Meu Querido Família (My Dear Family)

So we now have a monkey that has made its home in our balcony. He is small and furry and a ball of joy! Just kidding, i have yet to see a wild monkey here in manaus but i do hear that they are around. Heres my week:

Tuesday:

We had our wonderful district meeting and a splendiforus day with some good lessons. 

Wenesday:

Today was the birthday of Elder De Almeida. I bought him a cool purple tie and we got permission to go to our local mall that is close to our area to eat at the food court there because we recieved money for lunch. We bought two large pizzas for R$25 one for each of us. It was great to have pizza from a restaurant again because I havent had it from one since my first transfer here because the pizzerias dont open until 6. I bought soft serve ice cream for us after. When we got home for our language study in the afternoon there were a swarm of vultures in the air near our house. Like alot. I tried taking a video but it doesnt do it justice.  On the bright side we had wonderful numbers this day for lessons with members. 

We met a young mother and her two sons who moved here recently from another barrio. The mom is a less active member and her sons (Kevin 8 and Gustavo 9) havent been baptized. They´re awesome and im excited to see them progress. 

thursday

A little bit slower and also we had to go to the mission office to get some documents for the marriage of our investigator for them to sign.

Friday:

We picked up a new great investigator named Miguel. He moved to manaus from a city in the interior and is awesome. We left a book of mormon for him to read (which we dont always do for new investigators) and im excited to see if he read or not. We had our ward activities and played some fun games there. If anyone wants to suggest any fun group games that everyone can play please tell, im running out of games.

Saturday:

We had an Churrasco (barbecue) for our recent converts and also for our investigators at the house of bishop. It was to help them bond more. The wife of the bishop is the teacher of gospel principles and she wanted to do this so that they all could bond and get to know each other and know that they arent alone. It was a good event.

Sunday:

Church was good and our lunch fell through. We asked some people in our ward if we could eat with them but ended up canceling because we had a bunch of lessons to do and ended up eating at home. I finally ate the rest of the spaghetti that i bought my first or second week here. It was all good though (we didnt starve) because we had a dinner appointment with a the family of César and they gave us Picanha (google it, yummy meat). Its interesting because here the seasoning that they use the most for beef and sausage is rock salt. Its good but it has killed some of my tastebuds because I eat a lot of salt. 

Today

We will go to the mission office to return the documents we took to get signed and our wonderful district leader is going to Centro and im having him buy me two kilos of pasta de amendoin (peanut butter without salt or sugar). 

I really do love this ward and the area here. This week was a bit trying at times because our appointments fell through at times but it happens. I just learn more patience and humilty. It helps when you have an amazing Mozambiquean companion too.

Please continue to pray for me. And know that I love you all very much. 

Love your brother/son/brother-in-law/grandson/favorite person ;) 

Elder Eric Alan Olsen