(Week 2) Chapter 2: Why Can't Everyone Just Speak English Like a Normal Person?

Elder Anderson in class with his district.




Elder Anderson with all of the new missionaries that arrived on July 24, at the Sao Paulo, Brazil Missionary Training Center.




CTM life is awesome, so much happened this week and I didn't even get to say everything last time that I wanted to, so we'll see how much I get through today. I'll start listing things off from the day after my last email:


7/31
Today was my first P-day! It was awesome to get out but waking up at 4:45 was not a blast. Today was definitely the recharge day though. Since this was technically our second Wednesday, we knew some good places to check out. It helped that our teacher was willing to tour us around too, we had such a blast and got to see so many beautiful things. The reason we woke up so early this morning was to go to the temple, the Sao Paulo temple, it was amazing on the inside! We met the new batch of kids, now that we've been here for a week it's a crazy confidence boost. We were having fun with all the kids, teaching them important words like "machete".

8/1
Today after multiple days of praying to know how to help my companion, I got my answer, it came while we were practicing with each other about faith and I got the prompting that as he would feast on the scriptures, the homesickness would stop, he wouldn't stop caring, just stop hurting, and I had to double check with the Spirit before I said anything like, "you sure about this?" and I felt the reassurance so I told him, and asked him to commit to feasting on the words of Christ and he said that he would, it made me incredibly happy.

Kenison got a mosquito bite on his neck and the conversation that ensued was too beautiful to not write down, so here goes:
Kenison: why do you guys leave your screen open?
Anderson: I don't know, we could close it, I guess
Kenison: Do you just like getting bug bites?
Anderson: Nah, but I do like necking with them
Kenison: McKassen, Why do I tell you anything, why do you tell Anderson anything?
McKassen: Hey, don't blame me for your weird obsessions
Gardner: You were necking with a bug? That is so gross.
Kenison: *defeated sigh*
I know it's a tad unbecoming of a missionary but I'm glad we're bonding, I worried that we wouldn't get along at first.


8/2
Today we went on a field trip to the police station, we spent four hours being fingerprinted, it was a blast! I semi understood what the police ladies said to me and I wasn't tackled to the ground so I guess my fingerprints were clean. I spent the majority of the time just talking to Kenison which was a blast because we didn't get along very well at first, he would belittle me occasionally, but now we're clicking, so everything's going well.

My roommate Gomez has been making good use of my dictionary, he just called out Kenison who is a tad chubby and said, "hey man, you are a beautiful man" and the rest of us laughed our heads off while Kenison looked around like, "great, who gave him that?" Also, Steed told me today that I'm a great district leader, and that he's super impressed, he's such a good guy, I have been worrying about measuring up a lot.

8/3
"I feel like if we were to write scriptures they would be normal books, Anderson would write Alma" -McKassen
I love how great we're getting along, even little teasing jokes are starting and I never would have imagined I could get along with these people: McKassen was talking about a girl he thinks is really pretty that he went to high school with and sat next to in seminary but when her district asked her about McKassen she was completely unaware of his existence, and he said, "oh well, can't get all of them" and Kenison muttered "...or any of them" poor McKassen 😂
I feel like I'm learning so fast, I love the gift of tongues!

8/4
Today was my first fast Sunday at the MTC, it was such a great experience! The ZLs asked if Kenison and I would bless the sacrament so I got to do that in Portuguese, but the part of the meeting I liked the most was the testimony meeting. As it turns out, I just cry all the time now. Hopefully that will stop when I'm off my mission. I must be doing something right to invite the spirit though, because when I bore my testimony (it was directed a lot at my district) one of the Sisters in my zone started crying and thanked me for what I said, a lot of other people said that I teach with the spirit too. I forgot to say last week but the branch President who called me, President Oppe said to tell my family that I'm a special spirit, and I've felt the spirit like nothing else here. 

We had a lesson today and the speaker gave me paper and since I was trying to stay awake, I drew him, and gave him the thing, which he loved, maybe this drawing thing will be a useful tool. At one point in his lesson, we were talking about tasting the fruit of the Spirit and he gave us all candy to show us through physical senses what investigators would experience, and it was pretty awesome, so I asked, "and if they should desire to taste more?" Which made people laugh and his wife turned around smiling to see who the smart alec was.

I've gotten to give more blessings which is awesome because you feel the spirit so much when you're trying to understand how God sees the person you're blessing. I'm doing great with the language, I feel bad because the rest of my district is still kind of freaking out about everything that we're supposed to do so I've been trying to do more group meetings on our purpose, like testimony meetings to try to help everyone feel the comfort of the Spirit. I'm sleeping fine and I found my shower sandals so that's awesome, I think sometimes people are annoyed that I'm upbeat, upbeat and that I'm not dead meat, dead meat, at times like breakfast; we have the same 3 meals every day and every morning I'm like, "sweet! Ham and cheese sandwiches!" and people are like, "are you for real?" but I'm having a blast! I'm learning lots and have found a real love for the scriptures. I also heard a hilarious line from McKassen this week when he was frustrated with Portuguese and said "Why Can't Everyone Just Speak English Like a Normal Person?"

My companion's name is Tate Gardner and he's so cool, he's over his homesickness and now we're just doing amazing.

Take care!
Elder Anderson