Chapter 31: American Week

After going on splits with the zone leaders, Elder Anderson and his companion, got to have a doughnut as a special treat.

Another special treat, Elder A and his companion received permission from their mission president to visit a mall to pick up an item they needed, and while they were there, they were able to enjoy the luxury of eating a double whopper, fries, and a soft drink at Burger King!

2/18

Today we went to the hospital, LilJ was dying: We've really messed up his foot from walking so far everyday. Fortunately I've gotten to know LilJ well enough that we were able to turn even the miserable experience of the hospital into a pretty hilarious experience. When we went into the IV room so that they could give him an IV  for his hurting foot (because that's how it works) he got injected with a couple of shots. After he got ready to go they were like, "hold on, we need to do one more, you can go into that curtained area over there" and he's like, "another one?" and the lady looks at him and pats her bum. About 30  seconds later LilJ hurriedly walks out, his eyes wide with fear and says, "Bro, I don't think you understand what just happened" while I was dying of laughter, these IV ladies are crazy, I'm not sure how that's supposed to help his foot, but sure, whatever. LilJ got a note saying that he couldn't work for the next 5 days and after I got off the phone with Sister Caetano and she emphasized the nothingness we were to do, LilJ  was like, "you ready to work?" and I was like, "you better believe it" so we went to work like normal and helped so many people today really was an amazing day. We're teaching a lot of people right now who have been truly prepared, so we couldn't afford to lose time, this was one of those "ask forgiveness, not permission" situations (sorry Sister Caetano).

2/19
Today was cool, I went on splits with Elder Packem. These splits were a little different than normal, Yancey and Packem (our ZLs) decided that they don't have anything to do in their area, so they both decided to come here. That was an... interesting decision to make. Working with Packem today was cool, we went up to Jesus Me Deu, in all my time in Santa Marta I had never been up there, so it was cool to enter a  completely new area. We were able to teach a lot of lessons today, some of them were pretty amazing. We talked to  one lady who told me I speak beautifully which was a nice confidence booster. We made brief introductions and then our new friend recounted to us her entire life story, but it was cool to hear, she was a really sweet lady. Afterwards she thanked us for our message and told us how grateful she was to have prophets like us in her house. Packem and I looked at each other like, "Umm... you know what, it's fine, she's progressing, we'll teach her about that next time." We also broke a bunch of girls' hearts when we told them tonight would be our last English class. EnglishConnect is going on and our English class was a distraction from missionary work, so it's better not to do. Some people  have a lot of success finding new investigators with their English class, but we haven't had that success, so we're going to let EnglishConnect handle the teaching of English to these people. Liljenquist got fed a bunch of bad information from Yancey today, but Packem seems like he'll be a good zone leader.
2/20
Today was pretty cool. We cancelled lunch with members today to eat with our investigators; They invited us and we  thought it would be an important friendship builder to eat with them, which led us to eat in the nicest house I've seen here in Brazil, yet. We always just talk to them in their store, so it was kind of a shock when we showed up to their house and it was ridiculously big. Our goal was to love the mother of the family since both the husband and daughter already wanted to be part of the church, but the wife wouldn't let them, so getting to eat with this family was a really important opportunity. The wife LOVED talking  to us and wants us to cancel more of our  lunches to eat with her again. Hopefully, that was the needed progression so that she'll at least let the rest of her family come to church now. Another pro of being there today was that I got to eat a fish head. Brazilians love the fish head, so it was a great honor to eat it. I didn't mind the hard outside bones or the fish's cartoon alien nose, but the teeth were a little weird and the eye was slimy...  yet satisfying. Hakuna matata. Our lessons today were less fun, we got cancelled on by multiple  people, so that didn't make things easy. The one thing that did go well  today was the lesson that we taught  to Diego. Diego was prepared by God, every time that we talk to him I'm like, "yes! Exactly! Isn't it so obvious? I  don't understand why no one else gets this." Diego was a great breath of fresh air. We also talked to someone  who was convinced the Book of Mormon contradicts the Bible: That was a breath of Manaus sewage air.
2/21
Today was fun. We had a zone reunion in the morning which was amazing! I got to see my old friend Elder Kenison as well as meet the new Elders in our district, which was also great. I was pretty angry during our reunion today but finally calmed down when I vented to the other District leader afterwards. The ZLs started off the meeting by doubling our goal for people that we're going to have in Sacrament meeting; LilJ and I are already working our rear ends off and still not getting anyone in Sacrament, so I was pretty angry when our Zone Leaders, who aren't working nearly  as hard, but still have been blessed with people in Sacrament told the rest of us to just "try harder". Well, LilJ and I are trying harder, we have a goal to reach the mission "pattern of excellence" every week (goals that are crazy high in every category). Number wise, today was definitely my best day on the mission, by far. 45 contacts, 8 news [lessons with investigators], 5 [baptismal] dates. That's even more dates than I would do in a day back at home. In order to hit our weekly goal, we have to catch up, but we're going  to do it. I also did an interview for a baptism tonight, which was a great chance to calm down and remember that good people still exist in the world. When I showed up  though, Douglas acted surprised,  because apparently our ZLs told Douglas that they were going to do the interview, which they're qualified for, but only if I'm not available. The ZLs backed off on the interview, but while I was conducting the interview they talked to LilJ and said that they were setting a new transfer baptism goal for us, lower than what we had set. They tried to lower our numbers under suspicion that we were trying to copy them, having a goal to hit the mission  pattern of excellence. The difference between our goal and their goal, though, is that they were trying to have the highest numbers in the zone as a way to get "glory of man", which so many people obsess about on the mission; However, LilJ and I have our goal, independent of them, to meet the  mission standards of excellence, and we're putting in the work to meet our goal, not just for the "glory of man". I'm feeling a little attacked by our ZLs, and they're supposed to be on our team, this is pretty messed up.
2/22
Today was actually hilarious. Today was also the first time I've ever hit the mission's "pattern of success", so it was also an amazing day. This week we got 147 contacts, 26 news [lessons with investigators], and 20 [baptismal] dates. First of all, lunch was awesome, it was in a scary house but a new crowd was there for lunch today (it's always a completely different group of people every time). There was a normal lady there though today, so we were able to pretend it was a normal house. We drank Terere with the lady, which is about as normal as it gets. Although there was a dog out front that had a horrible scar on its face that was dripping (omitted for my mom's sake) and that was... actually, that was sadly also normal.Today we taught a lot of lessons, so I'll just hit the highlights: We taught one lady today who was kind of into the lesson, when we finished I requested a cup of water, she went into her house (we had been teaching in her yard) and I looked over to her son; Her son stands up, and resting on the back of his chair is a Book of Mormon, I look at Liljenquist and we're like, "what the heck", ask the lady about where she found the book and she's like; "oh, I think it's my dad's" so that's the story of how we put her dad on date for baptism. We also helped out a guy who's building his house; LilJ and I started carrying his granite countertop and sink in (which is HEAVY) and the guy starts having a seizure, I look over and he's like, "I was shocked" he had touched a live wire sticking out of his wall. LilJ and I were dying from laughter , LilJ almost dropped the countertop. Then the guy, arthritic, kneels, starts screaming in pain, gets up, says, "I can't do it", then kneels down AGAIN, starts screaming again, which made LilJ and I lose it all over again, which led to me doing the plumbing for his sink. Then we got Tacaca with Luiz because WE HIT PADRAO! It was awesome.
2/23
What were the effects of working so hard this week? We had seven people in Sacrament. We may work hard, but the Lord works harder. It was an awesome Sunday.


Today's message comes from Helaman chapter 3, a chapter that largely instructs how we are be as a church.
35 Nevertheless they did fast and pray oft, and did wax stronger and stronger in their humility, and firmer and firmer in the faith of Christ, unto the filling their souls with joy and consolation, yea, even to the purifying and the sanctification of their hearts, which sanctification cometh because of their yielding their hearts unto God.
This pattern, fasting and praying to purify ourselves brings us closer to the Atonement, a process called Sanctification, brings true joy. The greatest difference in following the church teachings and living the church teachings is learning how to actively do these actions we repeat so often that they can frequently become mundane, if we let them. Today you are invited to reach out with your whole soul, if you find that you're passively praying and just saying the words, try actively praying that you may truly feel the "joy and consolation", the power that can accompany these everyday events.


Muito amor,
Elder Anderson

Chapter 30: The Wall of Rain

30 Second Video Clip of a Rain Storm in Santa Marta

2/11

Today was pretty fun. We had our last  zone reunion today for this transfer which means that we said "goodbye" to a lot of missionaries. The reunion was kind of sad for me though, Liljenquist will probably be transferred next Monday which means this was likely the last time LilJ, Freeman, Mickel, and I will be working in the same zone. Mickel even gave LilJ and I ties, he's been such a great friend and example to us. Lunch today was fun, we finally got cancelled on so I got to make food. When we started eating Liljenquist was like, "...this has flavor. Why  don't people cook like this here?" Work was also pretty great today, we didn't have to walk too far, which was nice, and we got to talk to a lot of our stronger investigators. So far, we have quite the group for church next Sunday so we're really hoping everything works out, hopefully, if we keep visiting them all week they won't forget about the awesome sacrament meeting that we're going to have Sunday. We also had a couple of interesting contacts today: In one of them I asked a guy walking down the street if we could see his bible for a sec, then we pulled out the verse that says, "my church" and we asked him how he knew he had found the right one. We then encouraged him to pray and ask if our church had the authority of God and if he needed to be a member. I wouldn't exactly say he was grateful for the invite, but his reaction definitely made it easy to remember him.
2/12
Today wasn't that fun. We walked around teaching lessons all day until we had our English class. Lessons were pretty good, we taught one guy who was super receptive which was really refreshing. After that lesson, we went over to a new house and knocked. Irma Isabel opened  the door and was like, "Good afternoon, Elders! This is my Niece's house, come in! Come in!" Then we taught a lesson to her Niece. At the end, we invited her to be baptized, she did the normal, "I don't know" thing, and before we could say anything, her aunt chimed in, "but the Mormon baptism is cool! I'm going to be baptized, you should be baptized with my husband and I!" and the lady was like, "hmm... well, okay, as long as it's a cool baptism" and Elder Liljenquist and I just looked at each other in amazement, that's the fastest one of our lessons has ever gone apostate before. Irma Isabel has a really good heart, she understands our messages,  she just... doesn't quite understand how to express these things. We also pretty much fought with someone today over doctrine. Not a good  experience, would not recommend ever fighting with anyone. We taught our English class again tonight and made new contacts and taught people how to pray in English, it was a good class.
2/13
Today was pretty great. I called a bunch of people in the morning and set up appointments, so we already knew that today was going to be busy, but because LilJ and I are freaking legends we still fit new, unplanned lessons into our schedule. "How is it possible to teach two different lessons marked at the same time?" I hear you asking, well it's simple, we taught multiple lessons today in about 10 minutes, really trying to talk to the largest number of people possible. We also missed our appointment with the Bishop (sorry Bishop), because sometimes 10 minute lessons turn into hour long discussions. We definitely talked to as many people as we could have today, though, so that's a win in my book. Today we picked up the Bishop's son to teach with us, that kid is awesome. We only taught one lesson  with him, to Ana, but it was an amazing lesson.  We invited her whole family to listen and  then taught probably the best Plan of Salvation I've ever gotten to be a  part of before. At first, the Bishop's son was super nervous, and then it took the combined strength of Liljenquist and I to restrain him from teaching the entire restored gospel in one night. We're becoming true apostles, though, we put Ana's daughter to sleep, our message was so full of the peace of the Spirit. That was one of our best lessons too, afterwards Pedro was like, "Man, I can't wait to be a missionary", so we did good. We also tried to teach a lesson that could have easily turned into fighting, but we learned our lesson yesterday, we bore testimony, left, and still had the Spirit.
2/14
Today was fun. We went out today to talk to our investigators and quickly found out that no one wanted to talk to us. All of our appointments fell though, so we went out to find new  people to teach. We found a less active family and an awesome lady that's super interested in the church. God knows best, sometimes all your appointments have to fall through. The other thing that was pretty cool that I got to do today was an interview for Sanchez and  Graham. Unfortunately, Sanchez  called me way ahead of time, so we wasted like, four hours of time there. The interview was awesome, though! Mentally, I don't think the guy was all the way there, but he believed every word I said with his whole heart. I taught him a summarized version of the entire Gospel because he was a Today (someone with almost no information about our church, but has a strong desire to follow the Gospel), but he really was super humble and ready to learn, and picked up on a lot of the stuff that I said. I was impressed with how much he remembered, and at the end he gave the most touching prayer, he really was an awesome Son of God. When we returned to our  area we had just enough time to do a service project for Irmao Mota and arrange a ride with him in case one of us gets transfered. It was great to see at least one person smiling so much at us, Mota's always so happy.
2/15
Today was good. We worked as hard as we possibly could have, but it was still a more fubeca day than normal because today was the day  that we got calls for transfers. Liljenquist and I were the only people who didn't receive a call, so everyone else is changing in at least a small way except for us, which surprised me since Liljenquist already has so much time here, but at least we're going to have an awesome next transfer! Liljenquist is my hardest working comp yet, so I'm kind of happy he gets to stick around. I think he was kind of hoping to go, so I feel bad for him for that, but really what's most important is that we get to work. The most notable change from transfers is that Elder Kenison, my friend from the CTM is going to be in my district! Work today was like, well, running around like chickens with our heads cut off, trying to get everybody ready for church tomorrow. We made a contact that turned into a lesson and we gave him a Livro de Mormon, which is pretty unusual for a contact. He was just passing through Santa Marta for work, so we don't expect to ever see him again. We also got the lovely call saying that EnglishConnect needed us as teachers since their teachers had cancelled, so we had to drop work and go hike up to the church to teach out of a manual neither my comp nor I had ever read before. It was a good activity to try out, but Liljenquist and I made a blood oath to not go back. Then we ran out, trying to catch up on lost time, only to get dumped on by rain immediately, so we took shelter in a nearby Irma's house, or rather, we took shelter on her porch, since she wasn't home. We had lots of people promise to come to church, so it was a good Saturday. Then, Liljenquist and I finished the night by showing him how to cook meat. There's a new Master Chef in Brazil now.
2/16
Today was great! We woke up early today to try to get all of our investigators to church. We had 15, great people, who seemed set on coming, and none of them came. That was kind of sad, but the members who are way better missionaries than we are invited their neighbor to come to church with them, and now he's interested in taking the lessons from us, so things are definitely looking up now. We had a great time learning about the atonement in our gospel doctrine class today, we studied 2 Nephi 9, which is such a well written chapter about the Atonement. Bednar made a really good point about the Atonement (no, I did not have David A. Bednar in my class today, I was just reading one of his books), Bednar showed how personal the Atonement is when he called it the "At one ment" when we accept the Atonement into our lives, we are literally becoming "at one" with the Savior. Work today wasn't very fun, and our last appointment of the night was talking to this awesome RM, so when we went and talked to him, he showed us this awesome video about the Atonement and missionary work. I have a lot to learn about the effects of the Atonement, still. This is the link of the video I saw: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6FKiNVbw3Y it explains the roles of the Savior, Missionaries, and Salvation incredibly well. After seeing that, I was ready to go out and deal with another unsuccessful week. It really should be a good week though, we'll have a new district, new missionaries, and lots of great things to look forward too.


Something that we've been learning a lot lately is how to work with the Lord. One of the verses on the mission that I've found I'm sharing most frequently with our investigators is Isaiah 55:8-9
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Frequently we share this verse with our investigators to show the need for us to change our ways, but as missionaries we frequently forget that we aren't perfect either. Any of us, full time missionaries, member missionaries, everyone in the entire world, have to be ready to accept the will of the Lord, and to work with him. Frequently in trying to do the will of the Lord I'm reminded of Peter talking to the resurrected Lord: So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs.
16 He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep.
17 He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.

There is no work that is more important than missionary work, nothing more dire, nor more consequential, both to us as well as to the rest of the world. It's my prayer that as we become more immersed in the work of Almighty God we'll come to know His thoughts and ways, and that we will truly come to love Him, the Light, and the Truth that He represents.

Muito Amor,
Elder Anderson

Chapter 29: Until The Dust

2/4

Today was awesome! Liljenquist and I are back full swing into work, and we absolutely killed it today. We taught 5 lessons which was great after the annoying setbacks we had, and put 5 people on date for baptism. Those baptismal dates are huge, because I'd never successfully challenged somebody to be baptized before. Actually, there was one man in Grande Circular that accepted a baptismal invite, but that event was singular, so to have 5 people put on date in one day was huge! Liljenquist and I went to a reunion today about marking dates, and it was pretty great to feel like I was learning something. It is really important that we help our investigators have the same vision that we have for them. Yancey reminded us that Presidente said that the first presidency is considering closing our mission and gave us a war pep talk, now if the first presidency wants to close our mission, they're going to have to go through us. The lessons that we had today were phenomenal, we taught a lot of people who had never spoken to us before, and we were able to invite the Spirit enough to have statistical success. Baptism isn't everything, but everything starts with Baptism. Really I just can't get over the immediate success that we had, it was a really big blessing to meet so many people who were truly prepared. I also drank close to a liter of cupuacu today, so that's another reason I'm so happy. I also ran in the dark, in the pouring rain, with an umbrella in hand, which was the perfect height to launch water into my eyes, further obscuring my vision. A dog started chasing us for a bit, no one in Brazil runs voluntarily, so seeing two gringos running really scared it.

2/5

The last page in my first journal, today is a big day. Copies of "Brian 1" should be appearing on the market early fall of 2020. Today was probably an even bigger day for the Mission President of Sao Paulo, though, he was assaulted by some ex-missionary, a full report where our church is misidentified as the evangelical church, and where the CTM is clarified as a building that isn't for cult purposes is available here: https://g1.globo.com/sp/sao-paulo/noticia/2020/02/05/homem-invade-centro-de-missionarios-de-igreja-evangelica-com-faca-e-e-baleado-em-sp.ghtml

Elder Liljenquist and I both have a skin disease, he thinks it's Ebola. We taught our English class tonight, which was awesome. I taught everyone how to say, "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" to help them with their pronunciation; As you can tell, we're a very productive class. Today's other highlights involved walking two hours for a single appointment. I felt like I was living the song "I Would Walk" by The Proclaimers. Liljenquist and I also blew off divisions today, we decided that we would rather work in our area than lose more time on splits with people who just wanted to mess around. We didn't teach a ton of lessons today, but the ones that we taught were pretty awesome. We did try to do a trust building visit with some members and it ended up turning into a Terere session for a half hour before we had to leave: "Aw, you guys are already going?" I do love now that the members want to be around us so much. The daughter of that family concluded that I was crazy after I told her the reason that we all drink from the same straw: It's a part of the Terere experience to share a straw, plus, it makes it so much easier for us to share our sicknesses too. That family also promised us food for the rest of our missions, so we're set.

2/6

Oh my goodness, today was difficult. All of our commitments fell through, except for two; So our whole day was spent making contacts and teaching brief introductory lessons. There were a couple of lessons that LilJ and I taught today that were really cool, we've been out here for long enough that we've started to get in tune with each other, so our lessons have become even cooler as now our investigators think we have the ability to read minds. The keen reader will notice that I said that two appointments didn't fall through; One with Doralice, and a community bible study session with our friend, Irmao Jose. The lesson with Doralice was interesting, we entered, I shook her brother's hand, and that was the moment that our lesson went downhill, yes, before we had even started. We sat down and this guy who had already started telling us about every single thing that exists in the world that he thinks is bad and needs to be changed. We literally could not get a word in for the first 30 minutes. That guy must be fun at parties. After that, it still wasn't until minute 45, when I shut my scriptures, having lost all hope of sharing a message that Doralice went, "No, no, no, you be quiet, it's these boys' turn to talk." Thankfully, that message still went pretty good. The other fun event was our bible study. Irmao Jose had invited us to study the bible with him and his group, we showed up late after the above mentioned fiasco, and then the rest of the time ended up being "gloria"s and "hallelujah"s. There was a lot of clapping but we did manage to sneak a message from the Book of Mormon in.

2/7

Today was also not very fun. All of our appointments fell through again, which meant that we spent a long time walking around, talking to new people. Today it felt like we were serving a mission in the States, because we got straight up rejected like, five times: "Hi, nice to meet you! We're representatives of Jesus Christ, our mission is to help people become closer to him. Could we share a message about Jesus Christ with you?", and we got the eloquent reply, "no." this confused us, we're used to hearing "because, I'm busy right now" or "because, I'm going to leave in a few minutes" (every lame Brazilian excuse starts with "because", so every time that we give our spiel and someone replies back "because" Liljenquist and I just look at each other while we wait for them to think of what they're doing that excuses them from repentance). The nice little reminder I got today that I'm not the crazy one was when we went to do a baptismal interview for Sanchez and Graham. We told them about what was happening and it was great to hear them go, "what? How is that possible?!" because that's exactly what we had felt. Then I interviewed a girl for baptism, she passed with flying colors, so we made an accord to tell her family and her missionaries that she wasn't ready to be baptized. Turns out my Portuguese has gotten a lot better than when I first got here, Sanchez believed me, then I hit him with the "just kidding" and he couldn't believe an American had just messed with him.

2/8

Today was interesting. This morning we built some walls for a house. I got to mix concrete and lay some rows of bricks, so that was fun. Turns out, you don't even need a high school education to build houses here. As was confirmed by our recent Venezuelan convert, you don't even need most of the communication skills necessary for living in Brasil, as long as you understand pointing and grunting, you're set. After the service project and a lunchy of chicken heart, we were off to start our daily work as missionaries. Today was a very successful day for missionary work here. We taught a ton of lessons, told lots of people their baptism isn't valid, encountered missionaries for another church (but unfortunately did not get to talk to them) and worked on reactivating members. We started a new thing where now I'm texting people prayer reminders (to ask about the truth of our message) and things are going so much better, our lessons are getting a lot more sincere. We also got to see a three day old baby which was pretty awesome. I don't know how the mom's going to feel, we're stealing her husband for church tomorrow. We also got to talk to the man who's gate we washed a week and a half ago. Tonight he told us he really wanted to read the Book of Mormon (he had loaned away his copy the last missionaries gave to him), so Liljenquist pulls our a Book of Mormon, "this?" and the guy got super excited. -1 BoM +1 Salvation Point for that guy.

2/9

Today was a really cool Sunday. Shoutout to Skyler Lykins, we didn't get anyone in sacrament meeting last week and I felt like we were kind of struggling, so that RM who served in my area and baptized probably 25% of the people there very patiently helped me with some ideas of what we could do to help people. Today we tried out one of his ideas, Liljenquist and I went on splits with guys from the ward so that we could have one Elder in our Sacrament meeting, there to help out, while the other went out to find all of our investigators and try to help them come to church. I went out with the Bishop's son and we passed by as many investigators as we could in the short time that we had. After laboring with all of our might, we were able to share our reunion with Ana, an experience she loved, which made all that walking worth it. After Sacrament, we found that we had a lot of threatenings on our phone. They were written in the language of a 13 year old, but he mentioned burning down our church building so we made sure to ask the other good group of missionaries in our zone what they recommended that we do. We sent him a nice breakup message, complete with the Bishop's number, and our love and best wishes. We had a pretty mellow night, Sundays are a little hard to proselyte on amidst all the drinking and smoking around us so we passed by some members houses for longer than we normally would. We ended up strengthening a lot of relationships and even found out that Brazil isn't safe from the effects of the hoverboard, one of the members has one. We gave him our condolences and advised him to seek counsel from the Bishop.

A passage I read recently in 1 John struck me: 

22 And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.

23 And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.
24 And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.

We have the divine potential to become like our heavenly father, something that is dependant on us accepting his Spirit. How do we accept his Spirit? As verse 23 says, we believe on the name of Christ. This faith leads us to act, to repent so that we can be sanctified, accept the will of God, and to receive his blessings. The point it all starts with is faith, if you don't feel that you can have faith, have hope, and let that hope work in you, until you see how truly sweet the Gospel is, and then you will be able to believe, you will have faith.

Muito amor,

Elder Anderson

Chapter 28: The Roads Here Turn Into Actual Cliffs

Elder Anderson made some apple custard doughnuts. Love the icing on these mini doughnuts!

Elder Graham and Elder Anderson

Homemade pizza!

The baptism of Edivaldo!

A picture with the police. Elder A said that the police were getting into their vehicle to leave when Elder A approached them and asked for a picture with them. They were excited about the picture and wanted to make sure their guns were in the picture too!

The barbed wire Edivaldo was so kind to install for the elders to prevent future break-ins to their house.

A snake eating a frog.

The snake after its snack.

 

1/28

Today was spiritually awesome! We did our morning studies and I learned more about humility which I didn't even need since I'm already pretty much the most humble person there is. When we went out for work today we stopped by Irmao Mota's house to give him back borrowed keys, to which he was like, "cool, thanks, you guys want to drink a weird plant with me right now?" and we considered our options: Start our one hour journey to our next appointment with the sun blazing overhead? Or get taught by our patriarch and drink a weird herbal tea? We replied, "we're coming, Mota!" He then taught us about the importance of humility, especially in receiving revelation. It's a good thing I mastered humility, I probably could have taught the patriarch about it. We also got taught by the seminary professor/relief society president today which was amazing, she always has the best stories. Other fun activities today included walking two hours to get to an investigators house, we had no number or appointment with them, but still felt like we should go, and fortunately we were briefly able to talk with them. We also talked to Cleide's husband and tonight we talked to him about the Word of Wisdom. He told us how he likes tea and then we told him about how we don't drink tea and then he told us how he doesn't like tea. He's just the coolest guy ever. He also did a security installation on our home, we're now equipped with barbed wire. He wouldn't accept any payment either, insisting he just liked being friends with us. 

1/29

Today was great! We were surprised by our leaders of our zone when they sent us a message stating that we have interviews tomorrow, the dat was marked for the last week of transfers but now it's happening tomorrow. Liljenquist and I are super excited for interviews, though, it's been a while since we've gotten to talk to Presidente. Yancey scared the heck out of me tonight when we were talking about interviews though; He told me Presidete requested to talk to me first because we had been coming back late every night. I knew we were right on the edge, but I didn't think that we were late, Yancey helpfully suggested that maybe our clock was off, before he hit me with the, "just kidding" and I was reminded how gullible I am. Today we made a lot of cool contacts, we had a lot of success in talking to new people, which was good, since all of our old investigators gave up on us. One contact was a seven year old boy, who Liljenquist taught how to say, "R.I.P. Kobe Bryant". It's amazing to me how many Brazilians will talk about his death to us. We taught our English class tonight which was also cool, especially when Liljenquist accidently broke a skateboard that belonged to a kid in the ward, as you might guess, Liljenquist felt pretty bad about it. We also got to teach Papito tonight, but I think my favorite part of today was when Irmao Mota invited us back to drink Terere with him again, that man is a saint.

1/30

Today was awesome! I'm doing divisions with Graham, the Elder from my stake, which I've really enjoyed. I hope he's enjoyed it too, because today we worked. Most of the contacts that we made yesterday we tried to visit today, but we only got to do one of them: A guy named Mauro. Today Mauro taught me about the wonders of fishing, as well as avocado juice. He was like ,"you guys ever had avocado juice?" to which we apprehensively responded, "no..." and he was like, "sweet! I'll make some for you guys right now." It was actually really awesome, and it blew their minds to hear that we eat avocados salty instead of sweet. Today was also really cool, because we got to visit the parents of Mateaus, and give his mom a blessing. We actually got to give three blessings today, Elder Graham got quite the crash course in giving blessings as on the spot I suggested multiple times a blessing in response to the challenges our investigators were facing. Graham did a great job rolling with it! We met some awesome new people today doing contacts: There was one guy who was washing his gate when we came up and started talking to him, I told him that we're here for more than just talking, we're here to serve, and offered to wash his gate for him, which made him laugh before he finally accepted our help. He had lost contact with the missionaries a while ago, but loves us and invited us back to talk again before we even asked if he'd be interested in our message. Pretty good for two gringos who don't know the language.

1/31

Today was awesome! Today we had conference with Presidente Caetano and his wife. We did a lot of practices which were pretty fun, although nerve wracking when your mission president is judging you on on what you could do better. We had an awesome lunch with him, he had paid some cooks to make, and the cooks were super nice, they even taught me how to make what they made. Sister Caetano was stunned when she heard I was learning the recipe: "Elder Anderson likes to cook?!" I told Sister Caetano I was, in fact, very fond of not starving to death, which she thought was pretty great. Elder Graham and I switched back, and I was glad for the chance that we had to work together, but Liljenquist knows the area way better than I do, so I was also really glad to be back with him. Work today wasn't as fun, when we were heading back from conference our bus broke down, which turned a half hour bus ride into, like, an hour and a half walk. We also got caught in some pretty strong rain but I got to see Bia from Grande Circular which was pretty fun. We did get to do our interview with Cleide's husband, though, which was great! Yancey interviewed him which was super nice of him and Torres, since they had to pay for an uber to make that interview happen. He passed with flying colors, though, so tomorrow he's going to be baptized!

2/1

Today was Irma Cleide's husband, Edivaldo's baptism! The service was amazing but almost didn't happen because Elder Liljenquist got super sick last night. We weren't really sure if the baptism would happen because there were still some small things we had to finalize, but Liljenquist couldn't even leave his bed, so that left us in a real pickle. Fortunately, our good old pals Sanchez and Graham were able to completely ditch their work for the day and come over for splits; So Sanchez spent all day in the hospital with LilJ and Graham and I went out to do only the things which were most necessary. It was "most necessary" that Graham and I taught four unplanned lessons, but Graham didn't mind, we got some good practice out of it. We also invited to church like none other Saturday we've ever had, which was cool. The service tonight was really spiritual though, it was also kind of weird because our ward looked to me as the leader, LilJ wasn't there to help and Graham didn't know any of them, so I ran the reunion alone. It was a good feeling to know that I'm capable, that six months into the mission I can really talk to people and they really understand me. I made an agenda to follow tonight, prepped speakers and even got the opportunity to perform the ordinance of the baptism today. That man was so happy to be baptized, he's going to be an awesome leader in the church and in a year when he can be sealed to his wife, that'll be the best thing ever.

2/2

Today was a great Sunday! Except for that small part where none of our friends came to church with us, which was sad because it was an awesome fast and testimony meeting. Fortunately Elder Liljenquist was feeling better so we were able to go to church, which was really important since it was the confirmation of Cleide's husband. Bishop invited me to do the confirmation up on the stand which was super nice of him, but I had never heard of a missionary doing that before, I had no idea how to, especially in Portuguese, so I opted for "next time". After church we went out and talked to some of our investigators. One family we went to consisted of a less active man and his wife who isn't a member, and because personal space isn't a thing here, when he saw us his eyes lit up, "Elders!" and then he shoved a spoonful of Acai into each of our mouths. That was interesting. We also did the math and found out there is a church less than every 1/10th of a mile. It was pretty cool to hear so many people worshipping in various methods.

Lately I've been thinking about Mosiah 18:20, a scripture that says: Yea, even he commanded them that they should preach nothing save it were repentance and faith on the Lord, who had redeemed his people. This scripture harmonizes with President Nelson's talk "We can do better and be better". In his talk, Nelson said, "Recently I have found myself drawn to the Lord’s instruction given through the Prophet Joseph Smith: “Say nothing but repentance unto this generation. This declaration is often repeated throughout scripture. It prompts an obvious question: “Does everyone need to repent?” The answer is yes." Then comes President Nelson's beautiful reminder about the true nature of repentance: "Too many people consider repentance as punishment—something to be avoided except in the most serious circumstances. But this feeling of being penalized is engendered by Satan. He tries to block us from looking to Jesus Christ, who stands with open arms, hoping and willing to heal, forgive, cleanse, strengthen, purify, and sanctify us." I wish to testify that the Savior pleads for all to use his atonement, this life is our opportunity to deny ourselves of all ungodliness, and if we will, we will be healed, forgiven, cleansed, strengthened, purified, and sanctified. Please, if there is anything that's blocking your personal connection with heaven, repent. We cannot survive in these last days without personal revelation.

Muito amor,

Elder Anderson