Thanks for your e mail. So here are some pictures from our last p-day. We went exploring on this island called Arrial d´ajuda. It’s pretty cool, and we found a member who just moved there and was wondering where the church was. Unfortunately for her the church doesn’t exist there. You have to take a boat to Porto, but its still pretty close. But this island is really cool as you can see from the pictures.
Also something I thought was cool was when Columbus stepped foot on American soil it was Porto Seguro. They had a big festival to celebrate. This is where America was discovered, I’m pretty sure but you can’t trust these school systems here very well. One time I had a guy calling me a Nazi because he had learned in school that Hitler was American. ... but what can you expect when they go to school here for only 3 hours a day. I couldn’t believe that.
But anyways, so this week was good. We had our branch conference and Pres. Vecchi was here for that because he is like our stake pres. And also we got to attend the very first ever branch conference in Coroa Vermelha ... and the first ever branch pres. was called … the first branch pres not to be a missionary. It was pretty cool. I think Elder Sanderson was excited too. So we took a picture with everyone in the front of the designated house. It was cool. I’ll see if Pres can send me a copy of that photo.
Dína is solid as a rock. She is so cool. We had a family home evening in her house with some of the youth and she was so happy. And her and Sister Vecchi got to be good friends also when they were here. Also our zone conference will be next week - day 28th, and this transfer only has 5 weeks I just found out. I knew that every year there is one with 5 weeks but I didn’t know it was this one. So were having to run now. And Gabriel moved houses. We knew he was going to, but we think he lost his phone or something because its always turned off - like it doesn’t even ring. I don’t know. I know he will be baptized one day. We just have to find him now, haha.
Dad I hope your staying safe. (Mike mentioned in his letter to Tim that he is on a business trip visiting with a security firm in Miami about how to keep everyone safe as they send people into some of the more dangerous countries in the world to start up equipment. Then Mike asked Tim whether he feels safe where he is at.) I feel really safe... I don’t know why, we work in some pretty sketchy places sometimes but people respect us. One time we played soccer against these two drug dealers and we won so they had to buy us ice cream ha, and now they respect us even more. They said if we wanted they could make everyone on their street get baptized ... but considering not one of them are worthy... we just let them be. And we see lots of guns ... and guns are illegal here so that’s always kinda sketchy too. One time me and Morris were working and a car pulled up to the house and opened his door and we saw two pistols. We just kept working. But we’re safe and we’re working in better neighborhoods now so there is nothing to worry about. The only dangerous thing is when your involved with drugs and we’re not ... we just teach em. Oh but one of our investigators who is 80 years old - and he owns a hotel - was robbed and beaten. They tried to break his arms and kill him but he ran in the bathroom and locked the door and started yelling and the bandits ran. He got pistol whipped twice in his head and had to get staples. They broke one of his teeth and one arm is really beat up and scabbed, and he got stabbed a couple times in his other arm. The weird thing is we were teaching him one hour before it happened. And the guy who ran the robbery was staying at the hotel and when we left, we shook the guy’s hand who robbed and beat him, and he looked at us and said I’m not worthy to shake your hands... but we didn’t think anything of it. Weird huh? But we gave our pesqusidor a blessing of comfort and helped him clean up his apt. and rearranged some stuff so it looks like a different apt. so he won’t have flash backs. But there was blood everywhere. It was really sad but he is doing a lot better now.
But anyways we are really good and it sounds like you guys are good too. If I don’t get a chance to write on Wed, tell Kimbo good luck and I’m praying for her! I love you all. Take care.
Elder Anderson
