Crazy Week

Dear Family,

This week was crazy!  The week started off rough because our conference with Elder Nelson was supposed to have a conference with the mission on Wednesday.  However on Tuesday President went to a seminar for mission presidents where Elder Nelson and Elder Andersen were present and Elder Nelson announced that the conference the next day would be canceled.  Why?  Because on Wednesday the police in São Paulo and 12 other states of Brazil went on strike.  Because of the strike it would not be safe to have thousands of missionaries using public transportation traveling through the middle of the city.  There was a lot of crime predicted for Wednesday so all of the missionaries in São Paulo were instructed to stay in their houses. So on Wednesday the whole mission stayed at home for the first half of the day and then around 3 o´clock the apostles said that we could leave the house and work.  It turned out that hardly any crime or protests at all happened here in São Paulo!!  However in other states there were some violent protests.  But here in São Paulo it was normal for the most part.  All the missionaries were devastated that the conference didn´t happen but it goes to show how seriously the Quorum of the Twelve take the misisonaries´safety.  So then on Thursday we started working on the transfer a little bit.  This transfer is going to change a lot of things on the mission!  We have some new ideas that will be put in practice that will change the structure of the mission. On Friday my companion Elder Pinheiro finished his mission and went back to his home in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte (northeastern brazil).  We took him to the airport on Friday morning and he was pretty nervous haha.  Actually all week he was nervous.  But from Friday until Sunday I didn´t have a companion so I hung around with the Secretaries and helped President with the transfers.  Yesterday morning President called my new companion Elder Passos.  He is also from northeastern Brazil and is AWESOME!  He is super obedient and is exactly the kind of companion that I wanted to finish my mission with.  I am really excited for this transfer with him.  Yesterday after picking him up we worked on the transfers which will happen tomorrow.  Usually the transfers happen on Tuesdays but this time it was changed to Wednesday.  So today we will be working hard on the transfers again to be prepared for tomorrow. There really will be a lot of changes on the mission and I won´t go into detail right now but next week I will be able to explain a little better about what the President is doing.  

 

So that´s what happened during the week.  Another cool event that happened was that on Saturday night President and I were working on the transfers when the Belém elders (the elders that work in the area of the mission office) came into the office because they were going to have a baptism.  However the elders had already tried to baptize this woman last week but the baptism didn´t go through because the woman is terrified of water and even though the missionaries tried for over an hour to baptize her, she wasn´t able to do it.  So on Saturday night the woman was ready to give it another shot.  She REALLY wanted to be baptized but could hardly enter into the water, let alone let someone immerse her.  So she came prepared with snorkel mask and all! hahahahaha.  She came with a pink snorkel mask and even though the baptism took about an hour again she was finally did it.  The first technique that the elders used was for her to sit down in shallow water (about up to her chest while sitting down) and just lean backward a little bit to be completely immersed.  But every time that she leaned back she panicked and would jerk her head out of the water.  After about 30 minutes of trying and giving her pep talks, the elder tried another technique where she was on all fours in the water, as if she was crawling.  Then (while breathing through the snorkel) lowered herself to be completely immersed.  After a few tries this way, she finally got her whole body under the water at the same time!!!  All of us including President Ferrin were refraining ourselves from jumping up and down and yelling with joy haha.  When she stood up and took the goggles off her eyes were full of tears.  I try to imagine the feelings that she must have had in that moment.  I think one reason was probably because of the huge sense of accomplishment that she must have felt.  Knowing that by overcoming her biggest fear she was able to receive the blessing of baptism that she wanted so bad.  And I am also sure that she felt the difference between that one try and between the other 30 times that she tried.  It is a testimony that only a baptism by COMPLETE immersion can bring the remission of sins that we search for.  It was a funny experience but for me was a really spiritual and humbling experience as well.  I will forward a picture of the baptism, it is really funny.  Anyhow, that´s it for this week!

 

Love you all,

Elder Anderson

Fun Week

Dear Family,

This week was a great week.  We had a really great trip to the São Paulo Temple.  We went there on Wednesday.  When you are in the temple you don´t even feel like leaving.  The Spirit is so strong and when I leave the temple I feel like I recharged a spiritual battery and received more strength.  It really helps me remember the eternal prospective and focus on the task at hand without getting distracted.  We are currently preparing for the devotional with Russell M. Nelson on Wednesday.  It is going to be awesome!  I have been waiting my whole mission to see an apostle and finally its going to happen.  I am excited to see him.  

I have been thinking recently about something I noticed when I was studying the Book of Mormon.  The other day I was reading in 1 Nephi about Lehi´s family and I noticed a part that I had never noticed before.  It was in verse 28 of chapter 3 when Lehi´s sons where trying to get the brass plates from Laban.  And after their first and second attempts to retrieve the plates were unseccessful, it Nephi says "and it came to pass that Laman was angry with me, and also with my father; and also was Lemuel, for he hearkened unto the words of Laman".  I had never really thought about the last part of this verse before.  But for some reason while I was reading this really struck me that we don´t know exactly what was going through the heads of Laman and Lemuel.  But Nephi says that Lemuel was upset and was lead to making wrong decisions because he hearkened to the words of his older brother Laman!  Or in other words Lemuel wasn´t the type of guy that had a strong personality, he certainly wasn´t firm enough to stick up for what was right in front of his older brother Laman.  He was swayed too easily by his older brother and because of this, was lead to making wrong decisions.  Another proof of what kind of personality Lemuel had is found in verse 10 of chapter 2 of first Nephi.  "And [Lehi] also spake unto Lemuel: O that thou mightest be like unto this valley, firm and steadfast, and immovable in keeping the commandments of the Lord!".  Lehi wanted desperately for Lemuel to be firm in keeping the commandments, especially in the face of the person who he most admired which was his older brother Lemuel.  Unfortunately we know from the story that in the end Lemuel let himself be influenced and persuaded my Laman until it had huge consequences on his life and the lives of his posterity.  How often are we like Lemuel?  How often do we want to do the right things but let ourselves be influenced by those around us to do something we wouldn´t do otherwise?  I know that all of us have been guilty of that at at least one point in our lives.  I hope that we can always have the courage to stand up and do what is right!  That´s it for this week!

Love,

Elder Anderson

Good Week

Dear Family,

 

Good week.  Lots of office work and Emergency Transfers.  Hope you guys are doing well.  Can´t wait to skype you guys on Mother´s Day.  This week was a super busy week because President Ferrin has been busy doing interviews and we have been going with him giving trainings to the different zones.  The trainings that we give are focused on a few common difficulties that missionaries encounter when they are teaching people and preparing them for baptism.  It is interesting that 99 percent of investigators aren´t baptized almost always because of one of six or seven different problems.  Some of the really common ones are that they can´t live the commandments, don´t want commitment, aren´t baptized because of influences from family, feel that they aren´t prepared even though they are, or feel that they have prayed but haven´t received a response about the gospel.  The training that we are giving is to help missionaries know how to deal with these kinds of problems when they run into them.  It is fun to give the training because we do A LOT of practices with the missionaries which really helps them learn how to teach better.  I will put a picture of the chalkboard after one of our trainings.  It is full of scriptures that the missionaries can use when they come across these common diffictulties.  This next week will be super busy too because we will be doing more interviews and there will also be a small transfer tomorrow.  Love you all and thanks so much for the emails and support.

 

Love,

Elder Anderson