BOM DIA MORMONS!

Dearly Beloved!
What a week this has been! Many experiences that I don´t think I will ever forget.  It has been eventful and wonderful and I really am just excited more than ever about this work! It really and truly is amazing.

So Lets start from the beginning. 
I love Tuesdays!  They are just a good way to start off the week. District meetings are always a nice refresher.  A good way to set goals and be ´´on top of your game´´ for the week.  We were also reminded that this will be President Batt´s last week as the Brazil Fortaleza Mission President serving from 08-11.  Lots of missionaries are very sad as am I because he has done so much to bring this mission back.  After the meeting we were greeted by our lunch appointment. Turns out she was feeling sick so she handed us a fresh 20 real bill.  We decided that beans and rice were off the menu and pastels had hit a home run with us.  We like to make our own so we decided to use the money to go buy what every we wanted.  Usually ham and cheese are the filling but we decided to get creative.  Eggs, hash browns, Chicken Ketchup and Ice Cream!  It was an interesting lunch and our tummies were reminded later that day.  I was thinking it could have turned into another New York Pizza mishap!  :) Wednesday was most excellent.  Each teaching appointment went through and it was cloudy!  Not as hot so it was a nice 77 degrees haha.  The experience that night was teaching this 16 year old girl out side here house.  She said she didn't want to let us in, so she ended up standing on one side of the gate as we stood on the other and taught that way.  It was interesting.   
  I had an awesome experience with the language on Thursday! So E. Birdsall has started living some of lessons to finish them off.  So I have been studying like a mad man this week.  First we taught the first to a girl that has recently found an interest in the church.  As I was teaching I was thinking , ´´ I´m doing it! I am speaking this language.´´  I was doing fine all the way up until I was interrupted at the Restoration by this old lady.  She came in, and had a mouthful to say about religion.  She was going crazy and the beauty was I was understanding as well as getting her spit all over my face.  She was literally in my face.  When we tried to bring the lesson back, I was loosing it.  Not tears but laughing.  I honestly tried to hold it all in as long as I could but I started coughing and boom out came the laughter.  E. Birdsall was right with me.  So here we are, at the best part of the lesson, laughing our brains out.  E. Birdsall finished it off and we got out as fast as possible.  We must have made an impression because this girl later accepted our invitation to be baptized :D
Friday and Saturday were both super busy and everyone seemed to be very receptive.  Including a family of 8!  This was a reference which was just excellent.  The seemed to really like us and invited us to come back.  They have six kids ages 4-18.  We were very excited to put down 9 new investigators that night.  The cool thing was that the Dad told us he thought that was the first time he saw all his family all together. 
  It was an interesting Sunday.  Typical waking up and running through the routines.  We had the chance to pick up a few investigators and bring them to church.  Had a total of 8! I was doing fine up until, the first counselor asked me to speak in sacrament meeting.  I swear I said no in my mind but the words  ´´ Sim´´ slipped out.  So here I am, preparing a talk in a language that I am just barely getting grips on that needs to be ready in an 1 hour! Yikes!  I decided that speaking on the first thing that came to mind would be best, which was our Father in Heaven.  I was the last speaker chosen to speak for 15 minutes.  I was shaking in my pants up until I got up there.  I started off saying the I know I don't speak very well but I Know why I am here.  To be a Missionary.  The rest just seemed like a blur.  I just decided to open my mouth and see what would come out.  Turns out I know this language alot better than I sometimes give myself credit for.  I spoke for 15 on dot and didn´t feel nervous at all.  I used scriptures and my own thoughts and man! I was just excited to be up there talking.  I know I didn´t say everything right but!  I am grateful for the opportunity, truly a lesson that I learned full force. 

I love this work.  I love it everyday.  I love what I am doing and truly feel like I have learned more than I can write.  4 months this week! Incredible how that time has passed.  I love you all and miss you.  But I know this is where I am supposed to be.  This is my calling right now to be here teaching.  Tem um Boa Semana!  Eu Amo Voces! 

Love,
Elder Anderson
Romans 8: 16-17
16The Spirit itself beareth awitness with our bspirit, that we are the cchildren of God:
17And if children, then heirs; aheirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we bsuffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

June 20th

OLA! Tuda bem!? How is everything? Well the wind has picked up down here, so the heat is a little more bareble.  Although we still hit the 90 or more sometimes.  This week has been interesting to say the least.  Each day was different with a new struggle, a new reward and new person to teach.  Towards the beginning of the week it was really hard to catch our investigators at home.  It seemed like on both Terça and Quarta (Tuesday, Wednesday), everyone was sleeping, busy, or had left with 15 minutes that we got to their homes.  It was really hard because those days felt like no progression was made.  But, it became apparent to us that it was less actives and recent converts that we needed to focus on.  It hit us like a pile a bricks Wednesday afternoon. 

  There have been alot of struggles and difficulties in our ward.  Many because of gossip and rumors that are spread which start to tear the members apart.  Some days I feel like it is up to Elder Birdsall and Elder Anderson to save this ward from being dissolved.  To top it off someone has been breaking into our chapel recently.  The bust out the windows, take a hack saw and chop down the steal frames that are supposed to keep people out.  Turns out the frames, lost the fight.  Usually the robbers come him and still what ever they can get their hands on and do things as fast as possible.  Members get frustrated because they don't want to have to take responsibility in cleaning it up.  Then fingers get pointed and the hold thing goes up in flames.  We been doing a good job and keeping everyone afloat and saying that its only them that can take offense.  Of coarse its hard to talk with them atleast for me.  But I have noticed the recent progression in the language.

  Thursday, Friday and Saturday we hit language study hard.  Elder Birdsall quizes me on how to say something using the verbs that I learn.  I try and memorize about 10 a day. He quizes me especially on conjugating each verb the 6 different ways it can be conjugated.  Anyone want a verb conjugated in Imperfect Subjunctive form, How about Imperfect, Present, Preterit, Present Subjunctive, Future Subjunctive.  I can do it all.  Its funny how I have gotten to the point of hearing them all in the conversations.  It has actually made things alot easier now that I know the tense that they are using it in. I am hearing almost every single word from everyone.  But now its figuring out what they mean.  So I have also been writing down words like a mad man as well as busting out the portugues dictionary. 

  The good thing about talking with alot of members this week is that they always have something to give us to eat, drink, look at, or attend.  Seems like birthday parties are a big deal for whatever age.  Everyone is invited including the missionaries.  Usually we stop in just to wish whoever a Feliz Anniversario! Because everyone knows me as the missionary who loves cake they usually give me a big piece that I can hardly finish. That doesn´t do it though because Brazilian´s love giving seconds, thirds, fourths.  Again I feel like a bowling ball rolling about of houses.

  Saturday and Sunday we decided that knocking doors was the only way to get new investigators.  When I say ´´knocking´´ I actually mean clapping because Brazilians don´t actually have hard doors. Its mainly a gate of some kind.  I usually introduce us as missionaries and its fun to get the reaction first hand.  Last night we had a nice long hour conversation with a conspiracy theorist about religion, politics, and so forth.  He defiantly had a mouth full.  The drunk people still love us as missionaries.  We even got a few hugs from them. It seems like one of the ´´regulars´´ always finds us where ever we are.  His exact words are ´´You are all Crazy!´´  over and over.  He laughs at our shirts and ties but I think hes jealous because he does not have a shirt, sometimes he doesn´t even have pants on haha.

It seems like everyday is busy, which makes the days go by faster and faster.  I can still hardly believe that hear I am again writing another email to voces!  I really have settled in and I really love what I am doing.  The language is starting to pick up.  The people are interesting but good to talk to and I continue to count my blessings everyday.  May the Savior be in our thoughts always and continue to steer us in the direction that we need to live our lives.  Life is about struggles and smiles, as well as the mission.  I am starting to see that now. 

I love you all, hope the summer is starting off well. 

Elder Anderson

 

Isaiah 41:

9Thou whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called thee from the chief men thereof, and said unto thee, Thou art my^aservant; I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away.

 10¶^aFear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.9Thou whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called thee from the chief men thereof, and said unto thee, Thou art my ^aservant; I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away.

Elder Anderson Letter & Pictures 6/13/11

WELL HELLO THERE!

It was  a busy week every single day.  Lessons taught, new people looking for answers and lots of prayers said.   We began visting alot of people who have had first lessons and so we did alot of follow up visits with commitments and so forth.  There were many who liked our message and wanted to learn as much as they could.  We focused on 3 investigators in particular every day this week.  This week was my first week with alot of new experiences on the mission. First I will start with the Brazilian Wedding.  So we had two investigators that were planning to go get married the day before their baptism downtown.  Usually brazilians get civily wed first before the actual ceremony sometimes they don´t even have a ceremony, but Tuda Bem! Anyways so Friday E. Birdsall and I took our fancy smacy bus ride down to Centrol to go to the Civil Certificates place.  We ended up being the first ones there and I will guess this by saying that some people thought we were there to get married.  So that picture is us waiting.  We were a little nervous because we ended up waiting for an hour for Solange and Leandro to show.  Like you see We ammused ourselves with taking pictures :) It was a cool little ceremony with a judge, witnesses, some family, and of coarse the missionaries.   Saturday night we had the actual ceremony at the chapel in which of coarse E. Birdsall and I planned, set up, and made sure the bride was ready to go.  We definatly played wedding planners.  Missy need any tips? haha      

The second experiece was Baptisms! WHAT WHAT!  #1,2 and 3 on Saturday morning. All week Leandro and Joelma had doubts all the way up until the day of.  They said they were ready but almost backed out towards the end.  We had Joelma ready to go two weeks ago but she said the she wasnt sure.  Sometimes you just have push your point of few aside and go to the scriptures for some good convincing evidence that this is the right thing. When we went to go pick her up she seemed confident but we still werent sure.  A friend of hers said ´´Hey Joelma Where are you going!?´´ Her response was ´´I am going to go get baptized in the church of Mormons.  Elder Birdsall and I had smiles from ear to ear and said YES! She said  that was all she needed was some one to ask what she was going to do.. About 15 minutes til the service Leandro said he was not going to go through and so E. Birdsall said ok and walked away a little frustrated.  I decided to just go ask one more time and his response was ´´why?´´and I wasn´t really sure what to say, the first thing that came to mind was his wife so I said because your wife loves you and wants you too. With that it must have hit him hard because he was the First one in the water haha.

My week was highlighted by these two events this weekend. Lots of pictures and memories that will make my entire mission.  

´´Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good Soldier of Jesus Christ´´ 2 Tim. 2:3

I love you all and I continually blessed by your support and love everyday! Tuda Bem!

Love,

Elder Anderson  

 

To My Dad: Happy Birthday! and Father´s Day! I love you!                              http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdXYWWow_Sc

 

 

Pictures

Baptisms #1,2 and 3!  Solange, Leandro and Joelma

After the Wedding ceremony on Saturday night

Couple of Elders waiting to get married

Ants, Dont they look Yummy?

June 6th Letter

Oi!  It is so strange how fast time has truly gone.  I still feel like Jason and Joey are giving me a pep talk as we drive down the street to the MTC.  Then I realize that it has been 3 months since then!

This week was excellent.  We started off the week with FHE with a Family from the ward.  I have found that people from this ward love to hear from the ´´Newest´´ missionary the most by having him give the spiritual thought or talk about his family or anything.  So I try my hardest and talk as much as I can.  People have a hard time understanding that I only know so much. Besides have my vocab right now is words of the Church.  On Terça we had a ´´´Fast from English´´ All day we spoke portugues.  It was pretty difficult because like I said I only know a few words so I got used to pulling my dictionary in and out of my pocket.  However, on Wednesday when I woke up my thoughts were in Portugues.  It was so weird I was trying to think of what I needed just to pour a bowl of cearal and all I could think was portugues words.

On Wednesday we had a Zone conference which was super awesome.  I saw alot of people from Provo and the CTM that I hadn´t seen since they left or I left.  We found out that our new Mission President, President Souza will be coming on June 28th and will be beginning his three year service.  There are alot of things that missionaries are expecting to change and President Batt will be missed alot.  I felt like the Zone Conference was a good way to be fed both Spiritually and Physically.  It was just something I needed.  I have become pretty good friends with an Elder Wahl from Hillsboro, OR.  Who has been out a year longer than me.  Little did I know that he and I would be working together on Thursday ´´Northwesterners tearing up the Nordeste´´ (Sound Familiar Emily).  Elder Birdsall had a leadership meeting on Thursday so I went to another area to Work with Eldre Wahl and his companion Elder Baptista.  It was fun being able to work in another area and see what I could learn from other missionaries.  There are 180 missionaries here and the Americans are starting to get out numbered so we try and stick together.  When E. Birdsall and I met back up at the bus station he told me that we will most likely be working together for the next transfer. 

Friday I learned the baptismal challenge and E. Birdsall had me challenge basically everyone we had an appointment with.  The first was pretty difficult but by the end of the day it flowed like a song out of my mouth :) I was also told that I eat as much as horse by a brazilero.  I couldn´t help it though I was hungry and he was serving salgado. (brazilian hotpocket) .  It was pretty funny because this guy that called me a horse said it in english and it sounded so wierd.  The ´´R´´ sound in portugues is pronounced like an ´´H´´ so trying saying horse.

We teach our English class every saturday morning and its pretty fun.  I have been teaching it the last few weeks and I feel like I learn just as much as the Brazilian do.   I taught families one week and the weather this last.  They laugh that we have four seasons.  They have two.  The dry season and wet season. 

I have been discovered as the Elder that loves bolo aka Cake.  When members ask what we want for lunch we will say a dish and then I will add in Bolo. To my pleasure it is actually working haha.  We had a wedding this week for an investigator so we have been playing Wedding Planner.  Its actaully kind of fun.  After the wedding on Friday, they will be getting baptized which we are very excited for!  Yesterday was difficult, not because of the heat, not because of investigators, but because this lady from the ward kept feeding us like we were starving kids.  She just kept saying ´´take more take more´´ and if we didnt she would say ´´You don´t like my food´´ so we had to take it.  I told E. Birdsall we looked like two bowling balls rolling on home.  It pretty sure if I would have had one more bite it would have been the New York Pizza episode all over again for those of you who witnessed that. 

Well another flies by and before you know it another email from E. Anderson will be in your inbox.  Love you all and I thank you all for the prayers.  All the missionaries need them.  Love you! Tem um Boa Semana! Tchau!

Elder Anderson

Pictures:

1 E. Sivertson and I in Provo

2 Look whoes eating Football size avacados now Alicia!

May 30th Letter

Oi Everyone!  So my comp and I were talking about how it really does seem like yesterday that we were emailing!  Time really is flying by down here so its impossible to think what it will feel like when months start to become years yikes!  Well this week was definatly hard and hot.  The winter months ( sounds wierd i know) are starting to role in meaning humidity and heat all day and night.  It was about 85 degrees everyday.  I´ll be honest in telling you all that the missionary tan is coming in quite nicely.  I have the sleeves, the watch and the neck line to prove it all.  Monday night there was another rain storm that came in and Elder Birdsall and I luckily were about a 25 minute walk from our casa.  Turns out running wouldnt have helped so we ended up sitting under a couple trees for about 15 minutes because we didnt have our umbrellas with us.  It was kinda funny because theres to men in ties basically hugging the trees to stay dry.  We had alot of funny experiences this week to.  For one we have a new district with alot of Americans which is pretty nice.  They asked me to stand introduce myself as did everyone and say a few things about myself.  I said who I was, Where i was from, how long I have been out, and ´´I have 5 sisters, 3 of which our married, 1 is engaged and 1 that has a boyfriend´´ alot of sighs came out. 

One of the days we were walking to our lunch appointment and some guy came out of the little river that runs through the area.  Turns out he was catching his lunch with his hands.  He may or may not have been drunk but either way it was very funny when he gave us a toothless grin.  He seemed very excited for the fish but i hope he knows that the river is used for the garbage flow as well as sewage mmmm sounds yummy.  We were also approached by a few new creatures.  BATS!  They come out around dusk and you can hear them all over the sky.  Its so scary because they fly right above your head and will sit on your backpack if your not moving.  I may or may not have let out a few yelps this week because of that. One night it was also interesting because we were walking, sweating our eye brows off when a car pulled up and asked if we wanted a ride.  They people opened the door and we thought they were members of the church.  Turns out they were´nt just a nice couple that said they see us  walking all the time and decided to pick us up and let us rest for once. What a blessing! So if you ever see missionaries walking on the street in the rain of blistering sun! pick them up!Elder Birdsall filled me in on something that really interested me this week.  Before the mission he was in can you guess it? High School Musical 3!  so i had my fair share of questions to ask.   From that point I began to sing all the songs for him in which he really did enjoy. 

This weekend was stake conference and we tried to get alot of investigators to go.  It was a little let down when only two showed up.  The best part was getting to the stake center.  On another ´´indiana jones´´ aka city bus that was rented out to only those going to conference.  I think we confused a few people when we would go to the bus stops.  We basically had to hold the hands of few investigators to get to the stake center because at first they weren´t planning on it until we said we would go with them.  Saturday night we were running all of trying to get them a ride and for us to get money for bus fare since the rented out bus was only for sunday.  We ended up getting them there just during the beginning.  I knew it would all work out because when were running around that night I saw an old man on his bike peddling up a hill listening to ´´i gotta a feeling´´ by black eyed peas.  I figured it was a sign haha.  This week just flew by and the days for even faster.

I continue to feel blessed for the experiences and blessing that have and will be recieved.  Unfortunatly we didnt have our baptism this week because of a few other things that we need to teach her.  So were crossing our fingers for next weekend.   I love you all and see myself growing alot.  I´ll hit my 3 month this week which is definatly hard to believe.  Remember to count your many blessing and also be grateful for the life that our Heavenly Father has given you.  If your not grateful maybe your doing something wrong.  Tuda Bem Family and Friends!

Elder Anderson  

´´And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry;´´  I Tim 1:12