19

Bom dia 19!

MINHA CAIXA!!!!

That moment when you realize you are really Neopolitan ice cream...

Só felicidade! Thank you tons!!!

Nossa! I’m one year older! I think this was the first time I’ve actually felt older on my birthday. Maybe living out of the continent for 9 months is the cause.

So trabalho duro aqui! Only hard work here! This week went by really fast. I feel like last P-Day was yesterday. After 7 days of hard work we’ve narrowed down our teaching group to people that are sincerely interested, started inviting everyone to be baptized in the first lesson, and met our contact goal of 251 (this took about a whole Sunday of pure contacting haha). Because I forgot to put on sunscreen yesterday and we were in the road all day, I got way sunburned hahahaooww!

Since we can only read letters on P-Day, I just read all of your awesome birthday cards! Man I’m so happy! Haha, it’s so great to hear from family and friends—it reminds me that I actually have an entire life outside of Brazil. Thanks so, so, so much for all of your endless love, prayers, and support. They are felt DEMAIS!

Early in my mission, if someone passed by in the road listening to music, I wouldn’t talk to them, not wanting to interrupt. Eventually I realized that undoubtedly sharing the restored gospel is way more important than listening to music, so now I talk to people with headphones too—with miraculous results! The other day I saw a guy listening to music in the road, and I stopped to talk to him. After teaching him (Mateus) the first time, he prayed about the message, felt strongly that it was true, and is excited to be baptized this month! He loved the church meeting yesterday and wants to introduce his family to us as well. Woohoo!

A cool experience this week: one night we were at a bus stop and talked to a guy who was drinking. He said he and his wife had separated the day before. I felt like I should give him a Book of Mormon, but I didn’t want to because he lived in another city so we wouldn’t be able to visit him and we only had a few left. A thought came into my head: “Voce acha que nao conheco meus filhos?” (You think I don’t know my children?). Oh man, I realized Heavenly Father knew that man and his needs way better than I did. I gave him a Book of Mormon and he thanked us. He left it or forgot it at the bus stop, and someone we were teaching passed by and happened to see it. We picked it up from him later. I learned I need to trust always in spiritual promptings! Maybe he didn’t actually need it, I just needed to learn that lesson.

Suco do ceu! We’re teaching an awesome family—Ze Antonio and Livia. We had a family home evening with them Wednesday and Livia made strawberry juice. IT’S SO GOOD! Why don’t we have this in America? Maybe I shouldn’t ‘reclamar’. Although the USA lacks quite a few fruits and drinks, I’d much rather live there.

I made a contact with an American this week. She’s here teaching English. I guess I’m not the only on in the city!  Haha.

We had three youth investigators at church on Sunday, it was great!!

Man this was a good birthday week. Thanks again guys! Also, at an activity we had with the members on Friday (of the small group here, two have their birthday day 8, and I day 7 haha) Paula, a member we found a while ago, gave me a sweet tie! There’s not much missionaries like more than ties hahaha. I was grateful!

Also this week, we had a good zone meeting in Uberaba. It was good. We also got vaccinated against the swine flu. That was good too. It was a great, full week! I love you guys! Thanks for all the birthday wishes!

Elder Anderson