(Week 12) Chapter 12: You Guys Are Too White!

Elder Anderson was able to baptize a young man in his mission!

10/8

Today wasn't the best day, my companion didn't make the best decisions yesterday, and I'm super oblivious so I didn't completely realize what was going on. He didn't do anything horrible, today was just kind of a waste because we spent the time that we could have spent proselyting doing the stuff that we should have done on Pday. Everything else was really good, though. We had a zone conference so I got to see Steed and Gardner, and we had a blast! Of course, from the number of looks we got, we're either just incredibly attractive (we did have Steed with us so that's totally a possibility) or we were having too much of a blast and bugging others. It was an awesome conference, though, I did a practice in front of everyone and could actually speak this time, although I still had my regular amount of nerves, those missionaries are a scary bunch. We also met with Presidente and Presidente tonight. I'm not sure which one is our branch President, and until tonight I'd never seen them in the same room so I thought maybe the two guys who we call Presidente were just an alter ego thing, maybe really bad schizophrenia. It was genuinely shocking to see them in the same room, I think I audibly gasped when we entered, there was so much raw power, you could feel it. Kasnocha also loves me (the usual) because tonight I made a popular guarana drink that's pretty expensive, and now we have more than a litre of it in the fridge, so it's Christmas for us. Although, after the half litre of it we drank today in our primal excitement, I don't think it'll last long.

10/9

Today was a great day! We went to visit Mara today, and I am so glad we did. Someone had tried to rob her Sunday, fortunately people had been there to help her out, but she was still incredibly shaken up. She started crying and I felt like Ammon when the King's servants started crying: I was rejoicing thinking, "Wow, what a great opportunity the Lord has given us, I'm so grateful this happened." I don't think that's quite what "mourning with those that mourn" means. Well, Kasnocha kind of dominated the conversation, and I'm super glad he was talking so much and really wanted to help her, but it was like a socratic seminar: The kind in school that's a bunch of cutthroat savages who will do anything for a grade, and the teacher said for the grade you need to be nice and talk lots; Those things never went together, and socratic seminars are just vicious beasts sitting in a circle with a mask of manners on. The thought of those gives me shivers. Fortunately Mara asked me to say the closing prayer so at least I could talk unhindered (well... it is still Portuguese) then. Whatever I said must have been the right thing because she started crying again (or I accidentally said something offensive, which is totally a possibility). We also went to see two of our new investigators, Sisters, one who is 16, and one who is 14 according to herself and 12 according to the 16 y/o sister. Honestly I have no idea, I've seen kids who I would have guessed were 14 who were nine, it's anybody's game at this point. The first time I spoke to those Sisters they shared the funniest look of surprise with each other and started nervously laughing, they didn't understand me unless I spoke really slow. Although when Kasnocha said, "he's from the United States" one sister said, "lies!" so maybe my accent is almost passable for a Brazilian who's been stranded on some dessert island for the past 20 years and completely forgot how to talk (yes I said "dessert", I'm not cruel). There were other people on said hypothetical island, but they were too busy stuffing their faces to talk, so they all forgot how. That's the way I talk.

10/10

Hey baby, if you want to know how I'd rate... your personality... just write out today's date. Today was awesome! We started off by going to the house of a lady to do Kasnocha's hair, which I wasn't super enthusiastic about, but it put Kasnocha in a great mood for the rest of the day, so maybe it was worth it. His hair turned out horrible, if you were wondering, but it was pretty funny to see. I guess a comb over is becoming a style? I don't get it, but Kasnocha loves it. After Kasnocha was finished wishing we had never entered the lady's house, we went to the house of Mara. We watched the church's film, Joseph Smith with her, and the Spirit was so strong! It was a beautiful film, and fortunately I'd watched it before in English so it was actually fairly easy to understand. After the movie, we testified and left her and headed over to the house of Presidente Matos so he could give us some new contact info, and his wife made these little fried bread things. I hope blessings never cease to be poured out on that woman. The real blast today was during football. We saw Emily and she said she wanted to speak to me in private, so I told Kasnocha to stay by me for the rest of the night. Then we played football, and heavens only knows why God gave to me what he did, but I lost count of my goals, I wasn't even trying either, when possible I set up the kids on my team to take the goals. Kasnocha and the other football legend on the opposing team weren't as keen on my newfound abilities, but the Brasilians love me more now, so I'm very happy. Never in any other sport have I seen men pretend to cry, but frequently in football this happens. Must be a very sad sport.

10/11

Today was an amazing day! I tried making Elana's fried bread today and it turned out pretty well, not that Kasnocha would have an aversion to it if I had completely messed it up and made something that only loosely resembled it, that fried bread is his favorite. Then we went to a barbeque for lunch and everyone looked at my giant plate of food that I grabbed like, "Can you believe the nerve of Americans, grabbing all that food? That guy's not going to eat more than a third of that plate." After I devoured it, and still felt empty inside, Kasnocha graciously gave me some of his food because he had taken too much. That place really lived up to the barbeque name, the meat was amazing, I love Brazil so much. After a wonderful lunch, Kasnocha asked if we could stop by the post office quickly, since we were right there. Turns out we weren't right there, but I didn't mind, it was great to see where I needed to go if I wanted to send a letter. We also met a dude there who makes trips to visit the Indians in the jungle and offered to sell me a bracelet. Presidente Matos verified it's authenticity for me, so now I have the contact with the tribes here that I hoped I would get. One Elder bought an Indian headdress, I think this is enough... Then I got to do my first baptism! It wasn't a guy I was very close with, but Kasnocha and I haven't had a lot of success lately, so Torres and V. Alves had me do this baptism. It was so awesome to do, the Spirit was so strong, I didn't stutter at all and afterwards I even got to offer some words of encouragement to him. For every parent that's been asked of their kids who are envious of Father's day and Mother's day when Children's day is, it's the 12th of October. You're welcome. And it's a big celebration here! After eating a bunch of cake and watching kids dance their heart out (the ward celebration was today), I talked to a person we were making contacts with, I was teasing and laughing with her, she was shocked to learn I was American. "But he speaks Portuguese so well!" today my speaking was awesome!

10/12

My heart is broken. It really is, because Kasnocha's being transferred. I don't think I praised him enough in my writings, it's easy to complain about faults, but I certainly have my fair share of those, I'm a hypocrite sometimes because of that, but Kasnocha was an awesome companion! We met lots of people, I learned lots from him, and he was a great leader. Today was children's day, I thought earlier I was going to be writing about how much I loved today, but today is incredibly sad now. I don't know if I'll ever stop saying "whatch?!" (what) or "let's bora" (let's skedaddle) like Kasnocha does. He also taught me to be a much better companion, and he ate those onion and egg sandwiches for like two weeks straight, because that's all I could make at first. My new companion is an American, so hopefully I still learn lots about the language. Today we visited the family of Anabela's, had the closest thing to mammoths [a burrito my mom makes] I'll probably have for the next two years, and pudin [like flan], which was great. Then we went to our diamond investigators house where he was making a cake and gave it American colors, so I made sure to take a picture. He actually made three cakes, one being a pudin pão cake which he also gave to us, and was even better than the other pudin. Probably because he had nothing and still wanted to give so much to the missionaries. We met a person who justified being an excessive alcoholic by stating that that Jesus's first miracle was turning water to wine, but it's hard to tell him about the word of Wisdom when you're chowing down on a barbeque stick he's given you. His master plan actually worked.

10/13

Today was a wonderful Sunday, it was a fast Sunday, somehow my first fast Sunday in the field. I bore my testimony and it went really well, people could understand! What a confidence builder. Although, now that I think about it, I could have just shared the first vision, said "amen" and probably had the same effect. Church was also good because I got to tell everyone I would be staying here, and they were all very excited, which felt great. I haven't even really talked to these people yet, I guess I did throw a ball at one Sister's head, so I can see why everyone loves me so much. We spent the rest of the day visiting people's houses, telling them Kasnocha was leaving, and hearing many, "oh, happy day!"'s, people were kidding though, Kasnocha loves to mess with people and now they were finally getting some revenge. We took lots of pictures and one girl made me an Instagram (heaven only knows why) and one sister gave me supplies to make a cake! And then I forgot them at another person's house! I'm so horribly forgetful... Kasnocha's giving me all of the things for the area since I'll be the oldest companion in the area, I'll get to pick how hard we work for a bit.

Muito amor, 

Elder Anderson