just ended up doing a bunch of baptisms and confirmations. Like, a bunch of names. We were also at the entrance desk trying to find a place for Maria's mom to stay while she did a session and this guy came in and started talking to us and he figured out I was a gringo and he was like "where are you from?" and I was like "Wisconsin (NOT CALIFORNIA)" and he was like "Oh I know Wisconsin!" and I was like (shocked) "wait for real nobody knows Wisconsin" and he was like "Yeah I'm a polygamist and my second wife used to cross the Mississippi River a bunch" and I was like "... wait wha-" and then he was like "ok bye!" and disappeared. 

On the way home from the temple we were gonna get a ride home with Maria but that didn't work out so she just forced us to take money to pay for bus fare and we were off. Guys the busses were literally terrible; I have never been on a fully public transit in my whole life. Also what should have been a 1-2 bus trip turned into a 4 bus trip because we messed up our stops. Only bright side is me and my comp had a pretty funny exchange because as the bus started moving one time this girl in front of me lost her balance and fell into me. So, we had the awkward public transit "oh sorry", "no it's ok" and then we split up and like, whatever. We chilling. But my absolute safado comp turns to me and, in excellent but still slightly broken English, to the effect that nobody else on the bus understands us, goes "Why does this only happen to americans. Why does it never happen to me." and I went "ELDER YOU CAN'T SAY THAT" and then we laughed about all the other American elders who had even weirder subway experiences. Rip Elder Jensen. 

Hounds of Winter

I have written in my notes "really specific urge to watch The Village". No idea what that's about considering I would never even think of anything outside the mission. 

Anyways Friday we had like a 2 hour long lesson with an investigator about the spirit world because I was trying to explain postmortal missionary work and he was like "no. You die and you go to hell or heaven. End of story." and I was like "actually in the Bible it says-" and he was like "when you die without having repented, the demons already drag your soul down to endless suffering" and I was like "and what about the people who lived in North Korea and never got a chance to accept the gospel?" and he was like "no everybody gets a chance in this life or God wouldn't be just" and I was like "EXACTLY THAT'S THE POINT OF THE SPIRIT WORLD" but we didn't reach a conclusion. It is hard to dig people out of their traditions. 

Also at night we were checking Marcelo's teaching record to make sure it's all chilling for the baptism and we were like "wait a minute... we did not actually teach him about the restoration or the plan of salvation. He's just been to church 7 times so we marked him." So we scrambled to find videos in gospel library to teach the lessons for us because he's super busy lol. 

Dream of the Blue Turtles

Saturday night I dreamed a dream. In my dream, I was in some kind of bar/restaurant when I noticed that Shawn and Gus from psych were seated at a different table. Not actually Shawn and Gus, the actors. I just forgot their names. Anyways, I resolved to get their autographs, so I mosied my way over to their table and invented an entire bit about how I was a struggling writer writing a story for my grandpa but I had run out of ideas for names, and I had already consumed all the media I could "like a little panda eating dumplings" (dialogue directly from dream Lawson), but I just couldn't find new name ideas anywhere. So I ask them to help me by writing their own names on a paper so that I could finish the story for my grandpa. 

Good to know that I'm equally funny while sleeping as I am awake. 

Anyways, another killer personal study today. Go read "The Hymn of the Pearl" and "Embracing Our Highest Worship" on Byu studies please. 

All I have left written here is "the sun". Suffice it to say that we have entered summer here in lovely Brazil, and the sun has officially transitioned from a peaceful second grader's rendition of a cool sun with sunglasses to that one level from Mario where the sun follows you around with an angry face trying to kill you. Actually, that's exactly how I would describe it. The sun is trying to kill me. 

Laundry sure does dry quick though. 

All This Time

Marcelo got baptized! Once again nothing crazy happened at the baptism; we had water this time, and it was a lovely occasion for all. During church, I read a BYU study on my phone about the effects of the distractions of technology and it's effects on the medical world and Christian discipleship instead of paying attention to the Elder's Quorom lesson, and then I gave that kid I owed his dollar and we walked thirty minutes to lunch in the scalding heat and walked thirty minutes back basking in the frying waves of the sun. I confess that I spent most of language study trying to receive revelation Lehi-style because I was completely sapped. I was made for the Wisconsin winter, and the extra insulation tacked on from São Paulo pizza is not helping with the summer here. 

The rest of the day we had some super spiritual lessons, blessings, and we also sorted through our mountain of media references to find people who we missed. At night, we negotiated over district p day, and unfortunately the elders who live in the middle of the jungle want to make everybody come to their area instead of having the awesomely planned bowling/party games activity which I had offered. But eventually I caved, on the condition that we have a real district p day in our area next week. They don't know that I have literally 0 money and that half of the district wasn't going to come today anyways >:) It's like I always say: sometimes you gotta lose the queen to check the mate. Or something like that.

Seven Days

Which brings us back to today. Due to the aforementioned negotiations, I'm currently on a bus descending into the jungle, where there's nothing to do except sit around and play soccer. But that's alright. True creation requires sacrifice. 

If you made it this far... wow. That's kind of weird. Almost worrying. Maybe you should consider if you're using your time wisely. But besides that, you should also consider having an excellent week until the next one. 

God is Good, 

Elder Ebbert