Week 53 - 19 September 2011 Baptism

Olá Família! Como vocês estão? Tranqüilo? Que bom :) 

This week was a pretty good week for us. Just like last week, it was draining. We ended up walking a ton and having a ton of appointments fall through. If only we had a nice air conditioned car like Rio has in California...haha jk. But there sure is a lot of walking in the hot sun. But after one year already, I’ll be able to tough out the next year easy. My feet aren’t suffering as much as I thought they would too, so that´s good!

Although a lot of things fell through throughout the week, we had a baptism on Saturday that turned out really well. He’s the little brother of our latest baptism.  They are good kids and are sticking firm in the church. One of them already has the priesthood and comes to church with a shirt and tie and everything.  It’s really cool seeing the change in people and their progress.

I’m not sure if I already mentioned to you guys about some plans that we have to go to a beach city around here called Salinas, but we have plans to go there this week to baptize 5 people who are ready there. They accepted to be baptized this Saturday, so our plans are to go there on Thursday for me to interview them and everything, then we’d go back on Saturday to perform the baptism service there. Then on Sunday, they will have a caravan thing that will bring them to church here in Capanema for them to attend church here and be confirmed at sacrament meeting here. Sounds perfect, doesn’t it?  My companion and I are really excited to have a good week and be able to go there to help the people there.  I’ll let you guys know this next week how it went, tá bom? :)

Besides this, I’m all good here. Good of health and everything.  Stay safe aí and have a good week!

Élder Andrus

 

Burned my shirt after one year

Week 52 - 12 September 2011 One Year on the Mission!

Hey there back home! Do you guys know what this week is? It’s the week where I make one year on the mission! Man it’s passing by pretty quick, not gonna lie. I feel weird cuz I can already like see the mountain peak of the mission, and yet it feels like I got here yesterday. Haha  It’s a weird feeling knowing I already used up half my time here in Brasil already.

As for this last week, it was a real tiresome week with a lot of work, but it was good. We had a baptism planned for Saturday of a 13 year old kid named Tiago, but he wasn’t all the way prepared and we had to push it up for this next week. But he’s excited about it. He’s the brother of Patrique, the boy that we baptized about 2 weeks ago. We also have some other good investigators here that are preparing to be baptized this month too. A 12 year old boy named Késsio who is a referral from a member who is helping us teach him. Irmã Eliene is helping us with him, and he’s a real good kid and is really willing to follow the gospel. He has a date for the 24th of this month to be baptized.  I’m excited for him. We also are teaching a family of a man named Jaimilson. He has 2 brothers that are all in a pop-rock band (which is pretty legit) and his wife too who we’re teaching. They are all really smart and like us a lot. They haven’t gone to church yet, but are also a really willing family to follow the teachings of the gospel.  I can’t wait to be able to see them go to church and get baptized.

This week we had to travel some more too. On Saturday we spent the whole day basically traveling around to do baptismal interviews. We first had to go to Bragança in the morning before lunch, then return to Capanema to eat lunch, then head out to Castanhal to do another, then we had to return again back here to teach Késsio at 8:00. Yeah it was a big rush haha but I’m liking the traveling here. It just isn’t so fun when we get stuck in a little van, standing, with about 20 people, and without air conditioning haha.  But it’s all worth it in the end.

Well that was my week.  I’m all good here so don’t worry about a thing :)  Love you all!

Élder Andrus

Me and my companion

Week 51 - 5 September 2011 Traveling this Week

Hey ya´ll!

So my new companion is Elder Pereira, and he’s from the state of São Paulo.  He’s pretty cool, and we seem to be getting along well too, so that’s good.  I’m glad I haven’t gotten a bad comp yet haha.  Let’s just hope it stays that way huh haha. 

So last week for the transfer, I had to take Elder Farias to Castanhal for him to go to Belém, but I stayed in Castanhal with another Elder waiting for our comps.  We woke up and everything normal, and they said they’d get back around noon, but ended up staying there waiting for them until 6 oclock! haha.  It was weird not having anything to do and to just wait for like the whole day.  But then we headed to Capanema that same night and got there around 9.  Then on Wednesday, I had to head to Belém for a leadership meeting we had on Thursday with President Campos.  It was for the leaders of the mish and was extremely edifying.  Then we headed back to Castanhal that night, slept there, then headed back to Capanema.  Then on Saturday, we had to travel to Castanhal again for me to interview a young woman that was being baptized.  It was really cool to be able to do my first baptismal interview.  But then, we headed back to Capanema again and got there at about 8 at night.  Yeah this week was jam packed of trips from here to there, so it was tough to actually do work in our area.  But on Sunday we worked a lot and received 3 references too, one of which will be baptized this next week.  We’re also starting to plan more our trip to the beach city, Salinas, and to bring all the investigators from there to here to be baptized.  I’m super excited to be able to do that.  I can’t wait.  Hopefully we’ll  be able to do that this next coming week.

Besides this, there are a lot more things to do as a district leader here.  But I’m liking it a lot.  The sisters in my district are really cool and don’t cause any problems, and they work hard, so I’m surely grateful for that.  But I like the work as a district leader.  It keeps me a lot more focused on the work than on other things.  Also it gives me a lot more responsibility in the companionship and the zone.

Well, that’s about it, I think…I hope I’m not forgetting anything.

Love you guys!  Can’t wait for the packages!

Élder Andrus