(Week 10) Chapter 10: The Real Justin Timberlake

A watercolor composite Elder Anderson painted of the Missionary Training Center and a flower from the temple.

A really beautiful picture of the Campinas Temple

This enormous spider was in Elder Anderson's house last week.

 The rain pouring down!

Elder Anderson and Elder Steed 

The last pictures are from Elder Anderson's house.  This is his bed, he's learned to keep a fan blowing on him as he sleeps to help keep the mosquitoes off of him.

Notice the rope going down the room (it's their clothesline, since they don't have a clothes dryer.)

Fridge, bathroom, and washing machine.

9/24

Today was a little disappointing, we had three lessons planned and none of them worked out. One lady even said, "oh yeah, right now won't work out, but come back in an hour and I'll be ready for you guys." So we rearranged our schedule to make things work, and when we came back, she had cleared out. Kasnocha asked me if I wanted to do more with lessons earlier and I was like, "yes! Finally!" so I prepped a lot to teach about the restoration. Maybe one day. I shouldn't be so pessimistic though, there were some amazing things today. We had a district reunion but only with part of our district, I guess the Sisters and Elder Steed and Walisson weren't able to make it. The fact that an Elder knew how to not starve to death blew their minds and they asked if I would make breakfast. They all marveled as I made eggs. We also stopped by the house one of our investigators. He was already a pretty promising investigator, the rest of his family also is kind of interested, but he's really interested. Anyways, he actually prayed to know whether or not this was the right church to join. Today when we came back, he told us about his response. I'm not sure about the heritage of these people, but I'm pretty sure at least some of them are through [the tribe of] Manasseh, because this guy had a dream. He said that night after he prayed that he dreamed he was in darkness, searching. He saw my companion and I, and we called to him. He came to us and we led him to light. That was all I understood, but that kind of blew my mind. We've been working pretty hard without much fruit for Brazil standards and this reminded me of the promise that if we do our part, the Lord will do His. He certainly did His part! We played football again today, I didn't have as much success as last time, but I still got a goal. We also had what I thought was great mango juice at lunch, but the Brazilians don't seem to be obsessed with mangos. Weird.

9/25

The Brazil rainstorms I've heard so much about are finally starting. Fortunately we were never caught in the rain though until the end of the day. Kasnocha was extra motivated today so we got to go out in the morning too today, we did some great work. The first people that we went to visit were especially cool for me, it's that family that we're not really teaching because Kasnocha says that we need to gain their trust. I talked to the dad for probably 45 minutes, no exaggeration, which is definitely the longest conversation I've ever had one-on-one with a person before (Kasnocha was busy channeling his inner photographer taking photos of their super nice house they're remodeling. We talked about interests and life in America vs. Brazil. We both understood each other which was a huge confidence builder for me, and it wasn't awkward at all, maybe Kasnocha's Social Missionary is rubbing off on me. We had a great lesson with one of our more promising investigators, and she prayed at the end, which was a first for her, I think. We also taught this girl, Hiase for the first time. We started talking to her about her life, she's 17 and married with no kids, which is pretty rare for Brazil. I asked her if we could pray to start. She said no. I kind of choked there and was like, "oh. Ummm..." and fortunately Kasnocha came to the rescue and said, "cool, we're going to do one at the end though, okay?" and then I taught all the great stuff I had prepped for people before about the restoration. My companion really likes using the pamphlets which I'm not quite as fond of because I feel like they just hold me back, but I did a good job of tying in my testimonies to the points on the pamphlets. It was so cool! She really understood! Kasnocha didn't even have to translate my sentences like he usually does. I was really led by the Spirit. Then I realized she didn't care. She's the second person like that we've taught, and I guess we had to find more eventually, oh well. Then Kasnocha bought me açaí to celebrate (that we taught so well, not that we found another not so interested person). I hope I stay in this area for a looong time.

9/26

Today was so cool! After I finished writing last night, I got ready for bed, layed down to sleep, and Torres called to tell me he forgot that I was supposed to be on splits right then, so I got up and someone called an Uber to take Kasnocha and I to a faraway land. I made breakfast for everyone again, and it was awesome! Well, it tasted awesome, I used a stick pan (it's like a nonstick pan, but the surface is coated in superglue and the pan is filled with hatred for humanity) and a metal spoon as a spatula, but the sections of egg that didn't have chunks of metal glued to them were pretty good. I shouldn't downplay it, it was good enough that even super depressed Elder Luis came out of his coccoon of love to eat it; Last time he didn't so this is improvement. Then the Elders there were like, "cool, thanks, bye" and Kasnocha and I returned to our area without speaking to a single person in that area we did "splits" in. Actually, I guess I did talk to a lady in the morning to buy eggs, I hope that touched her life. We met new people today and really hit it off with them, we talked to them for an hour and a half and I even understood a good amount! We also played football with a bunch of kids, I'm officially renamed as, "The American", and did pretty great; Although more importantly, I taught them about the magic of good sportsmanship and encouraging others, and even though Kasnocha kicked them down multiple times, and then kicked them while they were down, and then kicked their emotions, they had a blast because I got them cheering each other on. The kids really liked me after that and they're all super excited to talk to me, which is a problem; They all have the same terrible accent where they mash their "s" sounds, and trying to understand them reminds me of talking to Emily's little sister, the "huh?" girl. I got to play with Anabela and a bunch of her friends, which was even more fun because I understood them! Then they went inside the church to do choir, so I invited myself to bring the bass to their soprano voices. The choir leader was pretty amused, apparently even tone deaf people like me sing better than Brazilians though, so she didn't kick me out. One of the really promising families bible bashed pretty hard with Kasnocha tonight, I did everything in my power to invite the Spirit and just listen, and occasionally testify. We left with good feelings because of that, but I don't know if we'll get to return. I got promised a daughter to take to wife again, so I guess now they'll have to fight each other, and maybe while they do I can sneak off and get away from these crazy people. Maybe if I live a life of solitude in a cave somewhere eating bugs to survive I'll be safe from these crazy Brazilians. Still, maybe it's good that I've been promised two now, at least I have options. "But your church believes in polygamy! That's an easy solution" No. We don't. Sorry to disappoint you.

9/27

Today was a blast! It's pretty much been pouring whenever we need to walk to places, but the rest of the time has been awesome. Kasnocha practiced making contacts with me and today when we were contacting, I was able to do one completely on my own! It was such a cool feeling! Even being held hostage by the pouring rain after couldn't dampen my mood. We were talking to a brother before the latest freak outburst occurred that trapped us in the church for two hours, and apparently I've learned nothing because I noticed a couple of raindrops and the guy I was talking to goes, "*gasp of horror* Elder! RAIN!" and I was like, oh cool, guess I'll start packing up, wow, what a nice looking car. And of course it took all of three seconds for those nice, gentle raindrops to turn into a hurricane. If that wasn't the definition of "torrential downpour", I don't know what is. Elder Steed showed me pictures of a road turned into a river he was standing in that came up to his knees, and after he said came up to his waist, it even knocked down a house, it's bad... The lightning is awesome though, it's so brilliant and completely lights of the sky; The biggest lightnings will make thunderings louder than gunshots, it's so cool! Unfortunately, my companion always has cash, so I haven't gotten to walk in this yet, but one day I hope to, and discover the sixth ocean. Everyone has been so kind to feed us today, I got so much great food, and I even got to share the spiritual thought at lunch today! This one was really cool because I shared it more like I was just talking normally than only being able to share spiritual stuff, and make the connection to a person's heart. I'm starting to be able to have fun and laugh with people! I'm finding real joy now that I can connect to people.

9/28 

Today was an awesome day! We had a giant lunch with a rich family, and today was so cool because I understood so much of what people would say to me. The family at lunch was very interested in me after they learned that I wasn't a robot, and did in fact have hobbies before the mission. My art vocabulary is pretty good so I talked for like, 45 minutes, and I had my camera with me so I could show them all of the fun things I've made on the mission. Now they want me to give their kids art lessons. I guess once a teacher, always a teacher. We found out that our diamond investigator isn't married even though he's lived with this lady for 30 years and has three kids, so I'm not 100% sure how this is going to happen, but in his vision he was led to the light, so it's going to happen. If he didn't have that vision I'm not sure I would be a good enough missionary to be super motivated about his baptism, he can't afford marriage, so it's going to be really hard to try to get him married, we're going to have to rely on the members a lot for this. I am having so much fun with kids! They speak simply and their games are so interesting to them, it's easy to love them. I was playing with Silva's daughters and they taught me a hand clap game, they thought I was the coolest Elder ever! They invited me inside, pulled up a chair for me, and gave me a baby to hold while Kasnocha was standing at the gate, watching, still trying to get past one of the elder daughters. Should have gone with the kids, Kasnocha. I got to see Steed at a ridiculously giant birthday party for a six year old. I felt terrible for her, she probably took over 100 pictures, no exaggeration, everyone wanted a picture with her, so she sat in the same spot for over an hour. It reminded me of Barbie in the end credits of Toy Story 2.

9/29

Our diamond investigators came to church with us today! We also learned about the new youth program, it looks pretty awesome. We went to the same family for lunch as we did yesterday, and today it only took me a couple of hours staring at their wifi router to remind me of the one thing me mom asked me to do. For probably an hour I looked at the blinking black box that slowly brought back memories of a time with internet and then one of my brain cells was like, "I bet I could upload photos with that" and another brain cell was like, "okay...?" and then it took another 10 seconds before my last brain cell did a spit take of that awesome juice stuff I had at lunch and was like, "oh, shoot! Mom wanted me to upload my photos!" I'm functioning very well right now. However tired I'm feeling though is constantly 1-up'd by Kasnocha, though. It took him all of a half hour to fall asleep on someone else's bed at lunch. The mom walked in and was like, "Hi, Elder Anderson and- oh *this is where I made a drawing that vaguely resembled a laughing emoji*" She thought it was pretty funny and I was just like, "that's my companion..." That power nap gave him strength though, because we stayed at that house for four and a half hours. It was actually a lot of fun, they wanted us there, it wasn't awkward, although they would mock like they were hurt when I didn't give them my Facebook. I was like, "I'm sorry! I don't have one!" and they were like, "sure, we see how it is, we'll just sacrifice our food for you even though you eat a ridiculous amount, but if you don't want to stay in contact, that's fine." I also learned more about Portuguese Harry Potter that I wanted to. Those Brazilians are obsessed with Harry Potter *this is where I tried to redeem myself and draw a better emoji. The laughing tears look like a mustache.*

Keep rocking like a Brazilian on Sunday,

Elder Anderson

Week 9

These two pictures are a few weeks old, but we just received them and thought others would enjoy seeing them too.

9/16

Today I did a lot of writing, a ridiculous amount that no one will want to read, but now people can know what's been going on.  I can't believe how much I have recorded here, I'm going to get arthritis. Today was an awesome day.  We practiced the baptismal invitation tonight so that I could try to commit people tomorrow. I understand all these words now, and when people talk I'm usually able to understand the ideas that are being shared, this is a really cool milestone! Before I really only understood when people would talk slowly, directed at me, and now I can sometimes understand Brazilians conversing with each other!

9/17

Today we had a practice with the rest of our zone and Presidente about committing people to baptism. It went pretty well, and getting to see Elder Gardner again was awesome! He was doing really well despite the fact that his ingrown toenail was a lot worse. Apparently he's spent the last like, 5 days walking around in one sandal and one dress shoe. I'm very grateful I'm walking on even ground (well as even as the ground in Brazil can be). Personally I think he should just full commit to the "Peter the Apostle" look and wear both sandals along with that weird dress thing and a massive scarf despite the fact that Jerusalem is pretty hot. Still, the heat of Jerusalem is nothing compared to Manaus. If someone wore a scarf here, I'm pretty sure they would spontaneously combust, despite the humidity, and their only hope to stop burning would be one of the freak outbursts where the clouds just decide to drop a sheet of water like, a foot thick, like a hammer. I remember listening to the rain inside a car in Washington and thinking how nice and gentle it sounded. Not here; Here, if I walked up to a person and said, "rain!" they would probably pee their pants, and if I shouted, "rain!" on a crowded street it would be so much worse than screaming, "fire!" in a movie theater; Men would cling to buildings trying to get under the 1" long overhang of the roofs while crying, women would grab their 14-16 year old daughters and those daughters would grab the children and they would all run for their lives, trampling the diseased dogs. The people on motorcycles (so half the city) would go crazy and weave around traffic in a horrifying way (so nothing would change for them). People would fight each other to escape onto an already 5x too packed bus (also no change). I'll have to try that later this week.

9/18

Today was so cool! For starters, I'm learning how to talk to people and not just scare them, so today I would briefly teach about blessings and we did two blessings of healing-one Kasnocha and I did, and another Torres and I did on another round of splits. The one that Torres and I did was to a Venezuelan baby this could be our "in" with them; and not just that family but with that entire neighboorhood, Venezuelans are tight-knit. Torres was telling me about that and I was like, "yeah, that's cool, I guess" but this is how he got 42 baptisms in a transfer, yep, 42: Venezuelans are super tight, you teach one family and then those guys turn into the ideal member missionaries. Some of the stories and pictures Torres has are unreal. The only problem is that they don't speak Portuguese, they speak Spanish, so now I need to learn another language. I'm so glad that I got to stay in my area for splits, because it meant that I had to take charge and be and acting senior companion for a bit, which was awesome, my Portuguese was so much better than I thought it was, this is really going to help me to be more bold when I'm teaching with Kasnocha. Kasnocha also has been slowing down lately so hopefully the boldness I learned today will help motivate him to do more work. I loved getting to work so hard today, and all the interest that was shown was awesome, even by those who seemed closed off at first; Some would listen and act like they didn't care about the lessons, then they would answer questions, then they were making commitments. I can't believe how well I spoke today, this split was definitely inspired.

9/19

Today Torres gave me a mission pep talk and it totally worked, I realized I had turned into a fubeca (slacker) but now I'm back and ready to do more work. Kasnocha spent the day telling me to "calm down", and "what's your hurry?" but this is the most important work that will ever happen, my most important calling, and I only have the power that I have now for a short time. Torres was also super funny; I made breakfast like usual this morning and when I told him to come get something to eat he was like, "heck yeah, dude! This is the whole reason I wanted to do this split!" apparently I'm one of two guys he's ever met who will cook. Mostly I just like the idea of not starving to death, I'm not sure what everyone else here does. Actually, when I went to Torres's place, all they had was crackers, so I guess I do know. I'm glad we have more than that. Torres also educated me on everything else important: P-nights and district and zone counsels where, surprisingly enough, they don't actually do that much counseling. I also did a fair amount of contacts through proselyting today. Kasnocha was so funny: Every time someone would say something like, "no thank you", afterwards Kasnocha would say to me, "man that is just the worst, what a wicked area" when we're sitting on our mountain of success, I always think people are so receptive to the gospel, we probably set up 10 appointments in a half hour, which is a big deal because Kasnocha's been slowing down recently, I'm starting to think that street contacting is the way to go; If we have appointments, Kasnocha will teach and we won't slow down, Muahahahahahaha!

9/20

Today was fun, our lunch appointment cancelled on us, but Steed's lunch appointment was super nice and said that we could go eat with them and it was sooo great. It was also amazing to get to talk to Steed because the only time I get to use my English is with other American missionaries, so the short time that we got to talk was great. After lunch we went to a store for starting Christian churches. They sold podiums for 700 reals, which would have been money well spent. I'm sure we would double, maybe triple the number of lessons we taught if we carried a glass podium, emblazoned with fire, from doorstep to doorstep and taught from that. Today was also disappointing though, because Kasnocha and I have slowed down so much that we didn't teach a single lesson today. I'm really trying to invigorate him but all I can do is poorly try to communicate the urgency of the message we have to share, and all he says is, "calm yourself, boy." After staying at a persons house for two hours with no sign of wrapping things up, I ended things. He says that we don't teach them lessons because we need to gain their confidence. Whenever he teaches, it's so great! I really try to encourage that, I try to have fun with him and serve him, he just doesn't want to find new people, and because I'm not following his lead it's stressing the relationship. We had an activity at the church tonight where they gave us food at the end which was such a wonderful thing, the people here are so good.

9/21

Today was a very interesting day. Our only appointment fell through (the words "only" and "appointment" should never be together here) although hopefully things will speed up now, because today I made my first contact completely on my own, with no hope of receiving back up because my companion was on the phone; The people I was talking to even understood which was so cool! I'm currently doing splits with another guy: V. Alves, the companion of Torres. He's being trained too, so We're All In This Together, but fortunately he's a native Brazilian so that makes things a little easier, at least for teaching lessons. Today must have been national Drop-Your-Appointment-With-The-Missionaries day because the guy that V. Alves and I were going to teach abandoned us too. I am so glad that he did though, becuase as we were walking back dejectedly and wallowing in our failures as missionaries, a member invited us in for food, and he had real bread! I never thought that density mattered in bread before I tried Brazil's Potato-Chip-Bag-Of-Air density bread, but the stuff that we had tonight was so good! He gave us tangerines, which were horrible to peel; he must have pre peeled the millimeter thick, rock hard skin beforehand and then superglued it back on. Although it was also awesome when I could finally eat it. I hope that man is greatly blessed. Today we came across a dog that was out on the street and just decided that the nice looking people in white shirts and ties were actually horrible people. That dog, that skinny dog with anger management issues, came up and started barking at us impossibly loudly when we were trying to talk to some kids. Usually the only dogs that will hate us like that are the ones that are gated off, so I've never had to do this before, but I used a trick that my dad taught me where you make a move like you're grabbing a rock off the ground, and when I dropped down and acted like I was grabbing something, that dog RAN, it was hilarious, V. Alves started laughing. They are all really well trained (the dogs, not my companions). V. Alves also bought me an Açai to welcome me to Brazil, that really made my day.

9/22

Today was stake conference and it was super cool to hear so many good talks, and I could even kind of understand them!  I was super grateful for lunch today since none of the four guys who live where I slept last night like to eat, so their fridge is always empty. They have more than enough money to buy food though, I don't know why they don't. In some ways, I felt like their area was more real Manaus, than mine, so I was still really glad that we did splits (stilt houses, actual forrested areas that are a part of where people live) but their area also has giant hills, so I think my place is pretty sweet too. For lunch today we went to the birthday party of one of our investigators: Juliana (18). It was awesome food and they used what looked like an emergency flare/firework for a candle on her cake (she didn't bother trying to blow it out). I was pretty surprised at the height of the flame and sparks but Kasnocha didn't react at all so I guess fire hazards are the usual way to celebrate here; I love this place so much!  I also told Julliana at her party that I felt bad about not getting her a birthday present, so I wanted her to have something very important and pulled out a Livro De Mormon, and she was like, "thanks..." not realizing I was joking at first before I earned an eye roll. I'm starting to be able to joke with Kasnocha too!

Muito amor and all that, 

Elder Anderson

(Week 8): Chapter 8: Diseased Dogs And Fabulous Fruits

Visit to the Manaus Temple.










Elder Anderson, Emily, and Elder Kasnocha on Emily's baptism day




Anabela, a sweet little girl in Elder Anderson's mission



 
A drawing Elder Anderson made for Anabela
 

 
 
9/10
Today we had a zone reunion and it was great to see [Elder] Gardner, he's doing awesome.  [Elder] Steed was hitting the grind as usual, today he read off a spiritual thought he had written in Portuguese, and it sounded awesome! Today was especially hot, so my companion said we should return to our house until three. We only spent a hour and a half there but it felt like such a waste. There's a lot of safety reasons to return, it's super hot outside and my companion saw someone get robbed at gunpoint because they were isolated; The street was empty because of the heat so it was easy for him to corner someone, and that could have just as easily been us too. I don't know how I feel about returning and spending more time in our house, it's what [Presidente] Caetano recommends, but there's got to be a better way. Maybe we could go out proselyting right when we wake up and use the time later to study. We had a goal to teach three lessons today, but no appointments, and everyone on the street kept turning us down so [Elder] Kasnocha told me, "when you keep getting no's it's time to knock doors." The first lesson we taught today was amazing, the lady couldn't believe I'd only been here for a week. The second lesson the lady and my companion were really fighting so I bore testimony which helped de-escalate things, and we left. The third house we got three baptismal commitments so that was pretty awesome! Then we talked to some ladies who had been hurt by other members of the church and so they were less active now. What a roller coaster of emotions.
 
9/11
Today was very interesting: I started off with the normal stuff, studying, and then things got really crazy, I made something besides egg and onion sandwiches! Just kidding, the really fun stuff started off at lunch. The father promised me his daughter, who winked and stared at me for a slightly uncomfortable amount of time. Sure she's 27, but age is just a number. The dad took slightly longer to give her away than what happened with Lamoni and Ammon, I blame it on the language barrier, which is, by the way, lessening significantly: Today I replied to most questions in a normal amount of time, and I made everyone laugh due to my dashing good looks and witticism. We also decided to do splits for a half day, no idea why, I guess these Elders really wanted to see how cool it was when I wrote in my journal. I can't blame them; It is pretty wild. My temporary companion, De la Rosa, didn't have keys to get into the house. I helpfully suggested picking the lock, or climbing the gated community. He was against these ideas. So we went to a members house to use their phone and call the other companionship that stayed in the house with us. Then we shared our sad tale with the members and they gave us food to make us feel better and I held a non-diseased puppy which is probably the only time this mission that would happen. It was very nice, my heart definitely melted a little.
 
9/12
I'm not really sure what happened today. Mostly because Kasnocha and I just returned from Brazilian football, where I absolutely killed it; Which means that I did a passable job for a Brazilian of the lowest social tier who hated his country and culture. Just kidding, all those soccer games as a kid must have paid off because I did do decent, and even scored some goals. My first goal they all cheered, "Élder!" in their bloodthirsty excited way, and after that it was just high fives and weird sweaty side hugs.  The other awesome thing that happened today was when we visited a less active family, they gave us this AWESOME juice and bread with cheese, I haven't had cheese since I left the CTM. They also gave us this amazing chocoate peanut butter ball which puts Reese's to shame. I just about died, it was all so good. Everything here just grows so well, I absolutely love it. Anyways, afterwards I gave a quick message, and to see them all listening so intently to my words, probably just because of my broken Portuguese they were trying to understand, but seeing them really listening was so cool, I can be a great missionary even without great Portuguese, it's so cool.
 
9/13
Today we woke up early and rushed out the door because we had interviews with Presidente [Caetano]. We sat in the chapel for an hour and a half before he arrived, but it was okay, it just gave me more time to practice Portuguese; speaking of which, today was awesome, I really understood what was going on with everything, conjugations, pronunciations, it all came super easy. I was able to understand some really fast talking where people would choose their favorite syllable to pronounce for a word, just share that, do that for multiple words in a row, and then expect me to understand. Well guess what? I understood! I even out spoke a three year old (?) for the first time ever; well I either knew how to speak better, or my pronunciations were just so terrible that it made her go, "huh?" after every sentence unless I spoke slow like how people had to talk to me at first. I also got to be a doctor which meant I got to clean a cut and use my expertise to make the call as to whether or not that three year old needed stitches. She didn't, but the teenagers watching her were very concerned.  Also today I was a scripture story machine. Whenever people had questions, I hit them with probably six times the amount of stuff they wanted to hear, but it was awesome to answer sincere questions, and they were really happy too. I also understood an incredibly basic joke today so that awesome: Today Kasnocha asked this lady that we've been teaching, Mara, for her last name, he said, "Mara, what?" and she replied, "Maravilhosa" which is marvelous, and it was marvelous to understand a joke.
 
9/14
First baptism. It almost didn't happen, because of me. Probably because I told Emily, "you don't need to go through with this." How's that for being a good missionary? If she were baptized unprepared it would have hurt her, not helped her.   Then I proceeded to bear testimony of what baptism is, what real love is and how she really is loved. She started to cry when I told her, "you don't need to go through with this." but that testimony really fixed things.  After that testimony she told me that she did want to be baptized, and she was baptized for the right reasons. I really am starting to see why I'm here, the strengths that I have are critical for baptism and the Lord can use them to fill gaps.
 
9/15
Today was awesome! We had church and one of our investigators who we weren't expecting to come just showed up, it was so cool! She really liked it and even shared a really cool story in second hour with everyone, she is so brave. Emily got confirmed and she seems really happy. After church I made lots of new friends playing with kids, and Anabela [one of the kids] tried to teach me a Portuguese tongue twister. Just to be clear, apparently all of Portuguese isn't supposed to be a tongue twister, I asked. Then we went home with Anabela and her family for lunch for the second day in a row. They are so nice! I made a portrait for Bela but I didn't realize until after I looked at the photo that her left cheek was way off so it kind of ruined it. They looked at it and were like, "wow that's so good, make sure you write your name!" so I signed it and they were like, "okay, cool, you're done" and then ran off with it, but it was at a pretty good stopping place so that's okay. One scary thing is that it took me a bit of time to get back into my drawing groove and I've only taken a break for like, a month. We went to a birthday celebration too today, so now I guess I can say that I've taken part of the Brasilian Sunday festivities. We talked about how great the birthday lady (47) was and I used my many years of wisdom to advise her. She really liked Kasnocha's and my messages though, so I was glad we went. I'm pretty sure she's not a member but she was still super receptive to the Gospel. When she asked me how many kids I want, I fluently responded, "as many as my wife is willing to have" at least the Gift of Tongues works for the really important phrases.

(Week 7) Chapter 7: And So It Begins

Visit to the Manaus Temple

Lunch at a church member's home with his new companion, Elder Kasnocha

Here's all the fun exciting things that happened this week:

On the flight over to Manaus (four hour flight) I met a guy who spoke Portuguese (big surprise) and a bit of English. His wife is a member but he is not, and I spent the whole flight talking to him. His name is Mario and he is just the coolest guy ever, he was super patient with my bad Portuguese and spoke to me a lot about what I could expect in Manaus.  I learned so much and he warned me about the parties that would happen every Sunday. He was dead on about those, we didn't even leave our house after church because people were not doing the best things, and I think I listened to more bad music yesterday than I have in my life, so that made my Book of Mormon studies interesting. After he told me about everything and we arrived I told him I wished there was something that I could do to thank him, so I wanted him to have this book [the Book of Mormon] because it was the most precious thing I had and I knew reading it would bring him happiness. He was super accepting and nice and said he would read it! Brazil is such a cool place!

I've been learning really fast, it's been amazing, when you trust the Spirit, it's amazing the things that you can do. I've had my mouth filled both with food by members who are so loving and good to the missionaries, and with words by the Spirit, I've been so blessed. We've been teaching this girl named Emily, who at first I was 90% sure my companion was just teaching so he could flirt with her; the popular 'flirt to convert' method. When my district leader called me he told me that I needed "chastity of the mind" when I was teaching, and he was right, we have taught a lot of people in a lot less clothing than I would have liked, but it's still been going great. Things went so well with Emily, that later this week we're going to baptize her, I'm ecstatic! Manaus is a really good area, people aren't super righteous, but they are super willing to hear from our message and very willing to abandon their lifestyles to follow Christ. There are still some crazy people though, one guy came up and started saying something about Joseph Smith (this was day two so I didn't understand much and wasn't as wary as I should have been) so my companion gave him a card with Christ on it. He ate it. Immediately. My companion went, "oh- mm..." it was hilarious afterwards but it was pretty weird at the time. We had a family who hadn't been to church in four years come with us on Sunday, which was soo cool! They are a great family, maybe the dad will be the Bishop since we still don't have one, and there are only 41 people in our ward, mostly kids, it is so small. The house that we live in is *super nice but not my companions favorite. I think it is so cool though, I'll try to send pictures on Sunday. The food is awesome, the people very kind. The weather is very hot, I've probably sweat more here than the rest of my life combined.  I need to go buy food so I'm going to stop here, but make sure to hug the family for me!

Muito amor,

Elder Anderson

*As far as houses go, mine is pretty nice. We have a fake tile floor, a watercloset instead of a toilet, and Brasil has really taught me all the things that I thought were necessary that, according to my companion, are just nice extra things, like toilet paper (fortunately we have toilet paper, but my companion's advice was, "don't get used to it"). Daily life for me is always interesting, every day I pick up more, but my companion doesn't speak English so he can't really help me out when I don't understand everything. I wanted this though so I was glad that it worked out this way, I'm forced to speak Portuguese, or I'll die. I am slowly learning what crazy people look like. I've always been pretty oblivious so my companion has had to help me stay away from a couple of bad situations. Manaus is more safe than Sao Paulo though, we heard two gunshots at night there and so far there haven't been any here. There are open sewers on the street, which means outside doesn't smell very good, and people don't have much to eat. We usually eat the big meal of the day, lunch, with members though, and they always give us so much. The mission does take really good care of us though. I can have a good meal for about $0.60, or about 2 reals, which is how much my gourmet breakfast of sautéd onion and egg with lime sandwich and a banana costs. We have about 150 reals to live off of for 15 days so we're not scraping by, I just wish there was more that we could do for the people here. On a typical day I spend about four hours studying and about nine hours proselyting/teaching lessons, usually more teaching than proselyting, the people here are really receptive. A pretty big difference though is Sundays. People absolutely blast music for parties on Sundays and if it were any day besides the Sabbath I would love it, because they were playing a lot of American music. Although I don't miss many American things, even music, I've just been loving the work. I've especially loved the food, people make food so well here, maybe it's just because I'm working all day but everything is just absolutely amazing. Everyone loves to talk to "the American" and they all ask me the same two questions: What I think of the temperature, and what I think of the food. It is very warm here but it hasn't been ridiculous, I really do love warm weather and I think I was born to serve here. I'm not perfect at speaking but I do have a lot that I can give, and I've found that every time I've tried I've had a lot more to give than I thought. My companion has been very encouraging of my help too. We don't have a dryer but we have a washer, blender, and refrigerator, so [my] dad would probably say that I'm not really serving a Brazilian mission.

(Week 6) Chapter 6: Manaus

This week's message is short.  Elder Anderson woke up early this morning to leave the Missionary Training Center in Sao Paulo to fly to Manaus to officially begin preaching the gospel to the people of Brazil!  Super exciting day for him!!!  Now that he is in Manaus, he will have P-days (Preparation days) every Monday for the first part of the day.  Our family is looking forward to these P-days for weekly video chats at more normal hours (5 am was a bit early 😊), as well as for receiving his emails.

We received this brief message today:
I'm alive! Today I placed my first Book of Mormon and met a guy named Mario.

Muito amor,

Elder Anderson

The Brazil Manaus Mission posted the following pictures on their Facebook page this afternoon!

And...last Wednesday, Elder Anderson was able to travel to the Sao Paulo Temple, which means he had access to WiFi and was able to transmit pictures to us.  Here are a few of them.

This first few shots must be at least a couple of weeks old, because Elder Anderson has hair! 😂

With his companion, Elder Gardner, and two of his Brazilian roommates, Elder Gonzalez (left) and Elder Gomes (right).

With his district at the Campinas Temple (about 1 hour and 20 minutes away from the Sao Paulo MTC.)

Another beautiful picture of the Campinas Temple

District selfie!

This picture was taken Monday (Labor Day), the last group picture together before leaving the MTC.

One of my favorite pictures of Elder A--I call this Unstoppable--can you see how excited he is to tackle the day and share the gospel?!