Hey! It’s a lot easier for me to send one general email for you and Dad - just because we have no time here to email basically. Tell Dad sorry for making his email so short but that this one is for both of you :)
So at the beginning of the week, this one Brazilian elder wrote my name in my scriptures. He has the best handwriting ever and he’s been training for like 2 years or something. I’ll send you guys a picture once I get out in the field and have time to. It’s pretty amazing. So as I said, my companion is Elder Cook, but this week we got a new elder, Elder Lewis from Spring City, Utah. So now we have a trio companionship going on. Every Wednesday we have pizza night here, and it’s pretty weird pizza. The weirdest (and actually the best pizza here) is the banana chocolate pizza. It’s soooo good. So my teachers are Irmao Zamboni and Irmao Waskow. They are both Brazilian but Irmao Waskow has a polish name. Haha Irmao Waskow is so funny. He doesn’t speak English very well so we help him out a lot. He told us that when he was growing up he owned a horse that he named “stupid” and a dog that he named “poopy.” Oh, and he rides a motorcycle here in Sao Paulo, and the other day he told us he hit a car and broke off his mirror. But he was so chill about it, and he said a lot of motorcyclists get mad and kick car mirrors off. Haha He’s hilarious.
So one thing that really made my week here was when Irmao Zamboni took me out of class to talk to me. He’s been in the missionary business for about 5 years, and he told me that I was one of the best missionaries he’s met. I was just in awe, but he said that I was hard working and he could just tell. Then when we were walking back to the room, he told me that if he had a son, he would want him to be like me. It was an honor to hear all of this from him and really just made me want to work even harder.
So I had a funny experience last Friday. We were sweeping outside on the sidewalk for service when this random Brazilian lady came up to me and started talking to me in Portuguese. She was talking so fast - I had no idea what she was saying. Then after like a whole minute, she asked me a question and I just looked at her. Then she got mad and started walking away. I felt bad and I wanted to say sorry to her. But instead of saying the word sorry in Portuguese (desculpe), I yelled thank you (obrigado). Hahaha! My comps were laughing so hard. It was really funny, but it made me really want to learn the language faster so I can actually talk to people.
So some of my Brazilian friends here keep telling me I look like the singer in a band called Mcfly. I have no idea who that is but that’s my new nickname. I love these Brazilians - they are hilarious. I got your letters today from you, Dad, and Janna. Thanks so much. I love getting mail. Oh another thing is that these Brazilians taught us a new way to tie a tie. It’s called the cobra. It looks way cool, and I’ll send pics of it sometime. And I’ll have to show Dad when I get home. Sorry if these emails are unorganized and such, but the keyboards here are really weird, and they won’t let us use the enter button on the email. So it ends up just being a huge paragraph.
Well the language is going great, and I’m starting to pick it up. We are starting to teach and do almost everything in Portuguese so we’ll see how this next week goes. I’m doing great out here so don’t worry about me. The gospel is great and the CTM is really preparing me to teach what I know to others who need it. I love you guys and thanks for all of the support. You’re the best.
Love,
Elder Andrus
