Another Son Bites The Dust

Whattup Janitors, 

Since it went so well the last time, President has once again given me a mute American son! His name is Elder Wilson, and he reminds me of... a German shepherd made out of sponge. I just tell him stuff and he soaks it up and does it. It's quite nice. 

I haven't managed to kill this one yet, but that doesn't mean I'm not doing my best. I came to the conclusion that since my last approach to training (extremely relaxed and permissive to try and help them transition well) left my companion depressed and going home, it's significantly better to take the Aurelius approach this time around. For those lost souls who haven't read Cradle, the Aurelius method involves:

1: always smiling

2: always acting like you know what you're doing

3: make your student suffer and bring them to the very limit of their abilities as much as possible

And... it's working amazingly. Second day here and I've already got this kid leading the area, third day and he's leading daily planning. Here in a week or two he's going to figure out I don't actually know what I'm doing and turn Senior Comp. It also probably helps that I've been stuffing this man with candy cuz my mom is a madlad and sent me these cute Christmas bag things with candy for me and my comp. Thanks mom 

Back to the Future

But first we gotta time travel a little back to last p day. Which was stressful like p day itself was fun I got to talk a lot with the fam but then near the end of p day the other elders in our district committed fubecagen which stressed me out. But when we actually got out on the road to work, God was like "don't worry I've got you" and he gave me 

1: a cute little dog to cuddle with in a dudes house

2: jazz playing on the road

3: dinner and cake and strawberry juice at a members house

So that made me feel a little better. Also dang God knows my love languages lol

Welcome to the Jungle

Tuesday was yet another division with my adopted son, Elder Hughes, so I got shipped into the jungle of São Lourenço for the day. We had some great quotes from that day:

"The secret to happiness is hometown restaurants, the gospel, and a woman"

(Elder Hughes summing up his interview with his stake president, whose daughter he is dating): "Well, your daughter is hot cuz she looks like your wife. Thanks for the interview prez, see you in two"

There were some more great quotes but I didn't write them down :(

Everybody complains about São Lourenço being a tough area, but Elder Medeiros baptized like 10 people in two transfers there and I had lessons with at least like 3 people with good potential in my one day there, so I'm convinced they just put fubecas there. Elder Hughes' comp is like a legit fubeca though I've never seen a sadder area book in my life. But we did have a great lesson with some diehard catholics who were super interested in the Book of Mormon and temples (I know that interested catholics sounds like an oxymoron but it's true, I promise). They also asked us to sing a hymn for them, which we did with pleasure. We also had a call at night with a lady whose whole life fell apart and whose church couldn't explain that or help her, and we were like "restored gospel time" and had a crazy spiritual lesson with her.

In the midst of the jungle, I also got a message from President. He was like "yo Elder Ebbert, since your last one got cut short, you wanna train again?" and after I left him on read for about 3 hours, I went "I'll do whatever you think is best prez... but if he's got the greenie fire, that would be dope." I'm tired of tired comps.

To end off the night we made an absolute feast, composed of 

-2 pizzas 

-mango juice made with sweetened condensed milk

-sprite

-Açaí 

-a whole cake the catholics gave us

After the feast we got in bed and then accidentally stayed up for about 3 hours talking about... all the stuff that 18-19 year old guys normally talk about. Like, you know, our love for the scriptures and our sincere gratitude for everything our moms taught us growing up. 

The Ones We Lost

Wednesday we traveled back to Itap for district council and I stuffed 4 slices of leftover pizza in my satchel to bring on the bus. The District Council was really great but also kind of sad... saying goodbye to people on the mission is hard. We had a training from the sisters on Chapter 6 of PMG, which is an excellent chapter; easily in my list of top 14 PMG chapters. Afterwards we all went to lunch and got ice cream, and the 4 Americans in our district all grouped up and were just having a blast. I got to make fun of the Sisters for being from California, something which always brings me joy, and I also got made fun of for being a choir kid, which also always brings me joy.

That afternoon we remarked Fransisca for baptism! So we were going through and teaching the commandments and we got to tithing and she like... freaked out. In her other church they walked around with the little hat or whatever and you gave whatever God "touched your heart" to give. So trying to explain that God has "touched our hearts" to give 10 percent was a struggle. I even busted out freaking Hebrews to show that Abraham gave 10 percent to Melchezidek, but nothing got through to her. So we marked the baptismal interview and had faith 

That night was Transfers and surprise surprise, it's back to the training grounds for me. Also I literally swapped places with Elder Staker, he stole Ita 2 from me and sent me into Ranieri B. Pretty funny but also rage inducing cuz literally like half the CTM squad got sent to Embu Zone right as I left 

Hardly Working

Thursday we said goodbye to a bunch of members and had Fransisca's interview for baptism. The LD from Vista Alegre came cuz our actual LD was being a funny guy, and literally as he entered I heard Fransisca start explaining how she was already baptized and didn't think she needed to be baptized again, literally more than a month of this woman defying death and explaining everything we can about the church and it was falling apart at the last minute. But the Holy Ghost was like "trust Elder" so I chilled out a little bit and had a fun conversation with Elder Lopes in the meantime. 

So like an hour later, Elder Bawden comes out and is like "well... she was a little freaked out about tithing, but you're free to baptize her." and we were like "... wait for real?" and he was like "yeah she's hanging on by a thread so better to just baptize her before she goes to the spirit world. And whatever she lays for tithing, the Lord understands. She's fine getting baptized again so go ahead." So yeah the baptism was a go, somehow everything worked out. We finished off saying goodbye to members and doing a service project and then I packed some stuff up for transfers the next day. 

Day of Reckoning

Friday morning I packed everything up and we loaded onto the São Paulo public transit for the very uncomfortable trip to transfers. After our brief reunion with like half the mission and some goodbyes to the half of my district who were super cool and not fubecas, I went up to the mission office to meet the poor, unfortunate soul I was sent to train. And thus, I met up with Elder Wilson. 

I already talked a little about Elder Wilson in the beginning so yeah. Training is going really great, actually. We had pizza for lunch with the APs and SLTs at the new missionary training, and then we took a taxi to our new area: Ranieri B, which Elder Staker affectionately refers to as "Hell" or "a dumpster fire". I'm not sure why though; literally the very first thing that happened as we got out of the taxi is that 3 girls who work next to our house started catcalling us. We also found this guy on the street who told us he was gonna "come after us" if we didn't visit him. Our house is great too: the shower never turns off, and there are 2 turtles and a cat who live in the garden. The turtles are named Shelly and Orthos, they like to eat pão de queijo and make kids, the cat doesn't have a name because it's a safadinho who always runs away from me. 

Blackflames

Whitewashing is hard but Moroni 10 is stronger. Had an epic personal study and finished up the Book of Mormon again. This was the day I had Elder Wilson start leading the area and we visited like a million people and nobody was home. To finish off the night we visited some members who were actually so dope, I told them they probably wouldn't know what state I'm from cuz it's not well known and the dad was like "oh are you from Wisconsin?" and I was like "YESS SOMEBODY KNOWS ABOUT WISCONSIN!!" He also likes jazz, metal, and reading the General Handbook of the Church, so I've basically found my people. 

Tonight, Tonight

One of the other Elders in our house was dying so they went to the hospital and got back at 6 am. Went to church in our new ward, and I got the news that it all worked out for Fransisca's baptism!! That made me super happy. We went to lunch at bishops house and discussed the macumba religion and voodoo, and we also had ward council. 

At night we made some cool contacts and got a great reference to send to the sisters in another area. But fear not; to really get things rolling in this area, I finally got my hands on the real Chapter 14 of PMG. As it is written: "Chapter 14, combined with the Spirit, is your most powerful resource in conversion." We're gonna get cooking here.

Finale

Pretty freaking long email this week, transfers is always exciting. But yeah, I'm doing great, and I hope y'all have a great week too! Love y'all!

God is Good, 

Elder Ebbert