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