"It's a Happening!!"

10 points to whoever can guess where the title comes from. It's from a movie, yes.
I don't really have a good picture to go with the title, but I thought maybe the hodgepodge of pictures deserves a title like that.
Below is Passion fruit mousse. Super good!!

 This is the view from the apartment of a couple of friends from the Catholic University here in Salvador (UCSAL).

 Angus and I played some soccer. I scored a goal!! It was pretty much a lucky break, but it was still cool. Everyone was so surprised and the other team was kind of mad that an unskilled American could even score a goal. I mean Brazilians are soccer geniuses, right? They are the only country to qualify for every world cup, so they do have a storied tradition.

 I was in the library this week and I saw a girl reading this book. It was fun to think back to days of yore when I first read the Hobbit. I remember Linda Lee reading the book and I saw the cover. It was Bilbo with his small elven sword hiding from Golum. I think it wasn't long after that that I picked up the book and read it. I wonder what this girl is thinking as she reads through on her first time, and in English to boot.

 They did some serious tree trimming here near our house. They had some really big lifts and they had closed off the street. It was cool to watch.

 Some more sunsets. Cool story, Salvador is one of the only places on the east coast where you can see the sun setting over the water.... because normally it will set over land, but the bay here is big enough that you can see the sun setting on the water.

 Some cool trees by a museum here.

 So I went to go do a research interview with Graziela Pimenta. I am partners with her and her twin brother Gabriel. We are trying to set up interviews and do them together. So we went into a nearby favela (which is like a shanty town or a squatter colony). The Brazilian government never really opened up the land to settlement like the US government did. The land has always primarily been owned in large plots by plantation owners or by people who received land grants, etc. Similar to Mexico and much of Latin America. That did create some problems once the slaves were freed in 1888. They weren't really given a place to go. So even today there is a tradition and a culture of settling on unused land that isn't theirs and just building houses. The favelas are super labyrinths. They have lots of side streets and ins and outs. Easy to get lost and easy to hide. This is a picture of a favela through a gap in this wall.

 This view is from Gabriel and Graziela's apartment! Below in the black is Gabriel. Like I said, he and his sister are students at UCSAL. On Saturday I went to do an interview with them and I ended up staying the afternoon at their apartment. One thing about Brazilians is that they love to talk. They can talk the day and night away. We talked about school, about interviews, about buses, and about the church! I told them about the word of wisdom, the restoration, the priesthood, etc. It was a good conversation and they seemed interested. They were very respectful and also shared some of their beliefs and traditions growing up Catholic. Gabriel only wears black. Haha. He showed me his closet. All black with some gray.  I was just waiting for a grumbly voice to say, "I only work in black or very dark gray." I hope to be able to share more with them this week, and invite them to listen to the missionaries. Yesterday at church some of the students invited their host family to come to church with them, so we had two investigators at church! It was totally rad.

I am really loving Brazil. I am learning a ton here. Interestingly, much of what I have been learning is personal and more spiritual than cultural. I have realized that I have a deep-seated tendency to consider myself "better" than others. Either because I am smart, or strong, or spiritual, I think of myself as better because I think I have "more". I believe the praise that other people give me, and I tend to even praise myself sometimes. It is just so subtle. I think to myself, "I could take that guy. I'm stronger than him." or "I should help that girl, she doesn't have as deep of a testimony as me." or even "The Savior is better than everyone, so he can help all of us." On the other side I might think things like "They are out of my league." or "I don't really want to be friends with someone who is so rich."

It isn't that helping others is bad, but I recognize that in helping others or interacting with them, I tend to do a lot of comparing too.
How can I share what I have with others who lack without thinking that they are less?

To quote the words of Jacob, " And now, my brethren, I have spoken unto you concerningp ride; and those of you which have afflicted your neighbor, and persecuted him becuse ye were proud in your hearts, of the things which God hath given you, what say ye of it?
Do you not suppose that such things are abominable unto him who created all flesh? And the one being is as precious in his sight as the other. And all flesh is of the dust; and for the selfsame end hath he created them, that they should keep his commandments and glorify him forever. " (Jacob 2:20-21)

It isn't just having more; it isn't just actively being mean to others.
Do we let our feelings prevent us from connecting on a deep level with those around us?
Do we see everyone as a child of Heavenly Father? Our brothers and sisters?

I have realized that I have a long way to go, but I'll be working on it, and I hope to be able to see everyone with the potential they have and the heritage they carry instead of comparing myself to them.

One. Massive. Update.

Well well well. I bet some of you forgot that you had a little brother named Jared. He leaves on a mission for two years and then he was never heard from again...

Probably eaten by a gator.

Well I am here today to dispel rumors, make amends, and write blog posts.


Since returning from my mission a lot has happened. I will try to update with great efficiency and lots of pictures. 

Last Night in the Mission Home

My Go Home Group!

Coming down the Escalator!!

Since I have gotten home, I feel like I have been really trying to find myself. Honestly for a while I had a really hard time being myself around the family. Still is hard sometimes. So I withdrew from the family for a while. Now I am working on coming back.

I really have changed so much since before the mission. I haven't shown that fairly to the family.


So when I got home, the first thing I did was go to my companion's wedding. (It literally the day after I had gotten home. He was my favorite companion from the mission. He was pretty awesome. I loved him a lot!

His wedding was really weird. 

First of all, when your companion kisses a girl, IT'S NOT NORMAL!!! I was still introducing myself as elder!! Also I'm a foot taller than everyone else, but I guess I was still mostly normal. 

Also we had some friends from the mission come, and this one sister missionary that I knew comes and gives me this big hug (weirdest experience of my life!! and I went to Louisiana on my mission!!!) but then I realized it was OK and it was all better.

This is us!

Obviously the duck face was still cool when I left so don't judge.

So since then I have been going to school and going on lots of dates. 40 dates in the 7.5 months that I have been home. That's 1.2307 dates a week! Not too bad! I was at 33 dates in 4 months which 1.903 dates a week, but then I ran out of funds and slowed it down. A lot. 

This is Becca! She is engaged now. Not to me. This was a double date with John before Heather was his girlfriend.

I have some great roommates! We have some amazing adventures. We call ourselves the brotherhood of the frozen pants because we found frozen pants on our doorstep one time! Shown below

We have many adventures together. We do things such as Buffalo Wild Wings, 

Camels,

and tons of awesome hikes! 

You will see throughout a guy with curly hair throughout these pictures. He is a friend from the mission. He is not a roommate, but he might as well be because he comes like every weekend! haha The Muslim looking guy is also from the mission. He is a roommate.

I also have entered a whole new world since the mission. The world of dance!! I love it so much!! I had no idea that it existed!!

So I go to country dance almost every week. And have gotten pretty good! So they tell me. Just country swing. Not two step or anything. 

Where's Waldo?!?

My strategy is simple. You get good by acting like you are really bad until you are really good. Because you ask all of the really good dancers to dance with you and then they teach you how it's done!!

Now I do crazy lifts and stuff. Its pretty awesome!! 

Here is another few dances. The first is a spotlight dance and then the next was the recent Masquerade ball. I'm taking an intermediate ballroom dance class with the girl that I took to the Masquerade ball and we were really good! We won the dance contest that they had there! Free pretzel baby!! Woot woot!! 

We also started a scripture study class on our own and went to general conference in April! The general conference adventure was pretty awesome and a story within itself! If I get enough requests, I will write about that one too! haha

This is Ben!

Real quick. There were some protesters all over the place and they were saying really horrible things. We were standing next to some Samoan guys--they aren't afraid of anything--and we all started singing The Spirit of God to help bring the Spirit back. It was pretty awesome!

TEMPLE!!!

Here are some other pictures of the mission homies!! Zach is in one of these too. 

Bathroom selfie!!!!

Last but not least, we formed a group where we will go serenade to entire apartment complexes. It's a way to find new investigators ;). We get a lot of girls to come gather outside the apartments (like 30 or so) and then get numbers and dates. It's pretty awesome! 

That's about it! If you have any questions or comments or you want full stories, give me a call @ (208) 996-1412 so that we can catch up! :) Never to busy to talk to family.

Love,
Superman

Family Councils

I began reading this article today. https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2016/04/family-councils?lang=eng

It is by Elder Ballard in the last conference. I know growing up we tried to have family councils. I think that they are a very important time as a family and they can be used to really uplift and strengthen the family. I have been thinking about how to apply this to my apartment and I am going to talk to my roommates about it. I hope you guys work out times for family councils as well.

I also had a thought that it would be really cool if we did an extended family council with the whole family at least the children and maybe some of the older grandchildren. We could do it once a month or something like that on fast Sunday for example.

What do you guys think?

Abraços de Amor!

Hugs for you all!! I really love you all, and I hope you are doing well. Here are some more details about Brazil. I was writing an email to Mary, and I decided to post the email here for y'all to read too!

So, I really like Brazil. This part of Brazil is pretty different from Mexico. It seems a lot safer here and there is more varied agriculture. They have different types of fruit, etc. In Mexico, I knew that I was out of place, and so did everyone else. Here in Salvador, even though the majority of the population is black, I still could pass for a Brazilian. That is, until I start speaking. There are plenty of people who look like me - European descent, fair skin, light hair, and light eyes. The people here are super friendly. That is similar to Mexico, but maybe here the people are even more trusting of strangers. (It might make a difference that I am not walking around in a shirt and tie) The people want to make you a part of their family. 

Yesterday we went to a favela (a town/neighborhood that springs up in the mountainous/hilly areas of the cities. It usually starts with people who do not own the land going out and starting to build on it. Then more people build and you get these small cities). The biggest favela here in Salvador has about 400,000 people and the biggest one in Rio de Janeiro (kind of the home of the favela) has 2 million people! They are traditionally locations of poverty and drug dealers. Not the place you want to walk at night. 

Anyhow, we went with a police lieutenant here in Salvador. The police have built a community center in the favela. He said, "It is more important to have a good feeling of community than to have justice." That made me think of marriage and family relationships. I don't remember the exact phrase, but I think it is something like, "Would you rather be right or would you rather be married?" I thought it was really cool that he had recognized that and then had the courage to help implement it. Now the police feel like they can walk in there without tanks, a full convoy, etc. There is a school there near the community center. It is inspiring because everyone is proud of the school and the community center and they make an effort to stand together and protect those things. 

In the school we sang and played with the students. They were probably about 5-8 years old. At the end of our singing, we sang a song telling everyone to give "abraços" or "hugs". So 3-4 kids came over and pretty much tackled me with hugs. It felt so great to be loved so openly and without reservation. As we went to leave, several kids kept coming up and giving me one last hug. :) Most of the kids didn't have shoes and you could tell that they had very few clothes, but you could also feel their happiness and energy.

The water, although still filtered in our house, is generally safe to drink here in the city. Since I am in a pretty nice part of the city, my comparisons to Mexico aren't as accurate. I would need to get out into a more residential/rural area in order to experience Brazil at the same level.

They have lots of good food (our Brazilian mom cooks a mean meal). And the beaches are fun as well. The rocks are sharp and slippery the perfectly dangerous combination for jumping on them. I am no longer a "kid who jumps on rocks". The "sharp" comes from the barnacles/shell growths on the rocks. The slippery comes from little plants. So you just slip right into the sharp parts. I went snorkeling a bit with some goggles that my roommate has (my roommate here. His name is Angus Bennion. He has posted some photos of me on facebook) It is fun to see all the fish by the rocks. It is also somewhat scary due the many of the rocks being covered in sea urchins. The black, spiky creatures inspire a mortal panic in any snorkler who.... haha. They did make me nervous because the waves push you around and sometimes you end up a lot closer to the rocks than you would like. The water is really salty as would be expected, and it is fun to play on the beach. Overall, it's an ocean.

I love being here with the people and experiencing the culture. My portuguese is slowly improving. There is one drawback... I miss Briana "somthin' fierce". We talk and email back and forth, and I love that. Sometimes I just have to take it one day at a time because 4-5 more weeks seems like an eternity. I try to focus on the small things that I can do and make sure I take advantage of all the fun and educational opportunities that I get. 

Hope y'all take advantage of the fun and interesting opportunities around you! Love you!

Salvador - and associated adventures!

Well, in case you hadn't heard... I am still in Brazil. It's been almost three weeks since I left Utah and came to Brazil and let me tell you what!! It's a cool place. This city is in the northeast, so it has a different feel than cities further south like São Paulo. (I bet you are all jealous of my cool brazilian keyboard that lêts mé àdd symbôls ãll óver the plaçe)

Above is a picture from the plan. I am almost sure that we are here on this triangular piece of land.

 The red circle is the Associacão Cultural Brasil Estados Unidos. That is the school that is coordinating our homestay here and we also take cultural classes, etc with them.

 If you do a google search like this one (Graça), you will see the neighborhood where I am living. I live on rua Oito de Dezembro. This is our apartment building.

 Above is a breakfast at the hotel. There was fresh fruit - passion fruit, papaya, melon, pineapple, pastries, tapioca with sweetened condensed milk and coconut, and acerola juice. (google it)

 Our Brazilian mom is very nice. She makes us great meals three times a day and i even have a hammock in my room!

 Not too long ago we saw Studio C on Brazilian tv... They were debunking, in a very official way, the shots to the face in the volleyball and soccer videos of Scott Sterling. "Mentira!!" or "Lie/False" was the final result. :)

This is a part of the city called Pelourinho. We are looking down on the "low city" or "Cidade Baixa". This is a commercial and traditional center of activity in Salvador. You can see the elevator on the left. It is called "Elevador Lacerda". It was built even before the Empire State Building, and at the time of it's construction, it was the tallest elevator in the world! They used it as a way of moving goods/people between the two parts of the city. The building on the right with a pointed roof is called "Mercado Modelo". It used to be a place where they would keep the slave and sell them. Here in Salvador, slavery was still around until about 1904. The official emancipation proclamation was in 1888, but because this was a very agrarian area, the state of Bahia didn't really free the slaves until later. It was a hard life for the freed slaves. They had trouble finding work and some would rather go back to slavery to have a place to sleep and food to eat. This seemed to be a lesson for life. Sometimes it seems easier to go back to where we had less knowledge, less agency, less problems, but when we press forward, we will gain even greater blessings and opportunities. I look at the city and culture that this state and the city I am in have, and I know that the afro-brazilian traditions have heavily shaped life here.

 Below is the church of San Francisco in Pelourinho. It is super detailed and gilded. Slaves did most of the work, and seeing as they had no formal training on sculpture and painting, they did an amazing job.

Another church. There is a "praça" or plaza here in Pelourinho that has 4-5 churches within your sight. They all wanted to compete for the center space where they would be visible. There was a really big cathedral near there, but it was destroyed to make room for the railroad, which didn't end up going through there in the end. So now it is another plaza area.

 This was a cool chair made out of tire pieces... It is in the Museum of the Jorge Amado Foundation. He is a famous author here from Brazil, and he lived here in Salvador much of his life. Also in the Pelourinho (hold on... a certain child of the 80's might be super excited), a famous singer named Michael Jackson recorded a music video with a drumming group called Olodum. I stood there in that same place! (If I was Brazilian, I would probably be super excited, but that wasn't the coolest part for me) The drumming group is super cool, and it is fun to see everyone, even the police officers, start to smile, shake, and jam out to the beat.

Part 2 - Chapada Diamantina and Lençois

The following pictures are from our trip this last weekend to a national park/area called "Chapada Diamantina" which translated means "many waters" and "honey bees"... Oh wait, that isn't right... 

It means "Diamond Plateau". They used to mine for diamonds in this area. Now it is a national park. And nearby they grow a lot of pineapple. 

This is a hill called "Pai Inacio". Legend has it that an escaped slave (who was the son of the master of the plantation) came here to escape persecution. His name, Inacio, was then given to the hill. "Pai" came because he eventually created his own "terreiro" of candomblé, which is an african-based religion that is practiced here in Brazil... it is more prevalent here in the northeast because of the large percentage of the population who came from African (slaves) ancestors.

 The view is breathtaking! Even this cactus had to grow eyes in order to see what was going on.

I decided to try out my new superman skills... not half bad. My form is a little off.

 Panorama!

The gang! We have, starting with the crazy guy in the light blue shirt, Joshua, Alex, Mitch, Maddy, Elisa, Aubrey, Angus, Shannon, Doug, Courtney, and Angela. Angela (also a BYU student) is here on an individual study, so she comes with us to do fun things, but she is not part of our official research group.

Part 3- Into Darkness

We went on a fun hike to a cave here called "Lapa Doce". Below is a picture of a spiky tree that I thought looked rather ominous. It does not want to be climbed...

The mouth of the cave... ready to swallow us whole... or hole... get it? Cave, hole? hahaha

 There were a lot of cool stalagmites and stalactites in the cave. (Fun memory trick: stalagMites come up from the ground like little Mountains. StalacTites hang down from the ceiling like.... I don't know... the opposite of a mountian? Like a "T" hangs down. That's what it is like.)

 The red is iron oxide. The white is just calcium carbonate. There was also some silica on the roof.

 This one looks like a jellyfish!

 A fun tree. And a fun picture.

 Mamona - They use it to make bio-diesel and airplane oil.

 There are a series of cool pools "poços" (literally means "wells") in the Chapada. The one above is called "Poço do Pato" because, apparently, the guy who lived nearby had duck "pato" feet.

 This is the cozy town of Lençois. It was our base of operations for our activities. We stayed in a "pousada" which is like a bed and breakfast. It was fun.

 Another waterfall and smaller pool above the town.

 The rocks here have different colors. Our tour guide used some of them to make face paint.