Metas

Kid Abelha de novo!

  Foi um bom dia.

E. Sweet made peach cobbler!!!

 Trying to kill a five-pound roach...

An elder tried to steal our door-knob... Hahaha

Opa!!! Ja e agost!? Como assim?!

In last week’s hurry I forgot to write about a cool experience. Two Fridays ago I was doing the missionary reimbursements and after finishing all 86 of them. I realized there was a 41 cent difference between the spreadsheet where I first put them and the church system where I had created the payments according to the spreadsheet. Uh-oh. I really didn’t want to spend 30 minutes trying to find the problem, so I sought greater help. I kneeled down and prayed for guidance. Then, the first thought that came into my mind as I looked to review the spreadsheet was the song from the Sound of Music (at least I think it’s from the Sound of Music…) that says “Let’s start at the beginning, for that’s a good place to start!” Kind of funny, but as I started doubled-checking the values of the reimbursements from the  beginning, I quickly found the incongruency. It was number 5 out of the 86. Heavenly Father helped my save a ton of time and effort, and I was extremely happy and grateful to have seen a miracle of personal revelation in my office work! Que maravilha!

Alright, that was an excellent experience, and the miracles kept coming this week as I applied and enjoyed the results of the principle of goals—metas! Since the day I decided to memorize once scripture a day, I’ve accumulated a small mental library of 30 scriptures that I can think about and recite whenever I want. I think it’s just the coolest thing! Inspired by this, I’ve made a few goals for this month of August (Agosto!) that I’ll share with you all:

-Continue memorizing one scripture per day.

-Memorize ‘The Family: A Proclamation to the World’ (I’ve already done the first 3 paragraphs, woohoo!) and ‘The Living Christ’.

-Keep track of everything I spend. As financial secretary I see how important financial organization is.

-Never drink refrigerante (soda). It’s just terrible for you and they drink a ton of it here. I want to see what difference abstaining completely from it will make!

-Write in my journal every day. I haven’t done very well at this lately, but I really want to be able to remember one day everything that happened here in Brasil, so I’m going to start.

-JUMP OUT OF MY BED AT EXACTLY 6:30! I think the wake up at 6:30 rule is the most important for missionaries. If you start the day with obedience and energy, it can’t not be a great day! (Once again, double negatives are legal in Portuguese J.

I’m excited for another great month of my mission. I am growing and learning so much here. As we walk in the road, my companion doesn’t talk to me (he is not a talker at all!), so I have a lot of time to reflect on my mission, the gospel, and the scriptures I’m memorizing. The joy of good thoughts is a great thing!

Also another big thing happened this week –the P-Day of the secretaries was moved to Wednesday. I’m way excited to get to the lan house today and see how all of you are doing. It’ll be weird with P-Day on Wednesday, but I guess I’ll get used to it.

I realized I haven’t written a lot lately about our proselyting work. I think a big reason is that half of my work is sitting in a little office room. I also think it’s because we’re not having a whole lot of success lately. Neide is progressing bem demais and will be baptized as soon as she can change her work schedule!  We don’t have anyone else that we’re consistently teaching. It’s tough, working without immediate success, but I have to realize and am recognizing more every week that success does not always equal results or numbers. Like Abinadi and Ammon: they were both incredible servants of the Lord, but one was burned and killed while the other converted an entire people who later took on his name. This stunning difference in short-term results doesn’t change their eternal reward. Certainly the Lord will bless them both, hereafter with the greatest blessings of eternal life. The eternal perspective is always most important!

I love Brasil and life in the mission! I’m hoping and praying always that you are all fine and well. Until next…Wednesday!

Elder Anderson