Time to prepare transfers again!

Dear Family,

Thanks again for your emails and support.  This week was a little less busy here in the office so we were able to get out into the field a little bit more and work.  We did some divisions with a few missionaries which was great.  It is so great to teach the gospel.  When we are sharing the gospel with other people who have never received it or when we are reactivating people we feel the Spirit in a completely different way than we normally would.  This morning we were able to participate in a meeting that a zone had with their stake president and with President Ferrin.  It was really really cool and the stake president pointed out something that I had never thought about.  He was talking about the story of the Brother of Jared in Ether chapter 3.  It was a long explanation but I will make it short.  The Lord gave the brother of Jared the task to solve a problem.  What was the problem?  They were going to cross the ocean in boats that would be completely dark.  So the Brother of Jared had the task of thinking up some kind of solution to the problem.  And as we know, the Brother of Jared came back with the 16 stones and with the suggestion that the Lord touch the stones to make them light up.  We can read in verse 4 that the Brother of Jared said "And I know, O Lord, that thou hast all power, and can do whatsoever thou wilt for the benefit of man; therefore touch these stones, O Lord, with thy finger, and prepare them that they may shine forth in darnkess".  Sometimes I read this passage and don´t really realize how much preparation and thought probably went into that request.  After all, the Brother of Jared was the prophet and I am sure quite a bit of thought into the things he did, especially if he was talking to God.  And we can see that he took the stones, put them in front of him, and then asked the Lord to touch them with His finger.  What do you think he was expecting from this?  What was his real desire?  Do you think that the thought never crossed his mind that if the Lord was going to touch the stones with his finger, and the stones were right in front of him, then he might see the Lord´s finger?  Of course he did.  What was his real desire?  He wanted to see the Savior.  The same desire that many prophets have had and many normal people have had.  And because of his faith and worthiness he was able to see the Lord´s finger when the Lord touched the rocks.  Anyways what is the lesson for us?  If we are worthy and have the faith we may not see the Lord´s literal finger, but we will see his hand working in our lives, we will see this through the people around us, through the situations we are put into, and through the blessings that we receive.  I know that I have seen His hand in my life here on the mission and know that He lives and loves all of us.  All we need is the faith to believe and the desire to see Him!  

That´s it for this week!  

 

Love,

-Elder Anderson

GO BRASIL!!

Dear Family,

This week the big question that everyone had for me in their emails was "How was the world cup game?".  Well it was AWESOME.  Brasil won 3-1 however there was a call that the refs made that was really controversial.  They gave Brasil a penalty kick that gave Brasil a 2-1 lead and pretty much changed the whole game.  But it was still really fun to be here and to feel the excitement that the Brazilians have.  The game started at 5 o´clock here however the noise-making started at noon haha.  Everyone was blowing their vuvuzelas, airhorns, and car horns.  It was really awesome.  Every store, bar, or gas station has a million Brazil flags flying, the cars are all decorated, and on game day it was hard to find ANYONE on the street that wasn´t wearing a yellow Brazil shirt.  We stayed here in the office until around 4:15ish when President picked us and the secretaries up to watch the game at his house.  It was really fun and Sister Ferrin had prepared a lot of delicious foods , including bar-b-que pulled pork sandwhiches!  So we watched the game together.  Someone asked me if President gets into the games.  Well President has a lot of Brazil spirit however I don´t think that soccer is really his sport haha.  But all of us elders were at the edges of our seats.  When Brazil scored the whole city went nuts!!  Everyone was setting off fireworks, screaming, and making all different kinds of noises!  It was really awesome.  Tomorrow Brazil plays again against Mexico.  Go Brazil!  Also the U.S. is supposed to play today in a couple hours. 

Also this week we had a meeting with Claudio M. Costa (the Brazil area president who came to our mission conference about a month ago and interviewed me). It was a meeting with all of the zone leaders and their companions and the sister leaders.  It was great and he spoke a lot on the importance of faith and setting goals that are realistic.  Really awesome.  Well I`ve got to go!  Tonight we are off to a zone meeting in Guarulhos!  Love you all.

 

Love,

-Elder Caleb Anderson

World Cup!!!

Dear Family,

This week was a crazy week full of preparations for the world cup!  This Thursday will be the opening ceremonies and the opening game will be played in Itaquera, which is one of the zones of our mission.  The opening game with be Brazil vs. Croatia and Brazil is strongly favored to win.  It is going to be super awesome and I am really excited about it.  President Ferrin authorized the missionaries to watch the Brazil games in members´ houses.  This past week we spent a lot of time going to around to the different zones of the mission and giving them trainings about what they should and shouldn´t do during the world cup.  Everyone is saying that it will be really dangerous to walk around on the streets.  Pretty much the whole country will be drunk and for some reason it seems like drunk people always like messing with the missionaries!!  So anyways the missionaries can watch the Brazil games in members houses but the other games are not authorized to watch.  And after watching the game the missionaries need a ride home, they can´t walk home or take the bus since being on the street will be very dangerous.  President Ferrin invited my companion and I to watch the game at his house so that will be fun.  Half of the people here are really excited for the world cup and half of them are outraged by it.  There are a ton of protests and strikes because the government spent so much money on the stadiums whenever the country could have benefited from that money in other ways.  Anyhow a lot of people, including members of the church are really upset with the government because of the world cup.  I think it is really exciting to have the world cup here in Brazil but the soon it is over with the better.  However, watching the games in the members´ houses will be a good opportunity to get references and build a friendship with the members and maybe even friends and family that the members will invite over.  I am super excited to see the game on Thursday, go Brazil!!  

Yesterday we had a cool experience because we were here in the office about to leave for stake conference when two men came up to the door.  They came in because they didn´t know it was stake conference week and they wanted to watch sacrament meeting.  One was a less active member that wants to return to activity in the church and the other one was his brother that has already been to church several times, has read the entire Book of Mormon, and wants to get baptized!  We took them to the stake conference with us and introduced him to the missionaries that proselyte in this area.  So hopefully he will be baptized next week!  Miracles happen!

 

Love you all, 

-Elder Caleb Anderson

Transfer Week

Dear Family,

This week was an interesting week.  There were some really big changes this transfer!  The biggest change that happened is that in the past the zone leaders have always been companions.  So generally there were zones of about 20-30 missionaries and there were 2 zone leaders who were companions to lead the zone.  However President Ferrin saw that there were many problems with this situation.  I won´t go into all of the problems, but one of the key problems was that two of the best, most experienced missionaries in the zone were companions and no one else was benefiting from all of their experience.  So this transfer we split up the two zone leaders.  Now the zone leaders all have junior companions.  They all live in the same house and will now have juniors to work with during the day.  This is a huge change that President made with the purpose of helping the zone leaders to work harder, be more obedient, baptize more, and pass on some of their knowledge and experience to the other missionaries.  It will be exciting to see how this plan will work out but I think it is going to be really good.  Other than that this week was pretty normal. We were really busy here in the office because of the transfers.  There is always some kind of problem that needs to be resolved!

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