A Foot or Two: And maybe we got lost in translation

(Elder Mackrory)

Oi família e amigos! Tudo bem?

There is so much I could write about today, but that would be a novel. I cannot write the hundredth part of the things that happened. SparkNotes at the bottom.

Brazil is so cool! Last week I had only been in the field for 3 days so I still had no idea what was going on. But now that I kinda know the area and the routine, I've started noticing all the cool things around me.

(If you’re not into cars, you may want to skip this paragraph) For one, the cars here are so different! I showed a bit last week with the ancient Fiat badge, but it’s crazy how different it really is. There's no big trucks (two exceptions I’ve seen); the Ford Ranger and Toyota Hilux are the big dawgs. Most trucks are sorta like the old El Camino, except shorter and less boxy. There's no Subaru, Mazda, dodge, Chrysler, Cadillac, Acura, scion, Pontiac, and a whole lot of others. I know there’s lots of other common ones I’ve forgotten. Here we have Chevy, ford, Toyota, fiat, Honda, Citroën, Peugeot, vw, Renault, Hyundai, jeep. Some out of the ordinary cars I’ve seen while here are a RAM 2500, ford f-450 (not really, it was just the front half with a small shipping container (U-Haul type)), and a sick BMW bike that my dad likes but I forgot the name. I thought I was done having to see jeep libertys, but no, they show their ugly faces here all the time. There are more classic vw bugs here than any other car. Seriously. Other than that, cars are pretty old here, lots of boxy shapes. Lots of motorbikes as well. Honda civics and Toyota corollas are considered nice cars. Which they are, but not fancy.

Food here is amazing. I get churrasco (pronounced "shoo-hahs-coh") at least once a week. It’s a full Brazilian BBQ, with pretty much all you can eat steak, sausage, pork, and chicken. Plus rice and beans and lettuce. So that’s freaking amazing. Also Estrogenofe. Thats also a common dish here. It’s similar to tika masala except it has corn and it isn’t at all spicy. It’s usually eaten with rice and these miniature french fry things. Rice and beans of course is also common. I bought cereal and yogurt at the store so that’s what I have for breakfast and then for dinner I’ll have a banana. I was very frugal with my money this time around because I wasn’t sure how far my mesada would go. This ended up being an inspired idea as you read later.

It rained for the first time ere yesterday. The drops were very small and it wasn’t heavy rain at all. It was more of a mist. But it was fun to have an excuse to wear a jacket and not get asked "aren't you hot?".

Instead of knocking on doors, what we do here is clap and yell "o de casa!" Which literally translates to "the of house" but it’s really means "anyone home?". Most people have doorbells with a voicebox so that’s what we usually use.

I still don’t really understand anyone, but I’ve heard that it will be like that for the first 3-4 weeks. I’m able to speak more clearly and express what I want to say better. But it still feels like half of my meaning gets lost in translation. Given that I like to get really into a lesson and talk and talk and talk, it feels weird to explain a whole idea in just a few sentences. But the gospel needs to be simple and clear for new people. I’ll get used to it.

My apartment is pretty nice; I’ve got my own bathroom and wardrobe. I just deep cleaned the kitchen, which was a pigsty. I cleaned dishes that looked like they had been dirty since before I left for the CTM. cleaning the muck and grime off the stovetop was really satisfying. I dusted and cleared trash away. I organized our under-the-sink stuff and sorted trash bags. It was so fun.

We taught some more lessons and talked to more people as usual. One lesson stood out though. We had the address for a less-active member and were going to check up on them. When we got to the house, it was the wrong person, but we ended up chatting about Jesus and all the things and he expressed his confusion about why the people in the Americas didn’t get to hear the message of the gospel until the middle ages (I know, right?). It was so cool to be able to then teach him the message of the restoration and give him a Book of Mormon, the record of God's dealings in the ancient Americas. It was so freaking cool. Definitely not an accident we had the wrong address.

General Conference was so good!! Most of what I watched was in Portuguese, so I didn't get much, but the parts I watched in English were amazing. When Conference is released on Gospel Library, please go back and watch it again. I loved Elder Ballard's simple and yet so powerful testimony. Elder Oaks' and Elder Christofferson's stalwart words on priesthood authority, and the opportunity to be exalted with God were so good. I loved President Nelson's invitation to "Think Celestial" (though grammatically speaking, it should be think celestially). Begin with the end in mind, as they say, and the dots will connect in front of you. And 20 new temples is amazing! I have lots of family in the Colorado springs area so I’m super excited for them! One Elder in our district is from Peru. His exact city is getting a temple. It was so cool to see how happy he is. He kept saying, "Minha cidade! Minha cidade!" He could not hold back a smile from ear to ear.

Quotes of the week:

"It’s refreshing to see someone dressed modestly. Oh wait never mind I can see her ankles"

"Not even condensed milk could save this" (referring to bananas na terra)

"Perhaps the only way to save it is compost" (also referring to bananas na Terra)

About Bananas na terra: I showed them last week, but I hadn’t tried them at that point. For some reason, you're supposed to boil them before you eat it. So I did. They were very bad. And my comp said that I cooked it right. So I tried dipping a slice in condensed milk to make it taste better. But like most things that have banana in them, it’s the dominant flavor. I could barely taste the condensed milk. I do not recommend.

Spiritual Thought: The phrase "Hear Him" appears twice in scripture that I know of. Once on the mount of transfiguration (mark 9; Luke 9) and once in the first vision (JSH 1:17). In Portuguese, this is translated as translated as "Ouve-O". When a pronoun (in this case "O") follows and verb and a hyphen, it implies a more formal tone. There's more to this grammar, but it’s not really relevant. The verb is also conjugated in present tense. Now, when translating this phrase, they could have used "Ouça-O" which is the form used when commandments are given. It would have still meant "Hear him", but it would have lost meaning. When God, the father of our spirits, says "hear him", it is not a mandate, nor a casual suggestion. It is a formal invitation to hear Jesus Christ. Nobody is going to force the gospel on you, it’s up to each individual to choose if he/she will "hear him". What is one way you can "hear him" in your life?

Terna Misericórdia: As I stated above, I was very frugal with my biweekly allotment. In the market, I was looking at all the new things I wanted to try. Different fruits and ice creams, different candies and snacks. But the thought came to mind to not splurge. The next thought told me to splurge; the next allotment was only 6 days away, what's the worst that could happen? I decided to be frugal and only buy what I needed for the week. And the worst did happen. When we went to the atm to withdraw the new mesada (allotment), the atm gave me a receipt that said the money had been withdrawn, but no money came out. We checked the balance and it said that all had been withdrawn. So we contacted the financial secretary about it and he’s going to help us today, but I might have to live without that money for the next few days. Because of the prompting of the holy ghost, when we go to the market, I’ll be able to afford what I need for the week again. It’s a huge tender mercy and a lesson of being frugal not living paycheck to paycheck that I’ll take home with me when that time comes.

Happy (late) birthday Grandma Putnam, Shane, Elder Schmell, and Dad! Parabens pra vocês!

SparkNotes:

1. Cars are very different here. There are brands that we don't have in the US, and there are brands we have in the US that they don't have here.

2. The food is amazing, and we have Brazilian BBQ's all the time. Rice is in pretty much every meal.

3. It rained

4. Instead of knocking, the custom here is to clap

5. I still don’t understand anyone, but I'm getting better at speaking.

6. I deep cleaned the kitchen, it was disgusting.

7. We taught a lesson to a guy who wondered about people in the Americas. He was very excited to hear about the book of Mormon.

8. Go watch General Conference! Think Celestial!

9. Bananas na terra suck

10. Again, read the spiritual thought and tender mercy in full.