The Field is White all ready to Harvest: Week 11: First ZC and French Toast

Campinas Temple

Monday-I am grateful for the internet and good music.

Tuesday-I am grateful for connections to home, the temple, and prayer.

Wednesday-I am grateful for teaching and the sun.

Thursday-I am grateful for learning how to do hard things before the mission.

Friday-I am grateful for clouds and learning.

Saturday-I am grateful for desiring others salvation and the spirit which testifies.

Sunday-I am grateful for sunsets and stars.

Me and Elder Rohde

My homies, for those of you who know Sister Smith, she graduated from Skyridge in 2018 and was on student council. Anyways when I walked into Zone Conference she was there. She is in my zone! A good connection to home that I can always appreciate. She was a senior when I was a Sophomore.

Sis. Smith from Lehi and Skyridge!

My first Zone Conference was quite a good one. Good stuff about personal testimonies and running analogies. I enjoyed it lots. BUT, getting there was trash. The temple is probably 15-20 minutes from our house in a car but with the buses, it was an hour and a half, so yeah. Oh and 2 hours or more getting home. Gotta love public transportation.

The temple session was awesome and I am so grateful to have the Lords house so close! I KNOW HE LIVES. He hears my prayers and loves me.

We started teaching English and it was actually very good! No one came until 15 minutes after it was supposed to start but that's ok. We had 10 people and only one is not a member. It was fun, easy, and comfortable to teach.

Lots of other missionaries like to keep their readers up to date on their weight and I finally found a scale and I am 69.5Kilos: (Mom edit: 152.9 lbs) I don't know what that is in pounds but I don't think I have gained or lost much. Actually speaking of, I have been working on pushups every morning and I have done 100 pushups or more everyday. At first it took me 5 sets and then 4 and then 3 and then 2 and this last week I finally got 100 pushups in one go. So that's a win.

So we have an investigator who we met 2 weeks ago and had a baptism date of next Saturday but in our last lesson Friday, she wanted to move it up to Sunday because she wanted to be baptized as soon as possible. We were very pumped for her and realized that we had only taught her 3 lessons-1st Plan of Salvation, 2nd The Gospel of Jesus Christ, and 3rd The Restoration. I know that she was prepared for the church and when she told us how she wanted to be baptized a week earlier than planned, you could feel the joy in the room. Everyone was smiling so wide.

Well Saturday, we went to teach Juliana the commandments and all was well until we got to the law of chastity and she was like, no I don't believe this. She kept on speaking and my heart was just breaking. My companion talked and the member present also talked and eventually got her to the point to where she still wanted to be taught but she is not going to be baptized Sunday. I bore my testimony at the end and talked about how sometimes we don't know all things and how I don't know all things and right now Juliana doesn't understand the law of Chastity. But, God understands all and he will help you understand. I was crying, my comp was crying, and I am sure that Juliana understood me. I never thought that it would be so heartbreaking to hear her say that she didn't want to be baptized anymore. I guess that I am doing good at caring for others salvation.

Well we had 6 investigators in church on Sunday which is so good! Sundays are interesting. Basically everyone just sleeps and eats the whole day, so this Sunday was difficult. No one wanted to meet with us because they were sleeping or eating.

Members ask me all the time what the elders in my ward are like and I'm like haha, you don't understand Utah. Their minds are blown when I tell them that I have only had the missionaries over for dinner like maybe 3 times that I can remember. Here every single ward has a companionship of missionaries and a couple have more than one companionship.

My English is dying slowly. The only time I speak English is when I call my family on Pday and sometimes I can't remember words in English. But, learning to speak a language is very cool and I am very blessed to be able to learn so fast. All thanks to the spirit.

My hair has finally grown back so I don't look bald anymore, I don't think shaving my head is a good move for me hahaha.

The members are pretty confused when I say that I have only been 18 for 3 months and I have been on the mission almost 3 months. I am definitely the youngest in the mission but I don't think I am that young until I remember that my comp and most missionaries in the mission are 20+. I am going to be home before I am 20!

We confirmed Nicolas yesterday and it was awesome!! We had a Venezualan, Brazilian, and American all in the circle. I was proud to be the only American and realized how just my being here is a testimony to others. Pretty darn cool and the church is for everyone.