Week 18

So this week I was transferred out of Carazinho and now I´m in Vera Cruz! This is the smallest and quietest town I´ve passed through so far. It only has a small branch. It´s really hard to find people walking on the streets too. But I´m now living in the only apartment in the whole mission with air conditioning! Granted it´s only for one room and it´s a little slow but it´s air conditioning nonetheless. My companion is Elder Garcia from Bolivia, and he´s been out serving for 11 months. He´s really cool and super friendly as hispanics are. He´s the first non-American companion I´ve had so far. It´s nice because he knows very little English so I´m finally forced to speak Portuguese. I´ve already seen a leap in my progress of learning the language.

Unfortunately this week I was plagued with a mix between a fever and a cold, so I had to stay home a few days due to some pains and lack of strength. On New Year´s Eve we got to stay out a little later, so we spent the evening with a member family that lives right next to us. Brazilians love New Year, they go crazy with their fireworks. The fireworks here are quite different than the ones in the States, while in the States it´s more about color, here it´s more about sound. They sure have perfected their fireworks to be loud holy cow.

Yesterday it was my opportunity to play the piano for sacrament meeting. Even though I made numerous mistakes, I´m afraid I´ve doomed myself to playing every Sunday until I´m transferred! I´m not sure if I should be thankful or not for having practiced all those years at home. This branch is sure thanking my Mom for that.

The best part of the week was getting to know our investigators. There are two young men in their 20´s that we hope to baptize in the coming weeks. Both of them are so ready too. João is 21 and newly married to his catholic wife. He is unbelievably intelligent about the gospel and remembers every little detail we teach him. He already studies the bible every day, and not just Psalms like many others. He told us yesterday that he´s conflicted in what he believes, part of him wants to believe in the Book of Mormon and part of him rejects more scriptures. But we got him to church yesterday and we know he felt the Spirit. It was a good meeting for him to attend: Fast and Testimony Meeting.

The other investigator, Marcio, has one 6 year old son and will be baptized this Friday if everything goes well. He is a physical trainer, and my companion and I are actually taking classes from him every P-day which is super cool. I´m super excited to work in this new area and I can´t believe the first week has already passed!

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Elder Joseph Andrew

Porto Alegre North Mission

Caixa Postal 13008

CEP 91010-971

Porto Alegre-RS

Brazil

Read my blog at elderandrewinbrazil.blogspot.com