Elder Scott Anderson's Mission Blog: Easter and English

Happy Easter to you all!!! The word for Easter here is ‘Pascoa’ which is the translation of ‘Passover’. After consulting the Bible Dictionary (something interesting: in Portuguese there’s not a Topical Guide and Bible Dictionary at the back of the Bible, but a ‘Guide to Scripture Study’ which is like the two combined but much smaller) in English I learned that ‘Easter’ only appears once in the Bible and that ‘Passover’ comes from “eastre’, “a Norse goddess whose pagan festival was observed at the spring equinox” (Bible Dictionary, “Easter”). This was one of the most interesting things I learned this week. Independent of the roots of the holiday’s name, I’m grateful that each year of we have a special springtime Sunday to remember the glorious resurrection of the Savior, Jesus Christ. President Buhrer came to Anapolis this week for interviews, and he made a goal with the zone to talk to everyone this week. I enjoyed fulfilling this goal, taking advantage of the Easter season to talk to people about our Savior and invite them to visit the church’s site to learn more about Him and ‘Pascoa’. President and Sister Buhrer thought my haircut was too short kkkkk (hahaha). I’ll wait till after the mission to cut it like that again.

Elder Tanus and I are trying to do creative missionary work. We’re both tired of knocking doors and talking with people in the road. Although we’re fully willing to find people that way, we’re trying to work more effectively and intelligently and have fun doing it. This week I finally put into action an idea that I’ve had for two months or so. We went to 4 English schools on Thursday, and at each one I introduced myself, said I was American and offered to participate in some conversation classes. Two schools got our contact information, and at the other two I spoke English with one of their teachers who readily invited me to take part in their classes. I didn’t say anything about the church, just offered to help—kind of like Ammon, Elder Tanus and I thought. On Saturday morning we woke up early to go to the first school. I participated in a class of just the teacher and one student. What I thought would happen happened: the English conversation started with an assigned topic and transitioned the subject of what we do as missionaries and what we believe in the church. I taught almost the whole lesson of the Restoration as a natural part of the flow of the class’s conversation. At the end, we got the address of the woman taking the class and the missionaries of another area will go there this week. The Mormon missionary program really sparks people’s interest, and in a setting other than a roadside contact or knocking on someone’s door, it’s great sharing the gospel because people actually want to hear us. We’re going to keep thinking outside the box to preach the gospel. A youth activity of American football is an idea that has crossed my mind.

We found a woman this week whose son recently died in a motorcycle accident. We taught the Plan of Salvation, and she loved learning about the Fall of Adam and Eve, the Spirit World, and eternal families. We’ll return this week.

Our teaching group is weak right now, and this week we’re going to work hard to find lots of people prepared for the gospel! I love you guys! Thanks for your encouraging and inspiring emails.

Elder Anderson