Week 90: Musical Ambitions

 

I love moving stuff!

Monday- I am grateful for walking, new pens, cleanliness, eggs, and LIFE.

Tuesday- I am grateful for The Plan of Salvation, free stuff, truck beds, and warm chairs.

Wednesday- I am grateful for EXERCISE, mcflurries, awareness, authorization, and other missionaries entertaining weekly emails.

Thursday- I am grateful for the power of hymns, moves, strength, and my knowledge of The Holy Ghost.

Friday- I am grateful for açaí, zone prayers, the peace from the Book of Mormon, honesty, and being open.

Saturday- I am grateful for laughter, the pioneers, peanuts, and throwing the frisbee.

Sunday- I am grateful for redo's, my district, English, and Sundays.

Whatta week!

I love, appreciate, and want to be clean. Clean spiritually, but also cleanliness in the home, it just brings happiness ya know. The process of cleaning is also pretty cool too.

We got real lucky this week because the maintenance dudes were switching out the Stake President's chairs and desk. Soooo we asked kindly for them and they said sure! They even helped us take them home. Some members are too good.

I've had to lift quite a few heavy items this week and it has just grown my appreciation for a strong, healthy body 

Thursday was too rad. We didn't have to make one meal the whole day because... we helped with a move in the morning and they fed us. Then lunch was provided by other members afterwards who took us to a restaurant, too good. THEN we went to a members that night and I washed their dishes and they fed us dinner! We also shared a short message and sang a hymn for them with my comp on the guitar. It wasn't perfect but the Spirit was so strong and everyone in the room could feel it. I love the power of hymns.

Açaí is addicting, help!

Not much is more humbling than standing in front a congregation, waving your hand in the air, while singing lyrics you aren't actually reading. 

Needless to say everyone got lost on all 3 hymns Sunday morning.

With my comp being a musical genius and my ambitious ideas that always go perfectly in my head, we tried to do a live music devo last night.

Wowzers it was rough. There is just something about a tiny metal box being placed in front of you that just makes you mess up no matter how perfectly you played it just a second before. Gosh dang it.

We had a super cool Pioneer day activity! We had an outdoor movie! Well WE didn't but we helped set it up, gave the opening thought then headed out because we are too young to be out past 8. Cool stuff though, that got me excited for the future. 

Next week it's supposed to be in the 30's!

Weird stuff.

Week 89: Miracles

 

Playing for Zone Conference

Monday- I am grateful for The Book of Mormon, cooking lessons, and the future!

Tuesday- I am grateful for hot showers, district council, my body, and praying.

Wednesday- I am grateful for Sprite, grass, guitar, relief, and Hope in the Resurrection.

Thursday- I am grateful for simplicity, weekly emails, running, and the guitar.

Friday- I am grateful for wind, São Paulo, The Lords work, social skills, medicine, my parents, and God's goodness.

Saturday- I am grateful for miracles, attitude, safety, and good efforts.

Sunday- I am grateful for music, goals, miracles, excitement, my guitar, and hymns.

Another week.

It was a miracle week.

I had a migraine that knocked me out for a solid 2 days. That was rough. Definitely helped me to realize the importance of hope in the Resurrection though. 

My comp bought a guitar so we had good jams 

We left the mission for a sec and went to São Paulo to renew our Visas. It was pretty sweet. We got to spend a whole morning driving through Brazil as a bunch of Americans. Also forgot how weird it is to be a regular person, speaking English, in a normal social setting. Oh boy.

We had a miracle week.

I wasn't feeling very good or happy about the week on Friday night because it didn't feel like we really did much. Well, we started calling some people just to share a scripture and then I got the impression to pray. So we prayed. The next call was a lady that said what's your name, oh hi, bye! It wasn't cool.

The next 2 calls though were excellent!!! We talked with 2 very nice ladies and they accepted the scripture and set a return appointment! It was so cool and I knew right away, once again, that this is The Lords work. I felt His love for them and the importance of prayer.

Saturday we found 2 more people and had good lessons. Then on Sunday we met our goal for the week and later that afternoon surpassed it!! It was amazing and I feel very blessed to see God's mercy and a bit of His miracles

Guitar jams are key.

My comp would've died 3 times this week if it weren't for me shouting CUIDADO right before we walked into the street to get hit by a speeding car. 

Last week of the transfer. Staying here in the city, starting my last 2 transfers! 

Week 88: Humbling, that's all I've got to say

 

Monday- I am grateful for Gospel discussions, integrity, perspectives, hair, motivating/inspiring talks, and Elder Morrison.

Tuesday- I am grateful for answered prayers, opportunities, guided scriptures, talks, and cinnamon.

Wednesday- I am grateful for prelude music, spiritual reassurances, night runs, lit tracks, healthy eating habits, my guitar, and preparing talks by the spirit!

Thursday- I am grateful for my guitar, eternal circles, and drum rolls.

Friday- I am grateful for quiet cities, stretching, my brain, slowing down, medicine, and my Mom!

Saturday- I am grateful for birthdays, preparation, testimony, and toast.

Sunday- I am grateful for oranges, humility, Coconut cake, and promises.

My cake skills are getting good.

I am grateful for my gratitude list each day. It continues to bring me peace and happiness and a better recognization of how good God is.

The "Elder Morrison" is not referring to myself. Although I do love and am grateful for myself. But no, that goes to my cousin, the other Elder Morrison. He gets a spot up there because of our weekly Gospel discussions every Monday.

They always end up being productive and relative to the other person. Really quite cool, families and all that stuff and how we are Eternally connected. Get yourself a good cousin 😉

We had zone conference and I got to play the prelude music on the guitar again. Good stuff. 

Post zone conference run was an absolute hit. Imagine sitting from 8:45am-5:30pm, feeling The Spirit, getting burned by the sun rays coming in from the window, playing the guitar in front of 30 people, making a few comments, remembering that you really don't like meetings, and eating 2 whoppers from Burger King for lunch. 

Just writing all that makes me feel like I need to run again. It was a GOOD run let me tell ya. 

Biggest orange I've seen.

I was asked to give a 15 minute talk in church last Monday so I spent the whole week preparing that! If you know me then you know that I probably haven't ever spoken for 15 minutes in a row in my life! 

Preparation for the talk was nicely guided by The Spirit and it went well! I ended up talking for the full 15 minutes so that's a win.

I got hit by a migraine one afternoon and that reminded me to slow down and to be more gentle with my life. Migraines really are quite humbling. It's been quite awhile since I've had one though so I'm just simply grateful.

We had 2 occasions where we saw a dude peeing in the street, not cool. 

I hit 20 months! 

I had a spiritually revelatory experience that hopefully my kids will one day feel inspired by. 

I love My Savior.

Week 87: A Cold 4th of July

 

Monday- I am grateful for health, motivation, COMPUTERS, and organization.

Tuesday- I am grateful for cold, 'The Christ Child', cloudy walks, and being understood.

Wednesday- I am grateful for my knowledge of My Savior and life after death, long-sleeves, fast speakers, and compliments

Thursday- I am grateful for the Book of Mormon, smile filled lessons, conviction, and warmth.

Friday- I am grateful for stuffed Crust, personalities, focus, and jam sessions.

Saturday- I am grateful for roadside games, kids, charity, rejoicing, and funny talks.

Sunday- I am grateful for milk, rejoicing/fasting, personal revelation, and America!

My Christmas music was justified by the weather this week.

Brazil was wonderful this week.

Wonderfully cold. I'm talking 40's. That's not warm and it's especially not warm when you have to sleep in it. Here in Brasil your lucky to have an A/C unit, but no one has ever even thought of a heating unit. So we were very cold this week. It was like I was back on a klondike campout when I was a lil scout. All bundled up all the time with nothing but hot drinks and exercise to get ya warm. Hot chocolate and pushups can do wonders but they aren't a heater. Also no good sleeping bag. Just 2 thin blankets.

But other than the numbing cold we had an excellent lesson on The Restoration and it was the most smile filled lesson I've ever had! It was awesome! The spirit was there for sure. 

Sheet music for me!

Although the morning after, she blocked us. Yeah that's the worst.

We had president interviews wahoo!

I finished the Book of Mormon again!! I read it all the way through in less than a month!! I marked all references to the members of the Godhead and it was amazing. I realized how blessed I am, at my age, to have so much time to get to read the Book of Mormon! I love missions!

I've been making good progress on a special guitar #...

We had an exchange which resulted in stuffed crust pizza and a quality jam session.

We got invited to a churrasco, BBQ, and we had already started our fasts. So we just met the kids and then I taught them how to play K.i.l.l. and in return they taught us how to play queimado. It was so fun to just play with those kids and mess around with them. They got a real kick out of some gringos playing games with them.

I love fasting! It really is a blessing!

I hope everyone has a good 4th of July and remembers how good America is.

Good week