(Week 17) Chapter 17: The Skin of Pineapple is Nutritious...

Elder Anderson worked hard to clean his stove this week and was so proud of his efforts that he felt it was picture worthy.


Elder Williams' mom's chocolate chunk banana bread recipe made in a pot on a stovetop.




Wow...ummmm...not sure what caption to give this picture.  Watch out dirty dishes, Elder Anderson is ready to save the day!




Kids LOVE Elder Anderson!





This week was great but we're moving today so my entry's going to be a little short, hopefully I can call you later in the day.

11/12
Today was a great day! Williams and I got to study a lot because our lunch fell through (we only had lunch twice with members this week, so I got a lot of practice with cooking). I made a pizza which tasted great but was an actual mess because I did not have the self control to "let it cool". I also realized we had some guarana juice that was super potent (this stuff is like vanilla extract, if you drink it straight you will die) which I decided would be cool if we even more concentrated, so I boiled it down into a black tar substance. When Williams saw what I was doing he grabbed the concentrate, ran screaming to the street and threw it out. That's the story of how we carmelized the street. I've left my mark on Brazil, that caramelized death is never coming off. I got to use a ghostbusters gun to clean a fan and ac unit, turns out when your electronics don't work, you should just wash them off.
11/13
Williams and I gave a training today, it was a really great, spiritual experience. The older Elders here have a bad habit of teasing the younger Elders here. I am a "younger Elder" so today when I started my part of the training, one Elder made efforts to derail the conversation. So it was that I found great joy when later the same Elder was participating and testified about the message I shared; I had never seen him do that before. What caused that change? I bore my testimony about what I was sharing and the provoking ceased. 
11/14
Williams and I taught a lady who lives outside our area but is adamant about coming to our ward and our activities. We gave the Elders in her area her reference, but I guess they weren't interested in teaching her (?), so we'll gladly take that baptism, especially since it's the only baptism that's likely to happen this transfer. Williams and I also made Chocolate chunk banana bread today in our "I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-An-Oven!" with his mom's recipe and it turned out so amazing. I think I ate two whole circular loaves, it was amazing.
11/15
Today we found out that we're going to be moving for sure next Monday, so much for Pday; We spent all of today cleaning and I spent a significant amount of time cleaning our stove top which has definitely never been cleaned before by any missionary in the 10 years it's been used. At times I found it was more useful to use a spoon as a chisel than try to use a sponge because somehow I was removing the varnish without the stains just using a sponge. Now it looks new, several times I've put a pan on top of it and been like, "what the heCK, that's not my stov-wait, yes it is! Wow, that looks so good".
11/16
I'm terrible at fasting. Today after lunch I started a fast. Williams offered me a piece of his Kit-Kat, I did my usual polite decline but actually accept thing like normal, "no really, I'm good-well, if you insist", I may be a black hole, but at least I'm a polite black hole. I got halfway through that stick before I realized I had just broken the fast I had started 30 minutes earlier. Feeling bad but knowing that it wasn't too late to restart my fast, that's what I did, along with some repenting. We went to the house of an investigator a little bit later and she was like, "thanks for coming, I got you guys some cake and guarana!" I responded with something along the lines of, "why thank you! That was so thoughtful! Good thing there isn't anything stopping me from eating this cake!" To which she must have replied, "there really isn't anything stopping you from eating this cake?" and I assured her, "no, there really is nothing stopping me". Now for those of you who have a memory capable of remembering more than two seconds back, unlike me, you'll recognize a little bit of a pattern here: I got about half way through that cake before realizing, "oh my goodness. I really am hopeless".
11/17
People came to church with us today! A good number of our investigators, which was great to see! I also ate the skin of a pineapple. Missão Brasil Manaus!
Muito amor,
Elder Anderson