Week 32!

Family and Friends,

I´ll be turning 19 years old tomorrow! (the 26th) I´m getting old... haha.
it was an `electrifying´ week haha

Something funny...right now we are walking through the middle of town and there’s a guy just riding a horse on the road, totally normal, funny! This week we visited with Clebur and Jessica, helping Clebur get ready for his baptism. We were leaving their house and we got a call from a random number, so we answered and it was a guy who said he was a member from another town and he was here for a couple days and said he needed a shirt...kinda weird, but we planned to meet him the following morning and meet him to give him a shirt (he is here working and didn’t bring enough clothes). So we met him, gave him a shirt, he said he’s about to move here and he got a job in the city.

The Lan house, the place where we go to email each week….I talked to the owner about the church, and talked to him and his wife, and they are “spiritists”...the first time I’ve talked to someone who is that religion...believes in spirits and re-incarnation. Later there was an activity at the church, and Elder Lira and I shared scriptures about faith and talked for a little bit. Afterward, I invited one of the members to share his conversion story. He met the missionaries one day and was baptized less than 2 weeks later, super quick, he said right after his baptism he was called to be the Young Men’s president for 3 years and every single young man served a mission during that time (those who were old enough) which was awesome! I’ve never heard of that happening. Really incredible.

Also this week, we were playing soccer at the church and my companion kicked the ball hard and it got stuck on the roof. I got up to get it, and there was an electric wire up there and I accidentally touched it with both hands….I’m fine but I felt the electricity….yikes.

Lots of love to you all!
- Elder Anderson

Week 31!

Family and Friends,
My companion and I meet tons of new people this week. In total, we talked with 47 new people, it was super great, and we will continue focusing on meeting and getting to know tons of people here and on giving them all opportunities to follow Christ.

Yesterday, we visited a family for the second time, they´re remarkable people and strong in their church. Before the opening prayer, they had already said that they didn't want to meet anymore with us. We prayed and continued talking, but they gave us the most blunt and up-front rejection I've experienced on my mission. It was really sad.

CONGRATS to Dallin Anderson on his engagement! I´m super happy for them both.

This past Monday we had a family home evening with our ward mission leader and his kids (both inactive) and their boyfriends were there with them. 11 people total. It was super good. We talked about 1 Nephi 8, the vision of the tree of life, holding fast to the iron rod and continuing to the tree. This week I’ve been trying to focus on the main purpose for my mission and not worrying so much about getting little things done. Focusing on fulfilling my purpose of teaching the gospel and bringing souls to Christ. As I made that change, it helped me a ton, I felt a lot happier. I was now doing things because I wanted to do them instead of because I had to do them.

This week we’ve been focusing on a ton of contacts. Trying to find new people to teach. We are trying to talk to a ton of people. This past week we did 47 contacts in 3-4 days. We visited Mateous, a recent convert with a tough life (had had been a drug dealer and was in danger and he was sent here by his family to get straightened out). We had a good lesson with him and he wants to keep changing, but it’s tough for him. Wednesday we focused more on contacts and Elder Lira was super nervous to talk to people. He got up his courage to talk to a woman in a park and when he did, she said “oh sorry, I’m an athiest”...and he didn’t know what to say, it was super funny. Thursday district meeting, 28 people in our zone, Elder Mota is the District Leader, he was in my first zone in my mission. He’s super cool, solid guy. We also did service by cleaning out trash from a member’s yard. Friday I hit 7 months in the mission field, it’s gone by super fast. I’m almost a ⅓ of the way done...crazy thought. We did a ton of contacts on that day (Thursday). This week there was a school shooting in the state we are in (but outside the mission boundaries). A 17 and 25 year old. A student killed his uncle and stole his car, and the 2 guys pulled up the school and walked in and started shooting. 8 people were killed and they killed themselves after. There’s been a ton of stuff in the news about it. Super sad. And, that’s about the whole week.

Love you all,
- Elder Anderson

 on the Bishop's motorcycle!

Week 30!

Family and Friends,

Hello everybody, I am walking to the lan house. This week was super great. I tried to relax a little but and enjoy the week. I am working on taking better care of my health. I am enjoying it a bit more, while still working hard. On Wednesday we visited the new Venezuelans here, there are super awesome. They gave us a new type of fruit that I had not eaten. It was served in a syrup sauce. It was a bit weird. My companion almost threw up. It was super funny. We visited with Rebeccah and talk her all the commandments. She had a date for this Saturday, but I’ll talk more about that later. We showed her the baptismal font to help her get excited. We also visited Marcus who is 17 and really enjoys the church but doesn’t have family support. We taught them the restoration and the Gospel of Jesus Christ in one lesson. He told us that he used to use the name Lucifer as his name on games and things. He asked me if this was a sin. I looked at him in the eye and told him because of this he was going to hell. He got scared and then I let him know I was totally kidding and joking around. He then thought it was funny.

A fun small Brazilian truck just drove by with loud speakers. Super cool.

Thursday we visited with Rebecca and reviewed the baptismal questions and when we got home that night there was a giant cockroach on my desk and it got away and we found it and doused it with a ton of spray and killed it. We tried to sweep it out of the house, out of the gate into the road but we would hit it out and it would hit the gate and bounce back. SO me with my incredible knowledge of gold, I got the broom and swung as hard as I could and the bottom part of the broom flew off and hit the gate I and it was super loud and so funny, we dies of laughter. We later went out and swept the cockroach into the road. Super funny. Friday we had lunch with Bishop. He’s got 4 kids. His wife was still finished up making lunch and we talked with the kids for a while, who are all into toy guns and pretend war, water guns, etc. I got permission from the zone leader and showed them one of the lego movies that I made and put on youtube and it was super cool. Later one of the zone leaders came and did a baptismal interview with Rebecca and he came out of the interview and told us she still had a lot of questions and doubts and we thought “oh wow, we thought we had taught her everything well” and we were worried. But, he was teasing, and everything worked out awesome. Saturday we had the baptism and it was awesome. I gave the talk about Baptism and my companion baptized her. My companion is from Manaus and she’s also from there, super cool.

That night we visited Clebur and Jessica. Clebur came to church Sunday and really liked it. Jessica wants to return to church and have her boyfriend be baptized. They gave us hot dogs with mashed potatoes, super good. We heard about transfers and we are both staying here in our area. After this transfer I’ll have been here 4 months. I’m excited to stay and help strengthen the ward here. Sunday was awesome, Clebur enjoyed church, Rebecca received the gift of the Holy Ghost and that night we visited her and Rebecca and reviewed all the lessons including the laws and ordinances. It was about 2 and ½ hours of talking and teaching. It was good to review everything. She is a solid person. Rebekah's brother was baptized some time ago. They had a fan that had broken. He had glued it back together to see if it would work. When they turned in on, one of the blades flew off and hit my companion in the face. I thought he would be hurt, but he wasn't. It was really funny. This week was super awesome. It was just a good week. I am looking forward to staying here and growing friendships with all the members.

Love,
Elder Anderson

Week 29!

Hello Everybody!

I hope you all are doing well! Right now we are at our ward mission leader’s house and it’s raining a ton. We are waiting for it to stop and then we will go send emails. This week I maxed out on some lifts to see how I’m doing physically and it was a lot of fun!

We have had a traveling elder here at the house this week. Right now I’m talking in English and the other elders and the ward mission leader are laughing at me because they can’t understand me! (this is a voice recording and mom transcribed it)

Monday we visited Rebecca and Matthew and they are super cool. We then saw the new Venezuelan family here and my companion fixed a problem they had with their phone and then they fed us dinner. Super awesome and humbling. They are wonderful. Tuesday we visited Marcus and talked with her mom a lot and got to know her better. She hadn’t been supporting her son learning about the church, so it was good to get to know her better. It went well. We visited Louisa, and her dad is a super strong Catholic but she had gone to church with her mom for years, an evangelical church, but her mom died and her dad won’t allow her to go to any other church now but the Catholic church but she doesn’t want to go there. Crazy and sad. We shared a scripture with her and prayed with her. Wednesday we saw Marcus and his sister and Andrea, a less active member and it was really wild. Her mom answered the door, Andrea lives in the back, the house is trash, it’s awful. I couldn’t imagine living there. We shared a scripture and prayed with her. I’m glad to have been blessed with my blessings. THere are whole lot of people here living in crazy poverty and they don’t have anything. We again visited Clebur and Jessica and Clebur has received answers to his prayers but he hasn’t come to church yet, really sad. Their dogs are huge and scary. And the also gave us cake which was super good.

Thursday we had interviews with President. Always great to talk to him and get advice and counsel. He told me he was super proud of me, glad for all I’m doing. Super awesome to hear. He wants me to work on “missionary of excellence”, a program of doing certain things (reading, memorizing) to becoming a better missionary. It’s a great program and I’ve been working on it. That night we had an “integration night” at church. It was the birthday of one of the Venezuelan kids. When we got there and said hi to everybody, I looked over at the piano and 2 kids who weren’t members were there helping the boy with the birthday on the piano. The birthday boy has a birth defect with his legs and he can’t walk or play very well. It was neat to see the kids helping him. We sang hymns, had some happy birthday singing and signs, and some of the leaders walked with the boy (Rafael) and sang to him and he was SO happy and members had bought him a few gifts and he was so happy! So cool! The birthday party was super awesome. Super great. Everyone was happy and there together.

Friday we went to visit 5 people that my companion had contacted during divisions one time. We didn’t have the opportunity to talk with any of them. We walked up a hill, a side street, the worst and trashiest place I’ve seen in my life. It was like a cul-de-sac of little houses, all touching each other, all have gates in front, it was awful. Everyone was smoking or drinking, trashy houses, drugs, really sad!! Like I said it was probably the worst and poorest place I’ve seen in my whole life. That evening we visited Rebecca again and taught her. Saturday we saw Antonio and Bruno. Antonio can’t talk or hear well either. Interesting and super tough to talk to him, he seems super cool and he came to church this Sunday! We taught the Restoration to Bruno but it seemed like he was on drugs when we taught him….. Sunday I bore my testimony. Super simple but it was good.

This p-day we had a zone basketball game, super fun, 4 on 4. And then we got Brazilian ice cream, purple, with fruit, granola, milk, and we made food: pasta with tomato sauce, boiled eggs, meat like sausage, all mixed up together. Super good, we eat it a lot. It is still raining a ton. That’s the week. I hope you guys are all doing well. Saturday we find out about transfers. I might be getting transferred. I’ll figure out for sure this Saturday and I’ll tell you next P-day. I love you guys and hope you are all doing well!

Elder Anderson

picture captions (but no pictures were attached to his email....!)

photo 631 - Probably the best thing ive bought during my mission

Photo 633 - my companion ate this off the floor after i said id give him 6 reais for it

photo 641 - a bridge between 2 neighborhoods

photo 647 - açai with the Zone!

photo 649 - Food ate the house!

photo 650 - our ward mission leaders Rottweiler

photo 2940 - Elder: Martins, Me, Lira, and Murray!