A Cool Week

Monday, May 12, 2014

Hey everyone,

It was great to talk to all ya'll yesterday, it was great to hear your voices, really funny. This week was a really good week, we had 5 baptisms this week, 4 of them in a massive baptism service, literally two people showed up and wanted to be baptized early, they were marked for another week.  What was really cool was that the water was freezing, again, our water heater really is broken now.  We had 3 old people getting baptized, one of them is almost 88 years old.  The other one is in a wheelchair, and the other two were great.  The old people were throwing themselves in to be baptized, I was super worried that they would change their minds when they felt the water, but it all went well. I have pics but this lan house doesn’t have places to hook up a camera.  The lady in the wheelchair was really cool.  She has trouble walking because of her weight and age.  We had to use three men to carry her to the waters.  She was in agony because her foot is really sensitive and the water was so cold that it hurt.  We baptized her and as we were carrying her up the stairs she smiled and said "Tudo por Deus" which means "Everything for God."  On Saturday we had a couple walk in and ask what they needed to do to get baptized and to baptize their 7 children.  Last Sunday, not yesterday, we had another couple walk in that has been investigating for 8 months, they will get married and baptized too!

My companion and I have both been a little sick because of the change in weather.  But we are doing great.  Last night bishop stuffed us full of bread and water and soda while we were talking and waiting. I was trying to find the other skype account that the family has but couldn’t find it.  We also forgot our skype names and pass words so we had to create another account, that’s why it took a little while to get connected.  This week I was looking through a box of books from our old house and found a book that I am really excited to have "Articles of Faith" by Talmage, I already have heard of this book but now I have it! 

This week we had an experience that was really cool.  We were waiting for lunch one day and decided to visit a less active.  In the bottom of this house lives a man whose name is John, in English.  He is really smart and was once very rich, but he started having panic attacks and lost everything. Now he lives in a house that is poorly lit, damp and badly ventilated.  He has long hair and probably looks like a rocker dude from some band. But we talked to him and convinced him to go to church with us.  I stopped by on Sunday to get him and the family that lives in top of his house tried to stop me from taking him to church, they told him to go back to bed, and that he shouldn't go to church, of course they were very drunk.  But John didn’t listen, he said "I am going!"  They asked him where, "I am going to church" he declared.  And so we arrived at church, he was dressed in a leather jacket, with leather boots, and turned a couple heads when he walked in, but it was so good to have him there and he loved it.  Pray for him that he can get the help that he needs and that we can help him to get baptized. 

This week we had lunch in the house of the second counselor.  His house has some cool fruit, including oranges the size of my head. I took pictures and will send them next week.  He showed us a banana that was purple, I totally thought that it was rotten and hesitantly took a bite, but it was amazing.  He said that it’s a wine banana or something like that.  He has avocados that are huge, a fruit called jaka, mamá and some others, it was really cool, but it’s in the middle of nowhere.  Just think that the next time that we will talk through skype I will have only 7or 8 more months, it’s passing so fast.

Love ya'll and have a great week!

Elder Anderson