12/24
Today was a great day! We had a district reunion this morning. We didn't actually do anything, we just sat and talked to each other and every now and then our district leader would ask, "you guys want a training? ...Hey guys, anybody want to do a training?" In the most "I don't want to give a training" way you could imagine, it was pretty hilarious, he's a really good district leader. Everyone had made the district tie (even me (at 10:00 the previous night)), except for one companionship, so we made sure to give them a hard time. Feitosa gave them a slightly harder time than everyone else when he attacked Lopez, and all Lopez had to say to him was, "you're crazy". I hoped hazing wouldn't exist between missionaries. Today was really great because I finally got a little bible I can carry around with me! That's honestly the best Christmas present I could get, now I can finally bring a bible around to the lessons that we teach. The reason I was able to get it was because some other missionaries are amazing; There was a missionary who gave a training a couple of weeks ago who had a super small bible, I asked him where he got it and he told me his are was selling them for R$20 (incredibly cheap), and he offered to pick one up for me if I would pay for the bible. What an incredibly nice guy. Presidente said that we needed to be home by 8; I responded to that with, "sweet!" sleep is actually amazing. The only lesson we got to teach today (because there are so many scary people on the street) was to Moises, but it was a really great lesson, Williams committed him to giving up cigarettes for a time, and I'm really hoping he and Sara will want to get married soon because they're so close. I also took apart a blender: -1 blender, +1 motor that gives off green sparks.
12/25
Today was awesome! It was so weird to go out walking around because the roads were completely empty, it was like a ghost town, I thought we'd been hit by a massive plague or something because every store was closed, it didn't matter the size of the store, every single one was closed. There weren't any street vendors and it was rare to see a car. We almost had a white Christmas, because we got some precipitation, it was just about 70 degrees hotter than we needed it to be for snow. Our neighbors partied for like, 16 hours straight, I'm honestly amazed that they're alive after that much consumption of beverages that aren't good for you. My Christmas was amazing, my mom sent me a package that Williams and I opened today, and I learned that my mental age is three because all of the little toys have entertained me for hours: It was just so weird to see stuff from the states (besides Williams and I), so I couldn't get over them. A lady called us at like, 11am and told us we had lunch with her, even though she wasn't who we planned to celebrate Christmas with, so we went and ate lunch with that family, and then afterwards went to the Matos's house to celebrate with them and Sister Matos was like, "have you Elders eaten yet?" and we told her that we had, so she insisted that we just eat a small plate with her. Williams wouldn't (rude) but no one was annoyed because I ate for both of us which was fine by me, it was awesome food. Then we got to talk to our parents which was awesome, and my dad got to talk to the Matoses too since he's a Portuguese master. It was a very merry Christmas.
12/26
I fully expect the world to end tomorrow, because there were so many fruits being sold for so little, if you're trying to unload your produce like the street vendors were today, it's because you know today's your last day to sell, it's your last day alive. because it was the last day in the world, the pineapple legend, Dan, finally resurfaced. His full title is "Dan, the pineapple man, he has a super strong tan, and a plan to sell his pineapples for 1 real each in his magical van", that took both Williams and my head to create, as well as my entire second grade education and all my practice with rhyming. We bought 5 pineapples. Our freezer and house are now very full of pineapples. Our lessons today were also very fun, especially the one we had with Mara: We got to her house and she was eating the ugliest fruit ever, I'm pretty sure she called it a "Biri-ba". She was like, "Elders! I'm so glad you guys dropped by, this is my favorite fruit, you guys have got to try it!" It was a really good fruit, it had a lot of seeds slightly bigger than watermelon seeds and I did not want that ugly thing growing in my stomach so I got some more practice with spitting seeds. I also made Williams mad today when he taught me a new word:
DJW's: I may not be able to do much but at least I can say "otorrinolaringologista"
Me: otorrinolaringologista
DJW's: wait, seriously?! Well, you suck, that took me a year and two months to learn.
We went to see Elioni today and it's always cool to talk to him because he throws in a "graças ao Deus" (basically, thanks be to God), after like, every other phrase he says. When we showed up he was like, "finally! Elders! Do you guys think you could accompany my family to church this Sunday?" I love it when investigators do our work for us.
12/27
Today was awesome! The fun started with lunch: We showed up and started conversing with the husband until his wife walked in, "where is your shirt?" she demanded, and the husband pointed to his chest like, "right here", so the wife slowly takes off her sandal and holds it in a discreet but threatening way like she's trying not to draw attention to the fact that her husband's life is about 10 seconds from ending, before the husband gave up to go get a shirt on. I felt bad for the guy, spouse abuse shouldn't happen, especially inside the church. After lunch we were walking to the Matos's house when a lady called and asked if we could give her baby a blessing of healing, a super cool opportunity, but she lives almost on the exact opposite side of our area, right next to where the Matos's live, where we were heading to; We had already basically walked to her house and were able to arrive at her house within a couple of minutes of her calling. Williams anointed and I got to give the blessing, which was a really cool experience. Then we stopped by the Matos's house, Presidente welcomed us inside and it started to rain as we entered the house. It went from dry (but humid), to pouring rain in less than a minute, but we were able to pass the entire storm inside Presidente Matos's house which was a huge blessing. We had some great lessons today and made a weird appointment to watch a church movie with one of our investigators tomorrow because he wants to cry. I made another awesome dinner tonight which attracted our neighbors and Williams dumped the hot chocolate I worked so hard to make for him on the ground.
12/28
DJW's: I love the smell of smoke from fireworks.
Me: I liked the smell of the smoke from when we burned the spider corpse.
DJW's: Isn't that one of the signs of a serial killer?
Me: ... 🔪 (Williams says I have to classify that the emoji is a "knifezino" (small knife))
Today was great! We had lunch with Karey Matos today and she taught me how to make pudin (her way), which I'm very glad about, because she has a bunch of great tips and tricks for it. We taught a lesson to Carinne and her husband today, but they didn't seem very interested, maybe it was just because the lesson was longer than normal, but we did mention a few times that church was 8am the next day. At the end of the lesson it turned into an inside joke to mention what time church was at, so if anyone really wants to be part of an inside joke and never has before, this is your chance, fly to Brazil, find Carinne, and tell her that church is at 8am. We tried to help Carinne and her husband with their process on getting a marriage license but her husband doesn't have a birth certificate which makes things a little harder. It took a lot of self control to not talk about forging legal documents; I'm a missionary now, breathe in, breathe out.
We got to see some Sisters today, they welcomed us to the bank with, "Hey Elders, good news! We haven't gotten our money in our accounts yet (no living money for us today)". It is now 10:26 at night, Elder Williams and I are still waiting for the good news that they're going to share with us, because there was no good news there. Moises slept through our appointment with him, which is good for his health because today is his only day off from work and he's working a lot, but it's not so good for the whole "teaching him" thing. People were getting ready for the farmers market tomorrow by shutting down an entire road with just tables and tarps, it made for some angry drivers which was fun unfortunate to see.
12/29
Today was an amazing Sunday! It was the first one in a while that we've succeeded in bringing investigators to church: Elioni and his faithful family all came. Because not too much that was interesting happened today (except for the money that we got instead of lunch today to buy food on Sunday?), I'll recount all of the funny stories that happened through the week that I forgot to record earlier: The first story happened the last time we taught Mara; The missionaries here do a weird handshake with everyone, it's a hand slap to fistbump with a snap at the end, and all the church members do it as well, but sometimes the snap throws off investigators, as they aren't familiar with it. Well, one little girl was having trouble doing the snap at the end of the handshake, after we were done teaching Mara, she tried and tried, but could not do the snap, but Williams was very patient with her and kept trying it over and over until the little girl's thumb completely missed her middle finger and she ended up flipping off Williams. Judging from the reactions of everyone present, flipping off is also not the nicest thing to do in Brazil, I don't know what Williams did to make her so angry. The other story is from a couple of days ago when a cat completely destroyed the garbage bag we left on our porch at night. The cat's primary target was the leftover cake that Williams and I never ate from my birthday (don't tell our investigators). Several cats showed up that morning to eat and I did everything in my power to massacre those mess makers. I would not make a very good cat hunter. Also I can't recommend a sandal as a weapon.
Much love,
Elder Anderson