Week 34!

Family and Friends,

My voice recorder ran out of battery so I´ll type all of this email...
- This past week (April fools day) our District Leader told us we were having an emergency transfer and that we had to pack my companions clothes/books/etc... up and leave to the bus station. He was super serious about it and we ended up believing him haha. my companion packed his suitcase full and our leader called again saying it was all a joke. haha my companion got pretty mad at him.
- I saw a tarantula in the wild for the first time in my life. it was crossing a road. those things are huge lol
- 5 of our friends came to watch conference this weekend. it was super good and I think they all liked it.
- Our District Leader, Elder Motta, came to visit our area and see how we were doing. he was in my same area my first transfer here and it was really neat to see hows he´s changed in just a couple months. He has a big excitement and energy for the work. It was really impressive.
I´m still recovering from the cold, my nose is still runny and I´m feeling more tired than normal, but I´m feeling a lot better than I did!
Hope you all had a great week,
- Elder Anderson

Week 33!

Family and Friends,

This week was more boring than normal haha, This past week I had a cold, called Grippe in Portuguese. I’m feeling totally dead, super tired, my nose is awful. We stayed in the house a lot of the time. I´m taking medicine and trying to take care of my health as best I can.

On P-day I bought a soccer ball and we played for an hour and half at the field at the church, super fun. Wednesday we had a multi-zone activity in the mission, about 60-70 missionaries, 3 zones. Super fun and great training.

Yesterday was Sunday, and earlier in the week we had bought some kit kat candy bars and wrote some positive notes to different members and ding dong ditched (knock and run..) at some members houses (about 9 total) to spread some good cheer. Yesterday, we ate at one of the members houses, and Jamier (super funny, about 56 years old) asked us if we had dropped of chocolate at his house and we said no (we didn’t want them to know it was us, we were hoping they’d think it was another member), but I’m pretty sure he was joking but he said he doesn’t trust when people drop off food and said he’d probably throw it away, but his wife said “hey it’s food, I’m going to eat it!”. It was funny.

We visited a member’s friend, Rafael, 18 years old and he came to church on Sunday. We went to the Bishop’s house for a family night (their friends didn’t show up that they had invited) so we just had it with the Bishop’s family.

Tcau!

Elder Anderson

 B-day dinner!

  a kick over the head of Elder Lira

  Water at a restaurant haha

 B-day Pizza!

 i filled and stored 9 or 10 bags of tupperware and extra junk we had in the cupboards at the house. now we´ve just got 2 cups, bowls, plates, and 2 of each type of silverware. 2 tupperwares, and 2 pots and 1 pan. the rest is in a storage cabinet in the house.

 the power of the sun  these are the exact same type of chair, just that one had been behind the house in the sun for a long time.

  lunch at an all you can eat restaurant

 french fries at the house

  in the center of our city, a horse cart with 3 people and playing music haha

A big theatre tent in front of our house. they´ve been doing plays and shows

Love you all!

- Elder Anderson

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!

Week 28!

Hello Everybody!

This is week 28 in Missao Brazil Piracicaba. This week had ups and downs. This past Monday we visited Antonio and Angelica and they were at the hospital with their son at the time, and so we came back later and their son was just a little bit sick but it’s all good. We are going to visit them again tonight. Also, I skyped with both the family at home and with Dallin at Dixie State and it was super awesome, a lot of fun, and I love the new rule, it’s great!

Tuesday we had a good morning, we had lunch in Capo Avenia and the husband of the sister he was in UT for the past 6 months working and he just got back this week and he’s 37 and speaks English well, it was fun to talk to him in English about Utah and about his work. And we did weekly planning and studied the language and visited Marcos, one of our investigators, with Manion, the young men’s president here. Then we visited some other people and it was a good day.

Wednesday, had a good normal morning. We had lunch with Macalaney and she lives an hour away so it was a long walk, but lunch was super good and afterward we found a spot and sat down and studied the language, visited some people in Angenio and Penaraba, and we came back to Monte Mor, to our area, and we visited the new Venezuelans and worked with the dad of the family. We visited Angela, her son Juan Piva, and Luis and Ado. Super great. Fun to talk to the Venezuelan, his name is Labanial Amada. He’s a great guy and has a great story.

That night we visited Ado, but he was asleep so we talked to his dad who talks a LOT. Thursday we had district meeting, it was the birthday of some people in the zone so everybody brought some food and we ate a ton of cake and treats and soda, super good. We had lunch with Sister Lucia and we had the district leader and his companion with us to do a baptismal interview and we played a prank on the District leader, so when we got there for lunch, the dad of the family came out, and saw the 4 missionaries, and he said “what? Why are there 4 of you? We don’t have enough food for all of you, so you 2 need to stay here and only these 2 can eat, we don’t have food for you.” So the DL tried to explain, kind of nervous and tried to explain why they were there, to help out the missionaries, and apologized that he didn’t know, and then we all laughed and explained that it was a joke, haha. They had a ton of super good food and we brought some back to the house afterward to eat later. We went with the DL to our investigators house for the baptismal interview, and he wasn’t there which was a really big bummer. So then we just worked with the other elders a bit and then they left. We had an activity at the church that night.

Friday we had a normal morning, ate with Ebo Necee in Capo Avena, and she’s from the same ward as my companion, which was super cool so they talked a ton about their city, which was super cool and I had the opportunity to give her daughter a blessing which was super, super awesome. It was really great. After that we studied then met up with the zone leader and Elder Murray and went back to visit Marcus but he wasn’t there again, so we worked with the zone leaders in a new area and just talked with a lot of people there and we found some really neat people so that was great. And the zone leaders returned to their area and we met with the first Venezuelan family that came here, with Alexander, the head of the family, and then went back to Jardin Guanabara (Garden in English) and visited some more people there and we also entered a different church (Assembly of God) and we asked for water and used their bathroom, it was pretty funny, it was my first time in a different church on my mission. So we visited some people with Alexander and then that was the rest of the day.

Saturday, had a normal morning but left the house earlier and got a bus to Alias Fasto and had lunch there with Alan and Monica, also from the same city but not the same ward as my companion. They were just so grateful to have us in their house, super awesome, a lot of people here are really amazing. Then we got on a bus and returned and visited Evely but she wasn’t there and we visited Marcus again, and he was there, we talked to him a little but and will return another day. We feel his mom doesn’t want him to be baptized, so we need to talk with all of them. We then went to do service with a member, but they weren’t there..we went to the house to plan some and ate. Sunday we had a good meeting at church. Alan and Monica both spoke and it was super good. We went to the house of Eliech and she wanted us to bless her house and we went there with Juan Peva but it ended up that she was busy and the timing didn’t work out so we visited at Juan Peva’s house and ate with his family.

Today is P-Day. Woke up, worked out, and I maxed out on pull-ups (16) and sit ups (80). A lot of fun. I’m going to max this week and then I made a new workout program that I’m going to start following and then max again in 2 months which will be awesome. So after this we are going to buy food, eat lunch, and have the rest of the P Day and visit people tonight.

Tcau,

Elder Anderson

The following are captions for pictures but I cannot access them all yet...we are having picture problems and hope to get it fixed soon!

 incredible double rainbow

 Elder Lira owns a Bus. Who knew?

 view from a members house

 after taking this pic, 2 giant dogs ran up and starting jumping up against the gate haha

  ice cream!

After a hair cut!

P-Day food!
Elder Lira tries my workouts pt. 1

Elder Lira tries my workouts pt. 2
giant junkyard we saw

incredible double rainbow
a double-decker semi-truck bus we saw
Elder Lira
Up-Close flash hahaha
Elder Lira owns a Bus. Who knew?

Week 27!

Hello Everybody,

This past P-day we visited Angelica and Antonio, and also Joaby and Mara. THey are all super cool people but not really following through with commitments. That night there was something super funny that happened. We were with the ward mission leader, Bergie, and we had gotten off the bus and were walking along a sidewalk, and a motorcycle pulled up and stopped next to us and Bergie took of running, he was super scared, it was pretty funny. It was Wellington, he’s 24, and uses his motorcycle for work, a delivery guy, he talked to us and then Bergie came back, super funny. Tuesday lunch was an hour away, so we walked an hour there and then on the way back it was so hot so we took a bus back, did planning at the church, and worked with Mateus, he was baptized 3 months ago and he has a crazy story which I’ll share later. We visited Deborah and we reviewed what we had taught her and then taught the Plan of Salvation which was super cool and Mateus shared his story and his testimony and it was super awesome. Then we saw Nicey Clebur and Jessica with Bergie and it was super, super awesome. Clebur is the boyfriend of Jessica and Jessica is the daughter of Bergie, our ward mission leader. Jessica believes in the church but she just doesn’t go, and so we are teaching Clebur who is a solid guy and really cool. We invited him to pray about the Book of Mormon right then (he had been reading but hadn’t prayed about it yet), and the went in a different room and prayed then came back and said he felt something really strong and felt that “this is right”, super great. And so he and Jessica need to get married before he can be baptized but he’s a really awesome guy.

Wednesday we worked with Juam Peeva, the DJ that I talked about last week. This whole time I’m thinking “this guy’s got to be a millionaire” but we got to talking and his net worth is 50,000 heyas, about 13,000 dollars and the jaguar is his friend’s. He seems to be more of a big talker instead of a big earner. He’s trying to get his record straight with the church and then prepare for a mission. I hope it works out for him! Then we visited Eliech and had lunch there, she’s a less active with 2 sons, 21 and 18, we would love to try and help them go on missions but a lot of it depends on their mom. We also visited the Venezuelans who are living in Juam Peeva’s old house, pretty cool. Later we visited others with Malcom.

Thursday we had district meeting at our building, super nice. We told our District leader how to get to the church from the bus station and he ended up taking a different route and got lost but eventually found it.

Thursday after district meeting we visited Marcus, he has a baptism date for this Saturday. We will visit him tomorrow to see if he is ready and prepared. I really hope it works out, he’s a super cool kid. We visited the new Venezuelans and walked with them to the church and had an “integration night” with members, investigators, etc. to help everyone get to know everyone. Sister Maclaney spoke about everyone in the ward helping each other out through life. At the church that night I had a cup of water and swung it around and the water stayed in the cup. Everyone thought it was cool. When my companion did it, a kid ran into him, coming from around a corner, right at the end of my companion swinging it around and the water spilled all out on the floor, it was funny.

We ate at the Bishop’s house and showed them my pictures from home, they thought it was cool. The Bishop’s wife saw mom and said “whoa, how is she so skinny after having 7 kids?!” It was pretty funny and someone else saw a picture of you mom and said you look really young and that you look like my girlfriend, not my mom, haha!

We did studying of the language, visited lots of people, had a great big dinner at the Venezuelans family’s house and they are super humble and good people.

Friday I hit 6 months in the mission, time has flew by! It feels like I left the CTM yesterday! Especially this last transfer with Elder Gomez flew by, crazy fast, and also in this transfer we are already in week 4 which has really flown by. So when we got home, I got the ugliest tie I had and put it on a hanger out on our roof, but it didn’t burn well (to celebrate 6 months) so we tried another tie and lit it on fire and my companion sacrificed a deodorant can and it was fun, it turned the tie to black ash.

Saturday we had a lunch with Sister Sue Ellen who helps arrange lunches for us every day with the members, then we visited people with Bergie, the ward mission leader. We taught Everly, a Jehovah’s witness, pretty interesting. We went to visit Adam but he wasn’t there and his dad was there and talked a LOT and super fast and we taught a Restoration lesson to him. Then we taught a lesson to Claudio and Jessica and ate with them (rice and beans and lot of meat), they have 2 giant Rottweilers.

Sunday my companion Elder Lira gave a talk about THe Book of Mormon and President Monson. Then we ate with Ana-ilgi and Alberto, and they didn’t have a ton of food in the house, so they just made rice, beans and eggs, but it was super good. We then talked with Bergie and met Matues and we went to the stake center so my companion could get his patriarchal blessing because he still didn’t have it and it was really special for him. Really great stuff! We then talked about people we are teaching, less actives, and what we can do to help them.

Real quick, the story of Mateus. He is from the area where my companion is from, Manaus. He was a drug trafficker there, totally into that world. His family sent him here to live with his sister to straighten out his life. He actually now lives with our ward mission leader and is now baptized and is doing a whole lot better in his life. He is still a little rough around the edges, but he’s a whole lot better than he was. His testimony is very humble and awesome. Also there is a brother in our ward who lives in another area but has a special calling to come to our ward just to help the ward out. He is incredibly willing to help out. He had a meeting with all the priesthood holders and would point to people and say “You are going to help the missionaries on this day, and you (pointing to someone else) are going to help the missionaries on this day”...He helped plan everything out for us. And the ward mission leader, Bergie, shared with us his story. He used to work in the temple and was crazy poor. He used to only eat banana sandwiches, that was the only thing he could afford to eat, just bananas and bread. Right now he lives in a pretty small house, in the back of a warehouse place, but he does whatever he can do to help us, he’s a super cool guy.

Love you all!

Elder Anderson

He sent tons of pictures which will hopefully be able to be uploaded soon, we've had some technical problems with that!

Captions:

neighborhood Engenho and Panerama from a distance

a pasture in neighborhood Moreira

the veiw from moreira to the main city in our area (a 1 hour walk)

Elder Lira playing the piano

wall art on the side of a bar

the center of Monte Mor

a Baha Bug we saw

the veiw from the center of Monte Mor to Engenho and Panerama

Disctrict Meeting!

a Honda CB750F, very similar to my first bike

Prettiest thing ive seen in a while haha

a paper plant in our city

another view of panerama and engenho

paper plant again...

Venezuelan Food! those people are incredible

the results of 2 missionaries, 6 months on a mission, an ugly tie, a match, and a deoderant can! haha

6 months! Elder Lira and I

My comp tried one of my workouts for the first (and probably last) time hahaha

Week 26!

Friends and Family,

Hello everybody! Week 2 of training was great! we had a multi-zone meeting with 3 zones of the mission, stake conference (with 5 investigators there from our ward) and 2 baptism dates!

*A big shout out going to the one and only Scott Anderson who made the first cut of BYU football tryouts #GOCOUGS!*

4 recordings this week :O haha (mom transcribe them please) !

This past Monday, with lunch, we went to the supermarket close to our house and bought a ton of food for lunch. I got a 20 and 10 dollar bills as change but my pockets were small and when we got home I realized the money wasn’t there and so we walked super fast back to the store and we found both bills sitting in the road...it was only worth about $8 American dollars, but that’s a lot of money for a poor missionary in Brazil! Then we cooked lunch and had a lot of food with sauce, and meat (pork) it was good, we fried it. Then we went to a neighborhood about 40-50 minutes away and we walked there and first we visited Clebor, Jessica and Nicee, and we had already taught a first lesson, and Jessica is a less active daughter of our ward mission leader. Clebor was really interested and sincere and we are going to visit them today which I’m excited for. Then we visited Joaby and Mara with Luis Carlos and Luzia, who are members, and we talked to them, got to know their religious history, taught a first lesson and gave them a Book of Mormon and invited them to pray about it.

Right now we are walking to a second shop to find a cable for my companions’ camera…

Tuesday we had a lunch an hour away and on the way out there was a horse tied up and I pet it. My companion was scared, he had never seen a horse before, there are none in the city where he grew up...as we were leaving we saw another horse and it started turning around and I backed up and tried to pet it again and it whipped around fast and I took off running so it didn’t kick me! Exciting… We visited Marcus, the 17 year old who had been taught before. Then we visited Lacen and his family, he believes the message is true and that it’s right but he doesn’t want to follow through and go to church...it’s tough and sad. So we’ll probably visit them again but if they don’t want to commit to pray, etc. then we can’t do anything to help them. Wednesday we had a multi-zone meeting with my old zone and 2 more and it was cool to see the church building there again. It was great. The assistants gave an incredible lesson about lots of good stuff, I took tons of notes. They talked about the pathway to baptism, teaching, commitments, invitations, church, baptism, and what we need to do as missionaries to prepare for those things. They said “You guys are the problem...find out what you can do better, improve on, and do better. You can’t blame the difficulties on things other than yourself. Be responsible and take control of things, etc.” Super great.

Thursday I was feeling bad, that morning and afternoon, not sure if it was bad water I drank or what. We had a ward activity at the church that night, we gave a spiritual message and my companion talked about integrity (which is something our mission president is really pushing in the mission), and I talked about virtue, and with that, talked about being pure inside and out. Super good and important. Friday was a full day, lunch in Captial Envinia with Sister Julia, went to the church for more practicing, planning, etc.

Friday we talked with Marcus again and Deborah, we found her from knocking doors, and it was a really good first lesson. Her boyfriend was killed during a robbery a couple of years ago and it’s super tough for her and she wants to stay committed to him and not date or marry anyone else. It will be awesome to teach her the plan of salvation. It’s such an awesome thing, the Plan of Salvation, that we can be together forever and that death is just a doorway and it’s not the end. Saturday we marked 2 baptism dates with Marcus and Jimar. They are both solid people looking for the truth and want to be better and happier. Super awesome. We visited some other people, visits to a less active, and the mother of the less active, Eliech, but she wasn’t home.

Sunday we had stake conference. Everybody met at our church building (from our ward) and we left on a bus and picked up people on the way and met at the stake center. It was huge, there were tons of people, probably 400 or 450. They had an Area Seventy there, he said “Only 20% of you are paying your tithing, and if you want to see the blessings, you need to do the prerequisites.” And it is a problem, just members following through with things… Marcus was there and liked it! Awesome! That night we visited with members and went to one of their friends houses and shared a scripture with them and marked a date to return and teach a lesson and the members came with us and it was a huge help. We’d tried to go to that house before and both times it was “oh, some other day, etc…” and with the members they were more receptive and happy. We also visited Bishop and his family and that was cool. I don’t know if it’s new or not but there’s a website called “Living Scriptures” like netflix but only super good stuff. Today is P-Day, Monday, woke up, studied, worked out, and getting ready to email!

Thursday at the activity at the church, there was a guy he’s 21, kind of less active, I started talking to him and it turns out he’s a DJ and a coordinator for a company that does music festivals, etc. A Jaguar car that I saw...belonged to him as well as other cars (he owns several cool ones, Range Rovers, and an Alpha amaro). He was in shorts, a t-shirt, and flip flops, but he’s really successful and started his business by having friends over and playing music, then asked them to come back next week and to invite their friends. He built it up to 300 people, then started worked at big events, festivals, concerts, and built it up and studied how to be a DJ, etc. It was neat to meet him.

A Venezuelan family, 8 people, 4 are members and some are really strong Catholics. We are going to try to teach them but some of them might not like it...their choice to accept it or not.

That’s all the highlights from the week. Training is going good. I just need to do more of the studying and practice more. I’m doing well, I’m happy, I’m really grateful for this opportunity to be on a mission. It’s such a blessing to serve a mission and such a big learning opportunity. I’m really glad that I decided to come out.

Tchau! Love you all!

- Elder Anderson

just one picture of some food we made this week, i need to bring my camera around more!

Week 25!

Hello Everybody,

This past P-day we talked and had lunch with William and Talida, they are members in the ward here. I asked William for advice for my companion who is moving to a new area and will be district leader and he gave some super good advice. He said work with the members a lot, obedience is more important than how many people you baptize in the church, and just focus on doing the best you can and Jesus Christ will take care of the rest.

Tuesday we woke up at 4:45 and left the house at 5:30 with all our bags, we went to Campinas first, the bus station and went to Piracicaba, the capital of our mission. There we had a super good training, they talked to all us new trainers, gave advice and counsel and then we all talked about our trainers and how it was and what was good, what was bad, and how we all want to do better. Then we got our new companions. My new companion is Elder Lira, he’s from Manaus, Brazil, he’s 21 yrs old and super great. He’s a convert, he boxed for 5 months before coming on his mission. He had callings in the church before coming on his mission: a counselor in the YM presidency, executive secretary, and he’s really solid, really good. When we were coming back from Campinas, there was a super awesome sunset and I took a picture of it that I’ll send.

Wednesday was our first full day of the transfer. Super good. Started out in the morning, worked out, did our studies, and there’s a book called “The First 12 Weeks”, it’s to help trainers and trainees just get used to the mission field and know their responsibilities, so we studied with that, did some practicing teaching the lessons. We had lunch with the Bishop, that was super good, and we worked with a returned missionary in the ward (who got back 8 months ago) and visited some people, talked with some people and got their addresses, we will talk with them later. Super good day.

Thursday we had District Meeting. We have a new Zone Leader, who gave some super good counsel at the training (be confident, invite everybody, don’t be scared to drop down super big commitments with people, teach with power and clarity). When we were leaving we took the wrong bus and got lost in Jardim Felista, a different city, so we ended up having to call a member and he gave us a ride back to our area which was a big blessing because we were totally lost and didn’t have money for another bus. That day we visited 2 people that we had contacted the day before. One of them the wife answered the door and said “We have our church so whatever you are going to say Im not going to accept it”, super straight and blunt and didn’t want to hear anything. The other one was Glassen. His sister is Victoria and their mom is Anita. And they’ve already talked to the missionaries for a while. The mom and daughter have already come to church before. We taught a Restoration lesson. They are really solid people, super great.

Friday we had lunch with Bishop again but his wife forgot that we had lunch with them so we ended up staying at their house longer and ended up talking with the Bishop and his kids for a while before having lunch. And we visited the daughter of a member who is less active in the church, and her in-laws and 2 other people there the Restoration lesson, it went super great. Then we went back to the Jardim Victoria area and we were walking on one of the roads and a kid was riding his bike and said “oh the missionaries” and he took off on his bike to a house and so we followed him to the house and there was a 17 year old kid there who took the lessons from missionaries in November but his mom didn’t give him permission, so we are talking to him now and he’s a super solid kid, super cool.

Saturday we worked with our ward mission leader, his name is Bergie and he’s from the same city as my new companion, Manaus Brazil, so they are already super good friends which is really awesome. And we went to see Glassen, Victoria, and Anita, and talked with them about response to their prayer and Victoria wasn’t there so we talked mainly with Glassen and it was super good, just a really solid guy, I’m really excited to keep talking with him and teaching him. And we visited a reference that they gave us but he wasn’t home so we marked another day to visit him with his wife who was there. And we went to meet with Marcus again, the guy who was almost baptized (17 year old) but he wasn’t home, and so we met with some other people, we were walking around and a car came up and stopped next to us and the guy started talking to Bergie, the ward mission leader and Bergie and the mom and dad in the car are good friends, so they picked us up and took us to their house and we taught a Restoration lesson with them and it was a super good lesson, super good people and it was really great. We are going to return tomorrow and talk with them. Their names are Antonio and Angelica.

Sunday was fast and testimony meeting and it was super great and my companion and I both bore our testimonies and my testimony of how “when you bear your testimony, your testimony is strengthened” is really improving. Some of the last messages or teachings at the last District meetings, they talked about testifying and being really clear and so I’ve been testifying a ton, every lesson, when we talk to people in the roads, I say “I know this with all of my heart, that this is true and that everything that we said is true” and I say that a ton. That’s really helped strengthen my testimony and others, and it’s helped us have a lot more powerful message and it’s super awesome and super great. We had lunch with the Elder’s Quorum president, super cool guy, then we visited a family that we taught the first lesson to and they told us they have their church and they don’t want to hear more about our church. So we returned home, did some paperwork stuff with the area book then we visited Luciani and we taught a Restoration lesson and it went super great and we are going to return tomorrow to visit her again and talk about the answer to her prayer. Super great. We also visited Marcus and talked about what the other missionaries taught him, and how he had felt about being baptized, just to get to know him more and we are going to return this Thursday to talk more with him.

Today is Monday again and we woke up, then slept for 3 hours (P-day!) and it was awesome. We’ve been working and walking a ton and taking a little time to relax and get more sleep was super great, super fun. Right now I’m looking out the window at a Volkswagon truck and it’s got a lift and some super nice rims, pretty cool. And today we’ve got 2 visits marked, tonight with a reference from a family in the ward, and a follow up visit with a less active and her family and we are going to a store in just a little bit to buy some food and eat for lunch and have another great week.

Sure love all you guys. I’m doing great here. Training is new and tough and it’s good. I’m in control of everything and I have to mark what day we are going to teach lessons, when we visit people, and be in control of everything which is tough but it’s really awesome to have that experience of leading and leadership and it’s super awesome. It’s going super good so far. I’m really pumped for this transfer. Love you all and tchau!

Elder Anderson

 a cool car with cameleon paint we saw

 a drawing elder Villagomew drew for me

 epic sunset on the way home from piracicaba

Elder Lira and I!