Monday, May 7, 2012

It´s time to fly south for the winter

So to start off I´m transfering areas for the first time in my mission. I have been reassigned to the Rio Branco, Rio Branco ward in Acré and so tomorrow morning im going to take a plane to a place that is much colder with lots of Tereré. My new companion is Elder Nunes. Elder Almeida will stay here with a missionary transfering from gloria.

Monday:
I got the nastiest sun burns from playing soccer. like really nasty. I´ll send you pictures next week of the burns because i had a defined sock mark.

Tuesday:
We had our last district meeting of the transfer. It was good and rather sad.

Wenesday:
I went on a division with Elder Gray in Colina do Aleixo. It was fun and in one part of the division we spent an hour looking for a house in the limits of the area. I think we might have gone out of the area/zone looking because no one had a clear sense of direction where the street was. It was cool because the area that we were in is in the middle of the city but all the houses have yards and its like its all in the jungle which is awesome. When we were about to give up a lady came out of the house (it was a reference from a member) and flagged us down. We went and taught the woman´s husband and taught him the restauration. Hes an elect and asked us immediately when he could be baptized because he wanted to be baptized as soon as possible. At the end of the lesson we taught about the word of wisedom and i asked him to give me his coffee. He said that he would throw it all down the sink and that he was done drinking it. And he did just that. He dumped it all down the sink and it was an amazing moment.

Thursday:
We had an ok day and it was fairly normal.

Friday:
We taught Michella and Rodrigo and now they are living above the house of Irmão Cesar, (he let me use him computer at Christmas time). They are awesome and i hope that they get baptized but they need to get married.

Saturday:
André our favorite little priest went and walked with us for a couple hours. Then that night we went to a Devotional with Elder Marzagarrdi a member of the seventy and the second counseler in the area presidency. We took Valeria, the mom of Seisi. It was great and i was able to see elder walch for a little bit. its been a while since ive last seen him. Elder Marzagarrdi talked about he was baptized after he visited the temple in São Paulo. It was really enjoyable.

Sunday:
Rodrigo Michella (the daughters of michella 3) Valeria and Divina all were at church which was the most investigators that we´ve had in a while there. I bore my testimony about accepting the will of god for us and that we can choose to accept it or we can choose to reject it and not recieve the blessings.

We had a division and i visited Iury and it was during this lesson that I recieved the transfer call. During the lesson i felt very lost at times because libras are definitely different than ASL. 

We visited a family that the sisters here were teaching about a year ago and it was good. The daughter of the family said that she wanted to be baptized and serve a mission. An elect family for my companion to teach. It should be very good. 

We ended with visiting Irmã Maria Rita. She is like  family to me here in this area and it has kinda become a tradition visiting her at the end of each transfer. I gave a message about how i´ve come to love the people here in this area since coming here. I really do love them and im going to be sad to leave.

Today:
I sent a package home with my scriptures, sunglasses, something from the indian fair and my letters. Thank you very much for continually sending me letters since i´ve arrived. I counted and off all the ones that i´ve kept (which have been almost all) I have recieved 170. Yes i do want them after my mission still. 

Until next week,
Love
Eric

Thursday, May 3, 2012

I feel like a fat American again. Yes!

So this week lunch was money several times and so I had the oportunity of eating 5 burgers at a members new cafe. They are huge, cheap and delicious Also they have the best pizza that ive tasted here in Brazil, tastes like home to be honest.

Monday:
We went to a family night at a members house and it was cool. I rather like it when people give us food.

Tuesday:
District meeting and we started teaching the family of Klingers sister, which is good. I rather like them and they are receptive.

Wenesday:
At the English class we sang ´´I am a child of God`` it was really good and I rather liked the class.

Thursday:
I don´t remember anything too exciting about today other than we taught with a member this night which was good.

Friday:
Exciting things. I got my fan back after a week of not sleeping with it. Also we encountered more people through knocking doors and I´m starting to rather like knocking doors. 

Saturday:
So i´ll start with lunch today. We went to go to lunch and no one was home and so that wasn´t fun. So we went home to get money and eat at Valters cafe. So we show up to the cafe and no one was home there too. So we went to a restaurant. I was going to have to pay my companion back because I had no money. So we showed up to the restaurant and ate alot and then i went to the bathroom. When i came out i asked my companion if he had payed. he didnt answer me and said bye to the lady working then. when we got out he told me that he had tried to pay the lady three times and had even given her money and she gave it back and said ´´ your presense here is a blessing`` and let us eat for free. I felt humbled and remembered the scripture about going out and not bringing anything with you and that the laborer is worth his hire. Also the scripture of the lillies of the field.

Sunday:
Fransisco came with us to church and when we got there we saw that João had brought himself there. Which was good. After church i taught with a man in our ward the deaf man and his friend who can interpret. We will go to the birthday party of a child of a deaf man and will get a bunch of references.

Today we played soccer as a district with some youth and it was awesome. I got burned a bunch and feel really tired now but loved it completely. I´ll send pictures when we use another lan house because this one doesnt like my camera or card. We have transfers this week and i wouldnt be suprised if i stay again but anything can happen.

Please continue to pray for me,
Love
Elder Olsen