Chapter 23: Gringos and the Fateful Return of Dan: The Pineapple Man

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

Chapter 22: Cake: The Gift That Keeps On Giving

4 birthday celebrations--this is one blessed missionary!

Beautiful sunset

Christmas celebrations

12/17

Today was fun, we had a district reunion where Williams taught everyone how to make ties, now we're all going to have matching Christmas ties, what an aesthetically pleasing district. My skin has been causing me pain for a while, and today it finally got bad enough that I asked for a blessing. It was a blessing in and of itself that on the day where my skin was hurting the most that I was able to get a blessing from my entire district. Today I got another cooking lesson, this time from an  Irmão, who taught me how the Brasilians prepare their meat. There was a flamingos game today, and judging from the number of times the sky turned into a warzone, I'm guessing they got three goals; Most of the time you can look out the window without going blind, but all of those fireworks going off at the same time was like staring into lots of mini suns. Every goal here is like an entire Fourth of July's celebration condensed into two minutes, fireworks here are super cheap (and not very safe (or missionary approved (sad, I know))), and because people here have no self preservation instincts, celebrations with fireworks are all too common. People here are incredibly nice to the missionaries: today while walking, we saw one of the nonmembers that we play soccer with, he was selling popsicles, one of the lowest income jobs in Brazil, and he gave us them free of charge, he wouldn't accept payment, even though he's probably making just enough to scrape by.

12/18

Today wasn't the most fun, but we got a lot done. The condition of my skin has been getting worse, so WIlliams and I spent a good amount of time looking for medicine. Our neighbors talked with me for a bit, they're very big on home remedies and asked if I had mayonnaise. I confusedly said "yes", and brought it out of the fridge and they admired it briefly before giving it back, I was just grateful they didn't tell me to apply it to my arms, I would rather not wear mayo. The lady at lunch told me there was an anti-itch cream called "milk of manganese" that I should get. The Portuguese words for manganese and mayonnaise are incredibly similar, so when I brought the Mayo to my neighbor and he admired it he was likely just as confused as I was. Great. While Williams and I were out today, we stopped by the Matos's house to talk about doing family home evenings with our old investigator who can't walk around and we got hit with the bombshell: "No, Elder, we're moving soon. We can't" Karey's husband, Vagner, told me that and when we saw Karey, I refused to shake her hand; "Why?" she asked me, and I told her, "1: Because you're moving and I feel betrayed. Who's going to teach me how to cook? I think I'll die of hunger. 2: Because I have raw flesh exposed on my hand." Then she told me about a pharmacy nearby that could create medicine by formula, she helped me figure out what I needed, and then found it at another Pharmacy right next to her house, I might actually be able to get better now.

12/19

Today was fun, we got to eat all three of our meals today with our neighbors, so that made life a little more fun, and we even got to do a service project: mixing up and applying cement, so I got to dig into some dirt and make up some concrete. Well, concrete or cement, I don't know the difference, I'm no expert like the Brazilians here. The smell of the dirt brought back great memories of the giant dirt hill I loved to play on as a kid in my backyard. The pet turtle of our neighbor kept walking across all of our beautiful hard work, and while that animal may be slow, it was surprisingly fast at destroying our work. After our service project, we went to our one and only lesson for the day, we taught Mara and we might've accidentally stayed there longer than we originally intended to because we had a watermelon eating contest. Okay, so it was only me in the contest, but I'm pretty sure I won. I heard several, "I don't believe it"s that put a smile on my face. Then we had another competition to see if I could spit a watermelon seed into a cup on the condition that if I could, Williams would carry my bag, if I couldn't, I would carry his; Neither Williams nor I had a part in choosing these terms. I landed a seed in the cup (first try, of course), and then Williams and I experienced Brazil's "wall of water" for the first time (an effect caused by the heavy rain going from nothing to pounding in 1/2 of a second. The rain made it difficult to leave, as our options were to stay with Mara longer, or walk into certain death. So we all huddled together under the 25 ft^2 of cover space. After the rain died down, Williams and I went to the church, and got to give a blessing which was a really cool experience.

12/20

Today was such a great day! Williams and I did a service project today; We helped a family move into our ward which means Williams and I moved a family into our ward since no one else showed up (except Tiago (at the end (but he's still a great person))), and the husband was busy, so Williams and I had a fun time. I got yelled at a lot which is how I learned that moving language is very different from standard language; I spent a very long time being confused but fortunately the move wasn't too difficult because of all that P90X! that Williams and I had been doing. Our lunch today gave us money and turns out all this home cooking I've been doing is a great money saver, so that's how Williams and I justified getting a liter of Açaí to split today after the service project. Williams and I had black beans and rice which turned out pretty good. As a side note: We had a Irmã think we were indecent today because we showed up to her house wearing our Pday attire (she was the lady who gave us money for lunch). She's probably 60 years old and when she saw us she actually covered her eyes and was like, "Elders... what are you wearing?!" The really awesome part about today though was our lessons though, we taught a couple of really cool investigators, but it was this single mother that we taught today who was by far the best lesson we had: Williams and I were impressed to stop by a house that we have before where a mother lives who's trying to provide for her family, and tonight she was very tired and I shared 2 Nephi 2:25 about how we're here to have joy, and now she's coming to our ward Christmas party tomorrow! 

12/21

Today was great! Williams and I had to get ready pretty fast because we cleaned the church in the morning which went great since I did twice as much work as Williams; We were tasked with cleaning the floor of our cultural hall and everyone else had a squeegee (that should not be a word), except for me, I had TWO squeegees, one for each hand which was pretty awesome because it made it super easy to push a massive water wall over the feet of other people who were cleaning. Then I got banned from having two squeegees because everyone was jealous and I was doing too good of a job, so I had to clean like a normal person afterwards. My mom gave me some awesome cookie recipes, but they were too good because everyone liked them, so I had to make them for our Christmas dinner. The Elders are very popular now. I found out today that one of the biggest differences between here and the U.S. is organization: Our Christmas dinner started at 7 Which meant that at 6:45 Williams and I were running to our church, we got there at 6:55, and then waited an hour and a half for the Christmas dinner to start. We had to go up with the children who were called up to get their food before the adults because we had to go so soon; It's a good thing I'm a child at heart because I blended right in. Then we ran to Moises's house to celebrate Sara's birthday as fast as we could, which was great, we had cake and really good ice cream and Sara had a great birthday, so all that running was totally worth it.

12/22

Today was a great day! We only had an hour of church because it was our Christmas meeting, but I wasn't too excited for it because it was pouring rain, and because we were having a special reunion we were going to meet at our stake center, which was significantly further than our standard meeting house. Williams and I were walking, sharing our one umbrella, my left arm soaked and his right arm soaked from the rain that our small umbrella didn't protect us from, when a car drove past us, stopped, and started reversing until they had pulled up next to us, "you guys going to the church way over there?" We told the Irmão that we were, and he offered us a ride, a real blessing. Once we were travelling safely we asked him which ward he was a part of: "Oh, I'm not a part of your church", he told us, he was just an awesome person who helped out two struggling Elders. After church we had lunch with Joyce. Lunch was absolutely amazing, but the part that really touched me was after lunch: They brought out a cake and sang happy birthday, I joined in, clapping with them until I read the name on the cake and faltered, because it was my name. It was an awesome party, we got to give an Irmã a blessing, I learned how to make vinaigrette, and I got to give the message. Tonight was also fun, our neighbor showed up and was like, "hey, what's up, I'm in your house" which is always a nice surprise. His tactics to get food are getting better, instead of being shirtless outside our window he sat down at our table (with a shirt) and offered to eat with us. Well, I guess that's how I know my fame is growing, my neighbors are getting more aggressive in their efforts to eat what I make.

Muito amor and all that,

Elder Anderson

Chapter 21: Problems That Solve Themselves

At a birthday party on 12/8 for Sister Matos






 

12/10
Today was great, we had a reunion of the district this morning which was especially fun. I finally got to be the investigator in the trainings we do, which has been a dream of mine for the last ~three months, and today I finally fulfilled the only "bucket list" item I had: The missionary who was giving the training asked us for volunteers, I said I would love to be the investigator, and then the trainer took the missionaries who would be acting as, well, missionaries, out of the room to brief them on the objective of the training as well as the topic. They came back with a cup of water which should have been a dead giveaway to run. but I didn't, mostly because I'm oblivious and never notice any important details, but hindsight is 20/20. They launched into a lesson about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and every time they said anything related to the word "baptism" they would throw water in my face which is blasphemy, but whatever. They said "baptism" a lot more frequently than they needed too, but it's all good, I wiped my face off with William's tie when we were done. The reunion was also awesome because my old roommate, Feitosa, is now in my district, so I got to talk to him for like, an hour and a half, which was awesome, he's a really good missionary. Then, after the reunion, Feitosa went around ranking us on our "flamboyant"ness, fortunately I wasn't very flamboyant, but it made for some confused missionaries, while the ones who had taught Feitosa laughed saying, "we're only teaching him the best of English".
12/11
Today was pretty great, I got so much studying done, It wasn't an amazing day for lessons, but I got a lot of stuff done that I've wanted to do for a while and now I'm on splits, so today's also been plenty interesting. The really funny thing that happened today was when I was still with Williams: I was studying when he took my journal and told me he was going to record an important saying of his in my journal so that I wouldn't forget him, then he ran off and locked me in our room (the key's on the outside of the door and there isn't one inside, so that's pretty easy to do). It took me all of two seconds to turn my head a little bit to the left, see our window, and hatch an escape plan thinking, "why not." So I put on a shirt because, surprisingly, I didn't want to be like the owner of our house, walking around on our roof without a shirt (It's hot in Manaus, I don't have to wear a shirt in my own house, stop judging me), then I climbed through our bedroom window, shut it from the outside, and jumped through our kitchen window over our sink, which made for a great ninja moment and scared Williams who was searching for the comp he had somehow lost in a locked room. Then I got my journal back, unfortunately, the addition of "waffle stomp" had been made, but it was pretty funny, so I let it stay. Our lessons were sad because our investigators are going through hard times; Moises's girlfriend kicked him out of the house, which we witnessed, and all we could do was hug the poor, crying dude. Eloni's wife had surgery so all of his kids are motherless right now. I'm excited for tomorrow, though, I'm on splits with Feitosa right now and we have plans to do more work tomorrow than either of us have ever done before.
12/12
Today was awesome! DIvisions went pretty great, this morning we taught Feitosa's golden investigator who was going to be baptized later today, she had so many questions, it was awesome! At one point she asked a question and Feitosa asked about her faith in return; He questioned if she still thought everything was true, even with this doubt, and without hesitating responded, "without a doubt", that is an investigator who's been searching for the truth. After that lesson we went to have lunch with Feitosa's bishop (lucky), and he was such a cool guy, but he had a lot of stories about lazy Elders and what Caetano did to them. Then their whole family assured us that we were far better, by comparison. I was left thinking, "okay, no one here knows me, but thanks." Then it rained for a super long time so Feitosa and I were trapped in with the Bishop but eventually his daughter returned with his car so he gave us a ride over to the church which I was incredibly grateful for because it was pouring. The pouring rain was to our advantage for a bit though, as we were walking to our house to grab my stuff and end transfers, Feitosa gave me an apologetic look, grabbed my umbrella and then asked a lady if we could talk with her about the gospel briefly. She looked at him through the rain that was pouring on her like, "seriously?" and then told Feitosa she was in a hurry since it was, well, pouring rain on her. So Feitosa asked if he could walk with her with the umbrella over her head which she accepted and at the end she let us give her a pass along card. In two minutes I had become completely drenched, negating the further need for an umbrella, but it was still a cool contact, I'll have to do more of those in the future. 
12/13
Today was a generic day. Just kidding, it was my birthday. It was an amazing day, this world which is already very kind to me was even more kind today. Our neighbors all sang "Parabens" (happy birthday) to me this morning, which was a little awkward as I wasn't doing anything but smiling there awkwardly as everyone clapped and sang for much longer than was necessary, but I appreciated that they wanted to celebrate with me. I got to open up an awesome care package my parents had sent me out with and Williams, bless his heart, had gotten me a non stick frying pan, that in fact was not imbued with pure hatred. I honestly don't know how to cook things without all the hatred my other pans gave me, it's like I'm missing a crucial ingredient. I'm also missing the cup of oil I'd have to use every time to compensate for all that hatred, my entire world has completely changed. We went to lunch with the best sister ever, she makes such amazing food, and I drank so much cupuaçu, I thought I was going to be sick for sure afterwards, because cupuaçu is super acidic and gives stomach aches if you drink too much, but I have a stomach of steel so I was completely fine. I got to video call my family, and then our day really began. We visited as many of our investigators as we could but progressively became slower and slower, because each one of them made an entire cake for us, and knowing that I eat a lot, demanded that I didn't leave any cake behind. I failed that challenge many times. All of our investigators were so excited to celebrate my birthday, there were a lot of tears. I was so grateful to celebrate with so many friends, these investigators really are amazing people.
12/14
Today was awesome! I guess the Consuelo's thought my birthday was today, because they gave me an amazing present: Irma Consuelo taught me how to cook! I learned so many great things about making black beans and rice, and she even had enough faith in me that she asked me to make a pasta, and it turned out very well, she was impressed. THat wonderful woman also gave me a metal form I could use to make pudin and bread, I'm very excited! I also got to try the juice of a graviola today which is awesome because the word sounds just like ravioli and always makes me think of the pasta oh, I guess it was also awesome because the juice tasted great. Our lessons turned out fun because we got to do lots of things we didn't expect because of them, like seeing a couple of missionaries who are going home in a few days, but they wanted to visit my ward so Caetano let them. We also got to have dinner with Joyce and her family, they had just been to their daughter's kindergarten graduation which put my high school graduation to shame, even her diploma looked cooler than mine. It's fine, I'm not jealous of a seven-year-old. The really cool lesson that we taught today was to Jefferson and his family, his wife finally invited us inside and we had a really meaningful lesson about the Plan of Salvation, it was really cool!
12/15
Today was great! It was another great Sunday, we woke up even earlier than normal to try and bring our investigators to church, we succeeded with none of them. We got to church and the second counselor was like, "hey, what's up missionaries, I love you guys, hahahacanyouguysgiveatalkinlikefiveminuteshaha", so Williams got to give a talk, I offered too, but they were like, "no, it's okay". So much for feeling better with the language. I'm convinced Andersons are just great people because today Irmao Anderson taught a class and gave a lesson and they were both super insightful. After church we got invited to the ward choir practice, but we weren't alone, the whole ward was there. We sang some Christmas hymns in preparation for the Christmas program that we're going to have in a couple of weeks. It was pouring rain so Presidente Matos very kindly offered a ride to us which was awesome not to walk across our area in the rain. The lady that we had lunch with today was very apologetic because lunch took a couple of hours to prep, but it was definitely worth the wait, it was awesome! Williams and I did all we could to encourage her but she was very disheartened that she had made the missionaries wait an extra hour, the chance to rest though was nice, I didn't mind. Today we saw all these flying bugs that matched the description of the flying bugs that come out once a year in Brazil you can catch, fry, and eat. I was super excited, Williams wasn't really feeling it, even after I told him about the wonders of these flying insects. Just to be sure, I made sure to stop a six year old on the way to our house, "Hey, kid, you see all these bugs flying around us? Can you eat them?" the child was very confused (probably awed to be talking to a real American, the look of wonder on his face gave his admiration away), he suggested maybe not eating the bugs, so I thanked him and heeded his advice reluctantly. Now that I think about it, he probably just wanted more for himself. I can't believe I was tricked by a six year old.
Muito amor,
Elder Anderson

(Week 20) Chapter 20: The End of the War

A picture of this awesome companionship along with Sister Matos (the lovely woman who kindly prepares lunch for Elder A and his companion every Saturday.)

Elder Anderson (on the left) at the Christmas Conference his mission president held.

This week was so much better getting to go back to working, I feel like my Portuguese is improving so much, it's really encouraging. These are all the great things that happened this week:
12/3
Today was so great! Williams and I are back, we spent all day cramming a week's worth of lessons into the few hours that we had to work. We were victims of our own success as everyone wanted to know when we could return, so tomorrow's going to be even more hectic than today. We visited Mara today where I severely struggled to pronounce "coconut"; Guess what you say if you mispronounce that word? Feces. I said a lot about feces which both Mara and her daughter thought was pretty amazing. Everyone wants to know what it is that I'm doing for my birthday, I thought nothing was an acceptable response, but I guess it's not because now I'm going to have my biggest birthday party I've had in my life. Missionary problems. Everyone in Brazil will party for literally anything, and now knowing lots of people isn't doing me any favors since I'm pretty sure there's an unspoken rule that missionaries shouldn't throw parties, it's probably snuck into our handbook somewhere but I haven't been able to find it so now all of our investigators want to do something big. I'm pretty sure they're conspiring against me: "Let's keep it small!" to which they're certainly replying, "sure, Elder Anderson..." and then very confused me has to ask, "Why are you winking? I can see you winking. We are NOT having a giant party". Maybe I'll get emergency transferred and Presidente will save me. Tonight we visited Moises and his family who were so excited that we had come back to visit them, we explained that we had just been sick and would never forget about them, but they were still so excited we hadn't forgotten about them, it was a good feeling, I haven't done anything to deserve their love, but they're still so kind to us.
12/4
(The last wave of the war)
I'm scared, the ants in our house have called in their special op friends: there are new really fast all black ants that I'm sure are going to be my death. Besides the new ants, today was great! I got a lot of studying done and we had lunch today which I always love. At lunch I asked the Irma what the word "arrebentar" meant, she showed me by trying to throw a two liter at my head. She also said there are many different meanings for the word, I don't want to know what the other meanings are. The really cool lesson we did today was with Elioni, not "Alioni" like I've been saying for the last three months, but it's fine. We made the correction because we gave blessings to his entire family tonight, they all had the gripa, so they were needing them, even their small toddler which was heartbreaking. I don't think I've ever given that many blessings in one day before, so that was a really cool opportunity. We also saw the wife of our super contacter in our ward, I learned that she doesn't trust me to push her daughter across four lanes of traffic (good choice), so I spent a good amount of time being morbidly offended and acting like my heart was broken. All I wanted to do was help because her daughter was sitting in the coolest mini car stroller ever, but it's fine, everything is fine, and all because APPARENTLY I act erratically sometimes (I was confused she limited herself to only "sometimes"). She says that my Portuguese is a lot better though, so I guess I forgive her. I've been noticing a lot too that it's been improving lately, it's pretty awesome to be able to communicate!
12/5
Brasilians will cheat in literally any game, even duck-duck-goose, I know because I lost the most epic round of duck-duck-goose ever. I don't want to talk about it. Early today we had a reunion with Presidente and Sister Caetano, they're so great, they gave some great trainings and after we all got to bear our testimonies which was so cool to hear from so many missionaries. We had to skip the lunch afterwards because the mother who doesn't trust me to push her child across four lanes of traffic (I haven't clarified the problem is the number of lanes, I'll ask her this week if five would be better), signed up to have lunch with us today and last time she said she wanted to have lunch with the missionaries, we reminded her the night before, she still forgot, and then randomly prepared lunch on another day and blamed us for not knowing; So not wanting to make her more mad, we skipped the awesome lunch with the Caetanos and had lunch with her which was also incredibly good. We taught a really cool lesson today, it was "The Restoration" but because the Sister we were teaching was crying we changed it up a lot. Her country, Venezuela is having a lot of problems with inflation with inflation and it's making for a lot of refugees. She's one of the victims, and feeling incredibly alone, so I bore testimony a lot about the perfect love our Heavenly Father has for us and how we're here to be happy. She seemed a little better afterwards, but also left pretty quickly after we were done talking to her, so we'll have to check up on her tomorrow and see how she's doing.
12/6
(The End of The War)
Today was great! We beat the ants that were living in our house into submission, Elder Williams and I committed several genocides against the ants and now they won't leave their holes to forage for food in our house. Mission accomplished. We're awaiting their embassy to discuss terms of surrender, but they will gain no mercy in my eyes, they ate my cutting board and it's sawdust calls for justice. Williams and I also have some expert level teamwork: Tonight a giant cockroach (thankfully not the flying satanic kind) heard our house was the hottest place in town (100% accurate on multiple levels), but unfortunately we have a human only policy for our "lit" study sessions where we go "ham" on the Bible (those were both of the slang words I know so don't ask for any more). Anyways, our house owner had delivered us a curtain rod today-or as I like to call it, a spear-which made for a nice object to, throw at the cockroach. I nailed it, but because it's a cockroach, it just ran away, so Williams was like, "Not on my watch!" and frying panned it over to me where I threw my sandal at it which made it explode. Cleanup was cool, we synchronously turned away from the cockroach, I opened our door up and Williams grabbed our broom, I put my hands up in a Mike Wazowski, "and he's out of here!" fashion as Williams shot the mess out our door in one smooth motion, backboarding it off the door and back down to the hot world it had climbed up from. Then we went back to our dinner. Our lessons today were so great! We were really led by the Spirit and re established contact with one of our investigators that we hadn't seen for quite some time and she was so excited that we had come back. We also taught the Sister who had been crying and her husband the Plan of Salvation and got some great contacts from them. Then we found out they're not married which is a pretty big setback. Oh well.
12/7
Today was fun, our morning was pretty mundane; I made pancakes that were dense as bricks, I mastered the art of "flip a pancake by launching it skyward with a pan" flipping method and didn't even leave a pancake on our ceiling in the process, which is good, because like I said, those pancakes are dense, and they definitely would have left a hole in our ceiling. We called for our lunch today and they didn't respond, so I started making some rice and beans. Then we saw a shirtless dude on the roof outside our window, it turned out to be the shirtless owner of our house, he motioned to open the window, which we did and then were like, "hey Ari, how's it going?" he was like, "wow, whatever you're making smells really good". Brasilians have a sixth sense for rice and beans, it's honestly mind blowing. After a pretty good lunch we got a call from the lady we were supposed to have lunch with. Williams was like, "oh yeah, we'd love to lunch with you" and I swear, you could hear wind whistling off me from how fast I 180'd, like, "Williams, you know how many lunches I can eat. It may be a large lunch but it's still only one, which we have already had!". To which he responded on the phone, looking me in the eyes, "yes Irma, we would love to have lunch with you." I got a lot fatter that day. After we had a great lunch we taught Mara and her family, we got so many people to commit to church tomorrow, it should be an amazing experience, I really hope they all come.
12/8
None of them came. Today was still a great day though, we had a birthday party for the Irma who always gives us amazing lunches and is teaching me how to cook. It was pretty great although I am so tired because I talked to people for the entire 6 and a half hour party, which already is a feat in your first language, but doing it in another one is significantly more difficult. We had a great time though, now that I can understand everyone a little better, everyone wants to know what my thoughts on everything American is. We also met a returned missionary tonight, she was really nice, but it was more funny to here her mom's perspective on her mission, she seemed to remember a lot more embarrassing facts than her daughter did. The party was pretty awesome and there was a lot of food. I will probably never stop hearing "come mais, Elder!" (eat more, Elder!) for the rest of my life, because people can always see the apprehension I have to turn any regular social event into a feeding frenzy. I hope this next week we can get our marriage licenses going but money is incredibly tight for Brasilians, but having too much enthusiasm for the Gospel and not enough money is better than the other way around, so I still have a lot to be grateful for.
Thanks for everything,
Elder Anderson

(Week 19) Chapter 19: Sick

This week wasn't a blast, Williams and I were sick all week, but it was good to get a chance to study so much. There's not much that happened so I decided to spare you guys from the weird commentary and just share the highlights:

11/25

Today we went to the house of the Matos's for lunch, I knew it was going to be amazing because Presidente said that he was going to make Alligator to give me strength. It did give me strength, but I guess it wasn't quite up to his standards because he also offered to take some of the blood out of my arm and inject it into my posterior. Presidente Matos and his wife work in a hospital, but I was still feeling a little like that wouldn't be necessary, I know, I'm a little odd. Presidente Matos insisted on an injection so finally I consented to a power shot consisting of different vitamins, about 200 ml worth, which is a lot to have, you know, injected into you. Everything was going fine until about the last 20 ml worth, I started having a lot of pain, and then I got super nauseous, Williams says I started turning super white, even my lips were going white; I'm already very white, I don't know what "super white" is, but I'm guessing that's not good. Williams thought that he was going to be getting a new companion, since I was obviously about to die. Fortunately I regained my color and didn't die, and Irma Matos was so happy, she gave me an early Christmas present: A little grater I can take with me from transfer to transfer, I can't believe how thoughtful they are! That family's so sweet, but I think next time I'm going to refrain from any medical assistance. 

11/28

Today was a blast! We had enough commitments today that we said that it would be valuable to do work today, even though Williams and I weren't feeling awesome.We saw almost all of our investigators because they spontaneously came to our night of integration which made everything so much nicer, not having to hunt down everyone when the sun is blazing almost as strongly as your headache makes things much simpler. We tried to play football with everyone tonight which only had two problems:

1. We're sick

2. We're American

While we were waiting for the game to start, one of the youths there treated us to hear about his entire love life. He's 15. I sincerely hope I was never 15. We taught a lesson to Mara today, it was amazing because her testimony has really grown and even told everyone there tonight (addressing her daughter) that we should never be afraid or ashamed to pray, because God is our loving Heavenly Father and he wants to hear from us, and we need him. It was great to hear that her testimony has progressed so much. Then the real fun began. I once saw a picture of one of my grandmas eating out of a giant watermelon with just a spoon. That's the size of the watermelon that Mara brought out for us and her daughter, Julianna, told her friends, "that's Elder Anderson, he eats a lot" and then I ate half that watermelon, so I guess I do eat a lot. I suppose that's one way to hydrate.

Other fun notes of what happened this week: We had birthdays this week, both were in the family that lives under us which made it easy to celebrate since our commute took about 4 seconds. That whole family really likes me, which isn't fair because I've barely said anything, to them, but it's nice of them to be so welcoming. I have a shirt for one of the local teams and when a guy at one of the parties saw it, he was like, "darn right, even the Americans know what's up" (I guess he's a small fan of that team). A boy got a phone for his birthday which is only priced slightly above some cars, and yes, people do trade cars for phones, so that's quite the birthday present. Then I got elected to help him move over all his games onto his new phone because I'm a "Roblox professor". Williams and I also talked to some people for like, 4 hours straight, so that's how my Portuguese is going. Just kidding, Williams did all the heavy lifting, but I can understand what's going on, so that's cool.

Thanks for the love and support!

Elder Anderson