Rainy Week. Awesome Week.

 Hi everyone!

Things are going super well! Stuff is picking up a bit more and we have been able to have a lot of lessons. We finally had a video lesson with Tetiana and her boy. Her husband is very less active, but her 8 year old boy, vitaliy, was just baptized a few months ago. She is super awesome, she loves the book of Mormon and has been to church many times, she even came this Sunday! We are just trying to find out what we can do to help her, and see what is holding her back from baptism. We have also been having short, daily lessons with an older lady named Mary Gee. She has been meeting with the missionaries for years, but has multiple word of wisdom and health problems. She was feeling depressed this week, so we made her some cookies and dropped them off! 

Another great thing we have been able to do this week is meet with a lot of members over zoom. I had a cool family history conversation with a member named Brother Crowther. I had been reading that morning about my great great grandpa Carl Albert Olson, and about how he had land in Virginia, Idaho. The member heard my name and asked if I had heard of virginia, Idaho. I told him I had actually been reading about my Great great grandpa who lived there that morning, and he told me that his grandpa was Carl Olson's brother! I thought that was pretty cool.

Spiritual thought: Moroni 7:40 "And again, my beloved brethren, I would speak unto you concerning hope. How is it that ye can attain unto faith, save ye shall have hope?

41 And what is it that ye shall hope for? Behold I say unto you that ye shall have hope through the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal, and this because of your faith in him according to the promise.

       42 Wherefore, if a man have faith he must needs have hope; for without faith there cannot be any hope." 

Kinda a long one, but it's important. There is so much to have hope for. Have faith and you will find hope in Christ.

Things I like: It's been raining a lot which has been nice, and we got propane last pday so we have been able to use our grill!

Things I hate: so a member brought us food, and she is from south america. The rice was amazing, but as I learned in Brazil, in some places they eat the chicken bones. dont get me wrong I'm very grateful for the food, but it was not good to have crunchy chicken rice haha.

Photos, only one this week

The Mouse is Dead

 Oi pessoal!

This week went well! On Tuesday we got a text from the zone leaders that we needed to have video made for the Facebook page by the end of the day! We only had three hours, so we whipped something up real quick and it turned out great. Go watch it on my Facebook and share it! But, turned out they didn't even post it for three days soooooo, that was kind of annoying. Also, we had in person zone conference, which was super nice. I had been praying to be able to find ways to be productive, and my prayers were answered! I learned so much and gained a bunch of new ideas of how we can find new people to teach and stay productive.

The work hasn't changed much this week, we haven't been able to have any lessons with Corry or Tetiana. But, we have been able to meet some more members and they are trying to help  us find people to teach. We had a member text us on sunday that they wanted us to come over and teach the foster kids they are taking care of. It was our first in person lesson and we were so excited. The kids loved our message about the plan of happiness. Also, my friend Elder Page and I taught an english class over zoom to some Brazilians that live in Maryland. It was super awkward because nobody wanted to participate. I feel the pain of all the teachers that had to teach over zoom. It went ok though.

Spiritual thought: John 14: 27 "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."

We have been sharing this scripture a lot lately. As we follow him, Jesus Christ gives us a peace we can't find anywhere else. We don't need to be afraid of everything going on in the world if we follow him.

Things I like: THE MOUSE IS DEAD. We caught it in a genius trap designed by Elder Wilson. He put a normal mouse trap on a glue trap, so when the mouse went to try and get the peanut butter, it got stuck. Sadly, that's the only picture I have this week haha.

Things I hate: Mosquitos. I think I've gotten more bites here than in Brazil.

Picture of the mouse!

 

In-Person Everything!

 Hello everyone!

This week we got to do in-person district counsel, as long as exchanges with the zone leaders! We drove over to their house in Winchester and stayed just from 6-9. I was with Elder Young. I got lucky, because he had an in-person lesson scheduled at the church, so I got to go to that! It was super nice to be able to teach someone without using zoom or phone call. 

We haven't been able to teach Corry, because she has been on vacation with her family. But, we were able to get Tetiana to watch church over zoom so that was good. As far as finding goes, not much happened this week. Also, Elder Page and I have been working on getting zoom English lessons setup for Brazilians near Baltimore, and those should be starting this week or next. I'm excited to see how that goes.

Spiritual thought: I have been reading Saints, Volume 2 recently and it has been talking about the missionaries in the early days of the church. One story that stood out to me was that of Joseph F Smith, who was called on a mission to Hawaii at the age of 15. He left his family for over 3 years, and later ended up serving other missions in Europe and there. We can learn so much from the early saints faithfulness and desire to serve. I highly recommend reading that story if you find the time.

Things that I like: I loved doing in person exchanges. Also, we dont have any weights in our house, so we made some. We have a metal pipe that can fit up to 10 milk jugs full of water on it, so that's pretty awesome.

Things that I hate: the mouse has struck again. It has found our kitchen table where we have been keeping our food, and has eaten more ramen, and some cookies. The landlord came and helped us set some mouse traps, but we came down this morning to find all traps locked clean of peanut butter, but no mouse. We will get him some day.

Photos!

exchanges

District Counsel

our homemade weights to get some exercise in

Moving into Phase 1

Helloooo everyone,

This week we moved into Phase 1 of recovery! Honestly, not too many changes, but a step in the right direction. We can now do district council, zone conferences, and district activities (all have to follow social distancing and stuff, and we can only do 1 district activity a month). We can also teach people at the church building, or members homes. This probably won't change much for us because our friends we are teaching are kinda busy. But, there is a new part member family and we are teaching the mom (Tetiana). This means we might be able to visit, if we have the car and if her husband (who isn't active), approves.

As far as lessons go this week, we were able to have a short lesson with Corry about prayer. We shared the story of Enos, and she got upset when we paused to explain because she wanted to keep reading haha. She loves reading the Book of Mormon with us. She is very Catholic and keeps telling us how she doesn't want to change churches, but at the same time she always is telling us about the things she doesn't like about the Catholic church. I think she is kind of confused and doesn't know what to do. She is super busy all the time so it's hard to stay in contact with her. 

Spiritual thought: I have a little story to share today. The other night we were messaging people in our area on Facebook. We just search random names and then turn the "city" filter on. I was going through a list of people, and decided I was done with that name. As I was about to close the page, I felt I needed to message one more, so I did. I didn't think much of my message, I just asked if she wanted to learn about Jesus. She messaged back right away and said that she had actually been wanting to learn more about religion and God, and that she would love for us to share! We haven't been able to set up an appointment yet, but I'll keep you posted.

Things I like: We did this amazing hike with our district that overlooks Harpers Ferry. A few days ago we also went back to the Bolivar Heights battlefield and learned that it was where the union had to surrender a bunch of troops.

Things I hate: We have a mouse. It ate and pooped in our ramen and pooped all over the counter. We found its hole and have set up poison in a few places.I hope it dies soon.

Other People's Faith Can Inspire

 Oi tudo mundo,

This week was pretty awesome. We did have to waste quite a bit of time driving to Winchester (which is 45 minutes away). We went 3 times in 3 days. But, we got to start doing community service this week! We went to the community gardens twice this week and helped renovate one of the areas. Just a lot of shoveling dirt, but I loved it! It was great to get out of the apartment.

As far as missionary work, it has been pretty slow still. Our lesson with Corry got canceled, and a part member family we invited to church didn't come. But, 1 hour before we finished proselyting on Sunday, we were calling random people in our area book, and we were actually able to have a lesson with a lady named Misty! It was nice to be able to have 1 lesson this week. Also, I somehow became the admin of a WhatsApp Portuguese-English study group that has grown to have almost 70 people in it! Me and another Elder who's learning Portuguese, Elder Page did a video call with some people from Africa so that was cool. We weren't able to teach them the Gospel, but we talked a bit about the church. All in all, it was a pretty fun week.

Spiritual Thought: I have been reading Saints Volume 2 and it has been talking about some of the Pioneer stories of people crossing the plains. Whenever I have a rough time on my mission that's what I think of. All those people who suffered to make it to Utah so that the church could go on. Their faith inspires me.

Things I like: we got to go to a civil war battle field! Sadly, random lady wanted to talk to us about a whole lot of nothing (she wasn't interested in us sharing the gospel) and wasted all of our time, so honestly didn't learn the history of it. But, apparently we leave like right next to stonewall Jackson's headquarters he used while fighting here. Also, we got to play some frisbee golf today, and found a mini corn hole set in our attic we setup to play inside.

Things I Hate: I'm not good at disc golf

Pictures 

Service at the community gardens