Another Big Week

Eu e Elder Zanuttini, at the predio of the mission home

​Eu e Elder Banz, amigos desde o CTM!
(Me and Elder Banz, friends since the CTM--Missionary Training Center. Elder Banz played golf for BYU before his mission)

What a week! Adjusting to my new responsibilities, preparing for and giving a training in our leadership meeting, and being sick all contributed to a tiring but profitable week. Right now I’m pretty worn out, but as always, I’m happy and grateful to be here doing the greatest work there is!

The biggest part of the week was the leadership meeting. After praying and seeking inspiration, Elder Zanuttini and I thought we should talk about faith for our training. At a members house a day or two later we were talking to a returned sister missionary about the training and she had a great book about the role of faith and mental effort in obtaining heaven’s help to fulfill our righteous desires and goals. She gave us an outline, on which we based our training. The focus was “A Mente” –the mind and how with strong faith and pure, positive thoughts we will receive in a much greater measure the Lord’s help in our work. We spent most of Tuesday putting together our power point and organizing a role play about how our thoughts affect our work as missionaries. Wednesday morning, with all the zone leaders, sister training leaders, Pres. Sousa (1st counselor of the mission), and Pres. Kuceki, we presented the training. It went great! I believe it was exactly what the mission needed and everyone learned a lot. I really liked delivering the training, and I’m grateful I’ll have the opportunity to lead many more. The main thing I learned throughout it all is that our mind is powerful. Everything starts with our thoughts. Thus, if we learn to control our thoughts, we can control everything! Almost haha. I’ve already improved a lot on being conscious about what I think during the day and making sure it’s all faith-filled and positive. The results – the miracles—are and will be coming!

Life is busy man. I’ve thought about what the equivalent of what I’m doing right now would be in work hours per week, but it doesn’t even compare. Every hour and minutes is focused on the work. I frequesntly dream about it too. I think it’s safe to say I work 168 hours a week, with a salary of heacenly blessings and a Christ-like life. Nothing could be better!

Portuguese is going great! Saturday night I spoke Portuguese in my dream hahaha. Also, before my mission, I thought there would be a day where I would feel like ‘I got it’ with the language—not a day when I would be completely fluent or speak without an accent, but when I would feel comfortable and used to Portuguese and using it all the time. I think that was yesterday! Portuguese now is so natural that speaking and writing English is a challenge haha. I’m so grateful I have the chance to learn another language. It’s lfe changing and awesome.

For about a week now, I haven’t been feeling good. I went to the hospital Saturday and after waiting two hours they took some tests and we picked up the results that night. Turns out I have tengue and a week to life—hahaha, they said it’s probably some type of virus, and I need to eat more greens. I think it’s clearing up, but I’ll be sure to buy some good vegetables today. I’m grateful for the blessing Elder Sweet (financial secretary) gave me before I went to the hospital, saying that this would not interfere with our work. It gave me a lot of peace because I was pretty worried about wasting hours in the ER instead of working and visiting all our investigators. It was the same hospital I went to with Elder Meireles my first transfer, only it didn’t appear so shockingly run down or inadequate this time because I’m accustomed to Brazil no haha. Brasil is great!

It was a good, busy week and I’m ready for more like it (except for the sick part)! President Kuceki said in the leadership meeting, by divine inspiration, that there are 500 eleitos (elects—people prepared and ready for the gospel and baptism) in every area. E. Zanuttini and I are working hard to find as many as possible! This mission is the best! Though it’s way hard, it’s even more rewarding and I’m thankful for every day!

Almost forgot—this year I set a goal to read the entire standard works! (That means the Old and New Testament, The Book of Mormon, The Pearl of Great Price, and the Doctrine and Covenants) I’m trying to read 7 pages a day and I’ve almost finished Genesis. I’ve never loved the scriptures or this gospel more! Have a blessed week.

Elder Anderson