Big Elders On Campus

Hey everyone! Okay so if you're wondering why you didn't get this email yesterday, I'm not dead and no I haven't gotten lazy enough to skip a week yet. We actually found out on Wednesday night that our p-day (preparation day and day that I can communicate with you guys) would be changed to Friday this week. I was super bummed out but now that it's Friday I'm kinda happy. 

And about the title... by campus I mean the CTM (the spiritual prison that I've been in for almost 4 weeks now) and by Big Elders I mean that we are now the "oldest" missionaries here. This means that all of the new Elders come up to us for help finding classes, working the vending machines, and picking which foods to eat at lunch. It's kinda like high school all over again, but instead, every single week is a year and we are now seniors. I'll let you know how graduation goes! But seriously it feels like this. Even though I'm older than 99% of missionaries here, because most came straight out of high school, you still feel younger than the "grade" above you. 

I found a lot of success putting my spiritual thought first last week, so I'm about to do it again. If you're not in the mood to read it, that doesn't matter, just read it anyway. 

SPIRITUAL THOUGHT

Something that has been on my mind a lot recently has been growth. I'm always looking for opportunities and ways to grow as a student, grow as a friend, grow in this language, and grow as a missionary. 

This week, I was reading a General Conference (a conference in our church twice a year where our prophet and his apostles give us guidance from God) talk called Daily Restoration by Dieter F. Uchtdorf (member of the quorum of the twelve apostles). This talk was perfect for my thoughts on growth and was really eye opening for me. 

He starts by talking about "the art of walking in a straight line". Uchtdorf cites an experiment called the Max Planck experiment. In this study, they took participants to a thick forest and gave them simple instructions: "Walk in a straight line." There were no visible landmarks. The test subjects had to rely solely on their sense of direction. The scientists concluded, “People really [do] walk in circles when they do not have reliable cues to their walking direction.” 

How can we fix this? How can we avoid "walking in circles"? 

1) Landmarks: these will keep our heads and hearts pointed in the right direction. Some landmarks that I've built in my life are daily prayer, scripture study, and making a game plan. If we don't know where we are going, how will we get there?

2) Small and simple acts of realignment: Minor deviations can draw us off our game plan. We need a steady flow of spiritual experiences and cannot be content with relying solely on our past experiences. But in the safe way, daily reassessment (daily restoration) and simple acts of realignments will lead us back on our desired path. 

3) If you want to change the shape of your life, then change the shape of your day. Your whole life has the same shape as a single day. If you want to change the shape of your day, change what you say, think, and feel at every given moment. Just like how a small rudder can steer a large ship, our very moments each day can change the trajectory of our lives. 

I invited each and every one of you to make your own personal gameplan. Take a moment to assess where your life is headed. Are you taking advantage of your every given moment? I encourage you guys to find those landmarks in your lives and continually steer, making minor realignments along the way. I promise that you will see so much growth and so much happiness. Because without growth, what's the point?

HIGHLIGHTS

Okay sorry that the spiritual thought took so long. I was kinda in the zone while writing it. I hope that you were able to take something out of it, or at the least thought it was a fun story. 

Okay time for some highlights...

- We took a language test yesterday to assess our progress along our mission and it did not go so well hahaha. Disclaimer: this test is a very hard test and even our Portuguese teachers don't get above a 9/10. But how the test works is an app tells you a sentence in Portuguese. These sentences are like 20 seconds long and they speak so fast. Afterward, they have us repeat the sentences back to the app. Every question I am able to remember like the first two words and maybe the last one, but every word in between sounded like I was making up my own language. There are like 30 of these questions and it didn't help that every time I would finish speaking my teacher would laugh at me because my sentences made no sense. However, I did get a 3.3 out of 10 which was third in the class!!

- We had hotdogs this week and for the first time since being at the CTM, their "american" food was actually good. You should've seen how happy each missionary was when they saw those hotdogs. This was my second "taste of america" in the past two weeks. 

- We made some good friends with some Argentina Elder's this week here at the CTM and they are so funny. One of the Argentinians kept calling me "rubio" which means "blonde" in English. He also loved calling me Barbie. Which literally makes no sense because I'm pretty sure my hair is brown, but whatever. It's okay though because I love to do this thing where every time I'm talking to an Argentinian I'll tell them that Ronaldo is better than Messi. They light up in rage and start going off in Spanish. 

- There have been a lot of haircuts this week but I don't know if any of them have been good. My companion, Elder Barela, got his haircut done by the CTM barber. The barber here literally gives every missionary the same, military-looking haircut. After the haircut, the back of his head was completely slanted. Looked like one of those linear slopes from math class. Anyways, with the help of a razor, we were able to fix him up. Also, just the other day, an Elder in our district, Elder Jones, decided to cut his armpit hair for the first time in his life "just for the fun of it". I definitely don't recommend this. Finally, just last like, Elder Jones and Barella both decided to shave their legs. Don't ask me why. But don't worry, all of my hair is perfectly intact. 

- Like I've been saying in my emails, I've been doing a ton of pull-ups and push-ups to counteract the fattening effects of the beans and rice. Well just the other day, I was able to do a muscle-up. (Where you do a pull-up and bring your body over the bar and push yourself above the bar). This is probably my biggest accomplishment since I started my mission. Does this mean I'm strong... no, but it means that I won't look like a marshmello after these two years. 

- Last night, a couple of the Elders in my district and I decided to shotgun some Guarana (best Brazilian soda and maybe the best soda on Earth). Very fun experience and tasted very good, but we can definitely improve on our form. It turns out a bunch of church members maybe aren't the best at shotgunning sodas. 

Anyways, if you stayed this far, I commend you. This will be my last email at the CTM. I leave for João Pessoa on Tuesday and couldn't be more excited and less prepared to do so. So be ready for some fun emails and some weeks where I don't understand one word. 

If you want to email me separately, you can reach me at joshua.ware@missionary.org. I would love to hear from each and every one of you guys. I love you all! Talk to you next week!

PHOTOS

1) This is the extent of our gym and track and the CTM. This is where we do all of our pull-ups and cardio. Track is about 100m in circumference.

2) Last pick with the district above us before they left. This photo was taken after hours and the brother to the President of the CTM walked in during the picture. Luckily he is super chill and decided to join in the picture instead of yelling at us. 

3) Hot dog day!! That's all that needs to be said.

4) Elder Barela's haircut. Won't be going to the barber anytime soon.

5) Probably our best sunset yet. It seriously looks like a dream. 

6) Picture in front of the Christus Statue at the São Paulo Temple visitor center. Seriously the coolest statue and the spirit and peace felt in the room is insane. 

7) The São Paulo temple today. We changed up temples from last week. It was my last temple trip for the next two years so I was very sad. But glad that I could spend it with the best district ever!