Araxa!

Nova casa em Araxá!

Eu e E. Lisboa!

 An awesome bike track in front of our house

 The fact that this exists scares me...

 Doces de Páscoa! from Jean's family

 Obrigado pelo aviso, isso faz uma diferença grande

Scott sent this and wants his mom to try and translate it....oh boy...It'll take me a long, long time! :)
I cheated and had Conner Mount, a returned missionary from Brazil translate it for me. This is what it says: 
April Fools!

This week was really good! Seeing that the first day of April is this week, this here is my joke - sending a letter completely in Portuguese. In fact, I have thought about this since my first transfer, hoping that I would know enough Portuguese to easily write. I have reached that point! Now it's easy to write in Portuguese and I like it a lot! Brazil is awesome and every day in this mission is a blessing! So I won't only send a letter in Portuguese this week (it would be difficult because google translate isn't perfect) but at least I can send this little bit. Mom, put this on the blog along with the translation. I hope that you all, my family and friends, enjoy seeing a little bit of my new language! Happy April Fool's day!

Estamos aqui! Araxa is awesome! We’ve only been here 5 days, but it’s already my favorite area. We left Goiania Tuesday, arrived here and painted, fixed up, cleaned, organized the house Wednesday. Thursday we started working!

Because missionaries and the church have never been here before, lots of people are interested in our work. When we started working, we started talking to and knocking doors of all the people in our bairro (neighborhood, kind of). We’ve already found some great people. For example, Thursday we knocked on Sergio’s door. Now, he’s already read up to Jacob in the Book of Mormon and came to the group’s meeting yesterday. He understands almost everything, has good questions, and is progressing well. He’s one of 19 new investigators we’ve already started teaching. Not all 19 are as eager to learn as he is, but we’re grateful that we’ve already established a big teaching group. Like Jean (the group leader) said, ‘You’ve never seen a field so white and ready to harvest!’ (translated…) Definitely true!

It’s cool and way different being part of a group of the church. Instead of a big sacrament meeting with tons of people in a chapel, we had a little meeting with 9 people in a garage. Still, it was uplifting and the Spirit of God was there!

Happy late Easter to all of you! Elder Lisboa ad I gave the talks for the meeting. I talked about the resurrection of Jesus. Esse ato maravilhoso concluiu a Expiasao Dele—o maior acontecimento em todos os tempos! I’m so eternally grateful that Heavenly Father sent His Son to live and die and live again for us.

As hard as it is to express feelings about someone and something as great as the Savior and His Atonement, trying to write and express my gratitude and testimony in English makes it even harder. I’ll just write the following: Sou eternamente grato por Jesus Cristo, men Salvador e Redentor. Quao maravilhoso foi sua vida, Expiasao morte, e viveremos movamente tambem. O evangelho Dele e assim como Ele—perfeito!

I’m so grateful for the chance to serve here in Brasil and learn another language. It’s so awesome and such a blessing!

Anyway Araxa is a great city. Unlike Goiania, it’s not deathly hot here! It’s actually cool and I’ve thought about getting a sweater a few times. It’s a big blessing not to sweat all my water out every day! The quality of living here is good and people are nice and receptive. The best area in the mission!

Araxa is closest to Zona Uberaba, and our district leader is E. Meireles, my first companion, haha!! It’s fun to talk to him and he’s doing a great job following up with us. Oh, also, it’s only hills here. We’re either walking straight up or straight down hahaha.

Even though we’re without a stove, washing machine, ironing board, lock for the front gate, enough tables, closet, bookshelf, and fan, life is great! Elder Lisboa and I are working as hard as we can and seeing the results! Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers! They are felt and appreciated!

A few minutes ago a bird flew in to the house hahahahaha! Have a great week!! Enjoy General Conference!

Ate mais!

Elder Anderson