#50 - The "Chicaguistas" are back!😎🏙🫘 (4/29/24)

E aí Galera!? Como vai? Elder Fisher aqui novamente depois mais uma semana aqui em Brazil!! E hoje, bati 11 meses como um missionário d'A Igreja de Jesus Cristo Dos Santos Dos Últimos Dias! Estranho né? [What's up guys!? How are you? Elder Fisher here again after another week here in Brazil!! And today, I hit 11 months as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints! Strange, right?]

The sunglasses!

Hey guys! Ive been told that the United States is entering into Summer and Brazil... is still crazy weather as ever🤣 I still walk around with a jacket and umbrella but still end up during of heat during the day! Winter is coming.... very slowly😅

 Ice cream (side note, the McDonald's ice cream machines work here!)

But in other words, here's the update for this week in Jardim Osasco:

Last district council

Monday - So last week I mentioned this old drunk dude that asked me these weird questions. He asked me to choose an animal: Wolf, lamb, goat. And a color: Red, blue, yellow. I chose lamb and blue (bc we are the sheep of gods flock and I like blue) and he said I chose well and he accepts me so.... cool! Glad I chose right😅

P-day after cleaning!

Tuesday - HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: FINDING SOMEONE WITH A PERRY THE PLATYPUS SHIRT!!🤩🐸 I immediately decided we are friends and we started talking to him. He didnt even realize he had the shirt on until I pointed it out😆 We also went to visit a recent convert, Fernanda, (who also happened to be the same person that fell flat on the floor on the bus coming home from stake conference) and she told me about how she felt God was preparing her for something and I felt prompted to share one of my favorite mission scriptures, Mosiah 28:3. It was what she needed and now she recieved a calling to be a part of the missionary coordination in the ward!

Chicaguistas

Wednesday - When you get two chicagoians together, you've got the "Chicaguistas"! Yep, division with my boy Elder Child! But to start the day, we had a mission devocional that focused on how we should make our homes and ourselves more like the temple. After all, the most important work we will do in our lives is in the home! After the devocional, the "Chicaguistas" hit to the road. One of the people we found was Rogerio, a very cool and funny guy! When we arrived, he let us in on the spot and the first thing I saw was a collection of Play stations and he soon showed us his gym in the back! We then tried to teach a lesson but he started teaching us american culture about this dog named Lassie. Apparently it is a movie and I need to watch it😅 (add it to the bucket list) but we ended up giving him a BOM and marking another visit. We then also found a reference that hadn't been contacted, Bruna, who passed through a very hard time and could have used help from the missionaries. Im glad we found her when we did and now we are teaching her and helping her prepare for baptism (to all the missionaries, contact your references quickly cause you never know what they are going through!)

End of the division

Thursday - Honestly don't remember what happen today other than a lot of people being gone and not answering the door. So, on to Friday!

Late night diner dinner

Friday - While making contacts on the road today, we passed by a gym that was playing the same song I listened to in middle school for our warm ups😂 i actually stopped and had a lot of flashbacks. I dont remember the name but it has the chorus "you show the lights that stop me, take me home" (or something like that) We then found this family and our friends Arthur and Julie. Its been a while since they attended a church but we had a good talk about the plan of salvation and how they will see their mother again. I then immediately became friends with Arthur bc he knows who crash bandicoot is! (Shoutout to anyone whos knows). Then finished our day visiting this family who is looking for a church where they feel welcome. I explained how things work in the Church of Jesus Christ and offered to end with a prayer. Afterwords the Mother told me that we were the first people to offer a prayer to bless their family and that she looks forward to making a visit in the church! 

Saturday - We went around confirming our friends for church and almost helped baptize our friend Marlo to follow Christ and be baptized but he had a birthday party so it didnt work out😅 we also ended up playing some ping pong at the church and while I was playing against Elder Lopes, Lopes hit Elder Black in the face with the pingpong ball and Elder Black church sat there in shock. It was pretty fun though!

Late night sunset

Sunday - Woke up early and tried to get our friends to church. Sadly none of them woke up but when we arrived at church, our friend Claudio was there and he loved it! This week we are going to talk to him some more! Today though, we had the baptisms of our friends Daniel and Vitor! It was awesome to be the one to confirm them with the Holy Ghost! Later that night, we ended the day visiting Fernanda who made 2 cakes. 1 she put salt in place of the sugar and só she made another one. I asked to try the salt cake and.... yeah that was a salty cake🤣

Vitor e Daniel baptism

Even though things didnt go this week as I was hoping, I am still happy to know that I am doing the will of God. When we feel the presence of the Holy Ghost with us, we are doing the will of God even if it may be different from what we want or think. I like what the verse in D&C 103:27 says about a Disciple of Christ. If we are willing to lay down our life for the Lord, we will find our life. I come to see this verse in my life as this is my purpose, to use my time and talents for others and I am seeing the person I can and want to become not only for myself, but everyone else who needs the future Elder Fisher.

I hope that you are all well and that you guys have a great week!

Mate ou chimarrão [Mom note: Dev says mate is gross! He found this while cleaning the church.]

Amo vocês! Até a próxima semana!

- Elder Fisher

#49 - Stake Conference = Elders babysitting🫡👨‍🍼(4/22/24)

Jungle?

E aí a gente? Como vai? Não sei sobre a resto do mundo mas tivemos Conferência da estaca aqui em Boa Vista! Vocês tiveram uma conferência também? [And what about us? How are you? I don't know about the rest of the world, but we had a Stake Conference here in Boa Vista! Did you have a conference too?]

(Nice photo for mother)

Hey guys! After running to get lunch, get a haircut, do some shopping, and answering a drunk guys random questions about sheep and colors (I will explain next week!🤣), here I am with another summary of "The Fishers in Black" in Jardim Osasco!

Monday - CHURRASCO! We went to go visit the other Elders in our District and had a Churrasco! If any of you know Tuacanos or Braza Grill (Sean we are going after the mish and if anyone wants to come, let me know!), it is like that were people pass by and offer you all shorts of meat. Without knowing all the different, I just said yes to everything and suffered the consequence of an upset stomach later😅

Early mornings

Tuesday - Rain.... and LOTS of it!🌊 I had my umbrella with me but not my jacket and my comp.... didn't have either! So we were huddled like penguins trying to hit doors and navigate to a store where my comp bought his first umbrella and maybe a ponch or two. While trying to find new people, I knocked on this one door and out of no where this dog came running at me and jumped at my face until it hit the gate! The gate actually almost broke and the dog almost got a new chew toy🐶 Lets say there are times I am thankful for gates here!

Rain ponchos

Wednesday - During the morning, I let Elder Black lead to give him practice to talk to people and knock doors. He led us to this one house with a lady outside her house. I began to talk to her and that's when I noticed she had a knife in her hand she was figiting with. Without question, I shared a quick scripture, set up the next appointment, and kept moving. I still don't know why she had a knife in her hand. (For my sibilings: I also found the chomper the toy after that encounter). Later in the day I had my son try a corn popsicle and the verdict is: "I am weird for liking Corn Popsicles"🤪 Funny moment today was knocking a door and then Elder Black said "Looooolloo" and it opened! It was hard to speak while laughing, my bad

Medicine "shots" (Elder Lopes vomitted) [Mom note: Devin said an elderly
woman told them that as it gets colder she has medicine for them, but called them 'shots']

Thursday - Ward Activity today and... MY SONS FIRST BAPTISM!!! Technically the other Elders found these people to baptize but Elder Black performed the ordinance for his first time. PROUD DAD MOMENT! We were also talking with these youth that are learning english and when we were walking everyone back home in the cold one of them said, "I am freezer!" when she ment to say "I am cold!". I got a good laugh out of that but happy they are practicing!

Baptism of Elders friends

Friday - Woke up in the middle of the night to someone speaking! I couldn't make out the words but I thought someone broke in! I then looked around, saw nothing, and went back to bed. I then woke up again and found out what I thought was a burgler was my comp!😆 Elder Black was sleep talking with a normal voice and woke us all up! Then when we were contacting people, Elder Black said "Eu nao hablo english!". I can't tell but I think he speaks portuguese, spanish, and english. Slowly but surely he is learning and I am happy to see his progress!

MEAT

Saturday - GIANT VENEZUELAN CHURRASCO! We went to have lunch with these investigators who cooked up a LOT of meat! (When the family went inside, Elder Silva also spit across the table on accident and we broke out laughing, glad that the family didn't see that!) Later that day, we went to teach our friend Antonio and Maria. During our lesson, someone set off a bomb out of no where and Antonio just said, "oh that's normal". Luckly it was just a small one but it freaked me out! Cool spiritual prompting today: we were walking back to our main area of work and found Phoji sitting outside a store. I felt the need to talk with her and first thing she said was "I already go to a church". I then continued to talk with her and found out she was waiting for her friend and left her phone back in Curitiba. I then felt prompted to pull my phone out and I let her call her friend. After waiting about 30 minutes, her friend came and afterwards, she thanked us, called us her angels, and said she will have to think about visiting The Church of Jesus Christ again. I hope she does!

Working the bus

Dog attack

Sunday - Woke up early this morning to prepare for our friend Debora's baptism! When we knocked on their door to wake them up, I immediately got trampled by their dogs and got my pants dirty😅 (this happens a lot to me I think). We then went to the church and had her baptism where her son, Elias a recent convert, said it was a blessing to see his mom follow Christs example and recieve the joy he recieved through baptism all because a "rapaz" (young man) appeared and invited her. Turns out he had been trying to help his mom be baptize for sometime and I just showed up and felt the need and she accepted! Goes to show how God prepares us to be instruments in his hands to teach and be who others need us to be. Then later that day we had Stake Conference and our friend Amalio came with his family all by himself! As the email title says, I sat in the back on the stage with all the youth and started making kootie catchers and offered whatever I could to keep them entertained. Let's just say, thanks mom for teaching me the weird face you know how to do!😂

Débora baptism

An overall awesome week! When I was studying this week, I read in Helaman 14 about the birth of Christ and I love the verses between 12-18, especially 13 as we learn that we can have a remission of our sins through the "merits" of Christ. Truly all of this is possible through him. He is the only path back to the Father and always is calling us back (Mosiah 3:17)

Turkeys?

Amo vocês! Até a próxima semana!

- Elder Fisher

#48 - It aint pineapple... its a WATERMELON?!🤯🍍🍉

 E aí beleza? Como vai meus amigos? Como está vida, a missão, comida, qualquer coisa?😆

[Hey, what's up? How are you my friends? How is life, the mission, food, anything?]

Selfie with the boys

Churrasco Mondays

After stuffing myself with churrasco (barbeque) and heading to the church, im now sitting down and writing to you all. So here is the update for this week:

Monday - While going out for lunch, i visited "a casa China" (the China house) a store in Osasco that sells stuff from all over the world (and sadly only notebooks that are daily planners😥) but Elder Lopez and I found these hats that extend when you squeeze the sides! I lowkey wanted to buy them!

Tuesday - New missionary training for the 4th time!😂 Honestly dont know if I will have to go back for a 5th time but time will tell! It was honestly really cool to see how much I have grown and how I had a lot to contribute to the new trainers who were having hard times training. But of course, the highlight was the lunch afterwards with pizza seven! ... i ate too much😅

Zone Conference (from last week)

New missionary training meeting

Wednesday - Early morning service! Woke up this morning and went with a member to help his friend clean his yard. We even outed his yard with this sand he had and helped take out the gate to his backyard. It was full of dirt and trash so it took us a while to get it all out but now, our friend has access to his backyard! (We were also like Wreck it Ralph and destroyed a wall with a Hammer!) We then worked during the day and ended our day with our friend Cido. He is looking for the right church and when we came by, we were welcomed by 5 dogs and 4 cats and a full on dinner! By the time we taught, we had like 3 minutes so I gave them a quick lesson on the Book of Mormon and invited them to read and pray!

          

Elder Black and I cleaning the backyard               Early morning sérvice selfie                              

Thursday - Had another run in with Alexandra again (a drunk lady) and this time she wipped something off my face... lets just say i like my personal space😅 While knocking doors today, Elder Black and I found a set of stairs and started climbing them. When we readed the top, we found out they were a dead end and immediately went back down (good exercise though!) Also had a "princess and the frog" moment today. While teaching an old man, Valdecir, a yellow wasp came out of no where and stayed right in front of my mouth and then sat on my lip. I dont think it was true love though cause the wasp stayed as a wasp🤣

Horseshoe? Nauvoo blacksmith anyone?

Friday - Early morning temple visit! I always love starting my day in the house of the Lord. Later that day we had a run in with this biker who asked us which ward we were a part of and hearing this I asked him, "are you a member?" And yeah he was! We met Pedro and told him of the ward here and he wants to come back! Highlight of the day was getting a spiritual prompting to talk with this man sitting outside his house. His name is Amalio and we found out he hasn't been baptized or attends a church but was asking for God to give him a new life. So we taught him about The Church of Jesus Christ, Ths Book of Mormon, and Baptism and he accepted to be baptized! He truly wants this new life with Christ! Then finished our day meeting with this couple who offered us watermelon... that was YELLOW?! I literally thought it was pineapple but, IT WASNT!!🤯😵‍💫

Saturday - Shoutout to the Jardim Osasco ward! We had a lot of members at the church to clean with us today! We did a full blown deep clean and it was awesome to see everyone putting God first in their lives. Reminds me of cleaning the church back home with my family and ward members. I hope to be able to continue this habit of cleaning the church or maybe the temple each week when I get back

cleaning thr stairs

Sunday - Brought 8 investigators to church, 3 of which are kids we are hoping to help baptize this next week or the next, and the others included Amalio and our friend Gerson who arrived on their own! Amalio ended up sending me a message later after the church saying he believes we were divinly sent by God and we were the answer he needed to turn his life around and leave his hard family life situation. The rest of the day was just rain so we didnt visit many people but we got to visit our friend Andrus and taught him some english phrases. Andrus learned a phrase "I must be going" and I told him we normally say "i gotta go" and Elder Black started laughing. I didnt even realize the context of what I said until Elder Black explained to me. Oops😅  

The elders were tired

I think something I truly learned this week as a missionary was to pray for God to prepare his children and prepare us to find them. I know that he does as we were able to find Amalio. Another thing, it isnt so much as I am helping people, but that God is by way of me. We are instruments in his hands to bless his children. (3 nephi 5:13)

The hills of Osasco

 

Ditto!

Love you all and Ill talk to ya next week!

- Elder Fisher🐟

#47 - General Conference, Round 2... RUN!!!🦾🏃‍♂️ (4/8/24)

E aí a gente!!? Tudo beleza? Como foi a conferência para vocês? Só assisti 2 sessões 😅 [What's up with us!!? Is everything ok? How was the conference for you? I only attended 2 sessions]

In the road

Hey guys! Hows the eclipse going right now? For me, I just see a sky of gray with the rain😆

But in other words, another week has come and gone and we have all grown another week older and with this conference this last week, we have gotten A WHOLE lot wiser... except me who still hasn't seen it😅(i was working on helping others watch)

I love Colombo

Boys im Colombo

In other words, here is the update from this week:

CAPIVARA! [In portuguese]

Monday - I SAW A CAPIVARA (idk how to spell) but its like this giant beaver rat and they are AWESOME! (If anyone sells capivaras in the US, hit me up!) We also got to have authentic Brazilian strogonoff with some members and i got to practice cutting hair (thanks mom for being my inspiration)

Tuesday - Put the gift of tongues to the test today with speaking spanish! There are a lot of people living here who are from Venezuela and some of them dont speak any português só I used what I knew of the two to explain that we are missionários, where the church is located, and get his number. And the Holy ghost provided! We also had our missionary work meeting with the ward and while waiting, i crashed a seminary class that was happening and i got called to explain how prayer is like a burger and só... prayer is like a burger with a top and bottom (opening and closing) and what you ask for in the middle.😅🍔 lets just say i got a few laughs out of the youth

The 8 elders [including Elder Child from Chicago, back middle]

Wednesday - Zone conference! My biggest take away was from President Bikman when we read 3 nephi 12. After reading the first verse, it explains we are to listen to the words of Christs prophets and apostles and Bikman said we should never have a reason to miss a session of conference and so, that is my goal for the rest of my life. Tô not miss a live session of conference. After the conference, i did a division with our new AP, Elder Lizana (my former Zone Leader). We ended up visiting this reference and reading the Book of mormon with them and when we asked if the family had been baptized, Esteffany responded no and I invited her to be baptized. She then explained she had the chance to be baptized earlier in life but regretted running from it and earlier that morning she asked God to give her another chance. We were that chance for her. I never felt the spirit so strong and I was glad to see how the Spirit guided me to help her make this choice. We are now helping her to get married and baptized!

Ping pong

Thursday - We had lunch at the church today and our church has a ping pong table só Elder Black and I played a bit. Turns out, im not too bad! Anyone who wants to play after the mish, hit me up in a year and 2 months!😆 but we actually had a ward activity with some fun games for the kids and we brought 2 investigators with us! I also found a new dog named CARAMEL 2.0!!

Caramel

Friday - Im between talking with everyone on the road and knocking a lot of doors inviting people to watch conference, we had lunch with a member family who has family in Utah. Because they have family there, they get american food like Syrup! They showed this syrup bottle to us and I freaked out!!! 🤯 its been so long!! I hope that i am able to find the family after the mish and keep with the portuguese 😁

Ward activity

Saturday - Day 1 of conference! We went to clean the church and guess what we found.... CARAMEL LOCKED IN THE BUILDING!😬 he was okay and actually helped with the cleaning. We also found a melon that someone left out of the fridge só I quickly threw that out. We then went to go visit our baptism date Luis who was drunk! He said he didnt want to get baptized anymore and so his date fell but i know that one day he will take that step. We then began the marathon of visiting our friends and inviting everyone to church. Sadly though, majority of them weren't home. Só at the end of the day we went back home to watch the last session and Elder Black ended up tearing apart our broken fan and blew a fuse (luckly we quickly fixed it👍)

[Caramel found locked in the church]

Sunday - Day 2 of Conference! We went around today inviting people to watch conference and watch the final session with us at the church. Sadly, everyone fell through and we didnt have many people at the church but, we enjoyed the last session with those who were there.

I think as humans, it can be very easy for us to see the bad and begin to complain but that won't ever help or solve anything. I think ive truly realized the importance of aligning our will with gods and trusting in his timing. I think to 2 nephi 4:16-35. It is easy to give in to these temptations of thoughts but as verse 27 and 34 says, trust in God, i have no reason to give into temptation when I have done my part. God loves effort and we are successful when we feel the spirit working through us (PMG 13-14)

found a silly hat like his sister used to have

 

bad internet connection, so call cut short

Love you all and I hope next week to give you my conference thoughts (i also invite all of you to do the same and not miss a session of conference as each session is a sacred moment to receive personal revelation)

Até mais!

- Elder 🐟 er