Mata

Monday, September 16, 2013

Hey,

So this week was our turn out of the two sets in our area to travel.  I was in another area this entire week and did my first 24 hr exchange.  We went to the furthest part of the mission called Juquitiba.  Part of it is mata, jungle. We walked for thirty min to get to a family and encountered a bull and a couple of horses.

Mata (jungle) in Juquitiba

Will send pics.  Also had chá, tea, not actual tea though. Here only black tea is not allowed.  It was kind of minty and lemony, but it wasn’t tea like we think, so don’t worry. This week we had stake conference and got a new stake president.  We also finally had our two baptisms!  They

finally made it to church.  Last week the car was being used by the father for work.  But they came and were baptized.  We have some investigators that are amazing and are preparing for baptism in October I think.  The language is coming great.  I can understand the majority of what people say depending of the person.  Everyone says that my language is really good for the amount of time I have been here. 

As to your question about what is above our house,  it’s three other houses. We are at the bottom of a hill and there are three other houses above us. Ours is the very bottom.  A couple cool/strange things here.  For candy they like to eat Halls cough drops.  For some reason they really like these and sell them at candy stands.  Members will come up and say "you want a Halls?"  It’s actually good after you try a couple.  Another cool thing: here instead of using the nos, (we), form of the verbs, a lot of the time they will use "a gente", (the people).  So the first time I heard it was from my companion and he was doing a street contact and said "Você já conheci missionarios como a gente?" which means literally: do you already know missionaries like the people?  I was really confused and couldn´t figure out what he had said so I asked and he said that it means us.  So what he really said was "do you already know missionaries like us?"  It’s nice because everyone uses it and it means one less conjugation to worry about.

Also if you get the chance look up "The Character of Christ". It is a talk by Elder Bednar at the MTC (Missionary Training Center) and it is amazing.  Watch it for family night or something, will change your life.  Thanks for the letters and the pictures.  Happy birthday Meg, have fun at the dance.  Have a good week of school. It was great to hear from ya’ll, have a great week.  Pray that my talk on preaching the gospel will go good!

da mata do brasil (from the jungle of Brazil)

Elder Anderson