Week 20 - 31 January 2011

Opa família!

This week rained every single day for at least half the day or more, and it’s actually pretty chilly too.  I don’t even need a fan at night right now haha.  I don’t really know what kind of season we’re getting into, but I hear that here they have a really hot season, and then a really rainy season, and that’s it haha. 

It was a little difficult this week to find and teach people because of the rain, even though it rains a lot here, the people act like they are scared of it and don’t even come to church activities if it rains just a little.  But we had a baptism planned for last Saturday, for a brother of a member in the ward. His name is Fhulvyo, and he’s the one who called us over in the street and said he wanted to get baptized. We taught him everything and he accepted everything.  So Saturday, we had the
baptismal font all ready and we had people seated ready to watch the baptism, and we actually had an investigator come just to watch the baptismal service, but then it fell through... He wasn´t as prepared as he thought, and he didn’t tell us the whole truth on some of the commandments we taught, so he’s gonna prepare for next Saturday.  So we just sang a hymn and had a message and then told everyone to come back next week. It was a bummer.

Anyways, this week we found a married couple with about 5 kids!  Here in Oriximiná I think only about 5 percent of couples are married..haha.  It’s a struggle to find families here, but we found one!  We’re gonna work with them this week and bring them to church.  The husband accepted the restoration well, and we didn’t have the opportunity to teach the wife, but we’re praying this will work out.  Oh and we actually had 8 investigators come to sacrament meeting with us yesterday.  Not many are prospects for baptism, but one lady showed up with a member family and she’s really interested.  So we’re actually planning on baptizing her with Fhulvyo next Saturday!  That’s the goal we have right now.

Also, there is a young woman in our ward who is deaf, so yesterday she had a little class teaching us Limbras (the equivalent of American Sign Language here is Brasil).  It’s different than ASL, and it was interesting to learn how to say ``tudo bem´´ and ``como você está´´ haha.  Tomorrow at our district meeting, since it’s only the two sisters, Elder Costa, and I, we decided to have one meeting in English!  And I’m going to be the one giving the training because the two sisters probably forgot a lot of English, and I’m the newest American haha.  So that should be pretty fun.  Even Elder Costa is going to try to speak in English the whole time haha.  Oh and next Tuesday we’re going to be heading to Santarém for interviews with Presidente Campos.  So there I will receive a bunch of letters and hopefully a couple packages you guys sent!  I’m not sure what Presidente will bring, but I’m hoping those packages arrived by now.  And I finally bought my own cheap hammock!  So I don’t have to use Elder Costa’s anymore when we take the boat to Santarém.  Well, I think that’s about it.

Amo vocês e obrigado pra todo o amor que vocês mandam pra mim!

Teu Homen Amazônia,

Élder Andrus

 

This is the hammock I bought. It´s supposed to say ``Deus é Fiel´´
(God is Faithful), But instead it says ``DeuZ é Fiel´´ hahaha with a z
instead of an s

 

Here is a foto of Maria e Vandria, my first baptism with Ronan. I
baptized the younger one, Maria.

 

This is a square here in Orixi. Called ``The Square of Missings”Haha,
actually I don’t think it has a straight translation. It’s really pretty
with the sunset...we’ll try to catch the sunset one of these days.

 

Take a look at this spider we found in Repartimento! I´m pretty sure
it´s poisonous haha

 

Big bug haha not quite a butterfly...yeah who knows 

This is the road we take every week to our district meeting. Yep it´s
pretty much the most comfy bus ride i´ve ever taken....haha sike the
drivers are crazy here

 

Another look from the bus