Elder Jacob Mckee: Weed Eaters and Godfathers

May 6, 2017

Video to text again. I’m trying to keep it exactly how he says it.

His English is so fun to listen to.

I use the excuse that I don’t have time to write in my journal, which is a little true, because I don’t have as much time, but I do have time to write in my journal. It’s just the fact that I’ve written in my journal a lot, and I’ve kind of gotten out of the habit, and I don’t really have an excuse. But now I’m using this as a way to get out of writing in my journal.

Today was our p-day (April 29) and we woke up at 7:00. And it was super cold so I put on a long sleeve shirt, and then a sweatshirt, and then my big old jacket, and then my other bigger old coat. Then I was walking around in that. I looked like a ball with legs. Then I wrapped up in another missionaries blanket because he has a really thick blanket. But, I didn’t sleep, we sat there talking. But then I studies till 8:30, and then I laid back down and slept a little bit, because I could, because it was p-day. And then we went to the store…oh…look at this. So, we lent our grass cutter, which is like a weed eater. Here to cut their grass everyone uses their weed eaters. And so we lent our weed eater to the neighbor. He’s 19 years old, already has a child, but he’s a good kid. We taught him a few times. He asked to borrow our weed eater, and I didn’t see anything wrong with that. But, what went wrong is that he broke one of the parts. But, I think he got embarrassed because he didn’t tell us that he broke it. He came to us and gave us the entire machine, the entire weed eater, except the little part underneath that holds the little nylon wire that cuts the grass. So, he gave us all that, and I said, “Hey, we’re missing this part.” And he said, “Yeah, I don’t know what happened. But somebody came into our yard, grabbed the machine, grabbed the weed eater, and stole this little part underneath.” And I said, “Why wouldn’t they just steal the whole machine, and not just the little cup that is underneath, that cost like 20 raeis, like $7.00?” And he said, “I don’t know, but I think it’s because I tied up the weed eater.” I think he just got embarrassed and didn’t want to admit that he had broken our weed eater. So, we went and I bought the new parts to be able to use it and cut our grass. But we didn’t have time because the other elders had a baptism. Then we ate lunch. My lunch was 4 scrambled eggs with some bread. That’s about all I ate today, but we are going to have 2 pizzas right now to celebrate the baptism. Then we cleaned the house because it was mess. It’s the transit house and we had 24 missionaries in our house for the missionary council, for all the leaders. And then we had a bunch of other elders, because they were training, and a bunch of other elders that were going home. It’s like the house is trashed. So we cleaned the house. Then we talked with our families, which was really good. I’m starting to, when it’s my p-day, I’m sitting there talking to my family, talking to Joci, and looking at BYU at the same time to see how it works. And I got on there today, I went on MYBYU, and I saw that Dad’s already like planned everything. I was looking at the major to be a graphic design, and looking at classes, and thinking oh, I need to sign up for these classes, and I went in there to see how it all works, and dad had it all laid out with those classes. So, thanks dad. Then we went to the baptism. And Pricilla, which is our golden investigator, Pricilla went and she was looking at all the people, like Elder Barbosa, and the woman in white, and she turned around and said, “Now, which of you is going to be the one in white when I get baptized. Which made me super happy because she recognized that she’s going to be baptized on the 27^th of May. We were like, “you can choose, or you can choose some member from the ward.” She was like, “no, I want it to be one of you guys. I’m going to think about it.” And we were like “alright.” We just talked to her. She talked about all the tests she is doing for her finals. She is studying to be a dentist. And she was talking about how stressed out she is and everything, and how this is a little break for her. Coming to the baptism was like a little break for her. And right there in the hallway we taught her about fasting, and how to fast, and the benefits and blessings of fasting. And tomorrow we are going to do a fast with her. I think she’ll do it for like 8 hours or 12, and we are going to do a 24 hour fast. And that will help her gain a testimony of the fast. Because she will see how it will bring a difference to her.

After the baptism we went to this young kid name DeLucas. He’s 12 years old. We taught him a few times in the park with his friends, a group of 5 young men. We’re good friends with them all. So, we teach them at the park. And we had set it up with Lucas that we’d pass by and take him to church. So we passed by and his dad answered and Lucas wasn’t home, but his dad answered. And he came with all the excuses that come when we try and contact, “no, I’m really busy with stuff and I can’t answer you right now.” And he went running back in, so I kind of yelled, “Hey, we don’t even want to talk to you.” And my companion said, “we just wanted to confirm for tomorrow to pick up Lucas to go to the church.” And the dad yelled, “no! I’m his dad and I don’t let him.” But he was like super rude and everything, and I got mad but I didn’t say anything, and my companion was like “that is why we came here to talk with you. We wanted to ask if we could.” And the guy was already shutting the door cause he’s a rude old fart. So, yeah, we’re not going to pick up Lucas tomorrow.

But we have another woman named Nooza, who I talked about in the last week’s video. We stopped by there right now to confirm with her that we were going to come by and take her to church, but she didn’t answer. So, we’re just going to go with faith that she will go with us to church. A lot of faith, man. Then we went to another house, of a recent convert. This recent convert, she is like super dedicated to the church, she’s 17 years old. And she’s a snake. But she was at a young woman’s activity, so it was just her family, her grandma, her aunt and uncle, and her cousin that lives with her, she’s 7 years old. She’s also a snake, but she’s like a good snake, like a cute little snake that everyone likes. But they really don’t have a lot of interest in being baptized, but they like us a lot. And literally it’s been about a month that we haven’t gone there, and they got a little mad at us. But, her aunt that likes us a lot, she’s really cool, but she doesn’t really believe in God, she asked if I would be the Godfather of her child that she discovered that she is going to have. She discovered that she is pregnant, and asked me to be her baby’s Godfather. Which I don’t know what a Godfather does so I asked her, “What do I have to do to be a Godfather?” She said, “Well, you just have to be present in his life, help him, you have to love him, and when he is born you have to baptize him.” And I was like, “WHAT!” and she was like “yep, but we’re going to do it here at home. But he’s going to be born in October.” And I was like, “I’m already going to be at home.” And she was like, “yeah, I thought about that.” Then I think she got a little embarrassed because she saw that in our religion, in the church, we don’t’ baptize babies, nor do we have Godfathers and Godmothers. Then I talked to her, and I think she got embarrassed. We talked to her about baptizing babies, and we don’t do that, and I think they got a little embarrassed and angry, because we explained that we don’t do that kind of thing, because it’s not right.

Now, we are coming home. We’re going to have 2 pizzas, and that’s about it for our day.

So it’s p-day (May 6) and we’re on our way to the computer house, and I forgot to tell you guys about a few things and I don’t want to take the time to write it while I’m on the computer. It was super, super cool. So, we went to this guy’s house. His name is Giovanni, he’s 33 years old, and he’s really, really good. My companion found him while he was on an exchange with another elder. And this guy, Giovanni just called them from the side of the road and said, “Hey, come here, come here.” And they went and talked to him. So, in this lesson yesterday we were there and he told us about 4 or 5 times that he wants to be baptized on Sunday. But he hasn’t gone to church yet, but he’s really ready to start his life over. He’s done a lot of drugs in his life and everything, but now he’s all clean. But he stills feels that door, that pain and he feels guilty. But it was really, really cool, and we talked about faith, repentance, and baptism and what it does, and how it cures us. And he’s going to be baptized on the 20^th of May. So, that was really cool.

And we had a great lesson with a man called Gidda (?), who’s an old guy. And he also accepted baptism, and he lives about 2 blocks away from the church, so it’s going to be real easy to take him to church. And that’s about it.

Today on P-day all the secretaries came and we had a big Churrasco at our house. And I made the meat. Yeah, I cooked the meat. And it was really, really good. Whoa! Oh yeah, while we were eating our lunch, the old lady who lives by our house, she has to be about 104 or something, she’s really old. But she came and started telling us that she was going to cut our grass for us because we were taking too long to cut our grass. But I cut it this morning. But then the grass cutter, the lawn mower, broke. So, I took all the pieces apart, and went all MacGyver on the lawn mower and found where it was broke, and I went to buy the part, but they don’t sell it here, so I’m just going to put a wire there, and it will be good. But she didn’t even let me finish cutting it. She just went there with a big, old knife and started cutting it, and taking it all out. Then she just started ripping up all of our grass. She said we needed to take all the roots out. Which I didn’t’ really understand, but I was just like all right. If this old lady wants to tear up our grasses roots, I’m just going to let her do it. I just went back into the house and we ate lunch, and cleaned up some stuff with the secretaries. And that was our p-day.