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

Week 19 - 24 January 2011

Olá Família!

Como vocês estão?  This week was pretty good.  We got a lot of new investigators this week too that seem to be interested.  But still with all of the new people we taught and invited to church, we had no one in sacrament meeting... I’m not sure what it is about these people here in Oriximiná, but they don’t do anything!  We had about 10 people that were going to come to church with us, but when we went to go get them in the morning they either wouldn’t answer, had already
left the house to go somewhere else, or tell us that they didn’t want to go anymore.  We’re not so sure what we need to do to get people to keep commitments. During the week we had a brother of a member in our ward stop us in the street and said ``Hey, I wanna be baptized!´´.  We weren’t really sure what to say back haha but we’re teaching him and he’s accepting everything, it´s actually pretty suspicious.  But we have him on date for baptism this Sunday after church (if he goes). Hopefully he’s being honest with us.  We also taught this other lady who seems to be interested in the church too.  After we taught her the first time, we asked her if she had any more questions after the lesson and she said ``Yeah, I wanna know when you guys will come teach me again´´. Haha  You don’t hear that too often here, so it was a nice change.  But we just really need to help them get to church and keep commitments.  And we have a girl, Missilene, that was supposed to be baptized last Saturday, but she had to go to Ôbidus and stay with her grandpa for a while, so we’re having the Sisters there take her to church and teach her, then maybe we’ll head over there to Ôbidus and baptize her.  We’ll see.

So there are a ton of different types of churches here in Oriximiná and almost all of them teach the members to not talk to ``the Mormons´´ and not to let us in their houses.  We had two people this week tell us that they went to a couple different churches here and the pastor would teach them not to talk to us and everything.  How sad is that é? We meet some cool families here, but once they find out that we’re ``Mormon´´ they say that they can’t accept a message.  We’re always bummed when we find people like that because it’s not like we can do much to persuade them.

Sooo yeah I’m definitely losing weight here.  I can just feel it haha.  Hopefully I’ll gain some of it back when I get transferred somewhere else, but tudo bem.  My clothes seem to be a little looser than they used to be and I can feel the affects of the weight lose a little.  I don’t know how much, but I’m guessing I’m back down to what I used to be before I got to the CTM (bummer). Haha which is like 10 to 12 pounds.  I’ll let you guys know when I find a scale... I don’t know if they even exist here in Orixi haha.

But yesterday at lunch I drank something cool.  The people didn’t have any water for us, so he went in the back yard and cut down a couple coconuts, stuck a straw in it, and we drank ``agua do coco´´. Haha  It’s actually kinda weird, but it was cool to drink out of a coconut!

Love ya´ll!  Valeu!

Teu Filho Amado,

Élder Andrus

Week 18 - 17 January 2011

Oí Família!

Como está todo mundo?  I don’t really have too much to write about this week.  It was just another week here haha.  We didn’t have too much success, but we have 2 good investigators that will hopefully be ready for baptism this coming Saturday, and the one
following. 

We had a district meeting this week in Repartimento with the sisters, Sister Beery and Sister Davis.  They made brownies :) hahe  We always get a special treat. We have our district meeting in the town, Repartimento, because it’s about in the middle between Oriximiná and Ôbidus.  So we have to take a 1 and a half hour bus ride there.  And usually it’s a decent bus, but this time we had a really, really old one... so we had to go the whole way standing haha. 

Everyone up here in Northern Brasil sleeps in a hammock.  So this week I decided to try and be more like a Brazilian and start sleeping in a hammock!  It definitely takes some getting used to, but I think it’s cool.  My back sure was suffering this week because of it, but I’m already starting to get used to it.  I don’t have one for myself yet, but there is a young woman in our ward that makes and customizes hammocks.  I made a design and everything, and she’s gonna start making a hammock for both Elder Costa and I.  It’ll probably be a while until she’s done, but I have a feeling it’s gonna be super sweet.

Oh, and the other day, I reached Mosiah in the Book of Mormon in Portuguese!  I think it was President Hinckley who gave us a promise that if we read the Book of Mormon in a different language, that we will be fluent and able to speak it.  So I have a plan to finish it within a few months. 

Sorry this email wasn’t too long and detailed, but not too much really happened this week!  The ward here seems to be getting better, and we have a new missionary ward leader who is a returned missionary.  So I think things are getting better in that aspect.

Love you all dearly!  Obrigado por tudo e tenham um bom dia hoje!

Com Amor do Amazonas,
Élder Andrus

 

Pretty pic from district meeting

 

Yeah those are all bugs..haha

 

This is açai! It´s from a fruit here in the Amazon. We don´t have much
of it here in Orixi but people in Belem have tons. It´s odd...haha you
have to put like 3 spoons full of sugar in one glass to make it taste
good. Haha.

 

Sister Davis, Sister Beery, Elder Costa, and me

 

King of the Amazon!

 

Elder Costa e eu

Week 17 - 10 January 2011

Olá família!

So this week we made a division with the zone leaders who are in Santarém.  So in order to make one division, the zone leaders had to take a boat here to Oriximiná in the morning and meet up with us at about 6 pm.  Then one of the Elders, Elder Lacerda, and I  took a boat back to Santarém that night at 9 pm, slept on a hammock throughout the night, and arrived there at about 6 in the morning, while Elder Costa and the other elder, Elder Raphael, stayed in Oriximiná.  We had a district meeting there in Santarém, then worked that day and slept at the home of the zone leaders.  Then that night, Elders Costa and Elder Raphael took a boat to Santarém to meet up with us that morning, just so Elder Costa and I could take another boat back to Oriximiná at 8:30 in the morning.  Man, it was a lot of work to just make one division.  So we arrived back in Orixi at about 3 pm, dead tired and had not eaten for about 24 hours...rough day haha.  But we both learned a lot from going out and working with the zone leaders. Haha and while I was in Santarém, we totally taught a kid about 16 years old that looked just like the actor who plays Jacob Black in Twilight. hahaha  Just thought I’d throw that out there.  Oh, and no, I didn’t get a picture with him haha.

So the next day after, since we were behind in lessons for the cause of the division in Santarém, we went on splits with two young men in our ward, one who is actually leaving this Wednesday to serve a mission down in southern Brasil.  This day was particularly tough for me because since I was with someone who didn’t have any experience as a missionary, I had to be the senior companion for the day.  And since I’ve only been here 1 month and a half, it was really pushing my limits.  It was really tough and made me realize how much harder I need to work in order to be able to become better.  Although, I can definitely tell I’m improving since when I first arrived because when I was at a ward activity in Santarém during our division, the members thought I was lying when I told them I’ve only been here for a month and a half.  I think they were being nice haha.  But also when we went on splits here, we passed by the house of the aunt of the boy I was with to see if she was interested in hearing a message (she wasn’t), but some girl there asked the aunt if I spoke Portuguese already, and instead of the normal answer, “he does just a little” or something, she answered, “yeah he already speaks Portuguese.”  So I can see improvement, maybe not as fast as I’d like, but I think it’s coming.

I realized kind of how to compare serving in Oriximiná with Elder Costa as a companion with something that you can understand.  I think that it´s kind of like a foreigner coming to serve in the USA, and after 2 months in the MTC, serving in the New England area with a companion from Mississippi haha.  But it’s good; I’m definitely learning lots in my first area I probably wouldn’t have learned in another area.

With all of the traveling this week and everything, and on top of that we had a zone fast, Elder Costa and I were completely dead with lack of sleep and nutrition this week. We’re doing better today, but this was a really needed p-day.  Hopefully we’ll be able to rest and be all set and ready to go to work tomorrow.  Even with all of this, we found a couple good investigators this week.  Oriximiná is a tough area to find people who really want to learn about the gospel and be baptized, but hopefully we found a couple - one girl, and a man with a family. 

Oh and just a curiosity, is my plaque up at the church building?  I don’t know why I thought of that, but it would be cool to see what it looks like or something haha.  Oh and one more thing, I need my account number for my checking account.  I’m trying to put some money in the account, and Elder Costa and I are trying to figure out how the bank here works.  So that would be great.

I think that’s about all for this week.  Love you all!  Obrigado pelo apoio e tudo!  Valeu!

Com Amor do Amazonas,

Élder Andrus

 

Morning in Santarém when we woke up from the boat ride

 

The Amazon!

 

The blazing sun

 

See the change in colors of the water? Here in Santarém is where 2 rivers, Rio Tropajós and Rio Amazonas join together. The dirty brown water is from Rio Tropajós and the blue water is from Rio Amazonas. It´s pretty sweet.

 

A cow sort of thing in the back of the house of the zone leaders in Santarém. I don´t really know what it is haha

 

It´s pretty sandy in Santarém. The word for sand is areia, so everyone calls Santarém, Sant-areia. Haha.

 

Another pic of Santarém 

Week 16 - 3 January 2011

Olá Família!

This week was pretty tough too.  I’m coming to realize that Oriximiná is a pretty tough place to do missionary work.  In Brasil, they have something called Carnival, which is where they have a lot of partying and craziness, basically.  It’s in February, but for some reason in Oriximiná it starts at the beginning of January …haha  This town is like their own little world.  They do things differently here and the way they want haha.  But yeah, with New Years and the beginning of Carnival, there is a lot of craziness in the streets here, and it’s really hard to find people to teach.  Everyone is either drunk, doesn’t like the missionaries, or is already a member haha.  We’ve seen multiple people passed out in the middle of the road, and there have been a couple fights.  And now that I’m kind of starting to understand a tad more, I’m realizing that a lot of people here don’t like us haha.  A lot of people tease us and ask if we want coffee because everyone knows we don’t drink it.  And as crazy as it sounds, there was a parrot perched on a fence of a house that said, “vem ca, quer café?” which means “come here, want coffee?”  Haha  Oh man, that was funny.  I don’t know how it knew to say that, but it did. Haha. 

So for New Years, our ward had a party and dance at the church.  Remember when I said the members didn’t help much with activities?  Well, I’m not really sure what happened, but now they are doing like everything.  So they put on a cool dance and white elephant gift exchange and stuff.  Lots of people showed up, and it was good for the ward, I think. Also, we met a man on his motorcycle who wasn’t a member but knew some Elders in São Paulo, and he could speak English!  He showed up for the dance activity, and we talked a little there.  He would talk in English, and I would respond in Portuguese haha. But he taught himself, it was cool.  One thing he said to me right before we had to head home was that “it’s not so hard.”  It gave me a little confidence booster with the  language.  But another thing that I realized is that I really took for granted being able to talk without even thinking too much back home. Haha  When something came to my mind I would just say it, but here I can’t quite do that.  So lately Elder Costa and I thought of a great idea to boost my growth with the language.  I started sleeping with my dictionary! Haha  One, because I don’t have a pillow or anything to snuggle with haha, and two, we’re hoping that I will soak up some of the words during the night.  We’ll see if it works J  Elder Costa is predicting that it’ll make me fluent in just 2 weeks haha.

So I translated your latest letters I received through missionties here.  The one from mamãe e papai was surprisingly pretty easy, but the one I got from Rio is super hard haha.  She used a lot of expressions and little words that I noticed we use in English that can’t be translated very easily to Portuguese.  Oh and this is for Dad, if you thought it was hard to remember names in English, you should try here in Brasil in Portuguese!  Oh man, they have the craziest names, and it is so hard to remember or even understand them haha.  Elder Costa even had a hard time.  He says that the names up here are extremely unusual compared to other places in Brasil.  Well tonight I’m going to take a boat to Santarém to do a division with the Zone Leaders then return on Wednesday.  Divisions in our zone are really complicated because we have to take a 10-hour boat ride one way just to do one division haha.

But love you guys!  Estou preserverando ainda, então não se preocupam.

Com Amor do Amazonas,
Élder Andrus

 

Flippin huge thing...I don´t even know

We took this boat thing back to Orixi from Santarém instead of that
big boat thing. It´s way more cheque and faster. Called a lancha :)

 

View of Orixi from the lancha

 

A cool house on the Amazon

Week 15 - 27 December 2010

Oí Familía e Todo Mundo!

It sure was great to talk to you guys on Christmas!  It was a bummer that we couldn’t get Skype or anything to work here in Oriximiná.  But I’m glad we found a way to use a phone.  It was weird to speak in English, not gonna lie!  And to listen to English.  I’ve basically gone 6 straight weeks here without hearing any English at all, so it was a nice break haha.  The transfer just ended, and Elder Costa and I are sticking around here in Oriximiná.  Lots of changes occurred actually - our zone is gonna change quite a bit.  Sister missionaries are transferring to Òbidus and will be in our district - that means brownies and cookies every district meeting :) haha

This Christmas was pretty stressful with all of the confusion and everything here, and with nothing working, but it was good.  A little different than back in the states, but still good!  It was about 90 degrees here with rain haha.  Our baptism went smoothly though! No better day than to get baptized than on Christmas!  His name is Faed, and he’s 11 years old.  His brother, Fabricio, baptized him.  Fabricio is a member who is going on a mission in about a year.  Then right after the baptism, we had our Christmas Party that was actually really good.  Remember how I said we have to do a lot for our activities? Well, the members did everything, and they seem to be doing a lot more activities now, or at least planning a lot more.  Papaí Noel showed up there at the church building and everything so the kids loved it haha.

Like I told you guys, we had a Christmas Zone Conference in Santarém on Thursday, which was cool.  It was with President and Sister Campos who came from Belém.  We got to go to a beach nearby and play soccer on the beach and go in the water - all with the mission president haha.  It was fun.  And at the conference we received all of the packages and letters from the mission home.  So I got your 3 packages and then 8
letters haha.  Everyone was jealous and said it was only because I was new, which is probably true haha.  I will most likely only get letters from the mission home whenever I go to Santarém for some sort of zone activity because they don’t send it all the way out here where I am.  It’s best if people send letters to the mission home because I never know when I’ll be transferred, but you guys can continue to send them here to Oriximiná because I’ll let you guys know when I’m transferred. 

I was happy to hear that more people from our stake are coming to Brasil!  I’m excited to be able to talk with Nate, Ethan, and Heather in 2 years.  Let Nate know that I’m proud of him and he’s gonna love it.  Also it would be cool to get his email or someway to contact him,  Thanks! 

Brasil is by far the best place to serve the Lord.  I learned something in the CTM – “there are only two kinds of missionaries; the ones who served in Brasil, and the ones who wished that they served in Brasil.”  Haha  Well, thanks for all your support, and I hope you had a Merry Christmas and will have a Happy New Year!  Boas festas la em casa e obrigado por tudo!

Com Amor,
Èlder Andrus

 

Papai Noel!

 

The ward choir

 

My Christmas tree and presents :)

 

Faed, the baptism on Christmas

 

Blurry. Elder Costa says it´s just the Holy Ghost haha

 

The beach in Santarém

 

Me at the beach

 

Pres, Sis, e eu

 

Elder Shepard on the left, and elder Mematoh...or something in the
middle. Haha He´s funny

 

Elder Costa e eu

 

From left to right: Síster Beery, Síster Davis, Síster Campos, Síster Leite, e Síster Selata

Week 14 - 20 December 2010

Feliz Natal Todo Mundo!

This week was kind of a bummer too.  We taught a bunch of good lessons this week and worked hard, and we invited probably about 12 or 13 investigators to come to church. About 10 of them said they would come for sure, so as we waited at the door and searched for them; none showed up... It was a bummer.  I’m not quite sure what we need to do, but the people here seem to have a little problem with keeping commitments.  Elder Costa always seems to be complaining about things like this because they have been happening a lot lately haha, and I kinda make fun of him a little and call him a complainer haha. 

So, when we were walking to a recent convert’s house really, really far away, we contacted this couple walking on the street, and it was kinda strange.  They were Brazilian, and yet even I spoke more Portuguese then them. haha  Elder Costa said that they were a kind of Indian people here and spoke their own dialect and not Portuguese.

During lunch one day at a member’s house, we ate with a member and a couple young women and this girl that isn’t a member. This non-member girl always laughs at me for some reason because I’m American and don’t understand what she says, and so after lunch, I began to give a little scripture and thought.  During my message, she starts laughing at my Portuguese...literally out loud.  Not gonna lie, it was pretty embarrassing and discouraging, but I forgave her haha.  Hopefully we can go teach her again so I can say something and have the spirit touch her without laughing.

The weather over the past few days has actually been kind of nice and cool.  And when I say cool, I mean it was only like 85 degrees out instead of 105 haha, but I liked it.  The people here thought it was freezing cold, but Elder and I enjoyed it.  It is pretty odd having Christmas time here where it has summer weather...it doesn’t really feel like Christmas at all haha, but the people still put up lights and trees.

So the people here and the culture is a tad bit different.  Elder and I were outside the Bishop’s house waiting for him to come home, and the daughter of the bishop, about 5 years old, is out there trying to play with us.  Then out of nowhere she says she has to go to the bathroom, and goes right there in her yard...haha pretty strange.  Also, this week we cleaned out the old house that the Elders used to live in here, and man was it dirty. But there was a ton of stuff in there that we brought back to our place like 2 more tables, shoe polishing kits, and a ton of other material.

On Wednesday, we’re going to head off the Santarém for a Christmas Zone Conference and return on Friday, the 24th.  Then celebrate Christmas at a member’s house.  Hopefully there are lots of goodies there :)   Anyway, that’s about it.  Love you all and thanks for everything!

Com Amor,

Elder Andrus

 

Deizson, left on o mission a couple weeks ago

 

We thought this goat was a dog at first haha

 

View of the Amazon

 

I´m already starting to get a sweet missionary tan line...just imagine in two years aha

 

Some nice free bread from the bakery at the end of a nice sweaty day

 

My new friend I found at the old missionary house here. I named it Ituzinho haha 

 

I finally got my own desk!

 

Nice and sweaty after a hair cut

 

O Livro de Mórmon!

 

A little bird outside our window

 

 

Pres and Sis. Campos!

 

Food at the stake president´s house in Santarém for our Christmas Conference

 

On the way to Santarém in a hammock on a boat