Passing the Month Mark

First, a few pictures......

​Probably the best lunch I've made so far! The equivalent of about $3.20.

​Enjoy your cars, bikes, and planes; I've been walking 10 miles a day for 3 weeks on these!

​The beautiful and unending Goiânia skyline

Three days ago I hit one month in the field! It feels like it’s been about a month since the CTM, so it hasn’t gone by too fast, but the speed of each week is getting faster and faster. I feel like last P-Day was only three or four days ago, and next week, it will be the end of the transfer already! Wow.

Like the CTM, every day here is so similar they all blend together, and it’s hard to remember what happened this week haha. Right after emailing last week, we got on a bus to Ipianga for a Zone P-Day and almoso (lunch). It was way fun! We played some games and ate some food, and it doesn’t get much better than that!

Missionary work was good this week. Walter (in Portuguese, Pronounced Valter), the non-member nephew of Joaquim who moved into the ward a few weeks ago, is going to be baptized this week! He’s receptive to everything we teach and ready to join the church. Bruna has been our best investigator so far, I think, and this week her fiancé came back from Portugal. Clayton is an even stronger investigator! While in Portugal he had most of the missionary lessons, he already has a strong and powerful testimony of the church and The Book of Mormon, and he studies the Bible, all the scriptures, and even conference talks, often. As soon as he and Bruna get married, they’ll get baptized and be awesome members! Cicero and Maria are another couple that are progressing well. They were references from the ward mission leader, Sebastiao, and are really interested and brought their family to church yesterday. Hopefully they’ll get married and baptized soon as well! We had 18 investigators at church this week! It was awesome! Most of them were friends and relatives of members. It was well more than the first four weeks combined! Blessings!

Portugues esta melhorando! Portuguese is getting better! I understand about 40-60% now, sometimes more, and speaking it is becoming way more normal. I tried speaking some English to Elder Meireles the other night, and it was so weird! My mouth is used to the sounds and words of Portuguese, and so I’m already losing my English haha. Elder Meireles said he knew on American missionary who, about a year and a half in, had forgotten almost completely how to speak English! I’ll be sure to keep mine up, so I don’t lost it entirely haha.

Here are some of the annoying things about Brasil haha:

Roaches

They’re everywhere man. Elder Meireles and I killed 3 or 4 giant ones today. He used aerosol cologne and a flaming piece of paper to torch a few of them hahaha. I didn’t approve of that method, but it was hilarious. Luckily, (or maybe unluckily since this is a pretty serious safety hazard) there’s no fire alarms, so we didn’t set off any alarms or bells. Also, if there ever were to be a roach Olympics (I would actually like this. They would all congregate in one place, and we could kill them all!), Brazil would be a super fusion of Jamaica and Kenya, winning all the track events. Seriously, the roaches are way fast and run forever here hahaha.

Ants

They’re everywhere man. Every time I kill 10, 50 more pop out of the wall. I’ve just gotten used to them. Keeping my desk all clean has really helped to avoid them, as well as frequently taking out the trash and washing dishes daily.

Old Ladies

They’re everywhere man. Thus, we contact them on the street often and invite them to church. They usually say what translates to something like “If God wills it, I’ll go.” No! That’s not how it works! God has given you your agency so you can choose to go to church! He’s not going to give you a sign or drag you there! You show your faith by acting on it and going to church! Hahaha, oh man.

Unmarried people

Yes, following the established pattern and previous information in this post, they’re everywhere too man. It’s just the culture of Brazil. So, quite often we have to focus on marriage, then baptism, since if a couple lives together outside marriage, they can’t yet be baptized. Anyway, it’s a conquerable hurdle!

I hope you guys are enjoying the blog, America, and life! Amo voces!

Elder Anderson