Jejum de Inglês (English Fasting)

THIS WAS THE FASTEST WEEK OF MY LIFE!

If you ever find out you have one month to live, don't come to the MTC because it will last a matter of minutes. Haha, this week was great! Because every day here is basically the same, this week I'll give a brief overview of what happened, and then describe a lot of the cool things I've learned and experienced so far.

The greatest part of this week was our district's Jejum de Inglês (English Fast)! Yesterday, we set a goal to speak only Portuguese all day. It went so well! I spoke less than 25 words in English all day, mostly by accident, and my language skill increased so much. It's the first day in my life that the majority of what I spoke was in a language other than English (besides, of course, when I spoke fluent Baby). The Lord is helping us so much as missionaries because without His help, I don't know how a group of college-age kids could speak only in a foreign language all day after studying it for only three weeks.

Also, the new elders and sisters from Provo in our district our awesome! Elder King and Elder Banz are some of my great friends now, and all the sisters are great too! Sadly, they're splitting our district today because a new 'shipment' of visa waiters came in from Provo, and the Elders and two of the sisters won't be in our district anymore. Oh well.

As always, everything is great—food, Portuguese, district, missionary life, the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm so happy and so grateful! I've been pretty tired this week, but that's what happens when you work hard and wake up at 6:30 every morning.

A bunch of cool stuff from Brazil so far:

There's this soft drink here called Guaraná which is the best soda ever! It's right in between fruit-based drinks like Sprite and the other kind like Root Beer or Coke, and it's awesome. I used to drink like 6 cups a day, but I'm starting to limit myself to one or two because it can't be healthy.

The influence of American culture is huge here! Almost all the Brazilians can talk about the NBA—LeBron, Steph Curry, the Spurs, the Bulls, Hawks, etc.—and NFL, American music and movies, and other sports and things.

Probably 80% of American missionaries went to college for a year first before coming out. I'm glad I didn't; I'm so glad to be here now! It's cool to talk to all of them about BYU. Probably 80% of those 80% went to BYU previously haha.

I love Sunday's here! I've never appreciated the Sabbath day like I have now. It's great to get a break from the regular sitting in class all the time, and there's such a great Spirit throughout the whole day.

During exercise time (the best part of the day haha) we used to play basketball a lot, but now we play volleyball every day. It's way fun! Also, when anyone messes up, in either sport, like shooting an airball or killing the ball out of bounds, we all say 'PECADO!' which is 'sin' in Portuguese hahaha. It's hilarious.

Elder Banz plays golf for BYU, and he won the Utah US Open Qualifier, beating all the pros! It's awesome to talk to him about golf haha.

All the Brazilians are so nice! They're great. I can make them laugh all the time, which is really fun haha.

A good bit of the American missionaries here are from the South. The Atlanta consulate does a good job!

That's all for now! Have a great week!

Elder Anderson

(I, mom, found a picture of the drink Scott was talking about...!)