Burning a Tie

Burning the tie

 

Haircut by E. Zanuttini

  

Eating healthy (Avocados in America are way better)

Estamos na dentista

Respecting missionary tradition, I burned a tie on Friday to celebrate 6 months in the mission, Rapaz, esta missao ta voando! Man it’s been a great half of a year. Living in Brazil, learning Portuguese, and teaching the restored gospel have definitely made this the most eventful and exciting 6 months of my life! It’s crazy how fast it’s going! Thankfully, I didn’t burn the house down.

Last week I was feeling sick. The beginning of this week was even worse. Tuesday I could hardly make it walking around, and that night Elder Zanuttini dropped me off at a members’ house and visited all our appointments with Pedro, who leaves for his mission in just over a week. We’ve been teaching a lot with him lately; he’ll be a great missionary in Sao Paulo North. I just slept as soon as I laid down and two and a half hours later, they returned, we went home, and I went to sleep. I started getting better after that day—the extra rest was a blessing—and now I’m 100%. I’m so grateful to be feeling and working normally again!

The road leading up to where we live is really dark and empty. It was only a matter of time, before two guys on a motorcycle drove up out of the dark and assaulted us. Saturday night that happened. We were just about to enter the darkest part of the road when a single headlight lit up and sped towards us. I already knew what it was. I put my hands up automatically—it’s habit now—while E. Zanuttini took off running. I thought about doing the same but just stayed put. Patted me down, found my phone, took it out of my pocket as I tried to just give them my money ($10 only), ended up taking my whole bag, and left. Ran down through the dark part of the road, around the corner, and found E. Zanuttini there hiding with some of our nearby neighbors. Crazy stuff.

I don’t like getting robbed. In my bag I had a Book of Mormon (they can learn about the gospel and not stealing, woohoo!), pamphlets for teaching, Our Search of Happiness (which I just started reading), my Portuguese-English dictionary, Portuguese verb card, missionary handbook, mission debit card, health card, and 10 reais. Thankfully it’s all replaceable. Also a huge blessing is that I forgot my umbrella at lunch and so it wasn’t in my bag! It’s really important right now since it’s raining almost every day. Don’t get robbed, but if you do, be grateful!

Now, I’ve had 3 baptisms and 3 assaults here. However, those numbers should never be the same again. We’re probably going to move to a safer house soon, and we’re preparing a big reuniao baptismal (don’t know the best way to say that in English) for next Saturday!

We should have 4 baptisms dia 23! Pedro, whom we found in front of his house a week or two ago, was praying for guidance from God only a few minutes before we talked to him and taught him the first lesson. He likes church, stopped smoking in 3 days, and is excited for his baptism! Two weeks ago I made a road contact with Jose Neto. The next day we visited and taught him and his mom, Ducelene. They came to church the next day and felt a sense of peace there that they said they had never felt in another church. We’ve been teaching them frequently with members and Ducelene will be baptized Saturday! Jose Neto should be soon too; we can’t teach him as much because he works late. Also, yesterday we visited a less-active family with two daughters old enough, ready and excited to be baptized Saturday as well! We have a lot of work to do to prepare all of this and so it’ll be a good, busy week!

I’m so glad I have another year and a half to serve here in Brasil. It’s dangerous and busy and awesome! I do, however, miss America—especially lately good American food! With new responsibilities, I have even less time to email you all than before, and while my replies are short, I appreciate every one of your emails! Thank you all for being great group of support from the USA! Tenha uma boa semana! Tchau!

Elder Anderson