This past P-day we visited Angelica and Antonio, and also Joaby and Mara. THey are all super cool people but not really following through with commitments. That night there was something super funny that happened. We were with the ward mission leader, Bergie, and we had gotten off the bus and were walking along a sidewalk, and a motorcycle pulled up and stopped next to us and Bergie took of running, he was super scared, it was pretty funny. It was Wellington, he’s 24, and uses his motorcycle for work, a delivery guy, he talked to us and then Bergie came back, super funny. Tuesday lunch was an hour away, so we walked an hour there and then on the way back it was so hot so we took a bus back, did planning at the church, and worked with Mateus, he was baptized 3 months ago and he has a crazy story which I’ll share later. We visited Deborah and we reviewed what we had taught her and then taught the Plan of Salvation which was super cool and Mateus shared his story and his testimony and it was super awesome. Then we saw Nicey Clebur and Jessica with Bergie and it was super, super awesome. Clebur is the boyfriend of Jessica and Jessica is the daughter of Bergie, our ward mission leader. Jessica believes in the church but she just doesn’t go, and so we are teaching Clebur who is a solid guy and really cool. We invited him to pray about the Book of Mormon right then (he had been reading but hadn’t prayed about it yet), and the went in a different room and prayed then came back and said he felt something really strong and felt that “this is right”, super great. And so he and Jessica need to get married before he can be baptized but he’s a really awesome guy.
Wednesday we worked with Juam Peeva, the DJ that I talked about last week. This whole time I’m thinking “this guy’s got to be a millionaire” but we got to talking and his net worth is 50,000 heyas, about 13,000 dollars and the jaguar is his friend’s. He seems to be more of a big talker instead of a big earner. He’s trying to get his record straight with the church and then prepare for a mission. I hope it works out for him! Then we visited Eliech and had lunch there, she’s a less active with 2 sons, 21 and 18, we would love to try and help them go on missions but a lot of it depends on their mom. We also visited the Venezuelans who are living in Juam Peeva’s old house, pretty cool. Later we visited others with Malcom.
Thursday we had district meeting at our building, super nice. We told our District leader how to get to the church from the bus station and he ended up taking a different route and got lost but eventually found it.
Thursday after district meeting we visited Marcus, he has a baptism date for this Saturday. We will visit him tomorrow to see if he is ready and prepared. I really hope it works out, he’s a super cool kid. We visited the new Venezuelans and walked with them to the church and had an “integration night” with members, investigators, etc. to help everyone get to know everyone. Sister Maclaney spoke about everyone in the ward helping each other out through life. At the church that night I had a cup of water and swung it around and the water stayed in the cup. Everyone thought it was cool. When my companion did it, a kid ran into him, coming from around a corner, right at the end of my companion swinging it around and the water spilled all out on the floor, it was funny.
We ate at the Bishop’s house and showed them my pictures from home, they thought it was cool. The Bishop’s wife saw mom and said “whoa, how is she so skinny after having 7 kids?!” It was pretty funny and someone else saw a picture of you mom and said you look really young and that you look like my girlfriend, not my mom, haha!
We did studying of the language, visited lots of people, had a great big dinner at the Venezuelans family’s house and they are super humble and good people.
Friday I hit 6 months in the mission, time has flew by! It feels like I left the CTM yesterday! Especially this last transfer with Elder Gomez flew by, crazy fast, and also in this transfer we are already in week 4 which has really flown by. So when we got home, I got the ugliest tie I had and put it on a hanger out on our roof, but it didn’t burn well (to celebrate 6 months) so we tried another tie and lit it on fire and my companion sacrificed a deodorant can and it was fun, it turned the tie to black ash.
Saturday we had a lunch with Sister Sue Ellen who helps arrange lunches for us every day with the members, then we visited people with Bergie, the ward mission leader. We taught Everly, a Jehovah’s witness, pretty interesting. We went to visit Adam but he wasn’t there and his dad was there and talked a LOT and super fast and we taught a Restoration lesson to him. Then we taught a lesson to Claudio and Jessica and ate with them (rice and beans and lot of meat), they have 2 giant Rottweilers.
Sunday my companion Elder Lira gave a talk about THe Book of Mormon and President Monson. Then we ate with Ana-ilgi and Alberto, and they didn’t have a ton of food in the house, so they just made rice, beans and eggs, but it was super good. We then talked with Bergie and met Matues and we went to the stake center so my companion could get his patriarchal blessing because he still didn’t have it and it was really special for him. Really great stuff! We then talked about people we are teaching, less actives, and what we can do to help them.
Real quick, the story of Mateus. He is from the area where my companion is from, Manaus. He was a drug trafficker there, totally into that world. His family sent him here to live with his sister to straighten out his life. He actually now lives with our ward mission leader and is now baptized and is doing a whole lot better in his life. He is still a little rough around the edges, but he’s a whole lot better than he was. His testimony is very humble and awesome. Also there is a brother in our ward who lives in another area but has a special calling to come to our ward just to help the ward out. He is incredibly willing to help out. He had a meeting with all the priesthood holders and would point to people and say “You are going to help the missionaries on this day, and you (pointing to someone else) are going to help the missionaries on this day”...He helped plan everything out for us. And the ward mission leader, Bergie, shared with us his story. He used to work in the temple and was crazy poor. He used to only eat banana sandwiches, that was the only thing he could afford to eat, just bananas and bread. Right now he lives in a pretty small house, in the back of a warehouse place, but he does whatever he can do to help us, he’s a super cool guy.
Love you all!
Elder Anderson
He sent tons of pictures which will hopefully be able to be uploaded soon, we've had some technical problems with that!
Captions:
neighborhood Engenho and Panerama from a distance
a pasture in neighborhood Moreira
the veiw from moreira to the main city in our area (a 1 hour walk)
Elder Lira playing the piano
wall art on the side of a bar
the center of Monte Mor
a Baha Bug we saw
the veiw from the center of Monte Mor to Engenho and Panerama
Disctrict Meeting!
a Honda CB750F, very similar to my first bike
Prettiest thing ive seen in a while 
haha
haha
a paper plant in our city
another view of panerama and engenho
paper plant again...
Venezuelan Food! those people are incredible
the results of 2 missionaries, 6 months on a mission, an ugly tie, a match, and a deoderant can! haha
6 months! Elder Lira and I
My comp tried one of my workouts for the first (and probably last) time hahaha
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