Christmas Skyping

It's been interesting to see how my perspective of my family as changed since I've gotten to see and compare with a lot more of them here on my mission. I never realized how sticky of a proposition it is placing 4 people together and expecting them to live in harmony - especially when we've got the genes we've got, huh? ;). The house I'm living in is kind of like a family right now. We all have our own agendas, sure, but it's a pretty peaceful thing - everybody in the house is part of the office staff. :P We all do very different things, and we work ourselves like dogs every day. We're always nipping at each other's heels verbally, but we still say "Oi, cara, te amo" at the end of the day right before we all hit the sack. It's been weird being in a tripanionship, but I think God wanted it to happen so I can compare to other small-group relationships I might have in my life later.

 

I know I'm a heckuva good secretary while I'm focused - and I'm getting better every day with learning to focus. I think this secretary position's my golden opportunity to help me get some good organizational essentials in my head now. :P I like to do things efficiently, and unlike any other secretary before on this mission (incredibly) I have computer science magic to help me out. I'm learning how to prioritize and focus my efforts in the best place - I've already lost a few hours thinking about making programming projects for retrospectively ridiculous things, but I believe I may develop some nifty solutions to some of the annoying work shortly to make life immensely easier for everyone in the future.

 

Shawn: Look out. You might have an entirely Linux-based house when we get back, excepting Mom. :P I didn't have much opportunity to talk to you during the call personally (since you wanted to wave a weapon around in the background O_O), but I can see you've been adding to your knowledge and have changed a little bit. How exactly I don't know...but we'll have at least 6 months to get to know each other again after my mission, huh? I'm looking forward to it, man. Who knows, if you're lucky and get called to Brazil, I can teach you some basics with the Brazilian across the street!

 

Actually, Dad, I did get a little stumped as to how to have the call go how I wanted - I didn't want to talk about home because I technically wasn't even halfway through my mission! There's a difference in the Spirit when I'm focused on what I've got immediately in front of me - figuratively speaking. I wanted to leave something spiritual with you guys. I still think that was the most important of all the things I could have said to you guys - something to strengthen my own family, and if I'm lucky show that a mission is making a difference in who I am. But you already knew that'd happen, huh? I really am loving the time I'm having here, getting the know the scriptures, spending time with so many people who are trying to live the celestial standard.

 

I WILL, though, take a little opportunity to talk about the things back at home.  I find myself caring less and less about Facebook and more about cool projects I could do with the nerd friends of mine. I already knew this before I stepped in the MTC, but I am one of the biggest nerds I know. And I let people know it too. Whaddya think, Dad? Your son's a huge nerd. But he thinks it's cool.

 

I'm so ridiculously excited for the Hobbit. I'll have to bring somebody along… was it good? Was it up to the quality of the LotR movies? Tell meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

 

Returning back to the call: Actually, the reason I took the opportunity to talk a bit about my mission history and review the problems I'd had was to help you guys realize that I'm not gonna tell you guys all of my problems while I'm sending email, because the primary purpose of my emails is to give you the highlights of the second-greatest calling I'll ever have!...and personally because a little idle complaining was good. If I have something I'm having difficulty bearing something, of course I'm gonna ask you guys for help. But there are some things that I know I can/need to handle just here on the mission. President's a pretty capable guy, and technically he's entitled to receive revelation on my behalf if I have companion/area problems. There's tons of leadership to help me with virtually any missionary problem here. I gotta use that first - then I can draw from the collective strength of my family. Just remember that it'll probably be different when I get back home - a mission is different than any other part of your life, as you guys well know!

Well...those are all my thoughts for now. I always maintain a list in my planner, because I always forget little cool things if I don't - so have no fear! I hope that you all enjoyed Christmas, 'cause I certainly did - and that you guys won't be too fried after the bubbly at midnight. You guys ARE gonna do that...right? It's a fetching tradition. ;) Just don't get so fried you forget to write a week after! I love you guys, and wish the very best to y'all.

 

 

Erich

 

Contacts

Heh, everybody keeps asking me where my glasses are. I think I may put 'em back in during the big meetings, just so everybody recognizes me. But nah - the contacts stay, unless I want to look super professional. It reminds me of when Dad used/didn't use his glasses.

Here in Maceió people from Portugal are mythic. They almost don't exist. :P European Portuguese is considered a different language than Brazilian Portuguese, though they're similar enough that I think with much effort two speakers of the languages could communicate. The main difference is the accent, though there's a lot of words that exist in the other but have completely different meanings. For instance, a notable swap are the words "bicha" ("bee-shah") and "fila" ("fee-lah"). "Bicha" in the Portuguese I know means "faggot", and "fila" means "line (of people)". But in European Portuguese it's the reverse. Can you imagine the funny mixups that would happen without knowing about the other language that's so similar? It's a small landmine.

I have certain parts of my accent that are from Maceío, though some Brazilians consider them generic variations and not an indication of where I learned Portuguese. There's plenty of spots where I use the Maceiense accent, but I can correct them if I consciously exercise my tongue. It's just a matter of habit to me at this point. But yeah. You have a completely bilingual son now. Whaddya think about that? Tell the sister from Minas Gerais that she'll probably have some long conversations in Portuguese when I get back - I don't ever want to lose this language.

Actually...that's something I've been thinking about this last week. Portuguese has a special place in my heart because so many of the spiritual insights I've had were by means of Portuguese. Many things I've learned here were done by and for the Brazilian members here who really aren't that much different from the Americans. Really, another language is just another method of thinking, exactly like the programming languages I learned in my time before the misison. It's really cool being "bilingüe", especially when I meet others like me.

I think I'm kind of like...a snowball with the things I learn. I don't want to let go of the hobbies, interests, and talents I've developed in my life. I know I won't be able to develop every single one to my liking (because I'm a perfectionist!), but that's exactly like what I feel like I should do. I still want to maintain the piano, longboarding, programming, gaming, teaching, gospel study, reading, and all the other stuff I've taken interest in. Quite a full plate, considering it's just gonna get bigger. I'll probably have to do what Dad did - leave a few hobbies to have time for the important stuff. But right now, I'm being optimistic.

I've also been thinking about how many organizational habits I had have also changed to fit my new situation. Up until I got into the office, I wrote exclusively in 4-color pen so I could reread everything easily afterwards. It was a really developed system. But then it all went out the window, because everything I do doesn't have that same complexity that I found in missionary work. It's not less complicated, actually, just...nearly impossible in limited experience to develop a system outside of "This is a task. DO IT!".

I'm really grateful for the awesome tripanionship that we've got right now. After two transfers of training and another two transfers of me doing everything, I recognize now the blessing of having a companion with talents in application. It's so easy when your companion just...does stuff. Now that I have two, the missionary work part of my mission is fairly easy. I was worried how a three-way teaching scenario would go, but from the handful of lessons we've already taught we have a certain system worked out. I love the insights my companions have, and their constant focus on the work in the office and in the field. They're really experienced, and I'm learning from them despite the lack of time we have to talk and teach sometimes. At least we're getting our studies in every day!

I also completed my goal for exercise this week: every day but Sunday! And man. I'm feeling way healthier. I'm not hiking 6 miles every day now, but volleyball was still easier than it was in previous weeks. Testimony in a cup!

Yeah. That's about it. Don't forget to WRITE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

-Erich

Christmas Conference is coming!

Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh I'm drained. Sorry for not responding to this sooner. I spend the last 3 days organizing the biggest event of the mission: Christmas Conference!

Alright. Gimme a few minutes to organize my thoughts here. There's a lot that happened in this last week, and I'll admit to being a little overwhelmed still by the boatload of things I do every day.

First thing I learned about the office were the baptismal forms. They're a really dull process, but worth it - because it makes people officially part of the Church. Without my putting these people into the system, they literally can't receive a calling...so it's sort of important, huh? I can now enter a baptismal form into the system in less than two minutes on average. I doubt I'm the first, but I thought about making a little program that will measure how many forms I can do per hour - I think right now I can do it in less than two. But yeah! I dunno if I can make it a key indicator, but it might be something I make a goal for. Just for fun. :P

I gave trainings in front of large groups of missionaries already. It's my responsibility to think of things that I can say to the entire mission to make everybody's life easier in the areas I work with - it's kind of daunting, sometimes, to realize that with the vast majority of the things I have here are solely my responsibility. If I don't remember to do something here, there's nobody here to remind me (except for the old secretary, who's still tutoring me through many things - E. Langlois is a pretty patient guy. :). Looks like I get to put the organizational habits I've learned here to the test! Thankfully, a few of the tricks I've used from the years I've already got with computers are coming in handy, and my planner, when I remember to use it effectively. Guess there's at least one reason I'm here, huh?

While there's many new things to handle, I'm still making goals to improve the skills I've already developed here on the mission. Now that I hardly ever worry about vocabulary, I'm particularly striving to make my accent better. Right now I'm focusing on developing my ability to mimic the Northeastern Brazilian accent that's rampant here, something I've resisted until this point. I feel better for doing it, and I realize it's kind of the toolbox concept there. I can consciously choose in English the accent I use - why can't it be the same after some development with Portuguese?

It's really cool being bilingual, though. I've run into a bunch of situations already where I had to switch very abruptly between just English and then just Portguese. I have to handle calls from paranoid/worried moms, and then talk to other Brazilians in professional situations, then I talk to missionaries with a mountain of weird things they get themselves into. Some prefer to explain in English. Others spend ten minutes explaining something's broken in their house, because they really want the problem fixed. Thankfully the Lord's help has helped me to survive the critical situations, and learn from the various mistakes I make as the novinho secretário.

Something else that's new is that I've gotten three letters from people in the areas I've served in now. I just feel...so happy because of what I read. Between inside jokes and remembering the good times, I was surprised how much these people mentioned the impact I had on their wards. One lad told me that my example helped him to change his point of view of what a good missionary was - he felt oriented by the things he saw me do, and the things we talked about while we did divisions. The interesting part is that I had no idea I was being the leader there - but in retrospect, the first observation is "Well, duh!". Missionaries, even when they don't have mission leadership designations, are still leaders to everyone around them! I wonder how many missionaries actually realize this. I think it's a valuable insight.

Everything I've been doing this last week was for the big conference we had today - so right now I'm just thinking about the very powerful spiritual wisdom I came across today. Prez. talked a lot about being married, and about married life - he didn't focus on getting married, but he talked about a few points he learned in his marriage that he thinks we ought to learn BEFORE getting to that point. Because I don't have all the time in the world, I'll just mention one point that made me think: the happiness that comes from leading one's own family successfully, not just depending on yourself but also on God. Being a leader is a concept I've had to get to know a little better this last week...so I felt it was particularly relevant. Gotta take the iniciative, be proactive, and do your best - and then the blessing you'll need will come when you need them. A friend of mine sent me a relevant quote this week that I'll paste here:

"You are doing the best you can, and that best results in good to yourself and to others. Do not nag yourself with a sense of failure. Get on your knees and ask for the blessings of the Lord; then stand on your feet and do what you are asked to do."

Anyway. I'm trying to make a small novel again - I think I'll end here with my USUAL PLEA FOR PEOPLE TO WRITE ME.

...yeah. That's about it. Until next week, y'all!

-Erich

Mission Secretary

Wow. This last week has been a big whirlwind. Life changed very rapidly with a single transfer. I'm...now secretary of the Brazil Maceió Mission. 

 

LOLWUT

 

Yeah. I'm now the office guy for the mission. My companion is the financial secretary, who's a really cool guy named E. Douglas. He's a smart Brazilian who's definitely UCAS material. I like him a lot. I also like my second trainer on the mission, E. Langlois. Remember the really tall guy that I've taken a few photos of? Yeah. He's now my other companion. He walks me through all the new responsibilities I've got, and sometimes he has to save face when I do something dumb - and yessir, I DO do dumb things still. Becoming a secretary, unfortunately, didn't invoke a magical transmutation into the faultless Secretary Gubler.

 

Dependence on God: check. 

 

First cool thing about the office is that I'm now focusing my talents on the thing they've been focused on the majority of my life: the computer. I love using the computer, and I've literally almost forgotten nothing. It's like a dimension of my life that I had kind of forgotten existed, but refused to die. Woo! I'm confident that I've got something God wants me to contribute to the office organization and efficiency - I just gotta find it! For now...I just gotta learn all the routine stuff before I pull fancy tricks like I always want to.

 

Excited for immediate future: check.

 

Now that I'm the secretary, I'm also learning lots of the little things about the mission that I never knew before. I'm learning the internals of transfers, what a mission president actually does (or at the very least, how Prez. Gonzaga likes to do things), the various applications that the Church has developed to facilitate mission work and other things like...baptismal forms!

 

Curiousity being satisfied: check.

 

Dude. Baptismal forms are by far the most mind-numbing part of this whole process. It's a lot of repetitious typing for something that represents one of the most special things in somebody's life. It's like...canning somebody's following of Jesus Christ into a record. The date of the first crucial steps in following Him...recorded as numbers and put into a computer to get crunched and referred to when needed. It's...weird. The always-mysterious organization of the Church is kind of unraveling to me now, but it's good - I like learning this sort of stuff. I'm always welcome to eye-opening experiences.

 

In the meantime, it's also pretty cool because there's a recent convert here (really recent - 2 weeks ago she got baptized!) in the office. She's got a really neat momentum going, and always felt good when the missionaries passed by in the Edifício Work Center. She's giving us quite a few references, so we'll probably baptize in spite of spending until 6 PM every day trapped in the office!

 

Fulfillment of calling to baptize and thus happiness: check.

 

There's always a ton of things I could say. I'll focus on more details next time - for now, I've still got a small mountain of tasks to handle here! Don't y'all forget to write, because now I get mail in the same day it arrives here at the office - I'll be counting carefully. Muahahaha. Until next time, people!

 

Blog post: check.

Elder Costa

 Just got back from a meeting with an Area Authority. Elder Costa, who speaks English pretty well, left some dynamic stuff with us. He talked to the leaders - DLs and ZLs - first, leaving us with a vision of responsibility and being an example.

E. Costa also talked about several things, but the entire time it was a real joy. He reviewed many things from PMG. He also traded once with his wife, because he felt impressed to let her speak - and she's a very powerful speaker too - but man! It was all good. He told us right at the beginning that what he would say for the next 4 hours (8-12) was to be led by the Spirit. And he did. Geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeez he said a lot of stuff.

I learned the most, though, about testimony. Sister Costa is interesting, because she spoke from the point of view of a mother. Everything she said she took from the point of view of our moms - she surveyed a little bit how many first-generation missionaries were in the crowd, how many had mothers that weren't members. She told us that our mums love us and want us to be successful, even if they aren't members - because mothers see things in terms of potential, not the scoundrel that might be at the moment.

She also said that the testimony is what we needed most to develop, because it's supposedly like a "raio de luar", or ray of moonlight: you have to be careful to maintain it! Oliver Cowdery was the example that she used of a man who didn't seek to augment his testimony every day. Remember church history, anyone? Looking at you, Dad. ;)

When Elder Costa returned, he talked further about faith and relying on the Spirit, citing some very powerful anecdotes that occurred while he was mission president in Manaus. In the end, when bore his testimony, he talked about the First Vision. He said, "Sei que Joseph Smith viu um pilar de luz, em que se apresentaram Deus, o Pai Celestial, e o Salvador Jesus Cristo. Eu conheço essa luz. Conheço-a muito bem."

Rather strange, huh?

It's a good thing that this meeting happened today, because it shall be the bulk of my post this week. It's always really edifying to have a meeting with the leadership. :D In other news, I've discovered that I feel the Spirit more when I read the scriptures in Portuguese - I struggle just a little more to understand (though not much!), and I get that much better comprehension because I'm reading and understanding something through Portuguese.

Another lesson of Dad's that's acquiring a new meaning is also about responsibility. For some reason everywhere I've gone this week there have been comments and citations about responsability, in completely random places - I think God's wanting me to study about it or something. But as I turn my thoughts to it, it's helping me to think about acting in a hierarchial manner in more parts of my life. I've grown to like a hierarchy that the mission has, because it's definite and useful. Reminds me of a computer, if you think about it.

Also had a random thought that a member pointed out the other day. Tennis and golf. They're not poor-man sports! A member was complaining that to play them you have to buy equipment, and find a spot to play, and pay for everything all the while...I never really noticed it before. But it's true, huh? Guess it'd be the same for racquetball. o_0

Anyway. Time's a-flyin'...and I need to wrap this up. Just in time, too - just got my usual demands of LETTERS. Never forget to write the Goob! He loves every single letter he gets, and they're lovingly preserved in a special case that he made. Just remember that the loyal shall have their just rewards!

Aaaand...tchau, gente. :)

-Erich