Happy New Years!!!

Dear Family,

It was great to be able to talk on skype this week.  Christmas was awesome!!  I don´t have a ton of time to write, but this past week was awesome.  Here in Brazil Christmas is celebrated mostly on Christmas Eve.  It is on the 24th that they open presents and it is tradition to have a really big meal on the night of the 24th.  We were invited to a members house so we participated in the meal there.  We also had a fun gift exchange.  The gift exchange that we did was a little bit different.  A couple days beforehand, each of us drew the name of a person and then we were responsible for buying a gift that this person would never want and then giving it to them.  It was called ´´secret enemy´´.  It was SUPER funny.  Then on wednesday we went to the bishop´s house and called home on skype.  It was great to be able to talk to the family again and I am grateful for the great family I have and for all of the support that they give me.  I hope that you are all well and thank you very much for the emails and suport.  I will include a part of my letter to President here about the week.

This weeks was truly one of the best weeks of my mission because this last week I saw one of the biggest miracles that has happened so far on my mission. This miracle was that this past week 15 people were baptized here in the zone Guaratinguetá!! For many people this number seems like an impossible number for this zone. In fact when I got here to the zone, I never thought that I would be able to see the zone baptize 15 in a week. However, through obedience, hard work, and a lot of help from the Lord we were able to have 15 QUALITY baptisms here in Guaratinguetá yesterday, finishing the month with 24 baptisms, 25% of the baptisms being men. I was talking to Elder Bangerter and he said that this month we, as a zone, baptized the most that this zone has baptized for at least a year and a half. This week was really a miracle and taught me a lot. 

 

Love,

Elder Caleb Anderson

FELIZ NATAL!!

Dear Family,

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!  This week is going to be awesome!  Today I am in a rush again because we are going to do another bar-b-que today with the zone.  We are also doing a gift exchange in the zone which should be fun.  This past week we had the mission christmas conference, it was really cool.  On tuesday morning we woke up at 4:30 and walked to the bus station to get in the van that we rented.  We got into the van and took the 3 hour ride to São Paulo.  Once we got to São Paulo we listened to the guest speaker who was President Deign from the Brazil MTC!  His talk was awesome!  He talked about the power of music.  During the talk he paused several times to play different songs on the piano for us and talked about how music has a real power.  He said that when we hear a music that uplifts us and brings the Spirit, we are hearing the voice of God.  He said that when he hears an uplifting song he feels that he is hearing the voice of the Savior.  It was an awesome talk.  Then Sister Ferrin gave a talk and read The Tale of the Three Trees to the whole mission.  It sure did remind me of home.  Then President Ferrin gave his talk as well.  Afterwards there was a testimony meeting and also every zone was in charge of singing a christmas hymn for the mission.  My zone sang Oh Come all Ye Faithful.  We then had lunch and had a gift exchange in the mission.  I received a little machine that gives back massages hahaha.  It was a really great mission conference.  This next week will be awesome too.  Christmas here isn´t the same as in the U.S. but at least between the church members, during Christmas we think more about our Savior Jesus Christ.  I am grateful for his birth, life, and especially his atoning sacrifice for us.  I am grateful for the testimony and knowledge that I have gained of the Savior here on the mission.  Can´t wait to do Skype and wish all of you a very merry Christmas!!

 

Love,

Elder Caleb Anderson

Dear Family,

Thank you for the emails that you´ll sent me.  I read them quickly but today was super crazy so i´m not going to have time to write a good letter back.  Today we had to prepare for the mission conference tomorrow.  Tomorrow we will have our christmas conference which means that my zone has to go to São Paulo tomorrow.  My companion and I have been running all over the place trying to rent a van to take the zone tomorrow and we finally got a guy that will drive us.  We also did our zone meeting today and also taught one of our investigators.  Basically we didn´t have much of a P-day because we were working like crazy but that´s ok.  This week was a good week.  We worked super hard and were able to get 7 people to church yesterday!!  Things are going great here and tomorrow I am really excited to go to the mission conference tomorrow and to call home on Christmas!  Sorry I can´t write a better letter this week!

Love,

Elder Caleb Anderson

Natal Está Chegando

Dear Family,

Christmas is arriving!  I am looking forward to being able to skype home and to participate in the Christmas celebrations here in Brazil.  This week was a pretty good week.  On Friday Elder Zancheta and I took the three hour bus ride to São Paulo to participate in a training my the assistants and President Ferrin.  It was good and President Ferrin stressed the importance of having a strong testimony.  This week we were also able to baptize a guy named Vinicius.  He is 20 years old and was an excellent investigator.  We met him a few weeks ago when he came to church with his friend Otto.  Otto is recent convert and brought Vinicius to the church.  We started teaching Vinicius and he is really one of the Lord´s elects!  He learned everything really quickly and accepted all of the commitments easily!  Yesterday he was baptized by his friend Otto.  It was really cool because Otto recieved the priesthood yesterday and baptized his friend on the same day!  It was a really great baptismal service.  Brazil is land of faith and miracles where the Church is growing and the Lord´s elects are responding the Savior´s call to follow Him.  That´s it for this week!

 

Love you all and hope that you are having a great christmas season!

Love,

Elder Anderson

Hallelujah!

 

Dear Family,

This week was a good week.  However, here in Taubaté it rained a TON!  This last friday we were able to baptize a lady named Cleide.  She was a special baptism, for one because we´ve been working so long and hard to baptize and were without any success, and also because her son is serving a mission in northern Brazil.  Her son has been on the mission for about 3 months. One day we were talking to a member and the member mentioned that this missionary had been out for about 3 months and that his mother wasn´t a member of the church.  We decided to visit here to see if she would be interested and sure enough, it seemed like she was just waiting for us to come by!  She had never been interested in the church while her son was home but I think having here son gone touched her heart and when we taught her she accepted baptism!  I was really happy that she was baptized, not only for her sake but also for her son.  I can´t imagine how happy he must be now, knowing that his mom finally accepted the gospel!  I know that Heavenly Father blesses the lives of not only the missionaries but also of their families and I think that Cleide´s baptism was a blessing of this missionary´s service. That´s about it for this week!  

 

Love you all and thanks for the emails!

Love,

Elder Anderson

Rainy Days

Dear Family,

This week was a good week.  Elder Zancheta and I are working super hard.  It is raining a TON.  This past week it even hailed a little bit.  However the rain isn´t slowing us down too much.  This week the zone went really well so we are happy about that.  This week we taught some really good lessons to some of the Lord´s elects.  I have been thinking lately about a question that one of our investigators asked us the other day.  He asked ´´do you guys believe in grace?´´.  I hvae been thinking about that question lately and about the role that grace plays in our lives.  Often times we think of grace as a thing that we will receive on judgement day that will make up the difference between our best and what is required for us to enter the Celestial Kingdom.  However grace is more than that.  Grace is something that acts in our lives every single day.  Grace is the power of Jesus Christ´s atoning sacrifice for us.  This power not only pays the price of our sins but is also the power that allows us to to things that on our own we would never be able to do.  Grace here on the mission is what helps us find people to teach and baptize, it is what helps us get through the tough times and believe that better times will come.  One our own we are capable of pretty much nothing.  So you could say that here on the mission, grace is EVERYTHING.  Without it we wouldn´t have any kind of success.  So the answer to that man´s question was an affirmative YES.  We believe in grace, pray for grace, and every day of our lives we rely on the grace of our Savior Jesus Christ.

Just a thought that I had!  Hope are are all well and thanks for the emails!

 

-Elder Anderson