Poop Brownies

Que lo que hay! (What's up, Boricua version?)

This was the best week of my mission experience, and I feel like it wasn't too exciting, lol, but since MTC and being in the field this week, I felt happiness and the Spirit constantly. It was super cool to feel so at peace and truthfully happy. I now understand why it is called the best and hardest two years of your life, and it's for a good reason because I can already see how this is the best two years ever. You grow up and learn so fast and so much, and you're on such a spiritual high. It's amazing! But the mission is difficult. Lots of people don't care to hear the message or don't want to be taught about Jesus here because they all think it's good we're inviting others to come to Christ. But most of the Catholics here don't think it's them that need to hear about Jesus, so that's pretty funny. We met a Catholic preacher this week or last, idek, in the plaza, and he is the best example of this. He talks about how much he loves us and thinks it's such a good thing to learn about Jesus, and he studied the Bible his whole life and blah blah blah, but he's super nice but not humble enough to listen (Alma 32:16). It's funny to me because my cousin that's 14 has more authority than him, so it's sad to see how wrong their church is without the authority. But all I do is smile and love them because that's what the Spirit tells me to do, and I am here to invite others to come unto Christ and find God's true church. Love, share, and invite to find the elect. As I was studying a lot this week, 2 Nephi chapter 9 is so fuego. Yo nunca leí la escritura antes de la misión con mucho intento, pero es una escritura fuego. Segundo Nefi 9 and all of the Isaiah chapters are actually so, so good, bro. Especially with the institute study guide. I highly recommend using that to study. Anyways, when I was studying, I came across the concept of the gathering of Israel and its significance in our day. And it says that we will gather spiritually first, then physically. And that's really cool to me because they talk about missionary work as us finding the elect, which is the spiritual gathering. The people who are ready to hear our messages, the elect, is very important. And right now, anyone that's being baptized in this day is the elect. So that's super cool to me (2 Nephi 10:6-7).

Poop brownies - So, I didn't make bad brownies. I actually am surprisingly really good at following directions on the box, except for the part when I don't put butter in the bottom of the pot or any Pam, lol. So, this is the story. We're at the church making calls Saturday night, and Elder Christiansen and I were doing pretty good and had some answers and some not answered. I taught people about fe en español mucho esta semana. That was my job, haha. But anyways, we get done at 9, and President wanted to do a Zoom call with all of us at 9:15. The church is super close, so we get home, and I am chilling. I have 12 minutes to mix brownie mix and start the oven, which was good. I did it, but then the meeting was starting, right, like t-minus 2 minutes 'til it starts, and I was in the bathroom. And when I came out, I had half my tie that I dipped in brownie mix and stains on my shirt, and my hands were covered in brownie. But I just washed my hands. It didn't make any sense. Luckily, it was my bottom half of my shirt and tie, so I was able to hide it during the Zoom meeting, and it came out of my clothes, so that was lit and good. Also, the brownies were so good. They just looked like a giant turd, but as I came up with, sometimes poop tastes good, yk.

Our recent convert, Remberto, is doing super good. He was supposed to get the Aaronic Priesthood this Sunday, but Bishop wasn't here, so we will do that next week. Also, in sacrament, I didn't really understand much, but I knew a lot more than last week. And in Young Men's, I understood lots of the topic and words, so that was super cool. We have to go translate for the White family, but we went to Young Men's this week for him. I don't do much translating, but my comp does. It was cool to see what I knew and what he translated, and the points were the same the whole time, so that's cool! WHEN I WAS IN SACRAMENT, I SPILT ALL THE WATER ON MYSELF. THAT WAS EMBARRASSING. Also, our amiga Carmen came to church, and she liked it. And Elder Christensen's stats, anyone who comes to church while he's been here has been baptized 100 percent of the time. So, we think she will be on date this week!!!

Food situation - Okay, I was a little quick to judge Puerto Rican food. But I still hate chicken. And plain rice gave me PTSD from that situation, so I don't love plain white rice that much anymore. It's like when you eat something, then puke, and don't like it anymore. Well, I didn't puke, but same concept. I get PTSD, lol. But this week, I ate beans. Super good! Alcapurria was good, tasted like a deep-fried taco! I really loved tostones, shrimp empanadas, and limber. It's like a fruit popsicle and a snow cone in a cup. It's super yummy. And tostones are like potato chips but with plantains. You deep fry them and salt them. Super good. And shrimp empanada is like a giant shrimp chicken nugget, but not chicken. With shrimp, and it's not nuggets. It's just a deep-fried scone-sized thing with shrimp. Super, super good. I really, really love shrimp a lot, actually. We also had pasteles, which is meat and vegetables. I don't know what kind of veggies, but we had pork as the meat. And you put it in a banana and boil it in a plantain leaf. And I do not like boiled banana. It is so not my fav, but better than chicken. Overall, it's been a super good week with food. I almost forgot pinchos. Pinchos are meat of pork or chicken on a stick, grilled. And then they have BBQ sauce. Super yummy. But I love tostones the most so far, or shrimp empanadas. But definitely would eat pinchos again.

My weird dreams - I keep having dreams every night about baseball, and every day I keep feeling like I need to play it in college when I'm home. So, I don't know the significance. I will pray and see, worry about that more when I'm home. But I seriously keep feeling the Spirit testify to me I need to do something with baseball, and I have a dream about baseball every night. So, that's weird. And old teammates, shout out to Bracken Pratt. He was in my dream last night, and we were playing ball again. A few nights ago, it started like a week ago, and every dream is about baseball. I don't know, it's really confusing. But I'll keep you updated.

We had district counsel on Thursday, and I got to meet the district, and that was super cool. Then on the way back, we jammed out to a Christian Spanish artist, Alex Zurdo, from Puerto Rico. And he has such good music, and we had a drive back from Vega Baja, and I enjoyed that a lot.

Saturday, we got to paint a member's house, which was super cool and good. I got the opportunity to serve in the funnest way possible. Everyone's house here is a cement box, and they all paint them awesome colors. It's like absolutely gorgeous too because they choose super pretty colors as well, like bright, happy spring colors and island colors. So, they're very pretty houses. Anyways, painting was super, super fun. I love it.

There's a lot of advertising by megaphones and speakers, and there are random trucks here with huge speakers in the bed of them and all this randomness. And they have a lot of random horses tied up to fences and trees, and it's super sad.

Anyway, not super exciting, but I had a good week, an amazing week. I also shout out Grandma. She's the only one who actually reads and replies. But write me!